Maplecroft (The Borden Dispatches #1)(53)
When did I stop being a reasonable man?
It must have happened slowly at first, with Abigail Borden. And then with great finality, across that cold wood table from Ebenezer Hamilton. And now . . . now I am either much closer to the truth, or much further from my sanity.
I honestly could not say which.
? ? ?
Ebenezer remains in Boston, and I haven’t spoken to him since that awful night in the courthouse. I offered my continuing services as confidant, witness, and even friend, should he require one; but either the message was not passed along or the ensuing silence was his response.
Were we friends, really?
No. But he needs one, and I’m too close to . . . to whatever this is . . . to walk away now. If he were to summon me, I would respond.
Inspector Wolf finally returned to that city as well, with all his notes and flash-fired photographs of the corpses, the scene of the crime (Was it a crime? No one seems certain), and whatever else he deemed significant. We shook hands and I told him to call upon me anytime, if he required a partner with a steady hand and a cast-iron stomach. He agreed with a smile, but I’d be surprised to see him again.
He suspects something strange is afoot. But suspecting it and doing something about it are two different things, and my suspicions tell me this: If I tried to bring him in, to confide in him the things I have learned, and the theories I’m inexorably forming . . . his training and allegiance to law and order would prevent him from being any real aid. Besides, he wouldn’t even offer any badge, or the title of any official organization as employer. Heaven only knew who he was really working for. At worst, he might have me carted off to join Ebenezer, that we may rot together, two madmen in our soft-walled cells.
It is best that I leave him out of this, despite my inclination to do otherwise.
Upon reflection, it’s apparent that I wish for someone to help me bear the weight of it, though. Lizzie must feel the same way. For that matter, she must’ve felt the same way for years now.
I wonder how long she’s known?
Before her parents’ deaths, that is. I wonder how long she’d been aware that something was amiss, and how long she’d told herself that no, it couldn’t possibly be anything so absurd as . . . as whatever this has turned out to be. I wonder how long she lied to herself, and maybe to her sister, before the situation forced itself to a climax, and there were no options left except to murder or be murdered.
? ? ?
I have a few patients this afternoon, but tomorrow morning I’ll pay the ladies a visit. I don’t know whether that friend of theirs will be present, and I don’t know whether she’s aware of the murders—the new murders, or new deaths, or . . . I don’t know. Even when I compose my confessions to no one but myself, I can’t seem to get my head straight.
Every minute, my thoughts are occupied by fear.
At first I thought it was merely the flush of chemicals that flood the human body at the prospect of danger, excitement, or imminent threat. At first I thought it was only some leftover shaking, unresolved from that night with Ebenezer and that first day with Wolf, when we saw the corpses.
But that was only at first.
And now . . . now that’s not what I think. Too much other strangeness abounds, and not all of it is contained within my head. I haven’t the mental scope or imagination to produce it, only to recognize it, when it presents itself in patterns.
I walk down the street and I peel my eyes for signs of the dangerous taint—the sickness, if I must call it something mundane.
I watch for signals and symptoms; I gaze from beneath the brim of my hat, observing those who pass me by. I watch the men and women in the cafes and restaurants, and I watch them on the pier. I watch them about their business, running their daily errands, lifting their babies from basinets and riding their bicycles, buying their groceries, greeting the milkman, ordering seeds for their gardens. I stare at them while they’re measured by tailors, searching their bags for coins to hand to the paperboy, collecting their mail, hanging their laundry pin by pin upon the lines—that it might dry in the sun, when the sun peeks through this oddly weathered spring. I scan their faces and their gestures, their postures, the gait of their walks, the flush of their cheeks, the way they count on their fingers or use their toes to nudge the neighbor’s cat off the stairs and out of their paths.
I count how many times they blink.
If I’m not careful, I’ll go mad. If I’m not careful, worse things yet may occur. So I remain careful, and I take my notes when I take my tea, and I brew coffee strong enough to keep my eyes wide-open as I make my rounds.
And I will record the things that I’ve seen, even if they seem trivial and unrelated. I do not know what relates to what, so everything must be mentioned and cataloged. Everything must be seen and remembered.
It’s all written down. Not here, but in the patient folders.
Mr. Wells has developed a strange pattern of moles on his back, veritably overnight. Not shingles, not pustules, but moles with a spreading pattern, not unlike a swirl, a whirlpool, a twist of water. At first he swore that it itched and ached, but his wife confided that he’s getting worse, and he’s begun talking to the pattern and listening for a response. At night she hears something, it sounds warm and wet, and it smells like brine and seaweed in the sun.
Miss Fox’s parents insist she’s been feverish for two days, but when I visited she was clammy and cold, and her eyes would scarcely focus. She insisted she’s fine, and wants to go back to school. I suggested another two days of bed rest. Something is amiss. Her mother says she won’t stay in bed, but wanders the house at night, tapping her hands against the windows as if blindly feeling her way around the rooms, and when she walks in her sleep she whispers, “Out, out, out . . .” until they force her back to bed.