Maplecroft (The Borden Dispatches #1)(8)
But there was no one to satisfactorily accuse Lizzie. Maggie refused to condemn her, and none of the other witnesses could convince the jury that she had a motive for such horrendous acts. The small things added up to only more small things. The daily, petty gripes of a mixed household and Lizzie’s cold behavior toward her stepmother . . . they seemed to fall within the parameters of reasonableness, if not pleasantness.
Nothing emerged to make Lizzie appear to the court like a monster gone mad, and so she was not convicted. She collected her inheritance, after the much-discussed “will” failed to materialize; and shortly thereafter, she and her sister, Emma, relocated together to the other side of town.
They purchased a large, beautiful home and they named it Maplecroft.
Phillip Zollicoffer, Professor of Biology, Miskatonic University
ONE YEAR PREVIOUS
APRIL 15, 1893
It arrived yesterday, though I did not have the opportunity to open and examine it until this afternoon. The package came wrapped in brown paper and twine, directed to myself with a return address of Fall River, Massachusetts.
Immediately I knew it had originated in the office of my distant colleague, Dr. E. A. Jackson—a knowledgeable fellow biologist, though now retired (or so I believed).
We began our correspondence in 1890, after I published a paper on a new strain of nuisance seaweed that was clogging beaches and boat-screws up and down the eastern seaboard. (I argued that it was a previously unknown subspecies of a common aquatic varietal and was experiencing an outrageous bloom.)
Dr. Jackson sent me a letter telling me how much he appreciated my diagnosis of the situation, and how he was additionally impressed by the thoroughness of my research. I was flattered, as any man might be, and I responded with my thanks. He wrote again with a question regarding a particular crustacean he’d found at the ocean’s edge—a creature I later deemed to be a grotesque lobster, dwarfed and otherwise congenitally deformed—and since then, the conversation has scarcely ceased. From time to time, we even send each other samples and articles.
This package was one such sample, I assumed; and when the time finally presented itself, I closed my door and sat at my desk, reaching for a small pair of scissors to snip the string.
Within the brown paper I found a box. Within this box I found a large mason jar sealed with a screw-on lid, which had been furthermore made airtight with a blue wax seal. The glass was large enough to hold a significant sample, something bigger than my own hand. But in the dim light of my stuffy, book-lined office, I could not at first tell what was hidden inside.
I rested the jar atop two of my research volumes, and went in search of a second lamp. Shortly I found one, though it was low on oil, and I brought it over to my seat in order to illuminate my workspace.
Lifting the jar up to the light, I noted first that it was quite heavy. The contents sloshed very slightly, indicating a high water percentage, and through the thick container gleamed a dull ivory color. The sample was too dark to be called off-white, and too light to be called brown—with seams of a sickly blue (or perhaps green) swirling through the whole.
As to its shape, I’d be hard-pressed to say. Crammed as it was inside the container, it had no shape at all except that which it borrowed from the jar. But it was lumpy and gelatinous, that much I could see. Could it be some odd representative of Cnidaria?
I turned it over in my hand.
Yes, possibly. Some sea-jelly, though nothing I’d seen before.
At the bottom of the box a folded letter lurked. I set the vial aside and retrieved the heavy-stock paper, and flapping it open, I read:
Dear Dr. Zollicoffer,
I trust this missive finds you well. I’m including with this message a strange . . . substance? Creature? Glob of fauna? Honestly, I’m at a loss. I found it along the Atlantic coast not a mile from my home, as I was on the shore with my sister—who was assisting me.
(My physician, Doctor Seabury, suggests that I should do my best to remain active despite my encroaching infirmity. He thinks that the ocean air will do me well, and I believe he’s right. I always feel invigorated after these strolls. As to my sister’s presence in the tale—she is ten years my junior, and in far better health than I. Thus I enlist her aid for these excursions.)
I must forewarn you, this item has an odious scent which will become apparent the moment you release the seal. The texture also is abhorrent, and I recommend that you handle it only with the sturdiest of gloves—preferably gloves you can afford to discard. I ruined a very fine pair manipulating this awful thing, and I wouldn’t wish that upon you.
At any rate, because it is such a curiosity, I thought I might pass it along. I have not preserved it in any solution, only taking care to seal out the air. I hope it hasn’t spoiled further during transit, though given how awful it smelled when fresh, I’m not entirely certain how one would know the difference.
To my own casual inspection, it strikes me as possibly some peculiar form of Anthomedusae—or a corrupted polyp-stage example of the same? I understand these medusas sometimes grow in colonies, so perhaps I’ve only passed along some decomposing cluster of ordinary sea-jellies. If this is the case, I do apologize.
But I could not help but feel that this is something different, and stranger. I hope that if nothing else, you find it an interesting puzzle.
(My sister says I’m mad, and that you will no doubt cease all correspondence with me immediately upon receiving this. I believe she’s just unhappy about the odor that lingers in the kitchen.)