Free Maplecroft by Cherie Priest Page A

that played out across the street.
    I was deeply annoyed because the notes revealed that I’d become complacent and lazy, and that I have not always performed my job to the best of my ability.
    When did that begin? When did I go from the ideals and optimism, and the intent engagement of youth, to the apathy of age?
    I’m not so old yet as to be feeble or infirm. I’m scarcely in my sixties, and though my hair goes whiter by the year, I still
feel
like a healthy man with a sturdy constitution.
    Granted, men with sturdy constitutions and feelings of health drop dead every day, and this should sober me. But it sobers me less than the awareness that I’m slipping, in my way. Maybe not my strength of body, but strength of character—or professional responsibility.
    Disgusted, I stuffed the notes back into their sleeve. They told me nothing, and they would never tell anyone anything. I’d done too poor a job. I’d done nothing more than waste my time,and the time of any future readers who might stumble across my pitiful recollections.
    On second thought, I decided I could spare one of us, at least.
    I reached into the drawer and pulled out everything I could carry, and then I opened the next drawer and retrieved its contents, too. Everything that would fit in my arms I hauled downstairs, over to the fireplace—which had burned down low due to inattention. But it blazed bright when the first loose leaves of paper went over the grate and into the coals.
    I’d wasted enough, and I would waste no more. No more time, no more vainglorious scribbling for posterity, serving nothing and no one.
    And while my collection of trifles burned, I sat at my writing desk and I began to record in earnest every single thing—every impression, every suspicion, and every half-recalled idea—I’d ever known about Abigail Borden and Matthew Granger.

I CROSS THE MAGPIE , THE MAGPIE C ROSSES ME
Phillip Zollicoffer, Professor of Biology, Miskatonic University
    S EPTEMBER 22, 1893
    The question is not “What is wrong?”
    A closer query would be “What is different?” or “What is changing?”
    Something is changing. Something is shifting, or slipping. I want to ask if I’m losing my mind, but who would answer? How on earth can I step outside my brain and ask it to evaluate, with all fairness, its effectiveness as a body-governing device?
    It might only lie to me. How would I know?
    And I can’t rely upon the opinions of my peers; this much is certain. They’ve been all too happy for all too many years,calling me daft. They’ll be no help at all, now that the question has seriously reared itself.
    Then again, I don’t
want
any help.
    I’m feeling quite well, if occasionally light-headed. I don’t believe I’m suffering from any illness or cancerous complaint. Nothing more dire than a peculiar clarity at times, and a warm resonance at others.
    The resonance is difficult to describe. It tugs at me, an intermittent sensation as if I’m being lured. No, invited. Or even more precisely,
welcomed
. I’m not yet certain what brings this on, though I’m considering a series of experiments. The resonance is not quite repeatable at my command, but it’s consistent enough to call a symptom. I will prod at it like a soreness in a tooth, pinpointing the trouble with my tongue until I know where the problem lies.
    But there I go again, calling it something it’s not.
    This is no
problem
. This is only a condition, and a not altogether unpleasant one. I mentioned the clarity, did I not? I’m remembering things with greater sharpness, more vividly, with more significant contrast around all the edges. Something unusual is at work. I’m confident of that if nothing else.
    I’ve begun to track my dietary intake, writing down every bite I take in the back of this journal. If these new feelings and facts are the result of some change in my meals (as I suspect may be the case), then I intend to catch it. All I have to do is recognize the pattern, or