too much of the tainted food, if tainted food was ever at fault. Maybe my constitution was weaker all along, and less able to resist.”
Even as I spoke the words, I was growing tired. This was more than I typically spoke in a week, and the toll felt heavy in my chest.
Doctor Seabury noticed. “I apologize,” he said, and wound his stethoscope around his hand, twisting it into a coil. “I’ve asked too much of you, for the afternoon.”
“No,” I objected.
“Yes, and we both know it. My apologies again; it was a tender subject, one that is no business of mine.”
“Your business is the health of Fall River. I’d say the subject is well within your business. It’s true,” I said. I put my hand on his medical bag, so that he might not close it shut and usher himself out the door with quite so much nervous alacrity. “A lengthy discussion of the matter is hard for me. Which is why I think . . . that you should speak to Lizzie.”
He flushed and shook his head. “No, Miss Borden—I couldn’t. It would be unseemly, or impolite, or . . . I wouldn’t want her to think I meant any accusation.”
“Ask her,” I pleaded, removing my hand and allowing him to resume packing his equipment.
He hesitated, then asked, “Is there any chance . . . that you could have a word with her, first?”
Oh, I had every intention of doing so. “Of course.” I smiled at him with sincere, if morbid, pleasure. “And next time you come, we’ll sit down together. All of us.”
At the ring of the bell beside my seat, Lizzie appeared from the basement to show the doctor out.
And I fell asleep before the fire before I could tell her any ofwhat had transpired, even though the conversation had frankly invigorated me. My strength is finite, even if my interest is not.
I dreamed of my father, bloated and white, and hungry. I dreamed of him in my room, staring out my window, listening to theocean.
AND IF YOU HAVE A HORSE WITH ONE WHI TE LEG . . .
Phillip Zollicoffer, Professor of Biology, Miskatonic University
O CTOBER 29, 1893
The university thinks it might be done with me, but I’m beyond the point of caring. Right now, their reprimand feels positively uninteresting—as if it’s something I should be aware of, yes, but not a source of concern. They’ve put me on leave, and it’s a vacation of sorts. I’m sick of the students, as I told them quite frankly.
(They requested frankness, and they received it in abundance.)
Dr. Greer suggested I’m sick with something other than thetedium of teaching, but he’s a fool. It’s difficult to take his accusations personally.
The one concession I wrangled from their uniform displeasure with my performance was this: I am still allowed access to my office and the lab rooms, where my specimens and samples are stored. They are mine, and not property of the university in the first place; and in the second place, I’m working on an article for
Marine Biology Quarterly
with regard to the siphonophore specimen sent to me by Doctor Jackson earlier this year.
What little study I’ve had time to perform has raised fascinating questions about the nature of a single organism versus a colony that performs in a singular fashion, and where the line between those two might lie. A siphonophore by definition is just such a paradox: many small things that function as one large thing. But how paradoxical is it, after all? A collection of like-minded things, operating under the direction of a sole authority . . . or an individual, individually inclined. Just two ways of saying the same thing, perhaps. From a distance.
• • •
(Contrary to the president’s opinion, my study has been minimal—pitiably insufficient, really, and it has not “eaten up all of my time for students, papers, or grades.” Far from it. I still had time to attend their stupid little meeting to reprimand me, did I not? Well, then. I’m not so disconnected as they
Even as I spoke the words, I was growing tired. This was more than I typically spoke in a week, and the toll felt heavy in my chest.
Doctor Seabury noticed. “I apologize,” he said, and wound his stethoscope around his hand, twisting it into a coil. “I’ve asked too much of you, for the afternoon.”
“No,” I objected.
“Yes, and we both know it. My apologies again; it was a tender subject, one that is no business of mine.”
“Your business is the health of Fall River. I’d say the subject is well within your business. It’s true,” I said. I put my hand on his medical bag, so that he might not close it shut and usher himself out the door with quite so much nervous alacrity. “A lengthy discussion of the matter is hard for me. Which is why I think . . . that you should speak to Lizzie.”
He flushed and shook his head. “No, Miss Borden—I couldn’t. It would be unseemly, or impolite, or . . . I wouldn’t want her to think I meant any accusation.”
“Ask her,” I pleaded, removing my hand and allowing him to resume packing his equipment.
He hesitated, then asked, “Is there any chance . . . that you could have a word with her, first?”
Oh, I had every intention of doing so. “Of course.” I smiled at him with sincere, if morbid, pleasure. “And next time you come, we’ll sit down together. All of us.”
At the ring of the bell beside my seat, Lizzie appeared from the basement to show the doctor out.
And I fell asleep before the fire before I could tell her any ofwhat had transpired, even though the conversation had frankly invigorated me. My strength is finite, even if my interest is not.
I dreamed of my father, bloated and white, and hungry. I dreamed of him in my room, staring out my window, listening to theocean.
AND IF YOU HAVE A HORSE WITH ONE WHI TE LEG . . .
Phillip Zollicoffer, Professor of Biology, Miskatonic University
O CTOBER 29, 1893
The university thinks it might be done with me, but I’m beyond the point of caring. Right now, their reprimand feels positively uninteresting—as if it’s something I should be aware of, yes, but not a source of concern. They’ve put me on leave, and it’s a vacation of sorts. I’m sick of the students, as I told them quite frankly.
(They requested frankness, and they received it in abundance.)
Dr. Greer suggested I’m sick with something other than thetedium of teaching, but he’s a fool. It’s difficult to take his accusations personally.
The one concession I wrangled from their uniform displeasure with my performance was this: I am still allowed access to my office and the lab rooms, where my specimens and samples are stored. They are mine, and not property of the university in the first place; and in the second place, I’m working on an article for
Marine Biology Quarterly
with regard to the siphonophore specimen sent to me by Doctor Jackson earlier this year.
What little study I’ve had time to perform has raised fascinating questions about the nature of a single organism versus a colony that performs in a singular fashion, and where the line between those two might lie. A siphonophore by definition is just such a paradox: many small things that function as one large thing. But how paradoxical is it, after all? A collection of like-minded things, operating under the direction of a sole authority . . . or an individual, individually inclined. Just two ways of saying the same thing, perhaps. From a distance.
• • •
(Contrary to the president’s opinion, my study has been minimal—pitiably insufficient, really, and it has not “eaten up all of my time for students, papers, or grades.” Far from it. I still had time to attend their stupid little meeting to reprimand me, did I not? Well, then. I’m not so disconnected as they
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