It’s been a while since I’ve had to deal with Lizzie as a character, had to figure out how to move her from A to B, think about how she would feel about a particular situation. It was the break I needed. In the space between edits, I’ve read quite a few books and have ripped a data-hole in my Netflix account.

There’s been a different kind of break too. My dreams have normalised. Somewhat. Last night I dreamt I was cutting people’s fingers off, ate those small delicacies then spat them out, watched them regenerate. This is nothing compared to what I dream when Lizzie is around.

But all that’s coming to an end. I’m about to begin the ‘final’ edits of SEE WHAT I HAVE DONE and hopefully within the next few months, Lizzie, her family, all those things , will become slightly removed from my life rather than these ‘things’ that I’ve been dragging around with me for years and can’t let go of.

And yet. I am more drawn to the Borden’s than ever. It’s the distance that has done this. Recently I rediscovered a cardboard box that had been in my garage. Inside were some of my Borden files: notebooks full of early drafts and ideas, questions I had for myself, travel journals I kept when I visited Second Street (I’m actually missing one of those notebooks – I’m still searching for that one), print outs of the trial transcripts I barely used, and so on. Finding this has made me want to relearn and rediscover some aspects of the case that I didn’t want to touch because I wanted the freedom to be able to write what the novel needed, not what history needed.

Here’s a very rejected, very terrible scribble from 8 November 2012:

Here are some things about the case and Lizzie I’ve rediscovered:

• When Lizzie was in Taunton jail she kept strawberry plants in her cell and would sit down to a ‘meal’ of strawberries and sugar from time to time
• For awhile – maybe weeks, maybe months – Lizzie felt that she would never be released from jail and her mental health declined during this period
• Annie, a friend of the Borden sisters, recalled that Emma once told her that when she first received the telegram summoning her home that afternoon,  she thought nothing more than an illness had befallen her father.
• Ten months after the Borden murders, another axe murder was committed in Fall River. This time, the victim was 20-year-old Bertha Manchester.Her father last saw her alive as he went on his milk route. When he returned home later that afternoon, he found his daughter in the kitchen, her body drowned in her own blood, the top of her head split open. two of her teeth were found next to her. (Read more about this in the excellent resource, Parallel Lives By Michael Martins and Dennis A. Binette)
• At the time of the murders, Lizzie was the treasurer of Young Women’s Christian Temperance Union. The group was formed in 1883 but seems to have disbanded after 1892.
• When Andrew was 9 years old, his aunty discovered human remains on the banks of the Quequechan River. Next to the skeleton was a breastplate, a belt of brass cylinders and a number of arrowheads. Many locals believed the body belonged to a Viking.

There’s still some time left before the next draft. I’m looking forward to reaching back into that cupboard trove and sharing some more finds.