The Blackstone Chronicles

  A sound so soft she almost couldn’t hear it at all.

  The sound grew louder as she listened, and then she knew exactly what it was.

  Someone was crying.

  A little girl with long blond hair, pink cheeks, and blue eyes.

  A little girl wearing a ruffled white pinafore and a garland of flowers in her hair.

  A little girl who wanted to be her friend, but whom her mommy had sent away.

  Getting up from her bed, Megan pulled her robe over her flannel nightgown and slipped her feet into the woolly slippers Mrs. Goodrich had given her for Christmas last year. Pulling the door to her room open a crack, she peered out into the hallway. Farther down the hall, halfway to the stairs, she could see the door to her parents’ room.

  It was closed, and no light shone from the crack beneath it.

  Silently, Megan crept along the hall, then down the stairs.

  The little girl’s crying was louder now. When Megan reached the bottom of the stairs, she peered through the dining room and butler’s pantry, into the kitchen.

  No light came from any of the rooms, nor could she hear the television droning in Mrs. Goodrich’s room.

  Save for the sound of the little girl’s sobbing, the house was as silent as it was dark.

  A last, sorrowful sob faded away, and a moment later Megan heard something else.

  A voice calling her name.

  “Megan … Megan … Megan …”

  It was as if the voice had become a beacon. Megan followed it away from the kitchen and the housekeeper’s quarters to the other side of the house. Through the darkness of the entry hall, she moved, through the deep shadows of the large living room, gliding as easily as if it were daylight, then pausing at the door to the library.

  The voice grew louder: “Megan … Megan …”

  The library was almost pitch-black. Megan stood in the darkness, listening. Then, through the French doors leading to the flagstoned side patio, the first rays of the rising moon crept into the room. In that first instant of faint illumination, Megan saw them.

  The eyes of the doll, gleaming in the moonlight, gazing down at her from the top shelf of the tall case that stood against the wall to the right of the fireplace.

  So high that her mother thought she wouldn’t be able to reach it.

  But Megan knew better. As silent and surefooted as she’d been when she crept through the upstairs hall and down the stairs, she crossed the library and began climbing up the shelves of the cabinet as easily as if they were the steps of a ladder.

  Elizabeth jerked awake, not from the terror of another nightmare, but from a loud crash, immediately followed by a terrified shriek. Then, a long, wailing cry.

  Megan!

  Heaving herself out of bed and ignoring the robe lying on the chaise longue, Elizabeth stumbled through the darkness toward the bedroom door. She fumbled with the two old-fashioned light switches set in the wall next to the door. A second later the overhead fixture in the center of the ceiling came on, filling the room with harsh white light. Blinking in the glare, Elizabeth jerked the bedroom door open and stepped into the hall, now lit brightly with its own three chandeliers.

  Megan’s door was closed, but as Elizabeth started toward her daughter’s room, another scream rent the night.

  Downstairs!

  Megan had gone downstairs and—

  The doll! She’d found the doll and tried to get it, and—

  Heart beating wildly, Elizabeth lurched to the top of the long flight and started down. When she was still three steps from the bottom, the lights in the entry hall came on, illuminating Mrs. Goodrich, wrapped in a tattered chenille bathrobe, shuffling toward the living room.

  As still another cry echoed through the house, Elizabeth came to the bottom of the stairs and rushed through the living room. At the door to the library, she reached for the bank of switches, pressing every one her fingers touched. As the lights flashed on and every shadow was washed from the room, the vision Elizabeth had seen only in her mind a few moments before was now revealed in its terrible reality.

  The mahogany case had fallen forward. Beneath it, Elizabeth could see Megan struggling to free herself from the massive weight pressing down on her. The pictures and curios that had filled the case’s shelves were scattered everywhere, shards of glass from broken picture frames littered the carpet, and figurines lay broken all around her.

  Megan’s shrieks had deepened to a sobbing cry.

  Choking back a scream, Elizabeth rushed across the room and bent down, her fingers curling around the front edge of the cabinet’s top.

  From the doorway, realizing what Elizabeth was about to do, Mrs. Goodrich cried out. “Don’t! You mustn’t!”

  Ignoring the old housekeeper’s plea, Elizabeth summoned every ounce of strength she could muster and heaved the case upward, lifting it off her daughter. “Move, Megan,” Elizabeth cried. “Get out from—” Her words cut off by a terrible flash of pain that felt as if a knife had been thrust into her belly, Elizabeth struggled to hold on to the cabinet while Megan, finally responding to her mother’s voice, squirmed free. A second later the weight of the cabinet overwhelmed her and it crashed back to the floor. Elizabeth sank down onto the carpet as another wrenching pain ripped through her and she felt something inside her give way.

  “Call … ambulance,” she gasped, her hands clutching protectively at her belly. “Oh, God, Mrs. Goodrich. Hurry!”

  Wave after wave of pain was crushing her. Elizabeth felt a terrible weakness come over her, and the light began to fade.

  The last thing she saw before darkness closed around her was Megan, on her feet now and looking down at her.

  In Megan’s arms, utterly undamaged by the accident that had smashed everything else the cabinet had held, was the doll.

  Chapter 6

  Bill McGuire turned into the nearly deserted parking lot of Blackstone Memorial Hospital and pulled the car into the space closest to the emergency entrance. He’d driven for nearly three hours, leaving the motel in Port Arbello minutes after he’d gotten the call from Mrs. Goodrich, pausing only long enough to drop the room key through the mail slot in the office’s locked front door. Throughout the frantic drive to Blackstone, he’d had to force himself time and again to slow down, reminding himself that the objective was to get home as quickly as possible, but in one piece. Still, the drive seemed endless. He managed to reach the hospital three times on his cellular phone, but all three connections ended in a frustrating crackle of static.

  All he’d been able to find out was that Elizabeth had gone into labor, and that things were “going as well as can be expected.”

  Oh dear God, let her live, he prayed. Dear merciful God, let the baby be all right.

  Oh God, why, why did I have to leave them tonight, of all nights?

  Tensed over the wheel, he felt sharp, stabbing needles of guilt as he raced through the darkness, returning from a trip that now seemed utterly unnecessary. He’d won the condo project, but even while putting together the final figures in the motel room, he’d known he could have done the whole thing on the phone from his desk in the library at home.

  Slamming the car door behind him, barely able to wait for the automatic glass doors to open for him, Bill raced into the waiting room and immediately spotted Mrs. Goodrich, still wearing her old chenille bathrobe, sitting on a sagging green-plastic upholstered sofa, her arm wrapped protectively around Megan, whose forehead was partially covered by a bandage. Mrs. Goodrich, in her fear for the welfare of the person she loved best in the world, looked almost as small as Megan, but as Bill approached he saw a determined glimmer in the old woman’s eyes, and she made a gesture as if to shoo him away.

  “We’re all right,” she told him. “Just a little cut on Megan’s forehead, but it doesn’t even hurt anymore, does it, darlin’?”

  Megan bobbed her head. “I just fell off the shelves, that’s all,” she said in a small voice.

  “You go see to Elizabet
h,” Mrs. Goodrich went on. “We’ll be right here. You tell Elizabeth we’re praying for her.”

  A few seconds later Bill was following a doctor down the hall, listening to a brief explanation of what had happened. Then he was in the room where Elizabeth lay in bed, her face ashen, her blond hair, darkened only slightly over the years, spread around her head like a halo.

  As if sensing that at last he was there, Elizabeth stirred in the bed, and when Bill took her hand, he immediately felt her respond with a weak squeeze. But it was enough.

  She was going to be all right.

  For Elizabeth, waking up was like trying to rise through a pool of molasses. Every muscle in her body felt exhausted, and even breathing seemed an almost impossible chore. Slowly, she began to come back to consciousness, and then, feeling Bill’s hand in her own, she forced herself to open her eyes.

  She was not in her bed.

  Not in her home.

  Then the nightmare began to come back to her.

  “Megan,” she whispered, straining to sit up, but barely managing to raise her head from the pillow.

  “Megan’s fine,” Bill told her. “She and Mrs. Goodrich are out in the waiting room, and all Megan has is a little cut on her forehead.”

  “Thank God,” Elizabeth sighed. She dropped her head back onto the pillow, and her left hand moved to touch her belly in the nearly unconscious gesture she’d developed during both of her pregnancies.

  At the movement, fear lurched inside her.

  Then it came back to her: the terrible flash of pain, the breaking of her water, and the first violent contractions of labor. Contractions so unbearably painful that they’d caused her to pass out.

  “The baby,” she whispered. Her gaze fastened on her husband’s, and though Bill said nothing for a second or two, Elizabeth could read the truth in his eyes. “No.” The word emerged as a despairing moan. “Oh, please, no. The baby can’t be …” Her voice faded away as she found herself incapable of uttering the final, terrible word.

  “Shhh,” Bill whispered, holding a finger to her lips, then brushing a lock of hair away from her suddenly clammy forehead. “The important thing is that you’re all right.”

  The important thing. The important thing …

  The words ricocheted through Elizabeth’s mind, leaving bruises everywhere they went.

  … you’re all right …

  But she wasn’t all right. How could she be all right if their baby—their son—was … was …

  “I want to see him,” she said, her hand tightening in Bill’s. “Oh, God, please let me see him.” Her voice started to break. “If I can see him, I can make him all right.” She was sobbing now, and Bill moved from the chair to the bed, gathering her into his arms to hold her close and comfort her.

  “It’s all right, darling,” he whispered. “It’s not your fault. It’s just something that happened. We knew it might happen. It was hard enough when you had Megan, and maybe we just shouldn’t have tried again. But it’s not your fault. Don’t ever think it’s your fault.”

  Elizabeth barely heard the words. “The case,” she whispered. “I put the doll in the case, and it fell on her. My fault. My fault.”

  “It was an accident,” Bill said. “It wasn’t anybody’s fault.”

  But Elizabeth still heard nothing of her husband’s words. “I lifted it off her. I lifted it up so she could get out. And it killed our son. It killed our son.…” Her words dissolved into broken sobbing. For a long time Bill held her, stroking her hair, soothing and comforting her. Finally, after nearly half an hour, her sobbing began to ease, and the terrible convulsive shaking that had seized her slowly lost its grip. A little while later Bill heard her breathing drift into the long rhythmic pattern of sleep, and felt her body at last relax in his arms. Kissing her gently, he eased himself up from the bed, then tucked the sheet and blanket close around her. He kissed her once more, then quietly slipped out of the room.

  The strange numbness had already begun to set in as he walked back down the corridor toward the waiting room.

  His son—for indeed the baby had been a boy, just as he and Elizabeth had hoped—was dead.

  Dead, without having ever taken a breath.

  Should he ask to see the baby?

  The thought alone made him wince, and instantly he knew he would not. Better to keep an image in his mind of what might have been: a happy, grinning, gurgling son for whom no dreams would be too great.

  Better to cling to the memories of a future that might have been than to gaze directly at the tragedy that had just befallen him.

  To see the child who might have been would bring far more pain than Bill McGuire could bear, and in the days to come Elizabeth—and Megan too—were going to need everything he had to give.

  He pushed through the doors to the waiting room, and it seemed to him that neither Megan nor Mrs. Goodrich had moved at all. The old housekeeper still held his daughter close, and though Megan’s head rested against Mrs. Goodrich’s ample bosom, her eyes were open and watchful.

  Cradled in her arms, she held the doll.

  For an instant, and only an instant, Bill was tempted to snatch the doll from Megan’s arms, to tear it apart and hurl it out into the night, to destroy utterly the thing that had come into their house only this morning and already done such damage to their lives. But that thought, too, he discarded from his mind. The doll, after all, was not at fault, and Megan, at least, seemed to be taking a certain comfort from it.

  Pulling a chair close to the sofa, he sat down and took his daughter’s hands.

  “Is he here?” the little girl asked. “Has my brother been born?”

  Bill felt a sob rise in his throat, but determinedly put it down. “He’s been born,” he said quietly. “But he had to go away.”

  Megan seemed puzzled. “Go away?” she repeated. “Where?”

  “To Heaven,” Bill said. A gasp of sorrow escaped from Mrs. Goodrich’s throat. Her arm tightened around Megan, but she said nothing. “You see, Megan,” Bill went on, “God loves little children very much, and sometimes He calls one of them to come and be with Him. Remember how He said, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me’? And that is where your brother’s gone. To be with God.”

  “What about my Elizabeth?” Mrs. Goodrich whispered, her eyes wide with fear.

  “She’s going to be all right,” Bill assured her. “She’s asleep right now, but she’s going to be just fine.” He stood up. “Why don’t I take you and Megan home?” he said. “Then I’ll come back and stay with Elizabeth.”

  Mrs. Goodrich nodded and got stiffly to her feet. Her hand clutching Bill for support, she let him guide her out to the car. Megan followed behind them, the doll held tightly in her arms.

  “It’s all right,” Megan whispered to the doll as they passed through the glass doors into the night. “You’re better than any brother could be.”

  Chapter 7

  Elizabeth McGuire stayed in the hospital for three days, and on the afternoon that Bill finally brought her home, the weather was every bit as bleak as her mood. A steel-gray sky hung low overhead, and the first true chill of winter was in the air. Elizabeth, though, hardly noticed the cold as she walked from the garage to the back door of the big house, for her body was almost as numb as her emotions.

  The moment she entered the house, she sensed that something had changed, and though Bill suggested she go right up to their room and rest for a while, she refused, instead moving from room to room, unsure what she was looking for, but certain that she would know it when she found it. Each room she entered seemed exactly as it had been before. Every piece of furniture was in place. The pictures still hung in their accustomed spots. Even the mahogany case in the library was back where it belonged—screwed to the wall with much heavier hardware this time, so the accident could never be repeated—and even most of the objects it contained had been repaired and put neatly back in their places. Only the doll was gone. Elizabeth shuddered as she gazed
up at the empty shelf where she’d placed it. Apart from the doll, all was as it should have been.

  The photographs were back in their silver frames; the shattered glass all replaced.

  Fleetingly, Elizabeth wondered if her spirit could be repaired as easily as the damage to the pictures, but even as the question came to mind, so also did the answer.

  The pictures might have been made right again; she would never be.

  Finally she went upstairs, retreating wordlessly to her room.

  Later that night, when Bill had come to bed, she remained silent. Though she could feel the warmth of his body lying next to hers, and his strong arms holding her, she still felt more alone than she ever had before. When finally he drifted into sleep, she lay awake gazing up at the shadows that stretched across the ceiling, and began to imagine them as black fingers reaching out to squeeze her sanity from her mind as her own body had squeezed her son from her womb. Elizabeth realized then that it wasn’t the house that had changed. It was she who was different now. Long minutes ticked away the night while she wondered if she could ever be whole again.

  Finally she left the bed, slipping out from beneath the comforter so quietly that Bill didn’t stir at all. Clad only in her thin silk nightgown, but oblivious to the damp chill that had seeped into the room through the open window, she walked on bare feet through the bathroom that connected the master bedroom to the nursery next door. In the dim illumination from the street lamps outside, the bright patterned wallpaper had lost its color, and the animals that appeared to gambol playfully across the walls when she had hung the paper a few short months ago now seemed to Elizabeth to be stalking her in the night. In the crib, lying in wait on a satin comforter, lay a forlorn and lonely-looking teddy bear.

  Alone in the darkness, Elizabeth silently began to weep.

  “Maybe I should just stay home today,” Bill suggested the next morning as the family was finishing breakfast.

  Elizabeth, sitting across from him at one end of the huge dining table that could seat twenty people if the need should ever arise, shook her head. “I’ll be fine,” she insisted, though the pallor in her face and her trembling hands belied the words. “You have a lot to do. If I need anything, Mrs. Goodrich and Megan can take care of me. Can’t you, darling?” she added, reaching out to put her arm around Megan, who was perched on the chair next to her.