The Blackstone Chronicles
John Saul
For years, the fictional town of Blackstone and its inhabitants lived in John Saul’s imagination, as he wondered how to best capture the spirit of this ever-evolving tale of terror. Then he found his answer: the serial novel.
Thus, The Blackstone Chronicles emerged from the mind of the bestselling master of terror to haunt his readers’ nightmares. The first chilling installment, Part I: An Eye for an Eye: The Doll, was launched in January 1997. The book became an instant New York Times bestseller, leaving us waiting at the edge of our seats for the next five installments, which were published one by one in each consecutive month—until the serial’s explosive finale, Part VI: Asylum, in June 1997.
Now, for the first time, this New York Times bestselling serial thriller is complete in one volume. And the six parts make one terrifying whole.…
By John Saul:
SUFFER THE CHILDREN
PUNISH THE SINNERS
CRY FOR THE STRANGERS
COMES THE BLIND FURY
WHEN THE WIND BLOWS
THE GOD PROJECT
NATHANIEL
BRAINCHILD
HELLFIRE
THE UNWANTED
THE UNLOVED
CREATURE
SECOND CHILD
SLEEPWALK
DARKNESS
SHADOWS
GUARDIAN
THE HOMING
BLACK LIGHTNING
THE BLACKSTONE CHRONICLES:
Part 1—AN EYE FOR AN EYE: THE DOLL
Part 2—TWIST OF FATE: THE LOCKET
Part 3—ASHES TO ASHES:
THE DRAGON’S FLAME
Part 4—IN THE SHADOW OF EVIL:
THE HANDKERCHIEF
Part 5—DAY OF RECKONING:
THE STEREOSCOPE
Part 6—ASYLUM
THE PRESENCE
THE RIGHT HAND OF EVIL
NIGHTSHADE
THE MANHATTAN HUNT CLUB
MIDNIGHT VOICES
BLACK CREEK CROSSING
PERFECT NIGHTMARE
IN THE DARK OF THE NIGHT
A Fawcett Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright © 1997 by John Saul
Map by Christine Levis
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Fawcett Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Originally published in 1997 by The Random House Publishing Group as a six-part serial under the titles: An Eye for an Eye: The Doll, Twist of Fate: The Locket, Ashes to Ashes: The Dragon’s Flame, In the Shadow of Evil: The Handkerchief, Day of Reckoning: The Stereoscope, and Asylum.
Fawcett is a registered trademark and the Fawcett colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
www.ballantinebooks.com
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 97-97060
eISBN: 978-0-307-77579-5
First Trade Edition: February 1998
v3.1
For Linda,
with love and gratitude,
with hugs and kisses,
with peaches and cream,
with hearts and flowers,
with emeralds and diamonds,
now and in the future
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Map
Genealogy
Author’s Note
Part 1 An Eye for an Eye: The Doll
The Beginning
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Part 2 Twist of Fate: The Locket
Prelude
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Part 3 Ashes to Ashes: The Dragon’s Flame
Prelude
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Part 4 In the Shadow of Evil: The Handkerchief
Prelude
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Part 5 Day of Reckoning: The Stereoscope
Prelude
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Part 6 Asylum
Prelude
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Epilogue
Afterword
About the Author
Dear Reader,
Over the past twenty years, it has been my pleasure to entertain you with books relating tales of terror and mayhem. But, as I’m sure you’ve suspected, there are at least as many stories I haven’t yet told, for the very simple reason that they have never fit comfortably into the publishing form we call “the novel.”
Now, thanks to Stephen King and his groundbreaking serial novel, The Green Mile, a newly revitalized form of publication has become available to us all. The form of the serial is far from new—its history stretches from Dickens’s serialized novels in the 1850s and ’60s through the Saturday afternoon adventures that my generation enjoyed in movie theaters. But serial novels haven’t appeared since my grandfather’s day—until The Green Mile.
So it was with mounting excitement that I watched as subsequent installments of King’s tale proved that the form is as fresh today as it was when Dickens employed it. For ever since I wrote my first novel, Suffer the Children, I have been living with the fictional town of Blackstone in my head. I clearly see the village in New Hampshire, right down the road from Port Arbello; its shady tree-lined streets, its even more shadowy history. Its characters are vivid to me. (In fact, over the years, some characters from my other novels have moved to Blackstone, as you shall see.) Their secrets, their sins, and the sins of their fathers seem so real they are more like memories than inventions.
There are several leading families in my imaginary Blackstone—the Connallys, the Beckers, the McGuires, the Hartwicks. All have a part to play as the drama unfolds. Over the generations their lives have intertwined: births, marriages, deaths, business dealings, rivalries, hardships, and occasional triumphs (all the stuff of our lives, in other words) have created among them the connections—and separations—shared by these prominent citizens of my little town. Above all, one person, one series of shocking and secret circumstances, has bound them together. But how could I explain those relationships, those events—and the catalyst that set in motion the evil that no
w shadows their lives? What was the best way to tell these separate stories, each of them linked to long-hidden moments in the past, each of them linked to each other, each of them linked to a powerful force that is about to make its insidious presence known?
It seemed to me that this “new” form, the novel conceived in parts, or installments, provided the answer, and The Blackstone Chronicles finally began to take place for me on the printed page, as did the objects—artifacts of evil, if you will—that symbolized for me each of the stories I wanted to tell. The Doll is the first of these, and it arrives on the doorstep of the McGuire family in Part One. Who sent this gift to Elizabeth and Bill McGuire—and why—I leave you to discover. But I warn you that you won’t know the full story until the very end, some months from now! In the meantime, several more presents from the past will have made their way to various carefully selected denizens of Blackstone. And I hope that as you finish the last page of each part another piece of the puzzle will have been revealed—and that you will experience the delicious thrill of anticipating the next installment. And as you finish each volume of The Blackstone Chronicles, perhaps you will let your imagination conjure up the terrors that might await in future installments.
So, without further ado, I offer you An Eye for an Eye: The Doll, the first of the half dozen gifts I’ve prepared for you this year.
I hope you enjoy them as much as I’ve enjoyed wrapping them.
—JOHN SAUL
October 10, 1996
PART 1
AN EYE FOR
AN EYE:
THE DOLL
The Beginning
The old Seth Thomas Regulator began to chime the hour. Oliver Metcalf kept typing only long enough to finish the sentence before abandoning the editorial he was composing to gaze thoughtfully at the wood-cased clock that had hung on the wall of the Blackstone Chronicle’s one-room office for far more years than Oliver himself could remember. It was the clock that first fascinated him when his uncle brought him here more than forty years ago and taught him how to tell time, and the clock still fascinated him, with its rhythmic ticking, and because it kept time so perfectly that it had to be adjusted by no more than a single minute every year.
Now, after marking the thousands of hours of his life with its soft chime, it was reminding Oliver that the hour had come for him to perform his part in an event that would take place only once.
Today, the town of Blackstone was going to take the first, significant step in the destruction of part of its history.
Oliver Metcalf, as editor and publisher of the town’s weekly newspaper, had been asked to make a speech. He’d made preparatory notes for several days but still had no idea precisely what he would say when the moment finally arrived for him to stand at the podium, the great stone structure rising behind him, and face his fellow townsmen. As he picked up the sheaf of notes and tucked it into the inside pocket of his tweed jacket, he wondered if inspiration would strike him when at last he had to speak, or whether he would stare speechlessly out at the gathered crowd as they gazed, waiting, at him.
Questions would be in their minds.
Questions that no one had spoken aloud for years.
Questions to which he had no answers.
He locked the office door behind him and stepped out onto the sidewalk. Crossing the street to cut through the town square, he considered turning back, skipping the ceremony entirely and instead finishing the editorial upon which he’d been working all morning. It was, after all, exactly the kind of day that was meant for staying indoors. The sky was slate gray, and the previous night’s wind had stripped the last of the leaves from the great trees that had spread a protective canopy above the town from spring through fall. In early spring, when the enormous oaks and maples first began to bud, the canopy was the palest of greens. But as summer progressed, the foliage matured and thickened, darkening to a deep green that shaded Blackstone from August’s hot glare and sheltered it from the rain squalls that swept through on their way toward the Atlantic seacoast several miles to the east. Over the last few weeks, abundant green had given way to the splendor of fall, and for a while the village had gloried in autumn’s shimmering golden, red, and russet tones. Now the ground was littered with leaves, already a dead-looking brown, already beginning the slow process of decay that would return them to the soil from which they’d originally sprung.
Oliver Metcalf started toward the top of the hill where most of the townspeople would soon be gathered. Snow had not yet fallen, but a sodden, chill rain had accompanied last night’s wind. It seemed to Oliver that a damp, freezing winter was about to descend. The gray light of the day seemed perfectly to reflect his own bleak mood. The trees, with their huge, naked limbs, raised their skeletal branches grotesquely toward the sky, as if seeking to ward off the lowering clouds with fleshless, twisted fingers. Ducking his head against the ominous morning, Oliver walked quickly through the streets, nodding distractedly to the people who spoke to him, meanwhile trying to focus his mind on what he would say to the crowd that would soon be gathered around the best-known building in town.
The Blackstone Asylum.
Throughout Oliver’s life—throughout the lives of everyone in Blackstone—the massive building, constructed of stones dug from the fields surrounding the village, had loomed at the top of the town’s highest hill. Its long-shuttered windows gazed out over the town not as if it were abandoned, but rather as though it were sleeping.
Sleeping, and waiting someday to awaken.
A chill passed through Oliver as the thought crossed his mind, but he quickly shook it off. No, it would never happen.
Today, the destruction of the Blackstone Asylum would commence.
A wrecking ball would swing, hurling its weight against those heavy gray stones, and after dominating the town for a full century, the building would finally be torn apart, its stone walls demolished, its turrets fallen, its green copper roof sold off for scrap.
As Oliver stepped through the ornate wrought-iron gates that pierced the fence surrounding the Asylum’s entire ten acres, and started up the wide, curving driveway leading to its front door, an arm fell across his shoulders and he heard his uncle’s familiar voice.
“Quite a day, wouldn’t you say, Oliver?” Harvey Connally said, his booming, hearty voice belying his eighty-three years.
Oliver’s gaze followed his uncle’s, fixing on the brooding building, and he wondered what was going through the old man’s mind. No point in asking; for despite their closeness, he’d always found his uncle far more comfortable discussing ideas than emotions.
“If you talk about emotions, you have to talk about people,” Harvey had told him back when he was only ten or eleven years old, and home from boarding school for Christmas. “And talking about people is gossip. I don’t gossip, and you shouldn’t either.” The words had clearly signaled Oliver that there were many things his uncle did not want to discuss.
Still, as the old man gazed up at the building that had risen on North Hill only a few years before his birth, Oliver couldn’t help trying one last time.
“Your father built it, Uncle Harvey,” he said softly. “Aren’t you just a little sorry to see it go?”
His uncle’s grip tightened on his shoulder. “No, I’m not,” Harvey Connally replied, his voice grating as he spoke the words. “And neither should you be. Good riddance to it, is what I say, and we should all forget everything that ever happened there.”
His hand fell from Oliver’s shoulder.
“Everything,” he said again.
Half an hour later Oliver stood at the podium that had been erected in front of the Asylum’s imposing portico, his eyes surveying the crowd. Nearly everyone had come. The president of the bank was there, as was the contractor whose company would demolish most of the old Asylum, keeping only the facade. The plan was to replace the interior with a complex of shops and restaurants that promised to bring a prosperity to Blackstone that no one had known since the years when the
institution itself had provided the economic basis for the town’s livelihood. Everyone who was involved in the project was there, but there were others as well, people whose parents and grandparents, even great-grandparents, had once worked within the stone walls behind him. Now they hoped that the new structure might provide their children and grandchildren with jobs.
Beyond the assemblage, just inside the gate, Oliver could see the small stone house that had been deeded to the last superintendent of the Asylum, upon the occasion of his marriage to the daughter of the chairman of the Asylum’s board of directors.
When the Blackstone Asylum had finally been abandoned and its last superintendent had died, that house, too, stood empty for several years. Then the young man who had inherited it, having graduated from college, returned to Blackstone and moved back into that house, the house in which he’d been born.
Oliver Metcalf had come home.
He hadn’t expected to sleep at all on that first night, but to his surprise, the two-story stone cottage seemed to welcome him back, and he’d immediately felt as if he was home. The ghosts he’d expected had not appeared, and within a few years he almost forgot he’d ever lived anywhere else. But in all the years since then, living in the shadow of the Asylum his father had once run, Oliver had not once set foot inside the building.
He’d told himself he had no need to.
Deep in his heart, he’d known he couldn’t.
Something inside its walls—something unknowable—terrified him.
Now, as the crowd fell into an expectant silence, Oliver adjusted the microphone and began to speak.
“Today marks a new beginning in the history of Blackstone. For nearly a century, a single structure has affected every family—every individual—in our town. Today, we begin the process of tearing that structure down. This signifies not only the end of one era, but the beginning of another. The process of replacing the old Blackstone Asylum with the new Blackstone Center will not be simple. Indeed, when the new building is finally completed, its facade will look much as the Asylum looks today; constructed of the same stones that have stood on this site for nearly a hundred years, it will look familiar to all of us, but at the same time, all of it will be different.…”
