The Blackstone Chronicles - By John Saul Page 0,13

eye.

A child was emerging from the woods across the field.

Megan.

Elizabeth was about to call out to her daughter, but as the child grew closer, she realized this little girl wasn’t blond, sunny Megan at all.

It was her sister.

It was Sarah!

But that wasn’t possible, for Sarah looked no older now than she had on that day so many years ago when she’d been taken away to the hospital.

Yet as the little girl drew closer, walking steadily across the field, directly toward her, Elizabeth felt a terrible chill.

Sarah was carrying something cradled in her arms. She was holding it out now, offering it to her, and Elizabeth recognized it instantly.

An arm.

Jimmy Tyler’s arm …

Reflexively, Elizabeth looked down at her baby.

Her son was no longer sleeping. Instead, his eyes were wide open, and he was screaming, though no sound came out of his mouth. But worse than the silent scream, worse than the terror in the infant’s eyes, was the blood spurting from her child’s left shoulder, where the arm had been hacked away.

Elizabeth felt a scream rise from her lungs, but at the same time a terrible constriction closed her throat, and her howl of anguish stayed trapped within her, filling her up, making her feel as if she might explode into a million fragmented pieces. There was blood everywhere now, and Sarah, still holding the bloody arm that had been torn from the baby’s body, was drawing closer and closer.

Elizabeth tried to turn away; could not. Finally, with an effort that seemed to sap every ounce of her energy, she hurled herself out of the chair and—

Elizabeth jerked awake. For an instant the terrible vision still hung before her. Her heart was pounding and she was gasping for breath. But as the dream quickly retreated, and as the hammering of her heart eased and her breathing returned to normal, she realized she wasn’t back in Port Arbello at all.

She was in her room in Blackstone, on a December afternoon, and her baby was still safe in her womb. Yet, as if from a great distance, she once again heard the lullaby she had been crooning in the dream.

“When the bough breaks,

The cradle will fall,

And down will go baby,

Cradle and all …”

Elizabeth rose from the chaise on which she’d been sleeping and stepped out into the hall. The lullaby was louder now, and coming from Megan’s room. Moving silently down the wide corridor that ran two-thirds of the length of the second floor, Elizabeth paused outside her daughter’s door and listened.

She could still hear Megan, humming softly.

As she herself had been humming.

She opened the door a crack and peered inside.

Megan was sitting on her bed.

She was cradling the antique doll in her arms.

Elizabeth pushed the door wide. The lullaby died on Megan’s lips as her eyes widened in surprise. Her arms tightened reflexively, pressing the doll close to her chest.

Elizabeth crossed the room until she was standing over her daughter. “We decided the doll would stay in the closet, didn’t we?”

Megan shook her head. “You decided,” she said. “I didn’t.”

“We all decided,” Elizabeth told her. “Daddy, and Mommy, and you. So I’m going to put the doll away again. Do you understand?”

“But I want her,” Megan protested. “I love her.”

Reaching down, Elizabeth took the doll from her daughter. “She’s not yours to love, Megan. Not yet. Perhaps someday, perhaps even someday soon. But not now. I’m putting it back in the closet,” she said. “And you’re not to touch it again. Do you understand?”

Megan looked up, saying nothing as Elizabeth left the room and closed the door. For a moment Megan felt hot tears flood her eyes. Then she realized: It didn’t matter where her mother hid the doll. She would find it, and it would be hers.

Elizabeth carried the doll back downstairs and was about to put it back in the closet when she changed her mind. The closet would be the first place Megan would look. Leaving the hall, she went through the arched entry into the living room, then beyond it, in the library, saw the perfect place to put the doll: the top shelf of one of the pair of mahogany cases Bill had built to stand on either side of the fireplace.

The top shelf—one she could barely reach herself—was empty. Even if Megan spotted the doll up there, she wouldn’t be able to get to it without a ladder. Positioning the doll as far back on the shelf as she could, Elizabeth was about to leave the