For half an hour Oliver continued speaking, his thoughts organizing themselves as he spoke in the same simple, orderly prose that flowed from him when he sat at his computer, composing a feature or an editorial for the newspaper. Then, as the bell in the Congregational church downtown began to strike the hour of noon, he turned to Bill McGuire, the contractor who would oversee the demolition of the old building and construction of the new complex of shops and restaurants as well.
Nodding, Oliver stepped away from the podium, walked down the steps to join the crowd, and turned to face the building as the great lead wrecking ball swung for the first time toward the century-old edifice.
As the last chime of the church bell faded away, the ball punched through the west wall of the building. A sigh that sounded like a moaning wind passed through the crowd as it watched half a hundred fieldstones tumble to the ground, leaving a gaping hole in a wall that had stood solid through ten decades.
Oliver, though, heard nothing of the sigh, for as the ball smashed through the wall, a blinding flash of pain shot through his head.
Through the pain, a fleeting vision appeared …
A man walks up the steps toward the huge double doors of the Asylum. In his hand he holds the hand of a child.
The child is crying.
The man ignores the child’s cries.
As man and boy approach the great oaken doors, they swing open.
Man and boy pass through.
The enormous doors swing closed again.
Prologue
The previous day’s clouds had long since swept out to sea, and a full moon stood high in the sky. Atop North Hill the Asylum was silhouetted against a sky sparkling with the glitter of millions of stars while the night itself seemed infused with a silvery glow.
No one, though, was awake to see it, save a single dark figure that moved through the ruptured stone wall into the silent building that had stood empty for nearly forty years. Oblivious to the beauty of the night, that lone figure moved silently, intent on finding a single chamber hidden within the warren of rooms enclosed by the cold stone walls.
The figure progressed steadily through the darkness, finding its way as surely through those rooms that were utterly devoid of light as it did through those whose dirtencrusted windows admitted just enough moonlight to illuminate their walls and doors.
The path the figure took weaved back and forth, as if it were threading its way through groupings of furniture, although each room was bare, until it came at last to a small, hidden cubicle. Others would have passed it by, for its entrance was concealed behind a panel, the sole illumination provided by the few rays of moonlight that crept through a single small window, which itself was all but invisible from beyond the Asylum’s walls.
The lack of light in the chamber had no more effect on the dark-clad figure than had the blackness of the rooms through which it had already passed, for it was as familiar with the size and shape of this room as it was with the others.
Small and square, the hidden cubicle was lined with shelves, each of which contained numerous items. A museum, if you will, of the Asylum’s past, containing an eclectic collection of souvenirs, the long-forgotten possessions of those who had passed through its chambers.
The figure moved from shelf to shelf, touching one artifact after another, remembering the past and the people to whom these things had once been dear.
A pair of eyes glinted in the darkness, catching the figure’s attention. The memory attached to these eyes was bright and clear.
As clear as if it had happened only yesterday …
The child sat on her mother’s lap, watching in the mirror as her mother brushed her hair, listening as her mother sang to her.
But a third face appeared in the mirror as well, for the little girl held a doll, and anyone who saw the three of them together would have noticed the resemblance.
All three—the doll, the child, and the mother—had long blond hair framing delicate, oval faces.
All three had the same lovely blue eyes.
All their cheeks glowed with rouge, and their lips shone brightly with scarlet gloss.
As the brush moved through the child’s hair in long and even strokes, so also did the brush in the child’s hand mimic the motions of the mother, moving through the hair of the doll with the same