Dean Koontz - The Moonlit Mind - A Tale of Suspense

Stained-glass and blown-glass lamps pour out honeyed light so rich that he can almost taste it, and the velvet shadows remind him of a place he cannot name or quite remember, a place that somehow came before everything he’s ever known.

Of all the grand spaces in Theron Hall, this is the grandest of them all. The dazzling and intricate pattern in the colorful Persian carpet seems to pull gently at his bare feet with every step that he takes, as though it might draw him down into it, into not just the threads that constitute it, but into it and also through it, as if it might be a secret gate to another world more real than this one. The draperies are so soft and hang in such elegant folds, the colors are so appealing, the fringe and tassels are so plush, that no vista he might see through the windows behind them could compete. Here is the furniture of some greater royalty than mere kings, and an ornate mirror of such compelling depth that when Crispin stares past his reflection, the room appears too vast to be contained within Theron Hall, dwindling to infinity.

He is overwhelmed by opulence, on the verge of vertigo, when once more he focuses on the velvet shadows in the corners, which remind him of some place he can’t remember, a place that came before everything he’s ever known. But this time some alien voice inside his head, with words he’s never heard before yet understands, reveals to him that the perfection of these shadows are the darkness of his mother’s womb, from which he was born. If he wishes to step into a corner and allow these shadows to fold around him, if he will wait here for his mother, upon her return she will take him back into herself, and he will know again the peace of being part of her and eventually of being uncreated.

His fear for Mirabell erupts into terror, and the fear that he previously did not feel for himself at last squeezes his heart.

He flees from his parents’ bedroom suite with no sense of how he might find and help his sister. He sprints along the hallway to the north stairs and spirals down.

By the time he reaches the ground floor, the thought driving him is that someone in the house will want to help him, that they are not all in league against him and his siblings. If not the chief butler, Minos, perhaps the junior butler, Ned. If neither of them, then maybe one of the housekeepers. Not Proserpina! Perhaps the head housekeeper, Mrs. Frigg. Someone will want to help him, one of those who always has a smile for him, who treats him with respect.

Not until weeks later does it occur to Crispin that in his mad search for a confidant and defender, he never thinks to leave the house and seek help from someone in the street, perhaps even from a policeman. He seems almost to be under a spell that prevents him from considering the world beyond Theron Hall.

Gasping for breath, frantic, he can find no one on the ground floor, not in any of the public rooms, not in the kitchen. No one seems to be at work, yet the rooms in the servants’ wing are all deserted, the doors standing open as if everyone on the staff left together in response to some urgent call or alarm.

Intuition pulls him to the south stairs and down the winding treads to the basement, clutching at the decorative bronze railing for support. The door at the bottom of the stairs won’t open.

In the vast basement is a room with a steel door that’s always locked. He has previously been told that it is a fireproof vault in which are stored irreplaceable heirlooms of great value.

But never before has the main door to the rest of the basement been locked. He tries the lever handle again, with no success.

Beyond the door, from a distance, muffled voices rise and fall in time with one another. Chanting. Crispin isn’t able to make out the words, but the rhythm is ominous.

Although the voices are those of adults, as he presses his body against the door in an attempt to force it open, Crispin whispers, “Mirabell?”

Another door lies at the bottom of the north stairs, a second entrance to the basement. Perhaps that will not be locked. And the elevator serves all floors.

When Crispin turns to climb the stairs, the cook, Merripen, is immediately behind him. Merripen wears a long black silk bathrobe and holds a stainless-steel thermos bottle, the top of which he has unscrewed.

The third of December, three years and four months later …

In the largely dark fourth-floor restaurant at the top of the department store, Crispin and the girl sit in a booth, facing each other by candlelight.

Before his arrival, she made chicken-breast sandwiches with provolone cheese, aioli, and watercress. With the sandwiches, she serves potato chips and little pickles that she calls cornichons.

She is sixteen but appears to be at least eighteen. She works at looking older.

During the past few years, Crispin has spoken to so few people that he wouldn’t be surprised if he lost the will or even the ability to speak to anyone. But he is comfortable with this girl.

“Hey, boy,” she says.

“Hey.”

“You been okay?”

“I get along.”

“They looking for you?”

“Always will be.”

“Your dog’s still sweet.”

Harley was lying under the table, on her feet.

“He smells good, too,” she says.

“We get pretty regular baths, one way or another.”

“He find you any money lately?”

“He led me to this parking garage one night.”

“Old Harley looking for some wheels?”

“He wanted to bed down there. I found out why.”

“Is there usually money in parking garages?”

“There was this time. Three in the morning, some guys meet to trade something.”

“We can figure out what.”

“They don’t know me and Harley are there.”

“Which is why you’re still here.”

“They get into an argument.”

“Bullets fly.”

“A few. Must be a cop in the area. Suddenly there’s a siren.”

“So they split?”

“They split so fast they’re peeling rubber. And they don’t stop to pick up all they spilled when the shooting started.”

“Some of which was money,” she guesses.

“Enough was.”

She sighs. “It’s always nice and quiet here in Broderick’s.”

Her birth name is Daisy Jean Sims. Now she is known to the world as Amity Onawa.

Two years before, her hair was long and blond, eyes sapphire-blue. Her eyes are still blue, but her hair is short and black.

In a more ordinary time, she had a father, a mother, and a younger brother named Michael. One night they were all murdered in their beds.…

On the night, the baby-faced murderer spares only her. Without her knowledge, he has for some time been watching her from afar.

Vestmented with her family’s blood, he switches on her bedside lamp and wakes her with the eerily tender request that she put on a dress that he has purchased just for her. A modest dress with a Peter Pan collar and a midcalf skirt. Also a pair of white ankle socks, saddle shoes, and a lace mantilla.

She understands, without being told, that he wants her to wear these things so that he can tear them off her.

Shaking as much with grief as with terror, she does as he asks, which includes changing in her small walk-in closet to ensure that the thrill of anticipation will not be diminished for him by seeing her naked before the moment that he violently disrobes her.

Because she is a handy girl who mends her own clothes, she keeps sewing supplies in a closet drawer. When she presents herself attired as he desires, she surprises him with a pair of scissors.

The wound she inflicts is far from fatal, but he staggers and falls, giving her a chance to run. Dressed as if for church followed by a sock hop, she escapes, aware that he’s getting to his feet and cursing.