Blindspot

Open your eyes, Faith! The harsh voice awakens her from internal slumber. She is Ophelia, the fourth of five fragmented personalities. She opens her eyes, a witness to murder. Her father is the murderer. A renowned physician in the light of day, under the cloak of night he obeys commandments of a sadistic creed. The idyllic setting of his lakefront home conceals the sinister reality. It is the temple of a demonic god. Ophelia is his bride. Her pact with the deity offers freedom, but not without cost. The monsters from her past return. They threaten those she loves. Only she can save them.

Gods and demons vie for the minds of mortals in this tale of heroes and villains, fidelity and fanaticism, sacred oaths and prophecies, cryptic symbols, disguised identity, and the elusiveness of memory. The history is factual. The lunar tabulations are correct. The medical and psychiatric diagnoses are accurate. Despite its dark undertones, Blindspot is in essence a romance. The hero is noble. The heroine is beautiful, gifted, and brave. She is Ophelia, the novel's narrator.

The villain of the piece, Max Mahler, is a brilliant and handsome doctor, a healer of the hopelessly ill. A patchwork of pagan myths and satanic rituals guides his actions. Few in his village north of Detroit know that he pays homage to a demonic god, the master of the moon. Those who know participate. Vile ceremonies take place at an altar in a tunnel that connects his lakefront home and clinic.

His theology is organized and fully communicated. He steers family discussion across a broad swath, from the holy wars of the distant past to the actions of his former compatriots in Austria during the Nazi era. In this scheme of things his god, the master, appears more temperate than other gods. Though he burdens only a chosen few, those he chooses suffer greatly, most of all his consort Ophelia, the queen of the night. Her father serves as the master's surrogate in the cruel rituals. Fear and pain rupture her identity.

Ophelia's life begins in 1946. Three others preceded her, including the first girl, Faith. They share what needs to be shared in a common journal or face-to-face, but not memories of the violence that fragmented them. Only one person, George Jenner, a schoolmate, uncovers the secret of the multiples. The brief friendship makes her ordeals more bearable. He will be the novel's hero, but not yet. At sixteen they part.

Ophelia becomes the dominant personality. She accepts the master, but not the family's interpretation of his nature and his will. She believes that the master will send her a husband to be her knight and a daughter to protect. He sends the husband and the daughter when she is eighteen. The husband becomes a disciple, not a knight. The fifth alter emerges. Her husband dies. The fifth girl dissolves into oblivion, no longer needed. Soon after, her mother dies. Max lets Ophelia leave with her infant daughter Amy, confident that she will return in the year foretold by his lunar charts, 1980.

Time passes in deceptive tranquility. Prophecies foretell a turbulent future. In the predicted year, a new patient knocks on Max Mahler's door. George Jenner's wife Mara suffers from a lethal disease. Max gives her Ophelia's phone number. George telephones and blurts out what Max wants his daughter to know. Amy visits him and aims to heal the rift.

To counter his charisma, Ophelia returns, still loyal to the god she calls the master, still rejecting her father's interpretation of the master's will. Three years later Mara dies and Amy's daughter is born. George's vows end with his wife's death. Ophelia remains bound by hers. The fifth girl returns, permitting romance. Love is possible. Marriage is not.

Max bides his time. He intends to offer Amy's daughter to the master when she turns five. Amy's inability to spot the evil core beneath her grandfather's pleasing demeanor imperi