But there was, actually. One thing. She reached out and grasped the girl’s braid, which looked uncharacteristically sloppy this afternoon. Of course Susan had been riding; that could explain the mess. But it didn’t explain how dark her hair was, as if that bright mass of gold had begun to tarnish. And she jumped, almost guiltily, when she felt Cordelia’s touch. Why, pray tell, was that?

“Yer hair’s damp, Susan,” she said. “Have ye been swimming somewhere?”

“Nay! I stopped and ducked my head at the pump outside Hockey’s barn. He doesn’t mind-'tis a deep well he has. It’s so hot. Perhaps there’ll be a shower later. I hope so. I gave Felicia to drink as well.”

The girl’s eyes were as direct and as candid as ever, but Cordelia thought there was something off in them, just the same. She couldn’t say what. The idea that Susan might be hiding something large and serious did not immediately cross Cordelia’s mind; she would have said her niece was incapable of keeping a secret any greater than a birthday present or a surprise party… and not even such secrets as those for more than a day or two. And yet something was off here. Cordelia dropped her fingers to the collar of the girl’s riding shirt.

“Yet this is dry.”

“I was careful,” she said, looking at her aunt with a puzzled eye. “Dirt sticks worse to a wet shirt. You taught me that, Aunt.”

“Ye flinched when I touched yer hair, Susan.”

“Aye,” Susan said, “so I did. The weird-woman touched it just that same way. I haven’t liked it since. Now may I take these groceries in and get my horse out of the hot sun?”

“Don’t be pert, Susan.” Yet the edginess in her niece’s voice actually eased her in some strange way. That feeling that Susan had changed, somehow-that feeling of offness-began to subside.

“Then don’t be tiresome.”

“Susan! Apologize to me!”

Susan took a deep breath, held it, then let it out. “Yes, Aunt. I do. But it’s hot.”

“Aye. Put those in the pantry. And thankee.”

Susan went on toward the house with the box in her arms. When the girl had enough of a lead so they wouldn’t have to walk together, Cordelia followed. It was all foolishness on her part, no doubt-suspicions brought on by her flirtation with Eldred-but the girl was at a dangerous age, and much depended on her good behavior over the next seven weeks. After that she would be Thorin’s problem, but until then she was Cordelia’s. Cordelia thought that, in the end, Susan would be true to her promise, but until Reaping Fair she would bear close watching. About such matters as a girl’s virginity, it was best to be vigilant.

Interlude

KANSAS, SOMEWHERE, SOMEWHEN

Eddie stirred. Around them the thinny still whined like an unpleasant mother-in-law; above them the stars gleamed as bright as new hopes… or bad intentions. He looked at Susannah, sitting with the stumps of her legs curled beneath her; he looked at Jake, who was eating a burrito; he looked at Oy, whose snout rested on Jake’s ankle and who was looking up at the boy with an expression of calm adoration.

The fire was low, but still it burned. The same was true of Demon Moon, far in the west.

“Roland.” His voice sounded old and rusty to his own ears.

The gunslinger, who had paused for a sip of water, looked at him with his eyebrows raised.

“How can you know every comer of this story?”

Roland seemed amused. “I don’t think that’s what you really want to know, Eddie.”

He was right about that-old long, tall, and ugly made a habit of being right. It was, as far as Eddie was concerned, one of his most irritating characteristics. “All right. How long have you been talking? That’s what I really want to know.”

“Are you uncomfortable? Want to go to bed?”

He’s making fun of me, Eddie thought… but even as the idea occurred to him, he knew it wasn’t true. And no, he wasn’t uncomfortable. There was no stiffness in his joints, although he had been sitting cross-legged ever since Roland had begun by telling them about Rhea and the glass ball, and he didn’t need to go to the toilet. Nor was he hungry. Jake was munching the single leftover burrito, but probably for the same reason folks climbed Mount Everest… because it was there. And why should he be hungry or sleepy or stiff? Why, when the fire still burned and the moon was not yet down?

He looked at Roland’s amused eyes and saw the gunslinger was reading his thoughts.

“No, I don’t want to go to bed. You know I don’t. But, Roland… you’ve been talking a long time.” He paused, looked down at his hands, then looked up again, smiling uneasily. “Days, I would have said.”

“But time is different here. I’ve told you that; now you see for yourself. Not all nights are the same length just recently. Days, either… but we notice time more at night, don’t we? Yes, I think we do.”

“Is the thinny stretching time?” And now that he had mentioned it, Eddie could hear it in all its creepy glory-a sound like vibrating metal, or maybe the world’s biggest mosquito.

“It might be helping, but mostly it’s just how things are in my world.”

Susannah stirred like a woman who rises partway from a dream that holds her like sweet quicksand. She gave Eddie a look that was both distant and impatient. “Let the man talk, Eddie.”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “Let the man talk.”

And Oy, without raising his snout from Jake’s ankle: “An. Awk.”

“All right,” Eddie said. “No problem.”

Roland swept them with his eyes. “Are you sure? The rest is… “He didn’t seem able to finish, and Eddie realized that Roland was scared.

“Go on,” Eddie told him quietly. “Let the rest be what it is. What it was.” He looked around. Kansas, they were in Kansas. Somewhere, somewhen. Except he felt that Mejis and those people he had never seen- Cordelia and Jonas and Brian Hookey and Sheemie and Pettie the Trotter and Cuthbert Allgood-were very close now. That Roland’s lost Susan was very close now. Because reality was thin here-as thin as the seat in an old pair of blue jeans-and the dark would hold for as long as Roland needed it to hold. Eddie doubted if Roland even noticed the dark, particularly. Why would he? Eddie thought it had been night inside of Roland’s mind for a long, long time… and dawn was still nowhere near.

He reached out and touched one of those callused killer’s hands. Gently he touched it, and with love.

“Go on, Roland. Tell your tale. All the way to the end.”

“All the way to the end,” Susannah said dreamily. “Cut the vein.” Her eyes were full of moonlight.

“All the way to the end,” Jake said.

“End,” Oy whispered.

Roland held Eddie’s hand for a moment, then let it go. He looked into the guttering fire without immediately speaking, and Eddie sensed him trying to find the way. Trying doors, one after another, until he found one that opened. What he saw behind it made him smile and look up at Eddie.

“True love is boring,” he said.

“Say what?”

“True love is boring,” Roland repeated. “As boring as any other strong and addicting drug. And, as with any other strong drug…”