by Stephen King
Detta laughed.She say so, but she lyin bout dat, sugar! I know she is!
Then what is she? Whatwasshe, before she was Mia?
All at once a phone, amplified to almost ear-splitting shrillness, began to ring. It was so out of place on this abandoned castle tower that at first Susannah didn’t know what it was. The things out there in the Discordia—jackals, hyenas, whatever they were—had been subsiding, but with the advent of this sound they began to cackle and shriek again.
Mia, daughter of none, mother of Mordred, knew that ringing for what it was immediately, however. Shecame forward. Susannah at once felt this world waver and lose its reality. It seemed almost to freeze and become something like a painting. Not a very good one, either.
“No!” she shouted, and threw herself at Mia.
But Mia—pregnant or not, scratched up or not, swollen ankles or no swollen ankles—overpowered her easily. Roland had shown them several hand-to-hand tricks (the Detta part of her had crowed with delight at the nastiness of them), but they were useless against Mia; she parried each before Susannah had done more than get started.
Sure, yes, of course, she knows your tricks just like she knows about Aunt Talitha in River Crossing and Topsy the Sailor in Lud, because she has access to your memories, because she is, at least to some extent,you—
And here her thoughts ended, because Mia had twisted her arms up behind her and oh dear God the pain was enormous.
Ain’t you just the most babyish cunt,Detta said with a kind of genial, panting contempt, and before Susannah could reply, an amazing thing happened: the world ripped open like a brittle piece of paper. This rip extended from the dirty cobbles of the allure’s floor to the nearest merlon and then on up into the sky. It raced into that star-shot firmament and tore the crescent moon in two.
There was a moment for Susannah to think that this was it, one or both of the final two Beams had snapped and the Tower had fallen. Then, through the rip, she saw two women lying on one of the twin beds in room 1919 of the Plaza—Park Hotel. Their arms were around each other and their eyes were shut. They were dressed in identical bloodstained shirts and bluejeans. Their features were the same, but one had legs below the knee and straight silky hair and white skin.
“Don’t you mess with me!” Mia panted in her ear. Susannah could feel a fine, tickling spray of saliva. “Don’t you mess with me or with my chap. Because I’m stronger, do you hear?I’m stronger! ”
There was no doubt about that, Susannah thought as she was propelled toward the widening hole. At least for now.
She was pushed through the rip in reality. For a moment her skin seemed simultaneously on fire and coated with ice. Somewhere the todash chimes were ringing, and then—
Six
—she sat up on the bed. One woman, not two, but at least one with legs. Susannah was shoved, reeling, to the back. Mia in charge now. Mia reaching for the phone, at first getting it wrong-way-up and then reversing it.
“Hello? Hello!”
“Hello, Mia. My name is—”
She overrode him. “Are you going to let me keep my baby? This bitch inside me says you’re not!”
There was a pause, first long and then too long. Susannah felt Mia’s fear, first a rivulet and then a flood.You don’t have to feel that way, she tried to tell her.You’re the one with what they want, with what they need,don’t you see that?
“Hello, are you there? Gods,are you there? PLEASE TELL ME YOU’RE STILL THERE! ”
“I’m here,” the man’s voice said calmly. “Shall we start again, Mia, daughter of none? Or shall I ring off until you’re feeling…a little more yourself?”
“No! No, don’t do that, don’t do that I beg!”
“You won’t interrupt me again? Because there’s no reason for unseemliness.”
“I promise!”
“My name is Richard P. Sayre.” A name Susannah knew, but from where? “You know where you need to go, don’t you?”
“Yes!” Eager now. Eager to please. “The Dixie Pig, Sixty-first and Lexingworth.”
“Lexington,” Sayre said. “Odetta Holmes can help you find it, I’m sure.”
Susannah wanted to screamThat’s not my name! She kept silent instead. This Sayre would like her to scream, wouldn’t he? Would like her to lose control.
“Are you there, Odetta?” Pleasantly teasing. “Are you there, you interfering bitch?”
She kept silent.
“She’s in there,” Mia said. “I don’t know why she’s not answering, I’m not holding her just now.”
“Oh, I thinkI know why,” Sayre said indulgently. “She doesn’t like that name, for one thing.” Then, in a reference Susannah didn’t get: “ ‘Don’t call me Clay no more, Clay my slave name, call me Muhammad Ali!’ Right, Susannah? Or was that after your time? A little after, I think. Sorry. Time can be so confusing, can’t it? Never mind. I have something to tell you in a minute, my dear. You won’t like it very much, I fear, but I think you should know.”
Susannah kept silent. It was getting harder.
“As for the immediate future of your chap, Mia, I’m surprised you’d even feel it necessary to ask,” Sayre told her. He was a smoothie, whoever he was, his voice containing exactly the right amount of outrage. “The King keeps his promises, unlike some I could name. And, issues of our integrity aside, think of thepractical issues! Who else should have the keeping of perhaps the most important child to ever be born…includingChrist,including Buddha,including the Prophet Muhammad? To who else’s breast, if I may be crude, would we trust his suck?”
Music to her ears,Susannah thought dismally.All the things she’s been thirsting to hear. And why? Because she is Mother.
“You’d trust him to me!” Mia cried. “Only to me, of course! Thank you!Thank you!”
Susannah spoke at last. Toldher not to trusthim. And was, of course, roundly ignored.
“I’d no more lie to you than break a promise to my own mother,” said the voice on the phone. (Did you ever have one, sugar?Detta wanted to know.) “Even though the truth sometimes hurts, lies have a way of coming back to bite us, don’t they? The truth of this matter is you won’t have your chap for long, Mia, his childhood won’t be like that of other children, normal children—”
“I know! Oh, I know!”
“—but for the five years youdo have him…or perhaps seven, it might be as many as seven…he’ll have the best of everything. From you, of course, but also from us. Our interference will be minimal—”
Detta Walker leaped forward, as quick and as nasty as a grease-burn. She was only able to take possession of Susannah Dean’s vocal cords for a moment, but it was aprecious moment.
“Dass raht, dahlin, dass raht,” she cackled, “he won’t come in yo’ mouf or get it in you’ hair!”
“Shut that bitch UP!”Sayre whipcracked, and Susannah felt the jolt as Mia shoved Detta head over heels—but still cackling—to the back of their shared mind again. Once more into the brig.
Had mah say, though, damn if I didn’t!Detta cried.Ah tolethat honky muhfuh!
Sayre’s voice in the telephone’s earpiece was cold and clear. “Mia, do you have control or not?”
“Yes! Yes, I do!”
“Then don’t let that happen again.”
“I won’t!”
And somewhere—it felt like above her, although there were no real directions here at the back of the shared mind—something clanged shut. It sounded like iron.
We reallyarein the brig, she told Detta, but Detta just went on laughing.
Susannah thought:I’m pretty sure I know who she is, anyway. Besides me, that is. This truth seemed obvious to her. The part of Mia that wasn’t either Susannah or something summoned from the void world to do the Crimson King’s bidding…surely the third part really was the Oracle, elemental or not; the female force that had at first tried to molest Jake and then had taken Roland, instead. That sad, craving spirit. She finally had the body she needed. One capable of carrying th
e chap.
“Odetta?” Sayre’s voice, teasing and cruel. “Or Susannah, if you like that better? I promised you news, didn’t I? It’s kind of a good news—bad news thing, I’m afraid. Would you like to hear it?”
Susannah held her silence.
“The bad news is that Mia’s chap may not be able to fulfill the destiny of his name by killing his father, after all. The good news is that Roland will almost surely be dead in the next few minutes. As for Eddie, I’m afraid there’s no question. He doesn’t have either your dinh’s reflexes or his battle experience. My dear, you’re going to be a widow very soon. That’s the bad news.”
She could hold her silence no longer, and Mia let her speak. “You lie! Abouteverything! ”
“Not at all,” Sayre said calmly, and Susannah realized where she knew that name from: the end of Callahan’s story. Detroit. Where he’d violated his church’s most sacred teaching and committed suicide to keep from falling into the hands of the vampires. Callahan had jumped out of a skyscraper window to avoid that particular fate. He had landed first in Mid-World, and gone from there, via the Unfound Door, into the Calla Borderlands. And what he’d been thinking, the Pere had told them, wasThey don’t get to win, they don’t get to win. And he was right about that,right, goddammit. But if Eddie died—
“We knew where your dinh and your husband would be most likely to end up, should they be swept through a certain doorway,” Sayre told her. “And calling certain people, beginning with a chap named Enrico Balazar…I assure you, Susannah, that waseasy. ”
Susannah heard the sincerity in his voice. If he didn’t mean what he said, then he was the world’s best liar.
“How could you find such a thing out?” Susannah asked. When there was no answer she opened her mouth to ask the question again. Before she could, she was tumbled backward once more. Whatever Mia might have been once, she had grown to incredible strength inside Susannah.
“Is she gone?” Sayre was asking.
“Yes, gone, in the back.” Servile. Eager to please.
“Then come to us, Mia. The sooner you come to us, the sooner you can look your chap in the face!”
“Yes!” Mia cried, delirious with joy, and Susannah caught a sudden brilliant glimpse of something. It was like peeking beneath the hem of a circus tent at some bright wonder. Or a dark one.
What she saw was as simple as it was terrible: Pere Callahan, buying a piece of salami from a shopkeeper. AYankee shopkeeper. One who ran a certain general store in the town of East Stoneham, Maine, in the year of 1977. Callahan had told them all this story in the rectory…and Mia had been listening.
Comprehension came like a red sun rising on a field where thousands have been slaughtered. Susannah rushed forward again, unmindful of Mia’s strength, screaming it over and over again:
“Bitch! Betraying bitch! Murdering bitch! You told them where the Door would send them! Where it would send Eddie and Roland! Oh youBITCH!”
Seven
Mia was strong, but unprepared for this new attack. It was especially ferocious because Detta had joined her own murderous energy to Susannah’s understanding. For a moment the interloper was pushed backward, eyes wide. In the hotel room, the telephone dropped from Mia’s hand. She staggered drunkenly across the carpet, almost tripped over one of the beds, then whirled about like a tipsy dancer. Susannah slapped at her and red marks appeared on her cheek like exclamation points.
Slapping myself, that’s all I’m doing,Susannah thought.Beating up the equipment, how stupid is that? But she couldn’t help it. The enormity of what Mia had done, the betrayingenormity—
Inside, in some battle-ring which was not quite physical (but not entirely mental, either), Mia was finally able to clutch Susannah/Detta by the throat and drive her back. Mia’s eyes were still wide with shock at the ferocity of the assault. And perhaps with shame, as well. Susannah hoped she was able to feel shame, that she hadn’t gone beyond that.
I did what I had to do,Mia repeated as she forced Susannah back into the brig.It’s my chap, every hand is against me, I did what I had to do.
You traded Eddie and Roland for your monster, that’s what you did!Susannah screamed.Based on what you overheard and then passed on, Sayre was sure they’d use the Door to go after Tower, wasn’t he? And how many has he set against them?
The only answer was that iron clang. Only this time it was followed by a second. And a third. Mia had had the hands of her hostess clamped around her throat and was consequently taking no chances. This time the brig’s door had been triple-locked. Brig? Hell, might as well call it the Black Hole of Calcutta.
When I get out of here, I’ll go back to the Dogan and disable all the switches!she cried.I can’t believe I tried to help you! Well, fuck that! Have it on the street, for all of me!
Youcan’tget out, Mia replied, almost apologetically.Later, if I can, I’ll leave you in peace—
What kind of peace will there be for me with Eddie dead? No wonder you wanted to take his ring off! How could you bear to have it lie against your skin, knowing what you’d done?
Mia picked up the telephone and listened, but Richard P. Sayre was no longer there. Probably had places to go and diseases to spread, Susannah thought.
Mia replaced the telephone in its cradle, looked around at the empty, sterile room the way people do when they won’t be coming back to a place and want to make sure they’ve taken everything that matters. She patted one pocket of her jeans and felt the little wad of cash. Touched the other and felt the lump that was the turtle, thesköldpadda.
I’m sorry,Mia said.I have to take care of my chap. Every hand is against me now.
That’s not true,Susannah said from the locked room where Mia had thrown her. And where was it, really? In the deepest, darkest dungeons of the Castle on the Abyss? Probably. Did it matter?I was on your side. I helped you. I stopped your damn labor when you needed it stopped. And look what you did. How could you ever be so cowardly and low?
Mia paused with her hand on the room’s doorknob, her cheeks flushing a dull red. Yes, she was ashamed, all right. But shame wouldn’t stop her.Nothing would stop her. Until, that was, she found herself betrayed in turn by Sayre and his friends.
Thinking of that inevitability gave Susannah no satisfaction at all.
You’re damned,she said.You know that, don’t you?
“I don’t care,” Mia said. “An eternity in hell’s a fair price to pay for one look in my chap’s face. Hear me well, I beg.”
And then, carrying Susannah and Detta with her, Mia opened the hotel room door, re-entered the corridor, and took her first steps on her course toward the Dixie Pig, where terrible surgeons waited to deliver her of her equally terrible chap.
STAVE: Commala-mox-nix!
You’re in a nasty fix!
To take the hand in a traitor’s glove
Is to grasp a sheaf of sticks!
RESPONSE: Commala-come-six!
Nothing there but thorns and sticks!
When you find your hand in a traitor’s glove
You’re in a nasty fix.
7th Stanza: The Ambush
One
Roland Deschain was the last of Gilead’s last great band of warriors, for good reason; with his queerly romantic nature, his lack of imagination, and his deadly hands, he had ever been the best of them. Now he had been invaded by arthritis, but there was no dry twist in his ears or eyes. He heard the thud of Eddie’s head against the side of the Unfound Door as they were sucked through (and, ducking down at the last split second, only just avoided having his own skull broken in by the Door’s top jamb). He heard the sound of birds, at first strange and distant, like birds singing in a dream, then immediate and prosaic and completely there. Sunlight struck his face and should have dazzled him blind, coming as he was from the dimness of the cave. But Roland had turned his eyes into slits the moment he’d seen that bright light, had done it without thinking. Had he not, he surely would have missed the circular flash from two o�
�clock as they landed on hard-packed, oil-darkened earth. Eddie would have died for sure. Maybe both of them would have died. In Roland’s experience, only two things glared with that perfect brilliant circularity: eyeglasses and the long sight of a weapon.
The gunslinger grabbed Eddie beneath the arm as unthinkingly as he’d slitted his eyes against the glare of onrushing sunlight. He’d felt the tension in the younger man’s muscles as their feet left the rock-and bone-littered floor of the Doorway Cave, and he felt them go slack when Eddie’s head connected with the side of the Unfound Door. But Eddie was groaning, still trying to talk, so he was at least partly aware.
“Eddie, to me!”Roland bellowed, scrambling to his feet. Bitter agony exploded in his right hip and raced almost all the way down to his knee, but he gave no sign. Barely registered it, in fact. He hauled Eddie with him toward a building, some building, and past what even Roland recognized as oil or gasoline pumps. These were marked MOBIL instead of CITGO or SUNOCO, two other names with which the gunslinger was familiar.
Eddie was semiconscious at best. His left cheek was drenched with blood from a laceration in his scalp. Nevertheless, he put his legs to work as best he could and stumbled up three wooden steps to what Roland now recognized as a general store. It was quite a bit smaller than Took’s, but otherwise not much d—
A limber whipcrack of sound came from behind and slightly to the right. The shooter was close enough for Roland to feel confident that if he had heard the sound of the shot, the man with the rifle had already missed.
Something passed within an inch of his ear, making its own perfectly clear sound:Mizzzzzz! The glass in the little mercantile’s front door shattered inward. The sign which had been hanging there ( WE’RE OPEN, SO COME IN ’N VISIT ) jumped and twisted.
“Rolan…” Eddie’s voice, weak and distant, sounded as if it were coming through a mouthful of mush. “Rolan wha…who…OWF!” This last a grunt of surprise as Roland threw him flat inside the door and landed on top of him.