"My legs!" She was screaming it at the top of her voice. "My legs! I have my legs back! Oh Roland,
honeydoll, praise the Man Jesus, I HAVE MY LEGS BACK!"
SIX
She threw herself into his embrace, kissing his cheek, his neck, his brow, his nose, his lips, saying it over and
over again: "My legs, oh Roland do you see, I can walk, I can run, I have my legs, praise God and all the
saints, I have my legs back."
"Give you every joy of them, dear heart," Roland said. Falling into the patois of the place in which he had
lately found himself was an old trick of his—or perhaps it was habit. For now it was the patois of the Calla.
He supposed if he spent much time here in New York, he'd soon find himself waving his middle finger at
tack-sees.
But I'd always be an outsider, he thought. Why, I can't even say aspirin. Every time I try, the word comes out
wrong.
She took his right hand, dragged it down with surprising force, and placed it on her shin. "Do you feel it?"
she demanded. "I mean, I'm not just imagining it, am I?"
Roland laughed. "Did you not run to me as if with wings on em like Raf? Yes, Susannah." He put his left
hand, the one with all the fingers, on her left leg. "One leg and two legs, each with a foot below them." He
frowned. "We ought to get you some shoes, though."
"Why? This is a dream. It has to be."
He looked at her steadily, and slowly her smile faded.
"Not? Really not?"
"We've gone todash. We are really here. If you cut your foot, Mia, you'll have a cut foot tomorrow, when you
wake up aside the campfire."
The other name had come out almost—but not quite—on its own. Now he waited, all his muscles wire-tight,
to see if she would notice. If she did, he'd apologize and tell her he'd gone todash directly from a dream of
someone he'd known long ago (although there had only been one woman of any importance after Susan
Delgado, and her name had not been Mia).
But she didn't notice, and Roland wasn't much surprised.
Because she was getting ready to go on another of her hunting expeditions—as Mia—when the kammen
rang. And unlike Susannah, Mia has legs. She banquets on rich foods in a great hall, she talks with all her
friends, she didn't go to Morehouse or to no house, and she has legs. So this one has legs. This one is both
women, although she doesn't know it.
Suddenly Roland found himself hoping that they wouldn't meet Eddie. He might sense the difference even if
Susannah herself didn't. And that could be bad. If Roland had had three wishes, like the foundling prince in a
child's bedtime story, right now all three would have been for the same thing: to get through this business in
Calla Bryn Sturgis before Susannah's pregnancy—Mia's pregnancy—became obvious. Having to deal with
both things at the same time would be hard.
Perhaps impossible.
She was looking at him with wide, questioning eyes. Not because he'd called her by a name that wasn't hers,
but because she wanted to know what they should do next.
"It's your city," he said. "I would see the bookstore. And the vacant lot." He paused. "And the rose. Can you
take me?"
"Well," she said, looking around, "it's my city, no doubt about that, but Second Avenue sure doesn't look like
it did back in the days when Detta got her kicks shoplifting in Macy's."
"So you can't find the bookstore and the vacant lot?" Roland was disappointed but far from desolate. There
would be a way. There was always a—
"Oh, no problem there," she said. "The streets are the same. New York's just a grid, Roland, with the avenues
running one way and the streets the other. Easy as pie. Come on."
The sign had gone back to don't walk, but after a quick glance uptown, Susannah took his arm and they
crossed Fifty-fourth to the other side. Susannah strode fearlessly in spite of her bare feet. The blocks were
short but crowded with exotic shops. Roland couldn't help goggling, but his lack of attention seemed safe
enough; although the sidewalks were crowded, no one crashed into them. Roland could hear his bootheels
clopping on the sidewalk, however, and could see the shadows they were casting in the light of the display
windows.
Almost here, he thought. Were the force that brought us any more powerful, we would be here.
And, he realized, the force might indeed grow stronger, assuming that Callahan was right about what was
hidden under the floor of his church. As they drew closer to the town and to the source of the thing doing
this…
Susannah twitched his arm. Roland stopped immediately. "Is it your feet?" he asked.
"No," she said, and Roland saw she was frightened. "Why is it so dark?"
"Susannah, it's night."
She gave his arm an impatient shake. "I know that, I'm not blind. Can't you…" She hesitated. "Can't you feel
it?"
Roland realized he could. For one thing, the darkness on Second Avenue really wasn't dark at all. The
gunslinger still couldn't comprehend the prodigal way in which these people of New York squandered the
things those of Gilead had held most rare and precious. Paper; water; refined oil; artificial light. This last was
everywhere. There was the glow from the store windows (although most were closed, the displays were still
lit), the even harsher glow from a popkin-selling place called Blimpie's, and over all this, peculiar orange
electric lamps that seemed to drench the very air with light. Yet Susannah was right. There was a black feel to
the air in spite of the orange lamps. It seemed to surround the people who walked this street. It made him
think about what Eddie had said earlier: This whole deal has gone nineteen.
But this darkness, more felt than seen, had nothing to do with nineteen. You had to subtract six in order to
understand what was going on here. And for the first time, Roland really believed Callahan was right.
"Black Thirteen," he said.
"What?"
"It's brought us here, sent us todash, and we feel it all around us. It's not the same as when I flew inside the
grapefruit, but it's like that."
"It feels bad," she said, speaking low.
"It is bad," he said. "Black Thirteen's very likely the most terrible object from the days of Eld still remaining
on the face of the earth. Not that the Wizard's Rainbow was from then; I'm sure it existed even before—"
"Roland! Hey, Roland! Suze!"
They looked up and in spite of his earlier misgivings, Roland was immensely relieved to see not only Eddie,
but Jake and Oy, as well. They were about a block and a half farther along. Eddie was waving. Susannah
waved back exuberantly. Roland grabbed her arm before she started to run, which was clearly her intention.
"Mind your feet," he said. "You don't need to pick up some sort of infection and carry it back to the other
side."
They compromised at a rapid walk. Eddie and Jake, both shod, ran to meet them. Pedestrians moved out of
their way without looking, or even breaking their conversations, Roland saw, and then observed that wasn't
quite true. There was a little boy, surely no older than three, walking sturdily along next to his mother. The
woman seemed to notice nothing, but as Eddie and Jake swung around them, the toddler watched with wide,
wondering eyes… and then actually stretched out a hand, as if to stroke the briskly trotting Oy.
Eddie pulled ahead of Jake and arrived first. He held Susannah out at arm's length, looking at her. His
expression, Roland saw, was really quite similar to that of the tot.
"Well? What do you think, sugar?" Susannah spoke nervously, like a woman who has come home to her
husband with some radical new hairdo.
"A definite improvement," Eddie said. "I don't need em to love you, but they're way beyond good and into the
land of excellent. Christ, now you're an inch taller than I am!"
Susannah saw this was true and laughed. Oy sniffed at the ankle that hadn't been there the last time he'd seen
this woman, and then he laughed, too. It was an odd barky-bark of a sound, but quite clearly a laugh for all
that.
"Like your legs, Suze," Jake said, and the perfunctory quality of this compliment made Susannah laugh
again. The boy didn't notice; he had already turned to Roland. "Do you want to see the bookstore?"
"Is there anything to see?"
Jake's face clouded. "Actually, not much. It's closed."
"I would see the vacant lot, if there's time before we're sent back," Roland said. "And the rose."
"Do they hurt?" Eddie asked Susannah. He was looking at her closely indeed.
"They feel fine," she said, laughing. "Fine. "
"You look different."
"I bet!" she said, and executed a littie barefoot jig. It had been moons and moons since she had last danced,
but the exultancy she so clearly felt made up for any lack of grace. A woman wearing a business suit and
swinging a briefcase bore down on the ragged littie party of wanderers, then abruptly veered off, actually
taking a few steps into the street to get around them. "You bet I do, I got legs!"
"Just like the song says," Eddie told her.
"Huh?"
"Never mind," he said, and slipped an arm around her waist. But again Roland saw him give her that
searching, questioning look. But with luck he'll leave it alone, Roland thought.
And that was what Eddie did. He kissed the corner of her mouth, then turned to Roland. "So you want to see
the famous vacant lot and the even more famous rose, huh? Well, so do I. Lead on, Jake."
SEVEN
Jake led them down Second Avenue, pausing only long enough so they could all take a quick peek into The
Manhattan Restaurant of the Mind. No one was wasting light in this shop, however, and there really wasn't
much to see. Roland was hoping for a look at the menu sign, but it was gone.
Reading his mind in the matter-of-fact way of people who share khef, Jake said, "He probably changes it
every day."
"Maybe," Roland said. He looked in through the window a moment longer, saw nothing but darkened
shelves, a few tables, and the counter Jake had mentioned—the one where the old fellows sat drinking coffee
and playing this world's version of Casdes. Nothing to see, but something to feel, even through the glass:
despair and loss. If it had been a smell, Roland thought, it would have been sour and a bit stale. The smell of
failure. Maybe of good dreams that never grew. Which made it the perfect lever for someone like Enrico "Il
Roche "Balazar.
"Seen enough?" Eddie asked.
"Yes. Let's go."
EIGHT
For Roland, the eight-block journey from Second and Fifty-fourth to Second and Forty-sixth was like visiting
a country in which he had until that moment only half-believed. How much stranger must it be for Jake? he
wondered. The bum who'd asked the boy for a quarter was gone, but the restaurant he'd been sitting near was
there: Chew Chew Mama's. This was on the corner of Second and Fifty-second. A block farther down was
the record store, Tower of Power. It was still open—according to an overhead clock that told the time in large
electric dots, it was only fourteen minutes after eight in the evening. Loud sounds were pouring out of the
open door. Guitars and drums. This world's music. It reminded him of the sacrificial music played by the
Grays, back in the city of Lud, and why not? This was Lud, in some twisted, otherwhere-and-when way. He
was sure of it.
"It's the Rolling Stones," Jake said, "but not the one that was playing on the day I saw the rose. That one was
'Paint It Black.' "
"Don't you recognize this one?" Eddie asked.
"Yeah, but I can't remember the title."
"Oh, but you should," Eddie said. "It's 'Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown.'"
Susannah stopped, looked around. "Jake?"
Jake nodded. "He's right."
Eddie, meanwhile, had fished a piece of newspaper from the security-gated doorway next to Tower of Power
Records. A section of The New York Times, in fact.
"Hon, didn't your ma ever teach you that gutter-trolling is generally not practiced by the better class of
people?" Susannah asked.
Eddie ignored her. "Look at this," he said. "All of you."
Roland bent close, half-expecting to see news of another great plague, but there was nothing so shattering. At
least not as far as he could tell.
"Read me what it says," he asked Jake. "The letters swim in and out of my mind. I think it's because we're
todash—caught in between—"
"RHODESIAN FORCES TIGHTEN HOLD ON MOZAMBIQUE VILLAGES," Jake read, " TWO
CARTER AIDES PREDICT A SAVING OF BILLIONS IN WELFARE PLAN. And down here, CHINESE
DISCLOSE THAT 1976 QUAKE WAS DEADLIEST IN FOUR CENTURIES.
Also—"
"Who's Carter?" Susannah asked. "Is he the President before… Ronald Reagan?" She garnished the last two
words with a large wink. Eddie had so far been unable to convince her that he was serious about Reagan's
being President. Nor would she believe Jake when the boy told her he knew it sounded crazy, but the idea
was at least faintly plausible because Reagan had been governor of California. Susannah had simply laughed
at this and nodded, as if giving him high marks for creativity. She knew Eddie had talked Jake into backing
up his fish story, but she would not be hooked. She supposed she could see Paul Newman as President,
maybe even Henry Fonda, who had looked presidential enough in Fail-Safe, but the host of Death Valley
