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"But it's not the same," Eddie said grimly. "It's not. Time goes by faster on this side. Game on. And the game-clock's ru
Roland considered. "If we come here again, it's going to be later each time, isn't it?"
Eddie nodded.
Roland went on, talking to himself as much as to the others. "Every minute we spend on the other side-the Calla side-a minute and a half goes by over here. Or maybe two."
"No, not two," Eddie said. "I'm sure it's not going double-time." But his uneasy glance back down at the date on the newspaper suggested he wasn't sure at all.
"Even if you're right," Roland said, "all we can do now is go forward."
"Toward the fifteenth of July," Susa
"Maybe we ought to just let these Calla-folk do their own thing," Eddie said. "I hate to say that, Roland, but maybe we should."
"We can't do that, Eddie."
"Why not?"
"Because Callahan's got Black Thirteen," Susa
Roland shook his head. "He'll turn it over in any case-I thought I was clear about that. He's terrified of it."
"Yeah," Eddie said. "I got that feeling, too."
"We have to help them because it's the Way of Eld," Roland told Susa
He thought he saw a glitter far down in her eyes, as though he'd said something fu
"I hate how it feels here," Susa
"It'll be better at the vacant lot," Jake said. He started walking, and the others followed. "The rose makes everything better. You'll see."
NINE
When Jake crossed Fiftieth, he began to hurry. On the downtown side of Forty-ninth, he began to jog. At the corner of Second and Forty-eighth, he began to run. He couldn't help it. He got a little walk help at Forty-eighth, but the sign on the post began to flash red as soon as he reached the far curb.
"Jake, wait up!" Eddie called from behind him, but Jake didn't. Perhaps couldn't. Certainly Eddie felt the pull of the thing; so did Roland and Susa
To Roland the hum brought back memories of Mejis and Susan Delgado. Of kisses shared in a mattress of sweet grass.
Susa
Eddie found himself remembering a trip to Atlantic City when he'd been very young, no more than five or six. Their mother had taken them, and at one point in the day she and Henry had gone off to get ice cream cones. Mrs. Dean had pointed at the boardwalk and had said, You put your fa
That was what all five of them felt most strongly (for Oy felt it, too): the sense of something mat was wonderfully and beautifully all right.
Roland and Eddie grasped Susa
And they did. There was a scream of brakes, a crump of a front fender meeting a rear one, and the tinkle of falling glass, but they stopped. Roland and Eddie crossed in a spotlight glare of headlights and a cacophony of horns, Susa
Yes, Roland thought. By all the gods, yes. This is it. Perhaps not just a doorway to the Dark Tower, but the Tower itself. Gods, the strength of it! the pull of it! Cuthbert, Alain, Jamie -if only you were here!
Jake stood on the corner of Second and Forty-sixth, looking at a board fence about five feet high. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. From the darkness beyond the fence came a strong harmonic humming. The sound of many voices, all singing together. Singing one vast open note. Here is yes, the voices said. Here is you may. Here is the good turn, the fortunate meeting, the fever that broke just before dawn and left your blood calm. Here is the wish that came true and the understanding eye. Here is the kindness you were given and thus learned to pass on. Here is the sanity and clarity you thought were lost. Here, everything is all right.
Jake turned to them. "Do you feel it?" he asked. "Do you?"
Roland nodded. So did Eddie.
"Suze?" the boy asked.
"It's almost the loveliest thing in the world, isn't it?" she said. Almost, Roland thought. She said almost. Nor did he miss the fact that her hand went to her belly and stroked as she said it.
TEN
The posters Jake remembered were there-Olivia Newton-John at Radio City Music Hall, G. Gordon Liddy and the Grots at a place called the Mercury Lounge, a horror movie called War of the Zombies, no trespassing. But-
"That's not the same," he said, pointing at a graffito in dusky pink. "It's the same color, and the printing looks like the same person did it, but when I was here before, it was a poem about the Turtle. 'See the TURTLE of enormous girth, on his shell he holds the earth.' And then something about following the Beam."
Eddie stepped closer and read this: "Oh SUSANNAH-MIO, divided girl of mine, Done parked her RIG in the DIXIE PIG, in the year of '99." He looked at Susa
She shook her head. Her eyes were very large. Frightened eyes, Roland thought. But which woman was frightened? He couldn't tell. He only knew that Odetta Susa
"Come on," Jake said. "We can climb right over. It's easy."
Susa
Which made perfect sense, but Roland thought there was more to it than that. Mia didn't want to go in there. Mia understood something dreadful might happen if she did. To her, and to her baby. For a moment he was on the verge of forcing the issue, of letting the rose take care of both the thing growing inside her and her troublesome new personality, one so strong that Susa