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TWO
Tian and Zalia had tried to give Eddie and Susa
It was a good tale, and well told. Tian and Zalia listened with a sympathetic credulity that made Eddie feel guilty. A lot of bad things had happened to them in Lud, that much was true, but nothing which made either of them nervous about sleeping indoors. At least he guessed not; since leaving their own world, the two of them had only spent a single night (the previous) under the actual roof of an actual house.
Now he sat cross-legged on one of the blankets Zalia had given them to spread on the hay, the other two cast aside. He was looking out into the yard, past the porch where Gran-pere had told his tale, and toward the river. The moon flitted in and out of the clouds, first brightening the scene to silver, then darkening it. Eddie hardly saw what he was looking at. His ears were trained on the floor of the barn below him, where the stalls and pens were. She was down there somewhere, he was sure she was, but God, she was so quiet.
And by the way, who is she? Mia, Roland says, but that's just a name. Who is she really?
But it wasn't just a name. It means mother in the High Speech, the gunslinger had said.
It means mother.
Yeah. But she's not the mother of my kid. The chap is not my son.
A soft clunk from below him, followed by the creak of a board. Eddie stiffened. She was down there, all right. He'd begun to have his doubts, but she was.
He had awakened after perhaps six hours of deep and dreamless sleep to discover she was gone. He went to the barn's bay door, which they'd left open, and looked out. There she was. Even by moonlight he'd known that wasn't really Susa
You saw her in New York, only then she had legs and she knew how to use them. She had legs and she didn't want to go too close to the rose.
She had her reasons for that, and they were good reasons, but you know what I think the real reason was? I think she was afraid it would hurt whatever it is she's carrying in her belly.
Yet he felt sorry for the woman below. No matter who she was or what she was carrying, she'd gotten herself into this situation while saving Jake Chambers. She'd held off the demon of the circle, trapping it inside her just long enough for Eddie to finish whittling the key he'd made.
If you'd finished it earlier -if you hadn't been such a damned little chickenshit -she might not even be in this mess, did you ever think of that?
Eddie had pushed the thought away. There was some truth to it, of course-he had lost his confidence while whittling the key, which was why it hadn't been finished when the time of Jake's drawing came-but he was done with that kind of thinking. It was good for nothing but creating a truly excellent array of selfinflicted wounds.
Whoever she was, his heart had gone out to the woman he saw below him. In the sleeping silence of the night, through the alternating shutters of moonlight and dark, she pushed Susa
Like the old robots, the woman in the yard below wanted to go someplace, but didn't know where. She wanted to get something, but didn't know what. The question was, what was he supposed to do?
Just watch and wait. Use the time to think up some other bullshit story in case one of them wakes up and sees her in the dooryard, pacing around in her wheelchair. More post-traumatic stress syndrome from Lud, maybe.
"Hey, it works for me," he murmured, but just then Susa
Five minutes of silence. He was just begi
That was a pig. One of the young ones. Just a shoot, that's all.
Maybe, but what he kept picturing was the younger set of twins. Especially the girl. Lia, rhymes with Mia. No more than babies, and it was crazy to think of Susa
But that's not Susa
Hurt, hell. Almost killed was what he'd been. Almost gotten his face chewed off by the lobstrosities.
It was Detta who threw me to the creepy-crawlies. This one isn't her.
Yes, and he had an idea-only an intuition, really-that this one might be a hell of a lot nicer than Detta, but he'd be a fool to bet his life on it.
Or the lives of the children? Tian and Zalia's children?
He sat there sweating, not knowing what to do.
Now, after what seemed an interminable wait, there were more squeaks and creaks. The last came from directly beneath the ladder leading to the loft. Eddie lay back again and closed his eyes. Not quite all the way, though. Peering through his lashes, he saw her head appear above the loft floor. At that moment the moon sailed out from behind a cloud and flooded the loft with light. He saw blood at the corners of her mouth, as dark as chocolate, and reminded himself to wipe it off her in the morning. He didn't want any of the Jafford clan seeing it.
What I want to see is the twins, Eddie thought. Both sets, all four, alive and well. Especially Lia. What else do I want?For Tian to come out of the barn with a frown on his face. For him to ask us if we heard anything in the night, maybe a fox or even one of those rock-cats they talk about. Because, see, one of the shoats has gone missing. Hope you hid whatever was left of it, Mia or whoever you are. Hope you hid it well.
She came to him, lay down, turned over once and fell asleep-he could tell by the sound of her breathing. Eddie turned his head and looked toward the sleeping Jaffords home place.
She didn't go anywhere near the house.
No, not unless she'd wheeled her chair all the way through the barn and right out the back, that was. Gone around that way… slipped in a window… taken one of the younger twins… taken the little girl… taken her back to the barn… and…