Song of Susannah

Susa

“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 Susa

Susa

“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,Susa

“You’d trust him to me!” Mia cried. “Only to me, of course! Thank you!Thank you!”

Susa

“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 Susa

“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 Susa

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.

Susa

“Odetta?” Sayre’s voice, teasing and cruel. “Or Susa

Susa

“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 Susa

“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, begi

Susa

“How could you find such a thing out?” Susa

“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 Susa

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. Susa

“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 Susa

Slapping myself, that’s all I’m doing,Susa

Inside, in some battle-ring which was not quite physical (but not entirely mental, either), Mia was finally able to clutch Susa

I did what I had to do,Mia repeated as she forced Susa