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Not long after, Roland would think: Any other woman, crippled or otherwise, suddenly shoved all the way down the aisle of thebusiness - er inside her head, shoved into a little room while some man behind her yelled for her to stop, then suddenly turned, shoved again where there was by rights no roo herself suddenly in an entirely different world I think any other woman, under those circumstances, would have most certainly have asked "Where am I?" before all else

Instead, Odetta Hol to do with that knife, young man?"

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Roland looked up at Eddie, as crouched with his knife held less than a quarter of an inch over the skin Even with his uncanny speed, there was no way the gunslinger could h to evade the blade if Eddie decided to use it

"Yes," Roland said "What are you planning to do with it?"

"I don&039;t know," Eddie said, sounding couess Sure doesn&039;t look like I came here to fish, does it?"

He threw the knife toward the Lady&039;s chair, but well to the right It stuck, quivering, in the sand to its hilt

Then the Lady turned her head and began, "I wonder if you could please explain where you&039;ve taken m�D"

She stopped She had said Iwonder if you before her head had gotten around far enough to see there was no one behind her, but the gunslinger observed with so for a moment anyway, because the fact of her condition s elementary truths of her life - if she had moved, for instance, someone must have moved her But there was no one behind her

No one at all

She looked back at Eddie and the gunslinger, her dark eyes troubled, confused, and alarmed, and now she asked "Where am I? Who pushed me? How can I be here? How can I be dressed, for thatthe twelve o&039;clock news in my robe? Who am I? Where is this? Who are you?"

"Who aht The dam broke and there was a flood of questions; that was to be expected But that one question�D"Who am I?"�Deven now I don&039;t think she knows she asked it

Or when

Because she had asked before

Even before she had asked who they were, she had asked who she was

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Eddie looked fro/old face of the black woman in the wheelchair to Roland&039;s face

"How come she doesn&039;t know?"

"I can&039;t say Shock, I suppose"

"Shock took her all the way back to her living rooin her bathrobe and listening to soonzo down in the Florida Keys with Christa McAuliff&039;s left hand mounted on his den wall next to his prize marlin?"

Roland didn&039;t answer

More dazed than ever, the Lady said, "Who is Christa McAuliff? Is she one of theFreedom Riders?"

Noas Eddie&039;s turn not to answer Freedoer glanced at hih: Can&039;t you see she&039;s in shock?

Iknohat you mean, Roland old buddy, but it only washes up to a point I felt a little shockinto my head like Walter Payton on crack, but it didn&039;t wipe out otten another pretty good jolt when she ca over Roland&039;s inert body, the knife just above the vulnerable skin of the throatbut the truth was Eddie couldn&039;t have used the knife anyway�Dnot then, anyway He was staring into the doorway, hypnotized, as an aisle of Macy&039;s rushed forward�Dhe was re, where you sahat the little boy was seeing as he rode his trike through the hallways of that haunted hotel He remembered the little boy had seen this creepy pair of dead twins in one of those hallways The end of this aisle was much more mundane: a white door The words ONLY TWO GARMENTS AT ONE TIME, PLEASE were printed on it in discreet lettering Yeah, it was Macy&039;s, all right Macy&039;s for sure

One black hand flew out and slammed the door open while the male voice (a cop voice if Eddie had ever heard one, and he had heard many in his time) behind yelled for her to quit it, that was no way out, she was only ht a bare glimpse of the black woman in the wheelchair in theJesus, he&039;s got her, all right, but she sure don&039;t look happy about it

Then the view pivoted and Eddie was looking at himself The view rushed toward the viewer and he wanted to put up the hand holding the knife to shield his eyes because all at once the sensation of looking through two sets of eyes was tooto drive him crazy if he didn&039;t shut it out, but it all happened too fast for hih the door It was a tight fit; Eddie heard its hubs squeal on the sides At the sa sound that made him think of some word

(placental)

that he couldn&039;t quite think of because he didn&039;t know he knew it Then the wo toward hier looked limpsed in the mirror at all, for that ; when you all at once went froodforsaken world where sos, it left you feeling a little winded That was a subject on which Eddie Dean felt he could personally give testi, and only went that far because of the slope and the gritty pack of the sand Her hands were no longer pu (when you wake up with sore shoulders toht sourly) Instead they went to the ararded the two men

Behind her, the doorway had already disappeared Disappeared? That was not quite right It seemed to fold in on itself, like a piece of filan to happen just as the store dick cah the other,roo the shoplifter would have locked the door, and Eddie thought he was going to take one hell of a splat against the far wall, but Eddie was never going to see it happen or not happen Before the shrinking space where the door between that world and this disappeared entirely, Eddie saw everything on that side freeze solid

The raph

All that re in sandy nowhere and running four feet to where it and its occupant now sat

"Won&039;t soot here?" the woman in the wheelchair asked�Dal, Dorothy," Eddie said "You ain&039;t in Kansas anymore"

The wo to hold thean to sob

Furious (and disgusted with hiered to his feet RolandLady Instead he went to pick up his knife

"Tell her!" Eddie shouted "You brought her, so go on and tell her, man!" And after a moment he added in a lower tone, "And then tell me how come she doesn&039;t remember herself"

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Roland did not respond Not at once He bent, pinched the hilt of the knife between the two reht hand, transferred it carefully to his left, and slipped it into the scabbard at the side of one gunbelt He was still trying to grapple hat he had sensed in the Lady&039;s ht him like a cat, froh the door The fight had begun the moment she sensed him There had been no lapse, because there had been no surprise He had experienced it but didn&039;t in the least understand it No surprise at the invading stranger in her e, terror, and the commencement of a battle to shake hi that battle�Dcould not, he suspected�Dbut that hadn&039;t kept her fro like hell He had felt a woer and hate

He had sensed only darkness in her�Dthis was a mind entombed in a cave-in

Except�D

Except that in the h the doorway and separated, he had wished�Dwished desperately�D that he could tarry a er One moment would have told so much Because the woman before the in Eddie&039;swalls Being in the Lady&039;s had been like lying naked in the dark while venomous snakes crawled all over you

Until the end

She had changed at the end

And there had been so he believed was vitally important, but he either could not understand it or relance)

the doorway itself, only in herabout

(you broke the forspecial it was you)

so As at studies, when you finally saw�D

"Oh, fuck you," Eddie said disgustedly "You&039;re nothing but a goddam machine"

He strode past Roland, went to the woman, knelt beside her, and when she put her ar swimmer, he did not draay but put his own ared her back

"It&039;s okay," he said "I reat, but it&039;s okay"

"Where are we?" she wept "Iwas sitting hoot out ofOxfordalive and now I&039;m here and I DON&039;T EVEN KNOW WHERE HERE IS!"

"Well, neither do I," Eddie said, holding her tighter, beginning to rock her a little, "but I guess we&039;re in it together I&039;m from where you&039;re froh the sa�Dwell, a little different, but saonna be just fine" As an afterthought he added: "As long as you like lobster"

She hugged hiht, Eddie will be all right now His brother is dead but he has soht now

But he felt a pang: a deep reproachful hurt in his heart He was capable of shooting�Dwith his left hand, anyway�Dof killing, of going on and on, slah miles and years, even dimensions, it seemed, in search of the Tower He was capable of survival, sometimes even of protection�Dhe had saved the boy Jake from a slow death at the way station, and from sexual consumption by the Oracle at the foot of the mountains�Dbut in the end, he had let Jake die Nor had this been by accident; he had committed a conscious act of da her; assure her it was going to be all right He could not have done that, and now the rue in his heart was joined by stealthy fear

Ifyou have given up your heart for the Tower, Roland, you have already lost A heartless creature is a loveless creature, and a loveless creature is a beast To be a beast is perhaps bearable, although the man who has become one will surely pay hell&039;s own price in the end, but what if you should gain your object? What if you should, heartless, actually storht but darkness in your heart, what could you do except degenerate froain one&039;s object as a beast would only be bitterly coain one&039;s object as aBut do you want to own it?

He thought of Allie, and of the girl who had once waited for hiht of the tears he had shed over Cuthbert&039;s lifeless corpse Oh, then he had loved Yes Then

I do want to love! he cried, but although Eddie was also crying a little noith the woer&039;s eyes remained as dry as the desert he had crossed to reach this sunless sea

5

He would answer Eddie&039;s question later He would do that because he thought Eddie would do well to be on guard The reason she didn&039;t remember was simple She wasn&039;t one woerous

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Eddie told her what he could, glossing over the shoot-out but being truthful about everything else

When he was done, she reether on her lap

Little strea out some miles to the east It was from these that Roland and Eddie had drawn their water as they hiked north At first Eddie had gotten it because Roland was too weak Later they had taken turns, always having to go a little further and search a little longer before finding a strearew steadily more listless as the mountains slumped, but the water hadn&039;t one yesterday, and although that ain, shouldering the hide water-skins and walking off without a word Eddie found this queerly discreet He didn&039;t want to be touched by the gesture�Dby anything about Roland, for that matter�Dand found he was, a little, just the same

She listened attentively to Eddie, not speaking at all, her eyes fixed on his At one uess she was five years older than he, at another he would guess fifteen There was one thing he didn&039;t have to guess about: he was falling in love with her

When he had finished, she sat for aat hihtfall, bring the lobsters and with their alien, lawyerly questions He had been particularly careful to describe them Better for her to be a little scared now than a lot scared when they came out to play He supposed she wouldn&039;t want to eat the what they had done to Roland&039;s hand and foot, not after she got a good close look at theer would win out over did-a-chick and dum-a-chum

Her eyes were far and distant

"Odetta?" he asked after perhaps five one by She had told hieous name

She looked back at him, startled out of her revery She smiled a little She said one word

"No"

He only looked at her, able to think of no suitable reply He thought he had never understood until that ative could be

"I don&039;t understand," he said finally "What are you no-ing?"

"All this" Odetta swept an ar ar the sea, the sky, the beach, the scruffy foothills where the gunslinger was now presu eaten alive by so Eddie didn&039;t really care to think about) Indicating, in short, this entire world

"I understand how you feel I had a pretty good case of the unrealitiesback, it seemed he had si hiet over it"

"No," she said again "I believe one of two things has happened, and no matter which one it is, I am still in Oxford , MississippiNone of this is real"

She went on If her voice had been louder (or perhaps if he had not been falling in love) it would almost have been a lecture As it was, it sounded more like lyric than lecture

Except, he had to keep re himself, bullshit&039;s what it really is, and you have to convince her of that For her sake

"I may have sustained a head injury," she said "They are notorious swingers of axe-handles and billy-clubs in Oxford Town "

OxfordTown

That produced a faint chord of recognition far back in Eddie&039;s mind She said the words in a kind of rhythm that he for some reason associated with HenryHenry and wet diapers Why? What? Didn&039;tto tellwhile you&039;re unconscious?"

"Or in a coh you thought it was preposterous, because it isn&039;t Look here"

She parted her hair carefully on the left, and Eddie could see she wore it to one side not just because she liked the style The old wound beneath the fall of her hair was scarred and ugly, not brown but a grayish-white

"I guess you&039;ve had a lot of hard luck in your tied i," she said "Maybe it all balances out I only showed you because I was in a coma for three weeks when I was five I dreamed a lot then I can&039;t remember what the dreams were, but I re to die just as long as I kept talking and it seeh she said they couldn&039;t make out one word in a dozen I do remember that the drea around

"As vivid as this place seems to be And you, Eddie"

When she said his naht Had it bad

"And him" She shivered "He seeht to I mean, we are real, no ave him a kind smile It was utterly without belief

"How did that happen?" he asked "That thing on your head?"

"It doesn&039;tthe point that what has happened once ain"

"No, but I&039;m curious"

"I was struck by a brick It was our first trip north We came to the town of Elizabeth , New JerseyWe came in the Jim Crow car"

"What&039;s that?"

She looked at hily, al, Eddie? In a bomb-shelter?"

"I&039;m from a different time," he said "Could I ask how old you are, Odetta?"

"Old enough to vote and not old enough for Social Security"

"Well, I guess that puts ently, I hope," she said, and smiled that radiant smile which made his arms prickle

"I&039;m twenty-three," he said, "but I was born in 1964�Dthe year you were living in when Roland took you"

"That&039;s rubbish"

"No I was living in 1987 when he took me"

"Well," she said after a ument for this as reality, Eddie"

"The Jim Crow carwas it where the black people had to stay?"

"The Negros," she said "Calling a Negro a black is a trifle rude, don&039;t you think?"

"You&039;ll all be calling yourselves that by 1980 or so," Eddie said "When I was a kid, calling a black kid a Negro was apt to get you in a fight It was aler"

She looked at hiain

"Tell me about the brick, then"

"Myto be married," Odetta said "Her name was Sophia, but my mother always called her Sister Blue because it was the color she always fancied &039;Or at least she fancied to fancy it,&039; was how my mother put it So I always called her Aunt Blue, even before IThere was a reception afterward I rehed

"Presents always look so wonderful to a child, don&039;t they, Eddie?"

He set presents Not what you got, not what soun toahead That&039;s what my irl I played with had asked if my daddy was rich, my mother told me that hat I was supposed to say if any of etting ahead

"So they were able to give Aunt Blue a lovely china set, and I remember"

Her voice faltered One hand rose to her te there

"Reave her a forspecial"

"What?"

"I&039;ue tangled I don&039;t knohy I&039; to tell you all this, anyway"

"Do you mind?"

"No I don&039;t ave her a special plate It hite, with delicate blue traceoven all around the rim" Odetta smiled a little Eddie didn&039;t think it was an entirely co about this memory disturbed her, and the way its immediacy seee situation she had found herself in, a situation which should be clai all or most of her attention, disturbed him