The Dark Tower - Stephen King [313]
Roland looked to Susannah.
She swung herself on her hands so she was in the door of the cell. The emaciated boy-thing in the corner uttered its weird bird-shriek again and pulled the supplicating hands back, crossing them at the wrists, turning their gesture into one of pathetic defense.
“No, honey.” This was a Detta Walker Susannah had never heard before, nor suspected. “No, honey, Ah ain’ goan hurt you, if Ah meant t’do dat, Ah’d just put two in yo’ haid, like Ah did that mahfah upstairs.”
She saw something in his eyes—perhaps just a minute widening that revealed more of the bloodshot whites. She smiled and nodded. “Dass ri’! Mistuh Collins, he daid! He ain’ nev’ goan come down he’ no mo an…whuh? Whut he do to you, Patrick?”
Above them, muffled by the stone, the wind gusted. The lights flickered; the house creaked and groaned in protest.
“Whuh he do t’you, boy?”
It was no good. He didn’t understand. She had just made up her mind to this when Patrick Danville put his hands to his stomach and held it. He twisted his face into a cramp that she realized was supposed to indicate laughter.
“He make you laugh?”
Patrick, crouched in his corner, nodded. His face twisted even more. Now his hands became fists that rose to his face. He rubbed his cheeks with them, then screwed them into his eyes, then looked at her. Susannah noticed there was a little scar on the bridge of his nose.
“He make you cry, too.”
Patrick nodded. He did the laughing mime again, holding the stomach and going ho-ho-ho; he did the crying mime, wiping tears from his fuzzy cheeks; this time he added a third bit of mummery, scooping his hands toward his mouth and making smack-smack sounds with his lips.
From above and slightly behind her, Roland said: “He made you laugh, he made you cry, he made you eat.”
Patrick shook his head so violently it struck the stone walls that were the boundaries of his corner.
“He ate,” Detta said. “Dass whut you trine t’say, ain’t it? Dandelo ate.”
Patrick nodded eagerly.
“He made you laugh, he made you cry, and den he ate whut came out. Cause dass what he do!”
Patrick nodded again, bursting into tears. He made inarticulate wailing sounds. Susannah worked her way slowly into the cell, pushing herself along on her palms, ready to retreat if the head-banging started again. It didn’t. When she reached the boy in the corner, he put his face against her bosom and wept. Susannah turned, looked at Roland, and told him with her eyes that he could come in now.
When Patrick looked up at her, it was with dumb, doglike adoration.
“Don’t you worry,” Susannah said—Detta was gone again, probably worn out from all that nice. “He’s not going to get you, Patrick, he’s dead as a doornail, dead as a stone in the river. Now I want you to do something for me. I want you to open your mouth.”
Patrick shook his head at once. There was fear in his eyes again, but something else she hated to see even more. It was shame.
“Yes, Patrick, yes. Open your mouth.”
He shook his head violently, his greasy long hair whipping from side to side like the head of a mop.
Roland said, “What—”
“Hush,” she told him. “Open your mouth, Patrick, and show us. Then we’ll take you out of here and you’ll never have to be down here again. Never have to be Dandelo’s dinner again.”
Patrick looked at her, pleading, but Susannah only looked back at him. At last he closed his eyes and slowly opened his mouth. His teeth were there, but his tongue was not. At some point, Dandelo must have tired of his prisoner’s voice—or the words it articulated, anyway—and had pulled it out.
Seven
Twenty minutes later, the two of them stood in the kitchen doorway,