The waste lands - Stephen King [149]
He told of following Shardik’s backtrail to the Portal of the Bear, and how, when he put his head against it, he’d found himself remembering the day he had talked his brother into taking him to Dutch Hill, so he could see The Mansion. He told about the cup and the needle, and how the pointing needle had become unnecessary once they realized they could see the Beam at work in everything it touched, even the birds in the sky.
Susannah took up the tale at this point. As she spoke, telling of how Eddie had begun to carve his own version of the key, Jake lay back, laced his hands together behind his head, and watched the clouds run slowly toward the city on their straight southeasterly course. The orderly shape they made showed the presence of the Beam as clearly as smoke leaving a chimney shows the direction of the wind.
She finished with the story of how they had finally hauled Jake into this world, closing the split track of his and Roland’s memories as suddenly and as completely as Eddie had closed the door in the speaking ring. The only fact she left out was really not a fact at all—at least, not yet. She’d had no morning sickness, after all, and a single missed period meant nothing by itself. As Roland himself might have said, that was a tale best left for another day.
Yet as she finished, she found herself wishing she could forget what Aunt Talitha had said when Jake told her this was his home now: Gods pity you, then, for the sun is going down on this world. It’s going down forever.
“And now it’s your turn, Jake,” Roland said.
Jake sat up and looked toward Lud, where the windows of the western towers reflected back the late afternoon light in golden sheets. “It’s all crazy,” he murmured, “but it almost makes sense. Like a dream when you wake up.”
“Maybe we can help you make sense of it,” Susannah said.
“Maybe you can. At least you can help me think about the train. I’m tired of trying to make sense of Blaine by myself.” He sighed. “You know what Roland went through, living two lives at the same time, so I can skip that part. I’m not sure I could ever explain how it felt, anyway, and I don’t want to. It was gross. I guess I better start with my Final Essay, because that’s when I finally stopped thinking that the whole thing might just go away.” He looked around at them somberly. “That was when I gave up.”
22
JAKE TALKED THE SUN down.
He told them everything he could remember, beginning with My Understanding of Truth and ending with the monstrous doorkeeper which had literally come out of the woodwork to attack him. The other three listened without a single interruption.
When he was finished, Roland turned to Eddie, his eyes bright with a mixture of emotions Eddie initially took for wonder. Then he realized he was looking at powerful excitement . . . and deep fear. His mouth went dry. Because if Roland was afraid—
“Do you still doubt that our worlds overlap each other, Eddie?”
He shook his head. “Of course not. I walked down the same street, and I did it in his clothes! But . . . Jake, can I see that book? Charlie the Choo-Choo?”
Jake reached for his pack, but Roland stayed his hand. “Not yet,” he said. “Go back to the vacant lot, Jake. Tell that part once more. Try to remember everything.”
“Maybe you should hypnotize me,” Jake said hesitantly. “Like you did before, at the way station.”
Roland shook his head. “There’s no need. What happened to you in that lot was the most important thing ever to happen in your life, Jake. In all our lives. You can remember everything.”
So Jake went through it again. It was clear to all of them that his experience in the vacant lot where Tom and Gerry’s once had