Wizard and glass - Stephen King [230]
Cuthbert was reluctant to involve Sheemie, but finally went along—the boy’s part would be minimal, if not exactly low-risk, and Roland agreed that they could take him with them when they left Mejis for good. A party of five was as fine as a party of four, he said.
“All right,” Cuthbert said at last, then turned to Susan. “It ought to be you or me who talks to him.”
“I will.”
“Make sure he understands not to tell Coral Thorin so much as a word,” Cuthbert said. “It isn’t that the Mayor’s her brother; I just don’t trust that bitch.”
“I can give ye a better reason than Hart not to trust her,” Susan said. “My aunt says she’s taken up with Eldred Jonas. Poor Aunt Cord! She’s had the worst summer of her life. Nor will the fall be much better, I wot. Folk will call her the aunt of a traitor.”
“Some will know better,” Alain said. “Some always do.”
“Mayhap, but my Aunt Cordelia’s the sort of woman who never hears good gossip. No more does she speak it. She fancied Jonas herself, ye ken.”
Cuthbert was thunderstruck. “Fancied Jonas! By all the fiddling gods! Can you imagine it! Why, if they hung folk for bad taste in love, your auntie would go early, wouldn’t she?”
Susan giggled, hugged her knees, and nodded.
“It’s time we left,” Roland said. “If something chances that Susan needs to know right away, we’ll use the red stone in the rock wall at Green Heart.”
“Good,” Cuthbert said. “Let’s get out of here. The cold in this place eats into the bones.”
Roland stirred, stretching life back into his legs. “The important thing is that they’ve decided to leave us free while they round up and run. That’s our edge, and it’s a good one. And now—”
Alain’s quiet voice stopped him. “There’s another matter. Very important.”
Roland sank back down on his hunkers, looking at Alain curiously.
“The witch.”
Susan started, but Roland only barked an impatient laugh. “She doesn’t figure in our business, Al—I can’t see how she could. I don’t believe she’s a part of Jonas’s conspiracy—”
“Neither do I,” Alain said.
“—and Cuthbert and I persuaded her to keep her mouth shut about Susan and me. If we hadn’t, her aunt would have raised the roof by now.”
“But don’t you see?” Alain asked. “Who Rhea might have told isn’t really the question. The question is how she knew in the first place.”
“It’s pink,” Susan said abruptly. Her hand was on her hair, fingers touching the place where the cut ends had begun to grow out.
“What’s pink?” Alain asked.
“The moon,” she said, and then shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m talking about. Brainless as Pinch and Jilly, I am . . . Roland? What’s wrong? What ails thee?”
For Roland was no longer hunkering; he had collapsed into a loose sitting position on the petal-strewn stone floor. He looked like a young man trying not to faint. Outside the mausoleum there was a bony rattle of fall leaves and the cry of a nightjar.
“Dear gods,” he said in a low voice. “It can’t be. It can’t be true.” His eyes met Cuthbert’s.
All the humor had washed out of the latter young man’s face, leaving a ruthless and calculating bedrock his own mother might not have recognized . . . or might not have wanted to.
“Pink,” Cuthbert said. “Isn’t that interesting—the same word your father happened to mention just before we left, Roland, wasn’t it? He warned us about the pink one. We thought it was a joke. Almost.”
“Oh!” Alain’s eyes flew wide open. “Oh, fuck!” he blurted. He realized what he had said while sitting leg-to-leg with his best friend’s lover and clapped his hands over his mouth. His cheeks flamed red.
Susan barely noticed. She was staring at Roland in growing fear and confusion. “What?” she asked. “What is it ye know? Tell me! Tell me!”
“I’d like to hypnotize you again, as I did that day in the willow grove,” Roland said. “I want to do it right now, before we talk of this more and drag mud across what you remember.”
Roland had reached into his pocket while she was speaking. Now he took out a shell, and it began to dance across the back of his hand once more. Her eyes