Wizard and glass - Stephen King [281]
Rhea cackled delightedly. “Aye, it’s Thorin’s gilly that never was! Dearborn’s lovergirl!” Her cackling stopped abruptly. “Lovergirl of the young proddy who killed my Ermot. And he’ll pay for it, aye, so he will. Look closer, sai Jonas! Look closer!”
He did. Everything was clear now, and he thought he should have seen it earlier. Everything this girl’s aunt had feared had been true. Rhea had known, although why she hadn’t told anyone the girl had been screwing one of the In-World boys, Jonas didn’t know. And Susan had done more than just screw Will Dearborn; she’d helped him escape, him and his trail-mates, and she might well have killed two law-men for him, into the bargain.
The figure in the ball swam closer. Watching that made him feel a little dizzy, but it was a pleasant dizziness. Beyond the girl was the hut, faintly lit by a lamp which had been turned down to the barest core of flame. At first Jonas thought someone was sleeping in one corner, but on second glance he decided it was only a heap of hides that looked vaguely human.
“Do’ee spy the boys?” Rhea asked, seemingly from a great distance. “Do’ee spy em, m’lord sai?”
“No,” he said, his own voice seeming to come from that same distant place. His eyes were pinned to the ball. He could feel its light baking deeper and deeper into his brain. It was a good feeling, like a hot fire on a cold night. “She’s alone. Looks as if she’s waiting.”
“Aye.” Rhea gestured above the ball—a curt dusting-off movement of the hands—and the pink light was gone. Jonas gave a low, protesting cry, but no matter; the ball was dark again. He wanted to stretch his hands out and tell her to make the light return—to beg her, if necessary—and held himself back by pure force of will. He was rewarded by a slow return of his wits. It helped to remind himself that Rhea’s gestures were as meaningless as the puppets in a Pinch and Jilly show. The ball did what it wanted, not what she wanted.
Meanwhile, the ugly old woman was looking at him with eyes that were perversely shrewd and clear. “Waiting for what, do’ee suppose?” she asked.
There was only one thing she could be waiting for, Jonas thought with rising alarm. The boys. The three beardless sons of bitches from In-World. And if they weren’t with her, they might well be up ahead, doing their own waiting.
Waiting for him. Possibly even waiting for—
“Listen to me,” he said. “I’ll only speak once, and you best answer true. Do they know about that thing? Do those three boys know about the Rainbow?”
Her eyes shifted away from his. It was answer enough in one way, but not in another. She had had things her way all too long up there on her hill; she had to know who was boss down here. He leaned over again and grabbed her shoulder. It was horrible—like grabbing a bare bone that somehow still lived—but he made himself hold on all the same. And squeeze. She moaned and wriggled, but he held on.
“Tell me, you old bitch! Run your fucking gob!”
“They might know of it,” she whined. “The girl might’ve seen something the night she came to be—arrr, let go, ye’re killing me!”
“If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead.” He took another longing glance at the ball, then sat up straight in the saddle, cupped his hands around his mouth, and called: “Clay! Hold up!” As Reynolds and Renfrew reined back, Jonas raised a hand to halt the vaqs behind him.
The wind whispered through the grass, bending it, rippling it, whipping up eddies of sweet smell. Jonas stared ahead into the dark, even though he knew it was fruitless to look for them. They could be anywhere, and Jonas didn’t like the odds in an ambush. Not one bit.
He rode to where Clay and Renfrew were waiting. Renfrew looked impatient. “What’s the problem? Dawn’ll be breaking soon. We ought to get a move-on.”
“Do you know the huts in the Bad Grass?”
“Aye, most. Why—”
“Do you know one with a red door?”
Renfrew nodded and pointed northish. “Old Soony’s place. He had some sort of religious conversion—a dream or a vision or something. That’s when he painted the door of his