Wizard and glass - Stephen King [73]
“Caulked tight, ye are!” Rhea cried. “Good as ever was! But Thorin’ll see to that, so he will! As for you, my girl, I’ll tell yer a secret yer prissy aunt with her long nose ’n tight purse ’n little goosebump tits never knew: even a girl who’s intact don’t need to lack for a shiver now ’n then, if she knows how!”
The hag’s withdrawing fingers closed gently around the little nubbin of flesh at the head of Susan’s cleft. For one terrible second Susan thought they would pinch that sensitive place, which sometimes made her draw in a breath if it rubbed just so against the pommel of her saddle when she was riding, but instead the fingers caressed . . . then pressed . . . and the girl was horrified to feel a heat which was far from unpleasant kindle in her belly.
“Like a little bud o’ silk,” the old woman crooned, and her meddling fingers moved faster. Susan felt her hips sway forward, as if with a mind and life of their own, and then she thought of the old woman’s greedy, self-willed face, pink as the face of a whore by gaslight as it hung over the open box; she thought of the way the drawstring bag with the gold pieces in it had hung from the wrinkled mouth like some disgorged piece of flesh, and the heat she felt was gone. She drew back, trembling, her arms and belly and breasts breaking out in gooseflesh.
“You’ve finished what you were paid to do,” Susan said. Her voice was dry and harsh.
Rhea’s face knotted. “Ye’ll not tell me aye, no, yes, or maybe, impudent stripling of a girl! I know when I’m done, I, Rhea, the Weirding of Cöos, and—”
“Be still, and be on your feet before I kick you into the fire, unnatural thing.”
The old woman’s lips wriggled back from her few remaining teeth in a doglike sneer, and now, Susan realized, she and the witch-woman were back where they had been at the start: ready to claw each other’s eyes out.
“Raise hand or foot to me, you impudent cunt, and what leaves my house will leave handless, footless, and blind of eye.”
“I do not much doubt you could do it, but Thorin should be vexed,” Susan said. It was the first time in her life she had ever invoked a man’s name for protection. Realizing this made her feel ashamed . . . small, somehow. She didn’t know why that should be, especially since she had agreed to sleep in his bed and bear his child, but it was.
The old woman stared, her seamed face working until it folded into a parody of a smile that was worse than her snarl. Puffing and pulling at the arm of her chair, Rhea got to her feet. As she did, Susan quickly began to dress.
“Aye, vexed he would be. Perhaps you know best after all, missy; I’ve had a strange night, and it’s wakened parts of me better left asleep. Anything else that might have happened, take it as a compliment to yer youth ’n purity . . . and to yer beauty as well. Aye. You’re a beautiful thing, and there’s no doubtin it. Yer hair, now . . . when yer let it down, as ye will for Thorin, I wot, when ye lay with him . . . it glows like the sun, doesn’t it?”
Susan did not want to force the old hag out of her posturing, but she didn’t want to encourage these fawning compliments, either. Not when she could still see the hate in Rhea’s rheumy eyes, not when she could feel the old woman’s touch still crawling like beetles on her skin. She said nothing, only stepped into her dress, set it on her shoulders, and began to button up the front.
Rhea perhaps understood the run of her thoughts, for the smile dropped off her mouth and her manner grew businesslike. Susan found this a great relief.
“Well, never mind it. Ye’ve proved honest; ye may dress yerself and go. But not a word of what passed between us to Thorin, mind ye! Words between women need trouble no man’s ear, especially one as great as he.” Yet at this Rhea could not forbear a certain spasming sneer. Susan didn’t know if the old woman was aware of it or not. “Are we agreed?”
Anything, anything, just as long as I can be out of here and away.
“You declare me proved?”
“Aye, Susan, daughter of Patrick. So I do. But it’s not what I say that matters. Now . . . wait