Song of Susannah (The Dark Tower #6)(37)

Music to her ears,Susannah thought dismally.All the things she's been thirsting to hear. And why? Because she is Mother.

"You'd trust him to me!" Mia cried. "Only to me, of course! Thank you!Thank you!"

Susannah spoke at last. Toldher not to trusthim. And was, of course, roundly ignored.

"I'd no more lie to you than break a promise to my own mother," said the voice on the phone. (Did you ever have one, sugar?Detta wanted to know.) "Even though the truth sometimes hurts, lies have a way of coming back to bite us, don't they? The truth of this matter is you won't have your chap for long, Mia, his childhood won't be like that of other children, normal children - "

"I know! Oh, I know!"

" - but for the five years youdo have him...or perhaps seven, it might be as many as seven...he'll have the best of everything. From you, of course, but also from us. Our interference will be minimal - "

Detta Walker leaped forward, as quick and as nasty as a grease-burn. She was only able to take possession of Susannah Dean's vocal cords for a moment, but it was aprecious moment.

"Dass raht, dahlin, dass raht," she cackled, "he won't come in yo' mouf or get it in you' hair!"

"Shut that bitch UP!"Sayre whipcracked, and Susannah felt the jolt as Mia shoved Detta head over heels - but still cackling - to the back of their shared mind again. Once more into the brig.

Had mah say, though, damn if I didn't!Detta cried.Ah tolethat honky muhfuh!

Sayre's voice in the telephone's earpiece was cold and clear. "Mia, do you have control or not?"

"Yes! Yes, I do!"

"Then don't let that happen again."

"I won't!"

And somewhere - it felt like above her, although there were no real directions here at the back of the shared mind - something clanged shut. It sounded like iron.

We reallyarein the brig, she told Detta, but Detta just went on laughing.

Susannah thought:I'm pretty sure I know who she is, anyway. Besides me, that is. This truth seemed obvious to her. The part of Mia that wasn't either Susannah or something summoned from the void world to do the Crimson King's bidding...surely the third part really was the Oracle, elemental or not; the female force that had at first tried to molest Jake and then had taken Roland, instead. That sad, craving spirit. She finally had the body she needed. One capable of carrying the chap.

"Odetta?" Sayre's voice, teasing and cruel. "Or Susannah, if you like that better? I promised you news, didn't I? It's kind of a good news - bad news thing, I'm afraid. Would you like to hear it?"

Susannah held her silence.

"The bad news is that Mia's chap may not be able to fulfill the destiny of his name by killing his father, after all. The good news is that Roland will almost surely be dead in the next few minutes. As for Eddie, I'm afraid there's no question. He doesn't have either your dinh's reflexes or his battle experience. My dear, you're going to be a widow very soon. That's the bad news."

She could hold her silence no longer, and Mia let her speak. "You lie! Abouteverything! "

"Not at all," Sayre said calmly, and Susannah realized where she knew that name from: the end of Callahan's story. Detroit. Where he'd violated his church's most sacred teaching and committed suicide to keep from falling into the hands of the vampires. Callahan had jumped out of a skyscraper window to avoid that particular fate. He had landed first in Mid-World, and gone from there, via the Unfound Door, into the Calla Borderlands. And what he'd been thinking, the Pere had told them, wasThey don't get to win, they don't get to win. And he was right about that,right, goddammit. But if Eddie died -

"We knew where your dinh and your husband would be most likely to end up, should they be swept through a certain doorway," Sayre told her. "And calling certain people, beginning with a chap named Enrico Balazar...I assure you, Susannah, that waseasy. "

Susannah heard the sincerity in his voice. If he didn't mean what he said, then he was the world's best liar.

"How could you find such a thing out?" Susannah asked. When there was no answer she opened her mouth to ask the question again. Before she could, she was tumbled backward once more. Whatever Mia might have been once, she had grown to incredible strength inside Susannah.

"Is she gone?" Sayre was asking.

"Yes, gone, in the back." Servile. Eager to please.

"Then come to us, Mia. The sooner you come to us, the sooner you can look your chap in the face!"

"Yes!" Mia cried, delirious with joy, and Susannah caught a sudden brilliant glimpse of something. It was like peeking beneath the hem of a circus tent at some bright wonder. Or a dark one.

What she saw was as simple as it was terrible: Pere Callahan, buying a piece of salami from a shopkeeper. AYankee shopkeeper. One who ran a certain general store in the town of East Stoneham, Maine, in the year of 1977. Callahan had told them all this story in the rectory...and Mia had been listening.

Comprehension came like a red sun rising on a field where thousands have been slaughtered. Susannah rushed forward again, unmindful of Mia's strength, screaming it over and over again:

"Bitch! Betraying bitch! Murdering bitch! You told them where the Door would send them! Where it would send Eddie and Roland! Oh youBITCH!"