The Drawing of the Three (The Dark Tower #2)(71)

"I understand how you feel. I had a pretty good case of the unrealities myself at first."

But had he? Looking back, it seemed he had simply accepted, perhaps because he was sick, shaking himself apart in his need for junk.

"You get over it."

"No," she said again. "I believe one of two things has happened, and no matter which one it is, I am still in Oxford , Mississippi . None of this is real."

She went on. If her voice had been louder (or perhaps if he had not been falling in love) it would almost have been a lecture. As it was, it sounded more like lyric than lecture.

Except, he had to keep reminding himself, bullshit's what it really is, and you have to convince her of that. For her sake.

"I may have sustained a head injury," she said. "They are notorious swingers of axe-handles and billy-clubs in Oxford Town ."

OxfordTown.

That produced a faint chord of recognition far back in Eddie's mind. She said the words in a kind of rhythm that he for some reason associated with Henry ... Henry and wet diapers. Why? What? Didn't matter now.

"You're trying to tell me you think this is all some sort of dream you're having while you're unconscious?"

"Or in a coma," she said. "And you needn't look at me as though you thought it was preposterous, because it isn't. Look here."

She parted her hair carefully on the left, and Eddie could see she wore it to one side not just because she liked the style. The old wound beneath the fall of her hair was scarred and ugly, not brown but a grayish-white.

"I guess you've had a lot of hard luck in your time," he said.

She shrugged impatiently. "A lot of hard luck and a lot of soft living," she said. "Maybe it all balances out. I only showed you because I was in a coma for three weeks when I was five. I dreamed a lot then. I can't remember what the dreams were, but I remember my mamma said they knew I wasn't going to die just as long as I kept talking and it seemed like I kept talking all the time, although she said they couldn't make out one word in a dozen. I do remember that the dreams were very vivid."

She paused, looking around.

"As vivid as this place seems to be. And you, Eddie."

When she said his name his arms prickled. Oh, he had it, all right. Had it bad.

"And him." She shivered. "He seems the most vivid of all."

"We ought to. I mean, we are real, no matter what you think."

She gave him a kind smile. It was utterly without belief.

"How did that happen?" he asked. "That thing on your head?"

"It doesn't matter. I'm just making the point that what has happened once might very well happen again."

"No, but I'm curious."

"I was struck by a brick. It was our first trip north. We came to the town of Elizabeth , New Jersey . We came in the Jim Crow car."

"What's that?"

She looked at him unbelievingly, almost scornfully. "Where have you been living, Eddie? In a bomb-shelter?"

"I'm from a different time," he said. "Could I ask how old you are, Odetta?"

"Old enough to vote and not old enough for Social Security."

"Well, I guess that puts me in my place."

"But gently, I hope," she said, and smiled that radiant smile which made his arms prickle.

"I'm twenty-three," he said, "but I was born in 1964―the year you were living in when Roland took you."

"That's rubbish."

"No. I was living in 1987 when he took me."

"Well," she said after a moment. "That certainly adds a great deal to your argument for this as reality, Eddie."

"The Jim Crow car ... was it where the black people had to stay?"

"The Negros," she said. "Calling a Negro a black is a trifle rude, don't you think?"

"You'll all be calling yourselves that by 1980 or so," Eddie said. "When I was a kid, calling a black kid a Negro was apt to get you in a fight. It was almost like calling him a nigger."

She looked at him uncertainly for a moment, then shook her head again.

"Tell me about the brick, then."

"My mother's youngest sister was going to be married," Odetta said. "Her name was Sophia, but my mother always called her Sister Blue because it was the color she always fancied. 'Or at least she fancied to fancy it,' was how my mother put it. So I always called her Aunt Blue, even before I met her. It was the most lovely wedding. There was a reception afterward. I remember all the presents."

She laughed.

"Presents always look so wonderful to a child, don't they, Eddie?"

He smiled. "Yeah, you got that right. You never forget presents. Not what you got, not what somebody else got, either."

"My father had begun to make money by then, but all I knew is that we were getting ahead. That's what my mother always called it and once, when I told her a little girl I played with had asked if my daddy was rich, my mother told me that was what I was supposed to say if any of my other chums ever asked me that question. That we were getting ahead.

"So they were able to give Aunt Blue a lovely china set, and I remember...."

Her voice faltered. One hand rose to her temple and rubbed absently, as if a headache were beginning there.