The Waste Lands (The Dark Tower #3)(60)

“Hey, you need that, don’t you?” Eddie asked. “When I take it off, the voices return, but they’re very distant,” Roland said. “I can deal with them. Actually, I hear them even when I’m wearing it—like the voices of men who are speaking low over the next hill. I think that’s because the key is yet unfinished. You haven’t worked on it since you gave it to me.” “Well . . . you were wearing it, and I didn’t want to …” Roland said nothing, but his faded blue eyes regarded Eddie with their patient teacher’s look.

“All right,” Eddie said, “I’m afraid of f**king it up. Satisfied?” “According to your brother, you f**ked everything up … isn’t that right?” Susannah asked.

“Susannah Dean, Girl Psychologist. You missed your calling, sweetheart.” Susannah wasn’t offended by the sarcasm. She lifted the waterskin with her elbow, like a redneck tipping a jug, and drank deeply. “It’s true, though, isn’t it?”

Eddie, who realized he hadn’t finished the slingshot, either—not yet, at least—shrugged.

“You have to finish it,” Roland said mildly. “I think the time is coming when you’ll have to put it to use.”

Eddie started to speak, then closed his mouth. It sounded easy when you said it right out like that, but neither of them really understood the bottom line. The bottom line was this: seventy per cent or eighty or even ninety-eight and a half just wouldn’t do. Not this time. And if he did screw up, he couldn’t just toss the thing over his shoulder and walk away. For one thing, he hadn’t seen another ash-tree since the day he had cut this particular piece of wood. But mostly the thing that was f**king him up was just this: it was all or nothing. If he messed up even a little, the key wouldn’t turn when they needed it to turn. And he was increasingly nervous about that little squiggle at the end. It looked simple, but if the curves weren’t exactly right . . .

It won’t work the way it is now, though; that much you do know.

He sighed, looking at the key. Yes, that much he did know. He would have to try to finish it. His fear of failure would make it even harder than it maybe had to be, but he would have to swallow the fear and try anyway. Maybe he could even bring it off. God knew he had brought off a lot in the weeks since Roland had entered his mind on a Delta jet bound into JFK Airport. That he was still alive and sane was an accomplishment in itself. Eddie handed the key back to Roland. “Wear it for now,” he said. “I’ll go back to work when we stop for the night.”

“Promise?”

“Yeah.”

Roland nodded, took the key, and began to re-knot the rawhide string. He worked slowly, but Eddie did not fail to notice how dexterously die remaining fingers on his right hand moved. The man was nothing if not adaptable. “Something is going to happen, isn’t it?” Susannah asked suddenly. Eddie glanced up at her. “What makes you say so?” “I sleep with you, Eddie, and I know you dream every night now. Sometimes you talk, too. They don’t seem like nightmares, exactly, but it’s pretty clear that something is going on inside your head.” “Yes. Something is. I just don’t know what.” “Dreams are powerful,” Roland remarked. “You don’t remember the ones you’re having at all?”

Eddie hesitated. “A little, but they’re confused. I’m a kid again, I know that much. It’s after school. Henry and I are shooting hoops at the old Markey Avenue playground, where the Juvenile Court Building is now. I want Henry to take me to see a place over in Dutch Hill. An old house. The kids used to call it The Mansion, and everyone said it was haunted. Maybe it even was. It was creepy, I know that much. Real creepy.”

Eddie shook his head, remembering.

“I thought of The Mansion for the first time in years when we were in the bear’s clearing, and I put my head close to that weird box. I dunno—maybe that’s why I’m having the dream.”

“But you don’t think so,” Susannah said. “No. I think whatever’s happening is a lot more complicated than just remembering stuff.”

“Did you and your brother actually go to this place?” Roland asked. “Yeah—I talked him into it.”

“And did something happen?”

“No. But it was scary. We stood there and looked at it for a little while, and Henry teased me—saving he was going to make me go in and pick up a souvenir, stuff like that—but I knew he didn’t really mean it. He was as scared of the place as I was.”

“And that’s it?” Susannah asked. “You just dream of going to this place? The Mansion?”

“There’s a little more than that. Someone comes . . . and then just land of hangs out. I notice him in the dream, but just a little . . . like out of the corner of my eye, you know? Only I know we’re supposed to pretend we don’t know each other.”

“Was this someone really there that day?” Roland asked. He was watching Eddie intently, “Or is he only a player in this dream?” “That was a long time ago. I couldn’t have been more than thirteen. How could I remember a thing like that for sure?”

Roland said nothing.

“Okay,” Eddie said at last. “Yeah. I think he was there that day. A kid who was either carrying a gym-bag or wearing a backpack, I can’t remember which. And sunglasses that were too big for his face. The ones with the mirror lenses.” “Who was this person?” Roland asked.