a little smaller. Once we leave the Badlands behind, it may heal on its own."
"Do you really say so?"
The gunslinger shook his head at once. "I say may. Now lie over, Susannah. Take your rest."
"All right, but don't you let me sleep late this time. I want to watch my share."
"Yes. Now lie over."
She did as he said, and was asleep even before her eyes closed.
TEN
She's in Central Park and it's cold enough to see her breath. The sky overhead is white from side to side, a snow-sky, but she's not cold. No, not in her new deerskin coat, leggings, vest, and funny deerskin mittens.
There's something on her head, too, pulled down over her ears and keeping them as toasty as the rest of her. She takes the cap off, curious, and sees it's not deerskin like the rest of her new clothing, but a red-and-green stocking cap. Written across the front is MERRY CHRISTMAS.
She looks at it, startled. Can you have deja vu in a dream? Apparently so. She looks around and there ave Eddie and Jake, grinning at hen Their heads are bare and she realizes she has in her hands a combination of the caps they were wearing in some other dream. She feels a great, soaring burst of joy, as if she has just solved some supposedly insoluble problem: squaring the circle, let us say, or finding the Ultimate Prime Number (take that, Blaine, may it bust ya brain, ya crazy choochoo train).
Eddie is wearing a sweatshirt that says IDRINK NOZZ-A-LA!
Jake is wearing one that says I DRIVE THE TAKURO SPIRIT!
Both have cups of hot chocolate, the perfect kind mit schlag on top and little sprinkles of nutmeg dotting the cream.
"What world is this?" she asks them, and realizes that somewhere nearby carolers are singing "What Child Is This."
"You must let him go his course alone," says Eddie.
"Yar, and you must beware ofDandelo," says Jake.
"I don't understand, "Susannah says, and holds out her stocking cap to them. "Wasn't this yours? Didn't you share it?"
"It could be your hat, if you want it," says Eddie, and then holds out his cup. "Here, I brought you hot chocolate."
"No more twins," says Jake. "There's only one hat, doya not see."
Before she can reply, a voice speaks out of the air and the dream begins to unravel. "NINETEEN," says the voice. "This is NINETEEN, this is CHASSIT".
With each word the world becomes mow unreal. She can see through Eddie and Jake. The good smell of hot chocolate is fading, being replaced by the smell of ash
(Wednesday)
and leather. She sees Eddie's lips moving and she thinks he's saying a name, and then ELEVEN
"Time to get up, Susannah," Roland said. "It's your watch."
She sat up, looking around. The campfire had burned low.
"I heard him moving out there," Roland said, "but that was some time ago. Susannah, are you all right? Were you dreaming?"
"Yes," she said. "There was only one hat in this dream, and I was wearing it."
"I don't understand you."
Nor did she understand herself. The dream was already fading, as dreams do. All she knew for sure was that the name on Eddie's lips just before he faded away for good had been that of Patrick Danville.
Part Four:THE WHITE LANDS OF EMPATHICA Chapter V:JOE COLLINS OF ODD’S LANE
ONE
Three weeks after the dream of one hat, three figures (two large, one small) emerged from a tract of upland forest and began to move slowly across a great open field toward more woods below.
One of the large figures was pulling the other on a contraption that was more sled than travois.
Oy raced back and forth between Roland and Susannah, as if keeping a constant watch. His fur was thick and sleek from cold weather and a constant diet of deermeat. The land the three of them were currently covering might have been a meadow in die warmer seasons, but now the ground was buried under five feet of snow. The pulling was easier, because their way was finally leading downward. Roland actually dared hope the worst was over. And crossing the White Lands had not been too bad-at least, not yet. There was plenty of game, there was plenty of wood for their nightly fire, and on the four occasions when the weather turned nasty and blizzards blew, they had simply laid up and waited for the storms to wear themselves out on the wooded ridges that marched southeast. Eventually they did, although the angriest of these blizzards lasted two full days, and