Wizard and glass - By Stephen King Page 0,227

want to do that, too.”

“Aye.”

Rusher was walking along a path through the seacliff woods. Through the thinning branches they could glimpse the ivied gray wall surrounding Mayor’s House and hear the rhythmic roar of waves breaking on the shingle below.

“You can get in safe, Susan?”

“No fear.”

“And you know what you and Sheemie are to do?”

“Aye. I feel better than I have in ages. It’s as if my mind is finally clear of some old shadow.”

“If so, it’s Alain you have to thank. I couldn’t have done it on my own.”

“There’s magic in his hands.”

“Yes.” They had reached the servants’ door. Susan dismounted with fluid ease. He stepped down himself and stood beside her with an arm around her waist. She was looking up at the moon.

“Look, it’s fattened enough so you can see the beginning of the Demon’s face. Does thee see it?”

A blade of nose, a bone of grin. No eye yet, but yes, he saw it.

“It used to terrify me when I was little.” Susan was whispering now, mindful of the house behind the wall. “I’d pull the blind when the Demon was full. I was afraid that if he could see me, he’d reach down and take me up to where he was and eat me.” Her lips were trembling. “Children are silly, aren’t they?”

“Sometimes.” He hadn’t been afraid of Demon Moon himself as a small child, but he was afraid of this one. The future seemed so dark, and the way through to the light so slim. “I love thee, Susan. With all my heart, I do.”

“I know. And I love thee.” She kissed his mouth with gentle open lips. Put his hand on her breast for a moment, then kissed the warm palm. He held her, and she looked past him at the ripening moon.

“A week until the Reap,” she said. “Fin de año is what the vaqueros and labradoros call it. Do they call it so in your land?”

“Near enough,” Roland said. “It’s called closing the year. Women go about giving preserves and kisses.”

She laughed softly against his shoulder. “Perhaps I’ll not find things so different, after all.”

“You must save all your best kisses for me.”

“I will.”

“Whatever comes, we’ll be together,” he said, but above them, Demon Moon grinned into the starry dark above the Clean Sea, as if he knew a different future.

CHAPTER VI

CLOSING THE YEAR

1

So now comes to Mejis fin de año, known in toward the center of Mid-World as closing the year. It comes as it has a thousand times before . . . or ten thousand, or a hundred thousand. No one can tell for sure; the world has moved on and time has grown strange. In Mejis their saying is “Time is a face on the water.”

In the fields, the last of the potatoes are being picked by men and women who wear gloves and their heaviest serapes, for now the wind has turned firmly, blowing east to west, blowing hard, and always there’s the smell of salt in the chilly air—a smell like tears. Los campesinos harvest the final rows cheerfully enough, talking of the things they’ll do and the capers they’ll cut at Reaping Fair, but they feel all of autumn’s old sadness in the wind; the going of the year. It runs away from them like water in a stream, and although none speak of it, all know it very well.

In the orchards, the last and highest of the apples are picked by laughing young men (in these not-quite-gales, the final days of picking belong only to them) who bob up and down like crow’s nest lookouts. Above them, in skies which hold a brilliant, cloudless blue, squadrons of geese fly south, calling their rusty adieux.

The small fishing boats are pulled from the water; their hulls are scraped and painted by singing owners who mostly work stripped to the waist in spite of the chill in the air. They sing the old songs as they work—

I am a man of the bright blue sea,

All I see, all I see,

I am a man of the Barony,

All I see is mine-o!

I am a man of the bright blue bay,

All I say, all I say,

Until my nets are full I stay

All I say is fine-o!

—and sometimes a little cask of graf is tossed from dock to dock. On the bay itself only the large boats now remain, pacing about the big circles which mark their dropped nets as a working dog may pace around a flock of sheep. At