Wizard and glass - By Stephen King Page 0,281

didn’t pull away until Rhea collapsed into a chair, gasping from one end and farting from the other.

“Listen to me,” the old woman hissed.

“I am.” Cordelia drew a chair over and sat beside her. At death’s door she might be, but once her eye fell on you, it was strangely hard to look away. Now Rhea’s fingers dipped inside the bodice of her dirty dress, brought out a silver charm of some kind, and began to move it back and forth rapidly, as if telling beads. Cordelia, who hadn’t felt sleepy all night, began to feel that way now.

“The others are beyond us,” Rhea said, “and the ball has slipped my grasp. But she—! Back to Mayor’s House she’s been ta’en, and mayhap we could see to her—we could do that much, aye.”

“You can’t see to anything,” Cordelia said distantly. “You’re dying.”

Rhea wheezed laughter and a trickle of yellowish drool. “Dying? Nay! Just done up and in need of a refreshment. Now listen to me, Cordelia daughter of Hiram and sister of Pat!”

She hooked a bony (and surprisingly strong) arm around Cordelia’s neck and drew her close. At the same time she raised her other hand, twirling the silver medallion in front of Cordelia’s wide eyes. The crone whispered, and after a bit Cordelia began to nod her understanding.

“Do it, then,” the old woman said, letting go. She slumped back in her chair, exhausted. “Now, for I can’t last much longer as I am. And I’ll need a bit o’ time after, mind ye. To revive, like.”

Cordelia moved across the room to the kitchen area. There, on the counter beside the hand-pump, was a wooden block in which were sheathed the two sharp knives of the house. She took one and came back. Her eyes were distant and far, as Susan’s had been when she and Rhea stood in the open doorway of Rhea’s hut in the light of the Kissing Moon.

“Would ye pay her back?” Rhea asked. “For that’s why I’ve come to ye.”

“Miss Oh So Young and Pretty,” Cordelia murmured in a barely audible voice. The hand not holding the knife floated up to her face and touched her ash-smeared cheek. “Yes. I’d be repaid of her, so I would.”

“To the death?”

“Aye. Hers or mine.”

“ ’Twill be hers,” Rhea said, “never fear it. Now refresh me, Cordelia. Give me what I need!”

Cordelia unbuttoned her dress down the front, pushing it open to reveal an ungenerous bosom and a middle which had begun to curve out in the last year or so, making a tidy little potbelly. Yet she still had the vestige of a waist, and it was here she used the knife, cutting through her shift and the top layers of flesh beneath. The white cotton began to bloom red at once along the slit.

“Aye,” Rhea whispered. “Like roses. I dream of them often enough, roses in bloom, and what stands black among em at the end of the world. Come closer!” She put her hand on the small of Cordelia’s back, urging her forward. She raised her eyes to Cordelia’s face, then grinned and licked her lips. “Good. Good enough.”

Cordelia looked blankly over the top of the old woman’s head as Rhea of the Cöos buried her face against the red cut in the shift and began to drink.

20

Roland was at first pleased as the muted jingle of harness and buckle drew closer to the place where the three of them were hunkered down in the high grass, but as the sounds drew closer still—close enough to hear murmuring voices as well as soft-thudding hooves—he began to be afraid. For the riders to pass close was one thing, but if they were, through foul luck, to come right upon them, the three boys would likely die like a nest of moles uncovered by the blade of a passing plow.

Ka surely hadn’t brought them all this way to end in such fashion, had it? In all these miles of Bad Grass, how could that party of oncoming riders possibly strike the one point where Roland and his friends had pulled up? But still they closed in, the sound of tack and buckle and men’s voices growing ever sharper.

Alain looked at Roland with dismayed eyes and pointed to the left. Roland shook his head and patted his hands toward the ground, indicating they would stay put. They had to stay put; it was too late to move without being heard.

Roland drew his guns.

Cuthbert and Alain did the same.

In