“You keep that up, I’m gonna revoke your driver’s license,” Susannah said waspily.
Eddie ignored her. He was following Roland’s gaze. “What is it?”
“One way to find out.” He turned, hoisted Susannah from her chair, ~and planted her on his hip. “Let’s all take a look.”
“Put me down, big boy-I can make my way. Easier’n you boys, if you really want to know.”
As Roland gently lowered her to the grassy wheelrut, Eddie peered into the woods. The late light threw overlapping crosses of shadow, but he thought he saw what had caught Roland’s eye. It was a tall gray stone, almost completely hidden in a shag of vines and creepers.
Susannah slipped into the woods at the side of the road with eely sinuousness. Roland and Eddie followed.
“It’s a marker, isn’t it?” Susannah was propped on her hands studying die rectangular chunk of rock. It had once been straight, but now it leaned drunkenly to the right, like an old gravestone.
“Yes. Give me my knife, Eddie.”
Eddie handed it over, then hunkered next to Susannah as the gunslinger cut away the vines. As they fell, he could see eroded letters carved into the stone, and he knew what they said before Roland had uncovered even half of the inscription:
9
“WHAT DOES IT MEAN?” Susannah asked at last. Her voice was soft and awestruck; her eyes ceaselessly measured the gray stone plinth.
“It means that we’re nearing the end of this first stage.” Roland’s face was solemn and thoughtful as he handed his knife back to Eddie. “I think that we’ll keep to this old coach-road now-or rather, it will keep to us. It has taken up the path of the Beam. The woods will end soon. I expect a great change.”
“What is Mid-World?” Eddie asked.
“One of the large kingdoms which dominated the earth in the times before these. A kingdom of hope and knowledge and light-the sort of things we were trying to hold onto in my land before the darkness overtook us, as well. Some day if there’s time, I’ll tell you all the old stories… the ones I know, at least. They form a large tapestry, one which is beautiful but very sad.
“According to the old tales, a great city once stood at the edge of Mid-World-perhaps as great as your city of New York. It will be in ruins now, if it still exists at all. But there may be people… or monsters… or both. We’ll have to be on our guard.”
He reached out his two-fingered right hand and touched the inscription. “Mid-World,” he said in a low, meditative voice. “Who would have thought…” He trailed off.
“Well, there’s no help for it, is there?” Eddie asked.
The gunslinger shook his head. “No help.”
“Ka,” Susannah said suddenly, and they both looked at her.
10
THERE WERE TWO HOURS of daylight left, and so they moved on. The road continued southeast, along the path of the Beam, and two other overgrown roads-smaller ones-joined the one they were following. Along one side of the second were the mossy, tumbled remains of what must have once been an immense rock wall. Nearby, a dozen fat billy-bumblers sat upon the ruins, watching the pilgrims with their odd gold-ringed eyes. To Eddie they looked like a jury with hanging on its mind.
The road continued to grow wider and more clearly defined. Twice they passed the shells of long-deserted buildings. The second one, Roland said, might have been a windmill. Susannah said it looked haunted. “I wouldn’t be surprised,” the gunslinger replied. His matter-of-fact tone chilled both of them.
When darkness forced a halt, the trees were thinning and the breeze which had chased around tin-in all day became a light, warm wind. Ahead, the land continued to rise.
“We’ll come to the top of the ridge in a day or two,” Roland said. “Then we’ll see.”
“See what?” Susannah asked, but Roland only shrugged.
That night Eddie began to carve again, but with no real feeling of inspiration. The confidence and happiness he’d felt as the key first began to take shape had left him. His fingers felt clumsy and stupid. For the first time in months he thought longingly of how good it would be to have some heroin. Not a lot; he felt sure that a nickel bag and a rolled-up dollar bill would send him flying through this little carving project in no time flat.
“What are you smiling about, Eddie?” Roland asked. He was sitting on the other side of the campfire; the low, wind-driven flames danced capriciously between them.
“Was I smiling?”
“Yes.”
“I was just thinking about how stupid some people can be-you put them in a room with six doors, they’ll still walk into the walls. And then have the nerve to bitch about it.”
“If you’re afraid of what might be on the other side of the doors, maybe bouncing off the walls seems safer,” Susannah said.
Eddie nodded. “Maybe so.”
He worked slowly, trying to see the shapes in the wood-that little s-shape in particular. He discovered it had become very dim.
Please, God, help me not to fuck this up, he thought, but he was terribly afraid that he had already begun to do just that. At last he gave up, returned the key (which he had barely changed at all) to the gun-slinger, and curled up beneath one of the hides. Five minutes later, the dream about the boy and the old Markey Avenue playground had begun to unspool again.
11
JAKE STEPPED OUT OF his apartment building at about quarter of seven, which left him with over eight hours to kill. He considered taking the train out to Brooklyn right away, then decided it was a bad idea. A kid out of school was apt to attract more attention in the hinterlands than in the heart of a big city, and if he really had to search for the place and the boy he was supposed to meet there, he was cooked already.
No problem-o, the boy in the yellow T-shirt and green bandanna had said. You found the key and the rose, didn’t you? You’ll find me the same way.
Except Jake could no longer remember just how he had found the key and the rose. He could only remember the joy and the sense of surety which had filled his heart and head. He would just have to hope that would happen again. In the meantime, he’d keep moving. That was the best way to keep from being noticed in New York.
He walked most of the way to First Avenue, then headed back the way he had come, only sliding uptown little by little as he followed the pattern of the WALK lights (perhaps knowing, on some deep level, that even they served the Beam). Around ten o’clock he found himself in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Fifth Avenue. He was hot, tired, and depressed. He wanted a soda, but he thought he ought to hold onto what little money he had for as long as he could. He’d taken every cent out of the box he kept by his bed, but it only amounted to eight dollars, give or take a few cents.
A group of school-kids were lining up for a tour. Public school, Jake was almost sure-they were dressed as casually as he was. No blazers from Paul Stuart, no ties, no jumpers, no simple little skirts that cost a hundred and twenty-five bucks at places like Miss So Pretty or Tweenity. This crowd was Kmart all the way. On impulse, Jake stood at the end of the line and followed them into the museum.
The tour took an hour and fifteen minutes. Jake enjoyed it. The museum was quiet. Even better, it was air-conditioned. And the pictures were nice. He was particularly fascinated by a small group of Frederick Remington’s Old West paintings and a large picture by Thomas Hart Benton that showed a steam locomotive charging across the great plains toward Chicago while beefy farmers in bib overalls and straw hats stood in their fields and watched. He wasn’t noticed by either of the teachers with the group until the very end. Then a pretty black woman in a severe blue suit tapped him on the shoulder and asked who he was.
Jake hadn’t seen her coming, and for a moment his mind froze. Without thinking about what he was doing, he reached into his pocket and closed his hand around the silver key. His mind cleared immediately, and he felt calm again.
“My group is upstairs,” he said, smiling guiltily. “We’re supposed to be looking at a bunch of modern art, but I like the stuff down here a lot better, because they’re real pictures. So I sort of… you know…”
“Snuck away?” the teacher suggested. The comers of her lips twitched in a suppressed smile.
“Well, I’d rather think of it as French leave.” These words simply popped out of his mouth.
The students now staring at Jake only looked puzzled, but this time the teacher actually laughed. “Either yon don’t know or have forgotten,” she said, “but in the French Foreign Legion they used to shoot deserters. I suggest you rejoin your class at once, young man.”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you. They’ll be almost done now, anyway.”
“What school is it?”
“Markey Academy,” Jake said. This also just popped out.
He went upstairs, listening to the disembodied echo of foot-falls and low voices in the great space of the rotunda and wondering why he had said that. He had never heard of a place called Markey Academy in his life.
12
HE WAITED AWHILE IN the upstairs lobby, then noticed a guard looking at him with growing curiosity and decided it wouldn’t be wise to wait any longer-he would just have to hope the class he had joined briefly was gone.
He looked at his wristwatch, put an expression on his face that he hoped looked like Gosh! Look how late it’s getting!, and trotted back downstairs. The class-and the pretty black teacher who had laughed at the idea of French leave-was gone, and Jake decided it might be a good idea to get gone himself. He would walk awhile longer-slowly, in deference to the heat-and catch a subway.
