“And I thee, Roland. What heart I have is yours.”
She had a great heart, he thought as she slipped through the willows, and already he felt its burden on his own. He waited until he felt sure she must be well away. Then he went to Rusher and rode off in the opposite direction, knowing that a new and dangerous phase of the game had begun.
14
Not too long after Susan and Roland had parted, Cordelia Delgado stepped out of the Hambry Mercantile with a box of groceries and a troubled mind. The troubled mind was caused by Susan, of course, always Susan, and Cordelia’s fear that the girl would do something stupid before Reaping finally came around.
These thoughts were snatched out of her mind just as hands-strong ones-snatched the box of groceries from her arms. Cordelia cawed in surprise, shaded her eyes against the sun, and saw Eldred Jonas standing there between the Bear and Turtle totems, smiling at her. His hair, long and white (and beautiful, in her opinion), lay over his shoulders. Cordelia felt her heart beat a little faster. She had always been partial to men like Jonas, who could smile and banter their way to the edge of risqueness… but who carried their bodies like blades.
“I startled you. I cry your pardon, Cordelia.”
“Nay,” she said, sounding a little breathless to her own ears. “It’s just the sun-so bright at this time of day-”
“I’d help you a bit on your way, if you give me leave. I’m only going up High as far as the comer, then I turn up the Hill, but may I help you that far?”
“With thanks,” she said. They walked down the steps and up the board sidewalk, Cordelia looking around in little pecking glances to see who was observing them-she beside the handsome sai Jonas, who just happened to be carrying her goods. There was a satisfying number of onlookers. She saw Millicent Ortega, for one, looking out of Ann’s Dresses with a satisfying 0 of surprise on her stupid cow’s puss.
“I hope you don’t mind me calling you Cordelia.” Jonas shifted the box, which she’d needed two hands to carry, casually under one arm. “I feel, since the welcoming dinner at Mayor Thorin’s house, that I know you.”
“Cordelia’s fine.”
“And may I be Eldred to you?”
“I think 'Mr. Jonas’ will do a bit longer,” she said, then favored him with what she hoped was a coquettish smile. Her heart beat faster yet. (It did not occur to her that perhaps Susan was not the only silly goose in the Delgado family.)
“So be it,” Jonas said, with a look of disappointment so comic that she laughed. “And your niece? Is she well?”
“Quite well, thank ye for asking. A bit of a trial, sometimes-”
“Was there ever a girl of sixteen who wasn’t?”
“I suppose not.”
“Yet you have additional burdens regarding her this fall. I doubt if he realizes that, though.”
Cordelia said nothing-'twouldn’t be discreet-but gave him a meaningful look that said much.
“Give her my best, please.”
“I will.” But she wouldn’t. Susan had conceived a great (and irrational, in Cordelia’s view) dislike for Mayor Thorin’s regulators. Trying to talk her out of these feelings would likely do no good; young girls thought they knew everything. She glanced at the star peeking unobtrusively out from beneath the flap of Jonas’s vest. “I understand ye’ve taken on an additional responsibility in our undeserving town, sai Jonas.”
“Aye, I’m helping out Sheriff Avery,” he agreed. His voice had a reedy little tremble which Cordelia found quite endearing, somehow. “One of his deputies-Claypool, his name is-”
“Frank Claypool, aye.”
“-fell out of his boat and broke his leg. How do you fall out of a boat and break your leg, Cordelia?”
She laughed merrily (the idea that everyone in Hambry was watching them was surely wrong… but it felt that way, and the feeling was not unpleasant) and said she didn’t know.
He stopped on the comer of High and Camino Vega, looking regretful. “Here’s where I turn.” He handed the box back to her. “Are you sure you can carry that? I suppose I could go on with you to your house-”
“No need, no need. Thank you. Thank you, Eldred.” The blush which crept up her neck and cheeks felt as hot as fire, but his smile was worth every degree of heat. He tipped her a little salute with two fingers and sauntered up the hill toward the Sheriff’s office.
Cordelia walked on home. The box, which had seemed such a burden when she stepped out of the mercantile, now seemed to weigh next to nothing. This feeling lasted for half a mile or so, but by the time her house came into view, she was once again aware of the sweat trickling down her sides, and the ache in her arms. Thank the gods summer was almost over… and wasn’t that Susan, just leading her mare in through the gate?
“Susan!” she called, now enough returned to earth for her former irritation with the girl to sound clear in her voice. “Come and help me, 'fore I drop this and break the eggs!”
Susan came, leaving Felicia to crop grass in the front yard. Ten minutes earlier, Cordelia would have noticed nothing of how the girl looked- her thoughts had been too wrapped up in Eldred Jonas to admit of much else. But the hot sun had taken some of the romance out of her head and returned her feet to earth. And as Susan took the box from her (handling it almost as easily as Jonas had done), Cordelia thought she didn’t much care for the girl’s appearance. Her temper had changed, for one thing- from the half-hysterical confusion in which she’d left to a pleasant and happy-eyed calmness. That was the Susan of previous years to the sleeve and seam… but not this year’s moaning, moody breast-beater. There was nothing else Cordelia could put her finger on, except-
But there was, actually. One thing. She reached out and grasped the girl’s braid, which looked uncharacteristically sloppy this afternoon. Of course Susan had been riding; that could explain the mess. But it didn’t explain how dark her hair was, as if that bright mass of gold had begun to tarnish. And she jumped, almost guiltily, when she felt Cordelia’s touch. Why, pray tell, was that?
“Yer hair’s damp, Susan,” she said. “Have ye been swimming somewhere?”
“Nay! I stopped and ducked my head at the pump outside Hockey’s barn. He doesn’t mind-'tis a deep well he has. It’s so hot. Perhaps there’ll be a shower later. I hope so. I gave Felicia to drink as well.”
The girl’s eyes were as direct and as candid as ever, but Cordelia thought there was something off in them, just the same. She couldn’t say what. The idea that Susan might be hiding something large and serious did not immediately cross Cordelia’s mind; she would have said her niece was incapable of keeping a secret any greater than a birthday present or a surprise party… and not even such secrets as those for more than a day or two. And yet something was off here. Cordelia dropped her fingers to the collar of the girl’s riding shirt.
“Yet this is dry.”
“I was careful,” she said, looking at her aunt with a puzzled eye. “Dirt sticks worse to a wet shirt. You taught me that, Aunt.”
“Ye flinched when I touched yer hair, Susan.”
“Aye,” Susan said, “so I did. The weird-woman touched it just that same way. I haven’t liked it since. Now may I take these groceries in and get my horse out of the hot sun?”
“Don’t be pert, Susan.” Yet the edginess in her niece’s voice actually eased her in some strange way. That feeling that Susan had changed, somehow-that feeling of offness-began to subside.
“Then don’t be tiresome.”
“Susan! Apologize to me!”
Susan took a deep breath, held it, then let it out. “Yes, Aunt. I do. But it’s hot.”
“Aye. Put those in the pantry. And thankee.”
Susan went on toward the house with the box in her arms. When the girl had enough of a lead so they wouldn’t have to walk together, Cordelia followed. It was all foolishness on her part, no doubt-suspicions brought on by her flirtation with Eldred-but the girl was at a dangerous age, and much depended on her good behavior over the next seven weeks. After that she would be Thorin’s problem, but until then she was Cordelia’s. Cordelia thought that, in the end, Susan would be true to her promise, but until Reaping Fair she would bear close watching. About such matters as a girl’s virginity, it was best to be vigilant.
Interlude
KANSAS, SOMEWHERE, SOMEWHEN
Eddie stirred. Around them the thinny still whined like an unpleasant mother-in-law; above them the stars gleamed as bright as new hopes… or bad intentions. He looked at Susannah, sitting with the stumps of her legs curled beneath her; he looked at Jake, who was eating a burrito; he looked at Oy, whose snout rested on Jake’s ankle and who was looking up at the boy with an expression of calm adoration.
The fire was low, but still it burned. The same was true of Demon Moon, far in the west.
“Roland.” His voice sounded old and rusty to his own ears.
The gunslinger, who had paused for a sip of water, looked at him with his eyebrows raised.
“How can you know every comer of this story?”
Roland seemed amused. “I don’t think that’s what you really want to know, Eddie.”
He was right about that-old long, tall, and ugly made a habit of being right. It was, as far as Eddie was concerned, one of his most irritating characteristics. “All right. How long have you been talking? That’s what I really want to know.”
“Are you uncomfortable? Want to go to bed?”
He’s making fun of me, Eddie thought… but even as the idea occurred to him, he knew it wasn’t true. And no, he wasn’t uncomfortable. There was no stiffness in his joints, although he had been sitting cross-legged ever since Roland had begun by telling them about Rhea and the glass ball, and he didn’t need to go to the toilet. Nor was he hungry. Jake was munching the single leftover burrito, but probably for the same reason folks climbed Mount Everest… because it was there. And why should he be hungry or sleepy or stiff? Why, when the fire still burned and the moon was not yet down?
He looked at Roland’s amused eyes and saw the gunslinger was reading his thoughts.
