The Dark Tower

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 déjà vu in a dream? Apparently so. She looks around and there are Eddie and Jake, grinning at her. 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 I DRINK NOZZ-ALA!

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 of Dandelo,” 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, do ya 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 more 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.

CHAPTER V: JOE COLLINS OF ODD’S LANE

ONE