The Dark Tower

He looked at her anxiously. Doubtfully. Really? his eyes asked her, and she realized that only he—the poor needy Patrick inside, who had lived with this ability all his life and so took it for granted—could doubt the simple beauty of what he had done. Drawing made him happy; this much he’d always known. That his pictures could make others happy . . . that idea would take some getting used to. She wondered again how long Dandelo had had him, and how the mean old thing had come by Patrick in the first place. She supposed she’d never know. Meantime, it seemed very important to convince him of his own worth.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, it is wonderful. You’re a fine artist, Patrick. Looking at this makes me feel good.”

This time he forgot to hold his teeth together. And that smile, tongueless or not, was so wonderful she could have eaten it up. It made her fears and anxieties seem small and silly.

“May I keep it?”

Patrick nodded eagerly. He made a tearing motion with one hand, then pointed at her. Yes! Tear it off! Take it! Keep it!

She started to do so, then paused. His love (and his pencil) had made her beautiful. The only thing to spoil that beauty was the black splotch beside her mouth. She turned the drawing toward him, tapped the sore on it, then touched it on her own face. And winced. Even the lightest touch hurt. “This is the only damned thing,” she said.

He shrugged, raising his open hands to his shoulders, and she had to laugh. She did it softly so as not to wake Roland, but yes, she did have to laugh. A line from some old movie had occurred to her: I paint what I see.

Only this wasn’t paint, and it suddenly occurred to her that he could take care of the rotten, ugly, painful thing. As it existed on paper, at least.

Then she’ll be my twin, she thought affectionately. My better half; my pretty twin sis—

And suddenly she understood—

Everything? Understood everything?

Yes, she would think much later. Not in any coherent fashion that could be written down—if a + b = c, then c – b = a and c – a = b—but yes, she understood everything. Intuited everything. No wonder the dream-Eddie and dream-Jake had been impatient with her; it was so obvious.

Patrick, drawing her.

Nor was this the first time she had been drawn.

Roland had drawn her to his world . . . with magic.

Eddie had drawn her to himself with love.

As had Jake.

Dear God, had she been here so long and been through so much without knowing what ka-tet was, what it meant? Ka-tet was family.

Ka-tet was love.

To draw is to make a picture with a pencil, or maybe charcoal.

To draw is also to fascinate, to compel, and to bring forward. To bring one out of one’s self.

The drawers were where Detta went to fulfill herself.

Patrick, that tongueless boy genius, pent up in the wilderness. Pent up in the drawers. And now? Now?

Now he my forspecial, thought Susanna/Odetta/Detta, and reached into her pocket for the glass jar, knowing exactly what she was going to do and why she was going to do it.

When she handed back the pad without tearing off the sheet that now held her image, Patrick looked badly disappointed.

“Nar, nar,” said she (and in the voice of many). “Only there’s something I’d have you do before I take it for my pretty, for my precious, for my ever, to keep and know how I was at this where, at this when.”

She held out one of the pink rubber pieces, understanding now why Dandelo had cut them off. For he’d had his reasons.

Patrick took what she offered and turned it over between his fingers, frowning, as if he had never seen such a thing before. Susannah was sure he had, but how many years ago? How close might he have come to disposing of his tormentor, once and for all? And why hadn’t Dandelo just killed him then?

Because once he took away the erasers he thought he was safe, she thought.

Patrick was looking at her, puzzled. Beginning to be upset.

Susannah sat down beside him and pointed at the blemish on the drawing. Then she put her fingers delicately around Patrick’s wrist and drew it toward the paper. At first he resisted, then let his hand with the pink nubbin in it be tugged forward.

She thought of the shadow on the land that hadn’t been a shadow at all but a herd of great, shaggy beasts Roland called bannock. She thought of how she’d been able to smell the dust when Patrick began to draw the dust. And she thought of how, when Patrick had drawn the herd closer than it actually was (artistic license, and we all say thankya), it had actually looked closer. She remembered thinking that her eyes had adjusted and now marveled at her own stupidity. As if eyes could adjust to distance the way they could adjust to the dark.

No, Patrick had moved them closer. Had moved them closer by drawing them closer.