"Youcare bout dat chap...and Susannah, she care alittle bout dat chap...but I been mos'ly turned out of this body, and I...don't...givea shit."
A woman pushing a stroller (it looked as divinely lightweight as Susannah's abandoned wheelchair) gave the woman on the bench a nervous glance and then pushed her own baby onward, so fast she was nearly running.
"So!" Detta said brightly. "It's be purty out here, don't you think? Good weather for talkin. You hear me, mamma?"
No reply from Mia, daughter of none and mother of one. Detta wasn't put out of countenance; her grin widened.
"You hear me, all right; you hear me justfahn. So let's us have a little chat. Let's us palaver."
STAVE: Commala-come-ko
Whatcha doin at my do'?
If you doan tell me now, my friend,
I'll lay ya on de flo'.
RESPONSE: Commala-come fo'!
I can lay ya low!
The things I done to such as you
You never want to know.
5th Stanza: The Turtle
One
Mia said:Talking will be easier - quicker and clearer, too - if we do it face-to-face.
How can we?Susannah asked.
We'll have our palaver in the castle,Mia replied promptly.The Castle on the Abyss. In the banquet room. Do you remember the banquet room?
Susannah nodded, but hesitantly. Her memories of the banquet room were but recently recovered, and consequently vague. She wasn't sorry, either. Mia's feeding there had been...well, enthusiastic, to say the very least. She'd eaten from many plates (mostly with her fingers) and drunk from many glasses and spoken to many phantoms in many borrowed voices. Borrowed? Hell,stolen voices. Two of these Susannah had known quite well. One had been Odetta Holmes's nervous - and rather hoity-toity - "social" voice. Another had been Detta's raucous who-gives-a-shit bellow. Mia's thievery had extended to every aspect of Susannah's personality, it seemed, and if Detta Walker was back, pumped up and ready to cut butt, that was in large part this unwelcome stranger's doing.
The gunslinger saw me there,Mia said.The boy, too.
There was a pause. Then:
I have met them both before.
Who? Jake and Roland?
Aye, they.
Where? When? How could y -
We can't speak here. Please. Let us go somewhere more private.
Someplace with a phone, isn't that what you mean? So your friends can call you.
I only know a little, Susannah of New York, but what little I know, I think you would hear.
Susannah thought so, too. And although she didn't necessarily want Mia to realize it, she was also anxious to get off Second Avenue. The stuff on her shirt might look like spilled egg-cream or dried coffee to the casual passerby, but Susannah herself was acutely aware of what it was: not just blood, but the blood of a brave woman who had stood true on behalf of her town's children.
And there were the bags spread around her feet. She'd seen plenty of bag-folkenin New York, aye. Now she felt like one herself, and she didn't like the feeling. She'd been raised to better, as her mother would have said. Each time someone passing on the sidewalk or cutting through the little park gave her a glance, she felt like telling them she wasn't crazy in spite of how she looked: stained shirt, dirty face, hair too long and in disarray, no purse, only those three bags at her feet. Homeless, aye - had anyone ever been as homeless as she, not just out of house but out of time itself? - but in her right mind. She needed to palaver with Mia and get an understanding of what all this was about, that was true. What shewanted was much simpler: to wash, to put on fresh clothes, and to be out of public view for at least a little while.
Might as well wish for the moon, sugar,she told herself...and Mia, if Mia was listening.Privacy costs money. You're in a version of New York where a single hamburger might cost as much as a dollar, crazy as that sounds. And you don't have a sou. Just a dozen or so sharpened plates and some kind of black-magic ball. So what are you gonna do?
Before she could get any further in her thinking, New York was swept away and she was back in the Doorway Cave. She'd been barely aware of her surroundings on her first visit - Mia had been in charge then, and in a hurry to make her getaway through the door - but now they were very clear. Pere Callahan was here. So was Eddie. And Eddie's brother, in a way. Susannah could hear Henry Dean's voice floating up from the cave's depths, both taunting and dismayed: "I'm in hell, bro! I'm in hell and I can't get a fix andit's all your fault! "
Susannah's disorientation was nothing to the fury she felt at the sound of that nagging, hectoring voice. "Most of what was wrong with Eddie wasyour fault! " she screamed at him. "You should have done everyone a favor and died young, Henry!"
Those in the cave didn't even look around at her. What was this? Had she come here todash from New York, just to add to the fun? If so, why hadn't she heard the chimes?
Hush. Hush, love.That was Eddie's voice in her mind, clear as day.Just watch.
Do you hear him?she asked Mia.Do you -
Yes! Now shut up!