Shut up! Shut up your lying face!
Out at the basins, the birdy-women laughed so shrilly that Mia felt her eyeballs shiver and threaten to liquefy in their sockets. She wanted to rush out and seize their heads and drive them into the mirrors, wanted to do it again and again until their blood was splashed all the way up to the ceiling and theirbrains -
Temper, temper,said the woman inside, and now it sounded like Susannah again.
She lies! That bitch LIES!
No,Susannah replied, and the conviction in that single short word was enough to send an arrow of fear into Mia's heart.She says what's on her mind, no argument there, but she doesn't lie. Go on, Mia, turn your shirt inside out.
With a final eye-watering burst of laughter, the birdy-women left the bathroom. Mia pulled the shirt off over her head, baring Susannah's br**sts, which were the color of coffee with just the smallest splash of milk added in. Her ni**les, which had always been as small as berries, were now much larger. Nipples craving a mouth.
There were only the faintest maroon spots on the inside of the shirt. Mia put it back on, then unbuttoned the front of her jeans so she could tuck it in. Susannah stared, fascinated, at the point just above her pubic thatch. Here her skin lightened to a color that might have been milk with the smallest splash of coffee added in. Below were the white legs of the woman she'd met on the castle allure. Susannah knew that if Mia lowered her jeans all the way, she'd see the scabbed and scratched shins she had already observed as Mia - thereal Mia - looked out over Discordia toward the red glow marking the castle of the King.
Something about this frightened Susannah terribly, and after a moment's consideration (it took no longer), the reason came to her. If Mia had only replaced those parts of her legs that Odetta Holmes had lost to the subway train when Jack Mort pushed her onto the tracks she would have been white only from the knees or so down. But herthighs were white, too, and her groin area was turning. What strange lycanthropy was this?
De body-stealin kind,Detta replied cheerfully.Pretty soon you be havin a white belly...white breas's...white neck...white cheeks...
Stop it,Susannah warned, but when had Detta Walker ever listened to her warnings? Hers or anybody's?
And den, las' of all, you have a whitebrain,girl! A Mia brain! And won't dat be fahn? Sho! You be all Mia den! Nobody give you no shit if you want to ride right up front on de bus!
Then the shirt was drawn over her hips; the jeans were again buttoned up. Mia sat down on the toilet ring that way. In front of her, scrawled on the door, was this graffito: BANGO SKANK AWAITS THE KING!
Who is this Bango Skank?Mia asked.
I have no idea.
I think...It was hard, but Mia forced herself.I think I owe you a word of thanks.
Susannah's response was cold and immediate.Thank me with the truth.
First tell me why you'd help me at all, after I...
This time Mia couldn't finish. She liked to think of herself as brave - as brave as she had to be in the service of her chap, at least - but this time she couldn't finish.
After you betrayed the man I love to men who are, when you get right down to it, footsoldiers of the Crimson King? After you decided it would be all right for them to kill mine so long as you could keep yours? Is that what you want to know?
Mia hated to hear it spoken of that way, but bore it.Had to bear it.
Yes, lady, if you like.
It was the other one who replied this time, in that voice - harsh, cawing, laughing, triumphant, and hateful - that was even worse than the shrill laughter of the birdy-women. Worse by far.
Because mah boys got away, dass why! Fucked those honkies mos' righteous! The ones dey didn't shoot all blowed to smithereens!
Mia felt a deep stirring of unease. Whether it was true or not, the bad laughing woman clearlybelieved it was true. And if Roland and Eddie Dean were still out there, wasn't it possible the Crimson King wasn't as strong, as all-powerful, as she had been told? Wasn't it even possible that shehad been misled about -
Stop it, stop it, you can't think that way!
There's another reason I helped.The harsh one was gone and the other was back. At least for now.
What?
It's my baby, too,Susannah said.I don't want it killed.
I don't believe you.
But she did. Because the woman inside was right: Mordred Deschain of Gilead and Discordia belonged to both of them. The bad one might not care, but the other, Susannah, clearly felt the chap's tidal pull. And if she was right about Sayre and whoever waited for her at the Dixie Pig...if they were liars and cozeners...
Stop it. Stop. I have nowhere else to go but to them.
You do,Susannah said quickly.With Black Thirteen you can go anywhere.
You don't understand. He'd follow me. Followit.
You're right, Idon'tunderstand. She actually did, orthought she did, but...Burn up the day,he'd said.
All right, I'll try to explain. I don't understand everything myself - there are things I don't know - but I'll tell you what I can.