Alain squeezed gently down on her hands, using whatever it was he had in his own, his touch, sending it into her. She tried feebly to pull back, but he wouldn't let her. "Then what? What next?"
"She has a little silver medal."
"Yes?"
"She leans close and asks if I hear her. I can smell her breath. It reeks o' garlic. And other things, even worse." Susan's face wrinkled in distaste. "I say I hear her. Now I can see. I see the medal she has."
"Very well, Susan," Alain said. "What else do you see?"
"Rhea. She looks like a skull in the moonlight. A skull with hair."
"Gods," Cuthbert muttered, and crossed his arms over his chest.
"She says I should listen. I say I will listen. She says I should obey. I say I will obey. She says 'Aye, lovely, just so, it's a good girl y'are.' She's stroking my hair. All the time. My braid." Susan raised a dreaming, drowning hand, pale in the shadows of the crypt, to her blonde hair. "And then she says there's something I'm to do when my virginity's over. 'Wait,' she says, 'until he's asleep beside ye, then cut yer hair off yer head. Every strand. Right down to yer very skull.' "
The boys looked at her in mounting horror as her voice became Rhea's - the growling, whining cadences of the old woman of the Coos. Even the face - except for the coldly dreaming eyes - had become a hag's face.
" 'Cut it all, girl, every whore's strand of it, aye, and go back to him as bald as ye came from yer mother! See how he likes ye then!' "
She fell silent. Alain turned his pallid face to Roland. His lips were trembling, but still he held her hands.
"Why is the moon pink?" Roland asked. "Why is the moon pink when you try to remember?"
"It's her glam." Susan seemed almost surprised, almost g*y. Confiding. "She keeps it under her bed, so she does. She doesn't know I saw it."
"Are you sure?"
"Aye," Susan said, then added simply: "She would have killed me if she knew." She giggled, shocking them all. "Rhea has the moon in a box under her bed." She lilted this in the singsong voice of a small child.
"A pink moon," Roland said.
"Aye."
"Under her bed."
"Aye." This time she did pull her hands free of Alain's. She made a circle with them in the air, and as she looked up at it, a dreadful expression of greed passed over her face like a cramp. "I should like to have it, Roland. So I should. Lovely moon! I saw it when she sent me for the wood. Through her window. She looked ... young." Then, once again: "I sh'd like to have such a thing."
"No - you wouldn't. But it's under her bed?"
"Aye, in a magic place she makes with passes."
"She has a piece of Maerlyn's Rainbow," Cuthbert said in a wondering voice. "The old bitch has what your da told us about - no wonder she knows all she does!"
"Is there more we need?" Alain asked. "Her hands have gotten very cold. I don't like having her this deep. She's done well, but. . ."
"I think we're done."
"Shall I tell her to forget?"
Roland shook his head at once - they were ka-tet, for good or ill. He took hold of her fingers, and yes, they were cold.
"Susan?"
"Aye, dear."
"I'm going to say a rhyme. When I finish, you'll remember everything, as you did before. All right?"
She smiled and closed her eyes again. "Bird and bear and hare and fish. .."
Smiling, Roland finished, "Give my love her fondest wish."
Her eyes opened. She smiled. "You," she said again, and kissed him. "Still you, Roland. Still you, my love."
Unable to help himself, Roland put his arms around her.
Cuthbert looked away. Alain looked down at his boots and cleared his throat.
9
As they rode back toward Seafront, Susan with her arms around Roland's waist, she asked: "Will you take the glass from her?"
"Best leave it where it is for now. It was left in her safekeeping by Jonas, on behalf of Parson, I have no doubt. It's to be sent west with the rest of the plunder; I've no doubt of that, either. We'll deal with it when we deal with the tankers and Parson's men."
"Ye'd take it with us?"
"Take it or break it. I suppose I'd rather take it back to my father, but that has its own risks. We'll have to be careful. It's a powerful glam."
"Suppose she sees our plans? Suppose she warns Jonas or Kimba Rimer?"
"If she doesn't see us coming to take away her precious toy, I don't think she'll mind our plans one way or the other. I think we've put a scare into her, and if the ball has really gotten a hold on her, watching in it's what she'll mostly want to do with her time now."
"And hold onto it. She'll want to do that, too."
"Aye."
Rusher was walking along a path through the seacliff woods. Through the thinning branches they could glimpse the ivied gray wall surrounding Mayor's House and hear the rhythmic roar of waves breaking on the shingle below.
"You can get in safe, Susan?"
"No fear."
"And you know what you and Sheemie are to do?"
"Aye. I feel better than I have in ages. It's as if my mind is finally clear of some old shadow."
"If so, it's Alain you have to thank. I couldn't have done it on my own."