Because she was getting ready to go on another of her hunting expeditions - as Mia - when the kammen rang. And unlike Susannah, Mia has legs. She banquets on rich foods in a great hall, she talks with all her friends, she didn't go to Morehouse or to no house, and she has legs. So this one has legs. This one is both women, although she doesn't know it .
Suddenly Roland found himself hoping that they wouldn't meet Eddie. He might sense the difference even if Susannah herself didn't. And that could be bad. If Roland had had three wishes, like the foundling prince in a child's bedtime story, right now all three would have been for the same thing: to get through this business in Calla Bryn Sturgis before Susannah's pregnancy - Mia's pregnancy - became obvious. Having to deal with both things at the same time would be hard.
Perhaps impossible.
She was looking at him with wide, questioning eyes. Not because he'd called her by a name that wasn't hers, but because she wanted to know what they should do next.
"It's your city," he said. "I would see the bookstore. And the vacant lot." He paused. "And the rose. Can you take me?"
"Well," she said, looking around, "it's my city, no doubt about that, but Second Avenue sure doesn't look like it did back in the days when Detta got her kicks shoplifting in Macy's."
"So you can't find the bookstore and the vacant lot?" Roland was disappointed but far from desolate. There would be a way. There was always a -
"Oh, no problem there," she said. "The streets are the same. New York's just a grid, Roland, with the avenues running one way and the streets the other. Easy as pie. Come on."
The sign had gone back to don't walk, but after a quick glance uptown, Susannah took his arm and they crossed Fifty-fourth to the other side. Susannah strode fearlessly in spite of her bare feet. The blocks were short but crowded with exotic shops. Roland couldn't help goggling, but his lack of attention seemed safe enough; although the sidewalks were crowded, no one crashed into them. Roland could hear his bootheels clopping on the sidewalk, however, and could see the shadows they were casting in the light of the display windows.
Almost here , he thought. Were the force that brought us any more powerful, we would be here .
And, he realized, the force might indeed grow stronger, assuming that Callahan was right about what was hidden under the floor of his church. As they drew closer to the town and to the source of the thing doing this...
Susannah twitched his arm. Roland stopped immediately. "Is it your feet?" he asked.
"No," she said, and Roland saw she was frightened. "Why is it so dark ?"
"Susannah, it's night."
She gave his arm an impatient shake. "I know that, I'm not blind. Can't you..." She hesitated. "Can't you feel it?"
Roland realized he could. For one thing, the darkness on Second Avenue really wasn't dark at all. The gunslinger still couldn't comprehend the prodigal way in which these people of New York squandered the things those of Gilead had held most rare and precious. Paper; water; refined oil; artificial light. This last was everywhere. There was the glow from the store windows (although most were closed, the displays were still lit), the even harsher glow from a popkin-selling place called Blimpie's, and over all this, peculiar orange electric lamps that seemed to drench the very air with light. Yet Susannah was right. There was a black feel to the air in spite of the orange lamps. It seemed to surround the people who walked this street. It made him think about what Eddie had said earlier: This whole deal has gone nineteen .
But this darkness, more felt than seen, had nothing to do with nineteen. You had to subtract six in order to understand what was going on here. And for the first time, Roland really believed Callahan was right.
"Black Thirteen," he said.
"What?"
"It's brought us here, sent us todash, and we feel it all around us. It's not the same as when I flew inside the grapefruit, but it's like that."
"It feels bad," she said, speaking low.
"It is bad," he said. "Black Thirteen's very likely the most terrible object from the days of Eld still remaining on the face of the earth. Not that the Wizard's Rainbow was from then; I'm sure it existed even before - "
"Roland! Hey, Roland! Suze!"
They looked up and in spite of his earlier misgivings, Roland was immensely relieved to see not only Eddie, but Jake and Oy, as well. They were about a block and a half farther along. Eddie was waving. Susannah waved back exuberantly. Roland grabbed her arm before she started to run, which was clearly her intention.
"Mind your feet," he said. "You don't need to pick up some sort of infection and carry it back to the other side."