Roland put his mouth close by Alain’s ear. “Be ready to help me.”

Alain nodded.

Roland turned to Susan. “After the first time we were together an-tet, you went to the stream in the grove.”

“Aye.”

“You cut some of your hair.”

“Aye.” That same dreaming voice. “So I did.”

“Would you have cut it all?”

“Aye, every lick and lock.”

“Do you know who told you to cut it?”

A long pause. Roland was about to turn to Alain when she said, “Rhea.” Another pause. “She wanted to fiddle me up.”

“Yes, but what happened later? What happened while you stood in the doorway?”

“Oh, and something else happened before.”

“What?”

“I fetched her wood,” said she, and said no more.

Roland looked at Cuthbert, who shrugged. Alain spread his hands. Roland thought of asking the latter boy to step forward, and judged it still wasn’t quite time.

“Never mind the wood for now,” he said, “or all that came before. We’ll talk of that later, mayhap, but not just yet. What happened as you were leaving? What did she say to you about your hair?”

“Whispered in my ear. And she had a Jesus-man.”

“Whispered what?”

“I don’t know. That part is pink.”

Here it was. He nodded to Alain. Alain bit his lip and stepped forward. He looked frightened, but as he took Susan’s hands in his own and spoke to her, his voice was calm and soothing.

“Susan? It’s Alain Johns. Do you know me?”

“Aye—Richard Stockworth that was.”

“What did Rhea whisper in your ear?”

A frown, faint as a shadow on an overcast day, creased her brow. “I can’t see. It’s pink.”

“You don’t need to see,” Alain said. “Seeing’s not what we want right now. Close your eyes so you can’t do it at all.”

“They are closed,” she said, a trifle pettishly. She’s frightened, Roland thought. He felt an urge to tell Alain to stop, to wake her up, and restrained it.

“The ones inside,” Alain said. “The ones that look out from memory. Close those, Susan. Close them for your father’s sake, and tell me not what you see but what you hear. Tell me what she said.”

Chillingly, unexpectedly, the eyes in her face opened as she closed those in her mind. She stared at Roland, and through him, with the eyes of an ancient statue. Roland bit back a scream.

“You were in the doorway, Susan?” Alain asked.

“Aye. So we both were.”

“Be there again.”

“Aye.” A dreaming voice. Faint but clear. “Even with my eyes closed I can see the moon’s light. ’Tis as big as a grapefruit.”

It’s the grapefruit, Roland thought. By which I mean, it’s the pink one.

“And what do you hear? What does she say?”