Eddie gave her a brief hug and a kiss on the cheek. He glanced nervously across the street at the nude corpse (the little girl with the squashed head had, thankfully, wandered off down Forty-sixth Street toward the United Nations), then back at the gunslinger. “If what you said before is true, Roland, this business of time slipping its cogs is very bad news. What if instead of just seven minutes, it slips three months? What if the next time we get back here, Calvin Tower’s sold his lot? We can’t let that happen. Because that rose, man…that rose…” Tears had begun to slip out of Eddie’s eyes.

“It’s the best thing in the world,” Jake said, low.

“In all the worlds,” Roland said. Would it ease Eddie and Jake to know that this particular time-slip had probably been in Susannah’s head? That Mia had come out for seven minutes, had a look around, and then dived back into her hole like Punxsutawney Phil on Groundhog Day? Probably not. But he saw one thing in Susannah’s haggard face: she either knew what was going on, or suspected very strongly. It must be hellish for her, he thought.

“We have to do better than this if we’re really going to change things,” Jake said. “This way we’re not much better than vags ourselves.”

“We have to get to ’64, too,” Susannah said. “If we’re going to get hold of my dough, that is. Can we, Roland? If Callahan’s got Black Thirteen, will it work like a door?”

What it will work is mischief,Roland thought. Mischief and worse . But before he could say that (or anything else), the todash chimes began. The pedestrians on Second Avenue heard them no more than they saw the pilgrims gathered by the board fence, but the corpse across the street slowly raised his dead hands and placed them over his dead ears, his mouth turning down in a grimace of pain. And then they could see through him.

“Hold onto each other,” Roland said. “Jake, get your hand into Oy’s fur, and deep! Never mind if it hurts him!”

Jake did as Roland said, the chimes digging deep into his head. Beautiful but painful.

“Like a root canal without Novocain,” Susannah said. She turned her head and for one moment she could see through the board fence. It had become transparent. Beyond it was the rose, its petals now closed but still giving off its own quietly gorgeous glow. She felt Eddie’s arm slip around her shoulders.

“Hold on, Suze—whatever you do, hold on.”

She grasped Roland’s hand. For a moment longer she could see Second Avenue, and then everything was gone. The chimes ate up the world and she was flying through blind darkness with Eddie’s arm around her and Roland’s hand squeezing her own.

Sixteen