“Yes. We can watch her, but there’s not much else we can do. We can’t even keep her still in hopes of slowing things down, because she’d very likely guess why we were doing it. And we need her. To shoot when the time comes, but before that, we’ll have to train some of these people with whatever weapons they feel comfortable with. It’ll probably turn out to be bows.” Roland grimaced. In the end he had hit the target in the North Field with enough arrows to satisfy Cort, but he had never cared for bow and arrow or bah and bolt. Those had been Jamie DeCurry’s choice of weapons, not his own.

“We’re really gonna go for it, aren’t we?”

“Oh yes.”

And Eddie smiled. Smiled in spite of himself. He was what he was. Roland saw it and was glad.

Six

As they walked back to Callahan’s rectory-house, Eddie asked: “You came clean with me, Roland, why not come clean with her?”

“I’m not sure I understand you.”

“Oh, I think you do,” Eddie said.

“All right, but you won’t like the answer.”

“I’ve heard all sorts of answers from you, and I couldn’t say I’ve cared for much more than one in five.” Eddie considered. “Nah, that’s too generous. Make it one in fifty.”

“The one who calls herself Mia—which means mother in the High Speech—kens she’s carrying a child, although I doubt she kens what kind of a child.”

Eddie considered this in silence.

“Whatever it is, Mia thinks of it as her baby, and she’ll protect it to the limit of her strength and life. If that means taking over Susannah’s body—the way Detta Walker sometimes took over Odetta Holmes—she’ll do it if she can.”

“And probably she could,” Eddie said gloomily. Then he turned directly to Roland. “So what I think you’re saying—correct me if I’ve got it wrong—is that you don’t want to tell Suze she might be growing a monster in her belly because it might impair her efficiency.”

Roland could have quibbled about the harshness of this judgment, but chose not to. Essentially, Eddie was right.

As always when he was angry, Eddie’s street accent became more pronounced. It was almost as though he were speaking through his nose instead of his mouth. “And if anything changes over the next month or so—if she goes into labor and pops out the Creature from the Black Lagoon, for instance—she’s gonna be completely unprepared. Won’t have a clue.”

Roland stopped about twenty feet from the rectory-house. Inside the window, he could see Callahan talking to a couple of young people, a boy and a girl. Even from here he could see they were twins.

“Roland?”