The plate gave a kind of moaning howl as it bolted above the dirt yard. Less than two seconds after it had left her hand, the potato lay in two pieces, one by the stuffy-guy’s gloved right hand and the other by its left. The plate itself stuck in the side of the barn door, quivering.

The boys raised a cheer. Benny hoisted his hand as his new friend had taught him, and Jake slapped him a high five.

“Great going, sai Eisenhart!” Jake called.

“Good hit! Say thankya!” Benny added.

Roland observed the way the woman’s lips drew back from her teeth at this hapless, well-meant praise—she looked like a horse that has seen a snake. “Boys,” he said, “I’d go inside now, were I you.”

Benny was bewildered. Jake, however, took another look at Margaret Eisenhart and understood. You did what you had to…and then the reaction set in. “Come on, Ben,” he said.

“But—”

“Come on .” Jake took his new friend by the shirt and tugged him back toward the kitchen door.

Roland let the woman stay where she was for a moment, head down, trembling with reaction. Strong color still blazed in her cheeks, but everywhere else her skin had gone as pale as milk. He thought she was struggling not to vomit.

He went to the barn door, grasped the plate at the grasping-place, and pulled. He was astounded at how much effort it took before the plate first wiggled and then pulled loose. He brought it back to her, held it out. “Thy tool.”

For a moment she didn’t take it, only looked at him with a species of bright hate. “Why do you mock me, Roland? How do’ee know Vaughn took me from the Manni Clan? Tell us that, I beg.”

It was the rose, of course—an intuition left by the touch of the rose—and it was also the tale of her face, which was a womanly version of the old Henchick’s. But how he knew what he knew was no part of this woman’s business, and he only shook his head. “Nay. But I do not mock thee.”

Margaret Eisenhart abruptly seized Roland by the neck. Her grip was dry and so hot her skin felt feverish. She pulled his ear to her uneasy, twitching mouth. He thought he could smell every bad dream she must have had since deciding to leave her people for Calla Bryn Sturgis’s big rancher.

“I saw thee speak to Henchick last night,” she said. “Will’ee speak to him more? Ye will, won’t you?”

Roland nodded, transfixed by her grip. The strength of it. The little puffs of air against his ear. Did a lunatic hide deep down inside everyone, even such a woman as this? He didn’t know.