She didn’t know, but she believed she could find Lex if she had to. “It be right there between Third and Park,” she said. “That’s right, ain’t it?”

The boy, who had slipped back out but left the door ajar, heard this and nodded miserably. That was where it was, all right.

Well-a-well,Mia thought. It all does fine for now, good as it can do, anyway, and like that woman in the book said, tomorrow’s another day. Worry about it then. Right?

Right. She picked up the roast again and began to eat. The smacking sounds she made were really not much different from those made by the rat. Really not much different at all.

Two

Tian and Zalia had tried to give Eddie and Susannah their bedroom. Convincing them that their guests really didn’t want their bedroom—that sleeping there would actually make them uncomfortable—hadn’t been easy. It was Susannah who finally turned the trick, telling the Jaffordses in a hesitant, confiding voice that something awful had happened to them in the city of Lud, something so traumatic that neither of them could sleep easily in a house anymore. A barn, where you could see the door open to the outside world any time you wanted to take a look, was much better.

It was a good tale, and well told. Tian and Zalia listened with a sympathetic credulity that made Eddie feel guilty. A lot of bad things had happened to them in Lud, that much was true, but nothing which made either of them nervous about sleeping indoors. At least he guessed not; since leaving their own world, the two of them had only spent a single night (the previous) under the actual roof of an actual house.

Now he sat cross-legged on one of the blankets Zalia had given them to spread on the hay, the other two cast aside. He was looking out into the yard, past the porch where Gran-pere had told his tale, and toward the river. The moon flitted in and out of the clouds, first brightening the scene to silver, then darkening it. Eddie hardly saw what he was looking at. His ears were trained on the floor of the barn below him, where the stalls and pens were. She was down there somewhere, he was sure she was, but God, she was so quiet.

And by the way, whois she? Mia, Roland says, but that’s just a name. Who is she really?

But it wasn’t just a name. It means mother in the High Speech, the gunslinger had said.

It means mother.

Yeah. But she’s not the mother of my kid. The chap is not my son.

A soft clunk from below him, followed by the creak of a board. Eddie stiffened. She was down there, all right. He’d begun to have his doubts, but she was.