Yet Roland, who believed in omens and portents as routinely as Eddie had once believed in lightbulbs and Double-A batteries, had a tendency to dismiss his ka-tet’s odd and sudden infatuation with the number. They had grown close, he said, as close as any ka-tet could, and so their thoughts, habits, and little obsessions had a tendency to spread among them all, like a cold. He believed that Jake was facilitating this to a certain degree.

“You’ve got the touch, Jake,” he said. “I’m not sure that it’s as strong in you as it was in my old friend Alain, but by the gods I believe it may be.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jake had replied, frowning in puzzlement. Eddie did—sort of—and guessed that Jake would know, in time. If time ever began passing in a normal way again, that was.

And on the day Jake brought the muffin-balls, it did.

Three

They had stopped for lunch (more uninteresting vegetarian burritos, the deermeat now gone and the Keebler cookies little more than a sweet memory) when Eddie noticed that Jake was gone and asked the gunslinger if he knew where the kid had gotten off to.

“Peeled off about half a wheel back,” Roland said, and pointed along the road with the two remaining fingers of his right hand. “He’s all right. If he wasn’t, we’d all feel it.” Roland looked at his burrito, then took an unenthusiastic bite.

Eddie opened his mouth to say something else, but Susannah got there first. “Here he is now. Hi there, sugar, what you got?”

Jake’s arms were full of round things the size of tennis balls. Only these balls would never bounce true; they had little horns sticking up from them. When the kid got closer, Eddie could smell them, and the smell was wonderful—like fresh-baked bread.

“I think these might be good to eat,” Jake said. “They smell like the fresh sourdough bread my mother and Mrs. Shaw—the housekeeper—got at Zabar’s.” He looked at Susannah and Eddie, smiling a little. “Do you guys know Zabar’s?”

“ Isure do,” Susannah said. “Best of everything, mmm- hmmm. And they do smell fine. You didn’t eat any yet, did you?”

“No way.” He looked questioningly at Roland.

The gunslinger ended the suspense by taking one, plucking off the horns, and biting into what was left. “Muffin-balls,” he said. “I haven’t seen any in gods know how long. They’re wonderful.” His blue eyes were gleaming. “Don’t want to eat the horns; they’re not poison but they’re sour. We can fry them, if there’s a little deerfat left. That way they taste almost like meat.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” Eddie said. “Knock yourself out. As for me, I think I’ll skip the mushroom muff-divers, or whatever they are.”