“Yes.” He clapped Callahan on the shoulder. The others would be able to read the book, and by reading might discover what it meant. Perhaps the story in the book was just a story…but how could it be, when…

“Pere?”

“Yes, Roland.”

“A novel is a story, isn’t it? A made-up story?”

“Yes, a long one.”

“But make-believe.”

“Yes, that’s what fiction means. Make-believe.”

Roland pondered this. Charlie the Choo-Choo had also been make-believe, only in many ways, many vital ways, it hadn’t been. And the author’s name had changed. There were many different worlds, all held together by the Tower. Maybe…

No, not now. He mustn’t think about these things now.

“Tell me about the town where Tower and his friend went,” Roland said.

“I can’t, really. I found it in one of the Maine telephone books, that’s all. Also a simplified zip code map that showed about where it is.”

“Good. That’s very good.”

“Roland, are you sure you’re all right?”

Calla,Roland thought. Callahan . He made himself smile. Made himself clap Callahan on the shoulder again.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Now let’s get back to town.”

Chapter V

The Meeting of the Folken

One

Tian Jaffords had never been more frightened in his life than he was as he stood on the stage in the Pavilion, looking down at the folken of Calla Bryn Sturgis. He knew there were likely no more than five hundred—six hundred at the very outside—but to him it looked like a multitude, and their taut silence was unnerving. He looked at his wife for comfort and found none there. Zalia’s face looked thin and dark and pinched, the face of an old woman rather than one still well within her childbearing years.

Nor did the look of this late afternoon help him find calm. Overhead the sky was a pellucid, cloudless blue, but it was too dark for five o’ the clock. There was a huge bank of clouds in the southwest, and the sun had passed behind them just as he climbed the steps to the stage. It was what his Gran-pere would have called weirding weather; omenish, say thankya. In the constant darkness that was Thunderclap, lightning flashed like great sparklights.

Had I known it would come to this, I’d never have started it a-going,he thought wildly. And this time there’ll be no Pere Callahan to haul my poor old ashes out of the fire . Although Callahan was there, standing with Roland and his friends—they of the hard calibers—with his arms folded on his plain black shirt with the notched collar and his Man Jesus cross hanging above.