didn’t come naturally to me—I know what com<strong>for</strong>t and sympathy are, but I’ve never been much good at giving such. I knew what it was to lose a parent, though. Young Bill and Young Roland had that much in common. “Did <strong>you</strong> finish <strong>you</strong>r candy?” I asked. “Don’t want the rest,” he said, and sighed. Outside the wind boomed hard enough to shake the building, then subsided. “I hate that sound,” he said—just what Jamie DeCurry had said. It made me smile a little. “And I hate being in here. It’s like I did something wrong.” “You didn’t,” I said. “Maybe not, but it already seems like I’ve been here <strong>for</strong>ever. Cooped up. And if they don’t get back be<strong>for</strong>e nightfall, I’ll have to stay longer. Won’t I?” “I’ll keep <strong>you</strong> company,” I said. “If those deputies have a deck of cards, we can play Jacks Pop Up.” “For babies,” said he, morosely. “Then Watch Me or poker. Can thee play those?” He shook his head, then brushed at his cheeks. The tears were flowing again. “I’ll teach thee. We’ll play <strong>for</strong> matchsticks.” “I’d rather hear the story <strong>you</strong> talked about when we stopped in the sheppie’s lay-by. I don’t remember the name.” “‘The Wind Through the Keyhole,’” I said. “But it’s a long one, Bill.” “We have time, don’t we?” I couldn’t argue that. “There are scary bits in it, too. Those things are all right <strong>for</strong> a boy such as I was—sitting up in his bed with his mother beside him—but after what <strong>you</strong>’ve been through . . .” “Don’t care,” he said. “Stories take a person away. If they’re good ones, that is. It is a good one?” “Yes. I always thought so, anyway.” “Then tell it.” He smiled a little. “I’ll even let <strong>you</strong> have two of the last three chockers.” “Those are <strong>you</strong>rs, but I might roll a smoke.” I thought about how to begin. “Do <strong>you</strong> know stories that start, ‘Once upon a bye, be<strong>for</strong>e <strong>you</strong>r grandfather’s grandfather was born’?” “They all start that way. At least, the ones my da’ told me. Be<strong>for</strong>e he said I was too old <strong>for</strong> stories.” “A person’s never too old <strong>for</strong> stories, Bill. Man and boy, girl and woman, never too old. We live <strong>for</strong> them.” “Do <strong>you</strong> say so?” “I do.” I took out my tobacco and papers. I rolled slowly, <strong>for</strong> in those days it was a skill yet new to me. When I had a smoke just to my liking—one with the draw end tapered to a pinhole—I struck a match on the wall. Bill sat cross-legged on the straw pallets. He took one of the chockers, rolled it between his fingers much as I’d rolled my smoke, then tucked it into his cheek. I started slowly and awkwardly, because storytelling was another thing that didn’t come naturally to me in those days . . . although it was a thing I learned to do well in time. I had to. All gunslingers have to. And as I went along, I began to speak more naturally and easily. Because I began hearing my mother’s voice. It began to speak through my own mouth: every rise, dip, and pause. I could see him fall into the tale, and that pleased me—it was like hypnotizing him again, but in a better way. A more honest way. The best part, though, was hearing my mother’s voice. It was like having her again, coming out from far inside me. It hurt, of course, but more often than not the best things do, I’ve found. You wouldn’t think it could be so, but—as the oldtimers used to say—the world’s tilted, and there’s an end to it. “Once upon a bye, be<strong>for</strong>e <strong>you</strong>r grandfather’s grandfather was born, on the edge of an unexplored wilderness called the Endless Forest, there lived a boy named Tim with his mother, Nell, and his father, Big Ross. For a time, the three of them lived happily enough, although they owned little. . . .”
THE WIND THROUGH THE KEYHOLE
- Page 2 and 3: In The Wind Through the Keyhole, St
- Page 4 and 5: OTHER DARK TOWER-RELATED WORKS BY S
- Page 7 and 8: SCRIBNER A Division of Simon & Schu
- Page 9 and 10: CONTENTS Foreword Starkblast The Sk
- Page 11 and 12: STARKBLAST
- Page 13 and 14: Oy was beyond them, at the edge of
- Page 15 and 16: That volume, Magic Tales of the Eld
- Page 17 and 18: The town well was on the other side
- Page 19 and 20: “Come,” Roland said. “Eat.”
- Page 21 and 22: Not long after the death of my moth
- Page 23 and 24: At that moment, we were thrown forw
- Page 25 and 26: “They may still be a year or more
- Page 27 and 28: world we grew up in, young men, the
- Page 29 and 30: on, hide them, then come back to th
- Page 31 and 32: wheels farther north, were the rock
- Page 33 and 34: uried—buried in people’s minds
- Page 35 and 36: and it grabs the men . . . it grabs
- Page 37: “I guess you know all about these
- Page 41 and 42: “I don’t know what you mean.”
- Page 43 and 44: seemed to do it without knowing the
- Page 45 and 46: to think about reading the Widow Sm
- Page 47 and 48: the drink, and he promised me, but
- Page 49 and 50: I’ll count to a hundred and then
- Page 51 and 52: Tim barely noticed. “I have to go
- Page 53 and 54: nightgown, but now the neck and bos
- Page 55 and 56: This time Tim had taken Misty, and
- Page 57 and 58: Covenant Man had made any particula
- Page 59 and 60: The moon was down when Tim dismount
- Page 61 and 62: If that wasn’t bad enough, there
- Page 63 and 64: ight hand—the one not holding the
- Page 65 and 66: They rose and scrambled back into t
- Page 67 and 68: “Use the green navigation sensor,
- Page 69 and 70: Daria didn’t reply, but Tim didn
- Page 71 and 72: It was the end of the joke, and som
- Page 73 and 74: tyger’s bib had been, turned into
- Page 75 and 76: He skirted the town, for he didn’
- Page 77 and 78: *Which sounds like S, in the Low Sp
- Page 79 and 80: “She told him not to look at what
- Page 81 and 82: They drew back, Pickens glaring at
- Page 83 and 84: I walked him to the door, and spoke
- Page 85 and 86: Ang twisted from the chin up. I don
- Page 87 and 88: the pigeon-ink in which they had be
- Page 89 and 90:
1 “That night,” Roland said,
- Page 91 and 92:
AFTERWORD In the High Speech, Gabri