“She came when the wind began to blow, and was up all through the storm, feeding the fire,” Nell said. “We thought the house would blow over, but it stood. She must be so tired. Wake her, Tim, but be gentle about it.” Tim kissed his mother’s cheek again and left the room. The Widow slept on in the dead man’s chair by the fire, her chin upon her breast, too tired even to snore. Tim shook her gently by the shoulder. Her head jiggled and rolled, then fell back to its original position. Filled with a horrid certainty, Tim went around to the front of the chair. What he saw stole the strength from his legs and he collapsed to his knees. Her veil had been torn away. The ruin of a face once beautiful hung slack and dead. Her one remaining eye stared blankly at Tim. The bosom of her black dress was rusty with dried blood, <strong>for</strong> her throat had been cut from ear to ear. He drew in breath to scream, but was unable to let it out, <strong>for</strong> strong hands had closed around his throat. Bern Kells had stolen into the main room from the mudroom, where he had been sitting on his trunk and trying to remember why he had killed the old woman. He thought it was the fire. He had spent two nights shivering under a pile of hay in Deaf Rincon’s barn, and <strong>this</strong> old kitty, she who had put all sorts of useless learning into his stepson’s head, had been warm as toast the whole time. ’Twasn’t right. He had watched the boy go into his mother’s room. He had heard Nell’s cries of joy, and each one was like a nail in his vitals. She had no right to cry out with anything but pain. She was the author of all his misery; had bewitched him with her high breasts, slim waist, long hair, and laughing eyes. He had believed her hold on his mind would lessen over the years, but it never had. Finally he simply had to have her. Why else would he have murdered his best and oldest friend? Now came the boy who had turned him into a hunted man. The bitch was bad and the whelp was worse. And what was that jammed into his belt? Was it a gun, by gods? Where had he gotten such a thing? Kells choked Tim until the boy’s struggles began to weaken and he simply hung from the woodsman’s strong hands, rasping. Then he plucked the gun from Tim’s belt and tossed it aside. “A bullet’s too good <strong>for</strong> a meddler such as <strong>you</strong>,” Kells said. His mouth was against Tim’s ear. Distantly—as if all sensation were retreating deep into his body—Tim felt his steppa’s beard tickling his skin. “So’s the knife I used to cut the diseased old bitch’s throat. It’s the fire <strong>for</strong> <strong>you</strong>, whelp. There’s plenty of coals yet. Enough to fry <strong>you</strong>r eyeballs and boil the skin from <strong>you</strong>r—” There was a low, meaty sound, and suddenly the choking hands were gone. Tim turned, gasping in air that burned like fire. Kells stood beside Big Ross’s chair, looking unbelievingly over Tim’s head at the gray fieldstone chimney. Blood pattered down on the right sleeve of his flannel woodsman’s shirt, which was still speckled with hay from his fugitive nights in Deaf Rincon’s barn. Above his right ear, his head had grown an ax-handle. Nell Ross stood behind him, the front of her nightgown spattered with blood. Slowly, slowly, Big Kells shuffled around to face her. He touched the buried blade of the ax, and held his hand out to her, the palm full of blood. “I cut the rope so, chary man!” Nell screamed into his face, and as if the words rather than the ax had done it, Bern Kells collapsed dead on the floor. Tim put his hands to his face, as if to blot from sight and memory the thing he had just seen . . . although he knew even then it would be with him the rest of his life. Nell put her arms around him and led him out onto the porch. The morning was bright, the frost on the fields beginning to melt, a misty haze rising in the air. “Are <strong>you</strong> all right, Tim?” she asked. He drew in a deep breath. The air in his throat was still warm, but no longer burning. “Yes. Are <strong>you</strong>?” “I’ll be fine,” said she. “We’ll be fine. It’s a beautiful morning, and we’re alive to see it.” “But the Widow . . .” Tim began to cry. They sat down on the porch steps and looked out on the yard where, not long ago, the Barony Covenanter had sat astride his tall black horse. Black horse, black heart, Tim thought. “We’ll pray <strong>for</strong> Ardelia Smack,” Nell said, “and all of Tree will come to her burying. I’ll not say Kells did her a favor—murder’s never a favor—but she suffered terribly <strong>for</strong> the last three years, and her life would not have been long, in any case. I think we should go to town, and see if the constable’s back from Taveres. On the way, <strong>you</strong> can tell me everything. Can thee help me hitch Misty and Bitsy to the wagon?” “Yes, Mama. But I have to get something, first. Something she gave me.” “All right. Try not to look at what’s left in there, Tim.” Nor did he. But he picked up the gun, and put it in his belt. . . .
*Which sounds like S, in the Low Speech.
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In The Wind Through the Keyhole, St
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OTHER DARK TOWER-RELATED WORKS BY S
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SCRIBNER A Division of Simon & Schu
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CONTENTS Foreword Starkblast The Sk
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STARKBLAST
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Oy was beyond them, at the edge of
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That volume, Magic Tales of the Eld
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The town well was on the other side
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“Come,” Roland said. “Eat.”
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Not long after the death of my moth
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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 and 38: “I guess you know all about these
- Page 39 and 40: THE WIND THROUGH THE KEYHOLE
- 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
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- 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
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- Page 75: He skirted the town, for he didn’
- 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