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    The Wind Through the Keyhole: The Dark Tower IV-1/2
    The Wind Through the Keyhole: The Dark Tower IV-1/2
    The Wind Through the Keyhole: The Dark Tower IV-1/2
    Ebook388 pages7 hours

    The Wind Through the Keyhole: The Dark Tower IV-1/2

    By Stephen King

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    In his New York Times bestselling The Wind Through the Keyhole, Stephen King returns to the spectacular territory of the Dark Tower fantasy saga to tell a story about gunslinger Roland Deschain in his early days.

    The Wind Through the Keyhole is a sparkling contribution to the series that can be placed between Dark Tower IV and Dark Tower V. This Russian doll of a novel, a story within a story within a story, visits Roland and his ka-tet as a ferocious, frigid storm halts their progress along the Path of the Beam. Roland tells a tale from his early days as a gunslinger, in the guilt-ridden year following his mother’s death. Sent by his father to investigate evidence of a murderous shape-shifter, Roland takes charge of Bill Streeter, a brave but terrified boy who is the sole surviving witness to the beast’s most recent slaughter. Roland, himself only a teenager, calms the boy by reciting a story from the Book of Eld that his mother used to read to him at bedtime, “The Wind through the Keyhole.” “A person’s never too old for stories,” he says to Bill. “Man and boy, girl and woman, we live for them.”

    And stories like The Wind Through the Keyhole live for us with Stephen King’s fantastical magic that “creates the kind of fully imagined fictional landscapes a reader can inhabit for days at a stretch” (The Washington Post).
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherScribner
    Release dateApr 24, 2012
    ISBN9781451658927
    The Wind Through the Keyhole: The Dark Tower IV-1/2
    Author

    Stephen King

    Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes Never Flinch (May 2025), the short story collection You Like It Darker (a New York Times Book Review top ten horror book of 2024), Holly (a New York Times Notable Book of 2023), Fairy Tale, Billy Summers, If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and a television series streaming on Peacock). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower, It, Pet Sematary, Doctor Sleep, and Firestarter are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest-grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King. 

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    Reviews for The Wind Through the Keyhole

    4.5/5

    133 ratings74 reviews

    What our readers think

    Readers find this title to be a great addition to the Dark Tower series. It is beautifully written with a strong plot and characters. The book provides a nice break from the intensity of the previous books and can be enjoyed as a standalone story. It is a great story within a story and readers are left wanting more Dark Tower books. Overall, readers enjoy reading this book and find it to be a self-contained story.

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      This entry was actually written after the series conclusion but fits between books 4 & 5. It doesn't advance the journey at all but does add more background to Roland's character. It's another tale from his past told by Roland to his companions as they wait out a particularly nasty storm.Roland, accompanied by another young gunslinger in the shape of Jamie DeCurry, has been sent to investigate claims of a skin walker terrorising the town of Debaria and its surrounding area. A skin walker has almost become a creature of myth and legend where a man has the ability to assume animal form and it seems this one can choose any creature it wants. With multiple murders already committed then can the two young gunslingers prevent further atrocities? This tale is split in two and each part bookends the retelling of an old story by Roland to a young survivor from the latest attack to give him courage for an upcoming ordeal.This was a pretty enjoyable diversion from the ongoing saga and while it doesn't progress the main story it's certainly worth the read. Not only do we get to learn more of Roland as a young man but the story within a story was also quite compelling. Quite good for a cash-in novel.
    • 4/5
      I wrote this paragraph last. Call it poor planning on my part (for King's part, see below). I wouldn't want you to read the rest of this review and not understand this: I loved the book. It's totally engrossing. The setting is rich, and the story (in a story, in a story) is a total page-turner. I mean it; I recommend the book without reservation.

      Still, I wasn't so sure King knew where he was going from the outset, and the story suffers a bit due to his poor planning. It's a guess, but I think he sort of sat down and let the ideas pour. It's mostly the uneven, back-weighted pacing that led me to that conclusion, but I can see it in some other areas too. (Mild spoilers ahead)

      For example, King rolls in young gunslinger Jamie as if he's to be fleshed out and turned into a real boy, but I had the sense that story got away from its author and Curry wasn't needed to carry the tale after all, so he remained wooden, taciturn, and superfluous. In reverse, but still probably a result of the same poor planning, we see Roland all but adopt Billy Streeter while there's really not enough material presented in the book to weave them together so tightly. I'm assuming King decided early-on where the relationship would go and then never had a chance to write the scenes that justify Roland's attachment. That said, I do entertain the unsupported possibility that young Roland is feeling some backwards transference from the Jake-Roland relationship occurring later in his life or compounding Tim with Billy.

      I think the poor planning also shows up in the way King handled exposition. For about a third of the book, he over explains and dumbs-down his material. That's in addition to peppering the book with opportunities, both forced and somewhat natural, for back-story. That makes sense if one plans on later presenting a lot of ideas that could otherwise only have been understood by veteran readers. He doesn't. I think he planned to, but most of the catch-up was unnecessary. I'm pretty sure standalone readers could make it through the whole thing with hardly any of that. So, back to my original point, if King knew where he was going, I don't think he would have worried so much about easing new readers into Mid-World. For example, why reintroduce the ka-tet so carefully when we never return to them for more than an obligatory wrapper at the end of the book. He packs it in for the new readers (or forgetful fans) and then never unpacks.

      In terms of structure, of the three stories, two were developed and significant while one was only a vehicle for the others. I forgive that because the wrapper had to exist -- it's the enteric coating that allowed King to slip the others into the Dark Tower stream. Still, he could have weighted them appropriately. My guess is that he planned to do more with the ka-tet at the end of the book, but when he got there, he realized he'd already said all he needed.

      Anyhow, I had a great time reading the book and the inmost story is going to stick with me for a long time.
    • 5/5
      Loved it. So good to be back in Mid-World, with beloved characters and the 'voice' that makes the words come alive.
    • 4/5
      King finally gets back to the story telling in these two fables. The painful dialogue that King has evolved in his last books is missing as he relates his two fables of Mid-World. Full of clear story telling and imaginative darkness that fills King's earlier work.
    • 4/5
      I'll keep this short and sweet. Not the best Dark Tower novel. But how could it be? It's a supplement. It adds to the world that King created, giving it a deeper mythology and making it more "real". Despite a story that, I think, is somewhat cliche, it was entertaining, which is really what I look for in a King novel.
    • 4/5
      This book is a Russian nesting doll of stories that work as a piece providing background on Roland before beginning his quest for the Dark Tower, as well as giving more history to Mid-World through a story all children hear from their parents.It all begins as Roland and his ka-tet, having just had a run-in with Randall Flagg and the Tick-Tock Man, find themselves stuck inside during a starkblast, a vicious Mid-World storm that destroys anything in its path. This is the first story. While the ka-tet waits out the storm, Roland tells them a story of his own past, happening just after the tale he tells in Wizard and Glass where he is tricked by the witch Rhea into killing his own mother. This story involves a series of killings believed to be caused by a "Skin-Man," someone who can transform into various animal forms. Roland and his friend Jamie are sent to investigate and deal with this Skin-Man. This is the second story. Finally, in the middle of Roland's mission to find the skin-man, he tells a young boy the tale of Tim Ross, a childhood tale most in Mid-World know, and the title story "The Wind Through the Keyhole." This is the third story, and the most important.It is in the title story that we learn more about Maerlyn, the wizard who was so vital to Arthur Eld, along with some more history on Randall Flagg/Marten Broadcloack/Walter O'Dim, who is the major antagonist in the tale. How this particular fact could pass anyone in Roland's family, allowing Broadcloak to do all the damage he did, is unclear to me, but here we are. We also get Maerlyn's take on the Crimson King, called the "Red King" by that great wizard.This one is interesting in the way King nests his tales. We start at the very beginning getting hints about the title story due to the oncoming starkblast, but in order to tell that tale, Roland first feels the need to share a story of his own past that relates tangentially and picks up where we left off in his backstory in Wizard and Glass. Not only is "The Wind Through the Keyhole" important to Roland's childhood, it is also an important piece of his long quest for the Dark Tower and all he'll face there.
    • 3/5
      For some reason, I didn't find this one as enjoyable as the other entries in the series; I suspect it's due in part to the thinness of the book - only slightly larger than The Gunslinger, and certainly not the doorstop that volumes 5 and 7 are - but something about it just feels "off" to me.

      The characters are their usual selves; Eddie is appropriately manic, Roland predictably stern with Jake and Susannah (and let us not forget Oy) in varying degrees in the middle. The first section just seems like King was fishing for a convenient reason to expose more of Roland's backstory. While I'm all for hearing more about Roland's (mis)adventures between leaving Mejis in Wizard and Glass and turning up in Tull in The Gunslinger, I don't know that we really need more arbitrary framework for it; Little Sisters of Eluria did just fine as a one-off that just told the story it came to tell. Essentially, it felt like King just wasted roughly 70 pages before getting to any part of the story that mattered (at least, for those who've already read the other Dark Tower books; I suppose some context of the ka-tet might help others, but...)

      Once we get to the "real" story, that of Roland and Jamie DeCurry heading out of Gilead in pursuit of a monstrous assailant, it perks up quite a bit. The pacing is quick - though sometimes overburdened with information and nods to pop-culture or the other novels in the series, which is probably not much of an issue to a Dark Tower fan but may impede enjoyment for newcomers - and the characters interesting. In particular, I found the allusions to Stephen Deschain's actions and motives fascinating, disturbing and properly foreshadowing (aftshadowing?) Roland's character and actions in the other novels.

      Then the book reveals it's true nature of being a puzzle box. We started with Roland and his current ka-tet; then Roland begins telling a story of his past. Come a properly dramatic moment, young Roland then begins a tale of his own. This tale-within-a-tale(within-another-tale) is done in proper fairy-tale tones but still resonates with King's unique linguistic style and echoes certain characters from the main narrative; the Covenant Man, in particular, bears watching. As the fairy-tale ends and we come back to the story of Roland and Jaime, it leaves you with a certain satisfaction but still craving more; once the adventure of young Roland winds down and we're back to the "present" - which is to say, immediately preceding Wolves of the Calla - it feels like someone gave you a rude shove out of a pleasant dream.

      Don't get me wrong; I love the series overall, and I like both of the "inner" stories, but the wrapper it's clothed in felt unnecessary and forced. Had it just been "Young Roland Adventures" - or even just the titular fairy-tale - I'd have rated it higher, but as things stand, 3/5.
    • 3/5
      It didn't really do much to add to the Dark Tower story as the characters there sit down to listen to Roland tell a story. And he tells two, one nesting within the other. I liked it but I can understand those who hoped for more of Roland and the ka-tet being disappointed. Perhaps there will be another story one of these days.
    • 4/5
      Stephen King returns to Mid-World and gunslinger Roland Deschain. I am a fan of the Dark Tower series and loved this book. Other reviews have complained of the story within a story, like Inception, but I thought it suited the story.
    • 4/5
      Loved this book. I expected it to be so bad and out-of-touch with the feeling of the other Dark Tower books, but it wasn't. It felt like it fitted perfectly into the Dark Tower storyline/sequence. I did feel that Tim Ross's story was a bit too drawn-out, and I wish the Debaria side-story had gotten some more of the book's time.
    • 5/5
      I so love Roland and his ka-tet! What a pleasant little surprise this was for me. Long after the final dark tower book was released, we are gifted with this tale within a tale within a tale. Roland and the gang are riding out a vicious storm when he begins to tell them about his time tracking a skin-walker. Embedded in this tale is the true meat of the book, a fable from his childhood about Tim Stoutheart. It is beautifully written and crafted in mid-world, but a story of bravery anyone could appreciate. I think I enjoyed this so much because I love the stories of Roland as a boy (my favorite being of course the Wizard and Glass). We are given the chance to see what shaped him into the gunslinger he is today. This was short by King's standards-- only 300 pages. Despite this, it transported me into the beloved world of the Ka-tet. Great for lovers of the series, but I am sure it would stand on it's own prettty darn well and for that I say Thankyee sai.
    • 5/5
      Great fairy tale. Reminded me a lot of King's "Eyes of the Dragon." And it was nice to be back with Roland and his ka-tet for a little while. Very fast read, too. Not King's usual doorstop, but a very enjoyable read. If you haven't read the other Dark Tower books, this actually wouldn't be a bad introduction, in spite of the fact that the frame story takes place midway through the Dark Tower series.
    • 4/5
      The main frame story shows us our incredible ka-tet in a very nostalgic light. It's light and fun and, in a way I think is really brilliant, neutral enough to fit as a kind of "in-between" story. I read it after a year-long break from the series, midway through #5, and the tone of the frame fitted my previous impressions perfectly. However, it doesn't give us anything major. Roland's tale is interesting - especially the first part - and the titular tale is very fun, but neither really gives a truly solid pay-off. All three have excellent action but fizzle out at the end, as if closure was intentionally avoided to make this seem, again, like an "in-between" addition or supplement to the series.
    • 5/5
      What a joy to read another story set in the mid-world of the Dark Tower!Stephen King re-visits Roland's ka-tet as they journey towards the Calla (between Wizard & Glass, and Wolves of the Calla), and are forced to seek shelter from a violent and rare storm. While they wait for it to pass, Roland tells a story of his younger years, and within that true tale, a bed-time story his mother used to tell, a story which taught him how to recognize the coming of the storm they are now waiting out...
    • 4/5
      Just as good as all the other Dark Tower books!
    • 5/5
      So glad I didn't wait to read this book and instead read it as book 4.5. The book is a story within a story within a story, told while our ka-tet waits out a crazy storm on their journey to the Dark Tower (after the Emerald City experience in book 4). We are given both another look at a young Roland on another assignment for his father as well as a taste of the storytelling that Roland grew up with. Both these tales bring you deeper into the character of Roland as well as the history/mythology of Mid-World. Definitely a hard book for me to put down, and the best evidence yet of how much King's writing improved from "The Gunslinger" (how much I did not like that book cannot fully be explained). Even though this novel was written after the "completion" of the original Dark Tower series, I am still looking forward to the rest of the books.
    • 3/5
      Merely good. It would be wrong to say I expected more, since Stephen King often delivers books that, although they tell a story well, fall short of the suspense and emotional resonance of his best books.

      Fans of the Dark Tower series take note: this is not an essential part of the main story. This book picks up in the middle of the saga, after book four. While holed up to wait out a storm, Roland tells his crew a pair of stories, one nested inside the other. One is an adventure from Roland's youth. The other is more of a fairy tale, but one that impacts the lore of the Gunslingers.

      If you've never read the Dark Tower books, don't start with this one. Don't even think you need to read it, because you don't. But if you're already a fan of the books, check it out, but with lowered expectations. Have a visit with your old ka-tet: Roland, Eddie, Susannah, and Jack. Sit around the campfire. Have yourself a gunslinger burrito and enjoy some storytelling.
    • 4/5
      This book just makes me want more Dark Tower stories whether it's the adult Roland or the younger one.
    • 4/5
      A good yarn, but not much more than that.
    • 3/5
      I don't feel like 'The Wind Through the Keyhole' had all the power of a full-fledged Dark Tower. The double frame story weakened the overall book, though I guess it was necessary to establish that Roland was telling a tale of his youth and what better way than to tell stories around a campfire riding out a starkblast. (Great name for a storm by the way and the descriptors were fabulous.)

      The story in the center of the frame, a fairytale told to young Roland by his mother years ago in Gilead is well done. It has excellent human elements of love, family, friendship, and betrayal. Magic and the Man in Black are extra-bonuses.

      The middle frame of Roland and Jaime going to find a 'skin-man' is weaker, but it has some touching moments of Roland and the boy Billy which hearken back to his relationship with Jake.

      Overall, probably a must read for Dark Tower fanatics, but not the best work in the series.
    • 5/5
      Fantastic book. Loved being back in that world.
    • 4/5
      I've only recently started writing reviews and read this book when it finally arrived last year. I plan to do a more complete review after re-reading it in the suggested place in the DT series.

      I understand many folks frustration about TWTtK not actually being a DT novel. But I'm OK with it. The fairy tale Roland tells wrapped within his Skin-Man story is a glimpse into the past of Mid-world. As Roland says in TWL, "The quickest way to learn about a new place is to know what it dreams of." I'm always eager to learn more of Mid-World.

      Update after sequential reading:

      Yep, I'm still an easily entertained DT fan. I love the story of Tim Stoutheart, and would hear more. Also, more of Vannay. He had almost as much impact on Roland as Cort, but there doesn't seem to be as much about him as Cort. I guess that shows what's valued more, brute strength over mental acuity.

      My only issue with the part of this novel that focuses on the journey to the Dark Tower, is that the ka-tet feels different, somehow more emotional, than the rest of the story. Maybe because sai King has emotionally matured himself. Gotten to a point in his life where cherishing relationships is of more importance than when the series was started.

      So, again...not really a proper book review. More of a fan's rambling thoughts...
    • 4/5
      Well, it's a really good tale, two actually, but it really has very little to do with The Dark Tower, other than the fact that the ka-tet is in it. The tet is caught in a starkblast, and Roland tells the tale of the Skin-Man from when he was young. In that adventure, he tells the story of "The Wind Through the Keyhole" which has nothing to do at all with the DT! So... I liked the stories, but am bummed at how little they had to do with the overall saga.
    • 5/5
      As a fan of the Dark Tower series, I approached this book without any objectivity whatsoever. I love the universe of this series, and its characters, but was quite frustrated by the direction the series took in its last two books. (In case you're wondering, I'm not referring to the ending, but the metafictional aspects.)The Wind Through The Keyhole offered pretty much everything I like out of this series with nothing I didn't. All three stories were engaging, although I got rather less of the ka-tet than I might have liked. My only complaint is that the structure stole power from the flashback story, since it was broken in the middle. I wonder how differently the book might have read under a different structure?But all in all, it was a small complaint in a book that I enjoyed very much. If you haven't read any other volumes in the series, I wouldn't start here. But for the faithful, it doesn't disappoint.
    • 4/5
      King's latest edition in the Dark Tower series is actually meant to come after the fourth book. While stuck hiding out from a storm Roland tells his ka-tet a story within a story. Roland tells the kat-tet of his early days as a gunslinger. He was sent to rid a town of a "skin-man" that had been terrorizing the people. While helping the town he finds a young boy that had barely missed becoming prey to the beast and while trying to keep the boy calm Roland tells him a story about a young man and a magical quest.
    • 5/5
      Stephen King's on a roll. This ranks right up there with Wizard and Glass as one of my favorite Dark Tower novels.
    • 5/5
      The 8th Dark Tower book takes place between #4 and #5. While it doesn't add much to the Dark Tower storyline other than getting Roland's ka-tet from point A to point B, it is nonetheless an enthralling and scary story that adds color and depth to the mythology. It is also vastly superior to the other Dark Tower book told in flashback ,Wizard and Glass. King acknowledges this by having Roland admit that he wasn't very good at telling stories in the beginning, but he's gotten better.
    • 4/5
      My experience of reading The Wind Through the Keyhole is one only a Dark Tower newbie could have, and so I decided to have it.

      This novel -- practically a novella next to its gargantuan cousins -- was published just this year, but is meant to be "shelved" between the fourth Dark Tower book, Wizard and Glass, and the fifth, Wolves of the Calla. Which is to say it takes place, insofar as its outer loop of storytelling can be said to take place, between Roland's ka-tet's visit to the off-kilter Emerald City that turned the last ten percent or so of WaG into one giant in-your-ribs Wizard of Oz reference, and their arrival outside the Calla crescent whereat they get called on to be gunslingers in the good old fashioned sense. Like WaG, The Wind Through the Keyhole tells us a story of Roland's past, but nested within that story is another story, called "The Wind Through the Keyhole" which is a sort of Roland-world fairy tale presented in full as told by Roland to a child in the middle of the story from his past as told by Roland to Eddie, Susannah, Jake and Oy.

      Got that? Good.

      So this book really doesn't advance the Dark Tower plot one bit, but it's not meant to. It's meant to deepen and extend the mythology of Roland and his world a bit, while leaving the door (or keyhole) wide open for more of the same if there is demand. Or maybe even if there isn't. I can sort of imagine King spending his twilight years adding more and more volumes like these to his baby until new readers of the Dark Tower find themselves in a sort of Zeno's Paradox, chasing the last volume and its revelation and proper ending, but never quite getting to it because every step forward leads to a half-step forward and then a quarter-step forward and so on. Nor need all of them take place between WaG and WotC, Bog help us. And future wags will no doubt refer to these Dark Tower 4.5s and 4.7s and 5.12s and whatever as King's Silmarillion. Which will likely lead to much wailing and gnashing of teeth on the part of people like my friends who originally read this series one book at a time, waiting years between them, for just the original seven, and who then want everybody else to read them, except now there are like 17 of them plus the ones that King's children cobble together out of his random jottings on various flash drives and whatnot left posthumously behind...

      On the other hand, maybe King pere et fils will show some restraint. I suspect a lot depends on how well this book has been received. Judging from Goodreads, the answer to that question is fairly well, though some fans are annoyed that its nature partakes more of WaG fan fiction than of the series as a staggering whole. Absolutely none of the perceived lacuna between the plots of WaG and WotC (which I am reading now and does seem to feature a staggering advancement in Roland's apprentices' skills and in the Schroedinger's Fetus that is just hand-waved as "some stuff happened between the novels") is filled; it's all just tangential texture.

      But so back to how my experience in reading The Wind Through the Keyhole is something only newbies can have. I'm going to take a stab in the dark and say that, based on what I've gleaned via King's bad habits of sending his characters message-dreams and whatnot that I've complained about elsewhere and of ham-handed foreshadowing generally, that most, if not all, of Roland's apprentices are not going to make it to the finish line. I might be wrong; I'm trying hard to avoid spoilers (and driving my friends crazy because I'm not reading these novels fast enough to suit them and they want to talk about them with me at great length, the darlings. Sorry, sweetnesses; I'm just not enough of a fan to want to devour these straight through without some breaks with other books) and so hope not to found out whether I'm right or wrong until the end. But, reading between the lines as I decided whether to read this or Wolves of the Calla next, I got the distinct impression that original readers of the series found it jarring or bittersweet or just plain weird to see characters with known fate/dooms walking around and learning and talking like they still had futures. For the, you know, 20 or so pages in which they appear in this book, anyway. As I said, I'll never know that experience. For me it's just the WaG mixture as before, except in that, glory be, no stupid teen romance in this one. For which I am grateful.

      The stories themselves, especially the central fairy tale, have a lot of charm to them, a quality that seems to me rare in most of King's other work. There are still elements of peril and horror and heartbreak, to be sure, but somehow even depictions of, e.g. shredded bodies in the Roland-story of the terrible shape-shifter besetting a mining town, have kind of a light, fond touch. This is King putting an extra layer of delicious buttercream frosting on an already too-rich cake. He's having such fun, and buttercream is yummy; why stop him? Just, you know, don't let him totally encrust the thing with candy flowers and crap, okay?

      But now I'm definitely hitting a wall of Dark Tower fatigue. Oy.
    • 5/5
      Look, you're only going to read this if you're a Dark Tower fan. If you are, don't be afeared! Ka has been good to our Uncle Stevie and he's found one more little tale featuring our old friends. It's simple and nearly half of the book doesn't even feature Roland, let alone the rest of the ka-tet. But we get to see more of Mid-World and the way the world has moved on. We get a bit more insight into Roland's mind. We see what a true children's tale would be like, coming from King.

      Mostly, though, we just get the pure joy of getting something new - a new experience - out of a universe we all believed had pretty much been shut off for good. And that sort of pure joy is, I say true, the best kind in the world, thankee.

      Hile, gunslinger - and may we meet again someday.
    • 5/5
      As usual, King delivers. "The Wind through the Keyhole" is kinda like the movie "Inception" in that it's a story within a story within a story. What makes it all the more fun is that Roland himself tells the interior story in first person.According to King, this book takes place between "Wizard and Glass" and "Wolves of the Calla." If you've not read any of The Dark Tower series, you could get by with this book fine enough. But I'd strongly encourage you to read the whole of the series--with this in its proper spot--as it's fantastic.This story sees Roland and his ka-tet stranded in a massive icy windstorm--a "starkblast." To pass the time, Roland tells Eddie, Jake, and Susannah about his younger days when he and a companion were sent off on their first mission--to rid a nearby town of a skin-man. During this tale, young Roland tells the story of "The Wind through the Keyhole" to another character.I read many authors, but I cannot think of one who's got such a distinctive voice as King, especially when he's writing Dark Tower stories. The imagination is off the charts, the characters full, and the pacing perfect.The only potential problem with reading "The Wind through the Keyhole" is that it'll make you want to go back and read the whole of the series again--quite a massive undertaking. But I'll probably fall under its spell again soon. You kin?

    Book preview

    The Wind Through the Keyhole - Stephen King

    Cover: The Wind Through the Keyhole, by Stephen King

    Praise for The Dark Tower Series

    King is today’s master storyteller, and here he has latched onto a story worthy of his talents.

    —Los Angeles Daily News

    Gripping . . . compelling . . .King mesmerizes the reader.

    —Chicago Sun-Times

    An impressive work of mythic magnitude. May turn out to be Stephen King’s greatest literary achievement.

    —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

    A compelling whirlpool of a story that draws one irretrievably to its center.

    —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

    King is a master at creating living, breathing, believable characters.

    —Baltimore Sun

    Superb . . . through King’s vivid imagery the reader thirsts, cries and nearly dies with Roland.

    —Chicago Herald-Wheaton

    Enjoyable . . . whets the appetite for more.

    —Bangor Daily News

    Prime King . . . suspenseful . . .reams of virtuoso horror writing . . .an epic in the making.

    —Kirkus Reviews

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    Go then. There are other worlds than these.

    CONTINUE YOUR QUEST FOR

    THE DARK TOWER

    WITH THESE OFFICIAL NOVELS

    The Gunslinger

    The Drawing of the Three

    The Waste Lands

    Wizard and Glass

    The Wind Through the Keyhole

    Wolves of the Calla

    Song of Susannah

    The Dark Tower

    For further connections to The Dark Tower creative multiverse throughout Stephen King’s novels, novellas, and short stories, visit:

    stephenking.com/darktower/connections

    The Wind Through the Keyhole, by Stephen King, Scribner

    This is for Robin Furth,

    and the gang at Marvel Comics.

    FOREWORD

    Many of the people holding this book have followed the adventures of Roland and his band—his ka-tet—for years, some of them from the very beginning. Others—and I hope there are many, newcomers and Constant Readers alike—may ask, Can I read and enjoy this story if I haven’t read the other Dark Tower books? My answer is yes, if you keep a few things in mind.

    First, Mid-World lies next to our world, and there are many overlaps. In some places there are doorways between the two worlds, and sometimes there are thin places, porous places, where the two worlds actually mingle. Three of Roland’s ka-tet—Eddie, Susannah, and Jake—have been drawn separately from troubled lives in New York into Roland’s Mid-World quest. Their fourth traveling companion, a billy-bumbler named Oy, is a golden-eyed creature native to Mid-World. Mid-World is very old, and falling to ruin, filled with monsters and untrustworthy magic.

    Second, Roland Deschain of Gilead is a gunslinger—one of a small band that tries to keep order in an increasingly lawless world. If you think of the gunslingers of Gilead as a strange combination of knights errant and territorial marshals in the Old West, you’ll be close to the mark. Most of them, although not all, are descended from the line of the old White King, known as Arthur Eld (I told you there were overlaps).

    Third, Roland has lived his life under a terrible curse. He killed his mother, who was having an affair—mostly against her will, and certainly against her better judgment—with a fellow you will meet in these pages. Although it was by mistake, he holds himself accountable, and the unhappy Gabrielle Deschain’s death has haunted him since his young manhood. These events are fully narrated in the Dark Tower cycle, but for our purposes here, I think it’s all you have to know.

    For longtime readers, this book should be shelved between Wizard and Glass and Wolves of the Calla . . . which makes it, I suppose, Dark Tower 4.5.

    As for me, I was delighted to discover my old friends had a little more to say. It was a great gift to find them again, years after I thought their stories were told.

    —Stephen King

    September 14, 2011

    STARKBLAST

    1

    During the days after they left the Green Palace that wasn’t Oz after all—but which was now the tomb of the unpleasant fellow Roland’s ka-tet had known as the Tick-Tock Man—the boy Jake began to range farther and farther ahead of Roland, Eddie, and Susannah.

    Don’t you worry about him? Susannah asked Roland. Out there on his own?

    He’s got Oy with him, Eddie said, referring to the billy-bumbler who had adopted Jake as his special friend. Mr. Oy gets along with nice folks all right, but he’s got a mouthful of sharp teeth for those who aren’t so nice. As that guy Gasher found out to his sorrow.

    Jake also has his father’s gun, Roland said. And he knows how to use it. That he knows very well. And he won’t leave the Path of the Beam. He pointed overhead with his reduced hand. The low-hanging sky was mostly still, but a single corridor of clouds moved steadily southeast. Toward the land of Thunderclap, if the note left behind for them by the man who styled himself RF had told the truth.

    Toward the Dark Tower.

    But why— Susannah began, and then her wheelchair hit a bump. She turned to Eddie. Watch where you’re pushin me, sugar.

    Sorry, Eddie said. Public Works hasn’t been doing any maintenance along this stretch of the turnpike lately. Must be dealing with budget cuts.

    It wasn’t a turnpike, but it was a road . . . or had been: two ghostly ruts with an occasional tumbledown shack to mark the way. Earlier that morning they had even passed an abandoned store with a barely readable sign: TOOK’S OUTLAND MERCANTILE. They investigated inside for supplies—Jake and Oy had still been with them then—and had found nothing but dust, ancient cobwebs, and the skeleton of what had been either a large raccoon, a small dog, or a billy-bumbler. Oy had taken a cursory sniff and then pissed on the bones before leaving the store to sit on the hump in the middle of the old road with his squiggle of a tail curled around him. He faced back the way they had come, sniffing the air.

    Roland had seen the bumbler do this several times lately, and although he had said nothing, he pondered it. Someone trailing them, maybe? He didn’t actually believe this, but the bumbler’s posture—nose lifted, ears pricked, tail curled—called up some old memory or association that he couldn’t quite catch.

    Why does Jake want to be on his own? Susannah asked.

    Do you find it worrisome, Susannah of New York? Roland asked.

    "Yes, Roland of Gilead, I find it worrisome." She smiled amiably enough, but in her eyes, the old mean light sparkled. That was the Detta Walker part of her, Roland reckoned. It would never be completely gone, and he wasn’t sorry. Without the strange woman she had once been still buried in her heart like a chip of ice, she would have been only a handsome black woman with no legs below the knees. With Detta onboard, she was a person to be reckoned with. A dangerous one. A gunslinger.

    He has plenty of stuff to think about, Eddie said quietly. He’s been through a lot. Not every kid comes back from the dead. And it’s like Roland says—if someone tries to face him down, it’s the someone who’s apt to be sorry. Eddie stopped pushing the wheelchair, armed sweat from his brow, and looked at Roland. "Are there someones in this particular suburb of nowhere, Roland? Or have they all moved on?"

    Oh, there are a few, I wot.

    He did more than wot; they had been peeked at several times as they continued their course along the Path of the Beam. Once by a frightened woman with her arms around two children and a babe hanging in a sling from her neck. Once by an old farmer, a half-mutie with a jerking tentacle that hung from one corner of his mouth. Eddie and Susannah had seen none of these people, or sensed the others that Roland felt sure had, from the safety of the woods and high grasses, marked their progress. Eddie and Susannah had a lot to learn.

    But they had learned at least some of what they would need, it seemed, because Eddie now asked, Are they the ones Oy keeps scenting up behind us?

    I don’t know. Roland thought of adding that he was sure something else was on Oy’s strange little bumbler mind, and decided not to. The gunslinger had spent long years with no ka-tet, and keeping his own counsel had become a habit. One he would have to break, if the tet was to remain strong. But not now, not this morning.

    Let’s move on, he said. I’m sure we’ll find Jake waiting for us up ahead.

    2

    Two hours later, just shy of noon, they breasted a rise and halted, looking down at a wide, slow-moving river, gray as pewter beneath the overcast sky. On the northwestern bank—their side—was a barnlike building painted a green so bright it seemed to yell into the muted day. Its mouth jutted out over the water on pilings painted a similar green. Docked to two of these pilings by thick hawsers was a large raft, easily ninety feet by ninety, painted in alternating stripes of red and yellow. A tall wooden pole that looked like a mast jutted from the center, but there was no sign of a sail. Several wicker chairs sat in front of the pole, facing the shore on their side of the river. Jake was seated in one of these. Next to him was an old man in a vast straw hat, baggy green pants, and longboots. On his top half he wore a thin white garment—the kind of shirt Roland thought of as a slinkum. Jake and the old man appeared to be eating well-stuffed popkins. Roland’s mouth sprang water at the sight of them.

    Oy was beyond them, at the edge of the circus-painted raft, looking raptly down at his own reflection. Or perhaps at the reflection of the steel cable that ran overhead, spanning the river.

    Is it the Whye? Susannah asked Roland.

    Yar.

    Eddie grinned. You say Whye; I say Whye Not? He raised one hand and waved it over his head. Jake! Hey, Jake! Oy!

    Jake waved back, and although the river and the raft moored at its edge were still a quarter of a mile away, their eyes were uniformly sharp, and they saw the white of the boy’s teeth as he grinned.

    Susannah cupped her hands around her mouth. "Oy! Oy! To me, sugar! Come see your mama!"

    Uttering shrill yips that were the closest he could get to barks, Oy flew across the raft, disappeared into the barnlike structure, then emerged on their side. He came charging up the path with his ears lowered against his skull and his gold-ringed eyes bright.

    Slow down, sug, you’ll give yourself a heart attack! Susannah shouted, laughing.

    Oy seemed to take this as an order to speed up. He arrived at Susannah’s wheelchair in less than two minutes, jumped up into her lap, then jumped down again and looked at them cheerfully. Olan! Ed! Suze!

    Hile, Sir Throcken, Roland said, using the ancient word for bumbler he’d first heard in a book read to him by his mother: The Throcken and the Dragon.

    Oy lifted his leg, watered a patch of grass, then faced back the way they had come, scenting at the air, eyes on the horizon.

    Why does he keep doing that, Roland? Eddie asked.

    I don’t know. But he almost knew. Was it some old story, not The Throcken and the Dragon but one like it? Roland thought so. For a moment he thought of green eyes, watchful in the dark, and a little shiver went through him—not of fear, exactly (although that might have been a part of it), but of remembrance. Then it was gone.

    There’ll be water if God wills it, he thought, and only realized he had spoken aloud when Eddie said, Huh?

    Never mind, Roland said. Let’s have a little palaver with Jake’s new friend, shall we? Perhaps he has an extra popkin or two.

    Eddie, tired of the chewy staple they called gunslinger burritos, brightened immediately. Hell, yeah, he said, and looked at an imaginary watch on his tanned wrist. Goodness me, I see it’s just gobble o’clock.

    Shut up and push, honeybee, Susannah said.

    Eddie shut up and pushed.

    3

    The old man was sitting when they entered the boathouse, standing when they emerged on the river side. He saw the guns Roland and Eddie were wearing—the big irons with the sandalwood grips—and his eyes widened. He dropped to one knee. The day was still, and Roland actually heard his bones creak.

    Hile, gunslinger, he said, and put an arthritis-swollen fist to the center of his forehead. I salute thee.

    Rise up, friend, Roland said, hoping the old man was a friend—Jake seemed to think so, and Roland had come to trust his instincts. Not to mention the billy-bumbler’s. Rise up, do.

    The old man was having trouble managing it, so Eddie stepped aboard and gave him an arm.

    Thankee, son, thankee. Be you a gunslinger as well, or are you a ’prentice?

    Eddie looked at Roland. Roland gave him nothing, so Eddie looked back at the old man, shrugged, and grinned. Little of both, I guess. I’m Eddie Dean, of New York. This is my wife, Susannah. And this is Roland Deschain. Of Gilead.

    The riverman’s eyes widened. Gilead that was? Do you say so?

    Gilead that was, Roland agreed, and felt an unaccustomed sorrow rise up from his heart. Time was a face on the water, and like the great river before them, it did nothing but flow.

    Step aboard, then. And welcome. This young man and I are already fast friends, so we are. Oy stepped onto the big raft and the old man bent to stroke the bumbler’s raised head. And we are, too, aren’t we, fella? Does thee remember my name?

    Bix! Oy said promptly, then turned to the northwest again, raising his snout. His gold-ringed eyes stared raptly at the moving column of clouds that marked the Path of the Beam.

    4

    Will’ee eat? Bix asked them. What I have is poor and rough, but such as there is, I’d be happy to share.

    With thanks, Susannah said. She looked at the overhead cable that ran across the river on a diagonal. This is a ferry, isn’t it?

    Yeah, Jake said. Bix told me there are people on the other side. Not close, but not far, either. He thinks they’re rice farmers, but they don’t come this way much.

    Bix stepped off the big raft and went into the boathouse. Eddie waited until he heard the old guy rummaging around, then bent to Jake and said in a low voice, Is he okay?

    He’s fine, Jake said. It’s the way we’re going, and he’s happy to have someone to take across. He says it’s been years.

    I’ll bet it has been, Eddie agreed.

    Bix reappeared with a wicker basket, which Roland took from him—otherwise the old man might have tumbled into the water. Soon they were all sitting in the wicker chairs, munching popkins filled with some sort of pink fish. It was seasoned and delicious.

    Eat all you like, Bix said. The river’s filled with shannies, and most are true-threaded. The muties I throw back. Once upon a time we were ordered to throw the bad ’uns up a-bank so they wouldn’t breed more, and for a while I did, but now . . . He shrugged. "Live and let live is what I say. As someone who’s lived long himself, I feel like I can say it."

    How old are you? Jake asked.

    I turned a hundred and twenty quite some time ago, but since then I’ve lost count, so I have. Time’s short on this side of the door, kennit.

    On this side of the door. That memory of some old story tugged at Roland again, and then was gone.

    Do you follow that? The old man pointed to the moving band of clouds in the sky.

    We do.

    To the Callas, or beyond?

    Beyond.

    To the great darkness? Bix looked both troubled and fascinated by the idea.

    We go our course, Roland said. What fee would you take to cross us, sai ferryman?

    Bix laughed. The sound was cracked and cheerful. Money’s no good with nothing to spend it on, you have no livestock, and it’s clear as day that I have more to eat than you do. And you could always draw on me and force me to take you across.

    Never, Susannah said, looking shocked.

    I know that, Bix said, waving a hand at her. Harriers might—and then burn my ferry for good measure once they got t’other side—but true men of the gun, never. And women too, I suppose. You don’t seem armed, missus, but with women, one can never tell.

    Susannah smiled thinly at this and said nothing.

    Bix turned to Roland. Ye come from Lud, I wot. I’d hear of Lud, and how things go there. For it was a marvelous city, so it was. Crumbling and growing strange when I knew it, but still marvelous.

    The four of them exchanged a look that was all an-tet, that peculiar telepathy they shared. It was a look that was also dark with shume, the old Mid-World term that can mean shame, but also means sorrow.

    What? Bix asked. What have I said? If I’ve asked for something you’d not give, I cry your pardon.

    Not at all, Roland said, but Lud . . .

    Lud is dust in the wind, Susannah said.

    Well, Eddie said, not dust, exactly.

    Ashes, Jake said. The kind that glow in the dark.

    Bix pondered this, then nodded slowly. I’d hear anyway, or as much as you can tell in an hour’s time. That’s how long the crossing takes.

    5

    Bix bristled when they offered to help him with his preparations. It was his job, he said, and he could still do it—just not as quickly as once upon a time, when there had been farms and a few little trading posts on both sides of the river.

    In any case, there wasn’t much to do. He fetched a stool and a large ironwood ringbolt from the boathouse, mounted the stool to attach the ringbolt to the top of the post, then hooked the ringbolt to the cable. He took the stool back inside and returned with a large metal crank shaped like a block Z. This he laid with some ceremony by a wooden housing on the far end of the raft.

    Don’t none of you kick that overboard, or I’ll never get home, he said.

    Roland squatted on his hunkers to study it. He beckoned to Eddie and Jake, who joined him. He pointed to the words embossed on the long stroke of the Z. Does it say what I think it does?

    Yep, Eddie said. North Central Positronics. Our old pals.

    When did you get that, Bix? Susannah asked.

    Ninety year ago, or more, if I were to guess. There’s an underground place over there. He pointed vaguely in the direction of the Green Palace. It goes for miles, and it’s full of things that belonged to the old people, perfectly preserved. Strange music still plays from overhead, music such as you’ve never heard. It scrambles your thinking, like. And you don’t dare stay there long, or you break out in sores and puke and start to lose your teeth. I went once. Never again. I thought for a while I was going to die.

    Did you lose your hair as well as your chompers? Eddie asked.

    Bix looked surprised, then nodded. "Yar, some, but it grew back. That crank, it’s still, you know."

    Eddie pondered this a moment. Of course it was still, it was an inanimate object. Then he realized the old man was saying steel.

    Are’ee ready? Bix asked them. His eyes were nearly as bright as Oy’s. Shall I cast off?

    Eddie snapped off a crisp salute. Aye-aye, cap’n. We’re away to the Treasure Isles, arr, so we be.

    Come and help me with these ropes, Roland of Gilead, will ya do.

    Roland did, and gladly.

    6

    The raft moved slowly along the diagonal cable, pulled by the river’s slow current. Fish jumped all around them as Roland’s ka-tet took turns telling the old man about the city of Lud, and what had befallen them there. For a while Oy watched the fish with interest, his paws planted on the upstream edge of the raft. Then he once more sat and faced back the way they had come, snout raised.

    Bix grunted when they told him how they’d left the doomed city. Blaine the Mono, y’say. I remember. Crack train. There was another ’un, too, although I can’t remember the name—

    Patricia, Susannah said.

    Aye, that was it. Beautiful glass sides, she had. And you say the city’s all gone?

    All gone, Jake agreed.

    Bix lowered his head. Sad.

    It is, Susannah said, taking his hand and giving it a brief, light squeeze. Mid-World’s a sad place, although it can be very beautiful.

    They had reached the middle of the river now, and a light breeze, surprisingly warm, ruffled their hair. They had all laid aside their heavy outer clothes and sat at ease in the wicker passenger chairs, which rolled this way and that, presumably for the views this provided. A large fish—probably one of the kind that had fed their bellies at gobble o’clock—jumped onto the raft and lay there, flopping at Oy’s feet. Although he was usually death on any small creature that crossed his path, the bumbler appeared not even to notice it. Roland kicked it back into the water with one of his scuffed boots.

    Yer throcken knows it’s coming, Bix remarked. He looked at Roland. You’ll want to take heed, aye?

    For a moment Roland could say nothing. A clear memory rose from the back of his mind to the front, one of a dozen hand-colored woodcut illustrations in an old and well-loved book. Six bumblers sitting on a fallen tree in the forest beneath a crescent moon, all with their snouts raised. That volume, Magic Tales of the Eld, he had loved above all others when he had been but a sma’ one, listening to his mother as she read him to sleep in his high tower bedroom, while an autumn gale sang its lonely song outside, calling down winter. The Wind Through the Keyhole was the name of the story that went with the picture, and it had been both terrible and wonderful.

    All my gods on the hill, Roland said, and thumped the heel of his reduced right hand to his brow. I should have known right away. If only from how warm it’s gotten the last few days.

    You mean you didn’t? Bix asked. And you from In-World? He made a tsking sound.

    Roland? Susannah asked. What is it?

    Roland ignored her. He looked from Bix to Oy and back to Bix. The starkblast’s coming.

    Bix nodded. Aye. Throcken say so, and about starkblast the throcken are never wrong. Other than speaking a little, it’s their bright.

    Bright what? Eddie asked.

    He means their talent, Roland said. Bix, do you know of a place on the other side where we can hide up and wait for it to pass?

    Happens I do. The old man pointed to the wooded hills sloping gently down to the far side of the Whye, where another dock and another boathouse—this one unpainted and far less grand—waited for them. Ye’ll find your way forward on the other side, a little lane that used to be a road. It follows the Path of the Beam.

    Sure it does, Jake said. All things serve the Beam.

    As you say, young man, as you say. Which do’ee ken, wheels or miles?

    Both, Eddie said, but for most of us, miles are better.

    All right, then. Follow the old Calla road five miles . . . maybe six . . . and ye’ll come to a deserted village. Most of the buildings are wood and no use to’ee, but the town meeting hall is good stone. Ye’ll be fine there. I’ve been inside, and there’s a lovely big fireplace. Ye’ll want to check the chimney, accourse, as ye’ll want a good draw up its throat for the day or two ye have to sit out. As for wood, ye can use what’s left of the houses.

    What is this starkblast? Susannah asked. Is it a storm?

    Yes, Roland said. I haven’t seen one in many, many years. It’s a lucky thing we had Oy with us. Even then I wouldn’t have known, if not for Bix. He squeezed the old man’s shoulder. Thankee-sai. We all say thankee.

    7

    The boathouse on the southeastern side of the river was on the verge of collapse, like so many things in Mid-World; bats roosted heads-down from the rafters and fat spiders scuttered up the walls. They were all glad to be out of it and back under the open sky. Bix tied up and joined them. They each embraced him, being careful not to hug tight and hurt his old bones.

    When they’d all taken their turn, the old man wiped his eyes, then bent and stroked Oy’s head. Keep em well, do, Sir Throcken.

    Oy! the bumbler replied. Then: Bix!

    The old man straightened, and again they heard his bones crackle. He put his hands to the small of his back and winced.

    Will you be able to get back across okay? Eddie asked.

    Oh, aye, Bix said. If it was spring, I might not—the Whye en’t so placid when the snow melts and the rains come—but now? Piece o’ piss. The storm’s still some way off. I crank for a bit against the current, then click the bolt tight so I can rest and not slip back’ards, then I crank some more. It might take four hours instead of one, but I’ll get there. I always have, anyway. I only wish I had some more food to give’ee.

    We’ll be fine, Roland said.

    Good, then. Good. The old man seemed reluctant to leave. He looked from face to face—seriously—then grinned, exposing toothless gums. We’re well-met along the path, are we not?

    So we are, Roland agreed.

    And if you come back this way, stop and visit awhile with old Bix. Tell him of your adventures.

    We will, Susannah said, although she knew they would never be this way again. It was a thing they all knew.

    And mind the starkblast. It’s nothing to fool with. But ye might have a day, yet, or even two. He’s not turning circles yet, are ye, Oy?

    Oy! the bumbler agreed.

    Bix fetched a sigh. Now you go your way, he said, and I go mine. We’ll both be laid up undercover soon enough.

    Roland and his tet started up the path.

    One other thing! Bix called after them, and they turned back. "If you see that cussed Andy, tell him I don’t want no songs, and I don’t want my gods-damned horrascope read!"

    Who’s Andy? Jake called back.

    Oh, never mind, you probably won’t see him, anyway.

    That was the old man’s last word on it, and none of them remembered it, although they did meet Andy, in the farming community of Calla Bryn Sturgis. But that was later, after the storm had passed.

    8

    It was only five miles to the deserted village, and they arrived less than an hour after they’d left the ferry. It took Roland less time than that to tell them about the starkblast.

    They used to come down on the Great Woods north of New Canaan once or twice a year, although we never had one in Gilead; they always rose away into the air before they got so far. But I remember once seeing carts loaded with frozen bodies drawn down Gilead Road. Farmers and their families, I suppose. Where their throcken had been—their billy-bumblers—I don’t know. Perhaps they took sick and died. In any case, with no bumblers to warn them, those folks were unprepared. The starkblast comes suddenly, you ken. One moment you’re warm as toast—because the weather always warms up before—and then it falls on you, like wolves on a ruttle of lambs. The only warning is the sound the trees make as the cold of the starkblast rolls over them. A kind of thudding sound, like grenados covered with dirt. The sound living wood makes when it contracts all at once, I suppose. And by the time they heard that, it would have been too late for those in the fields.

    Cold, Eddie mused. How cold?

    The temperature can fall to as much as forty limbits below freezing in less than an hour, Roland said grimly. Ponds freeze in an instant, with a sound like bullets breaking windowpanes. Birds turn to ice-statues in the sky and fall like rocks. Grass turns to glass.

    You’re exaggerating, Susannah said. You must be.

    Not at all. But the cold’s only part of it. The wind comes, too—gale-force, snapping the frozen trees off like straws. Such storms might roll for three hundred wheels before lifting off into the sky as suddenly as they came.

    How do the bumblers know? Jake asked.

    Roland only shook his head. The how and why of things had never interested him much.

    9

    They came to a broken piece of signboard lying on the path. Eddie picked it up and read the faded remains of a single word. It sums up Mid-World perfectly, he said. Mysterious yet strangely hilarious. He turned toward them with the piece of wood held at chest level. What it said, in large, uneven letters, was GOOK.

    A gook is a deep well, Roland said. Common law says any traveler may drink from it without let or penalty.

    Welcome to Gook, Eddie said, tossing the signboard into the bushes at the side of the road. I like it. In fact, I want a bumper sticker that says I Waited Out the Starkblast in Gook.

    Susannah laughed. Jake didn’t. He only pointed at Oy, who had begun turning in tight, rapid circles, as if chasing his own tail.

    We might want to hurry a little, the boy said.

    10

    The woods drew back and the path widened to what had once been a village high street. The village itself was a sad cluster of abandonment that ran on both sides for about a quarter mile. Some of the buildings had been houses, some stores,

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