"And he owns these books," Roland mused. "He risked all things to save them."
"Yeah, because he's one obsessed motherfucker."
"Yet all things serve ka and follow the Beam," Roland said, and selected a volume from the upper shelf of the bookcase. Eddie saw it had been placed in there upside down, which struck him as a very un-Calvin Tower thing to do.
Roland held the book in his seamed, weather-chapped hands, seeming to debate which one to give it to. He looked at Eddie... looked at Callahan... and then gave the book to Jake.
"Read me what it says on the front," he said. "The words of your world make my head hurt. They swim to my eye easily enough, but when I reach my mind toward them, most swim away again."
Jake was paying little attention; his eyes were riveted on the book jacket with its picture of a little country church at sunset. Callahan, meanwhile, had stepped past him in order to get a closer look at the door standing here in the gloomy cave. At last the boy looked up. "But... Roland, isn't this the town Pere Callahan told us about? The one where the vampire broke his cross and made him drink his blood?"
Callahan whirled away from the door. "What ?"
Jake held the book out wordlessly. Callahan took it. Almost snatched it.
" 'Salem's Lot" he read. "A novel by Stephen King." He looked up at Eddie, then at Jake. "Heard of him? Either of you? He's not from my time, I don't think."
Jake shook his head. Eddie began to shake his, as well, and then he saw something. "That church," he said. "It looks like the Calla Gathering Hall. Close enough to be its twin, almost."
"It also looks like the East Stoneham Methodist Meeting Hall, built in 1819," Callahan said, "so I guess this time we've got a case of triplets." But his voice sounded faraway to his own ears, as hollow as the false voices which floated up from the bottom of the cave. All at once he felt false to himself, not real. He felt nineteen .
SIX
It's a joke , part of his mind assured him. It must be a joke, the cover of this book says it's a novel, so -
Then an idea struck him, and he felt a surge of relief. It was conditional relief, but surely better than none at all. The idea was that sometimes people wrote make-believe stories about real places. That was it, surely. Had to be.
"Look at page one hundred and nineteen," Roland said. "I could make out a little of it, but not all. Not nearly enough."
Callahan found the page, and read this:
" 'In the early days at the seminary, a friend of Father...' " He trailed off, eyes racing ahead over the words on the page.
"Go on," Eddie said. "You read it, Father, or I will."
Slowly, Callahan resumed.
" '... a friend of Father Callahan's had given him a blasphemous crewelwork sampler which had sent him into gales of horrified laughter at the time, but which seemed more true and less blasphemous as the years passed: God grant me the SERENITY to accept what I cannot change, the TENACITY to change what I may, and the GOOD LUCK not to f**k up too often . This in Old English script with a rising sun in the background.
" 'Now, standing before Danny Glick's... Danny Glick's mourners, that old credo... that old credo returned.' "
The hand holding the book sagged. If Jake hadn't caught it, it probably would have tumbled to the floor of the cave.
"You had it, didn't you?" Eddie said. "You actually had a sampler saying that."
"Frankie Foyle gave it to me," Callahan said. His voice was hardly more than a whisper. "Back in seminary. And Danny Glick... I officiated at his funeral, I think I told you that. That was when everything seemed to change, somehow. But this is a novel! A novel is fiction! How... how can it..." His voice suddenly rose to a damned howl. To Roland it sounded eerily like the false voices that rose up from below. "Damn it, I'm a REAL PERSON !"
"Here's the part where the vampire broke your cross," Jake reported. " ' "Together at last!" Barlow said, smiling. His face was strong and intelligent and handsome in a sharp, forbidding sort of way - yet, as the light shifted, it seemed - ' "
"Stop," Callahan said dully. "It makes my head hurt."
"It says his face reminded you of the bogeyman who lived in your closet when you were a kid. Mr. Flip."
Callahan's face was now so pale he might have been a vampire's victim himself. "I never told anyone about Mr. Flip, not even my mother. That can't be in that book. It just can't be."
"It is," Jake said simply.
"Let's get this straight," Eddie said. "When you were a kid, there was a Mr. Flip, and you did think of him when you faced this particular Type One vampire, Barlow. Correct?"
"Yes, but - "
Eddie turned to the gunslinger. "Is this getting us any closer to Susannah, do you think?"
"Yes. We've reached the heart of a great mystery. Perhaps the great mystery. I believe the Dark Tower is almost close enough to touch. And if the Tower is close, Susannah is, too."
Ignoring him, Callahan was flipping through the book. Jake was looking over his shoulder.