The Wind Through the Keyhole

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.