Free The Little Sisters of Eluria by Stephen King Page B

Kissing Moon. And the beds weren't beds at all, but only a double row of shabby cots.
    He turned and saw a black, writhing hump on the floor where Sister Coquina had been. At the sight of her, Roland was struck by an unpleasant thought.
    'I forgot John Norman's medallion!' A keen sense of regret - almost of mourning - went through him like wind.
    Jenna reached into the pocket of her jeans and brought it out. It glimmered in the moonlight.
    'I picked it up off the floor.'
    He didn't know which made him gladder - the sight of the medallion or the sight of it in her hand. It meant she wasn't like the others.
    Then, as if to dispel that notion before it got too firm a hold on him, she said: 'Take it, Roland - I can hold it no more.' And, as he took it, he saw unmistakable marks of charring on her fingers.
    He took her hand and kissed each burn.
    'Thankee-sai,' she said, and he saw she was crying. 'Thankee, dear. To be kissed so is lovely, worth every pain. Now . . .'
    Roland saw her eyes shift, and followed them. Here were bobbing lights descending a rocky path. Beyond them he saw the building where the Little Sisters had been living - not a convent but a ruined hacienda that looked a thousand years old. There were three candles; as they drew closer, Roland saw that there were only three sisters. Mary wasn't among them.
    He drew his guns.
    'Oooo, it's a gunslinger-man he is!' Louise.
    'A scary man!' Michela.
    'And he's found his ladylove as well as his shooters!' Tamra.
    'His slut-whore!' Louise.
    Laughing angrily. Not afraid ... at least, not of his weapons.
    'Put them away,' Jenna told him, and when she looked, saw that he already had.
    The others, meanwhile, had drawn closer.
    'Ooo, see, she cries!' Tamra.
    'Doffed her habit, she has!' Michela. 'Perhaps it's her broken vows she cries for.'
    'Why such tears, pretty?' Louise.
    'Because he kissed my fingers where they were burned,' Jenna said. 'I've never been kissed before. It made me cry.'
    'Ooooo!'
    'Luv-ly!'
    'Next he'll stick his thing in her! Even luv-lier!'
    Jenna bore their japes with no sign of anger. When they were done, she said: 'I'm going with him. Stand aside.'
    They gaped at her, counterfeit laughter disappearing in shock.
    'No!' Louise whispered. 'Are ye mad? Ye know what'll happen!'
    'No, and neither do you,' Jenna said. 'Besides, I care not.' She half-turned and held her hand out to the mouth of the ancient hospital tent. It was a faded olive-drab in the moonlight, with an old red cross drawn on its roof.
    Roland wondered how many towns the Sisters had been to With this tent which was so small and plain on the outside, so huge and gloriously on the inside. How many towns and over how many years.
    Now, cramming the mouth of it in a black, shiny tongue, were doctor-bugs. They had stopped their singing. Their silence was somehow terrible.
    'Stand aside or I'll have them on ye,' Jenna said.
    'Ye never would!' Sister Michela cried in a low, horrified voice.
    'Aye. I've already set them on Sister Coquina. She's a part of the medicine, now.'
    Their gasp was like cold wind passing through dead trees. Nor was all that dismay directed towards their own precious hides. What Jenna h done was clearly far outside their reckoning.
    'Then you're damned,' Sister Tamra said.
    'Such ones to speak of damnation! Stand aside.'
    They did. Roland walked past them and they shrank away from him. but they shrank from her more.
    'Damned?' he asked after they had skirted the haci and reached the path beyond it. The Kissing Moon glimmered above a tumbled scree of rocks In its light Roland could see a small black opening low on the scarp. guessed it was the cave the Sisters called Thoughtful House. 'What did they mean, damned?'
    'Never mind. All we have to worry about now is Sister Mary. I like not that we haven't seen her.'
    She tried to walk faster, but he grasped her arm and turned her about. He could still hear the singing of the bugs, but faintly; they were leaving the place of the