The Wind Through the Keyhole

The novel is the 4.5th installment in Stephen King's Dark Tower series, set between Wizard and Glass and Wolves of the Calla. It follows Roland Deschain, a gunslinger, one of the knight-like figures who keep order in a decaying world called Mid-World, and his traveling companions, or ka-tet, a group bound by destiny: Eddie and Susannah Dean, a married couple drawn from New York; Jake, a boy who has died and been reborn in Mid-World; and Oy, a billy-bumbler, a small, gold-eyed creature capable of limited speech. The story unfolds as three nested narratives told during a deadly storm.

After leaving the Green Palace, a ruined landmark, the ka-tet travels southeast along the Path of the Beam, a cosmic force that holds their world together and points toward the Dark Tower, a mythic structure at the center of all existence. At the River Whye, an elderly ferryman named Bix recognizes Oy's habit of facing northwest and scenting the air as a sign that a starkblast is approaching: a catastrophic storm in which temperatures plunge dozens of degrees below freezing in minutes and gale-force winds snap frozen trees. Bix directs them to a stone meeting hall in a deserted village five miles down the road.

At the abandoned village of Gook, the ka-tet prepares the hall as the starkblast approaches, signaled by thudding explosions from contracting trees. Oy sits motionless in the street, entranced by the storm. Jake runs outside to retrieve the bumbler, and Roland hauls both boy and animal back through the doorway as the wind reaches killing force. A tree crashes through the roof, but the stone walls hold. Huddled by the fire, Roland tells his companions two tales that nest inside each other.

He begins with his own history. Not long after the death of his mother, Gabrielle Deschain, Roland's father Steven assigns him to a new mission. Roland killed Gabrielle accidentally after she was manipulated by the witch Rhea of the Coos and the treacherous court magician Marten Broadcloak; Steven assures Roland that Rhea, not he, bears true responsibility. Roland and his ka-mate Jamie DeCurry travel to Debaria, a rough railhead town where a skin-man, a shape-changing creature, has killed 23 people. The journey reveals a world in decline: people show allegiance to the rebel leader John Farson, and the train derails before reaching town. At Serenity, a women's retreat, Roland learns the skin-man attacked Sister Fortuna, appearing as a scaled monster that killed her companion and mauled her face. In Debaria, High Sheriff Hugh Peavy uses a chalk map to show that the attacks follow a corridor near the Salt Rocks foothills, where roughly 200 salt miners work.

A mass killing at the Jefferson Ranch leaves 18 dead. Jamie reads the tracks: The creature attacked as a bear, shifted through several animal forms, then departed on horseback as a human. Roland and Jamie find Young Bill Streeter, the cook's son, hiding in a nearby hostelry. Roland hypnotizes the boy with a bullet-dancing trick. Under the trance, Bill describes witnessing the slaughter and reveals that the man had a blue ring tattooed around his ankle and a "white mark." Roland sends Jamie to identify which miners can ride, spreads word that a survivor witnessed the skin-man, and commissions a silver bullet, the only weapon his teacher Vannay taught could kill such a creature. To pass time while guarding Bill during a dust storm, Roland tells the boy a fairy tale his mother once read to him: "The Wind Through the Keyhole."

This innermost story concerns Tim Ross, an 11-year-old in the village of Tree. Tim's father, Big Ross, is reported killed by a dragon, but his partner Big Kells actually murdered him. Tim's widowed mother Nell marries Kells out of financial desperation, and Kells soon begins beating her. When the Barony Covenanter, a sinister tax collector who is also a dangerous black magician, visits Tree, he gives Tim a tiny silver key that opens anything once. Tim uses it to discover proof that his father was murdered. The Covenant Man then shows Tim a vision of Kells beating Nell blind in a rage.

Despite warnings from the Widow Smack, Tim's elderly schoolteacher, Tim rides into the Endless Forest, a vast wilderness, seeking a cure for Nell's blindness. The Covenant Man reveals Big Ross's preserved body, confirming Kells murdered him, and directs Tim deeper into the forest. A treacherous fairy lures Tim into the Fagonard Swamp and strands him on a tussock surrounded by predatory reptiles. A tribe of swamp-dwelling mutants rescues him, gives him a guidance device called Daria, and ferries him across the swamp, knowing the approaching starkblast will kill them.

Guided by Daria, Tim treks north until he reaches a clearing with a metal tower and a steel cage containing an enormous tyger with green eyes. The Covenant Man has arranged a trap: The keys to shelter hang on the tyger's collar. Tim unlocks the cage, and the tyger allows him to take the collar. Among the items the keys unlock is a magic napkin that doubles in size each time Tim unfolds it, creating a pocket of warm air beneath. Tim and the tyger shelter together as the starkblast destroys the forest. After the storm, Tim uses drops from a small bottle to free the tyger from enchantment. The creature transforms into Maerlyn, a legendary mage trapped in animal form by an emissary of the Red King, a powerful evil entity. Maerlyn confirms that drops remain to cure Nell's blindness and instructs Tim to give his father's hand-ax to his mother upon returning.

Tim flies home on the napkin, now a magic carpet. He restores Nell's sight with the drops and gives her the ax. He then discovers the Widow Smack dead, killed by Kells, who has been hiding in the cottage. When Kells seizes Tim and begins strangling him, Nell buries the ax in Kells's skull. Roland concludes the fairy tale by noting that Tim grew up to become the gunslinger Tim Stoutheart, one of the rare gunslingers not born from the line of Eld.

Returning to the Debaria story, Roland learns that Jamie has arrived with Constable Will Wegg of Little Debaria, who confirms that 21 miners can ride. Roland has them expose their ankles, identifying 10 with blue Beelie Stockade tattoos, marks given to former inmates of a decommissioned prison. When these 10 are marched past Young Bill's cell, Bill identifies Ollie Ang by a white scar bisecting his tattoo, the "white mark" from his trance. Another miner reveals Ang found a strange artifact in a glowing crack deep in the mine, an opening to something that changed him. Ang transforms into a man-sized pooky, a venomous serpent, killing two men before Roland fires the silver bullet into the creature's mouth and destroys it.

On the return journey, Prioress Everlynne of Serenity agrees to take in Young Bill. She gives Roland a sealed letter his mother left before returning to Gilead. The letter reveals that Marten Broadcloak warned Gabrielle that returning would mean her death at her son's hand. She chose to go back because she believed destiny demanded it. The letter's final line, written in the High Speech, an ancient formal language of Mid-World, asks: Can you forgive me?

Roland finishes his stories as dawn light appears. The starkblast has destroyed the wooden buildings of Gook but left the stone hall standing. Susannah asks whether Roland was able to forgive his mother. He smiles and answers: yes. The ka-tet rests one more night, then continues along the Path of the Beam toward the Dark Tower.