Wolves of the Calla

How it opens

Roland, Eddie, Susannah, Jake and Oy follow the Path of the Beam across empty fields and into a deep old forest, and the number nineteen keeps turning up among them. Jake comes back from picking muffin-balls with word that men are watching them, and Roland says five or six people have trailed them since the day before, one of them a woman and another a boy. That night Eddie, Jake and Oy find themselves on Second Avenue in a New York of 1977, unseen by the crowds, and they follow Jake's younger self into Calvin Tower's bookshop, the Manhattan Restaurant of the Mind. There they watch Enrico Balazar and two of his men take Tower into his back room, and Eddie reads part of an agreement between Tower and the Sombra Corporation over a vacant lot at 46th Street and 2nd Avenue before the chimes and the darkness sweep them away.

Who you meet early

• Eddie DeanEddie Dean walks the Path of the Beam with Roland, Jake, Oy and his wife Susannah, pushing her wheelchair. One night in the forest he finds himself back in New York with Jake and Oy, where he sees a younger, living Balazar.
• Jake ChambersJake Chambers travels with Roland's ka-tet, the billy-bumbler Oy always at his heel, and Roland believes the boy has the touch. In a New York of 1977 he watches his younger self buy Charlie the Choo-Choo and a riddle book.
• OyOy is Jake's billy-bumbler, never far from the boy's ankle, and he copies the words of the people around him. He travels with Jake to the 1977 New York.
• Roland DeschainRoland of Gilead leads his ka-tet along the Path of the Beam toward his Dark Tower, though a note left after the Green Palace told them to renounce it. He says five or six people have trailed them since the day before, and for now he does nothing about them.
• Susannah DeanSusannah Dean travels the Path of the Beam in her wheelchair with Eddie, Jake, Oy and Roland. In the forest she shoots a small deer, and she can feel the people who follow them through the woods.
• Aaron DeepneauAaron Deepneau is an old man who sits at the chessboard in Calvin Tower's bookshop in 1977 and tells the young Jake a riddle. When Balazar takes Tower into the back room, Deepneau is left to mind the store.
• Enrico BalazarEnrico Balazar is the New York drug boss Eddie and Roland killed in the shoot-out at his club in 1987. In the 1977 New York he is alive and younger, and he brings two of his men to Calvin Tower's bookshop to lean on Tower for employers he does not name. He reminds Tower of a check for a hundred thousand dollars that Tower took from him.
• Jack AndoliniJack Andolini, called Old Double-Ugly, is one of Balazar's men. He died under the lobstrosities on the beach after going through a door with Eddie, but in the 1977 New York he is alive and drives Balazar to Calvin Tower's bookshop.