Sent by his father to investigate evidence of a murderous shape shifter, a "skin man," Roland Deschain takes charge of Bill Streeter, a brave but terrified boy who is the sole surviving witness to the beast's most recent slaughter. Roland, himself only a teenager, calms the boy by reciting a story from the Magic Tales of the Eld that his mother used to read to him at bedtime, "The Wind through the Keyhole."