Doctor Sleep: A Novel

the Riv . “Glad it didn’t happen while you were up there in the peak-seat, rolling along at forty.”
    “Tell me about it,” Dan said.
    3
    He crossed Cranmore Avenue to the Rivington House side, meaning to take Billy’s advice and lie down, but instead of turning in at the gate giving on the big old Victorian’s flower-bordered walk, he decided to stroll a little while. He was getting his wind back now—getting himself back—and the night air was sweet. Besides, he needed to consider what had just happened, and very carefully.
    Whatever it was, it hit you hard .
    That made him think again of Dick Hallorann, and of all the things he had never told Casey Kingsley. Nor would he. The harm he had done to Deenie—and to her son, he supposed, simply by doing nothing—was lodged deep inside, like an impacted wisdom tooth, and there it would stay. But at five, Danny Torrance had been the one harmed—along with his mother, of course—and his father had not been the only culprit. About that Dick had done something. If not, Dan and his mother would have died in the Overlook. Those old things were still painful to think about, still bright with the childish primary colors of fear and horror. He would have preferred never to think of them again, but now he had to. Because . . . well . . .
    Because everything that goes around comes around . Maybe it’s luck or maybe it’s fate, but either way, it comes back around. What was it Dick said that day he gave me the lockbox? When the pupil is ready, the teacher will appear. Not that I’m equipped to teach anyone anything, except maybe that if you don’t take a drink, you won’t get drunk.
    He’d reached the end of the block; now he turned around and headed back. He had the sidewalk entirely to himself. It was eerie how fast Frazier emptied out once the summer was over, and that made him think of the way the Overlook had emptied out. How quickly the little Torrance family had had the place entirely to themselves.
    Except for the ghosts, of course. They never left.
    4
    Hallorann had told Danny he was headed to Denver, and from there he’d fly south to Florida. He had asked if Danny would like to help him down to the Overlook’s parking lot with his bags, and Danny had carried one to the cook’s rental car. Just a little thing, hardly more than a briefcase, but he’d needed to use both hands to tote it. When the bags were safely stowed in the trunk and they were sitting in the car, Hallorann had put a name to the thing in Danny Torrance’s head, the thing his parents only half believed in.
    You got a knack. Me, I’ve always called it the shining. That’s what my grandmother called it, too . Get you kinda lonely, thinkin you were the only one?
    Yes, he had been lonely, and yes, he had believed he was the only one. Hallorann had disabused him of that notion. In the years since, Dan had run across a lot of people who had, in the cook’s words, “a little bit of shine to them.” Billy, for one.
    But never anyone like the girl who had screamed into his head tonight. It had felt like that cry might tear him apart.
    Had he been that strong? He thought he had been, or almost. On closing day at the Overlook, Hallorann had told the troubled little boy sitting beside him to . . . what had he said?
    He said to give him a blast.
    Dan had arrived back at Rivington House and was standing outside the gate. The first leaves had begun to fall, and an evening breeze whisked them around his feet.
    And when I asked him what I should think about, he told me anything. “Just think it hard ,” he said. So I did, but at the last second I softened it, at least a little. If I hadn’t, I think I might have killed him. He jerked back—no, he slammed back—and bit his lip. I remember the blood. He called me a pistol. And later, he asked about Tony. My invisible friend . So I told him.
    Tony was back, it seemed, but he was no longer Dan’s friend. Now he was the friend of a little girl named Abra. She was in trouble just as Dan had been, but grown men who sought out little girls attracted attention and suspicion. He had a good life here in Frazier, and he felt it was one he deserved after all the lost years.
    But . . .
    But when he needed Dick—at the Overlook, and later, in Florida, when Mrs. Massey had come back—Dick had come. In AA, people called that kind of thing a Twelfth Step call. Because when the pupil was ready, the teacher would appear.
    On several occasions, Dan had gone