Doctor Sleep (The Shining, #2)(136)

“There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“Sì, I know that. I’m so glad you come. Tell me again your name, signor.”

“Daniel Torrance.”

“Sì. You are a gift from God, Daniel Torrance. Sei un dono di Dio.”

Dan hoped it was true. “Will you give to me?”

“Sì, of course. What you need per Abra.”

“And I’ll give to you, Chetta. We’ll drink from the well together.”

She closed her eyes.

(I know)

“You’ll go to sleep, and when you wake up—”

(everything will be better)

The power was even stronger than it had been on the night Charlie Hayes passed; he could feel it between them as he gently clasped her hands in his and felt the smooth pebbles of her rosary against his palms. Somewhere, lights were being turned off, one by one. It was all right. In Italy a little girl in a brown dress and sandals was drawing water from the cool throat of a well. She looked like Abra, that little girl. The dog was barking. Il cane. Ginata. Il cane si rotolava sull’erba. Barking and rolling in the grass. Funny Ginata!

Concetta was sixteen and in love, or thirty and writing a poem at the kitchen table of a hot apartment in Queens while children shouted on the street below; she was sixty and standing in the rain and looking up at a hundred thousand lines of purest falling silver. She was her mother and her great-granddaughter and it was time for her great change, her great voyage. Ginata was rolling in the grass and the lights

(hurry up please)

were going out one by one. A door was opening

(hurry up please it’s time)

and beyond it they could both smell all the mysterious, fragrant respiration of the night. Above were all the stars that ever were.

He kissed her cool forehead. “Everything’s all right, cara. You only need to sleep. Sleep will make you better.”

Then he waited for her final breath.

It came.


6

He was still sitting there, holding her hands in his, when the door burst open and Lucy Stone came striding in. Her husband and her daughter’s pediatrician followed, but not too closely; it was as if they feared being burned by the fear, fury, and confused outrage that surrounded her in a crackling aura so strong it was almost visible.

She seized Dan by the shoulder, her fingernails digging like claws into the shoulder beneath his shirt. “Get away from her. You don’t know her. You have no more business with my grandmother than you do with my daugh—”

“Lower your voice,” Dan said without turning. “You’re in the presence of death.”

The rage that had stiffened her ran out all at once, loosening her joints. She sagged to the bed beside Dan and looked at the waxen cameo that was now her grandmother’s face. Then she looked at the haggard, beard-scruffy man who sat holding the dead hands, in which the rosary was still entwined. Unnoticed tears began rolling down Lucy’s cheeks in big clear drops.

“I can’t make out half of what they’ve been trying to tell me. Just that Abra was kidnapped, but now she’s all right—supposedly—and she’s in a motel with some man named Billy and they’re both sleeping.”

“All that’s true,” Dan said.

“Then spare me your holier-than-thou pronouncements, if you please. I’ll mourn my momo after I see Abra. When I’ve got my arms around her. For now, I want to know . . . I want . . .” She trailed off, looking from Dan to her dead grandmother and back to Dan again. Her husband stood behind her. John had closed the door of Room 9 and was leaning against it. “Your name is Torrance? Daniel Torrance?”

“Yes.”

Again that slow look from her grandmother’s still profile to the man who had been present when she died. “Who are you, Mr. Torrance?”

Dan let go of Chetta’s hands and took Lucy’s. “Walk with me. Not far. Just across the room.”

She stood up without protest, still looking into his face. He led her to the bathroom door, which was standing open. He turned on the light and pointed to the mirror above the washbasin, where they were framed as if in a photograph. Seen that way, there could be little doubt. None, really.

He said, “My father was your father, Lucy. I’m your half brother.”


7

After notifying the head nurse that there had been a death on the floor, they went to the hospital’s small nondenominational chapel. Lucy knew the way; although not much of a believer, she had spent a good many hours there, thinking and remembering. It was a comforting place to do those things, which are necessary when a loved one nears the end. At this hour, they had it all to themselves.

“First things first,” Dan said. “I have to ask if you believe me. We can do the DNA test when there’s time, but . . . do we need to?”

Lucy shook her head dazedly, never taking her eyes from his face. She seemed to be trying to memorize it. “Dear Jesus. I can hardly get my breath.”

“I thought you looked familiar the first time I saw you,” Dave said to Dan. “Now I know why. I would have gotten it sooner, I think, if it hadn’t been . . . you know . . .”

“So right in front of you,” John said. “Dan, does Abra know?”

“Sure.” Dan smiled, remembering Abra’s theory of relativity.