Doctor Sleep (The Shining #2)(3)

Dick looked for a long time, not touching, then nodded. “Let’s see if Danny’s up and in the doins.”

He wasn’t, but Wendy’s heart was lightened by the look of gladness that came into her son’s face when he saw who was sitting beside him on the bed and shaking his shoulder.

(hey Danny I brought you a present)

(it’s not my birthday)

Wendy watched them, knowing they were speaking but not knowing what it was about.

Dick said, “Get on up, honey. We’re gonna take a walk on the beach.”

(Dick she came back Mrs. Massey from Room 217 came back)

Dick gave his shoulder another shake. “Talk out loud, Dan. You’re scarin your ma.”

Danny said, “What’s my present?”

Dick smiled. “That’s better. I like to hear you, and Wendy does, too.”

“Yes.” It was all she dared say. Otherwise they’d hear the tremble in her voice and be concerned. She didn’t want that.

“While we’re gone, you might want to give the bathroom a cleaning,” Dick said to her. “Have you got kitchen gloves?”

She nodded.

“Good. Wear them.”

6

The beach was two miles away. The parking lot was surrounded by tawdry beachfront attractions—funnel cake concessions, hotdog stands, souvenir shops—but this was the tag end of the season, and none were doing much business. They had the beach itself almost entirely to themselves. On the ride from the apartment, Danny had held his present—an oblong package, quite heavy, wrapped in silver paper—on his lap.

“You can open it after we talk a bit,” Dick said.

They walked just above the waves, where the sand was hard and gleaming. Danny walked slowly, because Dick was pretty old. Someday he’d die. Maybe even soon.

“I’m good to go another few years,” Dick said. “Don’t you worry about that. Now tell me about last night. Don’t leave anything out.”

It didn’t take long. The hard part would have been finding words to explain the terror he now felt, and how it was mingled with a suffocating sense of certainty: now that she’d found him, she’d never leave. But because it was Dick, he didn’t need words, although he found some.

“She’ll come back. I know she will. She’ll come back and come back until she gets me.”

“Do you remember when we met?”

Although surprised at the change of direction, Danny nodded. It had been Hallorann who gave him and his parents the guided tour on their first day at the Overlook. Very long ago, that seemed.

“And do you remember the first time I spoke up inside your head?”

“I sure do.”

“What did I say?”

“You asked me if I wanted to go to Florida with you.”

“That’s right. And how did it make you feel, to know you wasn’t alone anymore? That you wasn’t the only one?”

“It was great,” Danny said. “It was so great.”

“Yeah,” Hallorann said. “Yeah, course it was.”

They walked in silence for a bit. Little birds—peeps, Danny’s mother called them—ran in and out of the waves.

“Did it ever strike you funny, how I showed up when you needed me?” He looked down at Danny and smiled. “No. It didn’t. Why would it? You was just a child, but you’re a little older now. A lot older in some ways. Listen to me, Danny. The world has a way of keeping things in balance. I believe that. There’s a saying: When the pupil is ready, the teacher will appear. I was your teacher.”

“You were a lot more than that,” Danny said. He took Dick’s hand. “You were my friend. You saved us.”

Dick ignored this . . . or seemed to. “My gramma also had the shining—do you remember me telling you that?”

“Yeah. You said you and her could have long conversations without even opening your mouths.”

“That’s right. She taught me. And it was her great-gramma that taught her, way back in the slave days. Someday, Danny, it will be your turn to be the teacher. The pupil will come.”

“If Mrs. Massey doesn’t get me first,” Danny said morosely.

They came to a bench. Dick sat down. “I don’t dare go any further; I might not make it back. Sit beside me. I want to tell you a story.”

“I don’t want stories,” Danny said. “She’ll come back, don’t you get it? She’ll come back and come back and come back.”

“Shut your mouth and open your ears. Take some instruction.” Then Dick grinned, displaying his gleaming new dentures. “I think you’ll get the point. You’re far from stupid, honey.”

7

Dick’s mother’s mother—the one with the shining—lived in Clearwater. She was the White Gramma. Not because she was Caucasian, of course, but because she was good. His father’s father lived in Dunbrie, Mississippi, a rural community not far from Oxford. His wife had died long before Dick was born. For a man of color in that place and time, he was wealthy. He owned a funeral parlor. Dick and his parents visited four times a year, and young Dick Hallorann hated those visits. He was terrified of Andy Hallorann, and called him—only in his own mind, to speak it aloud would have earned him a smack across the chops—the Black Grampa.