8456893456983

That was loud enough to make him wince, and he thought again of how Dick Hallorann had
recoiled behind the wheel of his rental car, his eyes going momentarily blank.
(we need to talk out loud )
(okay yes)
“I’m your father’s cousin, okay? Not really an uncle, but that’s what you call me.”
“Right, right, you’re Uncle Dan. We’ll be fine as long as my mother’s best friend doesn’t come
along. Her name’s Gretchen Silverlake. I think she knows our whole family tree, and there isn’t very
much of it.”
Oh, great, Dan thought. The nosy best friend.
“It’s okay,” Abra said. “Her older son’s on the football team, and she never misses a Cyclones game.
Almost everyone goes to the game, so stop worrying that someone will think you’re—”
She finished the sentence with a mental picture—a cartoon, really. It blossomed in an instant,
crude but clear. A little girl in a dark alley was being menaced by a hulking man in a trenchcoat. The
little girl’s knees were knocking together, and just before the picture faded, Dan saw a word balloon
form over her head: Eeek, a freak!
“Actually not that funny.”
He made his own picture and sent it back to her: Dan Torrance in jail-stripes, being led away by
two big policemen. He had never tried anything like this, and it wasn’t as good as hers, but he was
delighted to find he could do it at all. Then, almost before he knew what was happening, she
appropriated his picture and made it her own. Dan pulled a gun from his waistband, pointed it at one
of the cops, and pulled the trigger. A handkerchief with the word POW! on it shot from the barrel of
the gun.
Dan stared at her, mouth open.
Abra put fisted hands to her mouth and giggled. “Sorry. Couldn’t resist. We could do this all
afternoon, couldn’t we? And it would be fun.”
He guessed it would also be a relief. She had spent years with a splendid ball but no one to play
catch with. And of course it was the same with him. For the first time since childhood—since
Hallorann—he was sending as well as receiving.
“You’re right, it would be, but now’s not the time. You need to run through this whole thing
again. The email you sent only hit the high spots.”
“Where should I start?”
“How about with your last name? Since I’m your honorary uncle, I probably should know.”
That made her laugh. Dan tried to keep a straight face and couldn’t. God help him, he liked her
already.
“I’m Abra Rafaella Stone,” she said. Suddenly the laughter was gone. “I just hope the lady in the
hat never finds that out.”
7
They sat together on the bench outside the library for forty-five minutes, with the autumn sun warm
on their faces. For the first time in her life Abra felt unconditional pleasure—joy, even—in the talent
that had always puzzled and sometimes terrified her. Thanks to this man, she even had a name for it:
the shining. It was a good name, a comforting name, because she had always thought of it as a dark
thing.
There was plenty to talk about—volumes of notes to compare—and they had hardly gotten started
when a stout fiftyish woman in a tweed skirt came over to say hello. She looked at Dan with curiosity,