In the turret room of Rivington House, Dan’s space heater was running full blast, but the room was still cold. A nor’easter, driven by a fifty-mile-an-hour gale, had blown down from the mountains, piling five inches of snow an hour on the sleeping town of Frazier. When the storm finally eased the following afternoon, some of the drifts against the north and east sides of the buildings on Cranmore Avenue would be twelve feet deep. Dan wasn’t bothered by the cold; nestled beneath two down comforters, he was warm as tea and toast. Yet the wind had found its way inside his head just as it found its way under the sashes and doorsills of the old Victorian he now called home. In his dream, he could hear it moaning around the hotel where he had spent one winter as a little boy. In his dream, he was that little boy. He’s on the second floor of the Overlook. Mommy is sleeping and Daddy’s in the basement, looking at old papers. He’s doing RESEARCH. The RESEARCH is for the book he’s going to write.
