Dan no longer drinks every day, but when he drinks, he still gets very drunk. He works when he can and loses jobs regularly. As he wanders, he crosses the path of the True Knot without understanding the feeling of their presence.

A bus drops Dan off in Frazier, New Hampshire. Tony—the supernatural boy who guided Danny in The Shining—tells him that this is the place. He hasn’t heard Tony so clearly in years. When he sees the mountains, he realizes he has always avoided mountains since the Overlook Hotel, which was surrounded by the Rockies.

Dan sees Tony waving at him from the upstairs window of the Helen Rivington House, a hospice. Soon, he sees an attraction called Teenytown: a model of Cranmore Avenue, complete with a miniature train. A man named Billy Freeman greets him and offers him a temporary job. Dan thinks Billy has the shining, which has drawn Dan to him. Billy sends Dan to talk to Cary Kingsley, who does the hiring. He also tells Dan to tell Kingsley that he doesn’t drink.

Kingsley looks at Dan’s references and asks if Dan might be better suited to hospice work, given his resume in a veteran’s home and other similar facilities.