Storm of the Century (39 page)

125 EXTERIOR: MAIN STREET--NIGHT.

Snow-clogged and silent.

126 EXTERIOR: THE TOWN HALL--NIGHT.

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Dark on the right, BRIGHTLY CANDLELIT on the left, where the meeting hall is.

127 INTERIOR: THE MEETING HALL--NIGHT.

Slowly, slowly, the parents come down the center aisle: JILL, URSULA, JACK, LINDA, SANDRA, HENRY, and MELINDA. At the rear of the group is MOLLY ANDERSON. She looks pleadingly at MIKE.

Mike, please try to understand-

Do you want me to understand? Go back and sit with him, then. Refuse to take part in this obscenity.

I can’t. If you could only see . . .

MIKE is looking down between his legs at the floor. He doesn’t want to look at her, doesn’t want to look at any of it. She sees this and goes on, sorrowfully, up the steps.

The PARENTS range themselves in a line on the stage. LINOGE looks at them with the benign smile of a dentist assuring a child that this won’t hurt, this won’t hurt at all.

It’s perfectly simple. You each draw a stone from the bag. The child whose parent draws the black stone comes with me. To live long . . . see far . . . and know much. Mrs. Robi-chaux? Jill? Would you start us, please?

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He offers her the bag. At first it seems she won’t reach into it ... or can’t.

Go on, honey--do it.

She gives him a haunted look, then reaches into the bag, feels around, and comes out with her hand tightly clasped around a stone. She looks as though she might faint.

Mrs. Hatcher?

MELINDA takes a stone. SANDRA is next. She reaches toward the bag . . . then draws away.

Robbie, I can’t! You!

But ROBBIE doesn’t want to be that near LINOGE.

Go on! Draw!

She does, and stands back, little mouth quivering, her hand clasped so tightly around the stone that the fingers are white. Next is HENRY BRIGHT, feeling around a long time, rejecting one (or two) in favor of another. Then JACK. He chooses fast, then steps back and gives ANGIE a desperate, hopeful smile. LINDA ST. PIERRE draws one. That leaves URSULA and MOLLY.

Ladies?

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You go first, Molly.

No. Please. You.

URSULA plunges her hand into the bag, takes one of the two remaining stones, then steps back, fist clenched. MOLLY steps forward, looks at LINOGE, and takes the last stone. LINOGE tosses the empty bag aside. It flutters toward the stage . . . then DISAPPEARS IN A DIM BLUE GLOW before it ever reaches the boards. No reaction from the ISLANDERS; their silence is so thick and tense you could cut it with a knife.

All right, my friends; so far it’s done very well. Now, who has the courage to show first? To put fear aside and let sweet relief rush in to take its place?

No one responds. They stand, eight parents with their hands clenched before them, each in utter white-faced terror.

(genial)

Come, come--have you never heard that the gods punish the fainthearted?

(cries out)

Buster! I love you!

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He opens his hand. The marble he holds is WHITE. The AUDIENCE MURMURS.

URSULA steps forward. She holds out her closed, trembling fist. She nerves herself up, and her hand springs open. This marble is also WHITE. The AUDIENCE MURMURS AGAIN.

Let’s see, Sandra. Show it.

I ... I ... Robbie, I can’t ... I know it’s Donnie ... I know it is ... I’ve never been lucky . . .

Impatient with her, contemptuous of her, in a frenzy to know one way or the other, he goes to her, seizes her hand, and pries the fingers open. We can’t see, and at first we can read nothing from his face. Then he seizes what she holds, and lifts it up so they can all see. He’s GRINNING SAVAGELY; looks like Richard Nixon at a political rally.

White!

He tries to embrace his wife, but SANDRA pushes him away with an expression beyond disgust--this is outright revulsion.

Now it’s LINDA ST. PIERRE’s turn to step forward. She holds out her closed hand, looking down at it, then closes her eyes.

LINDA ST. PIERRE

Please, God, I beg of you, don’t take my Heidi away.

She opens her hand, but not her eyes.

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White!

The AUDIENCE MURMURS. LINDA opens her eyes, sees the stone is indeed WHITE, and begins to WEEP, closing her hand again and holding the precious stone to her breasts.

Jill? Mrs. Robichaux?

I can’t. I thought I could go through with it, but I can’t. I’m sorry-She heads for the stairs, still holding her clenched fist in front of her. Before she can get there, LINOGE

points his cane her way. She is driven back at once. LINOGE now dips the silver wolf’s head at her hand. She tries to hold the fingers closed and can’t. The stone drops to the stage, rolls like a marble (which is what the stones look like), and THE CAMERA TRACKS IT. It finally stops, resting against one of the legs of the town manager’s table. It’s WHITE.

JILL collapses to her knees, SOBBING. LINDA helps her to her feet and embraces her. Now there is only HENRY, MELINDA, and MOLLY. One of them has the black stone. We INTERCUT their spouses. CARLA BRIGHT and HATCH are watching the stage with passionate, terrorized fascination. MIKE is still looking at the floor.

Mr. Bright? Henry? Will you favor us?

HENRY steps forward and slowly opens his hand. The stone is WHITE. He all but deflates in his relief. CARLA looks at him, smiling through her tears.

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Now it’s down to MOLLY and MELINDA, RALPHIE and PIPPA. The two mothers look at each other with LINOGE smiling in the background. One of them is about to cease being a mother, and both of them know it.

128 INTERIOR: MOLLY, CLOSE-UP.

She’s imagining:

129 EXTERIOR: BLUE SKY--DAY.

Flying high above the clouds is LINOGE, but now the V is very short. Of the eight children, only RALPHIE and PIPPA are left, each gripping one of LINOGE’S hands.

130 INTERIOR: RESUME STAGE--NIGHT.

Ladies?

MOLLY looks a thought at MELINDA. MELINDA catches it and nods slightly. The women hold out their closed fists, hand to hand. They look at each other, frantic with love, hope, and fear.

(very soft)

Now.

131 INTERIOR: THE CLOSED HANDS, CLOSE-UP.

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They open. In one is a white “marble”; in the other is a black. There are MURMURS, GASPS, and CRIES OF SURPRISE from the audience . . . but we can’t tell--not yet. We see only the stones lying on the open palms.

132 INTERIOR: MOLLY’S FACE, EXTREME CLOSE-UP.

Wide eyes.

133 INTERIOR: MELINDA’S FACE, EXTREME CLOSE-UP.

Wide eyes.

134 INTERIOR: HATCH’S FACE, EXTREME CLOSE-UP.

Wide eyes.

135 INTERIOR: MIKE, EXTREME CLOSE-UP.

Head down . . . but he can’t keep it that way, despite his intention not to participate in this, even passively. He raises his face and looks toward the stage. And we must read the loss of his son first on this man’s face--we see incredulity, then the dawn of a terrible understanding.

(to his feet)

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SONNY, LUCIEN, and ALEX grab him when he tries to lunge forward, and wrestle him back to his seat.

136 INTERIOR: MOLLY AND MELINDA, ON STAGE.

They continue to face each other, almost forehead to forehead, frozen, their hands--now open--held out. In MELINDA’S is the seventh white stone. In MOLLY’S is the black one.

MELINDA’S face breaks in delayed reaction. She turns, blinded by tears, and walks toward the edge of the stage.

Pippa! Mummy’s coming, love-She stumbles on the stairs and would go headlong, if not for HATCH, who is there to catch her. MELINDA, hysterical with relief, doesn’t even notice. She fights free of her husband’s arms and runs up the center aisle.

Pippa, honey! It’s all right! Mummy’s coming, sweetheart, mummy’s coming!

HATCH turns to MIKE.

Mike, I-MIKE only looks at him--a look of pure, poisonous hate. “You condoned this, and it has cost me my son,” that look says. HATCH cannot bear it. He goes after his wife, almost slinking.
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MOLLY has been stunned through all of this, looking down at the BLACK MARBLE, but now she begins to realize what has happened.

No. Oh, no. This isn’t . . . This can’t be ...

She throws the stone away and turns to LINOGE.

It’s a joke! Or a test? It’s a test, isn’t it? You didn’t really mean . . .

But he did really mean it, does really mean it, and she sees that.

You can’t have him!

Molly, I feel your grief keenly . . . but you agreed to the terms. I’m sorry.

You fixed it somehow! You wanted him all along! Because . . . because of the fairy saddle!

Is this true? We will never know if we imagined the FLICKER in LINOGE’S eyes ... or actually saw it.

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I assure you that’s not so. The game, as you’d say, was straight. And since I believe that long, drawn-out farewells only add to the pain-He starts toward the stairs, on the way to claim his prize.

No, no, I won’t let you-She tries to attack him. LINOGE gestures with the cane, and she is flung backward, hitting the town manager’s table and rolling over it. She lands in a SOBBING HEAP on the floor.

LINOGE, at the lip of the stage and the top of the stairs, regards the ISLANDERS--who look like people waking up from a communal nightmare in which they have done some terrible, irrevocable thing-with BEAMING, SARDONIC PLEASURE.

Ladies and gentlemen, residents of Little Tall, I thank you for your attention to my needs, and I declare this meeting at an end . . . with a suggestion that the less you say to the outside world about our . . . our arrangement, the more happy you are apt to be ... although such matters are, of course, ultimately up to you.

Behind his back, MOLLY gets to her feet and comes forward. She looks all but insane with shock, grief, and incredulity.

(pulls on gloves, watch cap)

With that, I’ll take my new protégé and leave you to your thoughts. May they be happy ones.

He starts down the stairs. His path to the center aisle brings him close to where MIKE sits. MOLLY

rushes forward to the edge of the stage, her eyes so big they seem to fill the whole top half of her face. She sees that MIKE’S guards are no longer doing their job; LUCIEN, SONNY, and the others are
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sitting back, looking at LINOGE, their jaws agape.

(shrieking)

Mike! Stop him! For God’s sake, stop him!

MIKE knows what will happen if he goes for LINOGE; a single wave of the cane, and he will be peeling himself off one of the walls. He looks up at his wife--his estranged wife now, one supposes--with HORRIBLE DEAD EYES.

Too late, Molly.

She reacts first with dismay, then with CRAZED DETERMINATION. If MIKE will not help her right the mistake they’ve made, she will do it herself. She looks around . . . and sees ROBBIE’S little pistol, now lying on the podium. She seizes it, whirls, and plunges down the steps to the floor.

Stop! I’m warning you!

LINOGE sweeps on, and A CHANGE IS TAKING PLACE as he walks: the pea coat is becoming a robe of royal silver-blue, decorated with suns and moons and other symbols of cabalistic design. The watch cap is becoming the tall, pointed hat of a SORCERER or WIZARD. And the cane is becoming a SCEPTER. The wolf’s head is still there, but now it tops a GLOWING WAND worthy of Merlin.

MOLLY either doesn’t see or doesn’t care. All she wants to do is to stop him. She steps to the head of the center aisle and levels the pistol.

Stop, or I’ll shoot!

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But SONNY and ALEX HABER crowd into the aisle, blocking her off from LINOGE. LUCIEN and JOHNNY HARRIMAN grab her ... and HATCH plucks the gun neatly from her hand. During all this, MIKE only sits with his head down, unable to look.

LUCIEN Sorry, Missus Anderson . . . but we made a deal.

We didn’t understand the deal! We didn’t understand what we were doing! Mike was right, we didn’t. .

. didn’t . . . Jack, stop him! Don’t let him take Ralphie! Don’t let him take my son!

I can’t do that, Molly.

(then, with some resentment)

And you wouldn’t be screaming like that, either, if it’d been me with the black marble.

She looks at him, unbelieving. He holds her eyes for a moment, then wavers. But ANGELA is there to put her arm around him, and ANGIE looks at MOLLY with bright hostility.