OBBIE

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.

ANOTHER VOICE

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.

LINOGE

Jill? Mrs. Robichaux?

JILL 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

350 STEPHEN KING

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.

LINOGE

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.

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.

LINOGE

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.

MOLLY

(very soft) Now.

STORM OF THE CENTURY 351

131 INTERIOR: THE CLOSED HANDS, CLOSE-UP.

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.

MIKE (to his feet)

NO!!! NO!!!

352 STEPHEN KING

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.

MELINDA

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.

MELINDA

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

HATCH turns to MIKE.

HATCH 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.

MOLLY has been stunned through all of this, looking down at the BLACK MARBLE, but now she begins to realize what has happened.

MOLLY No. Oh, no. This isn't . . . This can't be ...

She throws the stone away and turns to LINOGE.

STORM OF THE CENTURY 353

MOLLY

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.

MOLLY

You can't have him!

LINOGE

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

MOLLY

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.

LINOGE

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.

MOLLY

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.

354 STEPHEN KING

LINOGE

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.

LINOGE

(pulls on gloves, watch cap)

With that, I'll take my new protege 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 sitting back, looking at LINOGE, their jaws agape.

MOLLY

(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.

MIKE 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.

STORM OF THE CENTURY 355 MOLLY

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.

MOLLY Stop, or I'll shoot!

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.

MOLLY

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!

JACK 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.

ANGIE Can't you be a good loser?

356 STEPHEN KING

MOLLY This isn't a ... a baseball game!

137 INTERIOR: THE KIDS' CORNER, WITH LINOGE.

He is now a WIZARD from head to toe, wrapped in a BRIGHT BLUE AURA. We once more see his GREAT AGE. The other parents and friends surrounding the sleeping children draw back from him in fear. He pays them absolutely no notice. He bends down, picks RALPHIE ANDERSON up in his arms, and gazes at the boy raptly.

A

138 INTERIOR: THE FOOT OF THE CENTER AISLE, WITH MOLLY.

In her hysteria, she almost succeeds in struggling free from the big men holding her. She faces LINOGE along the length of the aisle with HYSTERICAL DEFIANCE.

MOLLY

You tricked us!

LINOGE

Perhaps you tricked yourselves.

MOLLY He'll never belong to you! Never!

LINOGE lifts the sleeping boy up like an offering. The BLUE GLOW around him INTENSIFIES . . . and now it begins to STEAL OVER RALPHIE, as well. LINOGE'S age is not kindly but cruel, a thing to be feared. And his smile is horrible in its triumph ... a thing to haunt our dreams.

LINOGE

But he will. He'll come to love me. (pause) He'll come to call me Father.

There is an awful truth to this against which MOLLY cannot hold out. She slumps in the hands holding her back, ceasing to resist. LINOGE holds her gaze a moment longer, then turns, the hem of his silk robe flaring out. He strides for the door. Everyone turns to watch him.

STORM OF THE CENTURY 357

139 INTERIOR: MIKE.

He gets up. That DEAD LOOK is still on his face. HATCH reaches for him.

HATCH Mike, I don't think

MIKE

(pushes his hand off) Don't touch me. Don't ever touch me again. Not any of you.

(looks at MOLLY) Not any of you.

He walks up the side aisle. No one stops him.

140 INTERIOR: THE CORRIDOR OF THE TOWN HALL.

MIKE steps out of the meeting hall just in time to see the hem of LINOGE'S robe going out the front door and into the night. He pauses, then goes after.

141 EXTERIOR: THE FRONT STEPS OF THE TOWN HALL NIGHT.

MIKE comes out and stands looking, his breath PUFFING SILVER in the moonlight.

142 EXTERIOR: LINOGE AND RALPHIE IN FRONT OF THE TOWN HALL NIGHT.

LINOGE is still GLOWING BRIGHT BLUE. THE CAMERA TRACKS WITH HIM as he carries RALPHIE down the slope toward the street . . . the shore . . . the reach . . . the mainland . . . and all the leagues of Earth beyond. We see LINOGE'S tracks, first quite heavy . . . then light. . . then just faint prints.

As LINOGE passes the cupola with the memorial bell inside, he begins rising into the air. Only an inch or two at first, but the distance between him and the earth is growing. It's almost as if he's climbing stairs we can't see.

143 EXTERIOR: MIKE, ON THE TOWN HALL STEPS NIGHT.

He cries out after his son, putting all his grief and loss into that one shouted word:

358 STEPHEN KING

MIKE Ralphie!

144 EXTERIOR: LINOGE AND RALPHIE NIGHT.

RALPHIE opens his eyes and looks around.

RALPHIE

Where am I? Where's my daddy?

MIKE (voice, growing faint) Ralphie . . .

LINOGE

It doesn't matter, fairy-saddle boy. Look down!

RALPHIE looks down. They are flying over the reach now. Their shadows flee across the waves, etched in moonlight. RALPHIE smiles, delighted.

RALPHIE Whoa! Neat! (pause) Is it real?

LINOGE Real as rhubarb.

RALPHIE looks back at:

145 EXTERIOR: LITTLE TALL ISLAND, FROM RALPHIE'S POINT OF VIEW NIGHT.

This is almost a negative image of our introduction to the island night instead of day, going away instead of approaching. In the moonlight, Little Tall looks almost like an illusion. Which, to RALPHIE, it will soon be.

146 EXTERIOR: RESUME LINOGE AND RALPHIE NIGHT.

RALPHIE

(very impressed) Where we going?

LINOGE tosses his scepter into the air ahead of him. It rises and

STORM OF THE CENTURY 359

resumes the position it held in the visions of LINOGE and the FLYING CHILDREN. Its shadow, now thrown by the moon instead of by the sun, lies across LINOGE'S face. He bends and kisses the fairy saddle on RALPHIE'S nose.

LINOGE

Anywhere. Everywhere. All the places you ever dreamed of.

RALPHIE What about my mom and dad? When are they coming?

LINOGE

(smiling) Why don't we worry about them later?

Well, he's the grown-up . . . and besides, this is fun.

RALPHIE Okay.

LINOGE turns banks like an airplane, almost and flies away from us.

147 EXTERIOR: MIKE, ON THE TOWN HALL STEPS NIGHT.

He's weeping. JOANNA STANHOPE comes out and puts a hand on his shoulder. She speaks to him with infinite kindness.

JOANNA

Mike. Come in.

He ignores her, going down the steps and stumbling his way into the new snow. It's tough going for folks who aren't wizards, but he flounders ahead just the same, even though it's waist deep at times. He follows LINOGE'S footprints, and THE CAMERA TRACKS WITH HIM, watching as the impressions grow lighter and lighter, less and less tied to the earth where mortals must live.

Past the memorial bell, there is one more faint imprint. . . then nothing. Just acres of virgin snow. MIKE collapses beside that last print, CRYING. He holds his hands up to the EMPTY SKY, the GLOWING MOON.

360 STEPHEN KING

MIKE

(low)