Now none of it will happen, and Charlie can’t help but feel sorry for those who missed out. Most of the world never got to experience Madeline Forrester.
But Charlie did.
She experienced it and loved it and misses it dearly.
“I’m sorry,” she says, even though she knows Maddy isn’t really there. Her appearance is just another movie in her mind. It doesn’t matter. Charlie still feels compelled to say it. The last words she wishes she had uttered when Maddy was still alive. “You weren’t an awful friend. I’m sorry I said that. I didn’t mean it. You were an amazing friend. You made me feel—”
“Alive?” Maddy says.
“Yes,” Charlie says.
And not just alive. In-a-movie alive, which is far superior in every way.
“I know,” Maddy says. “I’ve always known. Right until the end.”
The man standing with her remains frozen in time, still unknowable with his turned back, bowed head, hand cupped around the lighter’s flame. Charlie knows that even if she steps closer, like a director entering the frame, she won’t be able to see what he looks like. He’ll be a shadow no matter how close she gets.
So it’s Maddy she looks at, sparkling in the spotlight. She’s so bright that the shadowy figure in the fedora fades away. Darkness banished by light.
Maddy stands alone now, ridiculously tall in her high heels and clutching a Virginia Slim.
“Do you miss me?” she says.
Charlie nods, holding back a tear in the process. “Of course.”
“Then stay.”
Charlie would like that. If she could, she’d live in this movie for as long as possible. But she knows she can’t.
“You’re not real,” she says to Maddy. “You’re just a movie in my mind.”
“But isn’t that better than real life?”
“It is. But I need to live in the real world.”
“Even if it’s scary?” Maddy says.
“Especially if it’s scary.”
Right now, she needs complete knowledge of her surroundings. Not only where she is but who might be nearby.
Clarity.
That’s what the situation requires. Her life depends on it.
“But this might be the last time you ever see me,” Maddy says.
Charlie feels more tears coming. She keeps them at bay, determined to make this make-believe goodbye the complete opposite of the real-life version.
No anger.
No tears.
Only love and joy and appreciation.
“Then make it memorable,” she says.
Maddy strikes a pose, standing in profile, one hand on her hip, the other elegantly extended as the smoke curls from the cigarette between her fingers. It is, Charlie thinks, perfect.
“What a dump!” Maddy says.
Charlie smiles and closes her eyes, knowing that when she opens them, Maddy will be gone for good.
“I think I adore you,” she says.
EXT. LODGE VERANDA—NIGHT
Just as she suspected, Maddy is gone when Charlie opens her eyes. Instead of in the alley, she finds herself on a stone walkway outside the Mountain Oasis Lodge. Cold night air slaps her face, bringing much-needed clarity.
The movies in her mind are over.
Possibly for good.
Because of the fieldstone beneath her feet, Charlie suspects she’s near the veranda behind the lodge. She saw a similar walkway earlier when trying to escape through the French doors in the lobby. Further cementing her theory are dark plumes of smoke drifting toward her from around a corner of the building. With them are the snap, crackle, and pop of something burning.
She rushes down the walkway and rounds the corner, the smoke getting thicker and the sound of burning louder. Soon Charlie’s at the same pool area she spotted earlier, although now it looks much different.
Smoke rolls through the area, streaming in from the nearby lobby. Through the throat-choking haze, Charlie gets undulating glimpses of the wall of windows. Just behind them, large tongues of flame lick at the air. From what she can see, she thinks the blaze has expanded to the rest of the lobby. Flames crawl along the front desk and scale the support timbers rising to the ceiling. Inside, a piece of the roof breaks free and crashes to the floor, sending up a cloud of sparks. A wall of heat hits her, making Charlie take several steps back.
That’s when she notices the French doors.
They’re not just broken, like most of the windows.
They’ve been opened.
And while Charlie hopes it was Josh who did it, she suspects it was someone else.
Marge.
Outside.
With her.
Charlie moves backward through the smoke, her sneakers shuffling over the stone walkway until, suddenly, it drops away.
She spends a moment teetering on the lip of a concrete ledge, her arms pinwheeling in a desperate fight to keep balance.
One of her feet slips, flying out from under her.
A scream escapes Charlie’s lips as she topples, clawing at the air, falling into what she now realizes is the empty swimming pool. She closes her eyes, bracing for impact against the bottom, but instead of her body slamming against cold concrete, Charlie lands in several feet of rainwater that’s gathered at the bottom of the pool. The water—black with dirt, slick with algae—consumes her.
For a moment, Charlie’s lost, unsure if she’s still falling or now floating. Her eyes are open, but all is dark. Caught mid-scream, her mouth is filled with water and slime and filth. Some trickles down her throat, choking her.
She stands, emerging from the swill, coughing up the parts of it that made it to her lungs.
Then she looks around.
She’s in the deep end, standing in about four feet of water. On the other side of the pool, a ladder clings to the concrete, rusted yet usable.
Charlie wades toward it, moving through water that’s akin to primordial ooze. Rotting leaves float on the surface. Nearby, a dead mouse does the same.
At the ladder, Charlie struggles to climb its rungs. Her hands are too wet and the soles of her shoes too slippery. Adding to the trouble is her wool coat, sodden with rancid water. It’s heavier now, like lead, weighing her down as she scales the ladder.
Still, she climbs.
Feet slipping off a rung once.
Hands screeching off the railing twice.
She keeps climbing until her eyes breach the edge of the pool, revealing the same stone walkway that had dropped out from under her earlier.