Charlie also sees smoke, drifting over the pool like lake mist.
And in that smoke, right at the top of the ladder, is a pair of white sneakers.
Although there’s no blood on them, like there was in her imagination, Charlie knows they belong to Marge and that this time it’s not a movie in her mind.
A second later, she feels the barrel of a pistol cold against her forehead.
“Keep climbing,” Marge says. “We’re not done yet.”
She backs off, giving Charlie just enough room to crest the ladder and step onto the walkway. The two of them stare at each other, Charlie drenched and streaming dirty water, Marge’s face darkened by smoke.
“Where’s Josh?” Charlie says.
“He’s safe.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Marge’s shoulders rise and fall. “I don’t care.”
Beside them, a low rumble rises from inside the lodge. Another chunk of roof—bigger than the first—crashes down. The walkway under their feet shakes. Smoke and sparks roll over them—a wave so dense it blots out Charlie’s vision and makes her head swim.
When it clears, she sees Marge still across from her, the pistol now aimed at her chest.
“And what about Maddy?” Charlie says, getting a flash of the most recent movie in her mind. Maddy in full glamour mode. “You care about her, right? She’d hate it if she saw us like this.”
Marge starts to speak, changes her mind, goes silent again. She can’t argue with Charlie’s reasoning. Both of them know it’s true. If she were here, Maddy would be sickened by what she saw.
“I can’t just let it go. I have to do something.” Marge keeps the pistol pointed at Charlie. “I swore—”
“That you’d get revenge? Hurting me won’t do that. It won’t bring Maddy back. She’s gone, and I hate that fact. It makes me sad and angry, but most of all, I just miss her. I miss her so much. Just like you do.”
“It hurts,” Marge says, her voice cracking. “Missing her—it hurts so bad.”
“I know,” Charlie says. “It hurts me, too.”
“And this uncertainty. I don’t know what to do with it. I need to know who killed my Maddy.”
Charlie does, too. But she also knows life doesn’t always work that way. It’s not the movies, where plots are often tied up in a tidy bow. In the real world, you may never learn what caused the crash that killed your parents or who murdered your best friend. It’s hard and it hurts and it’s so unfair that sometimes it makes Charlie want to scream. But it’s life, and everyone must go on living it.
“Let me go,” Charlie says. “Let me go and we can get through it together.”
“I can’t. I’m sorry, sweetie. I need to learn as much as I can. That all depends on you now. You can tell me what you saw—who you saw—right now. Or we can do it the hard way.”
Marge cocks the pistol.
Behind her, Charlie sees something flitting through the smoke. A lightness amid the dark.
Robbie.
Creeping through the smoke, a tire iron clutched in his hand.
Charlie’s eyes widen, tipping Marge off to the presence behind her.
As Marge spins around, Robbie lifts the tire iron and brings it down hard against her shoulder.
The gun goes off.
A horrible bang.
Robbie grunts and falters backward.
Marge collapses outright, crumbling to the ground, the pistol falling from her grip and skittering across the walkway.
Charlie swoops in, picks it up, thrusts it out in front of her. It’s the first time she’s ever held a gun, and she hates the feel of it in her hands. Her arms quake, the gun barrel unsteady as she points it at Marge.
Behind her, Robbie sits on the walkway, his right hand pressed to his left shoulder. Blood trickles out from beneath his palm. Charlie gasps when she sees it.
“Are you hit?”
“Grazed,” Robbie says. He starts to let out a low, disbelieving chuckle but stops midway. Eyes widening, he gasps and says, “Charlie, watch out!”
Charlie instantly understands what’s happening. Marge is on the move. At first, Charlie thinks she’s coming for the gun. She is, but not in the way Charlie expects.
Marge crawls toward her, not stopping until the pistol is inches away from her forehead.
“Do it,” she says, looking up at Charlie with a pained, pitiful expression. “Pull the trigger. Please. Put me out of my misery. I was going to do it anyway. Right here. Tonight.”
Charlie steadies the gun and thinks about all the damage Marge has caused that night. She deserves to pay for what she’s done. Not just to her, but to Josh and to Robbie. All in a misguided quest for information.
Then she thinks of Maddy and her habit of calling her mee-maw on the phone every Sunday. Charlie pictures her doing it. Sitting in the jade silk kimono she preferred over a bathrobe, the phone cord wound around her finger, laughing at something her grandmother had just said. The same woman who made her laugh now kneels in front of her, begging to die, and Charlie can’t bring herself to do it.
“No,” she says. “Maddy wouldn’t want that.”
Charlie tosses the pistol into the pool. It lands with a splash and disappears in the black water.
Marge says nothing. She simply stares at the spot where the gun now rests, a vacant look in her eyes.
Charlie moves past her, going to Robbie, who still has a hand pressed to his shoulder. Blood runs down his sleeve and drips from his elbow.
“We need to get you to a hospital,” she says, helping him to his feet.
“First, we need to get away from this place.”
Another rumble erupts from inside the lodge, followed by the sound of timber cracking. Charlie knows what it means. The support beams holding up what’s left of the room are about to fall.
And they don’t want to be here when it happens.
The two of them hurry along the back of the building, leaving the walkway and entering the woods to put more distance between them and the lodge. When it comes time to round the corner of the building, Charlie pauses long enough to check on Marge.
She sits next to the pool, watching the fire that will in all likelihood consume her should the lodge collapse.
Which it’s about to do in a matter of minutes.
But Marge doesn’t look scared. In fact, Charlie thinks she looks at peace, bathed in the orange glow of the flames. Maybe she’s thinking about Maddy. Maybe Marge even sees her. A movie in her own mind.