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.
256
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.
257
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
