5.2 Fairytale Part One: The Girl

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Wattpad readers, there are several excerpts from James' screenplay that are supposed to have a slightly different format than what WP allows. Hopefully the itallics will be enough to separate the screenplay from the reality! Hope you're still enjoying the book!


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06  INT. THE RED ROOM - NIGHT

THE GIRL walks in a very inviting room with lots of red in the design. A big bed is in the room. It has red and white pillows. A table is in the middle and covered with a mysterious white sheet. White candles are lit and sit on other small tables.

TWO GIRLS stand along the wall in scary poses but they don't move. A scary-sounding lullaby plays in the background. The ribbon on the girl's finger leads her to a cool looking box with fruit in it. The girl looks awfully hungry. She reaches for a strawberry but a SCARY VOICE makes her stop.

“Who goes there!” Dad said with a mischievous cackle. 

Mara jerked her hand away from the fruit. “Who are you?” she stammered. “Where are you?”

Dad emerged from burgundy drapes. His body was wrapped in a crimson cloak, his face was plastered from hair to chin with white silicon, and his head was crowned with a tiara of black feathers. He wore pendants and chains around his neck and gloves like a butler. “I'm here,” he said in his most despicable voice.

Mom chuckled from the doorway and I shushed her immediately; the basement guest room was my set, and I wouldn't tolerate unnecessary noise. She respected my authority and made a zipping gesture across her pinched lips. I put my eye back to the viewfinder and panned to Dad.

“I didn't mean to frighten you, little girl,” he continued. “Why don't you come inside and relax? I'm not going to hurt you.”

“Maybe just for a minute,” Mara said. She removed the ribbon from her finger, then plucked a strawberry from Mom's fancy cigar box.

My elaborate production design included wrought-iron trinkets from around the castle, bottles from the beach, Mara's candles (saints facing away), crystal glasses, and red curtains borrowed from Mrs. Greenfield's antique booth in Grand Rapids. Above the bed hung a bowl of dry ice--frothing with bouts of heavy smoke--inspired by my alter boy friend.

“I'm very hungry,” Mara said.

Dad stepped forward. “Hungry, you sayyy?”

I signaled Jake with a frantic wave. He nodded, then pulled the string that raised a sheet that magically revealed a table of food.

“Whoa!” Mara said. “Is that for me?”

Dad rapped his gloved fingers together, lowered his head, and grinned. “Yes, child. It's all for you.

“Annnd cut!” I yelled.

Mom nearly lost it. She grabbed her knees, snorted once, but kept it in. Whit lowered the boom pole and laughed, then Mara and Jake joined in. Dad looked at me--his face like a confused hobo clown--and I couldn't help but crack a smile.

“I don't know what's so funny,” Livy said, dropping her arms to her side and shaking flour from her hair. “It's the middle of July and there's no AC down here. I get to put cute makeup on Mara, and I hafta make myself look like a dead Pinocchio.”

Mom covered her mouth to suppress the laughter. It wasn't working.

Kimmy unhinged her pose and slapped flour from her gown. “What are we supposed to be, anyways?”

“Victims,” Whit said. “Victims of the evil monster...”

Dad raised his gloves like cat claws and snarled.

“This scene was my idea,” Whit said.

Livy sighed. “Haven't heard that ten times in the last hour.”

Mara fanned her torso with her medieval blouse. “I think I need to pee.”

“And I need the bedazzler,” Dad said, running his fingers over the hem of his cloak. “These darned rhinestones keep falling off.”

Dad’s dry sense of humor ended Mom's struggle for composure; she laughed until mascara drenched her face.

I shut off the camera, pulled off my headphones, and raised my hands. “Alright everybody, take five.”

*  *  *

14 EXT. BOAT SUNSET

The CAPTAIN OF DEATH rows the row boat across the sea. THE GIRL doesn't have her pigtails anymore and her makeup is almost gone. She's worried.

All of a sudden the castle appears in the distance and the girl is relieved.

“There it is!” Mara shouted from the boat, pointing past the camera to the castle behind me.

Whit nodded and pulled the black cloak tightly around his skeleton face. He had dialogue, but the microphone cord didn't reach from my camera to the actors in the boat. We would add his lines in post.

In last year's zombie movie, I wrote too many characters that were required to walk. Whit--being my one and only friend--played every role, but his handicap posed some obvious problems. With a little movie magic, I kept the camera above his chest and chair and made him bounce his shoulders as he “walked.” The quick fix made him look more like a Muppet than a leading man, though he wasn't exactly Harrison Ford to begin with.

This time around, I wrote more characters who remain seated; hence, the Captain of Death.

“Cut!” I shouted. “Bring it in!”

Mara waved.

Whit lowered his hood, pulled the mask to the top of his head, dipped the paddles in the water, and began rowing home.

Mom was on crowd-control duty and split her attention between the sporadic tourists on evening strolls, her twin boys digging a hole to China with plastic shovels, and the two kids in the dilapidated rowboat who never learned to swim. When a bystander tried to cross the frame, Mom caught them and quietly asked them to walk behind the camera.

It wasn't until I began directing films that I realized how swiftly the sun sets. I had one last shot, but the shadowless glow of magic hour was quickly fading to black. I replaced the tape, set the camera to face the castle, and beckoned my friends a second time.

They were talking. Lollygagging. And Mara was smiling.

“Hey guys!” I called. “Hurry it up!”

Mara looked and nodded. Whit was telling a story but I couldn't hear.

I checked the castle in the viewfinder. The lighting was perfect. Squinting, I could just make out Dad's murky form in the tower window. Apparently, his friend at the firm spotted the coveted eagles over the State Park last weekend. As I watched my father's motionless shadow, I sensed his disappointment.

Mara's laugh refocused my attention. The boat was beached. Mom and a stranger helped Whit transition from the boat to a lawn chair. He was laughing too.

“What's so funny?” I asked.

He shook his head in that “had-to-be-there” kinda way. His smile made me cringe.

I looked to Mara but she was busy admiring the twins' hole.

I huffed, scratched furiously at the back of my head, and jogged to the boat. “Give me a hand, Ma?” I asked.

“Grumpy, grumpy,” she said and lifted the bow.

“I'm not grumpy but I'm losing light and I got sand in the tripod legs and I don't know what they think is so funny.” I bent my knees and heaved the stern.

“Whit and Mara are allowed to talk, hon. You don't need to be a part of every conversation.”

We carried the hunk of tin inland twenty feet and dropped it between the camera and castle. I brushed my hands on my swim trunks. “I need the castle in the background, but I can't risk my camera in the lake. When I say 'action,' I need you to rock the boat like it's on the water.” I crossed my arms. “Think you can handle that?”

“Don't get snippy with me, sweetie, or your friend'll go right back home.”

I grumbled, finalized the shot, then called for the actors.

As Mom and Mara eased Whit back into the boat, I noticed three figures a hundred yards down the shore. They were standing on the dune where the woods met the sand. They were boys... I was sure of it. And they were watching us.

A hand on my shoulder. A voice in my ear. “I'm proud of you.” With only four words, Mara nullified my jealousy over the inside joke, belittled the bullies on the hill, and made the sun stand still.

She squeezed my arm. “Just thought you should know.”

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