Remain: A Supernatural Love Story

From a window, the woman watches Tate leave for his morning run; she then browses the parlor bookshelves, rediscovering her childhood copy of Charlotte’s Web. She reflects on her past, admitting that she was too afraid to leave Heatherington for college or culinary school despite her grandmother’s encouragement. She had feared that she wasn’t smart enough and worried about becoming someone she didn’t know.

Paulie meows for food, but the woman tells Paulie she doesn’t know how much to feed her. Sitting on the sofa with Paulie, she considers going to town to pick up a cookbook, but recoils at the thought of passing her shop, where her business partner, Nash, would be. He betrayed her, taking out a $50,000 loan against their business and creating fake invoices. The discovery filled her with rage.

She feels trapped in Heatherington and thinks about the application for Le Cordon Bleu (a culinary academy) in Paris that she bookmarked. She sees Tate as an inspiration: If he can heal from his loss, perhaps she can heal from hers. Needing a distraction from her troubles, she descends to the cellar to find a jigsaw puzzle.

Tate’s morning run provides no clarity about the previous night. At the diner, he rationalizes that the sounds were merely the old house settling. Returning home, he sees Reece and Louise working outside. After feeding Paulie, showering, and napping, he starts to leave for the construction site.

As he walks to his car, Tate sees the mysterious woman through the parlor window and rushes back inside. The parlor and kitchen are empty, but he finds her under the dining room table, searching for a puzzle piece. On the table, which was empty moments ago, are a partially completed jigsaw puzzle and a glass of ice water. When Tate asks how the woman got in, she laughs and says she lives there.

After he helps her find the puzzle piece, she introduces herself as Wren. She mentions that the Keats poem Endymion might comfort him regarding Sylvia. When Paulie approaches, Wren says she’ll allow the pet despite her usual rules because the cat clearly likes her.

Tate insists that she isn’t supposed to be there and asks her to wait while he fetches the caretakers. When he returns with Reece and Louise, however, Wren has vanished along with the puzzle and the glass of water. Tate insists that she was just there and suggests that perhaps she used a cellar storm door, but Reece says none exists. When Tate repeats the details of their conversation, including her name, Louise and Reece look shocked, and Reece angrily reveals that Wren Tobin died almost two years ago.

At the construction site, Tate is disoriented and considers the possibilities: Wren could be a hallucination, a ghost, or part of a gaslighting scheme involving Reece and Louise. He tells Oscar everything. Oscar suggests that a hallucination is the most plausible explanation, but Tate disagrees.

Searching online for Wren Tobin, Tate is shocked to find photographs of the woman he has been seeing. Oscar examines the photos and concedes that it can’t be a hallucination, warming to the possibility that she’s a ghost. When Lorena joins them, Tate tells her the woman’s name.

Returning to the house, Tate thoroughly inspects the exterior, crawl space, and cellar, but finds no hidden entrances. He sees Reece and Louise arguing in their truck; when Louise exits, she stares at the house with a frightened expression.

Tate sets up a low-tech security system, placing tamper-evident tape on doors and windows and tripwires made of thread on the stairs. He wakes in the middle of the night, starts recording video on his phone, and goes to the hallway bathroom. The door opens. Inside the dark bathroom, he finds a towel-wrapped figure whispering, “Help me.” The figure turns, her hair obscuring her features, and then kneels in the bathtub and repeatedly smashes her head backward against the faucet with sickening crunches.

When Tate flips on the light, the figure vanishes. He records the empty, draining sink and photographs water drops in the basin. Checking his security measures, he finds all the tape and tripwires undisturbed. Playing back the video, he’s horrified to find that it recorded the door opening, the flashlight dimming, the faucet turning on, his own voice, the ghostly whispers, and the head-smashing sounds. He texts Oscar to arrange an emergency meeting. Recalling Wren’s suggestion, he finds the poetry book, reads the highlighted lines of Endymion, and finds a handwritten note in the margin that resonates with his grief for Sylvia.

The next morning, Tate meets Oscar and shows him the photographs and video from the previous night. Oscar, startled by the audio of the head-smashing sounds, now leans toward believing that Wren is a ghost. He advises Tate to leave the house immediately.

Tate refuses, saying he feels compelled to help her, citing Sylvia’s wish to help people in pain. He theorizes that two versions of Wren exist: a daytime version closer to her original self and a traumatized nighttime version. Tate and Oscar go into town to buy a game, hoping that it will help Tate earn Daytime Wren’s trust.

They visit Bird’s Toys and Games, where the owner suggests Charades. Outside the store, Oscar admits that he’s supporting Tate’s plan because he hasn’t seen Tate this happy in a long time.

Oscar follows Tate back to the house and inspects the scene, noting that the dining room windows are painted shut. On the stairwell, the tripwires are no longer attached; Tate infers that Louise disturbed them while changing towels and sheets. In the upstairs bathroom, Oscar listens to the squealing pipes and speculates that this room is where Wren died.

Tate researches Wren’s death online and confirms Oscar’s suspicion: She drowned in the hallway bathroom two years ago. While sketching house designs, he’s interrupted by Wren’s voice from the parlor.

Wren appears, and they talk about the photograph of Sylvia. Tate notices her form shimmer and become translucent when she grows confused about not hearing Oscar’s earlier visit. As Wren moves to the dining room to view his drawing, a glass of ice water materializes in her hand.

She talks about her past. Her Grandmother Joyce raised her after her mother died, and her cousin Reece is the son of her grandmother’s troubled brother. She mentions that she and her friends used to party at the Old Mill Road bluff in high school.

Tate retrieves the Charades game. When he returns to the parlor, Wren’s outfit has changed from a sundress to black stretch pants and a red crop top, and her glass of water has become a glass of white wine. During their conversation, a bowl of potato chips appears on the table. Because she can’t touch real-world objects, Wren asks Tate to show her the cards.

They play Charades for hours. Tate is comically terrible at it, but he enjoys making her laugh. Between rounds, they share more personal stories. Wren mentions that her life is complicated and that a date is the last thing she needs. She tells him about her dream to attend a culinary school in Paris. As the sun sets and the light in the room dims, Wren vanishes.

After cleaning up, Tate takes a walk, realizing that he’s no closer to knowing how to help Wren. He texts Mike, Sylvia’s husband, who sends a second posthumous video message from Sylvia. In the video, Sylvia tells the story of their third date: Mike serenaded her at his classroom piano, and she knew he was the one. She emphasizes that love is found in simple, tender moments and encourages Tate that he’ll find love one day.

Determined not to miss Nighttime Wren, Tate moves a bench into the hallway to sleep on, leaving the bathroom door open. Paulie wakes him. He hears water running and humming from the bathroom. Starting his phone’s video recorder, he enters the dark bathroom and finds Wren by the half-filled tub.

She turns toward him, terrified, screaming at him to get out before shrieking in agony as if being pulled backward. Suddenly, she appears inches from him, her face and body showing the horrific signs of her drowning death. Tate falls backward, hitting his head on a doorknob and collapsing as the bathroom door slams shut. He gets up and finds the bathroom empty and the water gone. His hand comes away bloody from the back of his head.

Tate wakes with a clotted head wound. Downstairs, Wren appears in a yellow sundress and teases him about having a hangover. Her form flickers, turning transparent for a moment. She says she needs to talk to her business partner, but isn’t ready. She suggests adding window boxes to his house design.

Delighted to learn that Tate doesn’t know how to do laundry, Wren teaches him how to use the machines in the cellar. She accompanies him to the door but remains just inside the threshold as he steps onto the porch, leading him to wonder if she can leave the house.

Tate meets with Oscar and Lorena to review general contractors. Afterward, Oscar suggests meeting the next day, sensing that Tate needs distance from Wren. On his way back, Tate stops at Bird’s Toys and Games to buy another game. A strange flickering in his peripheral vision guides him to a collector’s edition of Boggle. The owner, Nash, reveals that his deceased former partner had special-ordered the game. Tate asks who his partner was, and Nash confirms that it was Wren Tobin.

Back at the house, Wren appears and recognizes the Boggle game from her store, but she seems out of sorts. Her form blurs and stabilizes as they talk. She reveals that Nash was stealing from their business through a line of credit and was faking invoices. She planned to confront him to spare his wife, Sheila, and their children from a legal battle. She confesses to Tate that she was married to a man named Griffin, but they separated, and she was trying to finalize a divorce.

They play Boggle. During the game, Wren fades in and out a few times. Tate tells her about his past depression and suicidal thoughts. As the sun sets, he watches her gaze out the window before she vanishes.

That night, sleeping in the hallway again, Tate awakens and enters the bathroom, recording video. He finds Nighttime Wren on her knees. She raises her head, revealing her death mask, and whispers, “I wanted to take a bath. I couldn’t get away” (146). As water begins to fill the tub behind her, she repeats the words louder. She suddenly appears inches from him, her jaw unnaturally dropping as she screeches the same words. Tate squeezes his eyes shut in terror. When he opens them, she’s gone, the sound of running water has stopped, and the tub is empty.