Audra Phillips
Audra Phillips is a successful actress and the wife of novelist Bill Denbrough. She is described as auburn-haired, statuesque, and gorgeous, a woman who seems less like an earthly creature than a being from some semidivine super-race. Her marriage to Bill, eleven years her junior, was initially predicted to fail by gossip columnists, but it proved enduring. Audra had a history of substance abuse—poppers, cocaine, wine, and Valium—before meeting Bill, whom she credits with saving her from a self-destructive spiral. She describes her former life as like running on a moving walkway at an airport, where she felt she had sprinted off the end and would fall, but Bill caught her. Their relationship is characterized by deep mutual love and understanding, though Bill has kept significant parts of his past, including the murder of his brother George, hidden from her for their entire marriage.
The Call to Derry and the Journey
When Bill receives Mike Hanlon's phone call and decides to return to Derry, Audra is initially bewildered and frightened. She sees the physical manifestations of Bill's returning trauma: the reappearance of faint white scars on his palms, which he claims were not there before the call, and the return of his childhood stutter. Bill insists she must not come with him, saying Derry will be a very bad place to be. He makes her promise to stay in England and carry on with her film work. Despite her promise, Audra is unable to remain passive. Driven by a powerful, almost instinctual need to be with him, she discovers that a British Airways flight from London to Los Angeles makes a refueling stop at Bangor International Airport, less than fifty miles from Derry. She books a first-class ticket and flies to Maine, arriving late on the night of May 29th, 1985.
Capture and Catatonia
Audra's arrival in Derry is immediately met with the town's supernatural malevolence. In her motel room, she is tormented by a disembodied voice from the bathroom and a terrifying vision of Pennywise the Dancing Clown on the television, holding a severed head. Fleeing in panic, she is intercepted in the parking lot by Tom Rogan, Beverly's abusive husband, who has also come to Derry. Tom, having recognized Audra's resemblance to Beverly, forces her into his car. He delivers her to It's lair beneath the city, where she is wrapped in the creature's web. When Tom brings her before It, he is killed instantly by the sight of Its true form. Audra, however, does not die. She is exposed to the Deadlights, the terrifying, formless, and infinite core of It's being. This experience shatters her mind, leaving her in a catatonic state. She is found by Bill and the other Losers, hanging in the Spider's web, alive but utterly unresponsive, her eyes wide and glassy, her body limp.
Rescue and Restoration
After the final battle, in which It is killed, Bill carries Audra's catatonic body out of the sewers. She is taken to the Derry Home Hospital, where doctors diagnose her with a severely repressed alpha wave pattern on her EEG. She is described as a breathing waxwork, able to move only if led, and incontinent. Bill refuses to send her to a mental institution. Instead, he takes her to Mike Hanlon's house, caring for her himself, talking to her even though she does not respond. He realizes that the magic and belief that allowed them to defeat It as children is fading, and he must act quickly. On a bright summer day, Bill dresses Audra in jeans and a shell top, seats her on the back of his old bicycle, Silver, and rides her at breakneck speed down the hill toward the collapsed center of Derry. As the bike races forward, the wind and the sheer, reckless act of faith and love break through her catatonia. She speaks his name, laughs, and grabs him, fully awake and aware. Her stutter is gone, and she is restored to him, the final victory over the terror of Derry.
