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"Cast Spell Part4" by SinonLife
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Cast Spell
VERNA: That boy in New Orleans, he couldn't make love to his new woman. Every night the girl would come to him naked in his dreams, and curse and taunt him. One day the boy came home to Moon Grove.
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He wasn't big and handsome then-- his flesh had just melted away.He begged the girl to make him a man again, and when she laughed he tried to beat her. But he couldn't. He just shook, he was so weak. When he called his old dog to him,
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it whimpered and cringed.
MICKY; What happened to him?
GREG; What do you mean, what happened to him?
VERNA; He took his gun and went hunting. He never came back, in the flesh. But his ghost walks there, moaning at the moon.
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RICH; You're some story teller.
VERNA; My Granny taught me.
RICH; Did she teach you conjuring?
VERNA; Some.
RICH; What's your specialty? Love potions?
VERNA; Is that what you want?
RICH; I'd rather be a star.
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PAULA; So you can summon spirits from the vasty deep?
VERNA; Spirits!
(there is a sudden "answer"--perhaps a loud rapping)
ELAINE; Did you do that?
GREG; I don't believe it.
(A dish crashes to the floor, breaks)
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VERNA; Try. Try to let the possibility enter your mind. Do you want to see more? Concentrate on the star around my neck.If you're afraid, that's good. Send that energy into the star. That's right, I can feel your power--
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(a pale shape swoops across the room)
MICKY; Yaaek! It's alive!
GREG; Turn on the lights!
(PAULA turns on the lights)
PAULA; Look.
(a person-sized plastic bag of white costumes on the floor)
MICKY; What is it? Is it dead--?
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PAULA; It's just costumes, a drycleaner's bag of costumes!
MICKY; Costumes?
ELAINE; It looked real!
(GREG picks up the bag)
GREG; Costumes. I thought it was a ghost. I really did.
RICH; Maybe it's just clothes- but it flew in here! How?
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VERNA; With your energy. You're all psychic. I drew on that.
PAULA; I'm not! Nothing like this-
VERNA; No? You felt it onstage from the first rehearsal. And it filled you with fear and envy.
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ELAINE: The only other time I've felt power like that was when I saw Christopher Walken as Iago. There was that psychic charge in the audience, like he'd cast a spell over us.
VERNA; Very likely he did.
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RICH: Then why didn't you save our show? The Heart Tried By Sorrow could have been the making of us. You, or I, or Greg--. If we'd tapped into that kind of magic, we'd have been on our way, there'd be no stopping us.
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VERNA; Not necessarily. With your help-- your unconscious help-- I was able to cast a spell over what we were doing out there. ELAINE: We knew, we all felt it.
RICH: The audience was in our power.
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VERNA: You were all feeding into it, with every ounce of your concentration. But then on Friday something went wrong.
PAULA: What are you saying?
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VERNA: Friday, a powerful counterforce was watching the stage with hostile eyes, stripping off the glamour.
RICH: One lousy critic? Rafferty can do that?
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GREG: You're saying that all these years Rafferty hasn't just been writing that our local shows are bad, but using some kind of hoodoo to make them bad?
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VERNA: Not exactly. It is true that sometimes a single opposing mind can interfere with psychic communication--.
GREG: Why would he do that?
VERNA: Why does Paula go ghost hunting? On Friday, they were able to combine forces--
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GREG: They? You mean Rafferty and--
MICKY: How could you. Paula? When it meant so much to us?
PAULA; You've crazy! I'm not in some kind of conspiracy with Ralph Rafferty. I've never even met him.
GREG: I thought you were my friend.
PAULA: I am.
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MICKY; You won't let her get away with it, will you, Verna?
VERNA; She's very strong, Micky. She has more psychic power than the rest of you put together. Almost as much as I have--
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PAULA: I don't have psychic power. Nobody does, it's wishful thinking. Even if it did exist, I wouldn't use it to hurt people.
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GREG; Paula, if you thought that there was something going on, something that amounted to dabbling with the supernatural, would you let it happen? Or would you set up some kind of an experiment, to prove that it wasn't?
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PAULA; Greg, what are you talking about?
ELAINE; If you think it's dangerous?
PAULA; It is dangerous!
RICH; Christ's sake, Paula. All you had to do was just get out of the way. (PAULA exits to go to the telephone)
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VERNA; Wherever she's going is too far or not far enough.
(PAULA'S VOICE on the telephone)
PAULA; I'd like a cab at 51 Hanno St. Right away. Thanks.
MICKY; Suppose she goes to my house?
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VERNA; She must be stripped of her power to block me. It's not too late for us to get back what we had. We can all call on it again, use it at auditions and performances, once she stops blocking and we have her help.
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PAULA; (at door) I can't help you. Not if I think it's wrong.
VERNA; People do it all the time. Or is it that you're afraid you won't be the one who is in control?
PAULA; I'll wait for my cab on the porch.
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VERNA: We can't allow that. We are going to try you, Paula. Test the truth of your traitor's heart.
GREG: I don't think--
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VERNA: Then think now! Why are you always the one who isn't valued, Greg? The one passed over? Think! A year's hard work, or two, or three, made small and lifeless by the cold eye of a friend who is not a friend, by her jealousy --
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PAULA: Why are you listening to this? What she's suggesting isn't even possible. The woman is deranged--
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VERNA: Am I? Then we all are. Look at us. Look at our eyes. Your hidden heart has been seen and judged. All that's left now is to execute the sentence--
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(VERNA picks up the cake knife, raises it over her head and plunges it into the heart shaped cake. PAULA, who has been watching in horror, clutches at her chest and crumples to the floor.
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The others are frozen for an instant, and then GREG kneels beside PAULA.)
GREG: Paula! Paula, what happened? Are you all right?
RICH: What is it? Is she--?
GREG: She's unconscious. Maybe--
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RICH: Do something! We can't have--
ELAINE: A doctor. An ambulance. I'll call for an ambulance.
(ELAINE exits towards the telephone)
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(VERNA runs her finger across the top of the cake, and licks off the blob of icing. She grins at MICKY, offers her a lick of icing, too, and then makes a mark on MICKY's forehead with her sticky finger.)
GREG; The mark of Cain.
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VERNA; More of a birthmark. My dear little Micaela.
(VERNA takes off her red shawl, wraps it around MICKY and then kisses her forehead.
MICKY; Is it a birthmark, Verna? Am I reborn? Will you be my sister, my mother?
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(MICKY twirls and dances with the shawl, smiling Verna's delighted smile. They begin to laugh together, and as their laughter grows in volume it is joined by the sound of a distant siren, growing closer and louder) LIGHTS FADE
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THE END