CHARACTERS
CRICKET – an average 17 year old with witchy tendencies. Maybe Southern accent?
ASH – Cricket’s also-average 17 year old twin & henchman. Southern accent if Cricket has one.
CRICKET sits cross-legged on the floor with a massive tome open in front of her. She skims over the open page.
CRICKET:
Ash! Ash, get your butt in here!
ASH shuffles in with plastic grocery bag.
ASH:
I’m here, geez! You don’t have to yell
CRICKET:
We need to get started before Saturn returns to the apex of Mercury’s retrograde and we lose the window of alignment!
ASH:
What the hell?
CRICKET:
I’m just trying to get in the mood or whatever. C’mon, let’s get this sucker together so we can sneak it over to Suzie’s house before midnight!
ASH:
She is gonna flip, that backstabbing witch.
CRICKET:
She knows we always host our party on the Saturday before Halloween. Oh, but now that we’re seniors she’s too cool for our party, hm?
ASH:
(mimicking Suzie’s condescending tone) “Oh, how delightful, you’re having a Halloween party on Saturday too! I’m soooo sorry I won’t be able to come, but you see I’m having a party that night…oh dear, I’m sure I sent you an invitation.”
CRICKET:
We’ll show her who’s too good for who’s party. This is gonna be our best prank ever. Did you get everything on the list I gave you?
ASH:
(looking in the bag) I think so, but…Cricket, are you sure that was the right list?
CRICKET:
Of course it’s the right list! I got the instructions straight out of the book; you watched me write them down!
ASH:
I know, I know, I just seemed…well, we’ve pulled a lot of pranks over the years and nothing on this list seemed anything like the usual. I was expecting, like, whipped cream and ipecac syrup. This stuff is pretty…mundane.
CRICKET:
(quiet, serious, mystical)
Ash, listen. Everything around us is imbued with its own special magiks, but they won’t unlock their secrets for just anyone. You have open your body, mind, and spirit to the unseen powers of the universe, and believe in them, and then you can do anything.
ASH:
You’re sure?
CRICKET:
‘Of course I’m sure. (energized) Now, are you ready to summon a fuckin’ mummy demon to scare the piss out of Suzie and her stupid popular friends?
ASH:
Hell yeah!
CRICKET:
Okay, arrange the stuff in a semi circle around the book while I read the incantation.
As CRICKET slowly reads the following, ASH pulls 5-9 objects out of the plastic bag and ritualistically places them in a semi-circle around the book. The objects can be literally anything as long as they don’t make any logical sense together: a plastic dinosaur, a can of peaches, an Oscar Wilde action figure, a flyer for somebody’s next show, a tampon…go through your junk drawer and have fun.
CRICKET:
(reading) “Fidelium Deus omnium conditor, et redemptor animabus famulorum, famularumque tuarum remissionem cunctorum tribue peccatorum: ut indulgentiam, quam semper optaverunt, piis supplicationibus consequantur. Qui vivis et regnas in saecula saeculorum.”
(NB: If you want correct pronunciations for this, I am happy to teach them to the actor. I am also perfectly fine with them being intentionally butchered – these kids clearly don’t know what they’re doing. –AJH)
ASH:
Geez, I wish I was as good as you at reading dead languages. It’s all Greek to me. Except the Greek, which is like…High Valeryan or something-
CRICKET:
Shhhhh! I am trying to summon a fuckin’ mummy demon!
ASH:
Shouldn’t you be using hieroglyphics?
CRICKET:
Do you wanna try?
ASH:
Nope, you’re doing great. Sorry. Go ahead.
CRICKET takes a deep breath and is about to start reading again when the lights suddenly dip and flicker a bit. From this point on, everyone gets increasingly freaked out.
ASH:
What was that?
CRICKET:
I don’t know.
ASH:
Did you do that?
CRICKET:
Am I near a light switch?
ASH:
I mean with your spell.
CRICKET:
Oh…I don’t know…
ASH:
Oh shit, does that mean the spell is working?
CRICKET:
I don’t know! Do I look like I’ve summoned a fuckin’ mummy demon before?
ASH:
Well you cast all those other spells that worked! Like that one to make my hair turn blue-
CRICKET:
Wit, that wasn’t a spell; I put hair dye in your shampoo-
ASH:
And the one to bring our goldfish back to life-
CRICKET:
Mom bought an identical one and swapped it while we were at school, I found the receipt-
ASH:
And the one to make me trip and get a bloody nose in front of Amanda!
CRICKET:
Trust me, I did not need a spell for that I just knew it would happen.
ASH:
Wait, so none of your spells were real?
CRICKET:
No you dumbass, it’s just the power of suggestion! And using that three years of Latin I took to get out of home ec.
ASH:
You mean you made it all up!? You don’t even…oh shit, of shit, this is how people die in the movies! They mess with shit that they don’t think is real and then they accidentally open a hell-portal or something! Shit, shit, we’re gonna die! We’re gonna get sucked into a portal of were-zombies that eat us alive for a million years or something. Shitshitshitshitshit!
ASH flees the room on a panic.
CRICKET:
(shouting after him) Ash! Ash, come back! I just wanted to have a fun Halloween…shit.
(out to the ether) Are you sure you wanna possess him?
PANT-SHITTINGLY TERRIFYING VOICE:
I mean…he’s not my first choice, but it’s better than just floating around the aether as a disembodied fuckin’ mummy demon spirit.
CRICKET:
Yeah, fair enough. I’ll get him back…ooh, there’s a great hypnosis spell in here somewhere…
Music plays (possibly “I Put a Spell on You”?) as we FADE TO BLACK.
Art and Music in Our Souls 