The Vail: London Fog
By Joey Pettine
Episode Nine: Double, Double, Toil And Trouble
(The Globe Theater. A storm rages on outside; thunder, lightning, and rain beating against the world within. Three weird sisters sit upon the Globe’s stage in front of a single door, going about their business, reveling in the storm. All of them are beautiful and racially ambiguous. When they talk and move it seems more as one being than as three separate entities. CLONA, the youngest, is a threadbare young girl barely out of her teens. Her hair is a long, frayed mess and she is clad in a tattered yet impeccably white dress. The crotch of her garb is horrifically stained with bright red fresh blood. She plays with her baby rag doll from which loose threads hang and sway. She shakes the baby maniacally and thunder resounds every time her insane laughter fills the air. VIDECIMAS, the middle sister, in her thirties, dresses like a politician. She is the cleanest of the sisters, her suit immaculately spotless, her hair a tight and trim shoulder length. The chain of a pocket watch stretches from her lapel to an inside breast pocket. When she checks the watch, lightning flashes brightly. She walks with a slim black cane upon which sits an orb shaped magnifying glass. She frequently studies objects through this looking glass. MORTUPOS, the eldest, wears a black cloak from which her aged yet beautiful face peers beneath a shadowy hood. She is blind in one eye but watches over her sisters with a maternal eye, as vigilant as the steady, pounding rain. An odd assortment of potions and a rusty pair of large scissors hang from a frayed rope belt around her waist. She carries a skull with her, sometimes talking with it.)
MORTUPOS
Fair yet foul, foul yet fair.
VIDECIMAS
Spirits stir within the air.
MORTUPOS
Stay, Sister, the suit has come frayed. Shall I shear, with my shears, the threads that have strayed?
(Videcimas inspects the frayed threads with her looking glass cane.)
VIDECIMAS
Three of these threads, from the suit of the law, and one, from the coat of a tramp, let fall. But yank not the Yank thread, give that one leave, and the blood stained thread of the French I’ll reweave into my suit for they still have importance.
CLONA
The storm bears such music, I simply must dance.
(Clona dances wildly with her doll, the thunder answering her laughter. Mortupos cuts the four threads Vedicimas told her to but leaves two alone. Then all three sisters turn and look offstage.)
MORTUPOS
By the pricking of my thumbs!
CLONA
Something wicked?
VIDECIMAS
This way comes.
(Enter ANDY VAIL.)
CLONA
All hail the Vail, saviour of all.
VIDECIMAS
All hail the Vail, butcher of all.
MORTUPOS
Hail not the Vail, for all champions fall.
ANDY
Witches, huh? Alright. Look, you obviously know who I am so I take it that means you know what I do. I don’t want to hurt you but this storm you’re causing is literally tearing London apart and I will do what I should to save lives.
MORTUPOS
You call yourself life giver?
VIDECIMAS
He does not see he is another.
(Clona embraces Andy, rubbing her body over his, falling out of her clothes. She lavishes his face and neck with deep, sexual kisses. Her hands paw at his crotch. He half heartedly fights her.)
CLONA
Giver of life, we’ll weave it together, I’ll be wife and you be father. Slice me with your vital knife, unsheathe it from below. Stab deep into my lavish wreath and cut till I scream…
ALL SISTERS
…Oh!
(Andy pushes her off, twisting his legs to hide an erection. There is blood on his hands. He smells it.)
ANDY
What the fuck! You guys aren’t from around here.
MORTUPOS
Your eyes, they melt within your head, forbidding you to see. Your insides boil with Hellish fire of which you cannot flee. Your—
VIDECIMAS
No, Sister, let this one be.
MORTUPOS
I desire to curse him so.
VIDECIMAS
Already, Sister, I have said, No.
MORTUPOS
I will not, shall not let him go.
VIDECIMAS
My sister, I have ordered: No. Though it is you who holds the grudge, it is I who am the judge. You shall not touch his flesh or bone, the Vail is to be left alone. He has essential parts to play and so much love to be carried away.
CLONA
Sisters, look, my man and I have pulled a thread.
VIDECIMAS
Within my suit I’ll make its bed.
MORTUPOS
Until its life I’ll one day shed.
(Clona pulls the thread from her doll and hands it to Videcimas who swiftly weaves it into her suit.)
ANDY
You guys are from another dimension. Where? How? How did you get here?
MORTUPOS
We traveled far but, oh, so near.
CLONA
Birthed from a land called Shakespeare where the globe is full of strife and woe.
VIDECIMAS
Traversed by a misbegotten Horatio.
MORTUPOS
He cuts the world’s skin.
VIDECIMAS
The stupid curr.
MORTUPOS
Not knowing the might of Excalibur. And thus a door opened there.
CLONA
Opens here where we are not the slaves of fate but left.
MORTUPOS
To destroy.
CLONA
And create. Free from evil mother Hecate.
VIDECIMAS
And so the storm shall not abate.
MORTUPOS
And into your mind we permeate.
(Mortupos throws a potion in Andy’s face. They laugh, the storm rages on. There is a mighty cracking sound, a flash of lightning illuminates the stage. The women dance around Andy, laughing, pawing at him, pawing at each other. Wind swirls about the stage, a dark scene of chaos.)
VIDECIMAS
Neither night nor day nor death nor life, peer within and see the strife.
MORTUPOS
The murderer.
CLONA
The saviour.
(Enter the RIPPER, clad in his usual outfit, his face hidden in the shadows.)
ANDY
Who are you?
RIPPER AND THE SISTERS
We lay them in the graveyard. We laugh as lovers cry. We swore we’d be together than watch our loved ones die. We make an empty promise that we would never part, we whisper lover’s secrets, and then we steal their hearts. It’s such a sad old feeling, so crude, and cruel, and mean, the things of which we’re stealing but you’re innocent when you dream.
(The Ripper exits. Something pounds forcefully against the stage door. The Sisters look to it, the storm calms. Andy seems to get better.)
ANDY
What the hell just happened?
(Something pounds against the door again. The Sisters look nervous.)
ANDY
Is that the door to Shakespeare world?
(Whatever it is tries the knob, it turns, and the door slowly swings open. DR. RANDOLF, his clothes dirty and torn, his face a bearded, tired mess, walks through it. As tired as he looks, he stands strong.)
DR. RANDOLF
Andrew Vail, I have a message for you.
ANDY
Dr. Randolf?
DR. RANDOLF
Ladies, it’s time to go home. Mommy’s angry with you.
(HECATE, a gorgeous woman clad in a swirling red cloak of silk, enters through the door. She talks with all three voices of the sisters.)
HECATE
You flee from duty like a spoiled child and curse this world to satiate your wile. You act out but the globe is not a stage, it is the Hell that hath no fury like your mistress’ rage.
(A bright and blinding light emanates from the doorway, sweeps across the stage. The sisters scream, the light dissipates, and Hecate and the Sisters are gone. The storm ceases.)
ANDY
Dr. Randolf?
DR. RANDOLF
You have questions, we don’t have time, here are quick answers. Yes, that door leads to a Shakespeare dimension where all his characters exist in a ridiculous modern setting. Yes, those were the weird witches from… the Scottish Play. Yes, I really am the man who used to work with your brother Michael. I created a doorway into another dimension and got lost in it. It’s taken me over ten years to work my way through an entire web of dimensions just to make it back here though for you it probably seems like I’ve only been gone for a few months. And as I was traversing the other realms, some much darker and chaotic than this one, I heard of a great and powerful evil whispering your name and singing Tom Waits songs. It’s coming for you and we need to—
(A man in a bunny outfit with a hatchet runs through the door. He clocks Dr. Randolf, knocks him out, laughs, and drags the unconscious body through the door.)
ANDY
No!
(Andy runs through after them. The door slams shut behind him. Blackout.)
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