Séance (Sam/Joe/Maggie/Carolyn/ghost)

[Sam Evans]

The next evening Sam was singing to himself and doing something he never imagined himself to ever be doing: setting up the living room for a seance. He didn't mind too much; the woman who'd been appearing obviously wasn't going to give up and leave him and Maggie and her two friends alone. "I must remember to close the curtains when it gets dark," he thought. Not that there were many peepers around, he surely didn't want word to get out about what they were doing. The young people were up for it and he could think of no good reason to refuse.

He pulled out a small table, four chairs and got a supply of candles ready. He'd made an effort to have only one drink so far. After everything was ready, he sat on the sofa and smoked his pipe and thought back over what Maggie, Joe and Carolyn had told him about their visit to the cemetery. Carolyn had filled them all in about how to have a seance and Joe had agreed to conduct it. Now all he had to do was wait for the three to come over from where they'd met at the Blue Whale.

[Maggie Evans]

It was about 10 minutes later when everyone arrived back at the Evan’s Cottage. Maggie was much more relaxed after spending some time at the Blue Whale that she totally forgot about what happened this morning.
When entering the house, she was shocked that they were actually going to go through with the séance. “Oh I don’t know should we really contact this spirit?” Maggie was having mixed feelings of the whole idea. She knew that contacting the dead was about the last thing she had in mind to do.

[Carolyn Stoddard]

Carolyn wasn't necessarily ecstatic to partake in another seance, but she was willing to help out, since it was for the sake of all of them. "Everything should be alright, Maggie," Carolyn tried sounding overly confident, though she really wasn't.

Carolyn started to make her way over to the table. She checked to make sure that everything was right, and then turned to look at the others. "So, are we ready to do this, or what?" Carolyn's slight smile was a definite "yes", but deep down she was thinking "no".

[Joe Haskell]

"I'm not too keen to do this myself but I'd rather get it over with than have this ghost keep popping up out of nowhere when I least expect it," Joe told the group. "I'm not really afraid because she seems to mean us no harm; it's just that I feel silly doing something like this."

"It's up to you guys whether you want to do this or not. Maggie, I'd think that you and Sam would want to get this over with seeing's how this is the favorite place for Molly to show up unexpectedly."

[Sam Evans]

Sam had laid his pipe down somewhere and was looking at the bottle of liquor on the console behind the sofa. He absentmindedly lit a cigarette and said, "Hmmm, well yeah I don't want to keep finding a sobbing ghost in here as I go about my daily affairs. No one has to do anything they don't want to here."

He poured himself one small drink and continued, "I don't mind if you don't; all I ask is that ummmm....no one ever hears about my participation in this. I mean I've made a fool of myself plenty of times but I don't care to ever be answering questions about this."

Sam pulled the shades and curtains shut and said, "I wonder why she had to pick our house."

[Joe Haskell]

“Well, let’s get this over with before Molly just shows up. That way we can ask her the questions we want answered.”

Joe was nervous as he lit the candles and turned the lights out. “Sam, I may need to take up steady drinking after this.” He sat opposite Sam with Maggie between them on one side and Carolyn on the other. He instructed them to touch their fingertips together and not to break contact no matter what happened.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” he said, “but at least we’ll have some control this way.”

He waited until the giggling and restlessness quieted down and began. “We’re seeking the spirit of Molly Devlin. Molly Devlin and no other. We want to know what you want of us. Why do you keep appearing? Molly Devlin…..speak to us. We are waiting.”

As the room suddenly became colder, Joe felt it was time to stop speaking and wait to see what would happen next.

[Maggie Evans]

A continuing breeze of bitter coldness swarmed the room. Sudden flickers of lights occurred that made Maggie tremble. Continuing on with the séance, Maggie felt a strange substance surround her that began to feel drowsy.

Knowing that what ever this being was it was taking control of her. “Maggie began to repeatedly sway in her chair. Then so this spirit spoke through Maggie. “Ooohh!” She said, “I…I am Molly Devlin...” the spirit continued “Trask…Trask!!!” He…he… murderer…
My baby!! My baby!! Trask!! Murderer!!!!

At that moment Maggie screamed then feel to the table motionless. It seemed to have worked.

[Sam Evans]

“Maggie, Maggie are you all right? Maggie? Oh Joe, I didn’t like that one bit. It’s almost worse than seeing Molly just show up and be silent and point and leave things for us to wonder about.”

Sam got up and turned the lights on and his eyes were drawn to a corner of the room where Molly was holding out a hand, palm up in his direction. “There she is. She isn’t going to give up. Some Trask guy must have murdered her and her baby. I wonder why she thinks we can do anything about it.” He watched as the ghostly figure faded away.

He looked at his daughter again. Joe was holding her hand with concern. “Darn, why don’t we ever have any brandy around here? Maggie darling, do you need a drink of the stronger stuff?” Sam was already pouring himself one.

"Carolyn, are you all right?" Sam asked as Maggie seemed to be looking more normal.

[Carolyn Stoddard]

"Yes, Sam, I'm alright," Carolyn stated, still a little shook up from the events that had just taken place. "No matter how many times one does this, it is always so frightening every time." Carolyn glanced at Maggie for a few moments and then got up and paced the room.

"None of this makes any sense to me," Carolyn's voice faded off . . . "Why does she show up here, and what correlation does my ancestor Quentin Collins have to do with any of this." Carolyn then walked back over to where Maggie was resting to check that she was alright.

[Maggie Evans]

After being struck down, a few moments later, Maggie regained conscious. She felt dizzy and confused of what had happened. She did feel awkward being asked questions of what was it like and do you know what you said?

Wanting comfort she went to Joe for support. “Molly came to me didn’t she? What does it mean?” Maggie said getting a damp cloth to wipe her face then returns to the table.

[Joe Haskell]

"I don't know Maggie, but it seems that Molly wants us to figure out what it means. Hopefully we have enough information now so you won't have to do that again sweetheart. This isn't just going to go away on its own."

Joe sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “Sam, look. She’s left something again.” He went over and picked up a stain yellow like envelope. “It’s addressed to Quentin Collins and it’s never been opened.a”

He looked at the others. “Well, this is weird but it’s also intriguing….obviously we are well involved now.” He opened the letter with a clean palette knife, took out a brittle, yellowed page and moved closer to a lamp.

“The ink is faded,” he said as he began reading to himself. When he was finished, he looked up at the others.

“It’s a letter she posted just before she ran away from some Trask school. She was running to Collinwood and asking for Quentin’s protection. She says Trask kidnapped her, took her back to the school and told her that she’d go to jail if she didn’t stay because her father had owed him a lot of money before he died. The guy’s daughter, a Charity Trask who kept the books, said her father hadn’t owed them money. Anyway, she was going to have a baby and wanted to keep it; Trask had been forcing himself on her and wanted to blame the pregnancy on Quentin.”

He got up and began to pace the room. “I wonder why Quentin didn’t get this letter.”

[Sam Evans]

“Well, if she wanted the baby and was on her way to Collinwood, it couldn’t be a suicide. That’s what she must have meant by referring to a murderer. But it’s been so long ago, what can we do now? You can’t really try a dead man for a murder committed a century ago, can you?”

Sam needed another drink, poured one and waved the bottle at the others on the slight chance they’d want to join him. He lit a cigarette and said, “Well, she doesn’t belong in the unsacred part of the cemetery. Carolyn, in those records you read in your family history there was no mention of a baby as I recall. The baby must have died with her and no one knew about it but Trask.”

He paced the room. “There must be thousands of unknown situations over the centuries. This Molly must not be able to rest otherwise she wouldn’t feel such a need to contact the living.”

[Carolyn Stoddard]

Carolyn considered the situation before she responded to anyone's questions or remarks. "No, there was no mention of a baby; however, those records seem to be inaccurate here and there anyway. It's strange, but, I guess that my ancestors didn't want to record anything that would make them looked down upon in society."

Carolyn went over to take a look at the letter for herself. Sure enough, it was in fact addressed to her own ancestor, Quentin Collins. "I'm not really sure what more to say, or what more we can do. What do you all think?"

[Joe Haskell]

"I think we're really involved in this by the wishes of a very persistent ghost. Tomorrow before work, I think I'll stop by Eagle Hill and look at the grave again. If I see the caretaker, I'll talk to him. If Molly was murdered, it isn't right that she's buried in the unsanctioned part of the cemetery. Sure the baby wasn't born yet, but it just isn't fair that it's left as though it doesn't matter at all."

Joe paced the room, thinking how he had never heard of a situation like this and he simply didn't know what to do. "Well, we have to try. Before it's over we may get called crazy. Hopefully before too long something else weird will happen in Collinsport and this will be forgotten."

He looked at Maggie and Carolyn and said, "Well, I'll bet we'll never forget it."

[Sam Evans]

By now Sam had downed several shots and no one else seemed to even notice. They were dealing with their own thoughts of the events.

He lit another cigarette and said, "Look tomorrow morning I'll go to the court house and look into the records and talk to some people. We have this letter as evidence and ummm....I guess the sketch and the baby gown could be considered a kind of evidence. Well we've got to try." He paced the room. "That's all we can do is try. If this Molly is watching us she'll know that. Heck, if the authorities don't cooperate maybe we can get her to go after them."

He sighed. I have enough problems without people thinking I'm crazy and imagining things, he thought. Then he considered what if something like that had happened to his daughter and no one had cared. "Yes, we've got to try to make this right, at least get the suicide verdict removed and have her buried in a better part of Eagle Hill." He looked at his watch. "Well, it's getting late and it's been a rough night. I'll see what I can do tomorrow and we can meet here again, same time tomorrow evening. That's if you want to. If not, I understand," Sam said. Then he added, "But I intend to see this finished."

~end scene~

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