ACT ONE
SCENE THREE
“Changeling”
(Setting: A graveyard. 37 years ago.)
(At Rise: ELISABETH and HUNTER gather around a grave.)
HUNTER: Elisabeth, are you sure you want to do this? Don’t you want it to happen naturally?
ELISABETH: It can’t happen naturally, and you know it. I have to take matters into my own hands. Now dig! Se dépêcher!
HUNTER: (digs into grave) What ever happened to ‘I don’t care who Katerina marries as long as she’s happy’? Do you really have to use your witchy voodoo to poof her up a suitor?
ELISABETH: Yes, yes I do, because the Greats refuse to match her up themselves because of the risk of the child being an imbalance of power. As long as Annabel de Castro isn’t a mermaid and we don’t dig up the bones of an incubus, we’ll be fine. And besides, Katerina deserves--
HUNTER: --nothing but perfection, and you will die to make sure she has it, I know.
(SFX: a shovel hitting a wooden coffin.)
ELISABETH: Yes! Hunter, help me pull it out.
(HUNTER and ELISABETH pull out coffin and open it. ELISABETH takes a bone and puts it by the cauldron)
ELISABETH: Finally! I have everything I need.
HUNTER: What about the hand?
ELISABETH: Oh, I got the hand. William?
(WILL enters Left and walks toward ELISABETH in a daze.)
WILL: Yes, Mrs. Hamilton?
HUNTER: (looks WILL over) Where did you get him?
ELISABETH: He’s one of my students. (turns to WILL) Give me your hand. (takes WILL’s hand) This may hurt just a little. (rips off WILL’s hand and sets it by the cauldron. ELISABETH pulls a new hand from his sleeve) Now leave, and tonight never happened.
(WILL exits Left in a daze)
ELISABETH: Now let’s start. (walks over to cauldron) Dwbl, dwbl, llafur a helynt, tân yn llosgi a pair swigen!
(cauldron boils over)
HUNTER: Are you sure you know how to do this?
ELISABETH: I’ve done this a thousand times, Hunter. Have faith in me. (grabs bone) The bone of the father, so he may walk among mortals (drops bone into cauldron). (grabs a lock of hair) The hair of the mother, to keep for himself or to give to others (drops hair into the cauldron). (grabs WILL’s severed hand) The hand of his teacher, his guardian, his overseer (drops hand into cauldron). (takes knife) And finally, the blood of his soulmate’s mother, to tailor him into a divine image (cuts herself and scrapes the blood into the cauldron). Dewch plentyn hwn yn fyw i mi!
(SFX: thunder and lightning. Cauldron is boiling over, smoking, and flashing multiple colors.)
ELISABETH: Don’t you just love it, Hunter? The feel of the magic coursing through your veins? The sound of thunder and lightning as your power shrouds your entire being? The exhilaration of knowing you can do absolutely anything? That no matter how much they beat you, you’ll feel no pain. The thrill of seeing all the colors fly. Feeling like there is no one more powerful than you are. The glorious feeling that you can never die!
HUNTER: Um, I’m scared, actually.
(SFX: baby crying.)
ELISABETH: (grabs baby from cauldron) He’s perfect. You’re name is (beat) Barrett Moses. May the family that adopt you be very lucky indeed.
HUNTER: Ehmagawd, his eyes are yellow!
ELISABETH: He’s a changeling, you pinhead! They’ll turn either brown or hazel as he gets older. Let’s get him to the orphanage.
HUNTER: Hopefully he’s adopted by a good family. Maybe he’ll be adopted by some nice Shadowpeople.
(Blackout)
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