ACT II, Scene 2
INTERIOR: the house on Ashley Street.
HELEN comes CENTER STAGE with a candle in hand. She sets the candle on the floor and kneels beside it, as if to say a prayer.
HELEN
Lord of the Woods, Keeper of field and pasture,
Wind in the Willows,
All alone, yet all-encompassing,
Please hear me, Horned one, Lover, Father.
Come through from night and over the ocean!
With blessed tidings greet this night.
Shackles of this Iron Age kept us from our very own Arcadia,
But now...we rise,
To turn the tides of such esteem,
That lead these blind ones to grieve
The longings that were freely given them,
So now they fear true sovereignty.
...And we will free them.
They will know pleasures that can only come from the Wood.
The scene changes.
INTERIOR: CLARKE’s office (STAGE RIGHT).
AUSTIN and VILLIERS have already arrived to CLARKE’s abode, and have confronted him. VILLIERS is reading CLARKE’s “Memoirs to Prove the Existence of the Devil”, while CLARKE confesses what he knows to AUSTIN and VILLIERS.
CLARKE
I can no longer deny it.
Fear has kept me silent too long.
These drawings, these faces, all the same.
VILLIERS
Last, but not least, I had followed our lady down to Piccadilly.
AUSTIN
Not the kind of place for someone such as she.
VILLIERS
She was going round by the name of Missus Raymond.
Could she be related to the man you mention here?
(in reference to CLARKE’s memoir)
CLARKE
She has to be. All the clues tied together could not be chance.
VILLIERS
And from what I’ve read in here, it confirms it.
All the victims left some sort of note on the Great God Pan.
AUSTIN
But Villiers made certain of this case.
VILLIERS puts the book down.
VILLIERS
Yes, I followed our now Missus Raymond out of Piccadilly,
to Paul Street, then to that lovely little house on Ashley Street.
AUSTIN
They’re all the same! What a diabolical woman!
CLARKE
She may have seen the Great God Pan!
AUSTIN
She’s had to! All the things we’ve read.
The blackness! What a heart of stone,
to relish in the deaths of all these men.
CLARKE
So what shall we do to end this?
CLARKE/AUSTIN
How can we defeat the Devil himself?
VILLIERS picks up an unmarked bag.
VILLIERS
We shall go to Ashley Street.
We have all the evidence we need,
and I bought a tool for such an occasion.
VILLIERS pulls out a hempen rope.
AUSTIN
Surely, you must be joking.
CLARKE
Murder for murder? I’ll have no part.
VILLIERS
Please, hear me out.
We shall go to Missus Beaumont’s house,
present the facts as we’ve seen them,
then we give her the ultimatum.
While the GHOST CHOIR sings, CLARKE, AUSTIN, and VILLIERS, as if through shadow, move from CLARKE’s office to HELEN’s house. The impression is that the three have entered HELEN’s house and have already presented the ultimatum.
HELEN
What a wicked warning! You would have blood on your hands!
VILLIERS
No! I have offered you a choice:...
VILLIERS throws the rope at HELEN
VILLIERS
...do the deed yourself, as all your victims have,
or we’ll expose you.
GHOST CHOIR
Antichrist! Antichrist!
HELEN
I tried to save them, show them the paradise
that comes from Father Pan!
GHOST CHOIR
Savior! Savior! Savior! Savior!
HELEN
Your minds...such puritanical prisons!
AUSTIN
I can’t take it anymore, Villiers.
HELEN
Let me free you from Faith, which closed your minds.
CLARKE
CUT her to the quick, and let’s be done!
GHOST CHOIR
Antichrist! Antichrist!
HELEN
Those men, they were too weak to understand...
too blind to see that guilt is just a lie!
VILLIERS
Come, make a decision! Choose the rope, or air your lies!
GHOST CHOIR
Antichrist! Antichrist!
HELEN
So this is my betrayal,
And you, my Judas Iscariot!
You Pharisees!
Please open your eyes,
See the true dark night!
See the starry skies!
See the one true Harbinger of Light!
From her fear and despair, HELEN looks out, as if she sees something the others do not. She smiles, as if overcome with joy. She grabs the rope from the floor, and wraps it around her neck. Her demeanor seems victorious, though she is about to die.
HELEN
We will raise the living dead
Through the power of horned head,
Cloven foot and revelry.
Thus the Lord of Trickery will
Set this mortal coil on fire
With every succulent desire.
Pan is all, and all is Pan,
And we will hence return again!
GHOST CHOIR
Deu, Deu, omnodenti, Flavius Senilis possuit.
Propter, propter nuptias qua suidit subumbra.
(Flavius Senilis built this pillar to the God of the great abyss.
To exalt the marriage which resolved beneath the shade.)
HELEN steps onto a chair with the noose around her neck.
AUSTIN/CLARKE/VILLIERS
Do it! Then the world will be rid of you!
Quickly! There’s no time! You must do it soon!
HELEN jumps just before her final note. The stage goes to complete darkness the moment she jumps.
HELEN’s last note is a scream.
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