"Halloween"
page 3
He arrives at the James House, a local restoration project.
He spots a black cat, thinking it's his, but a white patch on the forehead tells him otherwise. Inside the abandoned mansion, he finds a kettle brewing in a fireplace. This must be the cause of the fire, so he grabs an iron shovel and starts to put it out.
From the darkness, two cloaked figures emerge, creeping up on him.
He hears them and whirls around. They shed their cloaks, exchange a look--"Ready? Now!"--and charge him with a garlic wreath. Despite having the element of surprise, they seem a bit flustered.
While Gary is too stunned to move, they jump around him, draping the garlic wreath about his feet and garnishing it with bird claws, behaving more like a pair of chefs on the Food Channel than daughters of darkness.
Finished, and proud of their work, they proclaim: "We've got him!!"
Gary: "Got who? What?"
Noelle, on the right, answers: "We've captured our Warlock!"
Gary: "Who are you?"
"Toby" answers Noelle. "Gwyneth" answers the blond witch, played by Jennifer Blanc. Jennifer has appeared with Noelle before, on Beverly Hills 90210 in 1991. (She has her own website: jenniferblanc.com. Her next project, a sci-fi TV mini-series in fall of 2000, "Dark Angel", produced by James Cameron.)
(Why do they have these names? "Gwyneth" is clearly a dig at Gwyneth Paltrow, but "Toby" seems an unusual choice for a Salem witch. There is a Mount Toby in Massachusetts, overlooking Amherst College, so maybe this is a bit of local folklore that one of the writers is drawing on.)
"And you're under our spell" Toby informs him.
Gary lets out a nervous little whistle: "Oh boy! Happy Halloween!"
They look him up and down, while Gary starts to sympathize with the bureaucrat. "Look, you can't actually tell me you believe you're witches?"
Gwyneth seems hurt: "He doesn't believe us."
Toby: "They never do."
Gary protests: "I'm not a warlock!"
Toby: "That's what they all say!"
Gwyneth: "Kinda cute for a warlock."
Toby: "Don't start. Anyway, now we've got you!"
Gary: "Whaddya mean, you 'got me'?"
Toby: (Matter-of-factly) "Well, you're under our spell. Garlic and chicken's feet, and you can't move from that circle."
Rolling his eyes, he steps outside the circle. (Sometimes the magic works, sometimes it doesn't!)
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