“No, Judith — you’re not mad, you’re just… burdened.”
Reverend Trask is comforting his distressed wife. “Now, Evan here has a paper that will lift a great deal of that burden from you, as soon as you sign it.”
But Judith is too upset to focus. “I can’t read anything right now!”
“There’s no need to read it, Judith,” her husband explains. “Just sign it.”
She says that she needs to talk to her brother Edward first, but the Reverend and his lawyer-accomplice shake their heads. Edward, they say, is dead. He’s not, actually — at least, he looked okay, the last time I saw him — but Trask and Evan seem pretty sure about it.
“Why can’t I remember?” Judith cries. “What’s happening? Everything is going to pieces, I want it to stop!”
“Judith, it will stop,” Trask says, “when you sign the paper.”
“Sign the paper,” Evan agrees.
Judith turns to look at Trask’s dead wife Minerva, who’s just sitting there, glaring at her with undisguised loathing.
“She keeps staring at me,” Judith mutters. “She’s watching me, and waiting. What is she waiting for?”
Trask insists, “Judith, sign the paper. That is the only way I can make you stop seeing this phantom that doesn’t exist!” He picks up the pen, and puts it into her hand. “Sign the paper, Judith. Sign the paper!”
Now, I don’t want to jump to any conclusions, but I’m starting to get the feeling that they want Judith to sign the paper. This has all the earmarks of being one of those sign-the-paper parties.
Dark Shadows Every Day 