The Raven Locks

ACT I

Scene 1

The Same as I

In the Darkness, Light from the cracks of a door begins to appear. Calliope, our Narrator, is training the other gods on how to properly put someone on trial in a genuine, unexpected manner. The Psychopomps are there, Characters in Plague Doctor masks, but of different animals, not only ravens. A boy appears, a young Roderick Piper Thorne.

In the Darkness, Light from the cracks of a door begins to appear at the top of a staircase. there are four stained glass panels on the door. Behind that door, the sound of a woman screaming can be heard. Doctors and nurses can be heard shouting and working. As the boy, terrified, looks on, the Psychopomps begin to sway and wave their arms eerily. Young Roderick, petrified, collapses on the floor, and as he wrestles his fears, he tries to climb the winding stair to reach the door. He crawls up the steps, and just as he reaches the door, the scene goes dark again.

Scene 2

Our story takes place on December 14th – two years after the Titanic sank and the first year of World War I. Southampton was the point of embarkation off to war for the soldiers, but also the point of return for the dead and the wounded. Before WWI this city was considered the gateway to the empire and was one of the first to utilize the inventions of the new age such as electricity. The war has obviously changed the tone of the city dramatically, with the streets being overrun by soldiers.

In this scene, we can see Roderick Piper Thorne, our protagonist in this story, wakes up, as if from a nightmare. Roderick owns a clothing shop called “Crowns for Thorns”, which mostly sells Victorian-style hats – a style which was outdated by almost 20 years in the year of 1914 – and repairs.

Adjacent stores to his were selling Edwardian-style clothing, which Thorn found boring. Roderick moves down to his shop, and as soon as he opens its door a young boy barges in. Thorn ducks for cover, as if he was expecting someone that he didn’t want to meet. When he realizes that he who entered was just his errand-boy, he comes out of cover and hits him on the head for entering the shop so quickly without notice. The boy hands some materials and such to Roderick, who in turn goes up to his apartment to fetch coins as payment for the boy. When he comes back down to the shop he finds that and old, beggar-like looking woman entered his establishment, holding something covered in cloth in her arms. Thorn is mad at the boy for letting the woman in. Roderick pays the boy who counts the money as he walks out of the shop only to realize that he wasn’t paid enough – alas, as he turns around, the door is already locked.

The woman has an antique wedding dress which thorn is to repair. He quickly mends it, but the woman then confesses that she doesn’t have enough money to pay for his services. She does, however, offer him a starling (bird) instead. Roderick refuses as he has no interest in the bird, so the woman offers him a deal: if Thorn manages to answer her riddle to him, she will give him something of far more worth then the money she owes him. Thorn reluctantly agrees. He doesn’t manage to answer the riddle, so the woman pulls him closer using a red scarf which she quickly pulls from her purse, lays a big kiss on him, tells him the answer, and goes out of the shop laughing. Leaving him with the bird and the scarf but with payment. Thorn, being the new owner of the bird, realizes it has no food or water, so he takes his last coin and buys bread in a nearby place, which he then shares with the starling.

Roderick remembers that he’s been left with a scarf as well. He appears rather interested in it and goes to examine it in front of a lamp. Unfortunately, it runs out of oil as soon as he approaches it. He takes the scarf to his apartment upstairs instead, in order to examine it in the sunlight. As he does that, some kids in the street begin taunting and mocking him through his window. He grabs a broom and goes down to chase after them. He catches up with none of them but notices that the outside of the shops around him look much nicer than his – so he begins sweeping the outside of his shop with the broom. That is when we hear the rhythmic stomping of soldiers feet on the ground and the song We Forgot We Were Human begins.

In the duration of the song we are presented with two secondary characters: Scene 3
 * The mayor of Southampton
 * The military veteran attempting to recruit people to the war

After the display of excitement of the citizens of Southampton towards the war, followed by the return of the dead and wounded from the battlefields, Roderick Piper Thorne, our protagonist, goes back into his shop. Seeing his new bird, he's distracted – and so he forgets to “mind the door” as he usually says due to his paranoid nature – he always keeps his shop door locked (even when he’s in). He begins a ‘conversation’ with the Starling and learns that it actually knows some phrases in English, so he becomes more and more interested in it and also more satisfied with getting it as a payment from the old woman.

The shop door suddenly opens. Roderick, as we learned that he usually does in such situations, dives down for cover and hides. In busts a young man with a black suit who announces himself as Edward Sexton, a representative sent to collect taxes and that Thorn’s bill is overdue. Sexton has a strong feeling that Roderick is in the shop in spite of not being able to see him and begins to look for him as he speaks, as he’s been warned about this habit of his. “I know you’re in here, Thorn – they told me all about you. Your bill is overdue. I’ll be back with a constable to collect it tomorrow or collect you if it’s not paid.” He says as he continues looking behind and over objects in an attempt to surprise and find Thorn. But it's no use to him since Roderick is very adept when it comes to hiding in his shop and keeps evading the representative. Failing to find the owner of the shop, he becomes unsure whether Thorn is really in the there so he leaves a note on the counter and leaves frustrated.

Roderick emerges cautiously and slowly. When he’s certain that the coast is clear he heads for the door. Just as he approaches, a handsome man in his 40’s, well dressed in the latest Edwardian fashion, enters the shop with his wife. It’s worth noting that this is considered a rather busy day in Crowns for Thorns, with 4 different people visiting the place.

The man who entered the shop says “Thorn! Finally! Caught while you’re in the shop. Just bumped into the tax collector. Told me about your problems – that you’re in a great deal of debt.” This character is soon revealed as Thomas F McGuire, the owner of McGuire Emporium. McGuire speaks again and says “I’m coming here armed with a new bit of information – I’m prepared to make you an overly generous offer for this small space.” He continues to explain that Roderick’s shop is a scar dividing his retail clothing empire. He, in fact, means that literally, as “Crowns for Thorns” is surrounded by McGuire’s shops and is sort of the hold up for progress as McGuire sells modern Edwardian clothing while Thorn still sells exclusively Victorian clothing.

McGuire makes his offer very politely – he is not being rude or insulting Roderick’s shop and is indeed offering quite a lot for such a small space (although he does sting Thorn by saying his shop is a thorn in his side). Roderick refuses, as we understand that he has done in the past to McGuire’s offers. He insults McGuire’s fashion sense and his stores and accuses him of having everyone in the city wearing “dull, muted, cookie-cutter, machine-manufactured, insipid uniforms” and that he “has them all marching like an army into a future where a man’s sense of individualism meant nothing, where everyone could be some kind of duplicable cog in a machine of meaningless progress.” That’s a good place to note that Thorn prides himself as someone that is really good at his word choices – he doesn’t speak often and he doesn’t like to speak, partly because he puts so much pressure on himself to say something profound when he speaks; which is problematic since he doesn’t have much wisdom.

Another important attribute at this point is that he sees himself as the last true craftsman – the salt of the earth whose the only one still hanging on to class. “Victorian style hasn’t meant a thing for almost 20 years.”, says McGuire, and that at best, Crowns for Thorns is but a custom shop or a repair shop. This greatly bothers Thorn as he always drives people off when they come to his shop looking for customs. And so he fires back defensively, saying “I’m a true craftsman and a true craftsman will always be meaningful to those who have the intelligence and the vision to perceive it” As he finishes this sentence, Mrs. Mildred McGuire speaks for the first time and takes a different approach from her husband. She says to thorn, kindly but a bit harshly “Thorn, you’ve gone too long without a bride. You’ve been married to this shop but soon you’ll be its widower and you’ll have nothing left to give your life meaning. Resentment could never feed a stomach or a soul. Put some money in your pocket and settle down with a girl. You’ll have no trouble finding work with the manner of sowing you can manage.” McGuire interrupts his wife and says “That’s exactly it – we’re here to offer you a job. We’re prepared to offer you a position, provided you will renounce the manner in which you’ve conducted yourself in the past and prepare to work with others on more modern designs”. After a long pause, during which tension builds up, Thorn collects himself and informs McGuire and his wife that “The devil himself could have not crafted a more complete insult" than they had offered him this day and that they must leave his shop at once. McGuire heads to the door with his wife, stating “Well we’re gonna go to a more normal realm now where people believe in reason and manners.". A moment before they leave, Mrs. McGuire turns to Thorn and says "Take some time to reconsider, Thorn – the summer of your youth has passed.”. Roderick slams the door shut, spins around to lean against it, and breathes heavily – once again he forgets to lock the door because he’s distracted by his bird, which says “Mind the door”. Intrigued, Thorn moves towards the bird and asks it to repeat what it said. Thorn says to himself “The door…” and the song Solemn Dream begins.

The first half of the song is a solo sung by Roderick, whose recalling the dream that opened the musical. The second half begins with the violin solo when a girl hurries down the street and stops by the shop as if something caught her eye. The moment she enters his shop, thanks to Thorn forgetting to lock the door, the bell rings, and Roderick ducks behind his usual spot of cover. From his hiding spot, it seems almost as if she moves in slow motion in a daydream like sort of way until it seems that she freezes when reaching towards something in the window.

Scene 4

Scene 5

It opens with a scene of a gentleman named Herbert Fowell, he's working as the mortician at Fowell & Sons Mortuary, he's having a conversation with a coroner. There's some suspicion about who the girl with the raven locks, laying on the table, presumably dead, is. They are trying to figure out why she was dressed in Victorian clothing, as that style was plenty of decades out of date.

A man dressed in and gray Edwardian-style suit and long jacket enters the shop. He stops and holds the door while a red-haired woman in the same Victorian-era clothes comes in. The man addresses the mortician and the coroner, claiming that he's from a moving theater company. He had been searching for a missing actress, and that search had led him to the shop. Turns out that the girl who died was that missing actress. When they identify the body, both the man and the woman are moved emotionally. The res-haired girl holds the body and cries and kisses it hysterically. The man then goes on to explain that the actress had lost a scarf from her wardrobe for the play. In fact, the second act on their play that was coming up on Saturday afternoon was going to require her to have a scarf, as that what was going to kill her in the play. She had run out during the intermission, trying to find a replacement, and never returned. Her name is Sable Douglas and her family is from America. The theater director makes arrangements with the coroner and the mortician to notify her family of the tragedy and to send her body via boat back to Boston for a proper burial.

After the conversation concludes, they exit, and only the mortician is left. He's doing filling some paperwork when finally Thorne is back. He lurches in, kind of awkwardly, he and the mortician seem to know each other, perhaps for past dealings. Thorne frequents the shop to buy hair from unidentified bodies that he finds pretty and makes a wig with it, but the mortician lets him know that the usual arrangement will not apply this time. Thorne tries to press the mortician, but he replies that it would be unlawful to do so, as her family would not be able to be notified. Thorne offers the triple of what he would usually pay but the mortician still refuses, due to the illegality of the act.

Thorne exits and the mortician leaves too after that, locking the shop. While he's passing by, we see a man trying to negotiate on an engagement ring with the female shop owner. He has to set on a diamond because all the other gems are too expensive.

When the conversation between the shopkeeper and the man ends, Love Will Make You Do the Strangest Things begins. Thorne can be seen lurking in the shadows, taking with some sort of tools, and starts fiddling with the lock at Fowell & Sons Mortuary. He breaks in the shop, lightly weeping as he starts messing with the girl's hair, cutting it off.

Scene 6

Thorne returns to his shop, going upstairs where his apartment is. He begins to mend the wig on the second floor. Bring Her Back starts. On the length of the song, Thorne continues to make the wig while he's singing his solo. After he starts dancing with the bust with the wig, he realizes how weird he's acting. Aware of this, he has a moment of clarity and he breaks drown putting his palm in his head, weeping lightly.

A sound, like a wax cylinder, can be heard. Thorne lifts his head to see what on earth is going on. The hair on the wig starts moving and flowing up. Thorne starts bawling as the raven locks start being animated. The mannequin projects a face. It starts talking.

She Was the Gateway to the Empire begins, the mannequin being the one singing. Then continues with Fallen. It's talking about how the city is doomed by the attitude people have about progress and the war instead of thinking about the wisdom of the past.

Thorne panics, thinking a horrible thing is about to happen, then realizes that she, the mannequin, can't go out without a dress. By this time, night had already passed, Thorne didn't have any sleep. While he searches around for one, he's interrupted by a rap on the door. The constable, the tax collector, and the mortician show up with policemen. They wanted to ask him a few questions and threaten to break in if Thorne didn't comply. Thorne grabs a few valuable items, the bird, the mannequin, and exits through the backdoor.

Scene 7

Thorne starts running towards the docks. He tries to buy a ticket to a cruise to make it back to Sable's home, America. While he's waiting in line to get aboard, the constable and the policemen arrive at the docks and start questioning people.

ACT II

Scene 1

ACT III

Scene 1