"Greetings infesters!" "I'll be with you in a moment." "I was just putting these gross profits away for safekeeping." "You see, boils and ghouls, at Crypt Keeper Financial, we can help you get morgue for your money." "Whether it's mutual fiends you want or cold, horrid cash, we can guarantee you'll coroner the market." "I bet you'd be the type who's interested in boo chips, like tonight's tale." "It's about three girls who are chopping around for a tax fright-off of their own in a nasty shock option I call "Last Respects. "" "There now." "It's done." "Richard, I'm sorry." "I'm so sorry..." "Now, don't worry." "The dogs have him now." "He can't hurt you." "Good Sophie." "Good Kingsley." "Always faithful." "The dogs do love us, don't they, no matter what pact we've made with the devil?" "Of course, darling." "Animals don't understand these things." " Oh, God!" "Oh, God!" " Come on." " Do you have it?" " Yes, I have it." "Just one last wish, to make things right again." "No." "No more wishes." "But I can outwit it this time." "I know what to do." "How can you believe such a thing after what we've seen?" "This abomination raised a dead thing from its grave in answer to your wish!" "I can send it away again with my final wish, if you'll allow me just to hold it." "No." "No." "The third wish must go unused." "It's the only way." "MRS. WILDER:" "Sophie?" "No!" "I did it, Richard." "You'll see." "I made a wish that this paw would be owned by someone who really deserved it." "We're free of the curse now!" "But don't you see?" "For the paw to belong to someone else, we would have to..." "You have your wish at last, my darling." "We are free of the curse forever." "What are those?" "They're for Halloween." "We're a house of curios, not a costume shop." "Delores, at this rate, we'll soon be paupers, and no amount of Father's magic is going to change that." "If we're going to survive, we're going to have to expand our client base." "Never." "I will not have nasty little children in this shop, dressed up like Iggy Oswald, biting the heads off rubber bats." " Ozzy Oswald." " Oh, Iggy Osbald." "Whomever." "I will not have them mocking the dark arts." "Would more than likely cause Father to roll over in his grave." " Sorry, Father." " That would be novel." "Hello?" "Hello?" "Can you hear me?" "If you're thinking of coming back from the dead anytime soon, would you please let us know?" " 'Cause we could use the space." " Hello?" " Help, Marlise, will you..." " Anybody home?" "...before she breaks something?" "Sorry!" "Oh, help her yourself." "She's more fond of you anyway." "Of course she is." "With an attitude like yours, it's a wonder you have any human relationships at all." "La VONNE:" "Well, at least..." "At least I'm not in my 30s and still single." "You know, there's a very good reason why no man will have you, and it has absolutely nothing to do with that ugly hammertoe of yours." "It's because you're boring, boring as Buckingham Palace." "Funny, but I swear I remember asking for help." "Of course, you did, darling, but your sister and I were just discussing business." " Or the lack thereof." " Oh, yes, well, business is slow." "Terribly slow." "Maybe it's time we reconsidered our options." "No." "I will not sell Mr. Finger's House of Curios." "I promised Father." "Times change and people must change, too." "Let's not forget that Basil and I still have Grandmother Oakfist to feed." "The money would be very helpful." "I won't sell." "I can't." "She's terribly selfish." "I didn't understand why Father left her in charge." "I knew we should have contested the will." "I hate you!" "Yeah, well, I hate you even more." "In fact, I detest the actual day that you were born, you wretched little mistake." "Has it ever occurred to you that one more prophylactic to a box and it would have been just the two of us?" "You liar!" "That's not true!" "Look!" "It's a sign." "Three wishes?" "Delores, don't be daft." "Basil, are you going to join us?" "In a moment, darling." "The ham smells delicious." "It's lamb, you twit." "Lamb, you say?" "Interesting." "Carry on." "I'll just be a minute." "As I was saying, that whole monkey paw business is just an old story." "Something Father told us as children." "It's more than that, La Vonne." "It was in a book." "Yes, thank you, Marlise." "Your literary insight is awe-inspiring as always." "But as most people know, stories do come from books." "Not always." "Sometimes they come from newspapers." "Stop your quibbling." "It doesn't matter where the story came from." "What matters is that the story is true." "La VONNE:" "Right." "What if?" "How do we even know this is the paw?" "Marlise, did you check with the people you purchased it from?" "I told you, it was an estate sale." "The couple was deceased." "Beware the paw." "It's cursed." "More meat." "More meat." "A simple "please" would have sufficed." "Do you see what I have to put up with around here?" "Do you?" "It's ridiculous." "What about a magazine?" "On occasion, stories are found in magazines, too." "Thank you, Basil." "Have you taken your medicine?" "Good." "Then feel free to continue embarrassing yourself as much as you like." "La Vonne, listen to me." "I believe what Marlise said this morning is true." " Father doesn't want us to sell the store." " How do you know that?" "Because he sent us a helping hand from beyond the grave." ""Three wishes I give, and no more," ""to each owner of me, so keep score." ""Each wish will come true," ""so take care what you do... "" " Blast!" "I can't make out the rest." " Let me." "Something illegible..." ""Greed I deplore. "" "It's not very friendly sounding, is it?" " Grandmother gone to sleep?" " Yes." "Even Basil." "What a shame." "Are you sure you know what you're doing?" "If I remember the story correctly, those wishes had a way of taking a nasty turn." "Then we'll just have to be smarter than the people in that book." "They were greedy." "Right." "We'll start smaller." "We'll be a bit more careful." "MARLISE:" "We won't wish for any more than we really need." "Exactly." "I wish for a million pounds." "A million pounds?" "We're as good as dead!" " You said start small." " That's not small." "Yes, it is, in the scheme of things." "Don't forget that I have unlimited power here." "I could have easily asked for 100 million or even a billion pounds." "Not that it really matters 'cause nothing happened." "Hello?" "Yes." "Yes, she's here." "Certainly." "How many?" "Right." "Just a moment please." "I don't want it." "I'm afraid." "Oh, shut up, you bloody parrot." "It's Father's lawyer." "Hello?" "What is it?" " La VONNE:" "One of Father's shipments..." " Yes, Mr. Curd." "...was just delivered to his lawyer by a representative of the post office." "Apparently it was lost in the system for over 40 years." "What was in the shipment?" "According to the paperwork, three fountain pens." "Yes." "Fountain pens?" "Yes." "Waterford Snakes." "Only four exist in the entire world." "We now own three." "At £250,000 apiece." " How much?" " £750,000!" "Do you know what this means?" "The paw works!" "Except that you wished for a million." "Doesn't that seem odd?" "Oh, what the hell?" "We're rich!" "We're rich!" "La VONNE:" "Yes, we are." "Or should I say she is?" "Whatever do you mean?" "As the owner of the House of Curios, the pens legally belong to her." "Oh, but she'll share with her sisters." "Won't she?" "Don't let her out of your sight." "I still can't believe it." "Three quarters of a million pounds, and it's all mine." "To be shared with the two of you, of course." "Well, I for one won't believe any of this until the pens are safely in our vault." "Oh, never doubt the power of the spirit world." "If Father wants us to succeed, we will." "I'll be in the shop." "Get back as soon as you've acquired the pens." "Perhaps it would be better if I put the pens in my safety deposit box at the First National." "Safety deposit box?" " When..." "When..." " Since Daddy died." "It was all part of the will." "I thought you knew." " No, we didn't know." " Why didn't you tell us?" "I thought I did." "Oh, well, I guess I didn't think it was that important." "Don't you worry, sweetie." "Those pens are as good as ours." "What do you mean, there are no pens?" "On the phone you said there were three pens!" "Three pens worth £250,000 each!" "Yes, well, I'm sorry." "But as you can see for yourself, there was a misprint on the shipping..." "What am I supposed to do with 33 waterway snakes?" "I'm warning you, Marlise, stop this nonsense right now!" "Marlise, are you listening to me?" "Again, my condolences, Ms. Finger." "But as I mentioned before, I do have a dinner engagement." "Mr. Curd, I don't care if you're having dinner with the Queen in your underwear." "If you don't take your hands off me right now," "I promise you I will personally introduce all 33 of these snakes up your large and rather unflattering arse." " Out!" " Oh, stop it!" " Stop that blubbering, you spoiled brat!" " Don't!" "Leave her!" "Where are the two of you?" "Car accident?" "Are they both dead?" "Is..." "Is Marlise dead?" "The doctor said she probably didn't feel a thing." "We were fighting on the way home." "She wouldn't stop crying." "Don't." "Can I see her?" "No." "The car, it went up like an inferno." "At least you were thrown free." " She wouldn't stop crying." " Stop." "It gets worse." "Do you remember the safety deposit box?" " She had an insurance policy." " No!" "Oh, it's all my fault." "It was worth a million pounds." "Exactly what I'd wished for." "The monkey's paw." "Destroy it." "Destroy it!" "Promise me!" "I don't know if I can." "Read it again if you have to." "You can't do it." "I can." "I can beat the paw." "I can bring Marlise back." "No, you can't." "That's exactly what they tried to do in the book." "She wishes her son back to life, but he comes to the door as he is now, a rotting corpse." "Oh, I can!" "I can beat the paw!" "Delores, Marlise is gone." "Don't do any more damage." "Give me the paw." "Oh, no, I've still got two wishes left." "Two wishes left!" "No, Doctor, it's not healthy." "She thinks it has magical powers." "It's simply a stuffed paw, nothing more." "La Vonne!" "La Vonne!" "Right." "Well, we'll see you tomorrow then." "Yes." "Thank you." "What is it?" "I know what the second wish should be." "Oh, why didn't I think of it before?" "Give that to me." " I wish..." " Don't!" "...that Marlise was the way she was right before the accident." "No." "No." "Answer the bloody phone." "Hello?" "Thank you." "We'll be right there." "That was the funeral home." "They said they needed to see us right away." "I can't do it." "I can't go down there." "Fine." "I'll go by myself." "You never cared for her." "She was your sister, and you hated her!" "As I told your sister, it's very strange, Ms. Finger." "Very strange..." "She's alive, isn't she?" "No." "Not quite that strange, but strange enough." "Look." " I don't understand." " Frankly, neither do I." "The police told me your sister drove her car off the road." "Yes, the car went up in flames." "She was horribly disfigured, burned." "Ms. Finger, your sister's car didn't catch on fire." "She drove it into the lake." "She did?" "Yes, but something very odd is going on here." "Somehow the police detectives missed this." "Just before your sister crashed her car, somebody put a bullet in her head." "Your sister was murdered." "Murderer!" "As I believe you once said, "Times change and people do, too. "" "Marlise told you about the insurance policy as you left Father's lawyer, and you killed her." "That's right." "And I would have got away with it, too, if it hadn't been for that ridiculous paw." "No, you had to try and bring the little brat back." "You had all the money you could ever need." "But, no, you had to fuck with history." "You're mad." "No, I'm not." "I'm justified." "You didn't marry Basil." "You didn't change Grandma Oakfist's nappies every night." "I did." "I paid my dues." "And now I want out, and you're not going to stop me." "Give me that bloody paw, Delores." "I don't want you using that last wish against me." "You don't have to worry, La Vonne." "I've already used it." " You what?" " Oh, I'm not as daft as you think." "I gave my wish away." "I wished that the last wish belonged to my sister." "You're pathetic." "I don't want your wish." "In fact, I wish that you had your wish back." "There." "That's done it." "No, it's not, because I didn't tell the paw which sister to give it to." "I beat it at its own ridiculous game." "That twisted paw gave the wish to Marlise." "The funny thing is, her wish was to spend a little more time with you." "Shame about La Vonne." "She wanted so badly to be rich, but ended up just another paw girl." "Still, you'll be pleased to know, kiddies, that the girls settled their differences and reopened the store as Ye Olde Gore-iocity Shoppe." "It's so nice to see a little family business that gruesome." "As for me, I'm afraid a few of my investment strategies have got me into trouble with the "Die-RS."" "Not to worry though, the joke's on him." "I'm about to make a killing."