The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Discomfiting Doubles

Previously: "The Test Dummy" 

[Text by rugal.]

"I think we shouldn't get too fancy," is your judgment. "Let's see what comes next." Fairfax makes a sour face, but doesn't argue.

Kim's suggestion turns out to be right: the next spell in the book does tell you how to seal a mask. The materials required are nothing that you don't have since you had the foresight to grab everything from your room. Everyone pitches in to get the ingredients together, and soon you have the bowl with the completed mixture balanced on the sigil at the bottom of the spell. There's a bit of mist and hissing from the bowl but no loud popping or explosions like there was with the mask and within only a few minutes what's left is a gloop that looks like paint.

You'll need a brush as you have to coat the inside of the mask with it. None of you have anything like that with you, but Josie and Kim find a thick painter's brush in a corner of the room, like something you'd paint a door with, and Mike dips it into the gloop and he coats the inside of the mask with it. It dries almost instantly and aside from that coating you see no visible differences.

Going back to the book, however, you see that oval has now appeared on this page too so Fairfax places the sealed mask onto it with the same effect: you can now turn this page too. The reverse side essentially re-affirms that, now sealed, the mask can be used as intended allowing it to be used as a disguise. The next page is a new spell but at the moment the rest of you ignore it for the moment as everyone is caught up on that "used as a disguise" passage. What could that even mean? Another trick? Mike states that someone will have to put the thing on to see what it means and volunteers himself.

He takes the mask, but having learned from your adventure he lays out on a table in case he passes out. The four of you watch as he then puts the mask to his face.

* * * * *

"I can't believe it I just can't... can't fucking believe it," states Josie in amazement. You agree with her wholeheartedly. All of you do though none of you say it.

Because what you see here, dressed in the now loose-fitting clothing of Mike Hollister, is yourself. Your own clone, your doppelganger, your evil twin, whatever you'd want to call it. Mike put that mask on and he'd been transformed into your duplicate. Even Fairfax had reacted with genuine shock at what had happened.

"That's... that's still you, isn't it Michael?" Josie asks tepidly.

Mike can only grin, an act which freaks you out as it looks unnatural on your face you think. "Up here, sure," he says as he taps the side of his head. "But physically, well, seeing's believing right?"

Kim appears to be shocked more than anyone else as she looks at your double. You can see, too, a sense of unease on her face. "It just doesn't seem right," she says. "I mean if he put it on then that means... it means..."

"Magic's real?" Josie asks as she's catching on. "Oh jeez, yeah, this kind of flips the world upside down doesn't it?"

"t's not just that," Kim replies. "Seeing two Wills is just freaking me out right now. I don't really know what to say about it. About any of this."

"I say we bring some more people in," says Mike; it's so freaky hearing your own voice speak in a way that is not you. "I really, really want to show this stuff to Carlos, he'd get a kick out of it for sure."

"We still don't really know what we're doing," Kim tells him.

"We're figuring it out though and so far so good, right?" he responds. "This just seems too cool to leave all to ourselves."

"But maybe we should," she counters "This isn't something that we should probably be going and telling the world about or even a lot of people."

"Right," adds Josie, "we should probably just keep it between us. If more people know then the word can leak out easier and imagine what someone like Chelsea could do with something like this."

"At the same time I don't see much of a problem if we brought in a few other people," says Fairfax. "So long as that person was run by all of us and we were able to vote on whether or not to bring them in. I would have no problem with someone like Carlos for instance."

"But even with just us there's the risk of it getting out," says Kim. "And even if we trust someone there's no guarantee that they won't slip up somewhere."

You can certainly see both sides of the argument yourself. Having more people to work through the book might be better and you know that you want to tell someone, Caleb most definitely, about this. Plus if you're going to be using this basement as a work station then it'd probably be a good idea to let Caleb in on it anyway. At the same time, however, you know exactly where the girls are coming from.

Chelsea having access to this would be bad enough but what if Steve somehow learned about this? Or one of your bullies? Bringing more people in is definitely a large risk.

Next: "A Surprising Start" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 4)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)"