The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

May We Borrow Your Mother?

Previously: "Mother Dearest" 

Sunday morning dawns cold, but the sun is shining in partly cloudy skies, so it's much nicer than yesterday, though the temperatures promise only to reach the mid-fifties.

For church you dress in soft, cream-colored slacks, a charcoal-gray dress shirt, dark sports jacket, and a striped tie. You add sunglasses while studying yourself in the mirror, and the effect of it all (you have to admit) is good. Very good. You look like a catalog model.

Then, vividly, there comes to you a mental picture of Kristen Humphrey, one of the girls at school who secretly fascinates you. She's grinning at your reflection in the full-length mirror as she steals up behind you ...

She's in a flimsy silk dress with a plunging neckline, the tops of her boobs showing. She comes up behind you, grinning, and the scent of her hair and skin envelopes you like a cloud. She bumps up against you, and ask asks if you want to sit in her pew with her and her family. (They don't go to your church, but the fantasy, like an avalanche, sweeps all reality away as it engulfs you.) She plucks an invisible dust mote off the shoulder of your jacket ...

You have to sink onto the edge of your bed with tightly shut eyes in order to tame your swelling erection. It's a good thing you broke in a sock last night, and used it again this morning. Or else ...

* * * * *

Church itself is a bit of a trip. The Cabots go to the same Episcopalian church as the Prescotts, and though you don't remember ever seeing Elijah there, he remembers seeing you, and with a twinge of trepidation you keep alert for your replacement. He shows up, looking shaggy and itchy in an ill-fitting jacket and pants, with a depressed scowl creasing his face. He jumps with he sees you in the church foyer after services, and his eyes bug out, and for awhile it looks like he is going to come over and say something to you. But other parishioners get in the way, cutting you off from eye contact, and you hurry away before he can find you again. You have the very strong impression that recognized you—you, his original, not "Elijah Cabot."

Back home, after a luncheon of roast beef and new potatoes, you change into a more relaxed costume of baggy soccer shorts and heavy sweatshirt. Then, with a soccer ball under your arm, you ride with your mother back to the Browns. She's running an errand, though, and declines to come in even after you ask. So you and Riker have to kill time until she comes back to pick you up. You go in the back yard—still squishy from yesterday's rain—and talk about the Cabots as you kick the ball between you.

They're originally from New England but moved to Saratoga Falls when Thomas Cabot got a job with Parsons. Thomas has no relatives, but through his mother Elijah has grandparents and several aunts and uncles in Connecticut and Vermont. They all seem well off, but Elijah doesn't pay much attention, and you can only say that there's at least two university professors in the family; a banker; an architect; and you thinkthere's a family trust related to something called the Merrimack Companies. "Wow, they are old money," Riker says with a whistle. You shrug. Then, because one thought will lead to another, you volunteer that the Cabots are members of the country club, though you don't remember the last time they went out there as a family.

Then you ask Sydney what she found out about the Baphomet cult and Parsons.

"There's three of them out there," Riker tells you, "but your dad's not one of them. But I got, uh, Sydney McGlynn, to pick me up and take me back to her place." He grins. "I made Nicholas tell me all about them, who they are, where they are, all of it. Oh my God!" He clenches his fists and bounces on the balls of his feet as he gives you their names, but except for Nicholas's, they mean nothing to you. "I guess it'll be something to keep an eye on, when you're— Because your dad, you know, he might know some of those guys. And we could totally spy on them!"

"I guess we can talk about that later," you murmur.

"Can we get the rest of them today? You know we could take you back home. Me and Micah and Dad and the Ishmaelites. We could blitz your mom and dad!"

That is an idea. "You'd have to fake your way through as my mom, at home," you muse aloud. "Remember how much trouble you have getting the memories? So if we blitzed them—

"Oh, I think I figured out a way around that," Riker brags, and he explains his idea. You agree to try it out.

* * * * *

You're standing out front when your mom pulls into the Browns' driveway, but you don't run around to the passenger side. Instead you slide over to the driver's side window. Your mom rolls it down to regard you from behind amber-framed sunglasses.

She's a fairly young woman (Riker pointed out to you after you told him her age): only thirty-five. She has smooth skin and high cheekbones, and light brown eyebrows that easily arch with puzzlement, and a small mouth that easily puckers with disdain. Now that you get a close look at her, with eyes that have looked at her without seeing, and a mind that now has a stranger's curiosity about her face, you see that she doesn't wear much makeup. Maybe just a trace of powder to take the shine off, and a drab, brown lipstick that almost matches her tan. Her yellow-blonde hair is pulled back in a ponytail, and covered with an olive-green scarf.

"Micah and Riker's mom wants to talk to you," you tell her. "Something about organizing a bake sale for the soccer team?"

From the way her nostrils flare, you expect her to say something cutting. And in a way, she does. "Oh, all right," she sighs, and her Yankee accent hardens. "Just as long as she lets me explain why we don't need a bake sale instead of her explaining why she thinks we do."

She shuts off the engine, gets out, and you hustle alongside as she marches briskly for the house. You direct her to the side door. She steps inside, pulls off her glasses—

And two small giants—Alec and Eric—seize her by the arms and lift her between them. She squawks, but it's a sound of anger and annoyance, not fear. You hurry after as they hustle her into the living room and throw her onto one of the sofas. Her face is flushed, and her lip curls as the brawny Ishmaelites stand over her.

Riker steps out of a corner and holds something out to you. "I want you to do it," he says.

He's holding out a metal strip, with runes scratched into it. You stare at it, then look up at him. "Me?" you gulp. You feel your eyes widen.

"Yeah." His voice is a gurgle. "I want— I want to remember what happens next," he says. "I want to remember ... you ..." He trails off, but his eyes are shining.

"Elijah!" your mom snaps. "What in the hell is—"

But her voice fades beneath the roar in your ears as you take the metal strip from Riker. It feels heavy in your hands, and hot.

You turn to your mother.

The lines around her eyes and mouth are standing out fiercely, and her lips are compressed into a bloodless line. Her eyes flash. There's no fear, no confusion and indignation in her face as Eric and Alec lean over her, pinning her to the sofa by her shoulders.

You step in front of her. But it's like someone else was moving your limbs.

"Don't worry, Mom," you say, and it's like you're repeating words that are coming from outside you. "You'll understand when it's over. I did. I didn't like it at first either. But after you're one of us— After one of us is you—"

"Elijah?" she says. Now fear does show in her face.

"It's because we love you, Mom," you say as you lean over her. "It's because we want to be you."

You push the metal strip onto her brow. The runes glow briefly as you withdraw your hand. Then the strip seems to sink beneath the skin, like a plank of wood slipping under the surface of a muddy pond. Her face slackens, and her eyes go out of focus.

"Oh, wow," Riker says. He puts an arm around your shoulders.

This time, you don't flinch.

* * * * *

So you copy Eljah's mom in pieces—first her mind, then her body into a mask—instead of all at once. That was Sydney's idea. She got it last night, she said, after shifting from Riker's body to Eric's.

"I wanted to try something out," Riker said. "I wanted to find out if it would take all night if I got back into a mask that I'd already been inside." He grinned. "I got 'em instantly, like I'd never been out of Eric's mask. And then—" A shadow of embarrassment stole across her eyes. "Well, afterward, maybe 'cos I was thinking with his brain— He's really smart, you know. I mean, he looks like a lunkhead and a bruiser, but he's so smart! Anyway, I thought I got the idea to try doing the thing in stages. See if I could get the memories first with the one thing, then add the mask on top."

She gloats for a moment or two over Carolyn Cabot's prostrate body, then runs upstairs, leaving it to you to finish making the copies. After gathering first the memory strip and then the mask, you go upstairs to the twins' bedroom, where you find Sydney, naked and uncovered, on the bottom bunk. Riker's mask is cupped over her breasts in her nerveless hands.

Next: "The Mother of All Impersonations" 

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