The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

A Book Study with Roberta

Previously: "Slaughterhouse Drive" 

"What are you doing after school tomorrow?" you ask Roberta.

She looks at you with a raised eyebrow. It's not until that moment that you realize you have opened the passenger-side door of your truck for her. "Are you asking me out on a date?" she asks.

"N-no!"

"I might go on a date with you, Will," she says as she climbs in. "Just don't expect to get any action."

You grimace as you shut the door on her. After you've gone around and gotten in, you say, "It's just that I've got this project I'm working on, and I want to show it to someone."

"What kind of project?"

You haul out your backpack, and dig around until you pull out the mask. "Careful with this," you tell her as you hand it to her. "But it has to do with that."

Roberta takes and studies it by what dim light comes filtering into the truck cab from the lights of the Dairy Queen. "What is it?" she asks. "Besides its being a mask."

"I'm not sure," you confess. "Even though I, uh, made it."

"You made it, but you don't know what it is?" she asks. When you don't answer she says, "It's really good, whatever it is. You did a good job." She turns it over and over in her hands. "How'd you make it?"

"Well, that's what I want to show you. I made it with the help of this old book ..."

* * * * *

That's really all that you tell her, but she agrees to stay after school tomorrow to look over it all with you. "You'll have to take me home," she says. "I take the bus or get a ride from friends."

That night, at home, after giving it some thought, you pack up everything that you used to make the mask and put it in a duffel bag, which you put in your truck. You figure that showing her the book won't be at all convincing unless you also show her what it can do.

* * * * *

The two kids from Mr. Hawks's class that you met last night are in class the next day, and both look up at you with recognition in their eyes. Meredith—the lumpy redhead with the weird mouth—has a bright look on her face as she makes another weird, closed-mouth smile at you. Steven—the stoner kid with the ski cap—nods and calls out, "You get'cher money from Zion and Kian? Cool," he says when you nod.

Keith looks at you askance as you settle into your desk in front of him. "What are you selling these day?" he asks. "That you're getting an income."

"My services."

"Sexual? Feh!" His lip curls. "No one'd give you nothing for that!"

"I helped those guys"—you nod at Steven and Meredith—"with a school project yesterday."

"Yeah? How much'd you get?"

"Like, fifteen dollars. Actually, I just got a free meal out of it. They paid me back."

"For what?"

"Sushi.

"Dude! Raw fish? And I didn't mean, what'd you eat. I meant, what'd you help 'em with that you got free food?"

"Picked up boxes for a charity drive, drove 'em back to a dude's house."

"You got paid in raw fish for that? Fuck, new meaning for the phrase 'raw deal'!" He snorts.

"You know anybody who's a junior?"

"Yeah sure, why?"

"Just wondering. It was a project for the junior class, and I was just realizing I don't think I know anyone in the junior class."

He smirks. "How'd that happen? You knew a bunch of people in the junior class last year!"

"Who did I know?" you demand. Not until he sniggers do you get the joke—that you and him and your whole class were "juniors" last year. You flip him off and turn around.

* * * * *

You keep your eye open for some of the other people you met yesterday, but you don't have any of them in your classes, and you don't see them in the hallways, either. In your seventh-period study hall you text Roberta (who gave you her number) to remind her that you're to meet just inside the student parking lot, next to the theater, when classes end. She answers with a "thumbs up" emoji.

Still, even though you don't rush out, you have to wait nearly ten minutes before Roberta appears, in the company of twin girls. She briefly introduces them to you as Paris and Peyton Morrow, and chats a bit more with them about some common acquaintances and plans for the upcoming weekend before seeing them off. "Now then, Will," she says with her usual impudent smile. "What's this big mysterious thing you want to show me?"

You lead her to your truck but you don't drive anywhere, for after giving it some thought you've decided to make the demonstration up here at the school. So you start by showing her the book, telling her where you found it and bought it, and showing her how the pages don't turn. You also tell her that you got the first page to turn after impressing a bloody thumbprint to it. She looks interested but skeptical. Finally, as you anticipated, she challenges you to show her how you used the book to make that mask.

The school has cleared out a lot by now, but you invite her to follow as you lug the duffel bag over to the viewing stands that look out over the grassy soccer/football fields and track. You lead her around to their far side, putting them between you and the school, so that you won't be as visible.

Roberta frowns as, item by item, you unpack the ingredients, and she picks up the packages and fingers them. Using a couple of those items as a paperweight, you lay out the piece of paper onto which you'd copied the spell's sigil, and onto it set the mixing bowl. Into it, using your notes, you pour out the measured ingredients and set it on fire. Roberta cries out at the stink, and both of you fall away, but the afternoon breeze quickly dissipates it and the white smoke. Still, Roberta has a sneer of disgust on her face as you pour the runny batter onto the convex mirror. You invite her to touch it and pick it up, which she does, gingerly. She is frowning at when she gasps and drops it like a snake.

"Look," you tell her, and point to the thing she dropped. Her eyes go wide as she kneels in the grass and bends over it.

For it is now a mask, identical (save for being white) to the other one you showed her. You take it from the duffel bag to show her, so she can compare them.

Of course, she asks why the color is different. "You have to polish it," you tell her. "It took me all week."

She sucks in her lips, then picks up the first mask and examines it. Then—

"It's a trick," she says, looking up at you with a heavy frown. "It's sleight of hand, you—"

You raise your open palms. "You want me to do it again? Look around, look in my bag, where did that thing go to, the thing we poured out. You were the one that was holding it. It was, like, spherical, it didn't look like that—" You point to the new mask. "And you were holding it when—"

"Okay, okay," she mutters. "Lemme see the book."

You push it over to her. She flips between the pages that will turn, and turns pale. Then she closes it and looks at the cover and spine. "Oh my God," she groans.

"What do you think?"

"I don't know." She opens the book. "What's it supposed to do?"

"You're supposed to put it on," you tell her. "Or someone's supposed to put it on."

"And then what?"

You lick your lips. "Well, according to the book, it ... absorbs the form of the person who puts it on."

Roberta's eyes go very big. "What does that mean?"

"I don't know. I haven't tried it yet."

She balances the blue mask in her hand. "Were you going to try?"

"Well, I was kind of hoping I'd find someone else who, uh, would help."

Your voice dies in your throat as Roberta looks up at you with a piercing glance.

Then, before you can dodge, she lunges forward and smashes the mask into your face.

* * * * *

You are very groggy when you wake, and sore from being kicked in the hip. You open your eyes, and through the brilliant, late afternoon sunshine, peer up into the face of ... someone. He's big and muscled and there's dense black stubble on his cheek and chin.

"Hey, youzits," he says. "We need the field."

"Whuh?" You sit up, and almost pass out from the flash of pain that briefly grips your skull.

"Yeah, we got practice. Move it somewhere else."

You look around. Big guys in shorts and jerseys and lacrosse gear are moseying around the field. You mumble your apologies and scramble to your feet. The other guy gives you a doubtful look, and moves off.

The first thing you notice is that Roberta is gone. The second is that all your stuff is also gone—book, duffle bag, ingredients, instruments. "Hey!" you call to the guy. "You seen my stuff?"

"What stuff?" he calls back, and resumes walking away.

You stagger back to your truck. On your way over, you call Roberta. (Your phone, clothes, and keys seem to be the only things she's left you.) "Hi," she says in a very clipped tone when she answers.

"Where are you?" you ask. "Where's my stuff?"

"I'm on my way home, and I've got your stuff."

"What? Well, where can we meet so I can get it back?"

"I'm not giving it back to you," she says. "I'm getting rid of it, Will. It's evil."

Next: "The News from Roberta" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 1)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)"