The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

A Face Off with Faces Off

Previously: "Safety Last" 

You sortof-kindof understand what's been happening behind your back, but you go over it again with Natalie (who is still looking like Gillian) as you drive off to meet Braydon and Gillian.

So after you left the basement on Wednesday, she got the wild idea of pulling off a "body swap" with Gillian. She used the key you gave her to get into the basement to make another mask. Then yesterday, after school, she lured Gillian out to the basement and managed to copy her with the mask, then put her own mask onto Natalie and put Gillian's onto herself. Voila! Instant body swap!

And why you asked through gritted teeth, did you want to do that?

Well, she thought it could be a bonding experience. Oh my God, we're in each other's bodies! We can't tell anyone!

But, you pointed out, she'd have your memories. She'd know about the masks and what you've been doing with them—

Well, yes. And that was part of her first plan. It would be hard to tell Gillian about how she felt, but if Gillian could actually feel Natalie's feelings, then it would be easier for them to deal with each other.

But, it didn't work out that way, because she didn't get Gillian's memories and Gillian didn't get hers, and why was that? she wanted to know. You could only shrug.

Well, anyway, with both of them not having each other's memories, that's when Plan B kicked in, and they decided they'd have to go home as each other and not tell anyone what happened. That would still be a "bonding experience," Natalie privately decided.

And then this morning, when she woke up, she did have Gillian's memories, but when she texted Gillian, Gillian seemed to not have her (that is, Natalie's) memories, so— "Well, I just thought it was win-win all around!" she says. "I could be Gillian and start to push her and Braydon apart, and then her and me could bond over our secret body swap! It all makes sense, Will," she insists.

And yes, it does, in an upside-down, inside-out kind of way. The only problem is, you remind her, that Gillian did get Natalie's memories, and did realize that Natalie was lying to her about the body swap, and did realize that Natalie has been trying to break her and Braydon up, and she knows now that Natalie was using occult means, including sandbagging and copying her "hubby" so that Natalie and her friend Will Prescott could pretend to be him to stir up trouble between them!

"Well, yeah!" Natalie says. She's got her arms crossed defensively. "I know what's happened, Will, I was there! But now it's all out in the open, and we can deal with it honestly."

You're waiting at a light, so you close your eyes and rest your forehead on the wheel. "And why couldn't you deal with it out in the open, honestly, before it got so complicated?"

"I know," she says. "Really, why did Gillian have to go running off to Braydon with our stuff? It'd be so much simpler if he wasn't going to get mixed up in it!"

And it isn't complicated enough without him? you want to yell. You cannot fathom that Natalie thinks Gillian isn't going to be furious about all this.

* * * * *

Natalie is still wearing Gillian's mask when you pull into the parking lot at Besandwiched—

And of course they wanted to meet at Besandwiched, one of the weirdly numerous occult-flavored businesses that dot Saratoga Falls like white mushrooms after a rainstorm.

—because she doesn't know if Gillian is still in her (Natalie's) mask. "Go in and check," she urges you, "then come back and tell me."

The only thing worse than two girls wearing the same outfit when they run into each other, you find yourself thinking as you dismount your truck, is two girls wearing the same face when they run into each other!

Braydon and Gillian are seated near the front, and it is Gillian and not a Natalie clone, so you signal Natalie to take the mask off. She nods, and falls back onto the bench, hiding herself from view. You take a deep breath and trudge back into the restaurant.

It's a creepy place and you don't much like it. The staff are all weedy and stringy, most of them (male and female) with long hair that's like dribbling seaweed, and weird facial hair and piercings and tattoos, and they're pale like they've lived all their lives underground in damp earthen caves. The decor isn't just occult—lots of pentagrams and triangles and five-pointed stars painted on the walls—but oppressive, particularly the moonfaced thing painted on one wall. It's six feet tall and wide, with chubby cheeks, a slit for a mouth, and half-closed eyes, and the way it dominates the narrow black wall it's painted on, it looks like a demented Thomas the Tank Engine bursting from a railway tunnel. Anywhere you sit in the restaurant, you have to turn your back on it to not see it, and when you sit with your back to it you are always uneasily glancing behind, to make sure it's not howling from out of its wall, about to run you over.

Gillian looks healthy and normal, but Braydon—with his sickly pallor and his caved-in chest, his light mascara, his black clothes, his fauxhawk that looks like it's been greased with shoe polish, his silver, and his heavy-lidded "cool"— totally belongs in this place.

They're taking up one side of a booth, facing the door, and you slide into the seat opposite (putting your back to the Moon-thing). Braydon's eyes droop sleepily, and he chucks his chin at you. "Hey, Will," he says with hollow-sounding friendliness. "Where's Natalie?"

"She had to take her face off," you mutter.

"Ha!" says Braydon. Gillian says nothing. She wears a faint smile, but— Poker face, you find yourself thinking. There's steel inside her gaze.

"So," continues Braydon with sly amusement. "I hear you kids have been up to the devil's business."

You flinch. "You have our stuff?"

"Gillian showed it to me. I haven't had a chance to look it over yet, but it sounds fascinating."

"Uh huh." You lean forward, folded hands on the table, then lean back as a waitress materializes to ask if she can get you something. You shake your head, and she goes.

"Listen," you start again. "I want you to know, straight from me, I didn't have anything to do with what happened out at the portables the other day. That wasn't me."

"It looked like you," Braydon drawls.

"It wasn't me! You know that, right?"

Braydon smirks, then turns to look at Gillian. She is still studying you with that bright, steely half-smile. He kisses the side of her head, but she doesn't react.

"It was an amazing resemblance," Braydon says. "I'm really looking forward to trying it out."

For a moment you think he's just referring to your magic stuff in general, but your heart skips a beat when another interpretation suggests itself. "Trying what out?"

"The resemblance. Gillian tells me you were trying to seduce her—"

"That was Natalie's idea!"

Gillian finally speaks. "You were going along with it."

"Well, for my part," Braydon drawls, "l don't mind if someone who looks like you tries getting it on with my girlfriend. I think it'd be pretty exciting, pretty ... sexy ... if someone who looked like you got up close and personal with my girlfriend." You shiver. "But it's you and Natalie who're supposed to be an item, you know, so you know what might be even sexier? If it was someone who looked like you getting it on with someone who looked like— Natalie!" he calls, and gestures to the confused-and-tired-looking girl who has just come in. "We were just talking about you ... and Will."

"How about you two talk," she says. "I wanna talk with Gillian."

Gillian curls her arm around Braydon's waist and gives Natalie that same cool smile. With a huff, Natalie falls into the booth next to you.

"And now that we're all here," Braydon says, and the words practically slither out of him, "we can stop fucking around and get down to business."

* * * * *

It's not much of a bargain he proposes. He wants the book, the masks, and all your supplies. "And since we've already got them," he says, "I think that's only fair."

And what is he willing to give you? He shrugs and admits that he can't think of a thing. "You don't have a lot to bargain with," he reminds you.

"We've got Gilly's mask out in Will's truck," Natalie exclaims. Then she shrieks as Gillian coldly and deliberately pushes her water glass over, spilling its contents into Natalie's lap. "Oops, you better go mop that up," Gillian says. Natalie runs from the table.

"That is a point, that mask of Gillian's," Braydon says. "Though I think as a good will gesture—an apology to Gillian—you should give it back."

You say nothing, but your toes curl inside your shoes.

"But I don't want to be a dick about it," Braydon says. "Tell you what. You give us Gillian's mask, and we'll give you yours and Natalie's back. That way you can keep on—" He sniggers. "And you don't have to worry about us—" He smirks.

* * * * *

There seems nothing else you can do, so since the other stuff is in Braydon's car, the two of you go out to make the trade. That's when Braydon's manner shifts.

"Listen, Prescott," he says in a much less oily manner, "all that shit I was giving you in there, that was for Gillian's benefit. She's pissed off. But me, I get what you did and why you did it. In fact—"

He glances at the restaurant, then leans in close.

"If we both promise to totally leave the girls out of it, I'd be willing to ... share ... some of the stuff with you."

Next: "Taking the Right Path" 

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