The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

Masks in the Night

Previously: "More Equals Merrier?" 

Yes been playing w book n things, you text Scott. Nothing special kind of boring.

Hopefully, that will shut him up. You're not interested in working with him any more, now that you've got Joshua and Eileen to work with, and it would just get complicated if he got involved again. In fact, you don't even want to see him.

But that still leaves you with two newly polished masks to play with, each one needing at least two faces put into it. One of those faces can be yours. As for the other three ...

* * * * *

You wake with a start when your phone goes off, and find yourself slimy with nighttime sweat. You blink yourself awake as you grab for your phone to turn off the alarm and look at the time: 2:45 AM.

Am I really going to go through with this?

You try to tell yourself that you don't have a choice—you don't have a dark and smoky den like Joshua does, where you can lure people down, stone them into a torpid haze, and put a mask on them. But you also know that you can roll over and go back to sleep. But you gritted your teeth and set your alarm before going to bed, so you might as well go through with it.

Gingerly, you throw the sheets back and get out of bed, then reach down to fish your shirt off the floor. While you're down there, you pull the masks out from under the bed, and using the light from your phone you squint at them in the dark. One of them already has your face in it—you put it there after brushing your teeth and going to bed—and that one you slide back under your bed. There's no reason to take a chance on getting too close a resemblance by putting both your face and Robert's into it. So you take the one that is still empty.

On bare feet you sidle over to your door, slowly twist the knob, and pull it open.

A nightlight plugged into a socket low down bathes the floor with a soft, yellow-orange glow. But the ceiling is in shadows.

You edge along to the junction where meets the hallways joining your door, your brother's, your parents', and the top of the stairs. You put your ear to Robert's door, but all you can hear is the thump of your own heart.

With infinite care you twist the knob and push the door open. The edge slides softly over the carpet, and you wince at the rustle, for you have no idea if Robert is a light sleeper or not. The only light comes from the window, but it illuminates nothing but the milky folds of the curtains as you creep slowly into the room. Robert's bed is on your left, against the wall, and stepping as carefully as you can you have to edge your way around it. You hardly ever go in to his room if you can help it, but you are certain his floor is boobytrapped with discarded clothes, books, and other whatnot—Robert is still into sports, so there might even be baseballs down there to trip over, for all you know. But your feet meet nothing worse than the soft folds of dropped clothes as, hunched almost double with caution, you come around to the side.

Your eyes have grown used to the dark by now, so you can just make Robert's head out in the bed. He is lying on his side, facing you, and his breath is coming in soft but insistent puffs. You would be more sure of things if he was lying on his back, so that you could set the mask directly onto his face, but you're just going to have to take a chance by laying it on the side of his head. With the mask balanced between your sweaty hands, you gently lay it on him while gritting your teeth.

It sinks into him silently, like setting a stone atop a pool of water, and his breathing ceases.

Your heart goes into your throat, and you put your ear to his face. It takes a moment before you are able to reassure yourself that he is in fact still breathing, just much more slowly and softly than before. Almost you sink to your knees in relief, but keep to your tottering feet.

Ages pass, and there is no sound in the room, save for one distant bark from a dog. Your mind is soon aflame with fear and boredom, for there is nothing to do but wait. Fearful fantasies play out: What if your dad or mom comes in to check on Robert, and finds you here like this? It is hardly a comfort to insist to yourself that that isn't likely to happen. You try to pass the time by peering about the room, but there's hardly anything in the darkness to attract your interest. You are soon reduced to counting the seconds as they pass.

Finally, though, you make out that the mask has returned to the real world from wherever it went. It doesn't sit on the side of Robert's head, though, but directly on his face, its edge pinched between his cheek and the pillow. It's a terrible thing, and your own face twists up with fear, as you delicately pull it loose, and your heart almost bursts from your chest as Robert sucks in a deep breath, and mutters something, as the mask comes free. You don't wait though, and, tiptoeing through the room like a stork picking its way across a minefield, you hurry back over to his doorway. You pause for one moment there to listen before, reassured by the regular breathing from his bed, you go out and pull the door shut.

You cast one glance at your parents' doorway—it would be a horrible thing if your mom or your dad was standing in it, watching you—before tiptoeing back into your room and shutting the door. You fall onto your hands and knees to throw the mask back under the bed, then dive in under the sheets.

It is a long time before your nerves are settled enough that you fall back asleep.

* * * * *

So you've got two faces into the masks when you wake the next morning: yours in one, and Robert's in the other. You need to find two more at school.

You've got a deadline too, of a sort. When you get out of the shower, there's a text from Joshua: He and Eileen managed to add four more faces to the masks they kept, and they want to get together with you after school. You want to bring them at least one mask that has two faces.

But you have another text waiting for you as well, and you answer that one first. It's from Scott, and you somehow missed it last night. Instead of dropping out, as you'd hoped, he is asking what you've been doing with the book. Specifically, he wants to know if it is really magic.

Maybe sposed tobe magic, you reply, but it just makes a mess. Forget abt it I think I'm going to lol.

Only after you hit "Send" do you realize you accidentally sent that message to Joshua. You quickly follow it with Oops sent that txt to u accident was sposed go smon else, then add, Txt u aftr school abt meeting. Then you send Scott the text you intended to send him.

Well, that just leads to a more confusion from Joshua, wondering who you were talking to about "magic" and stuff, and you have to confess that it was Scott Frazier, who was the first person you showed the book to, but now you're trying to shake him off. Joshua replies with a grinning emoji.

Anyhow, that puts your nerves on edge as you pack up for school, and you find your mind going blank as you try to figure out how to get another face into one of the masks that you take with you.

* * * * *

And it turns out to be a complete failure. You can't get anyone to go off alone with you at lunch, where you might ambush them out of sight, and when you skip a class and then go hunting during your study hall, everyone you meet is also hanging out with other people. Your best chance seems to come after school, as you walk with Caleb out into the parking lot. For a few minutes it seems like you might be able to maneuver him into your truck, or you into his car, where you might be able to show him the mask and get it onto him somehow, but then Keith has to come out to join you, and you all wind up separating without you getting a chance with either of them.

You haven't heard from Joshua or Eileen all this time, so you send him a text asking if you're all still supposed to meet. You have to wait in your truck, in the school parking lot, for ten minutes before the reply comes.

Lol, he says, got nu guys showing stuff to meeting three house. Then, There house, followed by an address.

This bothers you: Joshua has told someone about this stuff? You call him direct to confirm. He laughs nervously when you ask what's going on.

"Yeah, I kind of screwed up last night," he says. "One of the guys caught me with the masks and I had to tell him about them. It's okay, it's all cool. He thinks it's great and he wants to play too. Oh hey," he continues while you're still trying to come up with some cutting comment to chop him down with, "can you bring the book over? Joe wants to see how we make these things."

You'd have to go home to get the book, which would be an excuse to not bring it over. Then maybe you could talk to Joshua and figure out a way of getting this new guy off your back, the way you got Scott off it. Although, given what Joshua has said, that seems unlikely.

That's all for now.

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