The Book of Masks Homepage

Playing With Your Heads

I have sixteen chapters written in this branch, but I'm going to break off here with—

* Interactive: "The Games That Some Girls Play" 
* Public: "The Games That Some Girls Play" 

—for the time being. There have been no masking shenanigans, and Will seems to have even forgot about the book. So what's going on? I'll leave that to you guys to speculate about: "Commentary: "The Mystery Box""  

* * *

Tomorrow brings a return to another section that hasn't gotten any love in awhile, though it's a lot more recent than the above. It starts at "Magic on the Loose?" 

Will's life has gotten very complicated. Or perhaps I should say that his lives have gotten complicated. Buckle up, because there's a lot to review.

It started when he and Caleb teamed up to play with the book. They started off making masks of each other, and swapped places for a few days. But Will lipped off to Chelsea Cooper, and in order to avoid being murdered by Chelsea's thuggish boyfriend, he swapped places with said boyfriend, Gordon Black. That didn't work out so hot, because he didn't have Gordon's memories or ability on the basketball court, so he moved Gordon's mask onto that cheerful stoner, Dane Matthias, and took Dane's place. That too led to unexpected quandaries after he accidentally pissed off the drug dealers in Dane's life.

Before all was said and done, Will had exposed the magic to a group of sophomores. One of them, Lindsay Cho, was determined to destroy all the magic, but the others want to play with the masks. Will has secretly gotten rid of Lindsay and has been impersonating her while Caleb is impersonating a sophomore named Michael Duncan, so that they can also hang out with their new partners. Meanwhile, the sophomores have all decided to move up two grades by stealing the identities of some people in the senior class; Will and Caleb will go with them, into new identities of their own.

The latest complication has come swinging in from Eastman High School. Two of the basketball players from that school, Frank and Joe Durras, have switched over to Westside, and that set off a reorganization of the basketball squad, with some of the players being tossed off it to make room for the Durras boys. And also for "Will Prescott"—really Gordon Black—who also tried out and surprised everyone by being really good, but that's more or less just a bit of gossip.

Frank and Joe Durras would be plausible and popular impersonations for Will and Caleb, because (as Caleb put it) "the school's already losing its shit over them." But there's another reason to impersonate them: They are interested in why Gordon Black (who is really Dane, and has turned into the kind of cheerful stoner that Dane was) got tossed off the basketball squad, and something he has told them has sent them to talk to Dane Matthias. "Dane" is a golem under Will's control, so he naturally told them nothing. But some pretty strange stuff happened during that interview, which might bear investigation.

The branch continued from there, with Will and Caleb shying away from the Durras boys. But tomorrow will bring a divergence, where Will (at least) decides that maybe Frank and Joe should no longer be themselves, and that he and Caleb should get to be them instead.