The Book of Masks Homepage

Jerry-rigged

In case you couldn't tell from the bumpy posting schedule, this was a hard one to wrap up. I had a target—get to the point where Michelle has six masks, and Will is ready to move to another spot—and by the end I was pretty grimly set on getting to it. It wasn't much fun for me, because I wasn't giving myself room for surprises.

At any rate, today's chapters—

* Interactive: "Ambition from a Surprising Place" 
* Public: "Ambition from a Surprising Place" 

—have got it done. There's also a commentary thread: "Commentary: "A Junior Partner""  

Tomorrow I start working on a commission: a return to the story of "Laurent and his gang of sports clowns," as the commissioner put it. (I love that description, and I'm going to repeat it as often as possible.) It will pick up here: "Thimbleriggery" . The background:

Will needs money to continue researching the masks, and so he has shown them to Laurent Delacroix, the captain of the wrestling team, and to some of Laurent's friends. They all think the masks are hilarious, and are having great fun copying girls and then playing around as girls inside the masks.

There have been some shenanigans involving Jessica Garner, though: At least twice, Will has had to put on Jessica's mask and sneak into the Garners' house, and each time he has managed to mess something up between the Garner siblings. And wind of things has apparently got back to Jessica, for she has shown up on Will'd doorstep with the news that she knows all about what's going on.

Meanwhile, someone has been using Will's mask to get him in good with Eva Garner.

Now, hang on just a moment, I hear you guys cry. The link above is pointing to "Thimbleriggery" as the place where the story resumes. But wasn't there a chapter that came after that.

Yeah, and I'm going to start things off tomorrow by posting a new version of that chapter. It won't change the fundamental direction of the story, and in fact only parts of the chapter will get a revision. But I need to change it if I'm going to continue the story the way I want to continue it.