The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

Some Awkward Explanations

Previously: "A Girl with Two Faces" 

Your eyes nearly pop with horror from their sockets. "What the fuck, man?" you hiss at Keith.

He says nothing, and neither does the girl. She only stares at you, gimlet-eyed and unwinking while tightening her grip on the tail of Keith's t-shirt.

Briefly you consider punching her the face until she lets go of Keith, then running. But common sense prevails. If she found you today, she can find you again tomorrow or next week.

You glance around, hoping for a miracle. But even though it's Friday and the halls are bouncing with happy crowds, it does not contain such a miracle.

"Alright, come on," you growl at Keith and his new friend. "Let's go someplace to talk."

* * * * *

You wind up in back of the school, between E and G wings. The girl—her name turns out to be Teresa McNeal—keeps a tight hold of Keith the entire time, and she glowers at you both.

"I wanna know what all that was about yesterday," she snarls in a low, shaky voice when you ask her what she wants. "And if you don't tell me—" Grimly, she wrenches at Keith's t-shirt. "I'll go to the teachers and tell them I found the guy that assaulted that girl in the bathroom yesterday!"

Keith turns very pale.

"We can't talk about it here," you tell her, playing for time.

"Okay, where?"

You make a face and glance around, wishing that Caleb was here. He likes to take charge, and you have the awful feeling that he's going to yell at you no matter what decision you make.

"There's an old school in my neighborhood—" you start to say.

"I'm not going anyplace there's not other people around."

"Alright, where would you like to go? We can't talk about this, like, in a crowded place!"

Her lips disappear into a compressed frown. "Municipal library."

"Jesus! We can't go there, they don't let you talk—!"

"Municipal library," she repeats fiercely, "or I start screaming for a teacher!"

"Let's just take her to the library!" Keith says in a strangled voice.

Your phone dings with a text: Caleb, wondering where you are.

"Alright," you tell Teresa. "The library. You told me yesterday you don't have a car—"

"This asshole can give me a ride," she says, and tightens her grip even harder on Keith's t-shirt.

* * * * *

Caleb takes the news with surprising calm when you tell him.

"It was too much to hope she wouldn't spot us at school," he says with a sigh after you're in your truck. And when you suggest ditching her at the library, and texting Keith, telling him to run, he shakes his head. "We gotta face it, gotta explain things to her, hope we can convince her to keep her mouth shut." In fact, he texts Keith to tell him that you'll be a little late meeting them at the library, because you'll need to go to the old school and to your houses to collect the book and the masks to show Teresa. "I also told him," he adds, "not to be a dumbass who tries running away."

So it's nearly four-thirty when you get to the library, and wind up in a secluded corner in the very back, where two small, low couches sit next to each other at right angles. Teresa—who seemingly hasn't blinked once since you met her—sits on the edge of one of these, watching and listening with an intense absorption as you (haltingly) and Caleb (more fluently) describe the book and the experiments you've been carrying out. Keith slumps uselessly nearby.

"So, no one was ... assaulting ... anyone," Caleb somewhat lamely concludes at the end of it all. It's a very hollow statement, and really unconvincing after the confessions you've made about knocking girls out in the parking lot and the school theater. Your skin also prickles as you reflect on how weird and perverted it all sounds when explained to someone outside your circle. Teresa has said nothing—not one word, not one question—during the entire ordeal, but only stared and listened.

And now that you're done, she only stares some more, as though trying to will more out of you through sheer intensity.

Then her lips compress, and her breath whistles in her nose, and she glances up at the ceiling before saying, "So let me try one of these masks out." There's steel in her voice.

You and Caleb look at each other. Caleb leans forward toward her and says, "Um, you, uh, tried one out yesterday."

"You stuck it on me. Or that's your story," she retorts. "I wanna try one out myself."

"Yeah, but—"

"That one!" She points at one of the masks you're holding in your lap. "I wanna see if this bullshit—"

"You know it's not bullshit," you insist. "Yesterday—"

"Give it over," she says. "Or he—" She points at Keith, and with a grimace you hand over the mask before she can finish uttering her now familiar threat.

"Alright," Caleb says. "All you have to do is put it onto your face. Then— Where are you going?" he asks, for she has gotten up.

"I'm not doing it here," she declares.

"Well, where—?"

"Somewhere else. Don't worry, I won't leave with it. You stay here," she snaps as Caleb starts to get up. He sinks back down and watches with a pale face as she stalks off.

"This is beyond fucked up," you whisper to Caleb.

"It's been beyond fucked up for awhile now," he replies, then leans past you to slap at Keith, who winces and sinks deeper into the sofa. "Which mask did she take?" Caleb asks you.

You pick up and squint at the other masks one by one. "Keith's, I think," you conclude. (Keith had brought both of his with him to school.) "The one he used on Lin, you know."

Caleb nods, then addresses Keith: "Who'd you use that other mask on yesterday, in the bathroom?"

"I 'unno," the thoroughly miserable Tilley replies. "Just some girl."

"Just some girl," Caleb cruelly mimics back. "Dumbass."

"I don't think Teresa knows who she was, either," you say.

"Just as long as she doesn't grab Keith in the hall. It'd be a hell of thing if we showed all this stuff to this girl, and Tilley still got arrested and expelled for sexual assault."

"Jesus!" Keith sighs, and tries to wad himself up into yet a smaller ball of misery.

* * * * *

A quarter-hour passes, during which none of your trio have much to say to each other—each of you being preoccupied with his own thoughts—before Teresa returns. She doesn't look like Teresa, though. She looks like a toothier and more disheveled version of Lin Pol—and a Lin Pol who has squeezed into clothes a couple of sizes too small for her.

She's not back long, though: only long enough to demand instructions for how to get the mask off. Again, you leave it to Caleb to explain. This time he quietly follows her at a distance, and returns to report that she's gone into the women's restroom. He doesn't even have to look at Keith for the latter to once again huddle up defensively.

It's coming up on six before Teresa appears again, in her own face, looking a little hot and blown. Her dark hair has lost a lot of its shine, and is tousled in a way that isn't sexy. She doesn't look at any of you, but only says that she's ready to go home. "I'll go with you guys," she says to you and Caleb without looking at Keith. "You're better company." You all look at each other, unfold yourselves from the sofas, and trudge out.

"So, we're really sorry about this," you tell Teresa after you've clambered into your truck, with her sitting on the far side with Caleb between you. "We were just, um, like we said, experimenting."

"You could have hurt someone," she says in a very flat tone. "You could've hurt me!"

"Hey, we tried fixing it!" you retort, and you would have said more about how you could have left her in the school restroom yesterday without helping her, but Caleb nudges you hard.

"You're right," he tells her smoothly. "I told Keith yesterday we weren't going to do this thing anymore."

You can't help jumping a little. It sounds like Caleb is telling her that you're not going to be experiment with any more spells.

And it sounds like she's taking it the same way. "So what are you going to do with that book? And all the stuff you made?" she asks.

"Well," Caleb says after a moment's hesitation, "we can't just get rid of it. Someone else would just find it, and then, you know, it would all start over again. I guess the thing to do," he says after another brief hesitation, "is to just hang on to it but not do anything with it."

It might be your imagination, but you think you hear a slight snort from the other side of him.

"Well, I think you definitely need to be more careful," Teresa says. You squint past Caleb, and see that she's sitting up very straight with her arms crossed. "What you need is someone watching you and making sure you don't do anything stupid again."

For a long moment, no one says anything. Then Caleb, with great delicacy, says, "Do something ... again?"

"You're not fooling me," Teresa says. "You're not gonna stop with this stuff. But you need someone to keep an eye on you."

Another pause. "Like who?" Caleb asks, as though he can't guess the answer.

"Who do you think?" Teresa retorts. "I'm in."

Next: "New Partner, New Spell" 

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