The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

Two in One

Previously: "Sunday at the Park with Teresa" 

Though you trust her more, you're not ready to turn everything over to Teresa.

"I don't know," you tell her. "This is still a group project."

"Do you trust your friend Keith not to mess things up again?" she asks.

"What do you mean?"

"Like the way he messed up with Noelle in the bathroom the other day."

You make a face and don't answer.

"So I'm pretty sure these metal strips we made, you're going to have to put them on people the same way you put the masks on people."

"Uh huh?"

"It'd be easier for me to do it."

"What do you think they do?" you ask with a sigh.

She regards you primly before speaking.

"I think they copy memories. And if you want to know how to drive around in a girl's body— like this one—" She points at you. "You want to know or remember how to do it."

* * * * *

Oh, God! It almost knocks you off balance to think of it. Not only wearing a girl's body, but having the memories that tell you what to do with it.

You don't answer Teresa right away, and she doesn't press you. Instead, the two of you take a walk around the pond and park.

It's a warm day, with temperatures in the low eighties under partly sunny skies: warm, though not unseasonably warm, for the end of September. It's very pleasant to have the sunlight and fresh air prickling on the bare arms and legs of this girl you have created. You are very self-conscious, to the point that you become slightly paranoid that the spell will shatter, evaporating the illusion you have generated and exposing you. But unless and until that happens, you take as much glee as you can in tottering along the path that winds around the large pond. No one who saw me would recognize me, you think. They'd think I'm just a random high school girl!

When you come around the far edge of the pond, and are returning toward the gazebo, you catch sight of those soccer players again, and again you feel exposed. What if they came over here and started to flirt? you ask yourself in a panic. I wouldn't know how to act!

Except I would, you reflect a moment later, if I had some memories to go with the body. What would that be like?

"Tell you what," you tell Teresa when you're heading back to your truck. "You try to use the, uh, the one you made. Then I'll trade you the one I made for that one, and you can, uh, use the other one. And I'll talk to the other guys about you doing the same thing with theirs."

Teresa considers this, then declares it an acceptable compromise.

* * * * *

You say nothing about this immediately to Caleb or Keith, even after the former suggests getting everyone together after school to compare notes on the items you made. When you text her, Teresa says it will be after school before she can get the "thing" onto someone, so you arrange with the others to meet up at around seven. You, though, give Teresa an earlier time, so that you can talk a little before the others arrive.

You're all set, then, when Caleb and Keith get there. After some quick talk about how all of you had a hard time of it getting the runes carved into the strip, you tell them that you and Teresa already used one of your strips to unlock the next page, and are able to show them the reverse of the spell. There is only a single sentence there, which appears to translate as "To know the mind of another," which seems to confirm Teresa's suspicions about what it does.

And then she shows you all the metal strip she took to school today.

It has acquired an oily sheen since being used, but the big change is that the runes have vanished from it, replaced by Roman letters that, like blue fire, seem to hover just above the surface of the strip: MARY LOUISE BOUCHER.

"Just a girl I have in a couple of my classes," Teresa sniffs when you ask who she is. "I caught her in the bathroom after school." It might be your imagination, but you think catch her sneaking a glance at Keith.

Caleb maybe caught the same glance, for he asks, "Did you get caught?"

"No."

"How did you do it?"

"Just snuck up behind her. It's kind of like with the masks, except I touched her on the back of the head with it." Now it's you she gives a side glance to. "I had a gut feeling about what these things do."

"So is there a way to seal it up?" Caleb wonders aloud as he takes the strip from her. He turns it around in his hands. "If I put it on, will it mix up my memories with hers?"

"Only one way to find out," Teresa says.

He and she hold each other's eye. There's a kind of "dare" going, you can tell. You want to 'experiment' with this stuff, she is telling him. So go ahead and experiment!

It makes you uneasy, and almost you reach out with a shout to stop Caleb as he drops into a chair with the metal band. But it's like you are paralyzed, and no one says anything as he lifts the strip to his face and presses it to his forehead.

* * * * *

Everyone sits around mutely, waiting for Caleb to wake back up. Keith is a chalky white, and his eyes roll in their sockets. You squirm with anxiety. Even Teresa looks pinched and worried. Every few seconds or so, it looks like someone is going to say something, but no one does.

Finally, you can't stand it anymore. You have no idea what that thing is going to do to Caleb—and you also worry that something could go wrong and maybe he'll never wake up no matter how long you wait. So with a jerk you reach forward to shake him.

"What are you doing?" Teresa asks, as though it weren't obvious. You just massage Caleb harder.

He is unresponsive until you begin to grip and squeeze his shoulders, and rock him back and forth in the chair. His brow furrows and he frowns. But it's not until you lightly slap him on the cheek that his eyes pry open and he peers blearily about him. You sit back to watch him closely.

For a long moment he says nothing. His gaze is distant and his frown deepens. Gradually his eyes focus, and he looks around the room, at you and the others, with an expression of puzzlement, as though he is trying to place your names and faces. The look of confusion clears after a moment, but he continues to frown, and his gaze retreats inward again. Now he looks like he is trying hard to remember something.

Suddenly, with full-body spasm, he exclaims, "Oh my God," and sits bolt upright. His eyes pop and bulge, and his breath comes in short gasps. All the color drains from his face.

"Caleb?" you ask, cautiously. He turns to stare at you, but he is looking straight through you. "Caleb?" you repeat. "Buddy?"

He blinks rapidly, the sags all over and his mouth falls open. He groans and covers his face with his hands. "Caleb?" you ask a third time, and glance anxiously at the other two.

The third repetition of his name seems to do something, for he drops his hands and sits up again with a sharp intake of breath. Now his eyes are bright and searching. His mouth parts into a slight smile, and he lurches onto his feet. For a moment he sways there, then lumbers past you, aiming for the big mirror in the corner, where your trio had studied your disguised, female forms. "Oh, Jesus," he says and flinches slightly as he stares, boggle-eyed, at his reflection.

"Caleb, man, you got to talk to us," you urge.

"Huh?" he says, and looks vaguely in your direction. "Oh. Yeah." A shady grin spreads over his face. "Whoa."

"What's going on with you?" you press.

"Oh, nothing," he replies in a voice that trembles slightly. He squeezes his head between hands. "Only I got a girl named Mary Boucher in here with me, that's all." He giggles, in tone that doesn't sound at all like the guy you know.

* * * * *

But he is the guy you know, and he proves it pretty decisively once you get him to calm down. "Oh, stop giving me those looks," he honks at you when he finally loses his patience. "I told you guys, I'm me. I just got ... something extra ... up here."

He's got her memories, all right, this girl that Teresa caught with the new spell. He can tell you all about her, totally and fluently: What her name is, where she lives, what classes she's taking, all about her family and her friends. It all comes rattling out, like coins from a slot machine when you hit the jackpot. More than that, though: Even as he continues to insist that he is who he always was, you can't help thinking there's a slightly ... femme ... quality to the way he is holding himself. There's a tilt to his hips, and a sing-song whine in his voice that has never been there before. His expressions pop and shift a little more quickly, and he giggles and titters like he has never giggled or tittered before.

"Well, I guess maybe I've picked up a little of her personality," he says when you suggest that he's got more than just the "facts" of the girl in his head. "I do feel skin of like, well—" He squirms. "Like I've got another skin underneath this one. Like—" He squirms again. "Like I'm wearing a mask of myself." He suddenly goes very rigid and closes his eyes, and takes a couple of deep breaths. He's a lot calmer, a lot more like himself, when he opens them again. "But I can keep it under control," he says in a much firmer voice.

But as eerie as it is to see what it's done to him, you want one of these things for yourself now.

Next: "Personality on Parade" 

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