BoM/TWS/SB Wiki

Plot: Mitchells and Mystery Boxes

There is a complex narrative associated with Sean and Taylor Mitchell. Brief biographical notes. These are twin brothers who so closely resemble each other that only family and very close, long-time friends can tell them apart. Their father is deceased and they live with their mother.

Previous to BoM: Taylor worked at Salopek with friends Scott Bickelmeir and Sawyer Harrison. Early in August a box arrived at Salopek from Schenectady, New York, addressed to Harrison Prescott. He opened it and returned it to the shipping center to be returned to Schenectady. This was material from the estate of Margaret Shabbleman Jones, intended for Florence Shabbleman (Grandmother) of Cuthbert, but which had been waylaid by Blackwell and redirected.

Packing slip noting the contents
• 1 book, leatherbound
• 1 notebook
• 1 manila folder with enclosed papers
• 3 paper bags, each containing metallic strips (3)
• 6 masks
• 1 roll undeveloped film

Notes on these items:
• 1 book, leatherbound: the Libra
• 1 notebook: School notebook containing hints and notes on the spells in the Libra
• 1 manila folder with enclosed papers: Set of papers with sigil designs and undeveloped plot elements.
• 3 bags, each containing metallic strips (3): 9 mind-bands, blank but ready for use
• 6 masks: 2 with mind bands attached; 2 blank; 2 golem-control mask [*]
• 1 roll undeveloped film: Undeveloped plot element

On Tuesday, August 5, Blackwell snuck the Libra out. On Thursday, August 7, Taylor, Scott and Sawyer rifled the box and took out elements. The next day they were fired for on-site drunkenness.

Key events took place on Saturday, August 9. Taylor and Scott were at Taylor's house with nothing to do, and decided to investigate the masks. The masks were scattered at 3 different houses by this point, so they called Sawyer and told him to bring his mask and meet them at Eastman. They took the 2 masks that were at Taylor's (the loose papers were buried under piles of books, and they couldn't find them) and left for Scott's to pick up the notebook and masks that he had. (This is when Sean spotted them: as they were leaving the house to go to Scott's and thence to the high school.) At Eastman, Taylor and Scott managed to copy each other, seal the masks, and disguise themselves as each other. Sawyer thought this was nifty and wanted to play, too. Since the golem-control-control masks looks superficially like the ones Taylor and Scott had, he put one of them on. It seemed to put him in a coma.

Scott and Taylor called the paramedics. While they were waiting, Taylor volunteered to take the fall in case there was any trouble (after all, Scott had just been fired from a job for getting in trouble). So, since he was disguised as Scott, he left the Taylor-disguised Scott behind to talk to the authorities and went off to hide most of the stuff. He wound up putting it in the sub-basement: that's the box with the notebook and one of the blank masks. The paramedics and the police came and went while he was gone; and so in the official reports "Taylor Mitchell" was the only one on the scene with Sawyer.

Sawyer got sent off to the hospital with all his effects (including the blank mask he had brought, which was still in his kit). Afterward, Taylor and Scott discovered they couldn't get their masks off, and that the notebook had no answers. They separated, and the fake-Taylor had his accident.

So, what does this leave behind to be discovered? One of the golem-control-control mask is on Sawyer. The two mind-banded masks are on Taylor and the (dead) Scott. The notebook, one blank mask, and one of the golem-control masks are still in the boiler room at Eastman. And there is one blank mask at Sawyer's.

Except that blank mask doesn't remain at Sawyer's for long. Frank and Joe Durras have been secretly investigating, and intuit/deduce that Sawyer's accident has something to do with the masks. After enrolling at Eastman, Joe talks his way into the Harrisons' house and manages to find that mask he had. This is how they come to have a mask in "Sudden Drama at Eastman High."

Time passes. Sean, to get away from memories, changed schools to Westside, and on August 25 started work at Salopek.

Taylor feels horrible. He goes and finds Belinda Harrison so he can personally express his regrets at Sawyer's condition, and admits that he was there. He is of course disguised as Scott, and this is how Belinda and her family come to know that Scott was involved in the accident. As Scott was known to them as one of Sawyer's friends, that detail sticks in Belinda's mind. She didn't know Taylor, and besides, he's supposedly dead, so Taylor's name hasn't stuck in her head. This revelation comes after Joe has talked to her, so as far as he and Frank know, Taylor was the only one connected to the incident at Eastman. This explains why they are diffident about chasing Scott down. They are also somewhat confused (perhaps by Belinda, who unintentionally gets details mixed up) and think that Taylor had also gotten fired from Salopek.

Dispersal of the items in the box from Salopek:
• The Libra: stolen by Blackwell. The spell he used to extract it from the box did not allow him to lift any of the other items it contained.
• The school notebook: Taken by Scott, then hidden in a box inside Eastman
• The manila folder: Taken by Taylor, inherited by Sean. Some paper
• The metal strips: Left behind at Salopek
• The 2 masks with mind-bands: Taken by Taylor, then used to copy Taylor and Scott. Scott's mask is on Taylor, and Taylor's is on Scott, who died in a car wreck.
• The 2 blank masks: Taken by Scott; 1 is then given to Sawyer. 1 blank mask put with notebook in a box at Eastman; the other remains with Sawyer Harrison, where it is (in most continuities) found at his house by Joe Durras.
• The golem-control masks: Taken by Scott, one put on by Sawyer, the other left in a box at Eastman.
• The roll undeveloped film: Left behind at Salopek

From "The Boiler Room and What You Found There" , a description of the contents of the notebook:

The notebook, on the other hand ...

It looks very old, and the paper is stiff and discolored. "Looks like my grandmother's handwriting," Steve had said when you'd glanced through it on emerging into the sunlight.

"What would your grandmother be doing with stuff like this?" you'd asked.

"Just sayin'," he'd replied. But you knew what he meant. It looked like your grandmother's handwriting, too. All old ladies write like that: a neat but spidery script. It was rather shocking to see a script made for writing recipes and thank-you notes employed on ... this kind of stuff.

The first page in the notebook shows a sketch of a mask, and as though to underline the point the heading says "Mask." "Press to face. Assumes image. Must be sealed," are written below the sketch. At the bottom are the words "Mask off" and a colon, but whatever had been written after the colon has been obliterated by a nasty looking scorch mark.

The next page is headlined "Sealant for mask" and shows some roughly sketched out sigils that you recognize as being part of the spell that makes the sealing compound. The third page says "Mind" and contains a few more partial sigils. You puzzle over them for a few minutes, and then realize that they spell out a mnemonic device--like a rebus--that could be used to help recall the full sigil that makes mind strips. (But only someone who knew the sigil would recognize them or could interpret them.) The fourth page showed another few sigils, but you don't examine them closely, for you see where this is going.

It's a notebook recording, in very partial form, the contents of the Libra. You flip rapidly through pages sketching golems and golemized masks, and stop only after coming to the page that cryptically describes the use of an anima band. You'd agreed not to open any spells outside the presence of your friends ...

Fuck it, you were talking about the Libra. After licking your lips, you turn the page in the notebook.

"Chameleon," the headline says. "Many faces, one mask," it says beneath that. You let out a low whistle. That could be very useful. You've been neglecting to advance in the book. Maybe tomorrow you should visit Blackwell's again.

The next page says "Permanent Bond" and shows something like a spike. "Nails item in place," it says. "Only maker can remove." Nails what in place? Onto what?

"Erasing masks, etc." says the next page. "Needs a blank inside the sigil." There are a few sigils here--more mnemonic devices?--but without an examination of the original, they mean nothing to you.

"Copying masks, etc." and more sigils. "Erasing a mind." "A new golem spell." "Voodoo doll." "Doppelgangers." The pages are almost entirely blank except for these notations.

And then a page that shows a spiral. "Don't fall! Ha ha!" it says at the bottom.

The script on the subsequent pages is much more chaotic, as though the writer couldn't quite control his or her hand muscles. The headings are utterly baffling as well: "Change a mask." "Change a mind." "Make them all different." But though the script is hard to decipher, the sigil fragments remain firm and clear and show more detail. One of them, even, you think you recognize as a complete spell--though one that would only be a subsidiary portion of a larger spell.

"Make them dance!" The scrawl is huge and almost indecipherable, but the sigils are very clear, and copious in number. "Make them dance!" At least you think the next page repeats the message of its predecessor, but it is very hard to tell. Again, many, many sigils, all very clear. "Make them dance!" Only a close study of the inky loops, and a certain familiarity of overall shape, lets you decipher the page after that. More sigils.

By now you are trembling. The person who kept this notebook seems to have been going mad at the end. Is that the fate that awaits you? You turn the page.

It is a solid mass of sigils, laid out in block-like rows, as though type-set. There is something obsessive about their neatness. They are so regular, so perfectly formed, so meticulous and exacting ... It must have taken days or weeks of unremitting, painstaking labor to make them, and to make them all look like that.

You turn the page--

And shriek--

And fling the notebook against the wall.

Gasping, you shut your eyes and draw your knees up under your chin. To your horror you hear footsteps outside your door. Is it coming for you?

You flinch at the soft knock. "Honey, are you okay?" comes your mother's concerned voice.

"Huh? Oh. Yeah," you say, your voice weak with relief. "I just-- An email. It got me excited."

"Oh." And instantly her tone turns from concern to sourness. "Well, it sounded--" She doesn't finish, and a second later you hear her retreating footsteps.

You don't dare look at it again, but the fascination is too much. Carefully you reach for the notebook, and while holding it at arm's length you flip to the end. From the corner of your eye you peep at it ...

But it's just a hand, a crude drawing of a human hand. Why in the world did you think it was reaching out from the page to grab--

To grab what?

Fearfully, you close the notebook and hide it in the desk. You get ready for bed. But you don't put out the lights, and you don't sleep.

+ + + + +

[*] The two golem-control masks are linked to remote masks, and whoever puts them on will find themselves in "possession" of the people they have been placed upon. It has been canonically established that one golem-remote mask is on Grandmother Shabbleman, in Cuthbert; the other has been established (either directly or by implication) on contradictory subjects, and this is a plot point that still needs ironing out. The golem-control mask that Sawyer Harrison dons is the one linked to the unknown remote. The golem-control mask linked to Grandmother is the one that is left in the box at Eastman.