The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

Assault on a Romantic Rival

Previously: "A Conspiracy of Two" 

Caleb's eyes bulge. "Are you crazy? We don't know what will happen!"

"This is my mask, so I get to decide who we'll test it on."

Caleb makes a face. "So you're saying that when I finish my mask, I can decide who we test it on?"

"Well, technically, we'll have already tested it out by then," you say slowly.

"But I get to decide who we use it on."

"I guess." It sounds like he's leading somewhere, so you're reluctant to commit.

"So if I get my mask finished up before you can use yours on Mansfield, then we can test my mask out on whoever I pick. Right?"

You feel yourself turning very red, and before Caleb can stop you, you've whipped out your iPhone and are looking up Geoff Mansfield's number. You have no idea what you're going to say to him. You only know that you don't want Caleb getting between you and your target. "Hey Geoff," you say when he picks up. "This is Will Prescott."

* * * * *

Maybe you should try out for Drama classes, because you feel pretty good about the improvisation you put on for your nemesis. A meeting at the city library has been arranged under the pretext that you need help with your math class. "He must have Good Samaritan syndrome or something," you snort when you hang up. "He says he's willing to meet me there in an hour for a thirty-minute tutorial."

"Mansfield? Good Samaritan?" Caleb rolls his eyes. "No, he just wants to tell Lisa and everyone else about how pathetic you are because you went crawling to him for help."

"If you're trying to talk me out of using Mansfield as a guinea pig, you're not doing a very good job."

"Oh, I'm not trying to talk you out of anything," Caleb says cheerfully. "I'm waiting to see you screw up. Think about it, you're planning to assault him in a public place with an occult dildo."

"It's not a dildo, it's a mask!"

"You know what I mean." He turns on that shit-eating grin. "So how are you going to do it?"

"Um -- Okay, how about we try this. You -- "

"Who said I was going to help you?"

You punch him in the chest. "Look, do you want my help when you try out your mask on Richards or whoever? Then you gotta help me."

"Okay, fine. Jesus, you're so helpless. What do you need from me?"

After a few minutes of thought, you outline a plan. Caleb says it's stupid, but he also says he'll do it, "Just so you'll see how dumb it is."

* * * * *

An hour later you're sitting in the upper deck of the Saratoga Falls Municipal Library. The building as a whole is shaped like a large drum with two square projecting wings. The central part of the library is a wide, open atrium with the periodicals at the center, while a second story running two-thirds of the way around the central well holds the Literature & Fiction stacks along with a lot of study tables. You're seated at one of those tables, toward the back, where hopefully you can't be seen. In fact, you're so well hidden that ten minutes after your meeting time, an irritated Geoff Mansfield calls you on your cell to demand where you are. He appears a minute later looking vexed and supercilious. "Why back here?" he asks as he sits across from you, facing away from the body of the library. "This is where people go to make out."

His words sting. "What do you know about making out?"

"More than you. At least I know this is where people go to make out."

"Well, I don't want to make out with you. I wanted to -- " You inhale and exhale deeply, which helps cool your temper. "Thanks for coming to help me."

"I'm meeting someone here later," he says. "So I was going to be up here anyway. But I only have about twenty minutes." He sets his phone down by his wrist.

"Oh? So who are you meeting?"

"None of your business. What do you need help with?"

So you take out your Calculus book and flip to the latest lesson. You feel some slight relief as you do. If Geoff was meeting Lisa, he would have said so, especially if he could have bragged about sitting with her in a "makeout spot."

Unless, your perfidious brain insists on whispering, he really does mean to sit here and make out with her, and just doesn't want you to stick around to mess it up. "So, I could use a little help right here," you say in a rather loud voice, partly to muffle that horrible thought, and partly because that's the signal to Caleb.

"Keep your voice down," says Mansfield. "This is a library, you know."

You lean forward and point to a spot on the page, and Mansfield bends over it as Caleb appears from the stacks behind him. He hops over lightly on his toes with the mask in both hands. Mansfield apparently hears something at the last possible moment, for he raises up with a frown; but Caleb has reached over and around his head and pressed the mask against his face before he can further react. Mansfield goes pale for just the fraction of a second, his eye roll shut, and he falls forward, slamming his forehead hard against the table.

And you can see all this because the mask at the instant it touched his face had vanished utterly. "Jesus Christ!" you exclaim, then clap a hand over your mouth.

"The fuck?" Caleb says in a softer voice, and drops onto his haunches to stare at Mansfield. You stare at him too, then you and Caleb exchange horrified glances as he doesn't stir. "Hey. Mansfield. Yo. Geoff." Caleb pokes at his cheek, and gets no response. With a grimace he lifts Mansfield's head. That causes his entire body to shift, and he starts to slide under the table. "Will," says Caleb. "Don't let him -- ! Fuck!"

You lunge over the table and only by grabbing hard onto the shoulder of Mansfield's shirt do you stop him slipping onto the floor. You and Caleb push him back onto the table, and huddle close around him.

At least he's breathing, and it's not a troubled breathing either, though it sounds a little shallow and noisy. Geoff's face is also a little pale, though that might just be your imagination. "What happens if he doesn't wake up," you ask Caleb, and your eyes are probably as saucer-like as his.

"We call a librarian over and she calls 911," he says.

"Is this supposed to happen?"

"How the fuck should I know? It's your dumbass book."

"It might be normal. How long should we wait?"

"For what? We have no idea what's supposed to happen."

"Someone's supposed to show up in, like, fifteen minutes," you tell Caleb. "Maybe we should wait until then."

"Or just before," he says. "Dammit, Will, if we'd called Richards out to the school instead -- "

"We'd be in deeper shit," you retort. "How would we explain to the EMTs what we were doing out there?"

"Okay, you have a point," he grumbles. You both fall silent.

And you stay silent, for there seems nothing else to say as you wait.

And you wait for you know not what.

You find you can't even speculate on what might happen. You turn around and look in the main body of the library, to keep an eye out for whoever might be showing up to meet Geoff. You hope it's not Lisa, for lots of reasons. Aside from not wanting confirmation that he was going to meet her for reasons he didn't want to share with you, you hardly want to be caught next to Mansfield's prone body. Knocking Geoff unconscious -- however gratifying it might be for you personally -- would hardly endear you to her.

Caleb, meanwhile, remains hunched next to Mansfield. So when something finally does happen, he nudges you hard. "Hey, it's back!" he says.

"What's back?" you ask, then get an answer to your question by turning around and leaning in. The mask, which had vanished in that spooky way, has reappeared, and is resting on the table between it and Mansfield's face, which it is covering. Caleb grabs Geoff's hair and lifts his head just enough that you're able to scoot it out. "Get it out of sight," you tell him. "Put it in your bag and get out of here."

"What if we need to call the paramedics?"

"I'll watch him," you say. "You go get him some water." You poke at your nemesis. "Geoff. Hey. Mansfield." You slap at him lightly, then harder. "Yo. Are you okay?" You shake him by the shoulder, with more and more energy, until, with a groan, he stirs.

"The hell?" Mansfield says, raising his head. He looks like he's slept long and hard, and has been interrupted from a very deep slumber. He blinks stupidly at you. "Prescott?" He sits up with an alarmed expression and looks around. "The hell happened?"

"You just passed out," you say. "All of a sudden. Uh, it was Caleb's fault," you hurriedly add, and cheerfully embroider a lie that you hope will get Mansfield to stop looking at you so darkly. "He spotted us and came over and was playing 'Guess Who' on you, but when he put his hands around your eyes you just, like, face-planted. He ran off to get you some water," you add as Mansfield covers his forehead -- where a bruise has begun to spread -- with his palm.

* * * * *

The upshot is that you get away with the mask while leaving a confused and surly Geoff Mansfield behind, and you get away before his other rendezvous is set to start. But you're still sitting outside in your truck, getting ready to drive off. So when a sudden impulse of curiosity comes over you -- Who is he meeting? -- you're in a position to satisfy it.

That's all for now.

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