The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

The Mind of Marianne Matthias

Previously: "Underground Work" 

Though you're sorely tempted to use the magic supplies to escape, you resist. Mostly this is because the mad plan you concocted—replace Lindsay Cho with yourself, then leave town—leads to even blanker and scarier "What If?' scenarios than staying in town and helping her and her friends get Evie back.

But the idea of being extra prepared still appeals to you, and you need something to keep from dying of boredom. So after completing the brain band, you scrape up just enough further magical material to make one last mask. Then you buckle down to make a fourth brain band.

Then, because you have enough material still, you make a fifth one.

Because there's nothing else to do.

* * * * *

That's all you get done before you hear the crunch of tires on the grass outside. You quickly hide the extra stuff that you made, and are sitting on a desk with the most innocent look you can muster as the door opens.

Lindsay comes in. "Are you done?" she asks.

You hold up the brain band. "Are you going to let me out now?"

"Yes, but we're going to wait for Joe and Andy to show up. Then we're all going to go find this Dane guy's mom." She steps back outside and locks the door.

Hmm. If you were going to go with that half-assed "replace Lindsay" plan, that would have been your moment to make a move. Oh well.

It's almost fifteen minutes before the other guys show up, and you hear Lindsay's snappish voice as she berates them. You're at the top of the stairs when it opens again, and the three sophomores fall back a little in surprise.

"Okay, can we get this done with?" you demand. Lindsay glowers and says something about you all taking her car. But Joe seems to read your mind, for he suggests taking separate cars, with you riding with him.

"Great work on those masks," he tells you. "Thanks for that." His lips twitch into a grin. "We'll try to keep Lindsay and them from killing you."

"Thanks. Did you set them up yet? Use 'em, I mean?"

"The masks? No, haven't had a chance. Except Justin and Grant probably got theirs made already." He looks over his shoulder at Lindsay's car, which is following. "We haven't decided if we should tell Andy, 'cos he might tell Bhodi, and—" He shrugs. "Is it fun?" he asks after an awkward silence.

"Pretending to be someone else? I guess." Privately, you make a face. "Depends on who you're being. At the very least, you get a chance to be bored in someone else's life instead of your own."

He laughs. "Your friend, Caleb. He doesn't know about all this, right? I mean, that we all know what you were doing with Bhodi, and about the masks, and—"

What a dumb question. "When would I've told him? I didn't have a phone, and you locked me in the basement." Suspicion seizes you. "Did he say anything to Bhodi today? Thinking he was me?"

"I don't know. I guess he might try that." Joe darts you a quick, worried look. "You want us to tell him? In case he can help with this mess?"

You can hardly believe that he broached the idea himself, and you try not to sound too enthusiastic. "Might be a good idea," you allow. "But maybe Lindsay and the girls wouldn't want that."

"You know, Evie's her friend," Joe replies with a scowl, "and our friend too, and we want to get her back. But when all that's done, it's not gonna be her and Paulina's party anymore. Right?" He looks over at you. "It's like, you and me and Grant and Justin, and your friend Caleb maybe? It's gonna be us doing things. Right?"

You would prefer it just to be you and Caleb, but you like the idea that Joe and his friends are definitely on your side, and that as long as you promise to help them they'll help you because they want to be partners with you at the end. You put out your fist for a bump. "Damn straight," you say.

He grins, and bashes your fist with his. His cheeks redden.

* * * * *

You've no idea how to handle Dane's mom when you get to her place, and Joe isn't helpful either. But it goes off surprisingly well. You knock on the door to her trailer, and when she answers—looking very sleepy and a little stoned—you tell her you're friends of Dane's. She says something about how he moved, and then, almost automatically, you pull the brain band from your pocket and slap it against her forehead. You and Joe catch her in your arms and carry her inside, laying her on the busted-up sofa while Lindsay calls you a bunch of dirty names. "What else were we going to do?" Joe retorts, which shuts her up even as she flushes. She then says something about "searching the place," and she and Joe scamper into the back of the trailer.

Whatever they find, it's not anything worth talking about or taking, for ten minutes later the four of you are outside again with the brain band. "I'll put it on," you tell Lindsay when she asks what happens next. "But buy me some coffee or something someplace. This isn't going to be fun, and I don't wanna have our talk in the back of someone's car."

"You don't deserve anything nice," Lindsay retorts, but Joe shushes her and says he'll treat you to something at Starbucks. As you're sure the brain band will knock you out, you crawl into his back seat and lay down. You don't even look at the name before laying it across your forehead.

It weighs on you like anvil, and it drags your head and body down with it as it sinks into someplace warm and soft and deep.

* * * * *

You are wafted back to a wakefulness that is still so near to sleep that you stare at the roof of Joe's car for a very long time before it occurs to you that you're conscious again. And even then, it's the cutting out of the engine that causes you to stir. You look over. Joe is leaning around his front seat to look down at you quizzically.

You stare back at him. He looks very familiar. Oh, you know it's Joe, but it's someone else, too. You're sure of it. There's someone else inside or behind that face. Or you've seen it before. You gasp: Is it reincarnation? Yes, that must be it! You're seeing his previous soul, maybe a whole parade of them, fitting inside his face like nesting matryoshka dolls. Now, if you can just recognize them, figure out who they are, you can totally blow his mind by telling who he was in his past lives!

He says something, and he says it again, and he says it a third time—all of his faces simultaneously crinkling up with concern—before you realize that by "Are you okay?" he's not trying to impart a second, hidden message.

Why do you feel this way? Oh, right, it's because you've got people inside you too, same as he's got them inside him. But yours is ... You take a deep breath. You know the answer to this. It's somewhere in there.

Marianne? Yes, Marianne Matthias. She's inside you, because you copied her brain, and she --

You rub your forehead—a delicious feeling—and giggle. "That really is some good stuff," you say.

"Oh my God. Will, are you high?"

Oh, wow! You are! Not long before you and your friends knocked on your door, you'd lit herself up a bowl of—

You take a deep breath, and exhale. "Yeah. This is gonna be real interesting."

* * * * *

Somehow Joe gets it all out of you, in the corner of the Starbucks, with some scalding black coffee that does nothing to sober you up. You're not so far gone that you can't talk or answer basic questions, though Joe tells you afterward that those answers dripped out of you like cold syrup. When he's had enough, or thinks he's gotten enough, he takes you back to the car and uses the magic words you taught Justin to tear the brain band out of you.

And that works out well too. That very pleasant fog is gone when wake, but the basic memories are still there, and you're able to clear up any last confusions you may have caused in your stoned state. You're surprised—once you're sober again—to see that you and Joe are alone. What happened to Lindsay and Andy? Joe says that when he saw what kind of state you were in, he sent them away. When you had Marianne inside you, you hadn't even noticed they weren't there.

But it's time to go find them and explain what you found out. He drives you over to Lindsay's house, where a great crowd is waiting when you arrive: Lindsay, Andy, Justin, Grant, Paulina, and Melanie.

There are two surprises waiting for you.

The first is that Bhodi isn't among the crowd waiting.

The second is that Caleb is.

* To continue: "An Old Conspirator and a New Conspiracy" 

*
"Table of Contents (Vol. 2)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)"