The Book of Masks (Abridged)

Concussing Caleb

YOUR ORIGINAL IDEA IS THE BEST, you deem. Caleb has that quasi-scientific spirit that will let you talk him into trying out something new.

So you announce yourself with a "Hey" at his locker—which is right next to yours—after classes let out.

"Hey yourself," he says as he changes books out of his bag. "You and Tilley have fun sucking each other off at lunch?"

Asshole. "Sure, now it's your turn to suck me off."

"Dream on, Prescott."

"I just mean, you and me are hanging out now." You chuck your chin at him.

"We are?"

"Aren't we?" You blink.

"Sure, whatever. You have any ideas about where to hang out?" He slams his locker shut and looks at you blankly. He rolls his eyes when you can only shrug. "You should be on the prom committee, you're so full of plans."

"Well, I got this thing I wanna show you." Someone jostles you hard, almost pitching you face-first into your best friend. "Come on," you tell him when you straighten back up, "I'll tell you outside."

* * * * *

TL;DR: Caleb storms off after nearly blowing your head off with a lot of cuss words, and that despite your practically getting him that job he wants at your dad's work. Oh, also, you get something really cool off of him and into that mask you made.

The long version, taking it backwards:

"Go fuck yourself!" In those three words Caleb distilled and punctuated a two-minute streak of curses. On stiff legs he stalked off to his car and peeled out of the Salopek parking lot, fishing-tailing slightly as he let his anger guide the wheel.

All of which leaves you no more than bemused as you stare down at the mask. It gleams very brightly in the afternoon sun, but it's not the polished surface that so beguiles you, it's the— But we'll get to that in a minute.

Caleb was cussing you out because you'd had to slap him conscious. He was laying in the bed of your truck, and you were starting to get really scared at the way he wasn't moving and was barely breathing. He yelled at you after reviving, and after you told him he'd been unconscious for fifteen minutes. "You don't fucking know what you're doing with that shit! Keep it away from me and keep yourself away from me too!" were the opening words of the rant that followed. After that, he'd detailed your ancestry and what you could do to yourself and to the foul brood that had perverted themselves and polluted their genetic stock in order to finally birth the monstrosity that is yourself.

And why was he unconscious?

Because after getting out the Salopek offices—

And you why were you at the Salopek offices?

Because while you were still walking through the school parking lot, and telling him that you had this "science project" you wanted to try out with him, he'd grabbed hold of the conversation to ask if you'd talked to your dad about getting him that job at Salopek. You'd said "No," and he'd gotten pissy and listened with vague contempt as you told him you had this "mask" thing that you wanted him to try on.

"Okay, fuck it, I'll do it," he said, "if—if, asshole—we go out to your dad's work, and we fucking talk to him about me applying for that job that you're too much of a little shit to take. And we do that first."

Which wasn't a proposal that thrilled you, and his characterization of you stung, but you'd agreed. So, separately you'd driven out to Salopek Aerospace, and gone up to your dad's office. He was pretty mad at being interrupted, and was also pretty goddamned torqued that you weren't interested in taking that job he kept pushing on you. But after a minute of glowering he abruptly changed tack, and with fatherly warmth told Caleb that he'd be delighted to recommend him for the job, and that all he had to do was go to the office and fill out an application.

Flash forward to something that technically hasn't happened yet: Your dad is very cold to you all evening, but makes a great show of telling your mother over dinner about how Caleb—who he'd always known was a bright and ambitious young comer—would soon be working at Salopek, and predicting great things for him in consequence.

Return to scene: So you'd gone back to the main office and Caleb had filled out the paperwork, then cheerfully returned to the parking lot and climbed into the bed of your truck. He'd looked a little askance at the mask after you'd brought it out, asked what the fuck was supposed to be the big deal about it, but you'd only said "Guh'dunno" before dropping it onto his face.

And it had vanished into him.

Seriously. Literally. It was like dropping a dinner plate into a lake. For just a moment it rested on his face, then it sank with a brief flash into him and was gone.

Horrified, you watched for about half a minute, then tried to wake him. You didn't succeed. You shook him, slapped him, punched him all over. But Caleb just lay there with glassy eyes and a gaping mouth. You put your ear to his chest and mouth, and felt his pulse. He was still alive, but he was completely catatonic.

That lasted about ten minutes, and you were shitting yourself about having to call the paramedics when, like a piece of film running in reverse, the mask suddenly appeared on his face again. You'd whipped it off and peered closely at it. It took you a while to figure out if it was an illusion or not, but soon you were satisfied that there really was—

Well, that's the detail we'll get to later.

Then you tried waking Caleb up again. It didn't take long. Two good slaps across the cheeks and he bolted up with a wild-eyed glare in his eyes.

That's when the explosive cussing had occurred, followed by his driving off.

Now, finally: You sit in the back of your truck and study the mask for a solid minute, feeling a surge of excitement and wonder.

Then you loft yourself to the ground, leap into the cab of your truck, and tear out of the parking lot, fish-tailing almost as badly as Caleb had.

But you're not mad. You are bursting with anticipation. You just have to get home to where that book is.

That amazing book of magic!

* * * * *

You are sitting on your bed with the book in your lap. (Dinner is still to come, so your Dad hasn't given the absent Caleb that tongue bath yet. Not that it matters, for it will not signify to the rest of the story; we mention it in the narrative only as a bit of characterizing color.) The grimoire isn't balanced perfectly there, because you've got a slight erection. The thrill of success has your blood pumping that hard.

The book is open to the spell that you had executed last Saturday. With a beating heart, you lay the mask on the page.

It might be your imagination, but you think you feel a thrill running through your fingertips, and you think you hear a slight click. You pick the mask up again.

And the page comes away with it. It falls closed again, but you definitely saw it flutter.

Your heart is in your throat as you pull at the corner.

It comes away. The goddamned page turns!

So that's got to be the way it works. You have to finish a spell before you can turn a page in the book, and after finishing the spell you have to "show" the book that you've done it by touching the completed item to it.

Eagerly you pore over the newly revealed pages ...

And of course you have to move over to your computer to use an online translator.

It's tedious work, and the Latin comes out really funky. But you think you get the gist of it well enough.

On the reverse of the page is a long paragraph that tells you what you've done. You have made a mask, and you have filled it with something that the book calls "imago."
Basically: The mask now contains a copy of your best friend. A copy of Caleb Johansson's body is now inside the mask. You're sure of that not only because of the translation but because of the mask.

If you hold it up and know where to look, you can see it: the ghostly image that floats inside the surface. It's the face of Caleb Johansson. And if you turn the mask this way and that, you can catch the side of his head, and even the tops of his shoulders.

And if you put the mask on—

Well, wait. The book warns you that things are a little more complicated than you might hope. Before you can wear the mask, turning yourself into a copy of Caleb, you have to seal it.

That's the next spell, on the facing page, and when you look it over you see it doesn't seem that difficult. You think you have most of the ingredients it calls for, so sealing the mask won't be a problem.

And if you don't seal the mask?

Then (the book says) the mask will keep adding images to itself, and mixing them together to form new faces. You puzzle over what precisely that means, but you're interrupted by your mother calling you down to dinner. (And, though you have no reason to anticipate it as you hop to your feet, your father's pointed remarks about Caleb's many positive qualities.)

All through the meal, though, you're absorbed by the experiment you are running upstairs.

Do you modify the image it contains? That would be a properly "scientific" thing to do—run the experiment as far as possible. Or do you go ahead and seal it, so that you can see what comes next?