The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

A Mask Is Dropped

Previously: "Date with an Angel" 

"Caleb?" you exclaim. "Caleb doesn't know anything, he doesn't give a shit about—!"

You cut yourself off. Sydney is still smiling at you, but her eyes narrow. It's a look your mother sometimes gives you when she's running out of patience with your shit.

Jesus, she is gorgeous. Her eyes are a slate-blue color; her skin, smooth and soft, is drawn tightly over cheekbones and jaw; her hair is a waterfall of gold. Even if she'd never be your girlfriend—and she is so far out of your class that you'd have to have a fist-fight every day for the rest of your high school career, just to keep the assholes off her—it would be beyond awesome just to have her as a friend.

Not an acquaintance, not like Eva and Jessica Garner, who will sometimes speak civilly to you when you speak first to them. Not someone who'll say "Hi!" and pretend to be glad to see you when you bump into them in the halls once every couple of days.

No, a friend, the way Caleb and Keith and you are friends. Someone you could text with—what up dudette?—and hang out with. Someone who would eat lunch with you and study with you and hang out at your house playing video games and watching movies. Someone who could give you shit and take shit from you and let you—

Touch her? Push her? Horse around with her?

And didn't she just say I can really see us hanging out together, you and me and Caleb and the rest of your friends and a lot of mine?

She seems really into the occult stuff, and she doesn't believe you are. Why does she think Caleb is?

Oh, fuck Caleb. If the only way to get her mind off Caleb and onto you is to show her what you've made and what you could make ...

Your heart and your cock rise in tandem.

"Look, come with me," you say, and you surprise yourself with how low and calm your voice is. "You wanna know how I got into this stuff, got into ... magic?" You shove that shitty astrology paperback off the table. "I'll show you what I've got. And it ain't," you add as you stand; Sydney looks up at you with widening eyes, "Penn and Teller."

* * * * *

"So what is this place, exactly?" Sydney asks as you lead her down the creaking basement steps. A musty smell of grime rises to meet you. "An old school?"

"Old elementary school. There's a community center on the other side of the building,. This is a basement storage thing," you add, as though the tumbled wreckage—old book cases and cabinets, conference tables and stacks of student desks—could be anything else. "I busted in about a year ago, looked around, had some fun here with my friends Caleb and Keith." You put your hands on your hips and squint around the dark and shadowy basement, like you're some kind of bad ass who doesn't care if he could or would get into trouble for breaking and entering. "I put a lock on the door, but no one comes down here. So it's just me. Me and my magical club house."

Oof. "Magical club house." So much for sounding and acting like a bad ass.

"Uh huh." Sydney, barely visible in the gloom, is hanging back near the bottom of the stairs. "So what makes it magic?"

This is the first time you've been down here since Monday morning, and it disconcerts you to find that the fire has gone out. How long has it been out? Does that mean the thing is finished, or that it just needs to be relit? You fumble about the room until you remember the light on your cell phone. It's no better than a pencil flashlight, but with it you find the cigarette lighter and the pile of earth. It looks different—less like a pile of dirt and more like a mound of clay—but the light's not good enough for a detailed examination.

"This is the magic thing here, I think. It didn't come with the basement," you hasten to add. "I'm using a book to make it, and I'm pretty freaking sure it's magic. I don't think real chemicals are supposed to do the things that this thing is doing."

The book is still under the earthen mound, but you don't pull it out, for fear that the spell still needs that sigil to work. "Watch," you tell Sydney over your shoulder. You flick the lighter and put it to the pile.

Foom!

That same bloom of purple light fills the basement; you are standing directly over it, but the blow is as light as the brush of a butterfly's wings against your cheek. As you stagger back a step, violet flames silently lick the mound.

"Come check it out," you tell Sydney, and put out your hand to her.

She hesitates, then worms her way through the junk to your side. She stares down at the flames, her nostrils distending. She puts her hand into the flames. A little gasp escapes her throat. "No heat."

"That's right. Which is funny, because it's, like, rocket fuel that's burning. This place ought to've exploded like a fireworks factory."

"So why didn't it? What is it? What's it making?"

"I don't know. The book—"

"What book?" Her tone is sharp.

"The one under the dirt." You point. "There's a sigil thing in the book, and you're supposed to put the ingredients in the sigil. So I had to pile everything onto the book. I think it needs to stay there 'til it's done."

"When will that be? What's it making?"

"I don't know, and I don't know. The book's funny. It tells you what to do, but you don't know what you're making until you turn the page. Oh, right," you add as she frowns at your words. "That's another funny thing about the book. All the pages are glued shut. You have to perform a spell before a page turns loose. Then when you turn the page, you get a new spell—which doesn't tell you what it does—but on the reverse side of the first page you get a paragraph that tells you what you made and how to use it. I've made some other stuff—"

"Like what?"

Now her voice is hard, demanding, even a little shrill. You don't like it, so you only tell her, "Like some glues and sealants. And a couple of dinguses."

She's breathing hard, and her eyes are slits. But you say nothing more, and only hold her eye. Finally, she looks away, and swallows audibly.

"Your friend Caleb," she says in a low voice. "He's helping you?"

"No. Why do you keep thinking that he's got something to do with this? He's all into science and shit, he thinks magic is bullshit." Well, you suppose he would. You've never talked to him about it.

"Where did you get the stuff?" She points at the burning pile. "That's dirt, right?"

"Right. I got it out of a graveyard. At midnight," you can't help adding with a jocular leer.

"Last Saturday," she says. "Is that when you got the dirt? And you brought it down here and you piled it up and poured all that other stuff on it, and you set it on fire?"

A chill settles on your shoulders. "Yeah. But how did you know it was Saturday?"

"Because I saw you." She backs away slowly, her eyes locked on your face. "Except it wasn't you. It was your friend Caleb."

* * * * *

Well, that knocks you for a loop. You cast your mind back. Yeah, you put on Caleb's mask before you went out to the cemetery, and you didn't take it off until you got back home. So if anyone had seen you—

"What were you doing out at the cemetery?" you demand.

She doesn't answer. You can hear her breathing heavily through her nose. You could swear you hear her heart beating, but you know it's your own pulse pounding in your ears. "Come on. I told you about all this stuff. Now you tell me what you were—"

"I was doing my own thing, okay? But the person I saw, was it you or was it your friend?"

Your throat tightens. "You answer me first." Your fists bunch up of their accord. "You tell me—"

"There's a ley line that runs through the cemetery," she blurts out. "I was surveying it, marking it. I saw someone, heard someone. I snuck over to see. It was your friend Caleb. Except—" She swallows noisily. "He was driving a truck like yours. And when he was done digging up ... stuff, he came back here and unloaded it and set it on fire." Stiffly, she points at the burning mound. "Are you trying to protect him, or something?"

* * * * *

Now you feel trapped. She has answered your challenge. How are you to explain why she saw Caleb, except with the truth?

But you've already told her so much that it's surprisingly easy to tell her the rest. "It's a spell in the book I told you about. I made myself look like him. That way if I got caught, it wouldn't be me who got in trouble."

"Go on," she says.

You bridle. "No, you go on. We'll switch it up. I'll tell you a little and you tell me a little. Start with this ley line thing. The fuck is a ley line?"

She stares at you, then surprises you with a giggle: a short, silvery bubble of laughter. She covers her mouth and grabs the edge of a table as she sways on her feet. You feel yourself flushing, the way you were with Mansfield back at the coffee shop.

"Sounds like we've got a lot we can teach each other," she says. She smiles, and the light is dancing in her eyes again.

"What do you say, Will? Partners?" She puts out a hand.

* To partner with Sydney: "Confessions of Two Magic-Users" 
* To play things close to the chest: "The Focus of Your Efforts" 

*
"Table of Contents (Vol. 3)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)"