The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

Body Swapping as a Solution

Previously: "Will Versus the Competition" 

"So what does the new spell do?" Sydney asks again after you've not answered her for a minute.

"Oh, it's complicated," you stammer. Almost you tell her what happened to you at school today. But instead you postpone the topic, at least for now. Maybe she'll come up with an idea that'll help you out without even knowing that you've got a problem.

So you tell her that it uses most of the same stuff that you used to make a golem and that you used on her stepdad: flammable powders and liquids, a few special extra ingredients, and a hank of hair. As for cemetery earth, it only calls for a spoonful, and there are no human sacrifices. "But it's still a lot like the last spell," you conclude.

"How?"

"Well—"

* * * * *

It's a long, rambling, and confusing explanation you stammer out, and not until you're at the elementary school, where you can show her the paste you made and a mask, do you get clear on what you think is going on with the magic.

"Okay," you say, "you know how we turned your— how we turned Nicholas into a golem?" Sydney grins and nods. "Well, I kind of think that's not really the way it worked." Her eyebrows go up. "What if it just, like, encased him inside a golem? Like dipping him in bronze? What if it doesn't go all the way through, I mean?"

"You mean if we hit him with a sledgehammer, maybe we could get him out?"

"Well, maybe." You scratch the back of your head; you'd not thought of it in quite that way. "Not that I want to try."

"You wouldn't. Me, I'd love to break his face with a sledgehammer." She snickers. "But go on."

"Well, so, what that spell basically does, I think, is it encases him inside of a shell. Then you put the mask on top of the shell to turn him into someone else. Like Caleb."

"Why do think that?"

"'Cos of this stuff." You point to the paste. "You put it inside a mask. Then, the way the book seems to describe it, if you put the mask onto a person, it turns him into that other person. But he acts like the way your— Like Nicholas did. He doesn't know he's the other person. He just thinks he's the person who was copied into the mask. So it's just like the other spell, except that instead of having to do it in two steps—the shell, then the mask—you just have to do it in one. 'Cos the shell is already inside the mask."

"Oh!" Her eyes light up.

"But it's reversible, too. You take the mask off, and the shell comes with it, and the person turns back to normal. That's why I think it's only a shell that's been poured over Nicholas. To make something a mask can stick to. Only in this case—"

"What if we don't want to turn them back to normal?" she interrupts.

You shrug. "I guess you leave the mask on them. The spell doesn't say anything about a time limit.

"Can I try doing the translation myself?"

Be my guest, you reply with a gesture.

* * * * *

Sydney concurs with your translation, but she still wants to test it out; and she's confident enough in the translation that she consents to be the test subject. "Put it inside one of the masks we've got," she says as she starts to strip. "I'll put it on, and we'll find out what happens when you put it on and take it off."

You try to argue, but she just gives you a look as she continues to pull her clothes off as you fumble for Caleb's mask. You sit with your back to her as you apply the new paste to the inside of the mask; when you are done, the inside of the mask is the same color as the golem. Sydney looks vastly amused when you turn around to hand it to her, but she says nothing about your obvious embarrassment. She lays back on the old conference table and drops the mask onto her face.

Caleb appears in her place, and his eyes instantly pop open. He glares at you. "Jesus," he says. "You again. You're even worse than the headache I got."

"Sydney?" you ask, but he ignores you as he sits up with a sigh. "Sydney?" Caleb crinkles his eyes at you. "Sydney?"

"The fuck are you going on about now, Will?"

You peer into his eyes. "What's your name?" you demand. "Where do you live? What's today's date? Who was our English teacher our freshman year?"

He snorts out his answers, getting correct marks on all except the date, claiming he has no idea what day it is but hazarding that it might be ... Friday? September 26? (It's Wednesday, October 8.) He also punches himself in the balls when you order him to. His mannerisms are entirely Johansson's too, not at all like the girlish ones he showed when Sydney had his mask on the last time.

It takes your girlfriend several minutes to wake up after you've removed Caleb's mask from her. You cover her with her clothes as best you can, and ostentatiously take a seat with your back to her while perusing the next spell in the book. In fact, your eye takes in none of it, for you're entirely preoccupied with searing your imagination with a memory of what you saw when she had her clothes off. Suffice it to say that her breasts, butt, bush, and all the parts in between measured up to the standard set by the rest of her.

"Hey, you want me to leave while you get dressed?" you ask when you hear her groan. "Are you cold?"

"Yes. I'm cold," she says, "but you can stay. God, I feel like I got hit with a two-by-four. What happened?" She yawns.

"Don't you remember?"

"Will you look me in the face, Will?"

You turn, to find her frowning at you. Then her gaze goes distant, and her brow furrows.

"I remember you dropped the mask on me," she says. "And that's all."

"You don't remember me talking to you? Asking you questions? Telling you to punch yourself in the balls?"

"No, none of that." Her nostrils flare. "Lemme get dressed and you can tell me about it."

* * * * *

It doesn't take long to relate, and her eyes are shining thoughtfully when you're done.

"You know what this means?" she says. "We don't have to make any more golems. We can just replace people with copies and stock our Brotherhood that way!"

"Yeah, sure, that's something we could do."

"Because I'd been assuming, you know, that we'd just make up ten golems and get a bunch of masks, and just turn them on when—"

She catches herself, and hides a titter behind her hand.

"I mean, activate them, and then turn them on—"

You smile tightly. Normally you'd be the one making lame sexual innuendos, but you're still shaken by the afternoon's events.

"—and just use them for the rituals before turning them off again. But this way we'd have the Brotherhood right there in school with us!"

She cocks her head. "But maybe you'd have a problem with that?"

You take a deep breath. Before this afternoon you might have. But now you've got a reason of your own for going down that road.

"No. I'd be up for that. In fact, we could swap ourselves with those other people. We were talking about putting on masks of other people so we could—" You lightly stroke her arm, and she grins and shivers at your touch. "This way we could be those people even inside the school."

"Oh, Will!" Sydney grabs you and kisses you hungrily.

* * * * *

You take her home, then go home yourself. After eating supper and doing your homework, you invent an excuse for leaving the house, for you know that Sydney's plans will require plenty of masks. Back at the elementary school, you exhaust the last of your supply on four masks and four memory strips. As you work, you ponder ideas of your own.

The only one you can come up with, though, is that you assume the identity of Blake O'Brien while Sydney takes her choice of schoolmate to be your—that is, Blake's— girlfriend. You figure that Blake is the immediate cause of today's incident, and that if you (as him) can get the others to leave you alone by taking another girlfriend, then that might get them to leave your doppelganger alone.

Though if that doesn't work, what the hell: "Will Prescott" would just be a fake.

You have your cell phone with you, so you answer when Sydney calls. "So I've been thinking about what we're going to do. Is there any group of people at the school you'd like to be?" she asks. "Like, guys on the football squad, or in the chess club, or who hang out together at parties all the time?"

"I'm still thinking about it," you temporize.

"Because I figure there's two ways we can do this. We can make the Brotherhood all with people who hang out together, or we can, like, mix and match a lot of people who basically don't know each other. Make our Brotherhood a real menagerie!"

She keeps saying "Brotherhood," but the word "coven" now pops into your head.

* To suggest taking over people who already hang out together: "Group Activities" 
* To suggest creating a coven: "Coveting a Coven" 
* To suggest making a random menagerie: "The First Step of a Random Walk" 

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