The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

The Next Spell

Previously: "The Increasingly Complicated Life of Will Prescott" 

You have to go home before meeting Chelsea, so you collect the mask from your bedroom and rush over to the elementary school. She's certainly wanting to know about where you are with it. The answer is that after a lot of hard and fervent polishing (and working through the early morning hours), you've just managed to get it done, so that it shines a brilliant blue all over. You're not certain, but suspect a "finished" mask for the next spell also requires that one of those mind-strip thingies be included, so in the 90 minutes have before meeting her, you get the mind-strip you'd made attached to it. Then you gather up the various sealants and pile them into your truck.

Sure enough: "How close are you to being finished?" she asks after greeting you at the door to the loft. She's dressed in small, tight cotton shorts and a sleeveless blouse with the top buttons undone. You nearly swallow your tongue as she plops cross-legged on the gym mat.

"Huh? Oh, I finished last night."

Her eyes pop, and pink shows in her cheeks.

"Then what the hell am I doing wrong?" she exclaims. From beside her she picks up a rag and the mask she's been working on. "I've been at it for days I don't think I'm getting anywhere!"

You kneel in front of her and try not to notice the faint perfume that gradually enfolds you.

"Well, first of all, you have to rub really hard," you say, gently taking the mask and rag from her. "Also, you have to do it a really long time. I was up until three this morning. Yesterday night, too."

"Oh my God! You must really--" She bites her lip. "That's really impressive."

"I can finish this one for you."

"No, I don't want you thinking I'm lazy." There's an edge in her voice. "So, can we try out that new spell now?"

"Sure. I just got the mind-strip attached--"

"What's that?"

"These metal strips that you make. They're like a mind reader. If you just put a mask on someone it only copies their body. There has to be this special metal strip inside if you want to copy their mind--like their memories and personality--too. You know how that mask on Gordon -- Uh, where is he?"

"Out getting some snacks for us? Why?"

"I just noticed he's gone." Your eye locks onto the top of her breasts. "Anyway, you know how his mask has his name in it? That's from the mind-strip."

"Oh, I get it!" she exclaims. "Sometimes I'm as dumb as Maria!"

You tactfully ignore the reference to her infamously flaky friend--another cheerleader. "Then after you copy someone into the mask, you seal it up with this stuff." You pull out a small jar. "Then you're ready to use the new stuff in it."

"Wow, it's complicated. So we have to get a copy of someone?"

"Before we use this mask, yeah. Or we can experiment on Gordon's mask."

"I don't want to do that, in case it screws things up. I mean, we're lucky we had that mask on hand so he didn't just disappear!"You're lucky, you think. Me, not so much. "What do you think this new stuff will do?"

You run your hand through your hair. "Well, it uses the same stuff that Gordon used in-- Oh, I looked up some of the words in that spell he-- Um, that he messed up on. 'Golem' is probably the right word for what he turned himself into." Chelsea just blinks. "Anyway, this is the same basic spell, just tweaked."

"So you don't know what it does?"

"The book doesn't say." You take out the tome. "See, the stuff that explains how it works will be on the other side of this page, but it won't turn."

She frowns. "Gordon mentioned something about that, how you can't flip to later stuff in the book. I don't remember how he got past it."

Speak of the devil: Heavy footfalls and then the creak of the loft door herald the arrival of the golem-Gordon. He's carrying a plastic sack, and stares at you with ill-disguised bile.

"Here's your stuff," he says, dumping smaller sacks of chips between you and Chelsea. "Tomato juice for Chels." He tosses her a small can. "Jolt for me." He wedges the bottle under his arm. "A Mr. Pibb for the homo." He sets it right on your head.

"Could you ask him to be nice to me?" you ask Chelsea.

"Gordon!" she snaps. "You're being bad! Show me you're sorry." He stares for a moment, then to your astonishment drops to all fours, cocks his head, flashes puppy-dog eyes at her, and whimpers. "Now put your nose in your mess," she orders him. "Sniff it!" He rubs his nose on the floor, and snuffles up the dust.

"Jesus!" you gasp. "I didn't mean for you to--"

"That's nothing, Will. He does that all the time for me. I think he secretly likes it. Anyway, since the, uh, accident, he just doesn't argue as much before doing it. Okay, you're forgiven," she tells Gordon. "Come here for your treat!" Eagerly, he crawls over and lays his head in her lap, smiling beatifically as she strokes his head.

To get yourself in that position, you think, you might beg and sniff your own mess too. "Huh?" you say in answer to something Chelsea said.

"I said, what were we talking about?"

"Oh. Uh, Gordon, masks. Oh, yeah," you snap your fingers. "I was saying, I don't think this stuff will do anything bad to Gordon's mask. It might do something bad to the person who puts it on, though."

"Like what?"

"I'm not sure. But if we don't try it on Gordon's mask, we'd have to try it in a mask of someone else. Like, one of us." There's no one else to try it on, after all.

Chelsea puts a thumbnail between her teeth and looks past your ear.

"Alright," she says after a long moment. "I'll volunteer. Gordon and me might as well be a matched set," she adds as you gape at her in astonishment.

* * * * *

You grab your throbbing brow with a groan, and clench your eyes shut against the stinging light. When no one offers a sympathetic word, you groan again, more loudly.

"Is that you?" Chelsea asks. "Are you awake?"

"I don't know. Jesus! Can you get this thing off me? I think it's—"

"Get what off you?"

"The mask!"

"It is off you. Why don't you take a look, if you don't believe me."

Your eyes snap open, and you sit up. All at once, the pain in your head vanishes, so quickly it leaves you light-headed.

You're in the loft (still? again?) on the gym mat. Chelsea is giving you a quizzical look. "So?" she says.

"What happened?"

"You tell me."

You run a dry tongue over your lower lip.

"Well, you put the mask on me," you tell her, "and I felt like I was about to pass out." Like I was being dragged underwater by a boat anchor. "Then my head started hurting and you told me to get up."

Her eyebrows go up. "Is that all?"

You feel yourself pale. "Why? Did something else happen?"

Her lips twitch into a smile. "No, nothing much," she says. "Except that I had a twin sister for a little while."

Your mouth falls open.

The story she relates is an unsettling sequel to an unsettling prequel. It had started with her lying on the gym mat and you dropping the mask onto her. It had vanished into her, leaving her unresponsive and you alone with her thuggish boyfriend. Ten anxious minute had passed, then the mask had reappeared on her face. You'd shaken her awake.

Then, after sealing the mask, you had painted its inner surface with the stuff made by the new spell. After it dried, you'd put it back on Chelsea. Again, it knocked her out, but this time it reappeared only second later, and wouldn't go back into her.

So then it was your turn to try it.

"We hung out for, like, twenty minutes, comparing notes," Chelsea says. Her expression is skeptical, even suspicious. "Talked about lots of stuff only we-- I'd know about. You, uh, sure you don't remember any of it?"

"Not a word," you assure her.

"Hmm. And you acted like me too. I think. Close to how I imagine myself acting, anyway."

You take the mask from her and examine it. The inner surface is now bone white, where it was blue before. "So what do you think it's good for?" you ask.

"What's any of this stuff good for?" she retorts.

* * * * *

She's got an answer to her own question, though, when she calls you up to the loft the following Friday night.

"Pick a hand," she says when you arrive. Her hands are behind her back, and her face shines with mischief.

"Um, okay. Left?"

She was holding a mask, and she hands it over to you. Then she looks at the mask she was holding in her right hand. "Oh, kinky!" she laughs. "Go ahead and change," she says. "I'll be back here!" She disappears behind a crate.

"What's going on?"

"I'm taking you to a party! Don't you want to go to a party?"

"Well, sure. But what's with the--?" You turn the mask over. A name glares up at you. "Kelsey Blankenship?" you exclaim in surprise. "Is this a mask of--?"

"That's right!" Chelsea calls back from behind the crate. "She's your costume!" She giggles. "Except no one else there will know it's a costume party! For you and me, at least!"

"What's the idea?"

"It's obvious, isn't it? We're going to a party, as Kelsey and--" She giggles. "Her date!"

"But what if she's there?"

"She won't. Put the mask on and you'll find out why. Oh, and there's some clothes over next to the fridge. They're not hers, but Maria is about her size."

"Yeah, but--"

"Will you please shut up? I have to change too."

Next: "A Costume Party" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 4)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)"