The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

The Sorceress's Apprentice

Previously: "Vee Is for Visit" 

{with an assist by Masktrix)

"Shelly's gone," you tell Vee. "You don't have to worry about her."

"Where'd she take off to?" Vee asks.

You are suddenly very hot, and your forehead starts to burn. Is it guilt? you wonder.

"She didn't take off anyplace," you reply. "She—" Your throat briefly closes. "She did something to herself. Something bad."

There's a dead silence from the other side of the bunker. It's like a void has opened, swallowing up all sound.

"Uh-huh?" Vee finally says. "Wanna tell me about it?" There's a scrape of metal against metal.

Your brain is starting to overheat. What's the point of fighting anymore? you wonder. They've got you lashed up tight, and once Vee finishes that mind band you won't have any secrets from her. She and the others will know all about Shelly and what happened. Probably they'll think it's funny. Dumb Ginny Weasley wannabe fucked herself up good.

But you can at least offer a kind of confession before everything ends for you.

"She turned herself into a golem."

The scraping stops. "What's that?"

"It's the things we left behind, to pretend to be us. Well, sort of. You told me you pulled the mask off Shelly? When you went to see her?"

"Yeah. There was like a lumpy rock thing underneath."

"Uh huh. That's a golem. Well, that's what we called them. The book has another name for them." You feel dizzy and the room starts to spin. "You'll read about it, when you find the spell. Takes a fuck-ton of dirt to make one. From a cemetery."

"So where's Shelly?"

You let out a deep sigh, and slip a little further into darkness. "She tried a spell on herself. Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. Dumb—" You catch yourself before you can make the "Ginny Weasley" joke yourself. "It's like the spell that makes the golem. It comes after it. It fucked her up. Turned her into a statue."

The room is spinning hard now, and you are numb from the neck down. A voice spirals out of the darkness, but you can't make out the words, and you don't care.

Fire explodes across your scalp, and your eyes jerk open. A pale face presses close to yours.

"Don't pass out on me, Will," Vee hisses at you, and she pulls your head up by the roots of your scalp. "What did you say? About a statue?"

"A statue," you repeat. "Ginny turned herself into a statue."

"Ginny? You mean Shelly?"

"Yeah. Looks just like her. I hid her out in—" Where did you move her? "The Catholic church. 'Cos Coach Acuna—"

"In the basement?" Vee says. She pulls harder at your hair, until you gasp. "A statue that looks just like her?"

"Yeah!" You blink tears away. "Oh yeah!" The memory swims back from the depths. "You found her! You and Abi and— You went down into the basement and were looking around. I saw you! You didn't see me, though."

"That was Shelly? The real Shelly Nolan?" Vee lets go of your hair, and your head falls.

"Yeah." A lump forms in your throat. "She killed herself. With magic. Fuck." You screw your eyes up against the tears. "It's a bad book. It'll fuck you up."

You try to stifle the wave of horror and self-pity that washes over you. Vee says nothing. Her feet scrape across the concrete.

But even the nauseating horror you feel at thinking of the pale, wide-eyed expression on Shelly Nolan's stony countenance can't hold back the darkness that, like a surging tide, rises to engulf you.

Once, you think you hear the clink of metal scraping and banging against concrete. But it's probably just a dream.

* * * * *

You wake to feel someone rubbing and squeezing your calves. You lift your head, and find yourself sprawling face-down on a blanket. Hair falls into your eyes. Through it, you can just make out a grayish patch of concrete.

The rubbing ceases. "You're awake?" a hatefully familiar voice says.

You whip over and scramble back, kicking. Vee jumps away from you.

"Easy there, Will," she says, her unwinking eyes flashing. She holds up a knife, its tip pointed at you. "I'll use this if I have to."

You lick your lips, and push long locks of hair from your face. Only after you and Vee have stared at each other for a solid minute do you realize that you feel fine. Refreshed, even.

There's a flutter at Vee's throat as she swallows. Then she lowers the blade.

"I'm being nice to you, Will. Extremely nice. A hell of a lot nicer than I probably should be. You understand? I could have left you tied up until Kristen was ready for you. Right?"

You nod. You can't even find the words to form a question.

"So you don't run off. We're going to leave campus, and you're not going to run off. There's something in it for you if you don't. If you do run off, there's nothing for you. We'll come and we'll get you. Right? You'll never see us coming. But if you stick around, do what you're told, there'll be lots—"

"Okay, I get it!" you exclaim. Your voice sounds like a shriek.

"Okay, stand up," Vee orders as she gets to her feet. You rise too—

And find that you're half a head shorter than her.

You glance down just in time to see the slacks slump to your ankles. The sports jacket hangs open, and a pair of small but perfectly shaped boobs peek out.

Your hands, when you lift them, are tiny, with tapered fingers.

* * * * *

"Okay, you can sit up now," Vee shouts. You throw off the blanket and sit up, blinking, in the back seat of her car. Again, you have to brush the loose curls from your face as you whirl to look out the back window. The campus of the St. Francis Xavier School is vanishing behind you into the morning fog.

Holding up the comically oversized slacks in one hand, and clutching shut the voluminous jacket with the other, you had hurried over to Vee's car after she brought it around in front of the Greek amphitheater (under which she and the others had been hiding you). You hid in the back under the blanket as she drove off campus, and are now on your way to Lattyville, the closest village to the school. Vee has told you she's going to put you up in a motel room.

"Just for a day or two," she says, and repeats her warning about not running off. "Until we can get Kristen's mask made."

That would have been a threat last night, when she had you tied up. Now— Well, it's still a threat of a kind, but it's a much less awful one.

Because Vee is not going to let them turn you into an obedient duplicate of Kristen.

"I want your help, Will," she resumes now that you're away on the road from St. Xavier's. "And you need mine," she reminds you. (It seems to prey on her, the thought that you'll run off or otherwise betray her.) "You help me and I'll help you."

"Right," you say, impatient for her to come to the point.

Still she hesitates, and licks her lips. "I'll help you fix Shelly," she says, "and I'll hide you from the others. We'll put Kristin's mask on Gail Lattimore. No one will know it isn't you."

Gail Lattimore The girl whose face you are now wearing.

"Why do you want to fix Shelly?" you ask. "What makes you think she can be unfucked?"

"I don't know if she can be. And I don't give a shit, either. But I know you want to unfuck her. And I know you'll help me if, you know, I promise to help you."

As if I'm going to believe you, you think.

"Also," she says, "I need a study partner for the book."

The fuck? you think.

"What you told me about Shelly," Vee continues. "Last night. It got me thinking. What happens if something like that happens to me? Or to Abi and them," she adds (but it sounds like an afterthought). "We need a back up. A fail safe. Someone who can, maybe, unfuck us if something goes wrong."

This is unendurable. "And you trust me to unfuck you if you fuck yourselves up?" you demand before you can stop yourself.

She whips around long enough to show you a white, haggard face. Fury boils up in her dark eyes.

"We're not going to fuck anything up," she hisses as she turns her face back to the road. "We're going to be super careful, and if we do have to try anything dangerous, we've got a whole fucking school we can try it out on! But—" She takes a deep, shuddering breath, and masters herself. "It's always good to have an insurance policy."

"Uh huh."

"Besides," she says, "like I told you last night, I don't want to share Abi with Kristen. I want someone else's life. And I want you, Gail, to help me find them."

You slump and fold your arms. Shit.

* * * * *

You wait in the car while Vee gets you a room in a sooty little motel. She's got one more thing to tell you after she's put you in it.

"I know you, Will, even though you think I don't." She points to her temple. "But I know everything you know, and everything you remember." You suck in a sharp breath. "That's how come I know you'll do anything to help Shelly.

"It's also how I know that you're not the good guy you think you are. You're no better than me and my friends. That's how come you'll be happy to be Gail, once I finish making her disguise for you. And why you'll be happy to pick out another life for yourself, after you've helped me pick out one for me."

That's all for now.

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