The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

Of Curses and Even Worse Things

Previously: "A Yumi Life" 

You skip Yumi's last class of the day and hide out in the orchestra room, where Mrs. Heinz, the conductor and teacher, occasionally lets Yumi study when she doesn't want to be found. You have retrieved one of the marked twenties from Will, and you press it between two clean sheets of papers so that when you sketch a "copy" sigil over the top sheet the mark that Blackwell put on the bill materializes on the bottom sheet. You touch the copy lightly; there is no "spark," so you know that it is dead and cannot cause any harm.

You examine it closely and are able to decipher some of its elements but not enough to understand how it works. Only the complex symbols for "air," "guardian," "bind," "reveal" and "chain" are readable.

He said it was a "gypsy" curse, so you spend the afternoon, before you are due at your mentor's house, visiting various fortunetellers. You have little hope of success. One tells you it is a love sign. Another tells you it is an omen of fortune, but for good or ill she cannot say. Another says it is meaningless but asks to copy the "very pretty" design. (You refuse her.) But the fourth fortuneteller draws back and will not touch the paper on which the design is made.

"From whom did this come?" she asks in thick, regal continental accent.

"Um ... a boy I know?"

"This boy. Do you like him? Does he like you?"

It sounds like she might know what this is about, and you decide to skirt as close to the truth as you dare. "He's my boyfriend. He said he didn't make it. Some other guy gave it to him. He showed it to me because he thought it was cool."

Her eyebrows go up. "Your boyfriend. Is he with this other boy friends?"

"No, they don't like each other. In fact—" You turn appropriately red. "My boyfriend, he kind of, like, messes with this guy?"

"I see. And why do you think this has anything to do with those on the other side?"

"Well, I've been feeling kind of freaky lately. Like, this guy just creeps out when he's around. I feel like there's a hex on me."

She thinks long and hard. "The lifting of this hex from you is beyond my ability. Your boyfriend must stay away from this boy. He is dangerous, and he will come to a bad end."

"What about me?"

She shrugs. "If he does not bear you a grudge, you will be safe."

"Is this hex like a famous thing? Because you're the first fortuneteller who doesn't sound like she's trying to, you know, scam me."

She regards you carefully, and then her Hungarian accent vanishes. "Honey, lemme tell you. Ninety-eight percent of everything's a scam, and I ain't no exception. But I know this shit, and this thing is bad news. You try not to piss this kid off. Your boyfriend?" She shrugs. "He'll be okay if he keeps his head and doesn't get in a corner with this other kid."

"Why don't the other fortune tellers know about it, then?"

Her laugh is also a honk. "Because only one out of a hunnerd are even a little bit legit. But anyone who knows anything knows what this is, and it's bad news for everyone The kid who made it? He's just fucked his life up good and hard. You don't pass this thing around lightly. In fact, you better leave it with me before it causes any more harm."

Since the sigil is dead you have no qualms about letting her have it. You pay her and leave in a thoughtful mood.

If a strip mall psychic knows all about this curse, and if she thinks the boy passing it out is fucking himself up ... There is a 500% chance Blackwell knows its full effects too.

He's trying to isolate you from your friends. He's already seduced you into cutting off your family, you realize.

* * * * *

At Blackwell's you hide your growing doubts about him. You also keep alert for anything he might say that you can use to worm additional information out of him. You see your chance when he mentions the thing that prowls the hallways at night, calling it a "guardian."

"There are different kinds of guardians," he explains in answer to your query. "Some are, oh, policemen. Some are sentries, some are spies, some are what you might call bodyguards, and some are simply made to misdirect the unwary. Their essential aspect, you see, is to keep something safe, from harm, from snooping, from molesting." The last word catches your ear, though he seems not to have noticed the echo off Lester "The Molester".

"So the thing--?"

"That is a very powerful one, and you must never open your door after it has begun to walk. You might think of it as a very powerful Doberman that I let loose. At any time before midnight it is possible to stand up to it, even to defeat it, if you have a nearly inhuman amount of courage, coolness of head, and skill. After that, you had best be right with anything that is waiting for you on the other side."

"What does it do to you?"

He smiles mirthlessly. "Suffice it to say that it is hungry but it will not eat you. It will do something much worse."

"But others are less powerful?"

"Yes, to any degree you like. These are created things, like the golems, and you can craft them to a great fineness. In my own school days I set one to guard my peanut butter from my housemates."

He continues, and much of what you saw in the sigil begins to make sense: the most powerful are conjured of air; they must be bound to a place or a time or an object; they can be made visible or invisible; and they have various modes of power. Some are able to physically harm human beings; others are only able to induce fear or lust or revulsion or some other emotion that will inhibit or cripple those who draw too near them.

You quietly rejoice when he draws down a very large tome about them. His excuse is that you should know more about the thing in the hallway; your secret excuse is to learn more about the curse. You stay up very late in your room reading about guardians while polishing your new mask. You do this, even though it is extremely unpleasant to listen to the guardian romp through the house while reading about what it can do to the unwary.

* * * * *

You run into Cindy Vredenburg on your way into school the next morning. Since Blackwell has been preying on your mind, you ask her about Lucy.

"I don't see her much, even though she's supposed to be living with us," Cindy says with a shrug. "She's got, like, tons of friends at the university to hang out with."

"Lookin' fine, girls," a male voice calls as you pass.

"Put a sock in it, you perverts," she yells back. "Honestly. But anyway, you know she's on the cheerleader squad out there, so she's like totally popular, so I can't complain."

"Are you going to join the college squad when you get out there?"

"Oh, totally. Unless I go to State, which is really where I really want to go. I've seen all the boys in this rathole." She gags. "And Seth's going to State," she adds as an afterthought. "But why the sudden interest in my sister?"

"I was at the campus library the other day and saw her. She looked like she was studying hard, which— I mean, I'm not saying she didn't study when she was here—"

Cindy laughs. "Oh yeah, she's got some hard-asses for teachers. There's this one shit heel she just hates. He was going to bring her up on, like, misconduct charges, but she talked him out of it, you know." She winks. "She pointed him out to me afterward. Fat old bald guy, face like a dog, and she was like, I was so grossed out, but I did it, and he was, like, slobbering over me he was so grateful?"

"I thought all the professors out there were fat old bald guys."

She grabs your arm excitedly. "Yeah, except this one! Omigod omigod omigod." She jumps up and down and closes her eyes in ecstasy. "He is such a total hottie! I am so going to major in French lit if I go to Keyserling!"

* * * * *

Your talk must have put Lucy on Cindy's mind, because during practice she gets in a screaming match with Chelsea over a routine, which ends with Cindy bragging about how her sister used to be captain of the squad. Chelsea seems to let it go, but you—or, rather, Yumi—have watched Chelsea long enough to recognize the signs. So even though Chelsea seems very calm and chipper afterward, you sidle up to her.

"I should tell you that Cindy and Lucy had a huge fight last night," you murmur to her. "Lucy told Cindy that she won't ever be good enough for the Keyserling squad. So, she's feeling like really jealous and stuff and lashing out. She doesn't mean what she's saying."

Chelsea stares at you, and then tears of tenderness spring out. "Oh, you are such a good friend to her," she coos, and she puts her arms around you in a light hug. "You're such a sweet person, Yumi. People really should say nicer things about you."

You suppress the urge to vomit down her front, and it was probably worth the humiliation, for the blow-up you anticipated never materializes.

Of course, your purposes are not altruistic. You don't want Cindy's life upended because you are seriously thinking about switching into her, not one of the alphas, at the end of the week, so that you can get close to Lucy: you are desperate to know what the relationship is between Blackwell and a girl who professes to despise him but seems quite content to run errands for him. The trouble is that, if Cindy is correct, then she hasn't got a lot of contact with Lucy. It might be better to put your newfound knowledge about guardians to work instead.

Next: "Mom's the Word" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 1)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)"