The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

Help! There's a Girl in My Bed!

Previously: "Masks and Rough Play" 

"So then you know what my dad says? He says, 'You boys need a project to work on together'! Can you believe that? I mean, fuck! Me!"

You glare down at the metal bowl and the stuff you've been pouring into it. "Okay," you tell Caleb as you put out a hand, "I'm ready for that clothespin."

It's Monday night, an hour after dinner, and you're in Johansson's back yard, working by the yellow glow of his porch light. He hasn't said much since you burst in on him twenty minutes ago, demanding his help with an "experiment," and he has the baffled and angry look of a guy who didn't ask to help, doesn't want to help, doesn't know how he's helping, and yet somehow has found himself hip-deep in someone else's business.

Which more or less describes what's going on.

"Yeah," he drawls. "But it's this clothespin business I don't get," he says as he hands you one of the two clothespins he's holding.

"I told you, it's because this stuff is gonna stink up something awful."

"You didn't say anything about it stinking!"

"Sure I did! That's how come I can't do it back at my place!"

"You told me—" His eyes bulge as you snap the clothespin onto your nose. "You told me you had to do it over here 'cos you didn't want your brother and dad catching you!"

"Thad do! 'Gos I don' wanna wind up doig no broject wid Roberd!"

Caleb stares at you, then looks down at the other clothespin, still in his hand. "And this one's for me?"

"Right. 'Gos dhis 'duff sdinks when you burn id."

"Will—"

But you've already snapped the lighter and thrust it into the bowl. A great flume of smoke pours out, then quickly dissipates. "Well?" you ask Caleb, whose great honker is still unadorned with a clothespin.

He sniffs delicately, then sucks down a deeper noseful. "Smells a little like burnt hair," he says.

"Is dhat all?" You take the clothespin off your own nose and make a tentative sniff. It smells like grass clippings to you. "Huh. Guess this recipe is just enough different—"

"What is this shit?"

"That's what I've been telling you, it's—"

"You haven't been telling me jack nor shit," Caleb squawks. "You come busting in here with some bizarro story about getting in a fight with your brother, and about your dad and a project. Is this the project that he wants you and your brother to work on together?"

"No, this is the project I don't want to work on him with! I don't wanna work on any—"

"Just clean this shit up!" Caleb waves his arms in disgust. "Will, you're the most spastic, random—"

"Okay fine, I'll clean it up!" You glance inside of the bowl that you stole from home and find it full of a grayish-white slurry. It seems cool to the touch, so you pour it into a plastic container and seal it up. "I'll get out of your hair, too, since you're obviously uninterested in showing any sympathy for—"

"Will," Caleb groans. "I might show some sympathy if I freaking knew what I was supposed to be sympathizing with!"

You ignore him and just start slamming your stuff into your back pack. Caleb watches with a visible wince, and doesn't speak until you start pushing the book into your bag. "What was the book for?" he asks.

"It had the recipe in it," you growl. "What do you care?"

"So why'd you put the bowl on top of the book while—?"

"Well, you didn't want me to getting shit all over your porch, did you?"

Caleb stares.

"I take it back," he says. "You're not the most random, spastic person I know. You are, all by yourself, three of the most random and spastic—"

"Oh, bite me. See you in class tomorrow?" You swing your pack onto your shoulders.

"Why wouldn't I?"

You roll your shoulders in a shrug and stalk off toward the side gate.

* * * * *

It was lucky that the second spell, which you executed over at Caleb's, used exactly the same ingredients for making a mask, so that you could go ahead and execute it. And you were eager to do it because that seemed the only way to find out what exactly you accomplished this afternoon inside the school theater.

Well, you know in a general way what you've done. The rest of the first spell, which you uncovered this afternoon, explained that by placing the mask on a person you have copied their "image" into it. It further explained that you could, if you wanted, add the images of other people to the mask by placing it on them, mixing them all together to make new forms and faces. But, it concluded, you won't be able to wear the mask until you "seal" it.

And when you place a sealed mask on your face, it will transform you into the duplicate of the person whose image is contained in the mask.

Cool, right?

On the facing page was a second spell—which like the first only tells you how to execute it, not what it does—so you decided to try it out on a hunch. It seemed safest to do it at Caleb's, though, so that you wouldn't upset your dad with another terrible stench, or tempt him into forcing Robert on you as a partner in this extracurricular "project."

Back home, upstairs, you are disappointed to find that there's been no alteration to the page you are trying to unlock, but you set the plastic container on it anyway, and are pleased when the page subsequently flips over. Greedily you set about translating the reverse of the page, and are cheered to learn that this slurry you've made is, as you hoped, the sealant the first spell spoke of. So from the garage you steal a small paintbrush and, acting on the remainder of the instructions, paint the inner surface of the mask, turning it a grayish-white. To your relief there are no instructions about polishing the new surface. Instead, the thing now appears to be ready for wearing.

But you don't put it on yet, for you have enough sense and self-control to know that you shouldn't use magic to turn yourself into someone else while the rest of your family is up and awake. So instead you hide the mask under the covers of your bed, and spend the rest of the night trying to concentrate on your homework. But you twitch and jump each time you think of what you've hidden in your bed, and the hours crawl toward bedtime as you anticipate what you'll find when you try the mask out tonight, after the rest of the house is asleep.

* * * * *

It's a little after two in the morning when your cell phone alarm wakes you, and you scramble to shut it off. Then you lay for a few minutes, panting in the dark and blinking at the ceiling as you listen with a thumping heart for other sounds. But there is nothing but a light rustle of wind at the eaves.

You crawl out of bed and creep over to your closet. From a top shelf you pull down the mask, then hop with a bouncing leap back into bed. You pull the sheets up over yourself and shiver with excitement. You're about to do it!

You hold the mask up over your face, then change your mind and lay it facedown on your pillow. You flop over, balancing yourself above it, then gently lower your face into the mask.

For a moment you feel nothing except the hard, porcelain-like material squashing against your nose and forehead. Then your face warms, and you are overwhelmed by vertigo. It's like a pit has opened up inside your pillow, and you are falling face first into it. A hot radiance washes over you. You have just time to wonder if you've opened a portal to Hell when you lose all sense of yourself.

* * * * *

"Will!"

You flinch from the voice, and wince at the sharp rap on your door. "It's seven-thirty!" your mom calls from the hallway. "You don't want to be late to school!"

Who says I don't? you grumble to yourself. Aloud: "Okay, I'll be right there!"

"Did your alarm not go off?"

"I said I'll be right there!"

There's a silence from the other side, then you hear your mom moving off. You roll onto your back and blink.

Then you jump up with a yelp and bat at your face. Something like a spider web is draped across it, and you have the momentary, horrible impression that a giant bug has been weaving a nest around your head. You gasp and snort and gradually catch your breath.

Slowly, it dawns on you that it's not spider webs. It's hair. Long, black, thick hair, draping to your shoulders.

And when you look down, you find that you have boobs the size of mangos, and shaped like torpedos.

You stifle another yelp. But this one is from excitement.

The mask! It worked! You turned yourself into that girl!

Then your excitement turns to terror. And I'm trapped inside my bedroom with my mom about to bust in at any moment!

Where's the book? You scramble out of bed and grab the grimoire off your desk, and with trembling hands search out the spell. There was a magic word or something that you have to say to take the mask off. Frantically you scan the first spell, and your heart sinks when you find the word. I don't know how to say that! you want to scream.

But you have to try. You grab your forehead, as the spell prescribes, form the words on your lips, and get ready to pull.

Then you pause. I put on the mask to find out who I copied, you tell yourself. I should check that first.

With trembling knees you cross to your closet door, to look at yourself in the full-length mirror that hangs on inside it. You gasp hard at the reflection that shows there.

You've turned yourself into Maria Vasquez, high school cheerleader!

Next: "Poor Boys" 

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