The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

The Graveyard

Previously: "False Faces, False Pretences" 

Your family is surprised to see you return home so soon. They're a little disconcerted, too, for you arrive just as supper is winding up, and you fall onto the pork chops and mashed potatoes with the gusto of one who hasn't eaten anything since lunch. Your dad, who seems in a mood to find fault, pointedly asks when you're going to get that haircut he already paid for.

"This weekend," you promise him. "Tomorrow." Well, you're planning on going out to buy a bunch of stuff anyway. You can squeeze a haircut in then.

And why are you home when you said you were going to be out until your curfew with friends? "Something came up," you explain between mouthfuls. "But we're getting together around eight-thirty, be out all evening." That'll be long enough, you hope, to raid the cemetery.

Upstairs you unload your backpack, not only of books and papers but of the mask and brain-band you removed before coming home, and the clothes you stole from Coach Schell's house. The latter you fold up tight and stuff behind some old board games high up on a shelf in your closet. Then you settle in with the grimoire to double-check your shopping list for tomorrow's errands.

And—what luck, it seems—one of the items you need is a hank of your own hair. You wonder what the barber will think when you collect some of your own hair from off the floor.

By seven-thirty the sun has set and you begin to get antsy. You don't want to hit the cemetery until it is totally dark, but as you visualize the job to come you realize that you should get some bags to help transport the dirt. Happily, a trip to Walmart to get some sand bags will eat up some time. You take the rest of your shopping list with you, and while you're there you score nearly half of the items you need for the upcoming spell. You hide it all under the tarp that your dad insisted you keep rolled up tight in one of the storage compartments of your truck and return home long enough to rummage a shovel from the garage and toss it into the back with everything else.

Then, even though there's still a faint wash of light in the west, you head off toward the cemetery. Though, of course, you don't tell your parents that's where you're going.

* * * * *

The Masonic Cemetery sits in a little triangle of land between Saratoga Falls, the Acheson township where you live, and the river. It isn't out in the country, exactly, but houses are few and far between in that part of the city, even though it is bounded on two sides by important thoroughfares. Naturally, there are no lights of any kind within its walls, but the piercing mercury vapor lamps from the streets cast an acrid glow over its fringes. After turning through one of the gates onto a wide gravel path, you navigate your way deep into the cemetery to get away from any kind of light. And even after you park, you carry the shovel and box of sand bags even deeper into its park-like grounds.

The tombstones march along in neat rows, like tiny teeth poking from the dark gums of the earth. Here and there a larger monument—an obelisk, or a long, arch-like stone marking the presence of a family—interrupt the line. You're not particularly superstitious; nor (judging by what you're about to do) are you particularly reverential. But still you skirt the graves as you circle about in a widening spiral, trying to find a spot that isn't too far from your truck but where you will be best shielded from spying eyes.

Eventually you settle on a spot a few dozen yards from where you're parked, where a crypt and some low bushes block your view of Orlando Boulevard. You set a flashlight on a tombstone so that its feeble light spills over the grassy plot you've chosen.

You avoid looking at the name on the stone.

You start by cutting through the turf in a wide oval, then dig out the grass and cast it aside. Then you get down to the more serious work of lifting out shovelfuls of dry, loamy dirt. You work slowly and carefully, so as not to wear yourself out too quickly, and toss the dirt into a berm that slowly builds in mass and depth. When you've judged the pile large enough to work with, you open up the box of sand bags and start scooping the dirt into them.

After packing ten bags, you begin to wish you'd brought a set of kitchen scales so as to make sure that you're getting enough dirt—or too much dirt?—into each one.

There's only a very light wind, which is almost perfect for it keeps you cool without being annoying, and covers up the distant grumble of traffic, which might otherwise unnerve you. You quickly settle into a routine. Shovel out a largish pile of dirt; pack into bags; transport the bags to your truck; return to dig some more. You have plenty of time, and no distractions, to ponder the step that comes after this.

It's a step that needs pondering: You're supposed to set this stuff on fire.

Yes, the spell asks you to pile four hundred pounds of graveyard dirt onto a sigil, douse it all with some highly flammable chemicals, and set it a match to it.

There's no way you're going to do that at your house, let alone in your bedroom. You're going to need another location. Someplace that a fire and/or an explosion won't get a lot of attention.

Yeah. That should be easy, right?

You can only think of one place that might work: the countryside.

Suffolk Wilderness is the only place that comes to mind. It's a nature preserve that encompasses a scrubby wood and a low range of hills southeast of town, just next to the Fort Suffolk military installation. You and your friends don't often go hiking there, but you've been up and down the trails a couple of times. Maybe you could find a deserted hollow someplace, well off the beaten trail, where you could make the experiment.

And—you cheerfully think—if you put it near the border it shares with the military base, maybe any explosions you cause could be put down to military activity.

Or—it occurs to you a few minutes later—that's exactly the kind of spot that would be quickly swarming with soldiers if you did set off a blast there.

And as you carry yet a third load of bags over to your truck another problem comes to you. How long would it take, and how much backbreaking labor would it be, to lug all the stuff up and down some rough trails, which snake up and down the sides of hills, to a remote place where you could try the spell? Not to mention, what happens if you lose the place after you've hauled most or even all of the material into the middle of nowhere?

No, the Wilderness would only work if you had people to help you. Some friends. Caleb and Keith, maybe.

But you'd have to tell them what it was all about. Show them the grimoire and the mask, something you've held back from doing.

It would be so much simpler, you think with a heavy sigh, if there were another place in the country where you could try out the spell. The stupid fuck of it, you reflect, is that even though there's so much more countryside than city, it is so much harder to get to, and you don't know where to find a good spot in the middle of it.

You've moved about three hundred pounds of dirt, you figure, when you take a break and slump to the ground with your back against one of the tires. Your joints are stiff and your muscles ache, and you don't dare stop for too long. But during the pause you let your mind drift. When have you ever been out to the country?

And just by framing the question, you come up with another answer: the Bradshaw farm. Sure! Kevin Bradshaw's family has a farm in the middle of fuck-all, and every year for Halloween when you were in elementary school they hosted a hayride for Kevin's classmates.

Which was a mixed entertainment at best. The hayride itself wasn't anything to get excited about, but the party afterward was usually pretty good, for Mrs. Bradshaw made lots of good desserts.

Too bad Kevin was a bully and a bastard from an early age. The last you heard he was being homeschooled after Eastman High expelled him.

You take out your cell phone and go onto Google Maps. It takes you a few minutes with both the map and the street views to find the Bradshaws' farm. It looks like there's a road that skirts the property, and if the satellite view is to be believed it comes to a dead end near a knot of trees by a small creek that might or might not be on their property. It shouldn't be too hard to set something up there, and it would be hidden from view.

You make no decisions, but let the idea stew in the back of your mind as you return to work. You're getting cold now, and your muscles are groaning. But with gritted teeth you get the last of the sandbags packed away and stowed in the bed of your truck. You cover them over with the tarp and start the drive home. You notice that your truck handles more sluggishly with the load, and you take the turns very carefully. You'd dearly love to stop off at a convenience store for a cola and a candy bar, but the time is getting close up to your curfew, so you drive straight back home.

On the way you come up with another possible place to chance the spell: the basement of the old elementary school a few blocks away from your house. True, it's public property, and an enclosed space—probably the worst place for a fire. But it's close by.

And the last time you checked, you had a key to it.

Next: "The Warlock's Lair" 

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