This choice: Put Chelsea off, and go find Caleb • Go Back...Chapter #6Caleb's Confession by: Seuzz   Your brain feels like it's about to melt.
"Yeah, um, here's the thing," you stammer. "I wasn't the only one messing around with that book. I was working with Caleb—" Chelsea frowns. "Caleb Johansson, you know?"
"I know who he is," she says impatiently.
"Well, I was playing around with it with him, and I think he understands it all better than me." Your brain feels feverish, and the world seems to tilt.
"So should I call him, have him come out here too?" Chelsea puts her hand to her pocket.
"How about I go find him and talk to him," you hastily say. "If he knows what's going on, I won't have to bring him out here then." You just want to get away from the school, but illogically the thought forms that if Caleb doesn't come over you won't have to "share" Chelsea with him. "Maybe I should take the— um, the—" You point at the book.
Chelsea's eyes narrow suspiciously, and you quickly backpedal. "I'll go find Caleb," you repeat. "I'll call back in an hour. Or come back over. Or we'll come back over." You take a step backward, and stumble. And then, before you quite realize it, you're fleeing the storage loft and running down the steps and out the gym and into the parking lot.
* * * * *
Caleb turns pale almost as soon as he's opened the front door to his house. "What's wrong?" he blurts out.
Probably you do look half out of your mind. You nearly had three wrecks on the way out to his house as you kept thinking of Chelsea—and of Gordon—and of that scene of horror back at the school. "What the fuck did you get up to with that book?" you gasp out.
His eyes pop, and he darts a quick look back over his shoulder. "Shut up!" he hisses, then steps out onto the front step with you and closes the door behind him. "Keep your voice down. What are you babbling about?"
"That book. That goddamned book! You know, the one I sold to you! What were you doing with it?"
His Adam's apple bobs up and down. "Why? What makes you think I—"
"I just got back from the school, man! Chelsea Cooper called me out there. Chelsea Cooper!" You grab the front of his shirt. "She called me out there because her boyfriend used it to do something to himself!"
Caleb pulls your hand off his shirt. "Not my fault," he says. His eyes narrow. "And what do you mean, what did he do to himself? And are you sure it was Gordon?" His eyebrows twitch. "Are you sure it was Chelsea you met with?"
"What the fuck, man? I think I know Chelsea Cooper when I see her! How did she get that book from you? Did you give it to her?"
"Well, not intentionally," he says. "I mean, I gave it to Gordon, but it was more like he took it away from me."
You let out your breath. Gordon Black, triple-alpha bully, is just the sort to take things from people. "Okay, but why is Chelsea Cooper calling me about the book instead of you? Did she call you?" Caleb shakes his head. "Then why did she call me?"
"I dunno, man." He puts his hand on the door handle. "Maybe we should both go back out there and take a look at things."
But you grab him. "Hang on! The last time we talked about it all, you had me try some screwy thing, said it would make a copy of my mind." You tighten your grip on his shirt. "What does that book do?"
"What I told you last time. What did it do to Gordon?"
"You tell me. Tell me all the things that Gordon might have done to himself, and I'll tell you which one it was!"
Caleb pries at your fingers. "Okay, look, man, that book can do a lot of things. I'll tell you, but I don't want you freaking out."
"No promises."
"Then let's put a couple of feet of space between us." He sticks his head back into the house and shouts to his mom that he's going out for a bit.
"Okay, what I told you was the truth," he says after the two of you have moved back into the front yard. "I used that spell to make a copy of your brain. But, um, it can copy more things than just the mind." The wheels in your head spin, but they refuse to engage with anything real or rational. "They can also copy people. You know, physically." He makes a circle in the air with his fingertips. "It's like, you put this magical mask onto people, and it sucks up a copy of them, like uploading their form onto a thumb drive. And then, if you put the mask on, you can turn yourself into a copy of them. You'll look and sound just like them. And if you've got a copy of their mind, you can act just like them, too." He shrugs. "It makes, like, a perfect disguise."
You blink hard, and your breath comes in gulps. But you can say nothing.
Caleb shifts on his feet. "You say Gordon did something to himself. Did he turn himself into someone else? Did he, I dunno, maybe turn himself into Chelsea?"
All of your insides wobble. Is he saying that maybe that wasn't Chelsea you met with, that maybe that was Gordon disguised as Chelsea? You blink furiously. Except there was that statue, and Chelsea said that that was Gordon. You clutch your temples. "Is that all?" you mumble.
Caleb guffaws. "What do you mean, is that all? Isn't that enough?"
"I mean, are there any other spells?"
"Well, yeah, I guess. I only got through the first few."
"Were there any that turned people into statues?" A thought seizes you. "When you copy someone, what happens to the person you copied? I mean, does it do anything to them?"
"No. You put this mask on them and it knocks them out so they're unconscious while they're—"
The deduction forms so fast you don't even have time to hear it in your head. You leap at your best friend to grasp him by the throat.
"You copied me, you cocksucker!" you scream. "You copied me that night!"
"Jesus, Will!" he croaks as he fights you off. "Yes, okay, I confess! I made a total, full-body copy of you the other night! I wanted to make sure that it worked!"
The deductions are still coming to you. "Oh, Jesus! Tthen you went around disguised as me, didn't you? You ran into Gordon, and he took the book from you, but you were looking like me! That's how come Chelsea thought I had something to do with the book!"
Caleb hangs his head. "Yeah. I didn't think it would get back to you, though, what I'd done. I figured Gordon would just hang onto the book and—" He catches himself. "What's this about statues? What did Gordon do to himself?"
"He turned himself into a statue. Ring any bells?" Caleb shakes his head. "Well, that's what he did. Or, that's what Chelsea said what he did. I didn't understand what she was going on about because— Well, anyway, he's at the school, up in that loft of theirs, all six-and-a-half feet of him, a totally life-size, totally realistic statue of himself."
"Can he move?" Caleb asks. You shake your head. "Well, that's a relief. I guess."
"So what are we gonna do?"
"What did you tell Chelsea?"
"I told her that you had something to do with it all. And then I ran off to come find you. She's expecting me back, though."
"Then I guess we better go back out there, see what we can do."
You hesitate. None of this should have anything to do with you. It's all Caleb's fault. He's the one who did it all. Maybe not directly, but—
Caleb's eyebrows go up. "Well?" he asks.
Maybe you should just let him go up to the school alone. You got rid of the book because you wanted nothing to do with it. But Chelsea had made a promise—a very inviting promise, it sounded like. You shoot a narrow glance at Caleb. She'd make the same promise to Caleb, probably. Maybe you should go out too, and pretend you were part of it from the beginning.  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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