Chapter #44A Life Less Magical by: Masktrix   Saturday falls like rain. Sunday comes like thunder. Monday is over like lightning. The world ebbs and flows between night and day. It feels empty and hollow; a pale reflection on how it had been before the book and its masks stumbled into your life. Some nights, you try and remember the intricate sigils and the overly elaborate recipes. On others, you head online. AerisLives777 has blocked you.
Life in Saratoga Falls drags, seconds feeling like hours. Or it hurries, a day passing in a blink. Caleb and Keith try their best to snap you out of the spin, but you’re in freefall. The only thoughts you have are about Niamh or the book.
Grades slip, dancing around Bs and Cs.
James Lamont tries to have a serious talk, but you can’t even remember a word he says as he leaves the table. Sometimes you almost break free and stop thinking about the book, or about Niamh, or about the lives you’ve lived. Then something, big or little, stops you in your tracks and brings the memories all flooding back. Passing Shelly Nolan – the fake one – in the corridor, the ginger-haired girl laughing and giggling with Helen Kim, oblivious and disinterested at the senior walking moodily past; In film-as-lit, watching some 70s horror film set in Venice, with Donald Sutherland haunted by a dead girl as he works on sculptures in a church; a particularly greasy burger for lunch taking you back to your night as Chris, tasting a post-party Abi Steiner on your lips; A flash of a green and gold blazer, fresh from Saturday morning classes, heading into town. You can’t remember the guy’s name, but you sat with him on a bus in another life, when you were a girl convinced you knew math and unaware how gifted you were with the saxophone.
You get a D on your mid-term English paper. You don’t even remember writing it. Ms. Gladstone talks to you after class, but, as with James, her words are lost in a fog of indifference. Your mind is lost to magic, trying to understand the basic principles. The book was sequential, each spell building on the next. And each sigil incorporated different aspects of a spell. Understand the language of the sigils, the nature of magic, and you could work out the eighth page. But there were things that Niamh said that makes you wonder about the book itself. I’m just another victim of your stupid, hell-cursed book, aren’t I?; That evil fucking tome is getting the Mount Doom treatment.
“No, it’s a stupid idea.” You shake it out of your head. You don’t even know where you’re going with it.
“I think you should. What have you got to lose?” You look up. Yumi Saito is opposite you in Besandwiched, chewing on rye bread slathered in hummus and tomato. That’s right. She insisted on taking me out to lunch to talk.
“I… what were we talking about?”
Yumi frowns. “Cassie Harper. Ask her out. Put this snob out of your head. I don’t get why you went with one of Professor X’s mutants anyway, everyone knows they’re elitist jerks. If she were here, I’d kick her ass. I could drive over to Lattyville and kick her ass for you, if you want?”
“She’s in England,” you mutter. “Looking at attending Oxford.” or was it Cambridge? Are they even the different places?
Yumi whistles. “Well, good for her. Is one of their entry requirements to have a stick up your butt? It was never going to work, Will. You’re just from the wrong side of the tracks. Well, not literally, but you get what I mean. You need to snap out of this.”
“I’m good,” you say, offering a weak smile. Yumi leans in.
“No, Will. You are not good. This is an intervention. It’s been two weeks and you’re walking around like an empty shell. You think I’d buy you a sandwich for any other reason?” She’s trying to cheer you up and failing miserably. “Do you want to know how bad it's got? Cindy asked what your problem is."
"Vredenburg?" Like Yumi, Cindy is a cheerleader, though a snobbier one.
"You know another Cindy? Granted, she asked because you were harshing her vibe at our study session. Speaking of studying, have your parents grounded you yet over your grades?"
“No. Wouldn’t matter if they did.”
“Urgh!” She reaches over to your cell, resting out on the table.
“Hey! What are you—”
“Intervening, I told you.” She types a message and keeps your phone out of reach as she waits for the reply. It pings back half a minute later. “There. Tomorrow, you are taking Cassie Harper out to a nice restaurant, and I don't mean the DQ or somewhere you eat with your fingers. You know how sad she was when you took her to see that werewolf movie and never messaged her?” No, I don’t, you think. That was Shelly Nolan disguised as me. “Then, suddenly, you were all over town with this blonde fancy-ass Catholic schoolgirl. You practically broke her heart. So you’re going to put that right.”
“I really don’t feel like—”
“Too late,” Yumi says, sliding your phone over and smirking. “I’ve intervened. No such thing as a free lunch. And even if it doesn’t get you out of this funk, at least you’ll be a little less of a douchebag for the way you treated her.”
***
Cassie Harper’s fun. She talks non-stop, like a wind-up monkey with a symbol banging away about whatever thought pops into her unfiltered mind, but that sucks up all the dead energy you’d otherwise exude. It’s as if a fever has finally broken, and clouded thoughts are sharp once more.
Friday night is the first time you’ve laughed since you threw away the mask of Mariah Alloway, as you fumble small talk with each other and grab a bite to eat. On Saturday, you find yourself lingering around Thrifty Nifties, pretending you want to buy any of the random clothes on the shelves, while Cassie – clearly delighted you’ve gatecrashed the monotony of her weekend job – gives her best advice. On Sunday, you suddenly have a flash of inspiration for three separate papers that are now overdue, and polish them off in an afternoon amid a spree of cola and guzzled poptarts.
Everyone notices you’re back to normal on Monday, though only Caleb lacks the subtlety to say so outright. And by Tuesday you’re finally free of the spells that swallowed a month of your life. They feel like a distant dream and, you’re confident, eventually they will be nothing more than that. Life moves on. When, at school, you find yourself holding a door open for a gaggle of freshmen, Shelly Nolan among them, you barely register her from among the crowd.
It’s how, on Tuesday night, you’re in a booth at Partytown Donuts, a sticky mound of sugar and carbs stacked in front of you, your arm around Cassie as you talk about nothing important. It’s getting late, and you’re about to take Cassie home, when—
“Hi, Will. You’re looking good.”
You glance up from the remains of the donuts and the sugar dusting cast over the plate. Niamh Stirland is there, a bashful smile on her face. She’s as pretty as she ever was, her blonde pixie cut a little longer than before, and with make up properly done rather than her usual indifferent job. She’s wrapped up in a thick winter coat and a scarf. The Christmas lights, already up despite it still being the tail of November, glow behind her.
“Niamh,” you reply. Cassie instinctively huddles closer to you, putting your hand in hers. “How was England?”
“Wet,” she says, with a slight, weak laugh, before turning to the girl holding your hand. “Who’s this?”
“Cassie Harper,” you reply, “meet Niamh Stirland. Who, last time I checked, wanted me to stay the fuck out of her life.” Cassie says hello, all enthusiasm displaced by defensiveness and quiet jealousy. You tighten your arm around her in reassurance.
Niamh doesn’t rise to the bait. She takes a deep breath, a sad, slow, deliberate pace to the words passing her lips. “I know I said some things the last time we spoke. I was emotional. I’m sorry about that.”
“Huh.” You don’t really have anything else to say. Cassie looks like she could shoot laserbeams from her eyes and melt Niamh into a puddle.
“I’m just hoping we could talk. In private.”
“What about?” you say sulkily.
“You know what about,” she returns, fingers tugging at her sleeve. “Please. It’s important.”  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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