This choice: Volunteer to play Lisa to get the book back • Go Back...Chapter #45The Fate of Bad Things by: Seuzz   "I'll do it," you say, and the words feel very thick in your throat and mouth. "I started this whole mess, I should be the one to—"
"That's not a reason, Prescott," says Frank.
"He's taking responsibility," says Bredon. His manner continues insolent. "I know some people who'd think that's a pretty good reason for seeing it to the end."
You feel your face turning red, and it's no relief to see Frank also blushing slightly.
You're rescued by Carson. "Hang on," he says. "How about -- ? The Cindy who's out there, she thinks she's Cindy, right? It's not Lisa wondering why she's got Cindy's face, is she?"
"No, she'll be acting like the real girl," says Bredon.
"Then we can do it like this. I know Cindy. I'm not, like, huge friends with her, but I know her. I can call her up to invite her to coffee or something, and we can get the mask off her then, right?"
"In the middle of a coffee shop?" Frank asks. He cocks a skeptical eyebrow.
"Or in her car, or -- "
"It's a reasonable way of getting the girl herself back," says Bredon. "But how are you going to get the book?" He peers down the bridge of his nose at Carson, and there's a glint in his eye.
"Well," he says, then pauses. His eyes dart about, and the muscles in his jaw works. "Well, after we get the mask off, she's Lisa again, right? Except she's got amnesia."
"Yeah, how are you going to explain that?" Joe demands. "And her clothes. How are you going to explain how she got into Cindy's clothes?
"I don't," Carson retorts. "Explain it to her, I mean. I'll just jolly her along like nothing happened. She's not gonna say anything, she'll be too confused and embarrassed. But I'll just keep talking, so she doesn't even get a chance to ask me. And I'll tell her -- I'll pretend we've been talking about this book that's back at her house that she's supposed to give me, and I'll get her to take me back to her place, and I'll get this Libra thing out that way."
"You a good enough talker?" Rick asks.
Joe's hand shoots up. "I'll go too. I can talk."
"You mean you can't stop talking," says Frank.
Joe clutches his chest and writhes in mock pain. "Oh, I am mortally wounded! What noble blood is upon this vexatious ground spilt! Comfort me in my agonies, Prescott—" He clutches at your hand "—and remember me in thy prayers!"
* * * * *
So Joe and Carson go on this errand, much to your relief. It would be too weird being with Lisa, let alone in a mask of her.
But you still feel like you've funked a test, even though it was the others who basically stopped you from acting on your offer. So you're eager to help out however you can, and say so.
"I have to take deal with the Great and Powerful Oz out there," Rick says as he leads you and Frank downstairs. You'd almost forgotten that Blackwell is still sitting handcuffed in the back of Bredon's sedan. "You two can move the girl's car back to her place."
So you take Frank in yours back to the house he and Joe share to pick up Lisa's car. Naturally, you talk on the way. Probably you shouldn't pry, but Frank is rather quiet otherwise, and you've nothing else to ask but the dangerous and the obvious questions. Like: "What are you going to do with the Libra when you get it?"
"Study it for ways to put Cindy and that teacher back to the way they were," he says. "That might take an afternoon. or it might take longer."
"And after that?" You feel rather than hear the quaver in your voice. Will Frank admit the kind of plans that he and his friends might have for it?
He looks over at you, then looks away at the passing scenery -- open fields by the river with the occasional house. "Put it where people can't get to it and make mischief with it."
"Why not destroy it?"
"Why didn't you destroy it?" he retorts. "When you had it. Instead of trying to bury it in a time capsule."
"I don't know," you admit. "Maybe I thought, you know, if it's a real book of magic, you can't destroy it."
"Good instinct," Frank says. :That often turns out to be the case. And sometimes trying to destroy something like that turns loose even worse things. Like trying to burn a toxic waste dump."
"So are you guys going to put it in a box and bury it, like I was?"
"Sort of. You know what they did with the Ark of the Covenant at the end of that first Indiana Jones movie?"
"The put it in a box and put it in a big warehouse. Where it would be impossible to find."
"Right. We got a place like that. Only it's a lot more secure than any warehouse. 'Cos it's magic, like the Libra, and you can put things into it, but it's very hard to get them out."
"Oh. I guess that's a relief," you say, but Frank only grunts. "It's too bad you don't have a place like that where you can put Blackwell."
He turns toward you again. "Who says we don't?"
"You mean you do? Like a jail?"
"Sure. What did you think you were going to do with him?"
You shrug, and bite your tongue.
"You thought we were going to kill him?" Frank asks. He sounds shocked.
"I didn't know!"
"Well, we're not! Fuck!" Now he sounds hurt. "No, we've got a jail, of sorts. Only it's not really a jail. It's more like a hospital. It keeps people like him safe and out of the way until they're cured and can come out again."
"Cured? Of what?"
"Bad thoughts."
You're not sure you like the sounds of that. "You mean like brainwashing?"
You have to look over at Frank when he doesn't reply. He's looking at you like you're the most repulsive thing he's ever seen.
"No," he says. "Nothing like brainwashing. It's just -- " He clucks his tongue and looks away.
"Okay, it's kind of like this," he says when he resumes. "Have you ever had a really bad day, one where you got pissed off at people and they got pissed off at you, and you plotted all kinds of revenge against them, and you went to bed full of plans about what you were going to do to them? And then you woke up the next morning and you'd forgotten all about it. Or if you remembered, you felt really foolish and ashamed, and instead of getting revenge you went out and did lots of nice things for those people, to make up for those evil thoughts you'd been having?"
"Uh ... No."
"No?" Frank sounds shocked. "Do you ever go to bed feeling mad at people and wanting to hurt them?"
"Sure. It's just -- Well, I guess I get what you're saying, because a lot of times I do feel better when I wake up. But I don't go around, you know, being extra gooey nice to them."
"You'd feel better if you did," he snaps. "Well, whatever. Anyway, something like that can happen with a life. A whole life. You can get yourself terribly twisted up, full of hate and fear and resentment and envy. You can do terrible things to other people. You can make yourself into a very bad person. But it's the kind of thing that a night's sleep won't cure. The knots are too tight.
"But a very long sleep can, one where you wrestle with yourself, fighting those knots, loosening and undoing them, freeing yourself from them. And when you wake up, well -- " He shrugs. "You feel very foolish about the things you did before, and you try really hard to make up for them. Mostly," he adds in a more thoughtful tone, "it's not because you feel guilty, particularly, but because you just feel deeply embarrassed.
"Anyway, we've got a kind of magical sanitarium where people can have those very long rests. Months long, sometimes years long. It's not a prison or even a hospital, because you're asleep, and you're not sick and you're not being punished. You just rest and work out all your agonies in your dreams. Anyway, that's where we're taking Blackwell."
That's a much better fate for him than you were imagining. "It sounds kind of nice," you say. "And after all this crap, I kind of feel like I'd like that kind of a rest."
"No you don't," says Frank. "It's a spooky place, and you really don't want to go there, but it's better than the alternatives, and the people really are okay when they come out of it. I've met a few of them. It's rude to talk about their time there. But you hear about what they were like before, and then you meet them, and it's an amazing change."
The conversation lapses for a couple of blocks, which is good, because the traffic has thickened as you approach downtown. "Anyway," Frank resumes when you've stopped at a light, "I want to tell you again that you did a good job. The only part of it you fucked up was giving that book to your teacher, and even then your instinct was right. You wanted to bury it, and that's basically what we're going to do. But you had your eyes open to what was going on, and you didn't totally lose your head, and you showed some real guts in places. Ioeger did too." He pauses. "We could use people like that."
Your tongue cleaves to the roof of your mouth, for this is beginning to sound like an invitation. "Is, uh, is that how you and Joe got into this business? Because you got mixed up in something, and you helped Rick out?"
He laughs, a little hollowly. "No, it's more complicated than that, at least in our case, with me and Joe and Rick. But we do have people in the business who, like you put it, got mixed up in it. I don't know what you want to do with your life, but I think we'd accept an application from you."
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