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A high school student finds a grimoire that shows how to make magical disguises. |
Previously: "The Professor Has Visitors"  "Jesus, isn't it supposed to be hot or something?" Keith whines as he slaps at his forearm. "Isn't it supposed to be hot or humid or some fucking thing if you've got this many bugs out?" You sympathize. You have a lot of welts on your own arms and neck, and you are sure you'll have more when you go home. The kind and number that go with hot summer weather. But it's a cool day, a partly cloudy day. Last week and the week before were warm, with temperatures in the eighties with high humidity. But a cold front or something must have gone through, because it isn't even seventy today, and there's a chill off the water. Russian Lake isn't another Lake Michigan or anything like that, but it is big enough that on a hazy day you can't make out the other side. But today the air is bright and clear and cool, with a tinge of autumn, so that even the naked eye can pick out distinct clumps of trees on the other side of the water. A few motor boats are out, bumping and bobbing across the lake, and you wish you were on one of them. It would be harder for the bugs to keep up with you. "Quit your bitching, Tilley," Caleb says. "Bitching won't make it any more fun." "Makes it more fun for me," Keith retorts. "Whose fucking idea was it to even come out here?" That would be Caleb, but you seconded it last night, and even Keith had gone along without protest. And so you had picked Caleb up in your truck at around eleven, then driven out to Don's Donuts to pick up Keith as he was getting off work. You hit a McDonald's on the way out of town, so you'd have some lunch out at the lake, but you'd eaten it all by the time you arrived. Which left you with nothing to do. You and Caleb are in swim trunks and flip-flops, but you're in your t-shirts still as well, and Keith hasn't even bothered to change out of his work pants. It is simply too cool for a swim, as you all decided after walking into the water up to your knees. At least you're not the only people who had the bad idea to come out to the lake too late in the season. The Russian Lake Recreational District (to give it its proper name) is a popular local destination, and though the kiosks and gazebos, and the picnic tables and the barbecue pits, that are strung out along the stony strand are mostly abandoned, there are at least a dozen families or other social groups scattered about them. Most of these look like they came out under the same misapprehension as you, being dressed for a swim, and some of the men—middle-aged dads with hairy, bowling-ball guts—are stubbornly shirtless even as they stand glaring on the edge of the water. But most everyone else, even the children scampering up and down the strand, are wearing t-shirts at least. Some are even in long pants. "Well, shit," you say, breaking the sullen silence that has descended between your two friends. "Do you want to go someplace, do something else? Or do you want to— I dunno." You point to a nearby barbecue pit. "Go into town and get something to cook?" "You gonna pay for it?" Caleb snaps. "The reason I wanted to come out here was because it doesn't cost anything." "And we already ate," Keith says. "So we hang out until we're hungry again?" Keith groans. "And what do we do until then?" You make a face, but not at him. At a family a short distance off, wallowing in some deep-bottomed canvas fishing chairs, their faces bent over their phones. You understand the temptation to get on your phone when there's nothing to do—your palm even now is itching to wrap itself around your phone—but it seems a waste. Why come out to the lake to look at your phone when you can do it in the air-conditioned comfort of a coffee shop or some other hangout? You slap at a fat, fuzzy mosquito that has settled on your shoulder. No bugs in such places either. "Alright, this was a mistake," Caleb finally says with a sigh. "Where do we want to go?" You're still arguing over possibilities—mostly the same ones you wrangled over last night—when gravel crunches nearby. You scowl at the SUV that has pulled up next to you, for it seems rude to park right where you and your friends are standing, when they've got the whole rest of the strand to park at. But then its rear door pops open, and a grinning, red-headed girl jumps out. "Oh my God, Will! Guys!" Cassie Harper gushes, and she scampers over to join you without even bothering to slam her door shut. "I can't believe we ran into you out here! I didn't know you were going to be here! Did you know I was coming out? I don't think I posted anything about it, I'm here with my mom and dad"—you glance past her as a middle-aged man and woman clamber more slowly from the front of the SUV—"so I wouldn't have posted it on my tack-board, but sometimes I do things and forget I did. Did you post that you were going to be out here?" She looks from you to Caleb to Keith with a bright grin. Cassie Harper is a girl you know from school, and have hung out with occasionally. (In fact, you have probably hung out with her more than with most girls.) She is a short, petite, narrow-shouldered girl with bright green eyes, freckles, a tangle of red hair that hangs past her shoulders, and a grin that is always cheerful and sometimes demented. She is also a world-champion chatterbox. Right now, for instance, without waiting for a reply from any of you, she wheels toward her dad, who is approaching. "Dad!" she calls, as though he were ninety feet away rather than nine, "these are my friends from school! Well, some of them! This is Will, and Caleb, and Keith! Have you met them? I don't remember." "Sure," her dad says, putting out his hand. He's short like his daughter, with a roly-poly frame and salt-and-pepper hair that is shaved close to his crown, with a close-shaved beard to match. His handshake, you find, is firm and warm. "How are you guys?" "Fine," you say, for lack of anything better. "So my dad said this morning, how about we go out to the lake before it gets too cold," Cassie says, "because, you know, fall and winter are coming up, and then it'll be next year before we can get back out. I guess you guys had the same idea? Wow, you know what they say about great minds and all that!" She turns her flashing grin on you. "Was it your idea, Will?" "It was all of ours," you reply. "You boys bring anything to cook?" her dad asks. He glances behind at his wife, a small, dark-haired woman whose face is mostly hidden by giant sunglasses. She is pulling a paper grocery bag and two plastic sacks from the back seat. "I was guessing it would be too cold to swim, but warm enough for a cookout. Here, Beverly," he says, and steps back to help her. She murmurs something about got it but lets him take the grocery sack. "We brought enough for a small army," he continues, "but it might be enough to dull a teenage boy's hunger pangs." He winks. Well, it would seem rude to decline. So after a quick, silent consultation with your friends, you accept his hospitable offer. * * * * * The group chemistry goes kind of weird after that. To be polite, you help Cassie's folks unload the food, and you help her dad—as best you can—with the coals in the grill. Cassie helps too, by chattering out questions and suggestions to which no one pays any attention, while Mrs. Harper lays out raw hamburger patties and sausages, and vegetables and condiments, on the nearby work table. Caleb and Keith, perhaps sensing that six would be even more of a crowd than four around the grill, stand off a dozen yards by the shore of the lake, hands in pockets, talking to each other in low voices. You shoot them the occasional envious glance while politely listening to Cassie. At least you don't have to worry about holding up your end of the conversation. Cassie is doing that all by herself. "So is Caleb seeing anybody? Going out with anybody?" she asks as her dad sets the burger patties over the flames. "I know lots of girls who think he's cute. I mean, he's not jacked or anything"—she blushes and grins at her father, who hasn't shown any reaction to what she's said—"but he's really smart and that counts for a lot. Do you know anyone who's told you he's cute?" "Uh, no, not really." "I guess that's because he's your friend and they're afraid you'll say something to him. Except that doesn't make sense, does it? If they wanted him to know they think he's cute, they'd tell you, right, so you'd say something to him? God, maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. Except my friend Gwen— You remember Gwen, we had that programming class together last year? No, it was our sophomore year. God, was that a disaster! I remember I had to ask Paul Donovan to help me—" And so on ... "You should totally ask Cassie out, dude," Keith says when you go over to tell him and Caleb the burgers are almost ready. He leans way back and stretches his leg to kick you lightly in the side of the hip. "You do that, Will," says Caleb, "and I'll never talk to you again. I'll never get a chance to." "Cassie's sweet," Keith says. "Then why don't you ask her out," Caleb retorts. Keith shrugs, and looks away. You're not keen on asking Cassie out, for lots of reasons. But you have no girl in your life at the moment, not even as a buddy. But if that's all you want, is a girl as a buddy, maybe you could set her up with Keith. Next: "The Possibility of Cassie" |
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