The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

The Sequel to Cindy's Story

Previously: "Cindy's Story" 

This is really freaky, and a big part of you thinks that you should back away and leave it alone.

But a bigger part of you—the part that has been slowly engorging—is just dying for an excuse to hang out with Cindy.

"Look, I don't know what this stuff is," you tell her. "I bought the book and I looked through it and— Well, I was just kind of confused by it. Like, I couldn't get the pages to turn. So I showed it to my dad, and we just thought it was a trick book. Like, there was a hidden compartment or something in it. And then I took it to school and showed it to Carson Ioeger, and he, um—"

You redden. "What did Jenny tell you about the, uh, prank he was trying to ..." You trail off.

"Nothing. Just that—" She catches herself. "Do you think Carson could help out?"

You're sure he could, but the thought of Carson Ioeger and his friend James getting mixed up in magical shenanigans makes you feel urpy. "He doesn't know any more about it than I do," you tell her.

"He's smart."

You ignore the implied insult. "At science. This is magic." You tap the design on the open spell. "Right?"

But talk of Carson has reminded you of Jenny, and you look around for her. But Cindy tells you that she told Jenny to skip the meeting, that she wanted to talk to you alone.

That's what settles it for you. You don't care how weird or dangerous the book is. If Cindy was willing to meet with you alone to talk about it, she'll be willing to work with you on it and the stuff that it makes.

* * * * *

You spend almost three hours with Cindy at the Cave, translating and retranslating the Latin through a variety of online websites. The first two pages are full of promises and warning, particularly about misusing the knowledge that it imparts and acting out of pride, folly and perversity with the things that it makes. It also cautions that only those skilled in "alchemical geometry" should try its spells, and warns that various "locks" have been placed upon it.

Among those locks, you deem, is the weird way that the book's pages won't turn unless you perform certain actions. For instance, the title page wouldn't turn until Cindy gave it some of her blood (and you still can't believe she sliced her thumb open and pressed a bloody print to the facign pages), and that one sentence telling you to give it blood didn't appear until you bought the book.

As for the mask ...

The book calls it a receptaculum, and says it must filled with an imago and sealed, whereupon it will become a persona. And what are these things?

"Receptaculum," Cindy theorizes, is like receptacle, and "imago" is image. As for a persona, the nearest thing you can figure is that it means something like "personality." But the pieces don't fit together.

Since Arnholm's is next door, you take it over there to show to the brothers, to see what they can tell you.

* * * * *

Ted Arnholm instantly recognizes and remembers you, and he glowers sourly at the book when you show it to him. He is reluctant to answer your questions, but relents far enough to call his brother over, and Tom, after mulling it over, declares that it must have come from the "Blackwell acquisition."

"Professor up at the college," he says, "sent a work-study student in with a batch of books to sell. I'm pretty sure this was one of them. Hell, I am sure it's one of them." He tries pulling at the pages. "Fired the moron who paid over good money for it." He also gives you the name of the professor: Aubrey Blackwell. "You wanna talk to him, if you want to know anything about it." He scowls at the spell with its mysterious sigil. "There's nothin' here I'm interested in," he declares.

You and Cindy talk a little more, then decide that you want to find out a little more about the book on your own before going to see that professor. She has to get home, though, for her whole family is going out for dinner and she has to get ready, but she agrees to meet up with you again tomorrow after church.

All of which leaves you a little stuck for an answer when Jenny texts you to ask how things went. In fact, she was so eager for news that she sent the text while you were still with Cindy, but you ignored it until you got home.

Fine, you reply. Shes interested in that book n wants to know abt it. You hesitate, then add, Meeting w her tmorw to talk some more abt it.

Jenny must have been away from her phone, for it's an hour before she replies. !!!!??!! she says, followed by, Just be careful w seth.

You hadn't forgotten about Cindy's boyfriend, but he wasn't at the forefront of your mind. Is he a jealous jock-asshole who will hassle you for hanging out with his girlfriend? Probably. Is he a jock-bully who has hassled you for shits and grins before? Definitely. Can u tell cindy to keep seeth away, you ask Jenny. it be weird if I ask her probly. Jenny assures you that she'll remind Cindy to keep Seth at a distance.

Jenny is as good as her word, you discover on Sunday afternoon, when again you meet Cindy at the Crystal Cave. She looks very nervous—almost ill—as she draws that mask out again and sets it gingerly on the table between you. "I tried it out on Jenny last night!" she hisses.

* * * * *

Jenny came over to her house last night, she tells you, to talk about you and about Seth and some other things. While there, Cindy plucked up her courage and got Jenny to put on the mask.

"It was the scariest thing!" she tells you in a horrified whisper. Her eyes, which are already big and doll-like, roll with terror in her head. "I had it out and I told Jenny it was this thing that I found, and I managed to talk her into putting it on—up to her face, you know?—and it—" Cindy gulps. "And it went into her!"

You ask what she means by that.

"I mean it went into her! It just faded away, and then Jenny fell over backward on my bed, all passed out, like someone had conked her on the head!" The coffee mug trembles in her hand as she lifts it for a clumsy sip. "And I'm all freaked out because I don't know what to do. Jenny, she won't wake up, she won't respond, she's like in a coma, and I don't know—"

Tears spring into her eyes, and she has to press the sniffles back up into her nose with two fingertips.

"I've never been so scared! Like, here I did this thing to her, and maybe I killed her, and I used magic, which makes it a million time worse!"

"What happened?" you ask in horrified tones of your own.

"Well," she says, "I guess it's a good thing I freaked out so hard I couldn't do anything—all I could do was sit next to Jenny and cry because I was so scared and didn't know what to do. And then the thing came back out. It just kind of faded onto her face again. I grabbed it up and hid it and I smacked Jenny around a little, to see if she'd wake up, and she did. So thank God it worked out!"

"Was she okay? Was Jenny—?"

"Yes. I mean, she didn't know what happened, and I kind of freaked her out too 'cos I'd been crying."

"Did you tell her what you did?"

"You mean, did I tell her about the mask? Fuck, no!" Cindy looks at you like you're crazy. "I just told her she conked out on me and scared me half to death. Anyway—" She pushes the mask across the table toward you. "I guess we now know what the thing does."

You pick the mask up. Something about the gleaming highlights catches your eye, and you turn it this way and that. You suck in a sharp breath when you recognize what you're looking at. "Do you see it too?" Cindy asks in a low moan.

It's Jenny Ashton's face. Ghostly, painted with with strokes of light, floating inside the mask like a 3D image, but it is recognizably Jenny's face. The image turns as you turn the mask, so that you can glimpse her left ear from one direction, and her right ear from the other, and when you tilt the mask to look down you can see the crown of Jenny's head and her neck and a little bit of her shoulders.

The mask has captured Jenny's image!

You swallow and ask Cindy to take out the book, and you both start when you see that an oval-shaped stain has appeared on the spell page. You exchange a look, then set the mask onto it. When you lift it again, the stain vanishes, and page flutters loose. All the color drains from Cindy's face as you turn the page, and she looks like she's going to throw up.

Next: "The Fumble" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 1)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)"