The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Brothers in Mischief

Previously: "Bare Moments Between Masks" 

When next you're aware of anything, it's of a blanketing chill. Vaguely, you feel yourself pawing for covers to pull more tightly over you; then, muzzily, you wonder if it's almost time to get up for the morning run. You make a face and turn over to paw for the cell phone you share with Riker.

That's when you find that you're laying on the carpet in ... your closet? You sit up on an elbow and blink stupidly. You look down, and find yourself naked. You twinge hard at that, and your legs twitch and flail.

Then a rent opens up somewhere in your head, and a whole universe of new memories explodes inside your mind.

Whoa!

You bend to put your face between you knees, and cover your head with your arms. The faces of Harrison and Martha Prescott, Caleb Johansson, Sydney McGlynn, Mr. Walberg, Lester Pozniak, and Lisa Yarborough jostle and tumble and merge with those of Victor and Heather Brown, your brothers Carter and Eric and Alec and Riker, Robyn Castle, Coach Cook, Steven Pope and Millie Martinez. Your chest tightens and you breath comes in short spurts as the sloshing, gulping flood of new and old memories, experiences, instincts and desires sorts itself out and settles, still hissing like a turbulent sea, into patterns that are at once intimately familiar and completely novel.

But when you next lift your head, you can do it without trembling. You know who you are again.

Still, your feet and legs are a little unsteady as you stumble upright. Sydney, you find is still unconscious on the lower bunk of the bed, and you twist around to bend over her and peer into her face.

It's your face.

It's the face you live with every day, the one that grins at you and sometimes glares. The face you see in the desk next to you at school, or across a line of scrimmage. The face you see in the mirror as you're getting ready to go, only there it's often doubled, though only one of the doubles follows your movements. It's a face with a small nose and deep-set eyes under a bristling pad of dark hair.

On instinct, you smack and shake the recumbent figure. By the time you realize whose instincts you're following, it's too late to step back and let Sydney wake at her own pace. The boy on the bed winces, then the dark eyes open in a squint, and Riker Simeon Brown wrinkles a puzzled nose at you.

"Hey, brah, wake up," you tell him. "Supper'll be ready in a couple, no way mom's lettin' us eat at the table with our dongles hanging out. Come on, before she sends the Ishmaelites after us." Ishmaelites is the twins' code name for Eric and Alec.

Riker sits up on an elbow. "Will?" he says in a muzzy voice.

"Yeah, it's me. How ya doon? Riker in there with you?"

He doesn't answer as you pick up the clothes that Alec left strewn all over the floor. Quickly you sort them out into piles of "his and mine," except for the underwear which, being indistinguishable between wearers, you fling with a grimace at the closet. You pull out two fresh pairs and only then turn back to stare at your silent brother.

He's giving you a level, dirty look. "'S'amatter, brah?" you ask him as you jerk the new tidy whities on.

He rubs an eye and mutters only a single word: "Show-off."

You grin as you pull on the jeans. "Aw, someone cheesed off I'm better at this than her?"

His glare deepens. "Do you really have all his ... upstairs stuff?"

"Sure. Come on." You fling the other pair of jeans at him, which he catches in the face. "Don't you wanna get downstairs, review the troops? Oh, man. Fuck," you add, savoring a word that Micah (and especially Riker) indulge at school but don't even breath aloud at home. "We're gonna be in charge, brah. That'll put a salute in your shorts. The major, the colonel, the Ishmaelites. They're gonna have to salute us." You drum your still-bare chest with the flats of your hands.

"Yeah, yeah," Riker grumbles. "I'll be more excited about it tomorrow." He sits up with a grunt. "Will, can you please act just a little less like a twelve year old?"

You suck in a hissing breath. You are twelve years old, again, and you'd forgotten how wired you could be that age. You feel as though you could step from the desk to the door in one long bound.

"Yeah, I'll try," you promise, though you don't feel very sincere. "But ... wow. Oh! Wow!" You dance on the balls of your feet. "You should be loving this as much as I am!"

"Tomorrow, Will. Can you give me the rest of, uh, my things?"

You hurl over the other pair of underwear, then on an impulse toss him the red shirt you wore to school, and pull on his blue one. Heather tries to dress the twins in consistent colors—red, cyan, and yellow for Micah; green, purple, and blue for Riker—so that their teachers and other adults can tell them apart at a distance. In practice, the boys switch up colors at least once a week, answering to each other's names and going to each other's classes. Sometimes they do it at home. On this, your first evening as Micah Brown, you should probably stick to his intended wardrobe. But you've feeling an irrepressible desire—probably Micah's—to multiply the impersonations.

As Riker slowly dresses, you slip your bare feet into a pair of soft, broken-in moccasins (the preferred footwear of all the Brown boys) and flatten yourself behind the bedroom door before tugging it open. You peep out. The hallway beyond is empty. "Field grade weather," you whisper at Riker.

"What?"

"It means the coast is clear."

"Of what?'

"Pee-oh-eye."

"What?"

"Never mind. Oh hey, that's my shirt you're putting on, and mine is yours. We're going downstairs as each other tonight."

Riker rubs the side of his head. "You're making this more difficult than it has to be, Will."

"Just having fun. But seriously, come on."

He doesn't hurry, though, and hunts about for his own moccasins as you twist impatiently on your feet. When he finally does follow, it's at a stately pace, whereas you tumble down the stairs like a bundle of sticks knotted together with rubber bands.

But the downstairs is empty, except for the kitchen, where your mother has her hands deep in a bowl of raw, pink meat. "Hey, what's for supper?" you gasp out. Your heart races as she turns toward you.

That was me, you find yourself thinking as you return her stare with a rapt one of your own. Just a little while ago. That was me all day yesterday and the day before that and the day before that. I was her and all that time I was planning and plotting with the person who's now my brother to turn all of my family into things, and now she's one of the things and I'm Micah and I'm one of the things too, except I'm actually someone else and I'm only pretending to be—

"Meatloaf, honey," the mom-thing says. (Mom-thing, it comes to you. It's a mom-thing, same as it's a dad-thing and an Eric-thing and an Alec-thing. Your heart gallops in your chest. "You boys want to set the table?"

"Yes'm." You bump into the late-arriving Riker, and haul him by the elbow over to the cabinet with the tableware. You give him a hard look as you pull down and shove half-a-dozen plates at him. He makes a face back.

You ought to be making a game of it, you and Riker always make a game of it. There's a pattern to it, the pair of you circling the table with one of you setting out plates and knives and napkins while other sets out spoons and forks and glasses. But Riker's off his game—he's not Riker yet, he's not even a Riker-thing yet—so you stumble over his heels as you jog along behind, setting the table. Then you put out butter and salt and pepper, add ice to the glasses, and make a short recon of the house and grounds to pin the locations of the other members of the family. Alec you spot in the garage, squatting on the concrete and bent over his cell phone; the major is fooling around in his work shed; Eric presumably is in his room over the garage.

In other words, the house seems to have fallen into standard procedures.

This worries you, slightly.

So when your mom sends you and Riker out to round up the rest of the family for supper, you nudge your co-conspirator, and tell everyone you want them in the living room instead.

"Okay, you all know why you're here and what we're doing, right?" you address them when the whole family is in a circle before you and Riker. You've planted your feet wide and got your hands on your hips, but you can't help feeling a little daunted by all the burly guys staring back down at you. Damn it, but they're big. "All of you, except the colonel"—you nod at your mother—"answer to Riker here." Four pairs of eyes shift to him. "Mom, when I'm not around, you answer to Riker too."

You nudge Sydney, and she says, "Oh. And the rest of you, you answer to, uh, Micah here when I'm not around."

"We're still a family, we're still the Browns, we still need to act like them," you say, "especially at church and at school." Again you nudge Sydney. "That's right," she says.

"But here, at home, when it's just us," you continue, "who do we follow and worship?"

There's a moment of electric silence. The things dart their eyes at each other.

Then Eric speaks: "We worship Baphomet."

"Baphomet," agrees Alec. "Baphomet," your parents say in unison.

Their eyes and their faces are now clear of that moment of doubt and confusion.

"That's right," you tell them. You take Riker's hand and Eric's. The others also join hands until you form a circle. "Do you have a prayer for us?" you ask your twin.

Sydney looks up at the ceiling. "Baphomet, hear us!" she cries. "Your Brotherhood awaits!"

"Amen!" you and the others say. Your mom's exclamation is particularly fervent.

Next: "The Morning Rituals" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 4)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)"