The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

Your Friend, Who Is More Responsible Than You

Previously: "The Graveyard Thief" 

The lights are off in your house, but you sneak in anyway. You're halfway across the living room when a lamp snaps on. You stifle a shriek.

"Just because you got home an hour early last night doesn't mean you get to come home an hour late tonight," your dad says with deadly calm. Then, before you can put your tongue in gear, he sniffs the air. "What's that smell?"

You took Caleb's mask off before coming in, thank God, but you're still in his old clothes, which now have sweat, grime, and cemetery dirt caked inside them along with the ghosts of whatever horrible things were floating in the river the other night.

"That's why I'm late," you blurt out. "I was about to come home, but some guys caught me and threw me in the river."

"You were at the river?" he asks in a sharp voice.

Oof. "The river" means "girls" and "beer" and "drugs" and "worse" to you, and as your dad is a Saratoga Falls native it probably means the same to him.

"Sure. We had a late cookout." You sniff at your sleeve, and gag. "You can still smell the smoke, underneath the, uh, other smells."

Your dad makes a face. "Okay, just get out of those things, get a shower, and get to bed. And dump those things in the garage. We'll wash them before we give them back to Caleb."

Again, you wonder that your dad is sharp enough to recognize and remember where you got the clothes you're wearing. You'll have to remember that the next time you try fooling him with one of your hare-brained schemes.

* * * * *

You forgot you had church on Sunday, and all through the tedious services you're irritated with yourself for not doing more spell work last night when you had the chance. It's almost two-thirty in the afternoon before you are able to get back to the elementary school to pick up where you left off.

At least you're able to do some sustained work. You bring some kitchen scales with you, and a pencil and notebook—

—which makes you wonder if some of Caleb's personality has begun to wear off on you, for by bringing the latter to record the precise weights of each bag of dirt before you empty it onto the floor you are being far more diligent than you are prone to. Usually you have the patience of a rabbit when doing these things.

When you're done you have measured out just a little more than four hundred pounds of the stuff. Four hundred pounds and twelve ounces, to be precise. (You check the numbers a second time.) You would scoop out the twelve ounces, but you figure it's best that you give yourself a margin of safety.

Next come the rest of the ingredients: fuels and powders, mostly, but also a hank of your own hair, which you scissor off with some shears you brought along for that purpose. This last bit you tuck into the earth, so that it won't blow away accidentally. Then you light a match and—

Shit. You blow it out. All this stuff is supposed to be set on the sigil that's in the book. You glance between the book, which is resting open on the table by your hip, and the pile of dirt.

Well, you're not going to move that whole pile just to get the book underneath it. Nor are you going to take a chance on blowing up the book by putting it under a pile of dirt that's basically been soaked in rocket fuel. You chew your lip.

With a shrug you return home, taking the book with you, and prop yourself up in your bedroom to copy the sigil into a drawing pad that you have left over from that spectacularly unsuccessful art class that you took a few years back.

As you work—and it's much easier than you'd supposed it would be; the complex figures and curves seem to flow out of your pencil onto the page—you call Caleb. "So I talked to some people about Friday night," you tell him.

"Gee, thanks," he says in a very bitter tone.

"Look, I'm sorry. But they're all pretty sure they saw you at those parties."

"I know," he says. "I talked to some people too."

"Did they call you, or did you go looking for them?"

"I texted around." His voice tightens. "I told them I was in a bad mood that night."

"What were you in a bad mood about?"

He flares. "I wasn't in a—! Look, never mind, man. I don't want to talk about it any more."

"Want me to tell Keith to lay off you?"

There's a pause. "What's he laying onto me with? The fuck are you talking about?"

"Nothing, yet. But you know Tilley. Dumbass'll open his mouth and say the wrong thing to the wrong person."

"Well, for God's sake don't give him any ideas about saying anything! Just let it all, uh, you know. Go away."

Is it going to go away? you think gleefully to yourself. Is it going to stop?

"If I can just get through tomorrow without anyone killing me I'll be okay," Caleb continues. "I don't think anyone'll kill me. I wasn't much more than a— I mean, it doesn't sound like I was more than just a jerk." His breathing sounds in your ear. "I already texted an apology to Stephanie Wyatt."

The phone slips from your ear as you jump in surprise.

Caleb is taking responsibility for something that you did while pretending to be him? Part of you feels a little guilty; mostly you feel astonished glee at the opportunities for mischief this opens up.

"—which was pretty decent of her, I guess," Caleb is saying when you get the phone wedged back next to your ear.

"Well, whatever," you say. "How are you explaining it to people?"

You didn't mean anything by the question. You were just wondering how Caleb was squaring his knowledge of his innocence with the guilt that everyone else was assuming. But the question seems to cut Caleb the wrong way. It's a moment before he replies, and there's a very sharp edge to his tone.

"I'm not explaining anything, Prescott. I'm just dealing with it and taking responsibility. I don't know what the fuck is going on—" His voice rises as you try to interrupt him. "And I'm just glad the weekend and all this shit is done!" He hangs up.

The weekend is done, you think to yourself, but that doesn't mean your troubles aren't just beginning!

* * * * *

Actually, you have no firm intention to keep screwing with your best friend. Deep down, you're pretty sure you've gone far enough and maybe just a little bit too far.

Besides, you've got this job to finish up.

After completely copying the sigil, and checking to make sure that it's scrupulously accurate, you return to the school and carefully scoop out a trench in the berm of earth you've constructed. There is no way you can pile all the earth within the confines of the sigil, but you're pretty sure the book understands that, so you just lay the copied sigil on the floor and pile over it the dirt you'd removed. You're still shy about lighting the stuff up, though, so instead of flinging a match at it, you puzzle over ways of getting it lit remotely. The only solution you can come up with is some kind of cord.

You don't know anything about such stuff, but you know someone who does.

So you crawl back into the mask and mind of your best friend.

* * * * *

One of the benefits to having a large military base like Fort Suffolk nearby is that the city gets to have a couple of kick-ass military supply stores. Black Falls Military Surplus is right across the street from your dad's work and, still wearing Caleb's mask, that's where you go.

You catch the clerk—a tall, paunchy man with a dome-like crown shaved as smooth as a bowling ball, and a beard down to his breastbone—eyeing you closely as you set down the smallest reel of fuse cord you could find. "Playing with fireworks?" he asks in a deep, gruff tone as he looks the box over.

"Rockets," you reply.

"Really," he says. "Big ones?"

"No, just models."

"You don't need this stuff if you're setting off model rockets."

"No, but it's more fun and dramatic this way. Besides, I've got my little cousins to watch out for, and I want them to learn to be really careful."

That last lie seems to you like too desperate an improvisation to sell, but it seems to make all the difference to the clerk, for he rings it up. You're whistling under your breath as you saunter out—

—and slam directly into three of your least favorite people in the world.

Joshua Call is an acne-scarred dropout-to-be with short, dark hair that shines like an oil slick, and eyes that are empty of pity or humanity. Jeff Spencer, who is prematurely balding despite being less than nineteen years old, has the bestial stare of one who is more intelligent than an ape, but less intelligent than a man. Lester Pozniak, of course, is the hulking, pink-skinned soccer goalie that you and your friends know as "The Molester."

"Hey guys," you honk out as confidently as you can. Don't show fear don't show fear don't show fear, you chide yourself as a sudden gush of sweat breaks out all over your body.

The Molester's laugh is like a gurgle. "The fuck are you here for, Johansson?" he asks.

"Picking up supplies for a school project."

"Lemme see." He grabs your bag from you and pulls the box from it. "Hey lookit this!" he chortles.

Call grabs it from him. "Sweet, I got a use for this."

"They got lots more inside," you tell him.

"I got this one, and I'm outside," he says. He lifts his chin, and his eyes shine.

* * * * *

Well, things could have gone badly, but the clerk was watching, and he steps out a second later, and your purchase is returned to you. But now you have more possible victims of mischief in mind.

Next: "The Burning Issues of the Day" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 3)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)"