The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

The Ally of My Ally

Previously: "Friends and Anti-Friends" 

Oh God! Oh Jesus! It was a fake that you were shopping with this afternoon? It was a fake you were this close to spilling out all your secrets and insecurities to?

Michelle isn't Michelle? She's one of those robot things that you make with a mask? You gape at her.

She looks back blankly at you. Well, maybe not entirely blankly. There's a glint of faint curiosity in her eye. But she doesn't look much interested in you or in what Chelsea has said. Mostly she looks tired.

"How long?" you ask Chelsea when you find your breath and your voice again. "How long has, um, Michelle been—" You gulp, and wave your hand in front of your face.

"Oh, a couple of days now, I guess," Chelsea says. Her tone is careless.

"Including last night?" you gasp, and go cold all over when Chelsea nods. It comes back vividly, that talk you and Michelle had in the kitchen: Michelle cradling you, and comforting you, and telling you that you've nothing to be afraid of and that you've got to live your life without being afraid that it will end suddenly. Such sweet, warm wisdom ... and all coming from a fake who is under Chelsea's control!

Your stomach turns over.

"Now, you girls were hanging out together," Chelsea continues, and you flinch as she grasps your wrist and fake-Michelle's both. "What were you doing?"

"We were at Le Metropolitain," Michelle instantly replies, "talking about friends."

"Yes?" Chelsea says. Her eyes glint. "Who?"

"James Randolph and Tanya Firth."

Chelsea frowns. "I don't know them."

"No reason you should," Michelle says with cool indifference. "He's a sophomore, she's a junior. They're sleeping together."

"Sleeping together?" you squeal.

"Casually. I guess it's a casual thing," Michelle continues. She turns to Chelsea, even though Chelsea hasn't said anything. "They do it at her place a couple of times a week, on account of her parents have work. She says he's pretty good in the sack, even though he was a virgin when they first—"

"Alright, I'm not that interested," Chelsea says.

"You told me you wanted me to tell you everything—"

"Until I tell you to stop, and now I'm telling you to stop." Chelsea turns to you with a giggle. "Isn't it amazing? I'm so glad you showed me how to—"

"Why did you do this to Michelle, of all people?" you shriek. "And why are you telling me about this?"

"So we can coordinate through her. Dur!" Chelsea rolls her eyes. "I'm not really friends with this girl you're pretending to be, you know." She tweaks the front of your blouse. "I probably wouldn't be, either. She seems a little neurotic, tee-bee-aitch. You could stand to dial it back a little, Will, when it's just us. Anyway," she continues as you goggle back at her, speechless, "anything you have to talk about to me, you can pass on through Michelle here."

"Is that why you—? Her?" Again, you wave your hand in front of your face.

"Sure. Well, kind of. Mostly? Don't worry about it, Will. You knew it was going to be someone, right? This way it just works out perfectly."

And as you grasp at some kind of reply, she looks between you and Michelle, then tweaks your blouse again. "Michelle doesn't really know you, she tells me," she says. "Not the real you, I mean, Will. But maybe you could make some introductions, and she could get to know you, and then maybe you and her could work together to figure out your girlfriend situation?"

You gulp, and to your own surprise find yourself nodding.

"That's great!" Chelsea says. "So, I think that's all we have to talk about. Unless you've got some other news already you want to share?" Her eyebrows go up, and her gaze turns twinkly.

"No. No, I think that's all." Your knees start to shake.

"Okay then!" Chelsea coils up the hose. "I have to talk to Michelle now. If you think of anything or need anything, text or call her from now on." She dimples at you. "You'll get along great. I'll make sure that Michelle will like Will Prescott and want to help him. If she doesn't, let me know."

At least you make it home without vomiting inside the car.

* * * * *

It makes a grotesque kind of sense, you decide, when you're back in your bedroom, huddled up on the bed. You were pretty sure that Chelsea was going to use that mask and that goop on another cheerleader—probably Lin or Yumi or some other girl who was always causing trouble for her. Michelle, you know from Alexis's memories, doesn't make trouble for Chelsea, but she could be useful as a spy. And as Chelsea herself pointed out, she's a convenient conduit for passing messages along between yourself and her.

But as the afternoon wears on, you feel yourself growing even sicker as you think about what Chelsea has done—and may be planning to do. You try telling yourself that you knew what you were getting in to when you agreed to help her, and that you don't owe Michelle anything, that you owe her no more than you owe Alexis. But that leaves you feeling even more wracked with guilt, especially when you think about this morning, and how you tried—but then gave up on—talking Chelsea into using the masks to help Alexis.

An hour of gut-wrenching indecision passes before you stumble over to the mirror to address the girl inside it.

"Alexis Krystal Lachance," you tell her, and she looks as ill with fear as you feel, "you better be grateful for what I'm going to try to do."

But even though you are her, you can't tell how she'll react.

* * * * *

And for that reason, it seems better to go the long way around instead of attacking things directly.

So you text the fake Michelle: I got a problem needs your help.

And the fake Michelle is at least as helpful as the real one, and twenty minutes later she is waiting at the old Acheson elementary school as you pull up. "So what's up?" she asks. It might be your imagination, but she looks a little colder, and her tone is more distant, than it was last night. "If it's about that talk we had with Chelsea," she starts to say.

"What about it?"

She jerks her shoulders in a half-hearted shrug. "I just do what I'm told," she says as she looks past you, "and Chelsea wants me to help you out, whoever you are. So, you know."

Your heart beats in your throat. "Well, what if I wanted to help you out?"

"Like how?"

"Come on." You gesture her to the basement door. Your own doppelganger had looked you up and down greedily when you stopped by your old house to get the key, and had groaned audibly when you told him not to follow you over. "Do you know this place?" you ask as you fumble the lock off the door. "I forgot you live just down the street from here."

"No. I only moved here a few months ago, remember?"

"Well, it used to be a school. There's a community center in the old cafeteria." You're very conscious that you're prattling, but you're nervous, and it's what Alexis does when she's nervous. "I— I mean—" Names and identities are suddenly difficult. "Yeah, I guess I'm the one who kind of broke into here," you stammer as you lead Michelle down the stairs and into the cluttered basement. Dust dances thickly in the light beams that pierce the gloom, and your breath becomes choked. This can't be good for my lungs, Alexis whispers in your ear. "I mean, the real me is the one who— Not Alexis, the guy who's—"

"Yeah, I get it. What do you want to show me about this place?" Michelle looks around with an expression of vague curiosity.

"Actually, I wanted— Look, I need you to lay out on this table here. Or that one." You flap your hands and wish you could be more decisive. "Um, you don't have to get undressed or anything."

Michelle raises an eyebrow. "Look, what's your name, Chelsea told me to help you, but she didn't say anything about getting kinky with you."

"I'm not—!" You choke as a blush rushes up your cheeks. "This is to help you! You don't like being Chelsea's slave or like that, do you? Well, do you?" you repeat when Michelle says nothing.

"No, I don't like it," she says, and she rubs her arm. "But I just have a feeling I shouldn't—"

"Just lay on the table," you say. "You can do that much, right?" Michelle gets a very pinched look, but perches on the old conference table. "Now you have to lay back."

"I'll tell you this," she says, "if you put your hands up my blouse—"

"I just need to touch your face. It'll be alright, you'll see." Michelle glares up warily as you grasp her brow. "This won't hurt a bit."

"Hurt?" she says.

And that's all she has time to say before you rip her face off.

At least, it feels like you've ripped her face off. It's still there afterward. But now you've got a mask in your hand. You tremble all over as you turn it over and see Michelle's name blazing in blue letters on its inner surface.

You lay it aside and clasp your head between your hands. "Okay," you mutter to yourself, "now how the hell am I going to explain all this to her when she wakes up?"

Next: "A Story for Michelle" 

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