The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

If You Were Only Someone Else

Previously: "The Hands, Eyes, and Ears of Fate" 

I need ur help get Kim Walsh alone at ur house.

That's the DM you send Chelsea as you're heading out from school, and your heart is pounding as you push through the hallways toward your locker. Will Chelsea be able to arrange it? Will you be able to make the switch?

What will it be like to be another person?

That's the question that preoccupies you, and gives you the sweats all over as you change out books at your locker and make your way to your truck. So far all this stuff with the book and the masks and the spells has just been research mixed with arts-and-crafts, like a really weird woodworking project.

But now you're faced (haha! "faced", like stealing a face) with the actual magic. What you're planning to do will be literally life-altering, as in you're going to switch your life with that of another person. When you look in the mirror ... you will see someone else's face. When you look down at yourself ... it will be someone else's body. When you look at your mom and dad ... it will be someone else's mom and dad. And when other people look at you, talk to you, play with you, confide in you ... it will be because they'll think you're someone else.

Someone named Kim Walsh.

Kim is a small, slim girl with dark red hair that falls in a thick cascade of ringlets to just past her shoulders. She has dark eyes in a pale face dusted with tiny, almost invisible freckles. Her nose is regular and her mouth is small and pink. She doesn't show her teeth when she smiles, and you've never seen her smile very often because she usually intense and preoccupied. You have the impression that she works hard for good grades, and that she's got lots of extracurricular activities. She hasn't got a boyfriend, because (you have the impression) she hasn't got time for one.

She's a good girl, an overachiever.

And if you and Chelsea play it right, when you go home tonight, you will be that good, thoughtful, overachieving girl.

* * * * *

You drive around town, distracted and dizzy, while waiting for Chelsea's reply. It doesn't come for nearly another hour, and it comes with an apology: Omg so sorry boss was with kendra and gloria and totally forgot to check my dms. Can totly get Kim at my house got lots I can talk to her abt. Is she our next dubelgagger <sweat emoji><grinning emoji>

Yes, you confirm, and tell Chelsea to try setting it up so Kim is at her house around or after eight o'clock, by which time you should be sure of being clear of dinner and after-dinner clean-up at your house. You doubly and triply confirm that you have with you all the supplies and gear that you'll need.

Supper is muted. Your little brother tries getting a rise out of you a couple of times, but you shrug him off. You're too preoccupied all through dinner with the fact that this will likely be the last time that you eat with, or even see, your family for a good long time—at least, if and until you decide to make a return to being yourself. You don't know why you wouldn't do that, but it gives you a premonition of homesickness. Of course, no one else at the table has any idea of what you're anticipating, so for them it's just a normal meal.

But you were silent enough and thoughtful enough that your mother noticed. As you help her load the dishwasher and clean up the kitchen afterward, she mentions that you were very quiet at the dinner table. You try to shrug it off.

"You have something on your mind?" she asks.

"No. Well," you correct yourself, "I have to out to meet someone in a little bit." You glance at the clock: it's a little after seven. "For school."

"And you're thinking about that?"

"I guess."

"Do you need any money?"

"Huh?" The offer surprises you. "No."

"I thought if you were going out to a coffee shop or something—"

"No, I'm going over to someone's house." You hesitate. Your mom seems quite insistent on digging out what's on your mind. So you add, "I'm going over to Chelsea Cooper's house."

Your mom frowns at the name, and her gaze goes distant. You explain: "She's the head cheerleader."

"A cheerleader's house!" your mom exclaims, and looks impressed.

"Yeah, and I'm going to be totally out of place there."

"But if it's for school—"

"Yeah, it's for school, but I'm going to be totally out of place there. There's gonna be some other girls there, I'm going to be way out of my league—"

"There's no such thing as being 'out of your league', Will," she says. "Don't think that way. They're just classmates, and you're there for a school project. It's no different than being in class."

You stare at her and wonder how long it's been since she's been in high school. She must have some kind of amnesia or something, to be able to forget how snobby everything can be at school.

Or—

You flinch, but not until after you've had the thought. Though she's your mother, you still recognize that she's very pretty, and still in very decent shape. Maybe she was one of the popular kids, and thought that because everything was easy and fun for her it was easy and fun for everyone else.

But she's still looking at you, so you add, "And their boyfriends are going to be there and they're all on the basketball team." Again, you shrug. "So that's another reason I'm going to be totally out of place."

"Well," she says, "just concentrate on doing the schoolwork. And Will—" She gives you a very direct look. "Try not to hold it against them."

"Hold what against them?"

"That they're not like you. Give them a chance to be friends."

You can't keep from rolling your eyes, but you nod.

* * * * *

You don't waste time getting away after you've taken out the garbage, and by seven forty-five you're at Chelsea's house. Chelsea comes running down the stairs almost before Mrs. Cooper has a chance to let you in, and she grabs you by the hand to haul you upstairs.

"Oh God, I'm so glad you're here," she says when she has you in her bedroom. She grabs you in a hug and presses her fact into your neck.

"What's wrong?"

"Oh, nothing." She looks up at you with a dreamy kind of smile. "Only Gordon and Steve were being total dickfaces this afternoon, tried telling me to keep you out of the loft."

"You told them I've been up there?"

"Well, Gordon knows! You were up there with Chelsea when you brought him back! And Steve—"

You're so struck by the way she just referred to herself in the third person that you don't even follow the rest of what she says. Must be because I told her she's a doppelganger, you muse. She thinks of the real girl as 'Chelsea' and herself as ... Well, you don't know what that would be.

"Is Kim coming over?" you ask.

"Yes. She's supposed to be here around eight-thirty. We're supposed to talk about some Spirit Club shit. Are you mad at me?"

"No. Why would I be mad at you?"

"I dunno. Maybe because on account of the way I ghosted you in the library last period at school?"

"You had to do that. You had to be in character."

Chelsea titters. "I know. I was awful. I was even thinking like Chelsea! Who's that lame-ass and why's he gawking at me? Then you got up and left and I thought Shit, I made him mad."

"Well, I wasn't, I was just late to class."

"I still think you must be mad at me."

"How come?"

She puckers up her pillowy lips.

"Because you haven't tried to kiss me yet."

* * * * *

So you kill almost twenty minutes by holding each other tight and exploring each other's mouths. You start off standing, then move onto the bed. Chelsea almost sets off a creamy explosion in your shorts when she reaches down to fondle your burgeoning erection.

"Chelsea always used to do that to Gordon," she calls out after you've retreated to the bathroom, where you hover near the sink with your trousers down while your throbbing peter decides whether to go all the way or go back to sleep. "It always used to piss him because she'd get him all stirred up, then wouldn't suck him off. 'But we're up here in my bedroom'," she mewls. "That's what she used to say. 'You can't keep quiet and then my mom will know what we're up to'. Do you think you could keep quiet, boss? Because I'd love to try—"

She's interrupted by the sound of a car pulling up outside. "Oh God, she's here!" Chelsea squeaks, and she's peering through the curtain when you look outside the bathroom. "How is this gonna work?"

"Just bring her up here," you order as you zip yourself up. Fortunately, Kim's arrival is the boner-killer you were striving for. "Get her to sit in the chair at your desk and—"

Chelsea rushes out the door while you start unpacking your bag on the bed: mask, sealant, paste, a baggie with a clip of your hair in it, a lighter and a paint brush. You rub sweaty palms against each other as you pace the floor.

Footsteps in the hall herald the arrival of your victim. Chelsea enters, beaming at you, and Kim comes in after. It's like a punch to the gut to look her in the face as she smiles at you. I'm really going to do this, you think. At least, I guess I—

"I asked Will out here," Chelsea is saying, "because he seems like the average sort of Westside student who—"

But, moving as though in a dream, you've already snatched the mask off the bed and are advancing on Kim. She only has time to give a little start before you've wrapped one arm around her torso as with the other you push the mask onto her face.

Next: "Doppelgangers R Us" 

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