The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

Allies in Disguise

Previously: "The Marius Maskerade" 

"Why did you come into town to meet Charles?" you ask Zachary—who until a little while ago was walking around with Marius Hall's face.

"I dunno," he admits. "It was something to do? We'd been hanging out a lot lately. Since—" The furrow in his brow deepens. "Since right before Christmas. I even—" He swallows. "I even cancelled my flight back home to stay in town so we could hang out more together." HIs gaze goes distant.

"You mean Marius did," you correct him.

The glance he turns on you is more than a little spiteful.

"I don't know who I am," he growls. But then his expression slowly slackens. "No, I know who I am. It's just like I was—" He sighs. "It's like I was dreaming I was Marius. And it's starting to go away now.

Then he turns to glare at you. "How do you know all this, Mrs. Whitney?" he demands. "What's going on?"

"What's going on," you tell him, "is that someone is using magic—real, honest to God, black magic out of an old book—to copy people and replace them with ... with I don't know what. And I don't know who it is for sure doing it"—though you've got some solid suspicions by this point—"but they're also using it to ... to impersonate people. To pretend they're them. I don't know what they're up to"—You feel your mouth settle into a grim, haggard line—"But they did it to my whole family."

His eyes widen. "To Charles? And your husband?"

"I'm not Mrs. Whitney," you snap at him. "I'm ... well ..."

But you're reluctant to tell him who you are, because ...

Well, the fact is that you don't much like Zachary Holzer. Which is strange because you don't know him, save from Carol's memories of him. But the impression you have of him, from back on that day that you and Sean (or whoever was pretending to be Sean that day) slapped a mask onto him, is that he's a smug asshole, immensely pleased with himself, and more than a bit of a jerk and bully.

Carol's got her own angle on him, of course, knowing him through Charles, but her impression rhymes with yours. She never liked Zachary or Ethan and didn't like that Charles hung out with them. They seemed like the worst kind of influence. They come from good homes—Carol knows the Holzers and the Gilkey's socially, of course, though she has little to do with them—and they take Advanced Placement classes at Eastman High and even go out for sports. But there's something sleazy about them. Low-class boys would drink and smoke pot and make out with skanky girls, and there'd be some excuse. There's no excuse for Zachary and Ethan to do the same, except that they're spoiled, and Carol always had the feeling that they were leading Charles into becoming the same kind of boy.

"I'm just someone like you," you finally tell him. "What they did to you, they did to me. Only this"—you gesture vaguely at your bosom—"is what they did to me."

Zachary glances down at your bosom. A thought passes behind his eyes. A whole train of them, it looks like. But he keeps his expression neutral, so whether his thoughts are lustful, appreciative, resentful, amused, or sympathetic, you can't tell. But you do know that you didn't enjoy the glance.

"Look," you tell him. "When I called you out to the garage to move that trunk, did you—? Did you know who you were? That you were ... Zachary? But you had to pretend to be Marius?"

"Yeah," he sighs. "I guess I did. I didn't know what was going on, but ... yeah," he lamely concludes. "I was just going along with it."

"'Cos we can't go back to the house with you looking like, um, this." You point to him. "So—"

The mask in your lap—the mask of Marius Hall—suddenly feels very heavy, and hot when you pick it up. "I think you need to put this back on. I just ... I just don't want you ... forgetting ... this talk we had."

"Yeah, that makes sense," he says after a moment's hesitation. He puts out his hand, but it's only with some reluctance that you give the mask over. He contemplates the inner surface, where the name MARIUS MICHAEL HALL floats above the surface in glowing blue letters.

He looks at you sidelong. "How does it work?"

"I don't know. Unless you mean— Well, you put it on your face."

He holds your eye, looks back down into the mask, then gives you another sidelong look. This time there's just the faintest smirk inside it. Then, after taking a breath, he lifts the mask and gently pushes it onto his face.

His hands fall into his lap. Marius Hall's head sags to one side, and he snores.

* * * * *

"Okay," you tell him as he pulls the purring Mercedes back into the driveway, "if anyone asks, we went to the hardware store to get some rope for that trunk."

"Do you want us to wait for you to call?" Marius asks. "After you've talked to ... Charles?"

"Yes. Or, I'll text you when I've got the mask off him, or you can text me after you've got the masks off the other guys." You showed him how to do that, because he didn't know. "What's your number?" (And despite yourself, you get a girlish thrill as you tap Marius's contact info into your phone.) "Don't take too long before calling me."

Ethan Gilkey, who is somehow less repulsive than Zachary Holzer despite being more slithery, gives you and Marius a silent, slit-eyed glance as he passes you in the backyard, heading the other way with a plastic garbage can. The hay bales have been hauled out and set by an outer wall, and the dirt on the inside has been swept free of litter and stray bits of straw. Charles and Zachary, each with a broom, are poking the corners free of cobwebs. You study the scene with your hands on your hips.

"Well," you sigh after a long perusal. "It doesn't clean up real nice, does it?"

"I could'a told you," Charles mutters.

You ignore him.. "Oh, the wood's in terrible shape!" you groan. "I think we're just going to have to pull it down."

Out of the corner of your eye, though, you are watching Marius and Zachary. The former is standing in the middle of the barn with his hands on his hips, squinting as he looks about, examining the structure. There is, it seems to you, something ostentatious about the way he doesn't even glance in the direction of the fake Zachary. And though it might be your imagination, it seems to you that the latter too is studiously ignoring Marius.

"So, are we done here?" Charles asks in a dead-voiced tone.

"Hm? Oh, sure. No need to keep wasting your time on this. What?" you ask as he continues to stare at you with a hooded resentment.

"We're getting paid, right?"

"Oh. Right. Let me get my purse." As you turn to return to the house, you hear Marius mutter something to Charles. Zachary, after giving a corner of the barn one last brush with the broom, turns to follow them and you out.

"I've only got four hundred on me," you have to confess after you've dug through your purse and pulled out two hundreds, three fifties, and some tens and fives. "Tell you what, I'll give Charles my debit card and he can get the rest for you and for him. Thanks so much for ... well, for what you did!"

Marius, who took the money from you, nudges Ethan and mutters something, and the three turn to leave. Charles turns to follow, but you ask him to stay. "I need to give you my card."

"That's okay," he says, "We'll stop by a machine so I can pay ... um ... whoever got shortchanged here. You can pay me back later." He can say this because he's got his own bank account and debit card.

"Well, I need to talk to you now, sweetheart." When he just stares at you, you improvise: "I was talking to Aidan Seabury, you know? Of the arts council? And he has a job lined up for you that I want to talk to you about."

"Now?"

"Yes, now! Your friends drove up separately, I know because there's an extra car in the driveway. You can catch up to them in thirty minutes or so."

He sighs theatrically, and casts a dark, resigned glance at Marius and the others. They grin wanly back at him before shuffling off toward the door. After they're gone, Charles turns to you.

"Mom," he says in a very steady but resentful tone. "I don't want to work at a fucking museum."

You gasp. "Don't you use language like that with me!"

"I don't want to work at a fucking museum," he repeats in a deeper growl, "and I'm calling it a fucking museum so you know how fucking much I don't—"

"Sit down so we can discuss it!"

His upper lip curls back to show a canine, and he crosses his arms. But after glowering at you for a moment, he throws himself backwards onto the sofa with a hard glare on his face.

"You wouldn't be working at the museum, Charles," you tell him in a hard voice of your own. "You'd be— Hang on and let me get my phone out of the car." You march off to the garage.

And when you get back you have not just the phone but also the metal strip you used on Marius. Charles is hunched on the sofa as you approach him from behind. Only at the last moment does he turn his head slightly. But he still doesn't see you before you've reached around to push the strip onto his forehead.

As with Marius, it burns on his face. You peel it off, then bend to remove the mask, revealing the person beneath.

It's your brother. Robert.

Next: "Who Are Those Masked Men?" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 2)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)"