The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

Where the Heart Is

Previously: "The New Spell" 

Text by rugal

"What's wrong with--" you say with indignation, pausing as if you can't quite wrap your head around the question. "It would look odd if I--my dad kept going over to the old school and into the basement, don't you think?"

"Huh? I dunno, maybe? Why would it--"

"And what happens, then, if I get caught?" you ask. "If it was Will Prescott getting caught going into a locked basement in an abandoned building, it'd just be chalked up as a teenager getting into mischief. The type of thing that my dad," you wince, "would chew me out over but nobody would think anything of. But if Harris Prescott got caught--"

"What, would they think you were using it to cook meth or something?" Will asks with a laugh.

"Maybe, maybe not," you say glumly, "but it would look suspicious either way. It'd be the type of thing that could affect his reputation... his job, even. When we return him to normal--"

"If we return him to normal," he interrupts.

"When we return him to normal," you shoot back with force, "we want everything to be as undisturbed for him as possible."

"Yeah, okay," he snorts. "You're the one who just recommended we set up something at Salopek. Wouldn't that be just as weird?"

"Yeah," you nod, "I kind of realized that was probably a dumb suggestion almost as soon as I said it. It'd be difficult to do anything there unless we managed to wrangle up some new identities; people who work there and such. But there's just too much that could go wrong."

You can't help but feel like you're channeling your father's own conservative, slow and steady mind in coming to that conclusion. Sure in his younger days your father could be impulsive and a little wild and you can tell that he himself likely wouldn't be above a little mischief making when he was your age. But that's changed considerably as he's grown older, gotten a good and reliable job and a family to provide for. The days of youthful irresponsibility have long since passed him by.

"Okay, I guess that's true," says WIll in defeat. "So then where should we work on it? Maybe I could skip your third period tomorrow, head into the portables, and--"

"Absolutely not," you say firmly. "Trying to do anything at school would be... well, I don't know; not very smart." You feel yourself tense up at the thought of someone else seeing the book or the mask, if god forbid someone like the Molester or Kirkham decided to mess with Caleb and saw any of that...

Yeah, it's a terrifying thought. You really hope that you'll have a place -- a safe place -- picked out by tomorrow.

* * * * *

With that settled for now, you let Will head over to the school so he can place his mask, the mask of Caleb that is, onto the golem that looks like your father and drive his double home.

Meanwhile, you get down to business with the book. Unfortunately, it soon turns out to be an exercise in frustration. Oh sure, it starts off with no problem. There's not much instruction but the ingredients are more or less the same as what would be needed to make a mind band. But that single line isn't really description -- "Use me, solve me" is the best translation you can manage -- and when you look below...

There's no sigil that you can see. Instead what you see is letters, blurry and shifting... changing! It's enough positively disorienting, so much so that within a minute or two you find yourself having to look away to deal with the sense of vertigo you're suddenly feeling. You take a few minutes to recompose yourselves before taking another look at the book. That turns out to be the real kicker.

It's not the letters on the page that are shifting, it's the letters on the page behind it!

Indeed, to get to the next page you have to solve the spell from the preceding one. Unfortunately, it seems as if some clown has gone and torn off the bottom section of the current page. As such, you the words from the next page appear but as this one hasn't been solved they're a jumbled, headache-inducing mess. It's not long before Will returns and you fill him in on what's gone on. He fares no better than you and eventually you both decide to put the brakes on thing for the evening and try again tomorrow.

Just as frustratingly, you're no closer to finding a suitable place to work either.

* * * * *

In bed that night, Martha prods you about the dangers of Will working a job where explosions can occur but you're able to, with skill, deflect and parry these blows enough for her to eventually give up. And though she does at least tepidly accept your arguments, she firmly rejects your attempts at intimacy.

It's as your washing up after using the bathroom not long after that you're struck by a frankly disturbing thought: why are you disappointed that Martha froze you out? No, not Martha... Mom. You've tried so hard to maintain appearances as Harris, as your father, that you've even... you shudder and suddenly feel like hopping in the shower; you almost do. You're getting a little too deep into your assumed identity and you wonder if you should dial it back some.

* * * * *

Work the next day largely goes off without any incident. There's a meeting discussing the break in but nobody, not yourself or anyone else, is able to offer a reasonable explanation as to what happened. The damage is just so odd and with nothing taken you're all at a loss as to what to really make of it and in the end there's no real consensus achieved.

Yet another headache now brought on by diving too far into your father's life.

At home, you tell your mom that as best as the investigation can determine it was just some punks with hammers who broke in to cause trouble and not an actual explosion though that seems to do little to her worries. So add yet another frustration onto the pile of things you're dealing with as your father.

It's enough to make you want to just abandon his mask entirely, a sentiment you relay to Will later that evening as the both of you sit in your father's study that evening while waiting on your mom to finish up dinner.

"Honestly," you say with a tone that is more like yourself than your father, "it's just really starting to wear on me. I mean, my mom's prodding and questioning and truth be told I'll probably have to give into her eventually." You chuckle a bit at that. It's a small thought of your father's, that your mom can at times is silk hiding steel. "Then there's just... the intimacy. When I sank myself into being Dad, of course it felt natural but once I was able to take a step back..."

"Yeah, I get you." Will then lets out a small laugh of his own. "I guess that's the upside to my dad not being around, huh? Don't have to worry about getting all Oedipal if he's not in the picture."

"Do you really think this is the time for jokes?" you ask as you shake your head. "It's not just that but the work, the meetings, all of this stuff with the explosion. I want to get past that page but if I'm having to worry more about work then that cuts into the time I have to look at the book. Plus we still don't have a real place to work."

The two of you are silent for a couple of moments but it's Will who speaks first. "What about here?" he quietly asks.

"What do you mean?"

He says nothing as he opens the backpack and, to your shock, pulls out a completed mask and brain band. "I stopped by my place after school and made a few of these," he explains. "Kinda got it in my head to try a car buffer and oh baby, you can get these things done in like half an hour with it."

"So what does that have to do with using here as a place to work?" you ask, unsure as to what he's getting at.

"Well, you're worried about your mom and everything so..."

"Wait, you want to use those masks on my mom!?"

"And switch with her, yeah. That'd eliminate the skeeviness, right? Plus she's a homemaker so you'd have all the time in the world to study the book."

"But that's--" you sputter. "What about Robert? Do we stick one of those new masks on him too?"

"Sure, if we have to."

You can't believe how flippant he's being with your family, even though he's wearing your face! "And what if I suggested that I switch with your mom instead?" you ask incredulously.

"I'd say that sounds like a good idea," he answers without pause. "It's just the two of us there so it'd be a good place to work on things and with these new masks it's not like I can't just bring her back easily unlike..." He pauses and breathes in deeply. "You can consider it payback, you know; for what I did to your dad. You get my mom in exchange."

You really can't believe he's offering up his own mother as a trade. And suggesting your mom as well! The most frustrating thing, though, is that his suggestions are smart. They make a lot of sense and you can see the benefits in either one.

But becoming your own mother or becoming Caleb's... maybe you're going a little too far and getting inside your own head. Maybe you should just pump the brakes and try to figure out something else first.

Next: "A Home Away from Home" 

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