The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

Book Ends and Beginnings

Previously: "A Kind of Artillery Volley" 

[text by rugal]

You're ready to go, you said you'd go... but a part of you is still worrying about your curfew. Because despite what you'd said you wonder if you actually should risk breaking it. You're making friends with these group of people and how lame would it be if you then had to tell them that you can't do anything on account of being grounded? Well, that's if they'd call you up wanting to do anything. So you check your phone and see it's around ten and you must make a face because the girl's voice cuts in.

"You good?"

"Oh, yeah, I am," you answer. "You go on without me. I'm gonna hang out here a little longer."

"You sure?" she asks. "OK, well, maybe we'll see you later then."

She takes off and you're left by yourself once more. Your mood is beginning to sour as you realize that you're pretty out of your depth here which you also noticed back at the restaurant. Everyone else is so outgoing and confident or if they're not confident they at least seem to be able to relax. They can talk, they're comfortable, even someone like Tiffany is in the center of things, not pushed out to the margins like you were earlier. So now you just want to take off and head home.

The night isn't a total bust for you've seemingly made some new friends but your actual goal of getting with some girls seems to be out reach. You consider saying bye to the people you came out here with but then you look on the dance floor and see Patrick with some girls and bitterly decide that you don't want to bother. You instead head straight for the exit, although someone at one of the tables you walk by calls out to you. You look over to see it's those girls from the volleyball team.

"You're leaving?" asks that redhead, Ellie, from earlier.

"Oh, yeah," you say absentmindedly. "I've got family stuff I have to do early tomorrow so I figured it was time to head out."

You watch the group of them whisper among each other for a moment a few seconds before one of them looks up at you. "Are you sure you don't want to hang out with us for a little bit?" she asks.

Truth be told you probably wouldn't mind it. The girl who asked you is a very pretty Asian girl, Ellie isn't bad to look at either and neither are most of the other girls sitting there. But you just can't get the idea out of your head that it'll be like everything else tonight. You'll sit there but it'll be awkward because you won't really have a chance to participate in the conversation. And then a few of the ones who seem like they might be interest will have boyfriends who will amble their way over.

So you can do nothing but shake your head. "Sorry," you offer up, "but my parents will be on me about this." Then quickly, maybe to fish for a bit of sympathy, you add, "My dad can be kind of a hard ass."

But if sympathy is what you were after you guess you don't get any because there's some giggling and then another one says, "Maybe we'll see you at school."

"Yeah, hopefully," you respond.

But you're barely out the door before you realize that it was all empty platitudes. Oh sure, you'll probably see them around school... but will you actually see see them? And will they see you? Likely not and that thought makes you feel newly disappointed and embittered as you hop into your truck and head home.

* * * * *

Sunday comes and largely goes with nothing of real interest happening. You do get a text from Patrick asking where you went off to last night and you wind up giving him a similar story to what you gave those girls while admitting that you "pussed out." He doesn't seem too broken up about it and asks if you're willing to come hang out with "everyone" but you're still feeling sore over last night and so you demure. As for Caleb and Keith, you don't hear much of anything from them either.

But the night does bring one bit of interest when, out of boredom, you begin looking through that stack of papers and books and other crap sitting on your desk; that's when you come across it. You weren't looking for it specifically, but you'd remembered Walberg's stupid time capsule thing which was due tomorrow and that you didn't have anything to put in. So maybe you could find something, anything, around your room. And find something you did for that book you bought a few days ago was siting there amongst all the old homework and throwaway comic books you'd forgotten you had.

Out of curiosity you pull it out and decide to take a look at it. Opening it once more, you see that the pages are still stuck together and that creepy message with the thumbprint looking thing is still there. But you feel something this time when you look at it. Sure it's weird and it's strange but that creepiness isn't as prevalent now. No, what you feel is irritation. Not at the book but at yourself. For wasting even a couple of dollars on something you can't even open and read. For being scared of a fucking book. No wonder you can't catch a girl's interest, you realize, because if you're scared of a book then you must project massive lame-ass vibes. Why would someone like Kristin or that Mutie girl or the cashier from the Monte want anything to do with the kind of guy who allows an old book to give him the willies?

You sit there looking at the book. From the translation you'd made when you first brought it home and the thumb-shaped area you'd guess that means that it wants you to cut your thumb and then press it against the page. What happens when you do you don't know, and likely it's nothing. But you can't wuss out over a book and so you grab your pocket knife and steel yourself, taking deep breaths as you press the edge of the blade against your thumb. You stay still for a moment, wanting to back out, but then you see Kristin nestled against Lorenzo and you suddenly get irritated.

So you press the knife against your thumb even harder and then... slice! You yelp in pain as instinctively you look for something to wrap around your thumb. But you did this because of the book and so you turn back to it and place your thumb on the page. You hold it there for a moment and then lift it and as you do, the blood must be causing your thumb to stick the page for the page lifts as well and... wait!

The page lifted? But it hadn't done that before! You check again and sure enough the page turns. But on the next page you only see some more paragraphs in Latin and an odd wheel-like design with weird stuff inscribed on it. You try to turn this page too but like the one before it, it won't budge. You're confused at first until you realize that "signing" the book by putting your bloody thumb to it must have, somehow, unlocked this page.

Then that mean that to unlock each page you'll need to do whatever it is the page wants you to do? Then that means, what, that this really is a book of magic? That magic is real? That can't be, right? Even still, you turn back to the new page and wonder if you should start translating all of that stuff. But by this point you're still a bit weirded out and so you think better of it.

* * * * *

You thought so better of it that you decided that, yeah, you'd turn this into Walberg to place in the time capsule because the whole thing is weird. You placed it in your backpack on Sunday night but in the morning you thought better of it and instead, with nothing else to think of, shoved one of those old comic books in there and turned that in instead.

The day at school otherwise goes fairly normal. It's not until seventh—your study hall—that you run into anyone you saw on Saturday. And it turns out to be one of the volleyball girls, who comes over as you're sitting alone at a table and looking at the book. You can't remember her name—if you even heard it—and she's not the prettiest girl. She's tall and somewhat sturdily built, her eyes droop a bit making her look perpetually tired or stoned, her nose has an aquiline bent to it and she's not dressed in any way which flatters her. She's not a dog but neither is she a beauty; utterly unexceptional is how you'd describe her.

It's a few minutes before you learn her name—it's Whitney—and why she's even over here. It turns out to be the book as she was walking by and saw it and thought that it seemed like a unique thing. Was it something that the tabletop guys used or something, she'd asked. You'd denied that but showed it to her. She took a few minutes and scanned it.

"So it's about Personas and something like 'disguise' pops up in this preface," she says as she turns the page to the stuck one. "And these are all ingredients. Wood ash and quicklime and things like that."

"You know Latin?" you ask.

"A little bit. I'm not an expert or anything."

And that's when you decide to explain the book, where you got it and what's been going on with it. You watch her try to turn the new page and watch as she fails to do so to her consternation. Whitney looks long and hard at the book, then looks up at you and you think she's about to shove the book back to you. But instead she surprises you.

"Hey, would it be okay if take this home with me?" she asks. "I can look into it more and maybe get these ingredients and see what they do."

That's all for now.

*
"Table of Contents (Vol. 5)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)"