The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

All Is Made Clear

Previously: "A Turn of the Tables" 

"You'd do anything put everything back together?" Lindsay asks you in a hard voice. You nod. "Because if you swear that and don't follow through—" She looks over at something. You follow her gaze. It's the grimoire.

You edge away warily. "What do I have to do?"

She holds your eye. "You have to bring Evie back."

Is that all? "Sure, I can do that. That's easy!"

"Didn't you say that you turned her into some guy named Dane Matthias?"

"Yeah, and it'll be easy to—"

"Because he's gone." Lindsay's mouth is a line as she amplifies.

"While we were talking," she explains, "Joe was trying to track these people down, see where they live. Because we don't need your help getting these masks off people ourselves. Right, Bhodi?" He nods. "But there's a problem with this Dane Matthias guy. He's gone to Oregon."

"Like on a vacation?"

"No. His mom put him on a plane to a military academy this morning."

Your mouth drops open. Dane in a military academy? That does not compute. And since when would his hippy, dope-smoking mom do something like that?

"That's impossible!" you yelp. "You don't know Dane or his mom, they'd never—"

"I dunno anything except what his mom told Joe." Lindsay glowers. "But you'd do anything to get her back. Isn't that what you said, what you promised?" She leans forward. "Do you promise that now?"

"Yeah, sure," you gasp, and sidle back from her. Your voice is faint, because you're sure that you aren't about to faint.

She stares at you very hard, then goes out again. "See?" you tell Bhodi. "I told you I'd—"

"I told you to shut up," he says, and slumps in his chair.

The others come crowding back in. They all have pinched looks. Joe sits on the bed next to you now. "So how are you going to get her back?" he asks.

The pressure of having all these guys around you, staring at you, judging you, is almost more than you can bear. You can hardly think. You can't drive out to Oregon—it's a couple of days away—and you can't fly, and even if you could, how could you get into this school when you don't even know which one it is? Dane's mom would know, but—

Then the ideas slowly start to come. Hideous ideas—not because they're evil, but because they're nauseating.

"Okay, first we have to know where he is and how to get to him," you slowly say. "His mom would know that, and she would also be the one who could get him back, get them to put Dane—I mean, Evie—on a plane to come home." You glance over at the blank masks Caleb made. "So if one of us pretended to be her—"

Your voice catches in your throat. No one blinks or moves.

"I think we're gonna have to do something like that, guys!" you protest. "I don't want to, but—"

"Can't you just make a phone call?" Andy says. He's just as green in the face as when you started explaining all this stuff—what was it, an hour ago? "You don't need to look like her to make a phone call."

"But I'd need her voice and her memories. I mean, someone would, whoever—" You lick your lips. You know that you're going to have to be the one to do it.

"No, wait, hang on," you exclaim after another idea has come. "We don't have to do that right away. Those metal strips inside the masks, they copy memories and stuff. If we just got a copy of Dane's mom's brain to start with, then we could know what we have to do. Maybe that would be enough, or we'd see another way of getting Evie back."

Glances are exchanged, and an unspoken assent seems to settle on the room. "Then you should do that," Lindsay says. "Let's get started."

"Hang on, don't I have to go home soon?" you ask. "I mean, doesn't—" Your mouth goes dry as you glance at Bhodi. "Uh, how are we going to—?"

"Conference again," Lindsay says, and they all troop from the bedroom once more, this time leaving you all alone.

You turn over and lay face down on the bed. You are exhausted and ragged and frightened. It's a tough thing. You're pretty sure Bhodi is going to want to have his life back instantly. But then who is going to play Evie? You're sure they're not going to let you do it. And if you don't take Evie's part, to maintain the illusion that she's still in town, what are they going to do with you?

But they apparently come to a quick consensus, and pile back inside. You roll onto your back, but Grant forces you back onto your stomach and rattles at the handcuffs. A second later you are released. You rub your arms and stretch your shoulders, but look worriedly at your captors. "What's going on?"

"We're taking you back over that school," Joe says. "We're gonna lock you in there over night. You're going to work on one of those things that copies brains."

There should be two of them already made up and ready to go, somewhere in the mess of stuff that Lindsay and the other collected from out of the basement. But you decide not to mention that: it might be useful to have a third one on hand. Besides, if you mention you've already got one of those brain bands made up, they take you out to Dane's right away, and you're not sure you want to face up to that so soon; and if you're going to spend the night in the basement, you'll need something to do anyway.

"Okay, sure, but what about—? I mean, even if Bhodi goes home, who's going to play Evie?"

"Evie will spend the night with me," says Lindsay. "At least, that's what we'll say. We'll worry about tomorrow when it comes. Come on, Joe's parents will be back soon."

And so the whole troop of you—with the sophomores pressed around you as though fearful you'll try running off—go out to your cars and caravan back to the elementary school.

* * * * *

It winds up being much less fraught out there than you'd feared. The girls don't stay long—they cluck distastefully at the shabby basement—and then you're left with the guys. Their curiosity overcomes their disgust as you start setting out the supplies to make the brain band, and they start asking questions of you. Or, rather, Joe and Grant ask questions. Justin only watches intently, while Andy sits to one side with Bhodi.

There's a lot of time to pass, at least until eleven rolls around, and as you carve runes into the band you ask them to explain how they managed to catch you. "I remembered everything you were doing while you were, you know, pretending to be Evie," Bhodi says quietly.

"But I thought the mask didn't record those memories," you protest. "I thought they cut off recording when I made it. I even called around to find out if you were remembering any of that stuff."

He shrugs stiffly. "It took me awhile to start remembering anything . All that afternoon I was really freaked out, but I knew how to get to Evie's house, and I went there. But when I woke up the next morning, I remembered everything." He turns very red under his dark skin. "Everything she remembered, and everything that you did as her. So I skipped school and came out here, busted into the basement, cleaned it out, looked over all the stuff. Put a new lock on. Sent some texts around, found out where—" He makes a face. "Where I was and what I was doing. So after school was out I went over to see Lindsay. I knew how to take the mask off because the book explained it. So I showed her who I was. She freaked out, but I got everything explained. Then we got everyone else out a little bit at a time, showed them."

With that kind of an explanation behind it, it makes sense. You don't understand how you managed to get Bhodi's memories so fast, while it took him so much longer to get Evie's. Maybe he just panicked and freaked out, and he had to relax by falling asleep before they would come.

But that gives you another idea—a kind of peace offering. "You know, if the masks record all the memories," you tell him, "even when someone else is wearing them, then if you put on that mask of yourself, you'll see what I was doing today. That way you won't be lost when you go to school tomorrow. Though, uh—" You glance sheepishly at the other guys. "I guess they've told you some of the stuff I did. And you'll see I was serious when I told you earlier that I was going to fix everything. You'll see me talking to my friend Caleb about it."

Bhodi ponders this for a couple of minutes. Then with awkward movements he sweeps up the mask of himself and goes off in a corner. As you and everyone else watches, he slumps to the floor and puts his mask on. It seems to dissolve into his face.

Andy goes over to sit by him, and that leaves you with Joe and Grant and Justin. There's a tension in the air, and you catch them exchanging meaningful glances.

Then Joe sucks in a deep breath and leans forward. "You know," he whispers. "We're going to lock you in here overnight, and probably all day tomorrow too. You'll need something to do." He looks at his friends, then leans back in again. "Maybe you could make some extra masks? Three of them? So we could do the kind of stuff you and your friend were doing? That friendly body swapping before you went crazy?"

You look around wildly. Grant and Justin have the same expressions—worried but expectant. They must have talked about it on the way over, as they rode together.

Are they serious? Or is this some kind of test, maybe a trap?

* To continue: "Underground Work" 

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