The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

The Copyist

Previously: "Discarding Dwayne" 

You only had a single beer at the Warehouse, but you feel hung over the next morning. It must have been that fantasy I had last night, about becoming a drug-dealing, shapeshifting criminal mastermind, you blearily decide after showering and studying yourself in the mirror. Maybe you dreamed about it all night, and it exhausted you.

Whatever the truth, you feel like you've bled the temptation from your system. You tear Macaulay's brain band from your forehead, and toss it, his phone, and his pistol into the motel dumpster.

Then you call Caleb on the room's landline. "Yeah," he honks when he picks up.

"Hey man, it's me, Will."

"Which one?"

"Whaddaya mean, which—?" Oh, right. Gordon's out there also pretending to be you. "The real one, asshole. Are you going in to school today?" The clock reads seven-thirty.

"I am. Maybe you wanna ask the other guy what he's doing?"

Fuck, you mutter when another penny drops. "Which one are you?"

"The real one, of course. Hey! Hang on, Will, I gotta—!" There's a lot of cursing, and a "Give me that!" before he comes back on. "Yo, who's this?"

"Who do you think it is, motherfucker? And which one are you?"

"Will?"

"What the fuck's going on there?"

"I'm taking my golem to school. Actually, I'm in the back seat, and he's driving us to school. Then I'm gonna take the car and— Where are you?"

"The Donna Courts, down on south Twentieth."

"You spend the night there?"

"Where else would I spend the night?"

"Well, there's the Marriott up by the mall, and—"

"Shut up. Just come get me. I'll pay for your breakfast."

"I already ate, but I'm part hobbit and'll take a second breakfast if you're springing for it."

* * * * *

If Caleb is part hobbit, he's tallest and gangliest part-hobbit ever, and he follows you into the Sunshine Diner on loping legs. His laugh is like a hiss as you tell him about running into Kim Walsh. "You have any idea what Gordon could'a done with her Saturday?" you ask him.

"Not a clue. Speaking of which, you decide what to do about him?" He signals a waitress.

"Leave him like he is. We can always change things back later."

"And Dane?"

"Dane's exactly the sort to go around tell everyone he got swapped into Gordon Black's body. We don't need that."

"His mom wants him back," Caleb says after the waitress has taken your orders and departed. "And Lindsay wants everything back to normal."

"Lindsay can go sit on her own face." You wonder if some of Dwayne's brain has stuck to yours, like lint.

Caleb sucks on a tooth. "That's a pretty vivid picture. But you know, if we're going to leave Gordon and Dane where they are— And if we're gonna make it look like things are back to normal—" He shrugs. "Looks like you're gonna be stuck playing Dane."

His words send you briefly reeling back into that fantasy. But you quickly shake it off. "It doesn't have to be me who plays Dane," you retort. "Could be you. Or Joe or Grant or one of them," you add when Caleb makes a face.

"So, I get to be Dane," he says, "and you get to be me? Or Grant gets to be Dane and you get to be Grant?" He shakes his head. "You saw their faces last night. None of them is gonna want to trade for Dane Matthias when they can be ... Well, whoever else is out there." His brow furrows.

Yes, you remember the excitement Caleb caused when he told them about the new spell. And it wasn't just the guys who got excited, either. "What do you we do about Mrs. Matthias?" you ask him.

Caleb chews his thumbnail, and doesn't say anything until after the waitress has brought you your food. Even then, he's wolfed down his eggs and half his pancakes before speaking.

"I'll go out and talk to her today," he says. "Find out what she wants, what she'll settle for. For herself. For Dane."

You catch the pronoun he used. "You'll go? Am I supposed to go with you?"

He hesitates, then shakes his head. "No offense, Will, but I think I'm a better negotiator. Besides, I got a job for you, keep you busy today."

You groan when he tells it to you.

* * * * *

Ninety minutes later, after an extended shopping trip, Caleb drops you off at the Donna Courts with bags of supplies and the grimoire. Bhodi passed it along to him last night, and you've got the use of it until this evening to make a bunch of masks; after that, it will have to go back to Bhodi so he can give it to Lindsay. Caleb promises to come help you after he's talked to Mrs. Matthias.

But you've made no progress when he knocks on your door at a little after eleven. "Christ!" he exclaims when he sees the unopened packages that you and he spent hundreds of dollars buying. "When were you gonna get started?"

"I had a better idea," you tell him, and toss the sketchpad at him. He catches it and frowns at the complex design that swirls across one of the pages. "I figure we could just make a copy of the book. That way we could use it anytime we want, even after we give the original to Lindsay."

He gives you a critical stare. "This is one of the sigils?" he asks. You nod. "And it works?" You flip him the brain band that you made with it. "Are you gonna be able to copy everything out? I mean, these things—" He taps the sigil that you copied. "They're pretty damn complicated, aren't they?"

Yes, they are, and you were yourself very surprised at how fluidly the first one flowed out from the pen. But when you compared your free-hand copy to the original, you could hardly tell the difference. "Well, I'm still gonna make some masks up," Caleb grunts. "Just to make sure that you're doing it right." He settles into a chair while you huddle up on the bed with the sketchpad. As you work, he tells you of his interview with Mrs. Matthias.

It was rough. She was stone-cold sober, and seemed paranoid. She wanted a new body—a second chance on life—and was convinced that Caleb and his friends were going to run off with the grimoire and leave her behind. As for who she wanted to be, well, she didn't know, obviously. She'd have to look over the possibilities. Someone would have to help her with that. Someone should bring her a school yearbook, or a bunch of links to Facebook profiles so she could pick someone.

At least there was some good news to come out of it: She turned out to be a little more flexible about Dane. Caleb showed her pictures of Gordon Black, telling her that was who her son was pretending to be. She seemed impressed. But she still wanted you all to tell Dane about the masks. "She said it's okay for him to stay as Gordon," Caleb tells you, "as long as he knows what's going on. But I talked her out of that." How? Caleb's mouth twists into a satirical smile. "I told her we were going to turn her into a high school girl. I asked her how her son was going to handle it, if he looked at a cheerleader and knew it was really his mother. That shut her up." He stretches. "So I think we're in the clear on leaving Dane the way he is. Except, someone who looks like Dane probably needs to come back."

You agree. If you're not going to be Dane, you'll have to turn yourself into someone else. And where would you put that other person after you take over their life? Dane's mask is the obvious hiding place.

* * * * *

By four o'clock, when Caleb returns to the school with the grimoire, you have copied out the sigils for all the spells you have so far unlocked, and confirmed that they work. Caleb has also used them to make twenty masks and brain bands and some tubs of sealant and glue. He has also polished up two masks and carved runes into one of the brain bands. After he's gone, you take over from him and start on a second brain band.

Voices herald his return; still, you jump when a hard fist hammers at the motel room door. Grant Lowery and Joe Dickerson are with him, and they push you aside as they tumble into the room. "Whoa!" Grant exclaims as he surveys a bed covered in masks. "It's like a factory in here!"

"You got enough for all of us?" Joe asks. Where Grant surveys the masks with a bright, eager smile, Joe frowns at them.

"Enough for you guys, and me and Caleb. Plus some spares."

"And you made a copy of the book, too!" Grant says. "That's what Caleb says. So if we wind up changing our minds and want to switch with someone else instead—"

You catch Caleb's warning look, and bite your tongue. "I guess," you mumble. "But you wanna get it right the first time."

"Sure, sure," Grant says. "But come on, we're all meeting out at Justin's, gonna talk about who we're gonna be." He hops on the balls of his feet.

You tense all over, and make a point of locking all the masks and supplies and whatnot away before accompanying them out. Grant has ridden with Joe, but Caleb has his own car, and you ride out with him.

"You know," he observes on the drive, "you can keep living in motel rooms if you want. But at school Kim was asking, uh, you how long you were gonna be staying at the Donna."

"No! What did he say?"

"He said he didn't know what she was talking about. Anyway, before things get too awkward, you should figure out where you're going to go. By which I mean," he adds, "who you're going to be."

But it's not that simple. You should probably use your new ID to keep an eye on people. On Grant and his friends. On Mrs. Matthias. On Lindsay.

Or maybe you should forget about them and stay in the senior class with Caleb.

* To stay close to the sophomore girls: "The Boys' Choices" 
* To stay in the senior class with Caleb: "Clouds of Fame and Glory" 

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