The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

The Taming of a Shrew

Previously: "When Second Thoughts Come Too Late" 

You're squatting on a saggy sofa—feet on the cushions, your chin on your knees—when the front door is yanked open and Lindsay comes in.

Your first, very uncharitable thought, is that she looks like a pissed-off troll.

Your second impression isn't much better.

Her face is set in a hard, truculent glower under a comically over-large trucker hat, and her shoulders are hunched up about her ears. Her lips are parted in a soft frown. Her dark eyes dart about, and what little light is in them dies when they settle on you. Caleb, following her in, stumbles into her, and she shoots him a dirty look over her shoulder.

"Hey," you greet her. "Thanks for coming."

She glares back.

"Making yourself comfortable, I see," she says, and clucks her tongue. "Your friend says you're gonna be moving in here." She looks around again, and sniffs.

Fuck it. You don't have time for this attitude, not when you can fix it for her. You dip a hand into the paper sack at your side and pull out the metal band. "Yeah, well," you say as you saunter up to her, "someone's gonna be moving in here. Only it's not gonna be me." Her eyes to wide as you slap the brain band onto her forehead.

For a moment she hangs there. Then her legs fold up under her.

"Christ, Will!" Caleb shouts, and he grabs her behind. But she drags him to the floor as she slumps. "D'oph!" His eyes bulge as she knocks the wind from him.

You squat to help pull her off him. "That was pretty funny," you say, "the way she went down."

"It wasn't so funny being the guy who went down under her," Caleb says as he scrambles free. "Oh, and were you practicing that line while I was gone? About someone not you moving in?"

"It was a pretty great line, right? Nah, it just came to me."

"It sounds like something that would come to Tilley. Never mind," he says as you flip him the bird. "Let's get her back to the bedroom."

* * * * *

"So I was thinking," you tell Caleb as you drag Lindsay down the hall—you've got her by the wrists; he's got her by the ankles—"that maybe I don't have to become her."

"The fuck? Then why the hell are we herniating ourselves by— Ungh!" He bumps his skinny ass against the doorframe of Dane's bedroom.

"What I mean is, why can't we turn her into a golem, and just order her around?"

"I thought that's what we were doing." Together, you and Caleb lift and loft Lindsay onto Dane's bed. "Turn her into a golem that looks like Dane and thinks like you," he pants.

"No, I mean one that looks like her and thinks like her. But has to follow our orders." My orders, you silently correct yourself.

Caleb frowns at you.

"So, we make the mask of her," you explain, "and the brain band, and then we put the golem paint into mask, like we were going to do to Dane's mask. I mean, if that was going to turn her into a golem that looked like Dane, wouldn't doing it the other way turn her into a golem that looks like her? And it'd have to obey me?"

Caleb sucks on his lip. "I don't know," he says after a long silence. "It would be a mask of her, so maybe she'd be awake and in control of it. That's what happens with me and my mask. Yeah," he continues when you frown at him. "That mask I'm using to make a golem of me? It's got the golem paint in it, but when I put it on, I don't turn into a golem."

"So you just walk around with that mask on, pretending to be yourself?"

"No. What happens is I fall asleep, but when I wake up I get all the memories that were in the mask. It's like, I send golem-me to school, it does its stuff as me, and I put the mask on again when it gets home, suck the memories out. That way, I get to stay home, but also know and remember everything it did at school as me. So I'm not missing anything."

You whistle. "Pretty convenient. So you think that's what would happen with Lindsay, if we put her mask back on her?"

Caleb opens his mouth, then snaps it shut. He frowns, and his gaze goes distant.

"'m not sure," he says. "'Cos the mask of me, the golem paint, we used my hair in it, so it has to obey me. When I put it on, maybe that cancels out my hair? But we'd be using your hair in her mask." His frown deepens. "So maybe it would work the way you think it would?"

"We could try."

"Could go wrong pretty spectacularly," he says.

"There's two of us. And I got Dane's mask all prepped. If she starts fighting, we can hit her with it."

He snorts. "You just don't want to turn yourself into Lindsay Cho."

"Damn right I don't. I just don't want to have to worry about her."

Caleb shrugs, and agrees to try out your idea.

* * * * *

"You son of a bitch!" Lindsay Cho snarls. Her face is almost purple with anger. "What did you do to me?"

"We're trying to fix your attitude," you retort.

"Slap yourself again," Caleb orders her. She only glares at him; the angry welt on her left cheek is still livid.

"Slap yourself again," you order her, and she winces and gasps as she complies. "Now bite Caleb."

"Will! Jesus!" Caleb scrambles off the bed as Lindsay lunges at him, grabbing his arm and trying to draw it toward her gaping maw. "Call her off!"

"Come back here, Lindsay!" you yell, and she falls back onto the bed with a sullen stare. "Okay, I'd call that a success."

"Only because—" Caleb starts to say, but he breaks off at the sound of a door opening, followed by footfalls in the outer rooms. You look at each other. "Dane's mom?" he mouths at you.

You scramble up and out into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind you.

Then you open it and put your face back in. "Keep quiet," you snarl at Lindsay. "Not a word, not a peep, not a sound!" She glowers back, but presses her lips shut.

It is Mrs. Matthias, returning from her meeting with the sophomore boys, and she's looking very cheerful, even after she's done a double-take at you. She's dressed in a shabby flannel track suit and ratty sneakers. The figure they show off is actually quite flattering for a woman of her age; but the lines on her face seem to have deepened.

"Oh. Hi there," she says. "I wasn't expecting—" She breaks off, and peers closely at you. She says "You're—" but then trails off.

"Will Prescott," you finish for her. Is her brain still addled by the drugs? Does she not remember you? "I was here last night, with—"

"Right," she says. "I'm just trying to remember if—" A shadow crosses her face, and she bites her lip. Worry comes into her eyes. "I'm getting my Dane back, right?"

A chill prickles up your spine. Is she going to be difficult? "Um, Dane seems kind of happy where he is, uh, ma'am—"

She shakes her head. "But he's coming back. Didn't your friend tell me that—? Is it you? Are you the one who's going to ...?" The lines on her face tighten.

"Oh. Yes. That's me. I'm, uh, just getting ready to." You blush.

She nods in a distracted way. "Well, you don't have to do that now, if you don't want. In fact—" Again she breaks off, and you think you see a slight tremble go through her. "Can you wait a couple of days? Until after I'm moved out?" She rubs her arm and bites her lip. "I think it would be easier if—"

"Oh. Sure." You feel slightly sick to realize what she's thinking: She doesn't want to look at "Dane" and know that it's not really her son, that it's an imposter, and that she's okay with him being an imposter. "I should have thought of that. I'll wait."

She nods again. The air thickens between you in the silence.

Then she bursts to life again. "And I've got a new life all picked out!" she exclaims. From her pocket she pulls out a cell phone. "Your friends were wonderful at helping me out." She swipes her fingertip across the phone. "Leslie Osbourne," she says as she turns the screen toward you. "She's perfect!" An ugly-sounding giggle bubbles out of her.

It's a very pretty girl, you'd have to agree, whose photo Mrs. Matthias is showing you. She has regular features and a confident smile; dark-blonde hair falls to her shoulders; pearl earrings glimmer at her lobes; the top buttons of her blouse are open, showing a swan-like neck and smooth throat. Her complexion is unblemished, and if she's wearing makeup it's so light as to be invisible.

She prattles on about the girl she's going to become. She's an AP student; she's musical; she comes from a "good" family. (Mrs. Matthias says that several times, and the word "good" seems to drip satirically off her tongue, which makes you wonder.) She's very popular and has lots of friends; she's extremely respectable. (That's another word that makes Mrs. Matthias giggle.) She shows you pictures of Leslie's friends: girls who are smartly but casually dressed, like Leslie herself. "Boys are crazy about her," she prattle. "I'll have my pick when I'm—" She giggles again and shows you a photo of a boy.

You don't pay much attention, until she casually mentions Leslie's brother. "Is his name Spencer?" you ask, and she nods in a distracted way. Interesting, you think. Spencer is one of the seniors, a shabby, quasi-dropout smart-aleck, not at all like the girl Mrs. Matthias is gushing over. And he's friends with Dane.

You have Lindsay under control, but you still need another identity. Maybe you can find one through Mrs. Matthias.

* To turn yourself in Leslie Osbourne's brother: "Spencer for Hire" 
* To consult golem-Lindsay: "Identity Roulette" 

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