The Book of Masks (Abridged)

The Graveyard Thief

YOU HAVE TO MAKE ANOTHER TRIP up to Walmart for sandbags, but your dad already has a shovel, so there's no much prep work for when it comes time to raid the cemetery. You hang out in your room until nine, fighting down the stupid attack of nerves that is gradually creeping over you. When you finally can't take it anymore, you troop downstairs and tell your parents you're going to go hang out with "the guys." This time your dad doesn't even remind you of your curfew.

There may be other cemeteries in town, but the only one you know of is about a mile or so away, by the river on Farm Road. You drive deep inside it when you get there, parking as far from the nearby roads as you can. You kill a minute drumming your fingers on the steering wheel, wondering if you're really going to do this.

Then with a sigh of determination you press Caleb's mask, which you've brought with you, to your face.

* * * * *

You've got a couple of reasons to make this change. One is that, if you get caught you don't want it to be under your own face. You're not trying to add to Caleb's woes, but you'd rather they fall on him than on you if this thing goes pear-shaped. Also, his muscles are no worse than yours.

But the main reason is so that you can wear those stinky, river-soaked clothes of his while you work. They're already ruined—a funky stench is rising off them, and they're cold, and they feel like they're eating into your skin after you're in them. But at least it means you won't be fouling up a set of your own clothes with the night's labors. Once you're fully dressed out as a grave-robbing duplicate of your best friend since elementary school, you grab a shovel and a box of sandbags from the back of your truck and hike out to the tombstones.

The book only said the dirt had to come from a graveyard and did not make any special point about it having to come from a grave. Still, you'd rather err on the side of caution, and it seems to you that if the spell wants something from a graveyard, then getting the dirt from an actual grave would be the best guarantee of getting what you need. But you don't go looking for any grave in particular, and just trudge over to the nearest one. You break the sod in great circle, toss it aside, and start deepening the hole.

It is long, hard, back-breaking work. Jam the shovel blade into the firm earth. Scoop. Gently lift and turn the blade over an open sandbag. You soon decide that you could really do with some help, not just with the digging, but to hold the lips of the damn bags open so you don't spill as much next to a bag as into it. Your arms and your wrists are soon aching, and then your lower back starts to yelp; and work that started off cold—for there's a small but persistent breeze blowing—soon turns uncomfortably warm.

At least the ache of labor dulls your imagination. Early on, the hairs on the back of your neck and the flesh between your shoulder blades kept prickling. It is a clear and moonless night, so that you haven't even the glow of the city to light the scene. The tombstones nevertheless shine faintly in the dark, and you can't help the feeling that there's something slightly occult about the brightness with which they glow.

But worries about things coming out of the nearby graves are gradually supplanted by a tired irritation and growing vexation with the work itself. And pretty soon you're less worried about the bright tombstones and the shivering rustle of the wind in the grass than by the bright headlamps of vehicles and the rumble of their passage. You worry you're not parked nearly as far off Farm Road as you'd thought, and it occurs to you that your truck, itself being white, might be visible from the street.

After thirty minutes or so, then, you take a break by moving your truck farther back into the cemetery and tackling a different grave. Shovelful by shovelful the dirt goes into the bags, and the bags go into the back of the truck. You're very happy when you fill the fortieth bag, for it means you're halfway to your quota. Then you realize you're not sure that the bags, which are supposed to hold five pounds each, are holding that much, and you grimly decide to press on until you've filled all one hundred that were in the box.

* * * * *

But you give up, in an aching sweat, with the ninetieth bag. You feel like you've been worked over by every bully at Westside.

You transport the spoils of the night to the elementary school. It's already past your curfew, so instead of rushing back home you unlock the basement door and, five bags at a time, transfer the dirt into the basement. You've no scales on hand, so you don't empty them. But you do glance through the spell to see how much more prep work is needed.

Not much, it looks like. You don't have to mix all the stuff up beforehand, and can pour each thing directly onto the pile once you've got it measured out. But you could save time tomorrow by putting the smaller ingredients together into one of the plastic tubs you brought out.

On the other hand, it wouldn't save much time. And you'd really like to get out of Caleb's stinky clothes (and mask) and get to bed.