The Book of Masks (Abridged)

An Ambush in the Dark

"THANKS FOR A FUCKING WASTE OF TIME, ASSHOLES," you snarl down at Caleb.

He laughs. "You sound just like him, too!"

You look back into the mirror, which you'd found back behind some junk in another corner of the school basement. It's Jeremy Richards—or a flawless duplicate—who looks back at you: messy brown hair; droopy, stoner eyes; and toned arms and chest. You'd had to win four rounds of rock-paper-scissors (after Caleb insisted on a best of two out of three and then a best of three out of five) for the right to have this reflection, for a little while at least. "I wonder if I'm as strong as him," you wonder.

Caleb motions you over to some kind of cast-iron frame. You doubt you could have moved it before; it's still a strain, but you lift it more cleanly and easily than Caleb can when he gives it a shot. "I'd say that settles it," he says. "I don't think his own mother could tell the difference."

"God, I hope his own mother doesn't know what he looks like naked," you reply. "Actually, I'm not thrilled to know it either."

You are, of course, absolutely starkers, having discarded your own clothes before pressing the mask to your face. It took you awhile to get even that far. When you and Caleb dove back into the basement you'd found the mask undamaged but subtly altered: its glimmering surface now showed in its depths a pale but recognizable face, that of Jeremy Richards. You'd then used the altered mask to open another page in the spell book, where you'd found more information about the mask and its uses, as well as the start of another spell. As it happens, it was necessary to master that other spell before you could use the mask. But it was a fairly simple spell that made a sealant that could be applied to the inside of the mask, and it required only the materials you had on hand. Then it was a contest between you and Caleb to see who would get to try on the Jeremy disguise first. It knocked you cold when you put it on, but Caleb woke you with a couple of hard slaps to the face, and you sat up to find yourself nearly six inches taller than when you woke this morning.

"Okay, let me give it a try now," Caleb says.

"Wait your turn, I just got it on." You fondle your new balls. Disguise or not, everything is as sensitive and responsive as it should be.

"Dude, you're not going to jack off, are you?"

"Of course not! Well, not unless you think it would be a good idea to check that everything works."

"Look, that's your business." He backs away. "Just don't ask me to help."

You do a little tentative jumping and fake free throwing. "I suppose it would be too much to hope that the mask copies skills. It doesn't copy memories." You fall back onto your feet awkwardly. "No, I guess not." You bend over and scratch your new calf thoughtfully.

"So we won't be playing basketball as him. I can live without that."

"Yeah, but what will we be doing?" You put your hand to your nose and temple in the prescribed gesture, mutter the prescribed, odd-sounding words, and pull—

* * * * *

—and wake again with a stinging sensation in your face. "Jesus," Caleb says. He's leaning over you, and you sit up on an elbow to find yourself sprawled on the floor. "Okay that's something to remember. Lay down before you put one of those things on or take it off. You almost crushed me when you fell over."

But that's the extent of his sympathies, and as you sit up with a groan he's already tearing off his own clothes. Then he lays down and drops the mask onto his face.

The change is almost anticlimactic: One moment it's Caleb laying there, the next it's Jeremy. You slap him awake, as he'd done to you.

"So what do we do with this thing?" you ask again when Caleb is checking himself out in the mirror.

"Huh? Oh. Well, we were talking about using a Jeremy disguise to get close to Javits to copy him, right?"

"Yeah, but then what would we do with a Seth Javits disguise?"

"Get close to his girlfriend. Dur."

"Yeah, but how do we make sure the real people don't interfere? Caleb!"

"What?" He turns with a frown to stare down at you with one of Jeremy's dark, truculent sneers. It makes you blink, remembering when Jeremy was a skinny middle-schooler like yourself, and you wonder how come people who start out so similar can turn out so different.

"Suppose you get yourself all done up as Seth and go over to Cindy's," you explain to him. "What happens if the real Seth calls, or actually shows up at her house?"

"Then I guess you can play Jeremy and keep Seth away."

"And who keeps Jeremy away from us?"

"Will you stop worrying about these things?" He turns back to the mirror. "We'll figure out something."

You bite your lip. "Anyway, we can't use the second mask on Javits."

He looks down at your reflection. "How come?"

"Well, you wanted to use one of the masks on Jeremy, and we did. I want to use the other one on Geoff Mansfield."

He whips around. "Oh, dude, come on! When you suggested Jeremy I thought you were giving up on Mansfield and the whole Lisa thing!"

"No, I went with Jeremy because you wanted to try it on him. And because I wanted to see if it would work first before trying it tomorrow on Geoff."

Caleb takes your insistence with bad grace—"You're gonna fuck it up for us!"—but you are adamant. At least he doesn't fight when you snatch up the blank mask and take it home with you.

* * * * *

The next day, after church, you call Lisa to see if you can pick her up for the movie, but she tells you Geoff will be having that pleasure. She even asks if you need a ride, and you have to bite back the sarcastic reply that, if you'd needed a ride, you wouldn't have called her up to offer her one.

They're late arriving at the theater. Geoff has his hands in his pockets as he strides in. Your hands are in your pockets too, and you are suddenly and uncomfortably aware that you are hunched and defensive, while Mansfield has his shoulders back and chin up and is looking at the world with a very confident and serene gaze. You pull you hands out but can't quite muster the will to straighten out of your stoop.

"You worried about catching a cold?" Mansfield asks without preamble, and indicates the wadded up jacket you have stuffed under your arm.

You shrug. "They turn the air conditioners up too high in these places." Actually, you've got the blank mask wrapped in it. "So, you know, if you get to feeling cold—" you say to Lisa, but she's turned to Geoff.

"How about you and Will get the snacks, and I'll go save us some seats?" she offers.

"How about he goes and gets some seats," Geoff counters, "and you and I get the snacks?"

"Lisa and I could get the snacks, and you could hold some seats," you interject, illogically. Then the gears grind in your head, and you desperately try to flip the suggestion around. "Or, she and I could go save the seats, and you could get the snacks."

"Shut up, Prescott," a dull voice says behind you, and you nearly jump out of your skin when you turn toward the speaker. Jeremy Richards has loped up and is looking down at you with ill-disguised contempt. "No one wants to hear your shit."

Geoff, to his credit, doesn't smile. "Where's your squad, Richards?"

"I had a bad day yesterday, was feeling anti-social," he mutters. He glares down at you. "But then I saw you guys and just decided 'What the hell'."

You say nothing, and Geoff and Lisa only offer small talk in reply, but it appears that the resentful Richards has decided to attach himself to your group. In the auditorium, he even pushes you out of the way so he can sit between you and Lisa. You wind up in an aisle seat, and there are kids in the row behind. It's going to be impossible, you realize, to sneak up behind Mansfield, even in the dark.

The lights go down and the movie starts, and you soon find yourself squirming with restless distraction. You catch Richards glancing over you, but he says nothing. As the movie progresses you sink lower and lower in your chair, trying to figure out a way to get at Geoff (who is three seats over). You mutter to yourself. You've been balked not only getting at Geoff, you don't even have the consolation of sitting next to Lisa. You twist angrily.

"Stop it," Richards growls at you. Something sparks inside you.

"You wanna make something of it," you snap back.

"Let's take it outside, asshole," he snarls back.

You leap up and stride out the auditorium, out the lobby, out into the parking lot behind. You wheel and blink in the light. Richards saunters out, looking very cool and unconcerned. "So where do you want to do this?" you yell.

"Let's take it back to the clubhouse," he says. "I got something to show you there."

You stare, and then you blink, and then with a yelp you swing at him. He steps aside easily and catches your arm. "Stop it," he laughs. "You're gonna hurt one of us, and I doubt it's gonna be me."

"Jerk! Asshole!"

"C'mon, man, we need to get outta sight," he murmurs. "I don't want anyone to catch us."

"You shoulda thought of that before you—! You—!"