The Book of Masks (Abridged)

A Company of Three

Previously in "In Which You Try to Wash Your Hands of It All" : You picked up an old book in the used bookstore that promised to show how to make magical disguises. But you were freaked out by its demand for a blood sacrifice, and have decided to take it to school to bury in the time capsule that one of your teachers is putting together ...

YOU FOLLOW THE SOUND OF THE VOICES, but have to search around the back of several portables before you find them. "Oh, fuck!" Justin Roth gasps as you round a corner. He's crouching on the ground, and falls over in silent, asthmatic laughter.

Not that he's laughing at you, or that he's even seen you. He's huddling with Shep "Maize" Tsosie and Perry Small, and the sight of those two almost sends you back around the corner. But Justin catches sight of you before you can retreat, and his eyes light up. "Hey, look, it's Will Prescott!" He grins. The other two look over, and though they smile too, their eyes glint with a darker amusement.

"Guys," you say, and shift awkwardly on your feet. You don't know these three very well, and to the extent you do know them you tend to steer clear of them. But you step forward and crouch down next to them when Justin beckons you over.

He's dressed in ratty shorts and a ratty shirt, and his limbs and face are a dark brown from the summer sun; you're vaguely aware that he likes to go hunting, and his tan has the rough, well-earned look that comes from lots of exposure to sun and wind. His hazel eyes twinkle from under a shaggy mop of brown hair. "What are you doin' back here, Prescott?"

"Well, what are you doing back here?"

He hacks out a rude guffaw and waggles his eyebrows. "Same thing as you?" he teases.

Tsosie flinches as Roth twitches the blunt end of a joint from his lips. "I wasn't done with that," Maize snarls. He pulls his long, dark hair back into a ponytail and glares at Roth. His rounded biceps briefly bulge as he balls his fists; mica-like eyes flash. Tsosie may be a stoner, but he's also a jock--he plays on the baseball team--and you really wouldn't want to get on his bad side. But his spasm of irritation subsides, and his hair falls back onto his face as he looks down to stare moodily at the ground.

Roth holds the joint out to you. "If you didn't bring your own--"

"Thanks," you say, and slowly reach out to take it. It's one thing to turn down an offer from Dane: he wouldn't hold it against you in any way. But you don't want to offend these three by rejecting it. You put it to your lips and take a short puff, and cough a little as a sharp bit of smoke goes down your throat. You hand it back to him, and he takes a much deeper hit with a twinkling smile.

Perry snickers softly. "You up here late studying?"

"I had to come back up, turn something in for Walberg."

"Pff, Walberg," Tsosie snorts.

"Say hi to Dane for us," Justin laughs.

"I just ran into him," you say. "He was heading off for the gym." You look over your shoulder, vaguely hoping that he'll materialize.

"Fucker," Justin laughs again. "We were waiting for him, and he knows it."

"Gyuh huh huh," Perry chortles mockingly, then snorts. "Fuck 'im. Let's go." He rises to his feet and brushes his knees. He's taller than you, and peers down skeptically at you anyway, and as you're still in a crouch, there's something ominous in his manner of looming over you. He brushes his long, blonde hair back from his forehead.

Of the three, he's the one that frightens you the most. Justin and Maize dress shabbily, like kids from the wrong side of the tracks, but Perry is a snappy dresser: nice slacks and clean sneakers and a sharp, coal-grey polo shirt; a thin, gold bracelet slides along his skinny wrist. He's chosen this kind of existence. As he stares down at you, you can see him weighing the choice: Would it be more fun to humiliate you by extending you an invitation, or to humiliate you by withholding it?

"Oh, there's no rush," Justin says, and he settles back against the wall of the portable, stretching his legs. "Will just got here." Perry snorts again, then leans against the wall as well, folding his arms. "Whatcha workin' on for Walberg?" Justin continues.

"He's having us put together a time capsule. I'm bringing in my thing for him."

"No shit," Justin says, sounding genuinely interested. "Whatcha got for him?"

"What's a time capsule?" Maize asks.

"A box of junk," Perry says as you unzip your bag and take out the book. "You bury it, and then in, like, a hundred years they dig it up again."

"The fuck for?" Maize asks incredulously.

"For an easy grade," Perry sneers. "Right, Prescott?"

You give him a quick, dirty look as you hand the book over to Roth.

He grunts and blinks as he takes it from you. "The idea," Justin says, and pauses. He blinks again, as though gathering his thoughts. "The idea," he repeats, "is that you put in a bunch of stuff that's like, typical or important from when you're alive. Then in the future they can look at it and get some idea of, like, what normal people had or were interested in."

"Won't they have history books in the future?" Maize asks.

"When was the last time you opened a history book, Tsosie?" Perry demands.

"The point is," Justin says, "that the history books are always about, like, famous people and things. They don't really tell you what it was like, I mean, really like back then. Like, they had cologne and stuff a hundred years ago, right?"

"Yeah, I guess," Maize says slowly.

"What did it smell like?"

"I dunno. Like my great-great granddad."

"Your great-great granddad smelled like a dead buffalo," Perry says. You can't help but blanch a little at the blunt, insulting reference to Maize's pure-blood Cherokee heritage.

"I'm gonna fuck you up in a--" Maize starts hotly.

"The point is," Justin says, raising his voice, and falls into a hacking cough as his voice cracks. "The point is that the history books won't tell you what it smelled like. But you got all these people walking around wearing it. So, that's like what the past smelled like. But you can't get that in a history book." He pauses, as though rallying his thoughts. "But if you put a bottle of cologne in one of these time capsules--" He stares at the first page of the book, and his eyes go in and out of focus. "Whoa. Um. Yeah. If you put a bottle of cologne in a time capsule, then they can know in the future what the past smelled like."

"It smells like shit," Perry grumbles again. "Actually, if they wanna know what it smells like right now, they should put your shirt in this time capsule."

Justin shoots him a sharp smile, then returns to the book. "Yeah, but what's this thing, Will?"

"Just a book. I found it at Arnholm's a few days ago."

"A pretty old book," Justin says. He tries thumbing through it. "What the fuck's wrong with it?"

"I dunno. It's like all the pages are glued shut."

"Jesus." He stares at it. "This really ain't the kind of thing for a time capsule."

"Yeah, well." You trail off. You don't want to tell him: It's a freaky book, probably magic, and I'm trying to get rid of it. "It didn't cost me much, and I don't want it."

"How much?"

"Uh, five bucks?"

"I mean, how much do you want for it?" Justin says. "It says 'two' here." He's not so stoned he can't see the altered price.

"You wanna buy it off me?"

"Walberg'll fucking flunk you if you try giving this to him," Justin says. "It's totally wrong for what he wants, I'm sure."

"You're not serious about--" Perry cries.

"Look at it!" Justin yells back. He hauls Small rudely back down to the ground. "Look at these fuckers." He grins glassily as he runs a finger lightly over the title page.

It must be the faces, those weird, shifting, transforming faces. It doesn't take much imagination to put yourself in Roth's place, to "see" those faces through a drug-tinged stupor. "Gah!" Justin suddenly shouts, and slams the book shut. He puts a hand over his eyes and shakes his head. "Tell me I'm not having a flashback," he gasps as he thrusts the book at Perry.

The latter gives you a dark look, then opens it up. He stares intently at the page, and then his mouth drops open slightly. "Fucking hell." He raises the book close to his face. "Like--"

Tsosie grabs it away from him, and in turn stares at the pictures with a frown. "What's so--?" he starts, and then it's his turn to gasp. His jaw works silently for a moment, and then looks up at you, his mouth spread in a rictus. He hurls the book at your feet. "Get rid of it."

"What's your deal?" Justin demands, and grabs the book up off the ground.

"It's bad news, man," Tsosie says. His cheeks have paled under his dusky Cherokee coloring, and he's glaring at you like it--whatever "it" is--is your fault.

"Someone slip some bad shit in your pipe?" Perry asks.

"Get rid of it," Tsosie repeats. He rears back. "I don't want anything to do with it."

"Well, who said you'd have to?" Justin cries. "Will, I'll give you--" He digs around his front pocket and draws out a couple of crumpled, dirty bills. "What have I got? Shit, not that one." He shove one bill back into his pants. "Um, three bucks for it? Go get something else for Walberg."

There's no desperation in Justin's offer; he only looks amused by your find. Perry is smirking at Tsosie. The latter looks at Justin, and at you, and his nostrils flare. It's weird that he reacted so badly to it, and it only strengthens your impression that the book needs getting rid of. You could get rid of it now, at a tiny profit, by accepting Justin's offer. But that's not really a safe disposal, is it? And you have the impression that Tsosie would hold it against you if you sold it to Justin.