The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

The Man in the Cindy Mask

Previously: "The Hero and His Reward" 

It's Will Shabbleman. Luckily, he seems to be asleep.

You look at the mask in your hand and turn it over. Cindy's name floats in burning letters over its inner face, which is gray. That means it has been golemized. But who has enslaved the mask? Is this how Blackwell got rid of Shabbleman? Or has Shabbleman somehow returned and wormed his way into the school?

You examine the interior of the mask more closely. Spidery cracks, like silver threads against the gray surface, run over it. You suck thoughtfully on your lips. Your first thought—that you broke the mask with the mighty power of your thrusting cock—is altogether too comical to be entertained ...

Your cousin stirs, and quickly you press the mask back onto his face. Cindy returns, and bursts into a gale of laughter when she sees your stricken expression.

"Okay, what's this all about?" you demand roughly of her.

"I don't know," she says. "I really don't. You took the mask off, right? Is he still there?"

"Who?"

"The guy. What's his name?"

"Don't you know?"

"Not any more," she shrugs. "It's like a weird dream. He got inside me somehow, and he's been making me do things." She tilts her head thoughtfully. "I can sort of remember what happened, but it's faded, like I've woken up from a dream. He was inside me, but then after you and I—" She bites her lip and smiles and runs a fingertip up your bare thigh. "Well, suddenly it was like he fell down a deep, deep hole. I can't feel him anymore. And everything I knew while he was in me, well, I think it disappeared after you took the mask off."

"Where's the real Cindy?"

"The real—? Oh. Yeah." Her eyes fall and she puts her hands against her face, and a look of deep sadness settles over her features. "I don't know. I should know. I think I used to know. But like I said ..." She sags. "It's like a dream, and it's all gone, or going away." She looks up at you with a pleading expression. "Will you hold me? I feel kind of scared."

You put your arm around her shoulder, even though you don't like touching her, and you stiffen as she nestles close to you.

"What do you remember?"

"Well, I remember everything clearly up until last night, when Lucy took me out to this house," she says slowly. "I can remember up until that point, and a little after. There's this professor who lives there, and she needed to stop there. Something happened, I don't remember what, but I think ..." She trails off and her eyes go far away. "I think I was talking to the professor. I don't know about what. I left, and I went home, and I went to school today. I was talking to my friends like everything was normal, I know that much. But it's all just pictures, no sounds or thoughts." She trails off and her eyes focus on something either very far away or very deep inside herself. Then she shakes herself. "Everything didn't become real again until just a little while ago. After, um ... Well, suddenly I felt like me again."

"Do you remember cheerleader practice this afternoon?"

"Oh yeah. You were there. I asked you to watch." Her eyes widen and she sits up. "Isn't that funny? As soon as you asked me about it, it just came back. You were so sexy, sitting up there watching us."

"Do you remember what you were thinking?"

She shakes her head. "I just remember talking to you. Everyone—Chelsea and Kendra and the others, I mean—we were all so happy you'd finally smacked that Prescott creep down."

"Do you remember why you asked me to watch?"

"Because we thought you were so cool?" Her tone suggests she's only guessing.

"What about those words you told me, the ones I used to ..." You touch her forehead.

She flinches, and frowns. "No. That's one of the things that's gone. But I know there were things I wanted to tell you. Things I needed to warn you about. I think I couldn't find the words, though, and that's why I told you to—" She swallows.

Golems are shifty, untrustworthy things, capable of lying to anyone and everyone—except one person.

"Do you have a master?" you ask. She looks up at you. "Someone you have to obey."

"Yes," she says, snuggling closer. "You. I'd do anything for you." She lifts her face, and there is fear in her eyes. "You— You'd do anything for me, wouldn't you?"

She's not real. She might even be lying—because a golem can also tell anyone that he is its master. But you grunt out your assent. "Yeah. I'll take care of you."

* * * * *

You question her closely, trying to shake her story, and to glean more information. But it's patchy. You would have given up, but you'd begun to notice a pattern. If it was a place where you were both present—and she knew you were present—she could remember it, clearly. But if either of you were absent, the scene remains "dream-like." Naturally, this raises your suspicions, until her cell phone rings. It's Kendra Saunders, breathlessly wanting details on what has happened between her and you. Cindy declines to answer and tries to hang up, but gets trapped in a conversation about school. She speaks fluently about the day's events—mostly.

"This is so weird," she exclaims after dropping the phone. "Kendra started talking about lunch, and I remembered it, totally. But when she asked me what happened in seventh period, because she had to skip, I couldn't remember anything."

"Was Kendra there during lunch?" Cindy nods. You pull your lip. It fits the pattern: her memories unfold when prompted by a witness to the scene. Otherwise—at least she claims—it's a blank.

"You know," she says, "if I weren't here, and if I didn't remember what it was like to ... to wake up ... I don't think I'd believe any of this was real. I'd just go home."

"And no one would know anything was wrong," you muse. You look at her long and levelly, hoping to catch a chink in her gaze, something would suggest that this is all a very strange and malicious head fake by the man beneath her mask. But there isn't even a flicker. You remove her face again ... And he is still asleep.

You replace it, close your eyes, and let the Libra sigils come back to you; after last night, they are almost like intimate parts of your own psyche, instantly interpretable. You take them apart and study them and ponder the way they work and how they might be made to function in a different way.

The only thing you can conclude is that in the act of fucking her you managed to golemize her mask. Except that doesn't make sense. Disguises, whether worn by golems or by human beings, do not leave physical traces behind—they dematerialize. Furthermore, you are trapped inside a golem, so it's not like your own effluvia could have been the vehicle. You'd dismiss it as an unprofitable fancy, but for the behavior of that origami bird on Friday night. You turn that sigil over in your mind. Yes, now after having made a deeper study with Blackwell, you can see the hole, the one that would have let essentia in to complete it and to animate it. But your understanding of essentia extends only to its functioning inside Libra spells. What it is and how it works—other than the obvious, that it comes from the mask's maker via his hair or other bodily detritus, like semen or saliva—is still a mystery to you. Even more mysterious is how you could have imparted any essentia into Cindy's mask when your own native body is ... Well, you don't know where it is.

You're brought back to earth by a sigh. "Are we going to stay here all night?" Cindy asks. "I'd like that, but our parents might wonder about it."

If you're right, it should be safe to put Cindy's mask on yourself. In that guise you could approach Blackwell, who seems to be in back of the plot, whatever it is. But it would be dangerous, and you'd have to find some way to restrain or get rid of Shabbleman while you had the mask off him. You don't like the alternative, which is to let this possible ally but possible traitor out of your sight.

Next: "Inside Information" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 3)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)"