The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

A Call Across the Dimensions

Previously: "A Girl Who's Unsure of Herself" 

"Don't let it get you down, girl," you tell Sydney. You lay a hand over hers. "This doesn't sound like you."

"Who does it sound like?" she snaps back. "Or who doesn't it sound like? You mean it doesn't sound like me, or it doesn't sound like Kelsey?" She stumbles a little over the name of the girl whose face she has stolen.

"It doesn't sound like either of you. But come on, let's finish up here and go back to my place." You gather up your stuff, despite Sydney's frown. "I haven't done any of that—" You shy away from uttering the name "Baphomet" in public. "The stuff you wanted me to set up in my closet." You give her a knowing look. "The girl I know would be all into helping me with that."

* * * * *

And most of her confidence has returned once you're back at your house and she has that dildo-shaped "meditation wand" in her hand. Almost she could pass for Kelsey with those who know the girl intimately, except that she lacks the bossy edge that Kelsey is never quite without.

"Okay, we'll put the door here," she says after thrusting aside the outfits hanging inside the walk-in closet. "You'll have to draw it yourself, you know," she continues, and thrusts the wand at you. "Just trace a rectangle from the baseboards up to, you know, eye level or something, then back down."

You do as directed; the tip of the wand leaves no mark on the wall, but it shivers a little in your hand as you drag it loudly across the paint and plaster.

"Now," Sydney says, holding a sheet of paper out for you to study, "draw these symbols around the perimeter."

"I'm not sure I'm copying them correctly," you admit after you've scratched the third invisible symbol onto the wall. "I'm not even sure I'm putting them on the right side of line."

"You're doing fine," Sydney says. "I'm watching."

"Didn't you say something about a chant I have to perform?"

"Not until you put up the second set of symbols. Which reminds me, do you have a—?"

She's interrupted by a rap at the bedroom door. You exchange a worried glance, then press the wand onto Sydney as you go out to answer the knock.

It's Amanda's mom—a chunkier iteration of her daughter, and a perpetual incentive to stick to her diet regimen—asking if Kelsey is staying for dinner. You make a show of shouting the question to Sydney, and she shouts back in the affirmative. "Any chance of your parents going out?" Sydney asks when you rejoin her. "Because the chant makes a lot of noise."

"We could cover it up with some music?"

"That's what I was going to suggest. But it would be better if they just didn't hear anything."

You wonder what it could possibly sound like—something really horrible and demonic?—and suggest suspending operations until you have the house to yourselves. Sydney agrees, but makes you finish the first set of symbols before breaking off.

* * * * *

During the break you seize the opportunity to straighten out the lines on her clothes, then set her in a chair at your vanity table to brush and correct her hair. You also have her take out her phone and go online while you work: "You should at least try to catch up on Kelsey's social accounts."

"Why? I don't think I'm going to stick it out as her."

"Sure you are. At the very least, you should look over her things. It might stimulate the memories."

So she scrolls through the internet while you touch her up all over and tell her what she is supposed to know and what she is supposed to think. About Brooke Galloway, for instance: "She worships the ground you walk on. I don't know why, because you're always belittling her. Not that I blame you. Brooke barely knows her left foot from her right." Olivia Byrne: "Her parents are friends of hers, and that's the only reason you're friends with her. Oh, hell, all our parents are friends of each other, we all know each other through the country club. But she's got a good head on her shoulders." Rachel Burton: "She sweet but she's dumb. Not book dumb, she gets good grades. But you have to explain things to her."

And the boys? Anthony Kirk: "He's super-smart and super-arrogant." Geoff Mansfield: "Super-smart and super-arrogant." Martin Gardinhire: "Super-smart and super-arrogant."

"All of the guys are like that?"

"No, just those three. Except Anthony's got a right to be super-arrogant, he's going to get a golf scholarship and an academic scholarship at one of the Ivy Leagues. Geoff's as smart as Anthony, but he's more of an asshole about it. Martin's problem is that he can't get laid."

"How is that a problem?"

You give one of her strands a sharp tug. "Maybe I should have turned you into my boyfriend, then you'd know why not getting laid is a problem for a guy."

"No, I what I meant was, you make it sound like it's a personality disorder."

"With Martin it is. If he got laid he might not be such a stuck-up prick."

"Kelsey's sure got herself a charming set of friends."

You grunt. "They're just hyper-competitive. And like I said, they all know each other through the country club, if they didn't— Well, I don't know who they'd be friends with. Maybe no one."

After that you tell her a little more about Ricky and about Amanda's history with him, and about Brent Pruitt, who is super-smart but not super-arrogant, and so gets kicked around by everyone else in the group.

You don't tell her anything about Lisa.

* * * * *

But despite all these attempts to stimulate Kelsey's memories, Sydney says she's not picking up any up. But she's a quick study, and when texts start rolling in from friends and acquaintances after dinner, she's able to answer them in a way that at least sounds in character. But the crisis comes when you start to do homework together, and you glance over at her paper long enough to see that there's something seriously wrong with it. "Oh my God," you murmur.

"What?"

"Your handwriting. It's not Kelsey's."

Sydney looks down at her paper, and freezes.

"Look, don't panic," you start to say, but she scrambles off the floor and onto your bed, where she thrashes while grabbing at her face.

"Get it off me," she growls. "Get it off me, this isn't going to work, I can't—"

You wrench her hands away. She glares up at you, breathing heavily.

"Tomorrow, after school," you promise her, "if you're still blocked we'll switch the masks around. You can go back to being yourself, and Kelsey will— Well, we'll figure out something about Kelsey. But just give it twenty-four hours, Sydney, just give it a chance to—"

"I won't be able to fool anyone at school, Will!"

"Sure you will. You look just like Kelsey, you dress just like her. You think people won't know you're Kelsey? You think they'll spot you for an imposter? Bullshit. I bet none of them will notice a thing. Just give it a chance."

She grumbles some more, but relents when you tell her that she can stay out until midnight with you, and that you'll even go home with her in order to make sure she gets into the right bedroom at Kelsey's place. As for the night's homework: It would be out of character, but Kelsey can afford to miss one day of it.

Around about nine, you decide you can't put off work on the portal anymore, parents or no parents. So you put on some music, stuff a comforter in the cracks under your bedroom door, and shut yourself inside the closet with Sydney. She gives you the meditation wand while holding the instructions so you can both read off them.

"The actual pronunciation isn't really important," she explains. "It's not magic words. It's more like a call, like shouting out 'Here I am' into the dimension on the other side. But, you know, try to get the sounds somewhere in the ballpark."

You nod while quietly shivering at the idea of shouting "Here I am!" to a demon while outlining a door for it to come through.

"Ready?" Sydney says. "The first one goes like—"

And what comes out of her mouth is the most horrible noise you've ever heard.

It's not the actual sounds that are horrible, or the squealing tenor of her voice. But there's a note behind and inside it: something sub-human and animalistic.

Worse, it's the sound of something that was once human, but is now just an animal.

It's the squeal of a thing that was once a person but has thrown itself back onto its four limbs, shat its humanity out of its hindquarters, and turned itself into a pig.

"I don't think I can say that," you stammer when she's done.

"You have to try, Will."

"But—"

"Try!" And she frowns in a way that Kelsey Blankenship would have frowned at you.

So you turn to the portal, touch the invisible door with the tip of the wand, and scream.

Eeooworgch-hwee!

A hard tremble runs through you.

"Now try it again," Sydney says, "and this time trace out the symbol while you do it.

* * * * *

Around the perimeter of the portal you trace the symbols while screaming like a frightened brute. Physically, there's nothing to it, but you're wrung out when you're done, and gratefully accept Sydney's suggestion that you go out for a chai. Even so fortified, you feel a wreck, though you keep her out until it's past eleven. Not until it's nearly midnight do you follow her home and lead her upstairs to her bedroom to put her to bed.

Your own house is dark when you return, and you creep quietly and tentatively back to your room. Inside you shut the door and turn on the light.

Is it only in your imagination that you see the closet door pull itself noiselessly shut?

Next: "Demons by Night, Demons by Daylight" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 4)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)"