The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

How to Create a Convincing Backstory

Previously: "A Girl Who Likes Mischief" 

You just gave the game away, Will.

That's what Sydney said, and she's right, isn't she? You can feel the guilt on your own face, and you wouldn't be surprised if she came right out and told you that she knows all about everything you've been up to.

You've been using an ancient grimoire to make magical disguises and get your friends in trouble, haven't you, Will?

"Okay, look," you stammer. "I really can't go into it all, uh, now. I mean, it's really complicated—"

Shit. Now you really have blown everything wide open. You put your face in your hands.

Then Sydney herself comes to your rescue.

"You want to talk about it with your friends first, don't you?" she says. You peek out at her between your fingers. She's smiling. "You really should," she goes on. "I'll stay out of the way until you do.

"But, uh, Will?" She reaches across to pry your fingers apart, giving her a better view of your face and expression. "I really do want to be friends with you and your friends." Her fingers gently brush against yours.

* * * * *

So you've bought yourself a little time, but a little time to do what? To figure out a new bluff for Sydney? To figure out a way to tell her what you've been doing, and how, and why? To figure out how leave town and lose yourself in a strange city?

It's when you remember how she credited the stuff to "you and your friends" that you finally stumble onto a semi-profitable train of thought. She frightens you, but she'd be a lot less frightening if you had friends to back you up. If it was you and your friends who were letting her into your club, where you were all in control.

Of course, your friends don't know anything about this, so you'd have to tell them first—like Sydney suggested—and that would be really weird. But you did come close early on to telling them about it all.

Yes, you decide, you'd be happier if you had Caleb—

Shit!

You've been pranking Caleb! You used his face to get him in a lot of trouble at parties! And to steal money from his friends!

If you tell him what you were doing, he'll kill you!

And you can't tell Sydney without telling him, can you? Because she's practically started dating him and for some reason she thinks that he's the one that's running things!

Still, maybe if you only told Keith ....

Keith ...

You're at home, and before you can change your mind you shoot Tilley a text telling him you're on your way over to his house.

* * * * *

"Dude!" Keith exclaims when he answers his front door. "I texted you, I can't hang out."

"Sure you can, and you better," you retort. "It's important."

"I got company! My aunt and uncle—"

"Are they here to see you? Are you in charge of the entertainment? They gonna break out razor blades and start cutting themselves if you take off someplace without them?"

Keith gapes at you. "Dude, what's your fu—?" He glances back into the house. "What's your deal?" he hisses.

You grasp your number-two friend by his scrawny bicep.

"Keith, man, I got something super important to talk to you about, about you and me and Caleb and that girl he's seeing."

He snorts. "Johansson!" he sneers. "That cocksucker can—" But then catches himself, and his eyes narrow. "What girl?"

"See? That's the thing we need to talk about. Well, eventually. But something a lot more important than that first."

Keith looks dubious. "Yeah, well, my aunt and uncle just drove into town, we're supposed to have supper with them. We're going to Olive Garden," he adds, as though that explains anything.

"Forty-five minutes," you retort. "Give me forty-five minutes to get you interested. Can you take off with me for that long?"

"Gimme a minute," he says, and leaves you twitching on the front porch as he goes in to check.

"Okay, I gotta be back by five-thirty," he says when he returns. "We're going to Olive Garden," he repeats.

"You'll find an excuse to blow them off," you assure him, "after I give you my show and tell."

* * * * *

On the drive out you start by telling him about Caleb and Sydney McGlynn—a topic that he snorts derisively over—then switch to that book you found and what it can do.

"Oh, Jesus, dude," Keith moans when you break off. "I don't even like my aunt and uncle. But coming out with you to listen to this shit? At least with them—"

That's as far as he gets. You're parked at Potsdam Park, next to the river, and you're already unzipping your backpack. Before he can finish his thought, you yank out the mask of Caleb and smash it into his face.

* * * * *

"Come on, you're not trying!" you holler at Keith.

"Fuck you, Will!" he hollers back. "I think I'm doing a pretty goddamned good job of being Caleb Johansson!" He touches his face.

Well, Caleb's face. That's the face now attached to the front of his skull, and it's with Caleb's fingers that he touches it. His eyes are still bulging in an alarming way as he studies himself in his cell phone.

Slamming the mask onto him was the quickest way of convincing him of the truth of what you'd been telling him, and after half a minute of panicking Keith had come round to accepting the idea that you weren't totally full of shit when you told him all that stuff about masks and disguises and burning things over sigils. He accused you of "hypnotizing" him, and he probably still half-believes that it's all an illusion he's suffering. But at least he's stopped screaming.

Now if only he could start acting like Caleb.

"Think!" you order him. "When's Caleb's birthday?"

"Sometime in March?"

"Not even close. Name some of his relatives. What's his locker combination? Something, Tilley, God damn it!"

But Keith numbly insists that, even in the mask, he doesn't know anything about Caleb that he didn't already know.

"What's it matter?" he grumbles. "You want me going out, pretending to be him in front of other people? Like you did with me? Cocksucker."

Yeah, you told him what you did with that mask, to him and to Ioeger and Lamont, and at those parties. At least he doesn't seem mad about it, and when you told him you'll pay him back when you have a chance, he just shrugged and told you to forget about it.

"I wanna know how much trouble I'm gonna be in with Caleb when I tell him what I got up to," you explain.

"Oh, you're gonna be in a shitload of trouble," Keith assures you. "I don't need to know nothing more about Johansson than what I already know to tell you that. Anyway—" He turns back to the cell phone and frowns at the image on its screen. "Why don't you just put the dingus on and find out yourself? If you really can read his mind with it?"

You sigh. "Because I wanted to practice on you. I wanted to practice telling him by telling you what I did."

"Why can't you do that now?"

"Because you're not Caleb."

"I am totally Johansson right now," he insists. "Hey, let's go find that skirt you were telling me about, get him in trouble with her, like—"

"Jesus! Get him in trouble? You just got through yelling at me about that!"

"That was different, that was when you were doing it."

"And now it's different?"

"Totally. This time it would be me fucking things up for him."

* * * * *

Fortunately, you have an excuse for cutting him off: He has to get back home so he can go to the Olive Garden (eye roll) with his family. You pull the mask off him, and wake him up again when you're parked in front of his house. "I'll text you when I get back," he tells you as he scrambles from your truck. "Then we can, like, go get in trouble and shit."

You grunt and drive off. But instead of going home, you drive around the city, thinking.

Keith took the thing pretty goddamned well. Better than you probably would have taken them. He not only swallowed without straining the story you told him about the mask—which he would, considering that you set up a very practical demonstration—but he also accepted what you did with the mask and was actually up for doing some more of it. That bodes well for making the reveal to Caleb, particularly if you promise to help him set things right with Carson and James.

On the other hand, Caleb was the victim, and you pranked him pretty severely. Even if he came in on it with you and Keith, and agreed to show the stuff to Sydney, you might have damaged your friendship with him so badly that things will never be right between you again. You might only be setting yourself up for a lot of horrible—and, with magic involved, even dangerous—conflict with him.

Maybe you could convince Sydney that Caleb doesn't actually know what's going, that it's just you and Keith.

And, after that thought occurs to you, you start to regret the panicked way that you confessed things to Tilley.

Next: "Making a Magical Second Impression" 

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