The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Paranormality and Paramedics

Previously: "Projects, Both Yours and Others'" 

You and the girls stand in a tight circle, looking at each other.

But you're the one cradling the newly polished mask.

It's thin and it has no very great heft. It is cool to the touch. Yet it weighs heavily in your hands, and your palms are hot beneath it.

Finally, Jenny speaks. "Will," she says, "it's your book and your project."

It's an echo of when she snapped at Joey earlier. So ... your responsibility?

"Yeah, okay," you reply, and swallow. "Like, nothing's going to happen, right?"

Jenny only looks surprised at your words. Joey looks askance. Even you don't believe what you said, maybe because you said it mostly to reassure yourself. There's no way those ingredients, burned in that bowl, and poured over that mirror, should have made a solid shell. And even if it did, there's no explanation—

No scientific explanation.

—for the way it twisted and turned itself into a three-dimensional shell of a face.

"Will," Jenny starts to say again. But you brush her off.

"Look, I wanna try it," you say. "I'd be doing this anyway, you know, even if it was just me, and I was back home. I just wanted—" You lick your lips. "I just wanted someone around to watch in case something went wrong."

Jenny's eyebrows shoot up. Her mouth opens. You know what she's going to try doing next, so you pre-empt her.

You lift the mask and put it to your face.

The garage around you melts away, and you fall up into the sky.

* * * * *

Voices, indistinct. Words, like a foreign language. A weight, on your shoulder. Your eyes roll open, but you want to faint.

"Easy there, champ," a gruff voice says. A man with a lean, brown face peers closely at you. You try scrambling back, but are pinned down by his heavy hand. "Hush, there," he says. "Calm down. You calm? How many fingers am I holding up?"

You blink heavily, feeling as though you've emerged from a deep sleep. "Son?" says the man.

"Oh. Um. Three?" You blink to clear the sleep from your eyes, and recalibrate on the fingers he's showing you. "Four. One."

The man nods. "Okay. How about a little oxygen?" You don't fight the clear plastic mask he puts to your face, and you revive sharply as the cold tang of pure oxygen rushes up your nose and into your lungs.

He allows you only a few short breaths before withdrawing the mask and letting you sit up. "How do you feel?"

"Um, okay? I guess? A little shaky?" Mostly you're confused about what's going on.

Your heart flares to life as you realize that you're surrounded by paramedics. "What happened?" you ask.

The paramedics look at each other, and back at another cluster of people. Jenny and Joey, and a man and a woman. (Jenny's parents, probably.)

"We got a call that you fainted and were unresponsive," the man with the lean, brown face tells you. "Were you doing something that would have caused you to faint?"

You would have said "No" even if you didn't see the panicked look on Jenny's face. "I don't think so," you say. "I was just talking to my friends and, um—"

"Uh huh." The man's tone is very dry. "Well, let's check you out."

* * * * *

It probably only takes ten minutes, but it feels more like an hour as they take your pulse and respiration, your temperature, and check you out in other ways that you don't understand or recognize. They ask your medical history, your medication, any history of seizures or similar experiences. They look skeptical when they're done, but there's nothing they can tell you about your condition or what might have caused the fainting fit, and they only tell you to be sure to tell your parents about it, in case it's a sign of other problems. When Jenny asks, "What other kinds of problems?" they don't answer, and only repeat that you need to tell your parents.

As they leave the lead paramedic looks back at you. "Is that your truck?" he asks. You nod. "Are you staying here or are you gonna drive it home?"

"Drive it home?" you reply, none too certainly.

He shakes his head. "Can you get someone to pick you up?"

"I'll take him home," Jenny declares. "I feel kind of responsible." The paramedic gives her a long look, then follows his colleagues out to the fire truck. It's some minutes before it pulls away.

Jenny's mother and father fuss over you after they're gone, asking again if you're alright and what happened to make you faint like that. "I think it's just stuffy in here," Jenny quickly says. "Doesn't it seem stuffy? I feel stuffy." Jenny's mom asks if you'd like to stay until you're feeling better, but her father says he thinks you should go home. "And remember what the paramedics said," he tells you, looking very serious. "Tell your parents what happened."

"I'll get my keys and follow you out," Jenny's mom tells her daugher, "so I can bring you home after you drop Will and his truck off." She wears a very worried expression.

But Joey jumps in. "I can drive him home," she says. "If we can stop and drop my bike off at my place. And then Jenny can follow, and pick me up?"

So that's the way it works out. Though you're feeling awake and healthy again, you clamber into the passenger side of your truck and watch with bemusement as Joey—who is quite a bit shorter than you—grab hold of a wheel that is a little too big for her and reaches with legs that are just a little too short for the pedals. She shows a very child-like alertness as she backs the truck out of the driveway and turns it into the street.

"Thanks for driving me back," you tell her. "But what happened? You guys called the paramedics just because I fainted?"

"You didn't just faint, Will," she says, glancing between the road ahead and the road behind. "You were out cold. We couldn't revive you." She spares you a quick, wide-eyed look.

"What?"

"Yeah! We tried slapping you awake and everything, but you were totally out. So Jenny got her dad and her mom, and they couldn't get you wake you up or anything, so they called the paramedics."

"Jesus!" You feel your jaw sagging open. "How long was I out for?"

"About fifteen minutes, maybe. It happened right as you put that mask on. You just rolled up and fell. You almost knocked me and Jenny out as we went in to grab you. You were like a tree that someone cut down."

You let out a low whistle. "So what happened to the mask? Where is it?"

Joey is concentrated on her driving, so she doesn't answer right away. And when she does speak, it's to say "Be right back" as she parks in front of a house. She hops out, and unloads her bike from the back of your truck, wheeling around the back of her house; it's nearly a full minute before she comes running back out. She stops to talk to Jenny, who has followed her out and is parked behind you, before scampering back up into the truck.

"Sorry, where do you live?" she asks. "Acheson's nice," she observes after you tell her.

"Uh huh. What happened to the mask?"

Joey sucks in her upper lip. "It's somewhere," she says. "We kind of lost track of it in the excitement. It must've rolled away. Jenny'll look for it, she'll bring to you tomorrow at school or something, that's what I ran back there to talk to her about. Um, do you wann go get something, go someplace and talk?" She gives you a quick look.

"Doesn't Jenny have to come pick you up at my place?"

"We don't have to take you home, Will," she says. "In fact, you can drive, if you want. You didn't have a seizure or anything, there's nothing wrong with you. It was the mask, that's what knocked you out."

It sounds like she's trying to comfort you, but her words give you a chill. "Why do you say that?"

"Well, like you told the paramedics. You don't have seizures and you're not taking medicine. They think you were smoking marijuana or something, I could tell. Jenny's parents probably think that too, they're going to give her so much grief when she gets back. But I mean, what were we going to say when they asked what we were doing, that we were messing around with magic and that's what knocked you out?" When you don't reply, she asks, "Aren't you feeling okay?"

"No, I feel fine."

"Well, do you want to go out? You know, to, like, talk?"

She gives you another quick look, and there's no missing the hope in her expression.

Next: "A Date with Joey" 

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