The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

A Conundrum Called Kelly

Previously: "The Kid Sister" 

It takes you almost twenty minutes to deal with the bulk of Bridget's texts—the ones that have come in and the replies that you get—and even then you can tell that there's going to be no end of them for the rest of the night. Bridget is just that popular. Then when you finally come up for air—

"Where's my pedi-thing?" you ask aloud. You look around.

"Pedi-thing?"

"The thing that looks like me. The pedisequel."

Bridget's expression falls. "Pedisequos, Will," she says. "I sent it home." You look at the bedroom door. "Out the window."

"Oh my God." You run over and look out, as though you might spot it still in the driveway, gazing up at you like a dog that's been put out for the night. "What are we going to do about it?" you ask. "Like, plans?"

Bridget stares. "I thought we were just going to let it be you," she says. "Like we were going to let, um, the girl downstairs be me." Her brow crinkles. "Did you have any ideas for it?"

You didn't and you don't, but you still feel at a loss, like there's a wasted opportunity with it.

You chew your lip. It's going to get beaten up for me, you think. Blake and Kirkham and all the other assholes are going to use it for a punching bag. The thought fills you with a miasma of guilt, one that's hardly dissipated by the contrary thought that at least it will have Fake-Sydney to hang out with.

But before you can further start to wonder if pedisequoses can really feel love (or at least lust) or if it's all just programmed pretending, your girlfriend tugs at you. "Are you done taking care of Bridget's phone, finally?"

"Oh. I think so. Mostly." You turn your back on the window. "You should spend the night at my house, though, keep under cover there. It's something Bridget usually does."

It gives you a prickle to look at the girl standing before you—the one who looks like your best friend, Bridget Atwater—and to refer to her in the third person, as though she's someone else. "Come on," you tell her before the feeling can get worse. "Let's see if we can get a ride from Sydney."

"Hang on." Bridget shakes free and goes to the closet. Uneasily you watch as she rummages inside it. This isn't her room, you find yourself thinking, she's got no business digging out stuff that doesn't belong to her. Then: But it does belong to her. It's that body—Bridget's body— that isn't hers.

"Okay." She comes back out with a "Candyland" board game under her arm. "If it's going to be a slumber party— What?"

She must have noticed the incredulous look you're giving her. "How old do you think these girls are?" you ask.

She stares at you, follows your glance down to the board game, then flushes.

"Let's just get back to your place, Kelly, and I'll show you. It's not a kid's game I've got in here."

You cock a skeptical eyebrow, but say nothing more about it.

* * * * *

Fake-Sydney buys you and Bridget some burgers on the way back to Kelly's place, and you're so sunk in Kelly's personality that Bridget has to slap your hand away from the bag so you won't eat more than half of the fries before you get there.

"That's where you live," you inform her as you pass a modest house. You're in an old part of the town, the kind of the neighborhood where the trees, being mature and majestic, look better than the tired and slightly shabby houses that they front. "And this is mine," you announce a few houses down. At your direction, Fake-Sydney pulls into the driveway.

"So we're neighbors?"

"Yeah, practically."

"Do we ride to school together?"

"Nhn. I get a ride with Blake, and he goes in early and stays late. You ride the bus. Except sometimes I ride it with you. Come on," you continue as you scoop up the bags. "You should go use the bathroom when we get in, that way you don't have to talk to my mom."

"Is there something wrong with her?"

"No. But there's something wrong with you." For starters, she hardly talked on the way over, and Bridget is usually a chatterbox.

Once inside, you point her down the hall while you go into the kitchen to tell your new mom that you're back. Mrs. O'Brien, a tired-looking single-mother, has a look of surprise on her face when you come in. "I thought you were going to a party at someone's house."

"Changed my mind. I didn't like it." You drop the bags on the countertop and open the plates cabinet. "Bridget came back with me. She's going to spend the night, if that's okay."

"If it's okay with her folks. What was wrong with the party?" There's an edge to the question.

You shrug and avoid her eye. "There were a bunch of seniors there," you reply when she persists with the stare. "The girl whose house it was, she's a senior. I don't think her parents were home." You turn a shoulder to Mrs. O'Brien as you unload the food.

There's a long and rather awkward silence during which you unwrap the burgers, pour out the fries, and fetch the ketchup from the refrigerator. At last, Kelly's mother says, "Well, if you didn't feel okay about it, honey, I'm glad you decided to come home. You shouldn't have to stay anyplace where you don't feel okay."

"I know," you mutter through frozen lips. "Anyway," you add, "Bridget said she'd come home with me if I left. We haven't had a sleepover in awhile."

"That'll be nice. Where is she?"

"Bathroom. I'll take these back and we'll eat in my room, if that's okay." You pick up the plates.

"Just be sure to bring them back when you're done. And I don't mean tomorrow morning when you're done." You return her wide smile with a thin one of your own.

Kelly the Party-Pooper, you find yourself grumbling as you carry your dinner into the house. That excuse you gave was all too plausible. Kelly doesn't even like parties where there's nothing happening, where the music is just too loud or the boys are just a little too pushy. The thought of a party where there's alcohol, or marijuana, or kids making out really hard, gives her a hard fright.

And a sour sense of resentment.

Everyone else has fun at those kind of parties, why can't you? And Blake works at the Warehouse, which is like a hundred of those parties all happening at once. But your mom doesn't worry about him being at a place like that.

You don't know which is worse, that no one likes you going to those kinds of parties, or that you don't like the thought of them yourself.

"Psst!"

You almost heave the fries and burgers at the wall in fright as Bridget pops out of the hall bathroom. "Is the coast clear?" she hisses.

"Jeez, watch it. Yeah, it's okay." You glance behind you. "Come on, this way. My bedroom's on the left."

It feels funny having to direct Bridget Atwater, who's been to your house any number of times. Maybe she has the same thought, because she titters. "Your bedroom, Will?" But you ignore her.

The bedroom is small and spare, with a twin bed, a corner desk hardly bigger than the desks you have at school, a chest of drawers, and a small bookcase. The latter is crammed with paperbacks, and there are more paperbacks stacked on top of it and the chest, for Kelly likes to read—fantasy, mostly. A couple of pennants grace the walls, but the trophies are in a footlocker under the bed.

"So what's this 'adult rated' board game you brought over?" you ask after setting the plates out on the bed.

Bridget sucks down some of her chocolate shake, then opens up the box. "So I started making these right after we started talking about making ourselves a Brotherhood," she says. From inside the box she takes two rods of polished, blonde wood. They are about a foot long, with a carved grip at one end and a knob at the other. She hands you one. "I know what they look like, so I don't want to hear any smart comments from you."

As far as you can tell, they just look like ... wooden rods. Oh, if you strung a length of clothesline between them, they might look kind of like the handles to a jump rope, except that they're too long. You lay the rod in the palm of your hand and stroke it. It's very smooth, and you get an oddly pleasurable tingle as you cup your hand around it and stroke it up and down. You feel a soft, warm flush of recognition ...

But it's not until you look up to see Bridget smirking into your face that you realize what you're holding and what you're doing with it. "Oh my God!" You fling the dildo away as though it stung you.

"Chill out." Bridget hands it back to you. "It's a meditation wand. We're all of us going to need one."

"All of us?" you echo.

"Members of the Brotherhood. You meditate using it, and it, uh, sychronizes you with the plane where—" She turns a little pink. "Where Baphomet dwells," she adds somewhat lamely.

You stare at her. "I thought you said there wasn't such a thing as Baphomet."

"Well, no, there isn't. But the meditation is what's important. Also, um—" Her blush deepens. "You have to use it to open up a doorway."

The hair on your head prickles. "What kind of a doorway."

"Don't freak out on me, Will. I told you, none of it is literally true. It's just, like a mind game you have to play on yourself."

"What kind of doorway?" you repeat through gritted teeth.

She sighs. "A doorway that Baphomet can come through."

Oh my God, you think. This is it, the start of the real Baphomet stuff. Am I ready for this?

More important, is Kelly ready for it? You were only going to use her to get back at Blake. But you don't have to turn her into a ... cultist ... while you do that, right?

Next: "An Occult Tutorial" 

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