The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

An Occult Tutorial

Previously: "A Conundrum Called Kelly" 

"So," Bridget continues when you don't reply, "we need a place we can make a door." She looks around, then opens the closet. "I guess this is the best place for—"

"Hang on." You grab her by the shoulder. "You're not gonna knock any holes in anything, are you?"

"No, I'm just going to—"

"'Cos my mom—Kelly's mom—she really wouldn't like—."

"I said I'm not going to make any holes, Will. I'm just going to draw a door, is that okay?"

You release her with a shrug and she turns back to the closet. But then she stops.

"Actually," she says, "I need you to draw it." She holds out her "meditation wand." "I'll show you how."

You take the wand, but make no other move. "How about you explain it to me first."

* * * * *

It gives you the shivers to hear it. After your own experience with magic—you're wearing the body of a fifteen-year-old girl, which is about the best proof possible for showing that it's real—you can't really feel any skepticism about what Sydney has to tell you. And Kelly, despite a certain flinty cynicism, is pretty credulous when it comes to the occult. Back in the eighth grade some of her friends wanted to goof around with a Ouija board, but she refused because she'd heard too many stories about kids who accidentally summoned demons with one.

And now Sydney is talking about doing just that.

So even though she insists that it's all just "mind games" and is about "spiritual empowerment," your skin is crawling soon after she starts to explain it.

"Like, I said," she says after extracting a sheet of papers from the Candyland box, "what we have to do is make a doorway for Baphomet. He—it—can only come in answer to an invitation, and the doorway is the, um, invitation."

"So once he's out, how do you put him back?" You can't help glancing at the closet door a little fearfully.

"What? Oh, well." She starts to stammer. "You don't put him back, because he's not really—"

She stops to stare at you. You stare back.

"Look, Will," she says, "I told you he's not real. He's just a, uh, a visualization technique. You have to imagine that he's something you've invited in. That's all. But that's what empow—"

"So how do you 'visualize' putting him back?" you insist.

Bridget bites the inside of her cheek. She lowers her head and shuffles through the papers she took out of the box.

"Well, there are ways," she mumbles. "You've heard of pentagrams and magic circles, right?" You nod. "Yeah, those are ways of putting, uh, things inside a box so they don't get out. But in this case, it isn't like that."

"Why not?"

She sighs—deeply—and looks up at the ceiling.

"It's all just mind games, Will," she again assures you. "There's nothing supernatural or occult about this stuff. It's just psychological. It's a way of psyching yourself up to be able to do something."

She cocks her head. "Haven't you ever done that? Wasn't there something you had to do, but you couldn't until you psyched yourself up for it?"

You're about to say "No," but a vivid memory comes to you first.

It was the seventh grade, in P.E., the first class you ever shared with Madison Crawford. You were broken up into groups and practicing free throws by playing Horse. At the end of class, it had come down to you and Madison.

You were each tied with an H-O-R, both of using failing each successive challenge as the clock ticked down toward the bell. It was only a few weeks into the school year, and already you hated Madison, who was taller than you and was starting to get boobs and was already wearing light makeup. And it ate you up from the inside that she was also just as good as you at basketball and was even better at gymnastics. So there was no freaking way you were going to let her win this game of Horse.

Then she made a shot and you missed it, and all of a sudden you had H-O-R-S on the scoreboard.

And then Madison passed the next challenge.

As you took the ball and bounced it and lined it up for the next shot, you heard her chanting under her breath: Horse, horse, horse, horse. This was totally against the rules, and Coach Burnett had had to stop some of the other girls before when they tried distracting opponents, but in this case she apparently didn't hear.

Then you realized that Madison wasn't chanting horse over and over again. She was chanting something else: Whores, whores, whores, whores.

Then she dropped the "s".

The world went gray and fuzzy; your brain filled with bees; but a kind of tunnel opened up between you and the basket. A tunnel like an invisible, curving chute running from your hands to the basket. All you had to do was slide the ball down that chute, and it would go in.

You dropped the ball, caught it on the bounce. Dropped it, caught it on the bounce. Held it. Lifted it. Lofted it.

Swish. The flap of the net was even softer than Madison's chant.

Well, she made the next challenge, and the bell rang before you could take another turn, so technically you lost, and like a total snot she lorded it over you.

But at a moment that you couldn't afford to choke, you had psyched yourself up not to. In fact, it was a brilliant shot, and several of the other girls told you so.

But you'd feel prouder of that moment if it was one of your memories you're reliving, and not one of Kelly's.

"Yeah, I know what you mean," you tell Bridget as you jerk yourself back to the present.

"Well, it's like that," she says. "You have to psyche yourself up to let that spiritual power out. And to do that you have to, like, pretend you're getting the power from outside." She reddens a little. "That's how come you have to, um—"

"Summon a demon?"

Her blush deepens, but she nods. "And that's why you don't want to put it back. You're not summoning a demon, Will," she sighs. "You're summoning a power from within. That's all."

"And that's what it says there?" You point at the papers she's holding. "What are those?"

"Notes my dad left behind." She pulls them to her chest.

Her manner has turned rather furtive, and you notice she's having a hard time meeting your eyes. But you decide not to challenge her. "What else do they say?"

"Just how to do it," she replies. "How to use the wands." She drops her dad's notes and picks up a wand again.

"So," she continues, "like, one use is, you take them to bed with you, and you meditate with them, like this." She cradles the polished bore of the wand in her free hand and strokes the shaft, up and down, while closing her eyes. "You concentrate on whatever you it is that you need to concentrate on, and this focuses your mind on it." She slides her cupped palm faster along the bore. "And that builds up the potential. It builds and builds." Faster and faster. "Until—" Very fast.

Then she stops. "You make the connection with your spiritual energy."

Well, hell, you can't help thinking, I used to do that almost every night with my cock.

She seems to sense the lameness of her explanation. "Look, I'm just trying to summarize what my dad wrote, and it's probably coming out all wrong. But this is what the Brotherhood has to do," she insists, "so it's what we're going to have to do, if it's going to be a Brotherhood, you know, and not just some kind of club."

* * * * *

You accede to her explanations with a shrug—really, what else are you going to do—but you draw the line at making the doorway, at least tonight. Sure, she's not going to knock a hole in the wall, she's just going to use the meditation wand to sketch the outline of a doorway and fill the edges with invisible arcane script. But the ceremony will involve a certain amount of caterwauling, and with Kelly's mom out in the living room, you don't want to draw any more attention to your shenanigans than you can help. And maybe Sydney is also relieved, for she's happy to go along when you suggest getting into some kind of character by watching videos.

"So Kelly's into fantasy, huh?" she observes a little while later, after you're stretched out on the floor. Bored with the videos (maybe) she's turned on her side and is studying the bookcase. "Kind of makes her a good choice for this, huh?"

"I guess."

"Is it just her and her brother and her mom living here?"

"Yeah. Dad ran off a long time ago. Or Mom threw him out."

She chews on this. Her next question she asks in a very soft voice.

"What does Kelly think of her brother?"

You cringe. It's hard not to, though you've tried avoiding the question Sydney has now directly put to you.

You can definitely separate Kelly's feelings from your own, at least enough to tell which are hers and which are yours. You're still smarting hard from the beat-down that Blake inspired his friends to give you, and you still want to see him suffer.

Kelly's feelings, though, are more ... um ... ambivalent.

Oh sure, she loves her brother and respects him. She has to, as he's the closest she's got to a father in her life. But at the same time he is not her father, and she resents the way that he tries to shelter and protect her by controlling what she can and can't do. So even if 80% of her feelings are undiluted love, a equal percentage of her energy is given to wrestling against him and his control.

"Will?" Bridget asks.

Still you don't answer.

You picked Kelly as an alias because you wanted to get back at Blake. But that doesn't mean you have to act against him right away. You could temporize by expanding this "Brotherhood" you're putting together. You need at least eight more members anyway.

Next: "Bridges to a Brotherhood" 

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