The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Like You Know What You're Doing

Previously: "Dramas, Private and Public" 

What's the worst that can happen if you try using the memory strip on the book? If it does something, then that's a step forward. If it doesn't, you can still get rid of the strip.

So you lay it across the open page. Nothing happens. You turn it over, name-side down. Still noth—

No, wait! Silvery, spidery writing has appeared on the band. It is very faint, like moonlight filtering through clouds. The lettering is unrecognizable. But something about it seems familiar ...

You peer at it closely, but the writing is milky and indistinct. Maybe if you trace it!

You snatch a sheet of notebook paper from the desk and lay it over the band, pressing down. The lettering is now more distinct, but you can't make anything of what it says.

And then you gasp: Like cthulhian ink seeping into the paper, line work weaves through the paper, twisting and twining and bending around itself. It forms a circle and fills itself in.

When it has stopped, there is no mistaking the result: It's a sigil.

You hand is numb as you set the bowl and its contents in its center. You strike and drop a fourth match into the bowl.

This time it easily, even hungrily, catches fire.

* * * * *

It still looks like a memory strip when you gingerly lift it out of the bowl with your fingertips, but something about it seems off. It weighs a little heavier in your hand, you think, and the rune work has a ruby, not sapphire, glow. So you lay it across the page. When you lift it again, the page flutters, and you turn it.

Alas, there is nothing on the other side to describe what the spell or this new band does.

You make a face as you regard the two mind-strips you've been playing with. The one with your name on it, which you used to make the sigil, has returned to its original form, with those milky, silvery letters faded away without leaving a mark on the band. Yet you are now reluctant to get rid of it, even though it contains a copy of your brain. For if it unlocked one spell in this most unexpected way, might it help with other spells?

As for the other strip—

Well, without any instructions as to its use, there's nothing else to do but try it out.

But not yourself—you remember what happened to Gordon when he did that. So it seems best to try it on someone else.

On Dana, for instance. It would be simple to meet with your back-up double, take the mask off, and try this thing on her. Or on Sarah, her sister, who sleeps in the room next door.

Or you could try it out on Chelsea. Or Caleb. At this point (you figure) they might deserve to have something awful happen to them.

Well, there's no getting to any of these people tonight, except maybe Sarah, and there will be lots of night coming up when you can get to her. You glance ahead at the next spell, even though you haven't really got the mental energy to deal with it.

And you sag when you see it. It's official now, the book is just fucking with me, you think.

Last time it was a spell with ingredients and instructions, but no sigil. With this one, it's the opposite: a sigil, even more complex than those that came before, squats in the middle of the page, unadorned with any text. Without hope, you pull at the corner of the page, but of course it is stuck. You lay first one mind-strip and then the other, in every possible position and orientation, across it. Still it doesn't budge.

You grunt softly to yourself, then close the book. It's nearly eleven, and you've done more than enough for the evening. You hide both memory-strips in the closet under some bedding, and pack everything else away in the bottom drawer of the dresser. A buzzing from the bathroom tells you that Sarah is getting ready for bed; you drape yourself across your own bed and stare at the ceiling as you wait for her to finish.

What a mess everything is in! And none of it is your fault, you feel. You didn't want to play around with that stupid book. You tried getting rid of it! And it wasn't your idea to get involved with it again, and when you did it was only to help out a friend.

No, scratch that, you weren't even helping out a friend, you were helping out Gordon Black and Chelsea Cooper, who are— Okay, it wouldn't be fair to call them "enemies." They didn't pay enough attention to you before this disaster to count as that. But they never would have been your friend, not under normal circumstances, and if your path ever crossed theirs, they would have been far more likely to run you over like a dump truck splattering a rabbit.

And now here you are, despite everything, stuck in the body of a teenage girl who goes to a different school. Okay, "stuck" isn't the right word. "Stuck" would make it sound bad, and it's not ... unpleasant ... having the body of Dana Pak.

Your hands fall across your bosom, to lightly cup your breasts. They aren't huge, but they're big enough—the size and shape of large oranges. Gently you squeeze them, and feel a thrill, seeping like juice through you.

She's slim, too, and you twist your hips around, digging into the bed. Mmm! You release a breast and push a hand down to touch and rub at the spot between your legs. Dana doesn't do that very often, but she's not shy about it when she gets the itch. And, you remind yourself, it's not like you're molesting her body with her fingers. This is your body; it's just been, er, modified to look like Dana Pak's. You can do whatever you like with and to your body; and you don't even need a sock to do it with this one.

But then the buzzing from the bathroom ceases, and a minute later you hear footfalls in the hall outside, and the soft thud of Sarah's door closing. The "juice" that you felt earlier drains away, and the weight of heavy limbs takes its place. For another few minutes you stare vacantly at the ceiling, trying to work up the will to do something or other.

Finally, with a long, deep groan, you lever yourself upright and pad into the bathroom to brush your own teeth and get ready for bed.

* * * * *

The next morning. You have the cell phone in your hand when the bathroom door finally opens and Sarah comes out. You make a face at her and show her the screen: 0:34 seconds, and counting down. You say nothing, and Sarah only makes a face back at you as she passes on her way to her bedroom. You roll your eyes and step into the bathroom, to take your turn at the appointed time to get ready for school.

With two high school girls and only one bathroom, it's the only way to get things done: with a timer and a schedule. So you waste no time in the shower, soaping and scrubbing your smooth, firm body and shampooing your long, draping hair. You methodically towel yourself down afterward, then turn a brush and hand dryer against your hair. Only one change to Dana's routine do you allow yourself: you don't wrap yourself in a towel as you work, so that you face yourself head on in the mirror, giving yourself an eyeful of her face and neck and shoulders and boobs and bellybutton. You try to keep yourself sober, but it's not long before your eyes are dancing with suppressed pleasure, and a small smirk is pulling at the corners of your mouth.

It's easy to dress on the weekends; harder to dress for school. For though Dana is no social butterfly with an image to cultivate and maintain, she does like to look good. You hesitate as you slide clothes along the rack, and contemplate possible ensembles. Keep it simple, you tell yourself. But this will be your first day at Eastman as Dana, and her own instinct to play it for all its worth is too much.

Too long, almost, it takes to get into the things, for your phone is chiming while you are still pulling on the blouse. You are almost three minutes late getting back into the bathroom, so for makeup you keep it very simple—lipstick and mascara—and trust to clear skin to carry the rest. That puts you back ahead of schedule as you come downstairs to breakfast, where you exchange pleasant greetings with parents and with Sarah at the table, and inquiries as to how everyone slept. You have just enough time to eat a bowl of muesli and a slice of bacon before Mr. Pak gets up with the customary sigh to put his things together for work. You and Sarah follow.

* * * * *

Eastman High! It's like a punch to the stomach to step out onto the front quad of the school. It's an older building, built of tired, weather-stained stone, with a three-story central section and flanked by two two-story wings; newer, more modern wings are hidden in the back. I'm going to a new school, you think with the same feeling of panic as on your first day at elementary school, at middle school, and at high school. You have the overwhelming urge to flee.

"Sarah!" someone shouts. Your sister looks over, and so do you. It's Carrie Carmichael, waving from the corner where she's huddled with friends against the morning chill. She cocks her head and grins. Sarah swerves and trots off toward her.

But you stride on into the school building, confidence growing as Dana's familiarity with it and her schedule fills you. You unload your books at her locker, arranging them inside according to class period, before refilling your bag with the books you'll need for the first three periods of the day.

As you reorganize, you open the side pocket where you stashed the new, experimental memory strip. Lotta people here at Eastman you could try it on, too.

Next: "Schools of Fishiness" 

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