The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

Switches in Time

Previously: "Mad for Madison" 

I should give Madison's mask to Paulina. She probably wants it but just doesn't want to say so.

The thought pops into your head, but just as quickly evaporates. You did all the work to get Madison out here. You should be the one to collect the reward.

And Madison Crawford's body would be quite the reward!

"Where are you going?" you demand as not-Dane pulls your victim's torso in one direction while you pull her legs in another.

"We should take her out to the car," he says. "Dane's cousin'll be over here any minute!"

"No, we need to do the thing in here!" you insist. "If we do it out in the car, how are we gonna get her back in here?"

"What's going on?" That's not-Evie, running in to join you from the back of the trailer. She frowns as you and not-Dane argue about where to drop Madison. But she soon cuts it short. "Just do what whatsisname says," she tells not-Dane. "He's the expert."

So you carry Madison—who's a lot heavier than she looks like she should be—back into Dane's bedroom. But your two co-conspirators slap you away when you start to undress her, and tell you to wait in the car. "We've been practicing that all night," not-Evie says when you offer to stay at least long enough to get Dane's mask off Evie. "We can handle it, just get out of here!"

Their anxiety must be contagious, for you twist and fidget as you wait in the car for them to come out, and every time you see headlamps in the rearview mirror your heart leaps into your throat in fear that it will be Dane's psychotic, drug-pushing cousin turning into the trailer park. You only have to wait ten minutes or so, but it feels like an agonizing hour before two dark shapes—both of them looking like Evie Cummings—come flying out of the trailer and bundle into the back seat of the car. One of them has a flimsy towel wrapped around her.

"Let's get out of here!" the clothed Evie yells, but you've already got the motor running, and inside half a minute you're racing down the nearest boulevard back toward the neighborhood where the girls live.

"Oh God," one of the Evies moans after you're away. "Oh God, I don't want to go through that again! Oh my God!"

"Better Madison than you!" the other Evie retorts.

"No, I meant getting out of there in time. I think my heart's about to explode!"

"Jeez, yes," the other Evie agrees. "Hey you!" She pokes in the back of your head. "Where are we going?"

"I dunno. Someplace to finish changing masks around."

"Go up to Redway Plaza. We can park in back up there."

Behind the deli, you realize, relying on Paulina's knowledge of her parents' business. You turn left at the next light.

Paulina herself pulls Evie's mask off during the drive, so you've just the restored Evie for company when you pull into the dark, abandoned spaces behind Redway Plaza. "Do you want me to wait until Paulina wakes up before I, you know, change?" you ask Evie, who is just a dark silhouette against a darker background in the back seat. "'Cos I'm gonna have to strip."

"I can wake her up now," Evie replies. "She woke me up back at that guy's trailer, after she got the mask off me." But she makes no move toward doing so.

"That guy's name was Dane."

"I know his name," she snaps.

Still she doesn't move, even as the conversation (such as it is) lapses. "Look, I'm sorry about all this," you tell her.

"Paulina told me you got in trouble," she says after a pause. "She said that's how come you're doing this stuff."

"Well, sort of."

"She said someone was trying to kill you."

You grimace into the dark. It seems so long ago when Gordon Black hauled you out to the portables to punch your face in for sassing his girlfriend. You should have just taken your medicine.

"Well, that's an exaggeration. Someone was going to beat the crap out of me is all. So I had this mask with me"—you find yourself reluctant to mention Caleb, who still doesn't know where you are or what's going on with you—"and I used that to get out of it. Things just kind of got out of control after that."

"You can't put things back to normal?"

"Not if Dane's going off to a military school in Oregon."

The conversation lapses again. You listen to the swish and rumble of traffic racing along the nearby boulevard.

"Why did you pick Madison?" Evie asks. "You know. To, uh, be."

"She seemed like a good choice."

"You didn't want to be a guy again? You could have argued Paulina into letting you."

"I don't think she would have. She really wanted— I mean, I think she really wanted me to be one of those girls. Madison or one of the others."

"How come?"

You don't answer right away. You get that feeling again that Paulina really wanted you to stay on being her while she got to be Madison or one of those other girls.

"Because she doesn't like them," you eventually say. "I think she really wanted to— Well, to send them out of town." You feel a film of sweat break out across your forehead as the reality of what you've just done to Madison sinks in. "And I wanted to go along with it because I want all us to be friends," you add. "You and me and Paulina."

"It's funny you saying that," Evie says after another pause. "You and me and Paulina being friends, with you looking and sounding just like her."

"I'm sorry. Maybe I— Well, maybe I should go ahead and change now. Except I need to finish working on that mask we made of Madison." You start to unpack the rest of what you need to seal up the mask, and Evie hands you the mask from the back seat.

Paulina groans while you're peeling off your clothes, and after she's awake and oriented, you pass them over to her in the back seat. You're chilly as you settle low into the front seat, and you pull your knees up as you lay a palm across your forehead. The last thing you feel, before you tear Paulina's face away from yours, is your boobs slumping and parting and prickling in the cold.

* * * * *

You grumble and growl when you wake, for you're cold and goose-bumpy all over, and you've got a migraine behind your right eye. You sit up and squint around, but it's dark and you can't see a thing. The freak? you wonder. Your ears feel plugged up, and you yawn and work your jaw to try opening them.

They pop, and you yelp, for at the same moment two sets of memories slide into place and click together, like separate but complementary Lego sculptures.

You twist around to look into the back seat, but Paulina and Evie are gone. Good! comes the spiteful thought. At the same time: Where the fuck did they get off to? You pull your feathery blonde hair back from your face, throwing it behind your shoulder.

Because they put you into Madison's mask while you were knocked out.

Quickly you dress yourself, with one part of your mind alertly speculating on where Evie and Paulina have got off to, while another part closely observes the prickle of silky skin as you slide on panties and wrap a skirt around your hips; strap on a bra and tuck bulging boobs into it; pull hose up over your calves and thighs, and yank a tight sweater down over your torso. You feel in the dark for earrings, and when you can't find them you decide that Paulina or Evie must still have them.

You're sitting on the hood of the car, tying the laces of a new pair of sneakers, when a door opens in the nearby strip center and two figures come out. One of them pauses to lock the door with a click; distantly, you hear the chirp of an alarm resetting itself. "Oh, you're awake," a voice says. It's Evie. "Want something to eat?" A foil-wrapped package is held out to you.

"No thanks," you sniff as you stand up. "Have you got the rest of my things?"

"They're in Madison's purse," says Paulina, and you do a double-take at the way she now towers over you. Even Evie is a shade taller than you are. "And we need to talk."

"About what? I'm late for a homework party, you know?" You open the door to the back seat, where you find a white and silver purse—so tiny it is hardly bigger than a softball—with its long, spaghetti-thin strap coiled about it.

"You're not actually going to that party, are you, Will?" Paulina says. (She sounds a little uncertain about your name.) "That was just bait for Madison."

"Yeah, well, and it caught her. But they're expecting her out there. They're expecting Ethan too, and we're really late picking him up."

"Will!" You start at Paulina's sharp tone. "Stop it. We need to talk."

"What about?" Dang it, you grouse to yourself as your hair floats about your ears and temples. I'm such a mess!

"You're not Madison, Will. Remember that. You don't have to act like her. So stop it."

You sigh again. "If I'm going to be Madison, I sure as hell had better act at least a little bit like her!"

"No you're not and no you won't." Again you start, now both at Paulina's tone and at what she's said. "I didn't ask you turn yourself into Madison so you could act just like her. I could've just left her where she was if I wanted that!"

"So what were you—?"

"I want you to ruin her life, Will," Paulina says, and there's a smirk in her voice. "I want you to ruin it. And I've got it all planned out for how you're going to do it."

Next: "It's a Mad Mad Mad Madison World" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 2)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)"