The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

A Whole New Girl

Previously: "The Green-Eyed Monster" 

by Masktrix

You walk over to Will, trying to hide your excitement at what just happened. In the Crypt you weren’t sure what you witnessed; the book you could explain away with logic, too. But you just made a mask vanish into a girl’s face! It’s all real – and it’s all yours.

“I’m not feeling too good,” you say, trying to explain away your 15-minute bathroom break. “Uh, I think I’m going to call it a night.”

“What? Uh, you’re sure?” He looks forlorn, like he’s blown some opportunity. You give him a small smile.

“Yeah. I’ll get an Uber back to Lattyville.” You’re about to leave it there, when his little rabbit face makes you even more guilty and you decide to at least keep his hopes alive. “And that means you still owe me a forfeit. So give me your number, and when I’m ready to cash it in, I’ll message you.”

You walk with straightened posture out of the Dairy Queen, leaving a hopeful Will Prescott in your wake. And, as you walk past the gaggle of gawping girls by the window seat, you make damn sure they see every dollar’s worth of your white top and blue trousers and the designer name on your bag. You only look back while you puff on your vape pen waiting for the Uber to arrive, and watch as this ‘Stephanie Wyatt’ rejoins the gaggle. If she remembers what happens, she doesn’t show it – if anything, her defiant body language suggests she’s telling the girls you left because of her.

She has no idea how right she is.

***

You arrive back at your dorm room eager to start with the next phase of creating the mask: you suspect it has to be coated with some kind of stuff, for the spell referred to a "seal" being put on it. The excitement has only been heightened by the brief glimpse of the mask you managed to get in the back of your ride. Maybe it was the highway lights playing tricks on you, but you could swear that, faintly, you could make out the floating image of a girl, as if trapped under some muddy lake. You rush up the east stairs and swing open the door, eager to get started… only to come to a halt at your desk.

The book is open. You could have sworn you left it shut. You turn straight at Tammy-Lynn, sat on her bed and reading from a Kindle as if nothing’s amiss. “Have you been going through my stuff again?” you demand.

“No, of course not!” Tammy-Lynn protests. “I mean, I had a peek at that book, but you told me I could read it after you were done.”

“Do I look like I’m done with it?” you snap.

“Geez, JM, don’t get your bra in a twist. You’re almost as worked up as Emily Dustal. You know I heard her bitching about Vee Macklin in the showers earlier. Apparently she’s quit the soccer team, and…”

“Don’t change the subject,” you say icily. “My stuff is off-limits. You just keep on your side of the room, and I’ll keep on mine. OK?”

***

With Tammy-Lynn snooping, there’s no chance to perform the second spell until Saturday morning, when you’re able to disguise what you’re actually working in the middle of your elective. Saturdays are for blow-off classes in the name of cultural enrichment, and so you do just that, working on the translation in the library. It makes some kind of sealant that needs to be applied to a mask in order to ‘fix’ an identity to it – and comes with careful instructions of how to remove a mask once you’ve put it on. You spend the whole morning going over and over the translation, making sure you’ve got it right. You’re only interrupted once, when you overhear Jacob and a bunch of the boys talking about an excursion to the watersports centre off Russian Lake later this afternoon. Your heart beats faster. If Jacob’s going, then Mark will be, too. It’s the ideal opportunity to spend time with him.

Your excitement heightens as soon as the bell rings for the end of the day and the boarders descend on the lunch hall. Rather than join them (and suffer some pointed questions and glares from Mary), you rush up to your room, open up your locker and gather up the materials for the sealant – the same used for the initial mask. You sort the ingredients out on your desk, opening the window to avoid any fumes, and follow the steps to create the glue. Soon, a small bowl of paste is on your desk, which you paint onto the waiting mask. It dries surprisingly quickly, and you’re tempted to put on your creation there and then. But that Stephanie girl was out for something close to 15 minutes when you put the mask on her, and you can’t risk being passed out – especially if it's in her form – for anything like that long, given the danger of being discovered. Instead, mask in hand, you rush to the girls’ bathroom, pull the flimsy door of one of the shower cubicles closed and sit down on the floor.

“Here we go,” you say to yourself, taking a deep breath as the mask draws closer to your face and still not completely convinced it will work. “3, 2, 1…”

You blink your eyes open, escaping a momentary vortex of black, and suck in a deep, hale breath. The sound is the first thing that surprises you – it doesn’t sound like you! Looking down, your pasty, freckle-laced arms have transformed into strong, supple limbs that glow with health. You make a fist, and feel a bicep bulge under your school uniform, a muscle in a place you’ve never really had one. Gasping, you leap up to your feet – your shoes are now a size too small but everything else seems to fit – and you hastily open up the cubicle and rush to the mirror.

That girl from town – Stephanie Wyatt – looks back at you. Those same hard, commanding eyes – a gem-like green – that she tried intimidating you with last night are now yours. You reach to your neck and pat the blonde, shoulder-length locks that now sprout from your head, tugging at them as if you expect them to give way to your usual curtain of red hair. You laugh, pulling your lips down to look at your new teeth, sticking your tongue out, poking your eyebrows up into an arch. You can’t help but pull up your shirt, too, checking out your lean midriff, and placing a hand over breasts that are far more developed than your own.

“Holy shit,” you say, Stephanie’s voice strangely inflected with your California accent. “Holy fucking shit!” You spin around, mind ablaze at the possibilities, only for the door to open halfway through your third pirouette. You come to a halt almost immediately, freezing in place as Portia Haas walks in, dressing gown on and towel thrown over her shoulder. She looks at you strangely, frowns, and then, after what feels like a lifetime, opens her mouth to speak.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she says. Shit, I’m going to be busted in the body of some random townie by the dumbest girl in school. You don’t reply, and she speaks patiently and slowly. “Fifth form bathrooms are upstairs. This bathroom is for sixth formers only.”

“Uh, sorry,” you say, with a smile.

“Oh, no problem. I make the same mistake *all* the time. Just don’t let the prefects catch you.” She gives a friendly smile, and slips into one of the cubicles.

You blink and laugh some more. With Portia taking a shower you can’t risk removing the mask here, so you slip out of the door and, giggling almost drunkenly, slip back into your room, confident Tammy-Lynn won’t have missed the chance to hang around and gossip in the dining hall long after service has ended. Then, speaking the words as best you can recall them, you reach up to your forehead and pull. It takes a few panicked tries before you get your thumb in the right place, then suddenly… you wake up again, on your bed, mask having slipped to the side. You don’t know how much time has passed, but you notice Tammy-Lynn’s sat on her bed.

“Y’know,” she says, “if you hadn’t gone out last night, you wouldn’t be so pooped you need a midday nap.” You’re back as JM! “Oh, but seeing as how I got you, have you heard about the caca those weird Brits in the fifth form have got into? They’ve only been here a week and already…”

You let Tammy-Lynn’s gossip wash over you. Your mind is full of far more important things. In your footlocker is the greatest power you could imagine: the power to be someone, anyone, else. The thrill of imposture is such a rush you want to try it again, finding some suitably sporty clothes and adopting Stephanie’s guise to have some fun in town. Or you could get a lift up to Russian Lake and a chance to impress Mark. You were surfing in the Pacific practically before you could walk, so it could be your best chance to show him what you’re worth. And if he’s not interested in Jocelyn Moss, you doubt he could ignore a body like Stephanie Wyatt’s.

But Tammy-Lynn’s already been snooping several times. Perhaps you should wait and find a more secure place for the book. You’ve got that second mask to work on, after all – and, if the book’s magic works in the way you think it does, the spell on the next page will now be available. You can’t wait to see what it does.

Next: "Making a Splash" 

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