The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

How to Scare a Girl for Fun and Profit

Previously: "It Could Be Magic" 

All day Friday you twist with anticipation and second-guess yourself. Should you text Katy to confirm Saturday's movie date? Look for her in her classes? Track her down and have lunch with her again? You shrink from each of these. Partly it's because you're mindful of Yumi's caution not to chase after her too hard. But you're also fearful of being sick all over her shoes.

And you've got something else to be anxious about. You've decided to show her that book you've been working out of, and the stuff that it makes.

Your heart hops in your chest every time you think about it. Should you, really? What would she think? Would she think that it's cool, and think that you're cool for sharing it with her? Or will she think it's evil, and that you're evil?

One thing you're sure of. You can't show her the things you used on Coach Schell. So, after using the paste you made with the last spell to glue the two items to each other, you hide it deep in the elementary school basement, where (when you check it after school) you have to relight that fire. You take that as a good sign, however. The periods when it is burning seem to be getting shorter.

As for how you are going to introduce Katy to the stuff (assuming you don't shit your pants and chicken out at the last minute), you spend a very restless Friday night thinking of how to do it ...

* * * * *

"Jumbo popcorn, jumbo Cokes," the concession agent says as he drops the items onto the counter in front of you.

You grimace. "We only ordered the large."

"You get a free refill with the jumbos," he says. You're about to protest when you notice that he has charged you only the price for the large combo. As you stare with your mouth hanging open, hesitating before pointing it out to him, he winks heavily at you, and repeats the price. You mumble your thanks and pay him.

"That was nice of Brownie," Katy says as you accompany her toward the auditoriums.

"Yeah, you think it was on purpose?" you ask.

"Oh, what do you think, Will?" Katy says. She snags a few popcorn kernels. "It was Brownie."

Meaning that it was Alec Brown who upsized you at the lower price. He's one of the wrestlers at school—a burly guy with a buzz cut, a direct stare, and a toothy, confident grin. You've never had any trouble with him, but your luck with school jocks is such that you can never think the best of them.

It's early Saturday afternoon, and you're up at the Silver Cineplex with Katy to see Cravenmoor, the just-opened horror picture you asked her to see. The theater is filling up nicely as you enter, which fills you with a fluttering kaleidoscope of emotions. What if someone sees us together? Well, so what if they do, it's okay if I'm on a date! What if it's some of Katy's friends? Shit, what if it's some of my friends? Do I want them joining us? They'll get in the way and fuck things up! No, they'll act as a buffer and keep me from fucking up! What if Katy wants someone else along and I don't? Or I don't and she does?

"Oo, don't push!" Katy squeaks as you tread on her heels. You squawk an apology, and thank your stars that you haven't dumped the popcorn on her yet.

You settle in and mumble some small talk during the ads and trailers. When the movie itself starts, with the foreboding shot of a crumbling brick manor under a cloud-wracked sky, Katy's shoulder touches yours. Almost you catapult from the seat. But you've the presence of mind, fortunately, to lean back against her, and soon you are propping each other up as you share popcorn.

* * * * *

Half the popcorn ends up in the floor, thanks to the thirty or so jump scares in the movie. You're grateful for them, though, because after the first one, Katy grabbed your hand and didn't let go until the end credits.

"That was intense," she giggles on the way out of the theater. "It got you a couple of times."

"Did not," you lie.

"Did too. I felt you jump!"

"'Cos you were grabbing onto me!" You lean over to bump against her. She bumps you back. You grin like a son of a bitch and do your best to keep your feet under you. "So you liked it? Even though it was scary?"

"I liked it 'cos it was scary!"

"It didn't freak you out? All the Satanic, black-magic stuff?"

"No! I mean, I don't like that stuff—"

"You don't?" Your heart stops in your chest. "But the voodoo stuff you're doing with Stephanie and them, you're okay with that?"

"Well, it's not real, Will!"

"But what if it was?"

"It isn't, Will!"

It was probably that tone of vexed, impatient skepticism in her reply that finally decided you. I have to show her, you think. She's so smug, I have to show her. It'll blow her mind, if nothing else.

"So what do you want to do now?" Katy asks.

"Got some place I want to take you."

It's only a little later, on the drive back to Acheson, that it occurs to you to be pleased that she was looking for something to do after the movie. Surely a good sign.

* * * * *

"What are we doing here?" Katy asks as you twist open the padlock on the school basement door. "We shouldn't be here, should we?"

"It's okay, I come here all the time," you assure her as you push the door open. "They don't care, they totally forgot about this place." You put out a hand to take hers, but she hangs back. You advance down the steps, and look back at her from the shadows inside the basement. After a moment's hesitation, she follows you in as far as the top of the steps.

"It's kind of a clubhouse," you tell her as you descend all the way to the floor. "Me and my friends hung out here all last year. I've, uh, kind of turned it into a workshop."

"A workshop?" Katy sounds dubious.

"Doing experiments and stuff. I got one going now that— Hang on."

You've only now noticed that the fire is out again. Well, this'll show her what kind of stuff I get up to, you think to yourself as you snatch up the lighter. You can't help feeling a little smug. She'll squeak and ask what it is, and I'll explain, and she'll come over and see that it's a magic fire because it's not hot or anything, and then I'll—

But the dirt won't relight. You flick and flick the lighter at it, but it doesn't catch. "Will," Katy says, and now she sounds alarmed, "you're not trying to burn this place down, are you?"

"No, it's my experiment! It's supposed to be burning, but— Ohhhhh!"

"What's wrong?"

What's wrong is that the thing is finally done. It must be! The book says it's finished when the fire goes out and doesn't relight, and it's gone out and you can't get it to relight, so—

"Come over here and look at it," you say. It's too gloomy in the basement to make anything out, so you fumble out one of the electric lanterns you brought out. Katy blinks under the white, acrid glow, and comes no closer.

But you're preoccupied with the thing you've made. You've not given it a close look before. It's changed in the fire.

What was once a heap of dirt has now tightened up into something that looks like a large, fat log. The color is grayish, and it gives the impression of being made of baked clay. Fissures have opened up in it, up the middle at one end, and on opposite sides farther up. You twist your head around for a better look, and decide that, with those rents and the onion-shaped lump at the other end, the thing looks like a rude, just-started statue of a human being.

"I should get home," Katy says.

"No, I want to—" you start to argue, but catch yourself in time. "Well, okay, if you want to," you tell her. "But this stuff I'm working on, it's like the voodoo stuff that you guys are working on."

"Uh huh?" Katy sounds distracted, worried.

"It's like, something you could use in your prank against Hannah."

That gets her attention, and she even comes the rest of the way down the steps, though she hangs back on the bottom-most one.

"I found this book at Arnholm's," you explain. "The used book store next to the Crystal Cave? I've been using it to make stuff."

"Really?" Katy sounds either skeptical or disgusted.

"Yeah, like this thing." You indicate the ... thing.

"What is it?"

"I don't know. Here, let me show you the book." You lunge for the grimoire which is sitting on a nearby table. "I'll show you how it works and what it does."

* * * * *

You wind up outside, sitting with your backs to the wall of the school, as you flip through the book, showing her how the pages won't open, and explaining how performing each spell in turn has allowed you to unlock them. Katy is incredulous at first, then indulgent, and finally just confused and even a little angry. "But you're not serious," she argues. "You didn't actually make any of these masks, did you?"

"I did, and I can show you. I've got one downstairs."

She gives you a skeptical look, so you scramble to your feet and run down into the basement.

"See here," you say when you return to drop down next to her. "If you move it around and look, you'll see a face down inside it. And it works. It's a copy of them. And if you don't recognize them—"

You turn the mask over. The name floats over the inner surface in blue letters: WILLIAM MARTIN PRESCOTT.

Next: "Sharing Your Secrets" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 3)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)"