The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

How Trust Is Repaid

Previously: "Sharing Your Secrets" 

"Who?" you ask Katy. You're shocked by her offer to find you a "guinea pig".

"Someone," she says. "But it'd take you the rest of the night to finish a thing?"

"Well, rest of the afternoon, at least. But—"

"I need to get home," she says. "Really. But, um, if you get it done tonight, could you bring it by my place?" Her eyebrows peak.

You really don't like the idea of her loose with a mask, looking for a guinea pig, without supervision. "I don't want you trying anything with it!"

Her eyes widen. "You don't want my help?"

"I do, but—"

"Well, could I— Can I just take it home with me, at least?" she begs. "After you finish it?"

"Why?"

She shrugs.

You're in agony as you hesitate, but you finally relent. "Well, if you just want to take it and look at it," you say. "But promise me you won't—"

"I promise," she says, sounding relieved. "I'll see you later."

She turns and rushes up the stairs and outside.

* * * * *

You've got a lot of time as you polish the mask to wonder whether you've made a serious mistake by showing this stuff to Katy. Is she really serious about helping you find a guinea pig? (Which you don't need to do, since you already know how this stuff works.) And why does she still want the mask even after promising she won't do anything with it?

You have to stop, halfway through the job of buffing the mask, when a thought hits you: Is she going to use the mask on herself? Is she volunteering to be the guinea pig?

Holy shit! you think. Maybe she's going to come back tomorrow ... and invite you to turn yourself into her? To confirm that way that the masks work?

Your brain is a disordered mess when you get a text from your mom, telling you it's time for supper if you're coming home, and you take it and the mask and everything else you need with you when you return home, so that up in your bedroom you finish by affixing the completed brain band to the polished mask. You're not sure this is something you should do—maybe the mask and band shouldn't be attached to each other until after each one has been used to copy someone?—but Katy talked like she wanted the full package of stuff.

It's close to eight-thirty when you pull up to her house. She is expecting you, for you texted ahead of time, and she almost rips the front door off its hinges when she opens it. You think she's going to faint when she takes the mask from you. She thanks you for it, and with breathless anxiety asks if she can see you tomorrow. You tell her you can meet up tomorrow afternoon, for you have church in the morning and probably a family luncheon after that. The whole exchange is very awkward, and it receives an awkward—but welcome!—punctuation mark at the end when Katy darts forward to peck you on the chin with a tiny kiss before slamming the door shut in your fact. You rub the spot on the long, slow walk back to your truck.

It's too close to your stupidly early curfew to return to the school to examine the thing you made, so you go back home.

* * * * *

Church feels even longer and more annoying than usual, and the lunch at your aunt and uncle's house stretches out interminably. Only after you catch Robert grinning smugly at you do you realize that, in your distracted state, you've left Umeko free for his attentions without competition from you. But you don't care. You're too distracted by your developing relationship with Katy.

As soon as you're back home you text her that you're free to see her, and after changing into a more relaxed set of clothes you ride your bike over to the old school. It's a cool day with temperatures in the fifties, for it is now the first week of October.

You're glaring at the big, stony lump the fire made when Katy's texted reply comes in, saying that she'll meet you in half an hour. That will give you a chance to get started on the thing, for on reviewing the book you've found that, as with a mask, you have to polish it before you do anything with it. You'll need to bring in an extension cord in order to get the buffer up on top of it, but for now you decide to wipe it down of the whitish dust that covers it. You use an old rag for that, and you're struck at the dim shine the thing acquires after you've got the grit off. On a hunch, you test out the book to see if you can get the page to turn. It remains stuck fast to the page behind. On a further hunch you touch the open book to the thing. And now when you flip the book over, the page flops free.

So was getting the dust off of it enough? You check the continuation of the spell.

It's a big block of text, and you've translated it just far enough to determine that you have made a "lackey" that will obey you, but have not determined exactly what that means, when you hear a car outside. You glance out through one of the basement windows, and through the weeds you see Katy's car. She's very long in emerging from it, though. She's got a backpack with her when she does.

You meet her halfway up the stairs. Your heart is thumping hard, and she looks very nervous as well. Bright-eyed, but nervous. She asks you how your church was, and how your lunch was. You tell her they were fine, and ask what she's been doing. "Oh, just hanging around doing nothing," she says with darting eyes that won't meet yours. She looks over your shoulder. "Are you up to something new?"

You tell her that you're tackling the next spell in the book, and she eagerly asks if you've got it figured out yet. You tell her you're right in the middle of it, and with something like relief she asks if she can help. You shrug (but secretly you're pleased) and lead her back down onto the basement floor. She stares at the thing when you show it to her, and says nothing as you describe how you made it. (Leaving out, however, where you got the dirt.)

"It looks like a statue," she says, and points. "That's the head, and those are the arms and legs—"

"I noticed that."

"What does the book say about it?"

"It calls it a 'pedisequos'," you tell her, and stumble over word. "The online translator says that it means 'lackey'. Servant, footman. Guy who has to do what you tell him to."

"Is it alive?" Katy asks, sounding alarmed.

"I don't think so. It doesn't move."

Katy tentatively prods it with a fingertip. Nothing happens. "But I haven't finished translating," you add.

She hops up onto the table next to you. "Stephanie's brother is taking Latin," she says as you open up the book again and take out your phone.

"Yeah?" you say as you tap a short phrase into the online translator. The damn browser goes glitchy, you have found, if you type in too much text from the book.

"Uh huh. Craig. He's a junior. He's really smart. Her older brother's really smart too."

"How many brothers does she have?" You ask because Katy seems to want to talk, but you're distracted by the translation work.

"Just two. But Kevin's in college. Duke! You know, she doesn't live far from here. Just over that way toward the river." She waves her hand.

"How long have you known Stephanie?"

"Only since we started high school. We had a bunch of freshman classes together, became friends. We went out for basketball together. She's so good. Like—"

You let her gush on without interrupting while you concentrate on the translation, though you do look up every now and then to make it look like you're listening. (And because you do like looking at her.) But you're not much interested in hearing about all the amazing things that Stephanie Wyatt has done, on the basketball court, on the soccer field, or inside the school. You're particularly not that interested—except in a kind of morbid way—when Katy tells you about a couple of guys whose asses Stephanie kicked when they were hassling her and some friends back in their sophomore year.

But she's paying attention to you too, and asks what the verdict is on the translation.

"You have to put a mask onto it," you tell her, and slide off the desk and onto your feet. You pad over to the ... lackey ... or whatever you want to call it ... and frown down at it. "The books says that if you put a mask onto it, it will become the, uh, persona of the mask and will have to obey you.

Katy joins you. "You put a mask on it?" she asks. "I thought those things were disguises."

"I guess you can disguise this thing"—you point to the lackey—"as a person too."

"Oh my God," Katy says. She draws a shuddering breath. "Like a— Like a duplitron?"

Duplitron? you wonder, but only grunt an affirmative. "I guess the only thing to do is to try it." But there's only one way to do that. "I'll get my mask."

But something in Katy's attitude—she's gotten very stiff—catches your attention. "Something wrong?" you ask.

She says nothing for a long moment.

Then she plunges her hand into her backpack and pulls out the mask you gave her last night. Wordlessly she thrusts it at you.

You take it. When you flip it over, you see it has acquired a name: STEPHANIE MICHAEL WYATT.

Next: "Two Girls, One Mask" 

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