The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

Deeper Holes

Previously: "The Wrong Things, Said" 

By eight-thirty you've had twice as much excitement as you think you can stand for the whole day, and that doesn't take into account some excitement you've got planned for tonight. Fortunately, the rest of the school day goes smoothly, though you skate through it on high alert. Tanner Evans finds you early, and with a lot of sniveling asks for the six eighths he's supposed to distribute; you hand them over; and you send Caleb a text—which he acknowledges—about picking up the supplies for the next spell and meeting you at the school by six o'clock; and that's pretty much it, beyond placing three eights with Cody Wooten and Spencer Osbourne and two more with Alex Massey.

It's one of your days to work at the country club, which means it's one of your days to pick up supper from Aunt Sue, and you pick up enough for Caleb as well. He's not in a cheerful mood when he shows up with a couple of sacks of supplies, but he's not pissed off. "How much did it cost?" you ask him.

"You wanna receipt? You want change?"

"Nah, I told you to keep the balance. I's just curious."

"A couple of hundred," he says. "That was some pretty weird crap, lots of volatile chemicals. You got the spell? I wanna see how they're all supposed to be combined."

"I'll bring it in tomorrow, we'll get started then."

"We can't get started now?"

You shovel some food into your mouth and push a cardboard container toward him. "Nah, we got one more ingredient we gotta pick up," you mumble through a full mouth. "I didn't tell you. Which reminds me." You fish out your phone, and while balancing some noodles on a chopstick with one hand you punch up the number for the country club. "Yo, Jose, this is Gary. Man, I'm super sick or something, I'm not gonna be able to make it in tonight."

Jose yells at you.

"Don't blame me, blame this fucking stomach bug. I mean, you want me to come in, I guess I can come in, if you want me hurling all over the dinnerware."

He yells at you some more.

"So get Valencia to cover for me, one of those guys. I'll switch days with 'em, give 'em a ticket saying I'll cover for 'em the next time they're sick."

Jose grumbles.

"Thanks, bro, you're awesome. You're an asshole," you add after you've got the phone off.

"You don't look sick," Caleb observes as you slurp down the hanging wad of noodles.

"I gotta get out of work, but I gotta get outta the house, too, so this is like stomping on two snails with one shoe. Shit, man, I don't got any free time in my schedule for anything like— Oh hey, you and your mom gotta coupla shovels at your house?"

"No."

"Too bad. Then take your dinner with you while we run by Walmart or something. We need to pick up, like, a hundred sandbags or something, and we'll just get some shovels while we're at it."

"Sandbags?" Caleb asks dumbly, and doesn't move.

"Move it, Johansson. Sun'll be down soon, and I don't wanna make a late night of it where we're going."

* * * * *

"I'm not going in there," Caleb says. "I'm not helping you dig up—"

"We're not digging anything up," you tell him. He folds his arms truculently. "We just gotta get some dirt, man. We can get it from just inside the wall. I think."

"You think?" He turns, and even in the dark of the cab you can see him thrusting an unhappy lower lip at you. "What did the book say, exactly?"

"I don't remember the Latin, but it translated pretty clearly as 'soil dug up from a graveyard'."

"So we're getting into necromancy now."

"It didn't say we had to—"

"I think it's gonna have to come from of a grave, Will," Caleb says. "Why else would it want dirt from a graveyard?"

"Then we'll find a grave close to the wall. Now come on." You open the Jeep door.

"Will, I'm not—"

The rest of his refusal is lost in the sound of you slamming the door, but you're not going to let him sit on his ass while you do all the work. You go around to the other said and haul him out. "Get the fucking shovels," you tell him.

It's dark—it had better be, since you don't want anyone seeing you—and you're parked at the corner of the Masonic cemetery farthest from any street. There are a few low clouds, but it's mostly clear, though the lights of the city have completely washed out the stars in the sky. It's not cold, it's not windy, the only sound is the grumble of traffic from a hundred yards away as the occasional car drives past.

But you're breaking into a graveyard. It doesn't have to be spooky for you to feel a little jumpy.

"How much dirt do we have to get?" Caleb asks unhappily as he follows you over the low wall.

"Four hundred pounds."

"Four hundred--!"

"Shhh, keep your voice down, fucker. We got a hundred sandbags, we don't even gotta fill all of them. I'll start digging, and you hold the bags open for me." You test a spot on the turf with the tip of the new shovel, and drive it in.

"Are we even gonna be able to get four hundred pounds of dirt into your car?" Caleb asks.

"Then we'll make a couple of trips."

"I can't be out past ten."

"Then we better get to work."

* * * * *

Caleb winds up being late getting home—seriously late, because it takes a very long time to fill up the bags. You don't even get all of them filled before you have to pile some of them into the Jeep and drive it back to the elementary school. Caleb helps you offload them into the basement, then goes home. You return to the cemetery, and after a lot of feverish work you get the last of ninety bags tied up. That should be four hundred pounds, plus some extra. It takes you two more trips to get it all back to the school, and by then you're late getting home. Late and filthy and sweaty.

You have some luck though, for you're able to get into the house and into the bathroom and undressed and into the shower before you're cornered by the woman of the house. She's not shy about interrupting you in the altogether, and she yells at you for being late, but at least you don't look like you returned from manual labor. And, again, you're able to buy a little peace with forty bucks of "tip money."

But you ache all over the next day at school. And when you catch sight of Caleb in the halls, he gives you a pale and dirty look.

* * * * *

"I shouldn't be doing this," Molly Shaw says. She sucks very delicately on the end of the joint, and coughs.

"Is my baby mama worried about getting in trouble?" you ask.

"I'm not your baby mama," she says, and punches you hard in the arm. You gasp theatrically and fall to the side. "I'm not anyone's baby mama," she adds sulkily.

"You could be. You could be mine." You lean in close to her with a small leer. She looks back at you with distaste.

You're sitting out past the portables, close to the horticulture sheds and as far away from the school building as you can get while still being on school property. Westside backs into an agricultural pasture on this side, and you're sitting with her under a tree that droops over a culvert. This is the place that kids go when they really don't want to be found, which means almost everyone gives it a wide berth since it's a dangerous spot to stumble over anyone. It's fifth period, and you're skipping Marketing so you can spend this hour with people more entertaining than Mr. Peters.

So far, that only means Molly Shaw, who you'd connected with after first period. But you're expecting more people to show up.

"What happened to your friends?" you ask her.

"I dunno." She takes another very small and delicate hit. "I'm not going to finish this without them."

"Not if you went in three ways with 'em to buy it," you agree. "But they can be late. I like being here with you, just the two of us."

She peers at you around a thin stream of smoke, which makes her look cross-eyed. Molly has a broad, freckled face, and her hair is pulled back in a small, tight bun that make her face look even bigger and more frog-like than it usually does. There's no reason she should act like she's deserving of better than you. And it's not like she keeps herself aloof from the guys. Why, you heard her last scare was connected to—

"Give me a discount," she asks.

"For what?"

She looks down her nose at you. "A little fun like you want to have."

Jesus, is she proposing to sell herself so cheaply? For seventeen dollars? "You'd have fun too, babe," you reply. "Why should I give you a discount on a straight-up fair trade like—"

"Suit yourself," she says, and takes another hit. She overdoes it, and falls into a long cough, which she tries delicately covering with her hand.

"Give me that before you drop it." You pinch the joint away from her, but hold it away from you. She's fallen into a serious little fit, and begins to turn pink. You snort softly to yourself and check your phone messages. Sure enough, the two people you expect to turn up are scheduled to appear. In fact, one of them has just texted to say he's in position.

Molly finally recovers, and takes the joint back from you. But she only does this to pinch it out. "I should wait for Faith and Mindy."

"Anything you want to do while we wait?"

She returns your steady gaze with one of her own. Then she shrugs.

You're about to lean in for a kiss when you catch a movement out of the corner of your eye: Martin Gardinhire appears around the corner of the farthest portable. It looks like he hasn't spotted you.

Next: "Change Your Partner" 

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