This choice: Get help from the Stellae • Go Back...Chapter #33An Impostor Reveals Himself by: Seuzz   You're wearing Joe's form, so you've got his ambition, but you've also got your own common sense. Or maybe it's just fear. It'd be best to get reinforcements.
You pace the living room past midnight, thinking quickly, which isn't hard, what with you inhabiting a copy of Joe's brain. You have to get the Libra, but Frank has it at Blackwell's. That'll be a job for tomorrow.
And what will you do tomorrow? You can't drive out to Olympia. That would take several days, even if you didn't stop for sleep, and they'd notice your absence. That would alert them to the "golem's" treachery, and if they guessed what was happening, they might try beating you there; Joe has ways of breaking speed limits. So you'll have to take a plane. That takes money, but there's a credit card (for emergencies only). Frank has it, but he doesn't know that Joe has memorized all the numbers.
So you get online and book a flight to Denver. You'll have until noon tomorrow to get the Libra back.
* * * * *
Frank is gruff when you pick him up at Blackwell's the next morning, and he lets you drive, probably because he's lost in thought. You read his mood and don't chatter. Pre-class basketball practice is a nerve-racking affair, for you have to pretend to be loose and carefree and stupid, even though your nerves are vibrating. You're clumsier than the real Joe would be, for you haven't the little supernatural talents he uses to make himself look awesome on the court, and Ian Carpenter gets vexed at you a few times. Frank even pulls you aside and tells you not to try so hard.
There's one last moment of suspense as you're walking out the gym with him. You intend to give him the slip and duck back around to the parking lot--thank goodness he let you drive, so you still have the keys--but he catches you hanging back and asks what's wrong.
"Gah, I just realized I forgot my books back home," you say, thinking quickly.
"So what? You don't need them. A straw head like you."
"Yeah, but-- Okay, look, I had some poems in them I was going to give to Becky."
"So copy them out again. You're not planning on skipping--"
"Come on! Just a quick trip back to the place to pick them up!"
"You don't need them," he says firmly.
It sounds like an order, and you recognize the cue. "I don't need them," you say sullenly.
"That's right. So come on-- Now what?"
"Okay, the real reason I need to go home is because I forgot your homework."
He turns very red. "Go home and come back."
"Yes sir! I'll put 'em in your locker."
He glowers, and stalks away. So he won't notice your extended absence, you linger until after the bell has rung, then sneak into the main building and slip his worksheets--which you actually had on you--into his locker before ducking back out.
* * * * *
You risk a speeding ticket on the way out to Blackwell's, and study the villa from the outside for a solid ten minutes before venturing in. The gwarcheidwad is quiet, and despite Blackwell's car being out front, there seem to be no inhabitants. But a careful search of the library yields no Libra; desperation sets in as you search all the downstairs, and upstairs in the work room. You start to panic, but you tamp it back, and make another, slower search of the rooms.
Nothing.
Your face is twisted up so hard it hurts as you trudge back out to the truck. It looks like you'll have to cancel that plane ticket and linger for another day or two until you can locate the book. Though you could make an escape, you know you have to take it with you, or it will all be for nothing. Once Joe and Frank figure out that you've absconded, they'll go to earth, and with the Libra they could hide anywhere.
Your breath is ragged as you get back in the boys' truck. Where would Frank have put it? He wouldn't have taken it to school. He'd want to keep it safe. He'd put it someplace where it wouldn't be found. Blackwell's library--somewhere on all those shelves, those acres of look-alike old leather tomes--is where he'd hide it. Hide a leaf in a forest, that's what Joe had once told him, from his own reading.
It's those memories that prove your salvation. One thought will lead to another, and when they're Joe's thoughts they slide like quicksilver. An old private joke between the boys recurs to you, and your hands numbs with hope and fear as you grope beneath the trunk bench. An old fast food bag, a Coke bottle--
And the Libra, tucked where no one would want to look. You breathe a sigh of relief as you pull it out.
* * * * *
"Hey boy," you call to the mastiff as he trots up with a long tongue hanging out. "Did you miss me? I missed you!" You rub his head and haunches. "I bet you're surprised to see me back so soon! Not half as a surprised as a bunch of other people are going to be, I bet." Despite your happy tones, you're feeling dread.
You shouldn't. You've a good idea of what to expect, and though you're sure it will be hard and unpleasant eventually, you're not going to get squashed, even though the little old man who lives in this non-descript tract house in a forgotten town nestled in an obscure valley high in the Rockies could squash you while hardly noticing it.
You brush the soles of your feet on the mat and open the door. "Hello!" you holler, and bang on the door. "Dad? Laverne? Anyone home? If it's Father Ed, I don't want to--"
The astonished face of Charles Brennan appears around the corner. "As I live and--! Joe! What are you doing--?"
"I brung you a present, sir," you say, and hold up the Libra. His eyes widen as he slowly reaches out to take it. "I guess that's the most important thing. That's the good news." Your voice falters. "I wish there were better news to go with it."
"It's very good news, son," he says. And then his expression tightens. "Where's Frank?"
You sigh deeply and look away. "Yeah. That's-- Oh, sir. If you only knew how hard it was for me to come see you. Even like this, even with that to give you--" You gesture at the Libra.
"Joe," the old man murmurs. "Where's your brother?"
Charles Brennan is very old and very experienced, so there's no need to beat about the bush. "He's with his brother, sir," you say, facing him squarely. "Joe and Frank--the real Joe and Frank--are still back in Saratoga Falls. I'm not Joe." You raise your hand to your face, but catch yourself, for you've no idea if you can take this mask off. "I'm an imposter, Mr. Brennan. I'm worse than an imposter. I'm a malum veneficus. But I've come here, to see you, to make amends. To try, anyway."
The head of the Stellae Errantes looks very sober, but he doesn't look angry, and he doesn't look frightened. "I think you'd better explain yourself, sir," he says, and his tone, though it's not hard, is very businesslike.
"Thank you, Mr. Brennan. To start with, my name is William Prescott. I'm seventeen years old, and it all started when I went to a used book store for a class project."
* * * * *
He hears you out, and doesn't even ask you to repeat any of it. He has you remove Joe's mask, and you discover that beneath it you are a stone-like gargoyle that used to be homeless man. The golem--your body--is still mobile, and you can even croak out some intelligible words when not in a mask. But of your original body there is no sign. You show him one additional spoil you'd seized before leaving Saratoga Falls: the mask of Aubrey Blackwell, which you'd found up in the work room. Charles doesn't put it on, but he accepts without demurral your observation that anyone who puts it on could get the whole history from the original black magician's point of view.
"I'm sorry about all this, Mr. Brennan," you say when you're done. "I didn't know what I was doing. No," you correct yourself when he raises his eyes to meet yours. You don't feel misery, only hard honesty in your hasty self-correction. "I knew what I was doing. But I didn't fully understand it. And I was afraid."
"You were drunk, son," the old man says softly. You like the appearance of that word "son" in place of "sir." It means he's already arrived at a generous judgment of you. "We'll speak of that later. For now, you can put that mask back on. It won't bother me, and it will be more comfortable for you." You don't argue, though you're pretty sure you'll feel worse when you're back inside it: a known imposter, and the mocking memory of what you'd done to his adopted boys. "You can even take the boys' old room tonight. I have some phone calls to make, though I fear we will be much too late."
* * * * *
His fears prove correct; the next evening, when a return phone call does come, it's from another Stellae operative, with word that Joe and Frank are nowhere to be found in Saratoga Falls.
"What are you going to do now, sir?" you ask when he hangs.
"What am I going to do? Make some more phone calls," he says. "We'll have ourselves a conjunction. But what are you going to do, son?"
The question tells you what he hopes the answer will be, even if it's not something he expects. It's certainly not something he is requesting.   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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