This choice: Decline the offer and work on sigils instead. • Go Back...Chapter #23Introduction to S(igil)++ by: Nostrum   If you weren’t so close to a breakthrough, you'd probably accept Taylor's invitation. But it won't bring you any closer to unraveling the secrets of Blackwell’s notebook.
So you shake your head. "No thanks."
"Aw, come on! It’ll be fun!"
"It’s alright. Don’t wanna party so hard I don't want to take Scott's face off afterward." And I don’t want these books out of my sight, you want to add.
"Well, suit yourself." Taylor returns to the basement, and you drive off to the store. When you return with the supplies, he thanks you warmly, but Lucy is as cold as the wintry air in December, and as distant as your chances to be with either of the Vredenburgs.
--
At home, you race through your dinner and rush upstairs, locking your bedroom door behind you and throwing yourself into the books you stole off Blackwell.
Last night you read just read through the primer, but tonight you decide to give yourself some hands-on experience with it. You still don't have a "purifying fire" at hand, but you promise yourself you won't experiment further than the "most simple and safe Experiment" that the book begins with.
You start, as it instructs, with a clean sheet of paper, on which you draw a large square. Inside of that you inscribe a pentagram. Then—and you feel more than a little silly as you do so—you place the tip of your index finger in the middle of the pentagram and murmur the prescribed phrase: Biztrekon-gatuta-e!
You lift your finger, and your heart skips a beat. The pentagram has vanished, leaving only the box.
It worked! You wet your lips, and cast a nervous glance at the primer.
Copying the figure in the book closely, inside the box you draw a backward "L" with an "S" twining the vertical stem. You draw a circle around; then, without lifting the pen, you draw a slash through the circle from top to bottom.
You shriek and hurl the pen away when the inky figure twists into a pair of capital R's, standing back to back.
Oh, sweet Jesus! You hold your head in your hands and stare down at the page. The symbol came to life, and it changed! Just as the primer said it would!
There's a sharp knock at your door, and again you jump. You trip on your way to open it, and almost impale yourself on the knob.
It's your dad. "Will?" he says. "Did you yell?"
"J-just frustrated with one of my math problems."
His eyebrows go up. "Anything I can help you with?"
"N-no! I'll try to control myself."
"Mmm." He holds your eye, then sniffs at the air. "Have you been burning something in here?"
"What?" You sniff, and smell it too. It's like a cigarette.
"Oh ... Yeah, I think it's coming from outside." You glance at the window, which you had opened for the night breeze.
Your dad goes to the window. His brow furrows deeply when he turns back to you, and again he sniffs the air. You tense as he glances over at your desk.
But then he just pulls his nose and says, "I thought you might want to know that Caleb's doing fine at Salopek."
"Good," you stammer. "You know, he really wanted that job."
"Yeah. He told me today that he hasn't really seen much of you lately, except in class." He cocks his head. "Is everything okay between you?"
"Yeah, fine!"
"What happened with that time capsule?"
"Oh." You hesitate, weighing whether to invent some kind of breach between you and Caleb on the matter of the capsule. "Well, I wrote up that paper on my submission. Did you know Twinkies and Ding-Dongs can last for over fifty years without spoiling?"
His eyebrows go up. "Is that what you put on the time capsule? I wanna see that grade. That is the most stupidly clever idea I’ve seen from you."
You grin, feeling pleasure in his expression of pride. But you shiver when he claps you on the shoulder. After he goes, that sense of dread he gave you fills you with a further resolve to figure out the masks and how they work.
Back at your desk, you find the paper is singed and starting to smoke. Quickly you bat it out, then crumple it up and flush it down the toilet.
--
That night you dream again of the planetarium. It’s almost a repeat of the last dream, except this time it runs in reverse, with a sigil folding itself up into a very simple, compact symbol. It looks exactly like the one you started the experiment with—a backward "L" intertwined with an "S."
--
Saturday morning. You text Taylor at Scott's number to ask if he or Lucy needs your help. (It seems more diplomatic than busting in on them unannounced.) He say that he doesn't, and that he'll be taking her out again. You like the idea. With them out of the way, you would be able to move your research to the basement, where you won't be bothered by your family, and where your experiments won't bother them.
An hour later you're parked at the basement conference table with a bag of chips, a large Coke, a sketchbook, and the primer. The trouble last night, why it caught on fire (you speculate) was that you drew the symbol on lined paper, and now, when you try it again on a piece of plain white paper, you have no problem. Under the book's direction, you continue to play with the symbol you've created inside the box, leading it through successive metamorphoses. The culmination—and it is still astonishing, though the book told you to expect it—when you slash a backwards "Z" through the fifth metamorphosis of your starting symbol, and the double-barred "A" you had created unfolds into a circle, around which are inscribed nine symbols, including duplicates of four of the symbols you had created.
And this, the book informs you, is an actual sigil, ready for use.
Acting on its instructions, you lay a coin in its center and run your finger around its circumference thrice. Like a jumping bean, the coin wobbles, then flips over.
Well, like the primer promised, it's a very simple and not-at-all dangerous demonstration.
--
And because it's not supposed to be dangerous, you try tackling it with your own improvised project, based on the idea you had yesterday about simplifying sigils down again.
You start by drawing a box around the finished sigil and scratching a backwards "Z" across it. Nothing happens. You scratch a regular "Z" across it. Nothing happens. You draw a circle and slash line through it. Again, nothing.
You pull on your lip.
Before you can hazard another idea, your cell buzzes with a text: It's Caleb, asking what's up.
Almost you turn your phone off, but your dad's words last night come back to you, so instead you dial Caleb back directly. If you just talk to him a little, that might get people to stop thinking that you're being anti-social or something.
"Yo, Will!" Caleb chirps when he picks up. "Where you been?"
"Sitting next to you in class at school."
He laughs. "No, seriously. When was the last time we did something together?" You think, and realize that it's been way more than a week.
But Caleb is still talking. "You're not pissed at me or anything, are you?"
"No. Why would I? You're not pissed at me are you? On account of the, uh, time capsule?"
He laughs again. "Nah, I got some special help with that. You know Sean Mitchell?"
"No," you blurt out before you realize what Caleb said. Sean Mitchell? Isn't that Taylor's twin brother! "Uh, why do you ask?"
"Because he's out at Salopek, my work partner. Great guy. Anyway—" You can hear the grin in Caleb's voice. "He went up to the school with me a couple nights ago, helped me dig it up and make the replacement!" He chortles. "Isn't that awesome?"
"Yeah." You feel dizzy.
"I guess I shouldn't be surprised he helped, even though I kind of am. You know the football players, always getting into shit. Though I guess you kind of know about that too, huh? Carson told me last night that you and Bickelmeir are like best friends now or something."
"What were you doing with Carson?"
"We got together with him. Him, Lamont, me, Tilley. I asked Mitchell along, but he was at a party."
Briefly you feel a stab of envy and resentment. All your friends got together last night, and they didn't call or text you?
Oh. Wait. You did get a text last night. But you ignored it.
"So anyway," Caleb continues, I was wondering if you wanted to go see a movie. Did you see Keith’s bit on Mike and Carlos’ show?"
What show? you want to ask, but just grunt a negative.
"Well, Mike and Carlos want to review a movie for their channel, so a bunch of us are going with them. I thought you might want to come along."
You suck in your upper lip. It is slightly tempting.
"What time?" you ask. "I'm working on my calculus homework and I'm kind of on a roll, don't want to break the streak."
"Heh. That's something else Carson told me. You freaking volunteered to do a problem in class yesterday? And you got it right?"
"Hey, I sometimes know what I'm doing!"
"Well, I don't want to spoil your concentration. Tell you what, after Mitchell picks me up, I'll text to see if you want to come along, and we can swing by to pick you up if you do."
You almost drop the phone.
Sean Mitchell, Taylor's brother, will be going to the theater with Caleb and the others. Is that a good reason to skip? Or would it be a good reason to go along?  | Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
More by this author