Chapter #13A Golem Goes Shopping by: Seuzz   The thought of letting a duplicate of yourself—even if it is one under your control—go around pretending to be you just sounds too creepy and dangerous. Caleb only shrugs when you explain this to him. Afterward, you remove the mask from the golem, hide the clay body in the back, and go home.
The next day at school is a little weird; you keep feeling like you're having an out of body experience, and you find yourself wondering if this is what it is like to be a golem. Is it conscious? Does it have feelings and desires and needs? If you yourself were a golem would you know it? Well, of course, you'd have the feeling—the compulsion—to obey someone. And you don't.
(Except Mr. Hawks in second period, who is so intimidating that you can barely bring yourself to look in his direction, let alone disobey him.)
You are also haunted by the absence of Eva. In fact, she and Jessica and Marc are all absent from school. By the end of the day you are so freaked out that you are almost ready to destroy the thing at the elementary school. You grab Caleb after last period and tell him to meet you at the school right away.
You beat him there and swallow really hard when you find the lock is off the door. You sneak in very carefully, in case the maintenance crew is inside, but you find it is empty. Your relief is temporary when you discover that the golem body is missing.
When he arrives, Caleb finds you on the floor, rocking on your hips and close to hyperventilating. Between gasps for air you tell him that you can't find the golem body. "How did it get out?" you keep repeating. "We took the mask off. How did it get out?"
"Maybe someone found it," Caleb says. He looks around and frowns. "No, that can't be it. The rest of our shit is here. Except—"
"Except?"
He bites his lip. "One of the masks is missing."
The blood drains from your face. "Christ," you murmur, and you feel darkness closing in around you. "It's me. I'm the golem. I really am the golem. I'm the fake." You start hiccupping.
Caleb stares at you, and then slaps you hard. "Get a grip, dude. What are you babbling about? You're not the freaking golem. It's the Eva mask that's missing. Your mask is ... Well, it's right here." He takes a mask from his backpack.
You stare at him, then stagger weakly to your feet. "How—?"
There's a noise at the door, and Eva walks in. She is holding lots of shopping bags and looking very stylish in some new clothes.
* * * * *
Your hands are at Caleb's throat before you can stop yourself. "You did fucking what?"
He slaps your hands away, but backs away. You feel your eyes bulging.
"I just thought we'd get a start on the next project. I didn't mean for anything to go wrong."
"You didn't mean? Well that's a fucking relief! What would have happened if you'd actually meant things to go wrong?"
"Anyway, they're not so bad if you think about it. We dodged a bullet—"
"I don't want to have bullets flying at me that I have to dodge, you fucking moron!"
He gives you an impatient, disgusted look and turns back to the Eva clone, who is humming softly to itself while laying out the spoils of its shopping trip.
So here's the story you finally piece together: Early this morning Caleb had gone over to the clubhouse and put on your mask, then put the Eva mask on the golem. He had a new blank mask and had ordered it to start polishing it up. The golem had pretended to obey. But (Eva had told you) golems can sense when they are dealing with the magic-user and when it's just someone in disguise. So after Caleb left for school the golem—bored with its job—had wandered off. It took a chance on the Garner house being empty, and had taken a long—a very long—walk over there. Sure enough, no one was home, so it had broken in, lifted Eva's conveniently abandoned ID and credit card, rifled some cash from her siblings' rooms, and then caught a cab into town and splurged on a new wardrobe.
"Why didn't you lock it in so it couldn't get out?" you demanded of Caleb.
"I thought that it would obey me," he retorted. "Besides, suppose someone came and found her locked in here. It would look like a kidnapping. With the lock gone, she could pretend she'd just wandered in."
You have to concede that he makes sense. But still. "What are we gonna do with this shit?" you gesture at the clothes. Eva gives you a dirty look. "We have to take it back."
"Why?"
"Because it's ... it's stealing.
"It's a little late to be acquiring a conscience about stealing stuff, isn't it?" Caleb says.
"Besides, I bought most of it at clearance events," Eva says. "No exchanges, no refunds, no store credit." The smile she flashes you is both sweet and poisonous.
"But what are we gonna do with it all?"
Caleb scratches his head. There is silence for a good long time. He flips through the book. Eventually he speaks.
"You know, there's one thing we could do," he says slowly.
"Don't you fucking dare suggest that we replace Eva with a duplicate!"
He makes a face and points to the first spell. "We've overlooked this part of the spell with the masks. If we don't seal one, we can keep adding images to it. We haven't tried that out."
"So?"
"So, how about we make a new person? A new girl?"
"What? Why?
"Here's what we do," he says, warming to his explanation. "We use the new mask to copy Eva again, or some other girl who's about her size. We add at least one more girl, maybe a few more, who are also about her size and proportions. Seal it, give it some kind of personality with a mind strip. Voila, we have a brand-new person we can put on the golem."
"And what good does that do?"
"Well, then we'd have someone who can use these clothes," he says slowly, as though addressing a very stupid person.
"We could also give them to fucking Goodwill! I'm not complaining about the clothes—"
"I thought you were. You asked me what we were gonna do with the clothes."
"I'm not complaining about that!"
"Then what are you complaining about?"
"I don't know any more!"
Caleb shrugs. "So what's wrong with my idea? We make a new person. She could be your new girlfriend." His smile grows lopsided. "She could be mine."   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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