As you change with Melody standing in her underwear before the closet door mirror, it's the first time you've actually considered her body. Previously you were just changing into her as a disguise and didn't even pay any attention taking her clothes on and off. You were just concentrating too much on what you were going to do at Blackwell's office then his home. Even in the school basement, you were just using her mind to help you think, and that's what you seem to be doing now: analyzing yourself in her body.
She isn't anything like Cassie who is cute, short and well proportioned much more to your teenage craving. She is very emotional, too, which can quickly drown you in them and are always giving you physical urges. Her persona is flirtive, talkative (very!), and sociable. Studying is a dreary burden forced upon her with no real meaning or use. Some classes may be fun, but she sees to practical use for what she is learning. It's something to get through so she can attend college to meet people, play and party.
Melody is a loner, deeply consumed by study that she approaches as something that helps her accomplish her goals. She is intelligent and mature, way more mature than the Westside girls you know. She is consumed with the need to find answers for her questions. She finds most of her pleasure in her research and is bored with most classes, especially Blackwell's, though very interested in the topics. She has some friends, but doesn't make them easily. She has urges, but is underwhelmed by them especially compared to how she feels about her search for knowledge. Her body has all the usual parts though not assembled like the girls you have always desired or been shown as desirable in movies, TV, or porn mags. It's not that she is UN-attractive. It's just she seems ... well, plain.
Through Melody's mind as well as her eyes, you start to take a tour to the south side, ... of campus that is, in the direction of Blackwell's. It's the older part of campus with a style matching his house - haughty, gothic, secreted vault of knowledge - at least for Melody. She sees the meaning in each stone, window shape, and arch and doorway position. You ride her memories and thoughts to find that she has mastered as much as can be learned of the Masons, their history, rites, and secrets. Not just "National Treasure" cliché, but real facts that border on alchemy and sorcery as well.
She is the perfect match to help you with this book and would be the perfect ally against Blackwell with her knowledge, resourcefulness and dislike of the man himself. It's his demeanor and pompous lecturing that infuriates her. He can spew facts but can't draw valid conclusions himself. Whatever he seems to have done can actually be found in papers prepared by his students that she has researched in the library. There can even be found Blackwell's research and thesis when he was in school. All of it lacking. He seems to use his students as his pawns to solve the unknown while he can just stare at it.
The latter makes you remember his use of Lucy and the golem. You wonder if he has gone from stealing student intellectual property to stealing intellect including the student. He may have pawns and golems everywhere.
When you put Melody's mind to consider the info you have on Blackwell and the book, she actually dismisses him as no more than a buffoon who stumbled on something beyond his comprehension and started playing, then exploiting it. She knows he has no more ability than a teenager would if the book fell into his hands, unless he understood the source of such a book and the times and events that lead to its creation. Without a hidden talent or connection to it, the teen would just fumble through until the consequences devoured him.
These are heavy thoughts that you would not have entertained were you not in Melody's persona. But you are, and all this makes you ponder the depth and seriousness of the situation you are in. You never believed in magic, nor taken the time to consider the implications of the book and what you are doing. But Melody is doing just that for you as your mind and body is melded with hers.
It's just a little before eight as you stroll towards Blackwell's eerie mansion. The sky has already turned dark and stars are just peaking out as if checking whether there is something menacing lurking below them before they fully show themselves. The mansion itself has a silhouette like a three headed demon formed by its turrets and chimneys. Even the few lights inside are positioned in windows that form a face with small, close-set eyes and a hideous, toothy smirk.
As you arrive, a very nice car is parked out front. "Very nice" actually doesn't come close to describing it as you walk slowly by. It's black, and the windows are tinted so you can't look in, but the style radiates several things: power, sophistication, importance, mystery, and evil. It makes you, and Melody's persona from the mask, think this is almost the type of car Blackwell would have, if he was sophisticated or important.
You wonder who the car could belong to as you walk warily through the grotesque forms created by the slight glow from the windows as it tries to avoid falling directly on the bushes and statuary that wander the lawn leading up to the front door. Before you can knock, you are frightened further by loud voices resounding from inside. One is Blackwell's. You can't make out the words, but Blackwell seems to be very upset and doing most of the talking, or rather yelling. The other is just a loud, short response to him. You knock, and the voices go silent.
About half a minute later, the door opens and Blackwell greets you nervously, ushering you in and pointing you to the library where he says there's a pile of books he just got in.
"I have a ... ah guest right now. So just go ahead and get started." he tells you. " Once I'm done, I'll be in my study. When you're finished just knock on the door. Now hurry along as tonight's pile may take a while. I'll cover anything over an hour if you can stay and finish." He pushes you down the hall then backs against the study's closed doors and watches you go.
"I need to stop by the little girl's room first, if you don't mind." you say over your shoulder and head to the door across the hall from the library.
"Yes. Yes. That will be fine." he quickly repeats grimacing from your use of "little girl's room" as he remains with his hands behind him on the door as he follows your movement.
You wave back and smile as you head into the bathroom and make sure he hears the latch and the click of the lock. You listen by the door until the sound of the study's pocket door rolling open and closed finishes, then you quietly open the bathroom door and race down the hall to listen through the study's door.
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