# chapters

path: 1
author_id: seuzz
title: Prologue in a Book Store
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>THERE WAS A PENTAGRAM stamped onto the book's spine, but that's not why you stopped to stare at it. Nor was it the leather binding that caught your eye. You're barely interested in the stuff inside of books, let alone the stuff they're made out of.<br/>
<br/>
No, it was the book's lustrous colors—the blood-scarlet of the cover and the gleaming gold of the pentagram—that stopped you in your tracks. Even then, it was only because red and gold are your high school colors. Mr. Walberg has everyone out collecting a lot of junk for the school time capsule, and you were shopping for something to throw onto the pile.<br/>
<br/>
And if the book had nothing to do with your high school, your home town, or the current year? So what? Time capsules are stupid.<br/>
<br/>
It was in the special collections cabinet of Arnholm's Used Books with a bunch of other rare and expensive items. But the glass door was ajar, so you quietly pulled the book out for a closer look.<br/>
<br/>
Intricate designs of golden thread were woven throughout the cover; the same anarchic, subtly shifting designs covered the title page and facing papers when you opened it, and they made you dizzy just to look at them. Whoever created them had masterfully conveyed the illusion of movement and alteration with his pen strokes.  This was especially true of the stylized faces that gazed out serenely along the bottom of the title page: an old man, a young woman, a hale warrior, and a child. As you studied them, they seemed to shift ages and attitudes, so that the old man from a different angle became a double of the young woman, and the child aged into a crone.<br/>
<br/>
Without even looking through the rest of the book you took it up to the front to ask about the price ...</span></div></div>


path: 11
author_id: seuzz
title: The Fake Book
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Ted Arnolm is standing behind a stack of books, marking the inside cover of each one with a pencil, as you approach his work station. He glances up at you from under tangled white brows. "I can't find the price," you tell him as you set the strange book in front of him. "How much is it?"<br/>
<br/>
He regards you with a mildly skeptical expression before turning his attention to the book. With his thick wooden pencil he circles a faint number in the upper right-hand corner of the title page: $225. You face falls. "A little out of your price range?" he asks with gentle sarcasm.<br/>
<br/>
You start to take the book up again, but he stops you. With a bony white finger he points to a spot on the inside of the front cover. "Water damage. I can take a bit off for that." He slashes the pencil through the original price and scribbles "$200" in its place. You make a face. "Did you get this out of the special collections case?" he asks.<br/>
<br/>
"The cabinet door was unlocked."<br/>
<br/>
He grimaces through his white beard. "Lemme check for other damage." Arnholm, you've found, isn't a very nice man, but he is a fair one. He won't let the book go for as little as you can afford, but he might try driving the price as low as he thinks he can bear. You wilt and absent-mindedly glance at the rows of used D&amp;D manuals that line the top shelf of the store's "Games" section. <br/>
<br/>
"Tom," he barks, and his brother pokes his head out from behind a shelf. "Who's the joker that glued this book's pages shut?"<br/>
<br/>
You retrieve your attention as Tom Arnholm hurries up to join his brother, who is shaking the book and vainly trying to turn its pages. But even with his thick, yellowed thumbnail, Ted cannot pry the pages apart.<br/>
<br/>
Tom takes the book and also gives it a go. He tries peeling pages back one at a time, but none of them will yield. In fact, they are so tightly bound together that the book itself might be a clever fake carved from wood.<br/>
<br/>
"Was it like this when you cataloged it?" Tom asks Ted.<br/>
<br/>
"No, it wasn't like this when I cataloged it," Ted retorts. "I wouldn't have cataloged it if I'd seen it was in this state!" Tom casts a suspicious glance at you. "I don't even remember cataloging it. I assumed you did."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't remember it. It looks like it came from the Blackwell acquisition. Mitch did the work on those."<br/>
<br/>
Ted Arnholm looks relieved: a victim has been found and will be summarily executed. He gives you a po-faced glance, then inserts a decimal point between the "2" and the "0" in the price. "Might make a nice bookend," he says with no little bitterness.<br/>
<br/>
You part with a single dollar and some coins, and with the book under your arm almost dance out of the store.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You don't live on the outskirts of Saratoga Falls, exactly, but it's still a good twenty-minute drive back to your house, during which you pound your fist against the truck console in happy time to the rap music blaring from the truck radio. Actually, you don't even live in Saratoga Falls, but in the township of Acheson. A hundred-and-something years ago, the two villages were separated by many miles, but the former mushroomed in size after the railroad went through. It has since grown to nearly engulf Acheson, and the latter now exists mostly as a bedroom community for the well-to-do who want the amenities of a city while still living on the edge of the countryside. <br/>
<br/>
You gun your engine as you pull into the driveway, startling your thirteen-year-old brother, who's kneeling in the front yard next to his bike. Robert flips you off as you hop out of the cab. "You know, they got satellites sharp enough to spot that kind of shit," you say as you slap at his hand with the book. "One of these days, they'll snap a picture and pop it up on a big screen at NASA, and Dad'll freak when he sees you." Your father is an aerospace engineer.<br/>
<br/>
Robert ignores you and snatches at the book. "Whatcha get?"<br/>
<br/>
"Something for school. When's supper?"<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno. Lemme see that." You hold the book out of his reach as you saunter toward the open garage. "Is it porn?" Robert asks. "I bet it's porn!"<br/>
<br/>
"If so, it's your kind of porn." You shove the book at him, and grin to yourself as he tries to flip the pages. <br/>
<br/>
"It isn't even a real book," he exclaims.<br/>
<br/>
"The kind of porn you deserve." You try to snatch it back, but he yanks the book away. So you grab him around the waist and thrown him into the yard. The book bounces off, forgotten for the moment, as you wrestle.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Up in your room, you flop onto your bed and flip on the TV to waste a little time before dinner; your mother chased you out of the kitchen when you tried getting an early sample of the spaghetti sauce. The strange book is by your elbow, so you pick it up and glance at it casually as commercials play. To your surprise, you see that the first page has turned loose and now flips over easily. You examine it and the page behind it carefully, but can find no trace of glue residue. The rest of the book, though, remain tightly sealed.<br/>
<br/>
You sit up and study your discovery. Both the first and second pages are covered in whole paragraphs of intricate script. At the top of the first page is what you take to be the book's title: <i>Summa Libra Personae,</i> it reads in big letters. Underneath, in slightly smaller letters: <i>Personas. De Elementa, et ad Relatio Inter Se; et eorum Constructio; et Modum Repraesentationis et ejus Reflexio in Materia</i> The rest of the page, and the page follow, are alas also in Latin. You take out your phone and pull up an online English-Latin translator. With a notebook and pencil plucked from off your desk, you start to copy down a translation.<br/>
<br/>
To your surprise and dismay you find that pens and pencils leave no trace—not even a crease or indentation—on the page as you try to write down your translation. You open a word processor on your laptop, but it freezes and crashes when you try typing the translations into it. Even the web browser you're using becomes glitchy when you try putting large blocks of type into the translator. The hairs on the back of your neck are soon standing on end.<br/>
<br/>
Your dad will not be coming home for supper, so you beg off joining your mother and brother at the dining room table and take your plate upstairs, where between mouthfuls of pasta you doggedly set about deciphering the page, word by word, memorizing it as you go. It is sweaty, tedious work, and most of what emerges reads like garbled nonsense even after you abandon Google Translate for a more scholarly website. But gradually, by inference and intuition more than translation, it dawns on you what you've got.<br/>
<br/>
It's a book about disguises. <i>Personas,</i> it calls them—masks that can transform their wearers into other people. It's not just theory either, for the book promises you that these <i>personas</i> can have very practical uses. Dangerous uses, too, and the second page is given over almost completely to warnings and cautions about the penalties of deceit and the risks of using the book without full understanding. And it closes with the exhortation not to "sign" the book in a light-hearted spirit.<br/>
<br/>
The latter exhortation causes you to frown. <i>Sign the book?</i> What does that mean?<br/>
<br/>
You turn back to the title page, which is when you see that the facing papers inside the cover have changed. Those shifting, dizzying patterns have vanished, and on the newly blank inside cover a sentence has appeared. <i>Emptio me cum pecunia, possidere me cum sanguine.</i><br/>
<br/>
The translation is easy enough: Claim me with money; possess me with blood.<br/>
<br/>
Your eye drifts down to the whorl of lines that has appeared beneath this exhortation, and you chill when you recognize it as the stylized form of a thumbprint.<br/>
<br/>
You gulp. Well, if anything is going to drain the lightness from your spirit ...</span></div></div>


path: 111
author_id: seuzz
title: Making a Mask
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>With a deep breath you draw your pocketknife along your thumb. It hurts like hell, but to no effect. You grit your teeth and cut deeper, until blood wells out. You spread it over your thumbprint and press it onto the symbol.<br/>
<br/>
<i>What have I just done?</i> you wonder now that it's too late.<br/>
<br/>
You find the answer when you flip back into the book, and find that that page with the warning has come loose. Behind it is a page that brings something new: two paragraphs of Latin, but also a wheel-like design whose rims are inscribed with complex symbols of intricate design.<br/>
<br/>
But this new page, like the pages before, stoutly refuses to pull away from the rest of the book.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Hmmm.</i> You've begun to see a pattern. It looks like the book will yield a new page only after some action has been performed. Purchasing the book apparently opened a second page; "signing" the book has revealed this new page, which you take to be a spell of some kind. As for what action will unlock this page ...<br/>
<br/>
It opens with a list of ingredients, some of which seem very obscure. What does it mean, for instance, when it asks you to procure "celeriter"? That you should purchase the ingredients quickly? You wonder if you should get some help -- someone who knows Latin, maybe.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"You talk to your dad about that job at his company?"<br/>
<br/>
It's just before first period, and Caleb Johansson, your best friend since third grade, has materialized at your locker. He peers at you with that jutting-chin stare he uses when he thinks someone is screwing him over.<br/>
<br/>
"I'll ask him this weekend."<br/>
<br/>
"How about you ask him tonight, then give me a call?"<br/>
<br/>
"You can't wait till this weekend?"<br/>
<br/>
"You sure you're not angling for the job yourself?"<br/>
<br/>
So that's why he's got his chin out. "I told you I don't want it," you retort, "and I don't know why you do either. It'll just be file work. If you're lucky."<br/>
<br/>
"But it's a foot in the door, and I wanna make some contacts. A job at Salopek is, like, a major in."<br/>
<br/>
You grunt. You've never paid much attention to your dad's company, which is some kind of aerospace contractor. But Caleb is deeply into science and engineering; he's the kind of kid who had motorized Lego sets when he was only nine. <br/>
<br/>
"Make you a deal," you reply. "I'll talk to him tonight if you talk to Lisa today."<br/>
<br/>
"Done!"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, so you haven't talked to her yet. Jesus, I asked you Monday to pump her for me."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, it's hard," he mutters. "She's not dumb. She'll know you're the one who wants to know why she broke up with you."<br/>
<br/>
"And that's why she'll talk to you," you retort. "The way I figure, girls only think they want to spare a guy's feelings. Actually, they just don't wanna be the ones to tell you themselves." You shove one set of books into your locker and yank out another. "So she'll talk to you, because she knows it'll get back to me." <br/>
<br/>
You glance at Caleb: his eyes are wide, and for a moment you think that he must find your observation deeply perceptive. Then you see he's looking over your shoulder. "Molester at three o'clock," he mumbles, and turns around. Smoothly, you drop to the floor and pretend to fiddle with the locker under yours. <br/>
<br/>
As you'd hoped, Lester Pozniak, soccer goalie and bully, passes without stopping<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You go to the college library after school to look for books on Latin and magic. Most of the ones you find are pretty useless, except for one that relieves your puzzlement about "celeriter": it tells you that certain writers whose grasp of Latin was flimsy would append it to "calx" to make clear they were referring to "quicklime." Ah, so the spell wasn't asking for a pebble when it used the latter word. Still, it's no relief to discover that the book's author was no better at Latin than you are. You're playing with something dangerous, possibly under the direction of an incompetent.<br/>
<br/>
You spend the evening—in those moments when Caleb isn't texting you reminders to talk to your dad—puzzling through the rest of the spell. Fortunately, it doesn't look like the first item will be hard to craft. Basically, you just have to buy some stuff, mix it together, pour it over a convex mirror, then put a match to it. <br/>
<br/>
Still, you have to wonder where you're going to find some of the ingredients. You're pondering the kinds of stores you'll need to visit when you hear a sudden rushing of feet and slamming of doors, followed by the hiss of running water. You idly wonder what Robert is up to. Using the toilet? No. The shower? No. The water shuts off; a door is nearly yanked off its hinges; feet are bounding down the stairs. <br/>
<br/>
<i>Oh my God, it must be—!</i><br/>
<br/>
You leap for your own door, pausing just long enough to run your fingers through your coarse blonde hair. You briefly consider changing shirts, but you don't want Robert down there alone for too long. You yourself hit the turn on the landing in only six steps, crashing against Robert as leans over the balustrade. Down in the living room, your cousin Umeko is talking to your mother. She glances up and smiles at you. <br/>
<br/>
You straighten back on your heels. "Hey," you say in a voice pitched half an octave lower than normal. <br/>
<br/>
Her eye glints. "Hey yourself," she replies in a voice deeper than usual. "Caught a bullfrog, huh?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh." You fake a little cough. "Just a touch of something." Robert looks up at you incredulously; you kick him in the shin.<br/>
<br/>
"Honey, are you coming down with a cold?" you mother asks.<br/>
<br/>
"No, it's— it's nothing." You clear your throat. "Just some dust." But she's already bustled into the kitchen.<br/>
<br/>
Robert bounds down into the living room; you follow at a more grown-up pace. "You doing anything this weekend?" Robert asks Umeko.<br/>
<br/>
"I wanted to see that new animated movie. But you're probably a little old to be watching cartoons," she replies.<br/>
<br/>
You snort in a very adult manner—of course you're too grown up for that. But Robert nods eagerly. "I'd love to go if you're going!"<br/>
<br/>
"Great," she says, and you freeze. "How about we hit the early showing?" She looks at you mischievously. "I'm sorry you're not interested."<br/>
<br/>
You're still trying to figure a way out of this self-sprung trap when your mother returns and presses a lot of pills into your hand. Then you can only mumble and listen as she and Umeko discuss a piano-flute duet they're to perform in church next Sunday. You'd love an excuse to practice anything with Umeko: She's a year older than you but has a poise beyond that; and taboos about cousins—whether adopted (as Umeko was) or not—can't relieve the crush you've had on her since she taught you how to kiss at age thirteen.<br/>
<br/>
Before leaving she flirts a little more with Robert, who glows, then turns back at you. "I hope you get to feeling better," she says. <br/>
<br/>
"I'll be fine." You glance at the pills, which are now slightly sticky in your palm. "Do you know any natural remedies?"<br/>
<br/>
The light in her eyes cools slightly at you accidental, oblique reference to a heritage that isn't really hers. "I'm not a shaman," she says. "Maybe you'd better spend the weekend in bed."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Instead, you spend Saturday hitting art supply stores, greenhouses, and other places you don't usually haunt; and unless you've misunderstood things, you get everything you need. Early that evening you move your desk in front of an open window, turn on an electric fan, copy the sigil onto a sheet of paper, and start mixing. As you drop the ice cubes into the dry ingredients you wryly wonder how old-timey magicians performed the spell back when most houses lacked freezers. But the thought vanishes as the mix starts to smoke and pop and bang loudly.<br/>
<br/>
You cuss to yourself as you dive away. What if you blow up the house? Or, worse, just your own room? The bowl quivers and shudders as clouds of smoke billow out. An acrid odor pours into the room.<br/>
<br/>
Footsteps sound on the stairs; without knocking, your father bursts in. "What the hell? Oh, God!" He covers his nose; Robert peeks over his shoulder.<br/>
<br/>
"Science project?" you say through a ghastly grin.<br/>
<br/>
"Since when are you taking Chemistry?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm helping out Caleb?"<br/>
<br/>
Your father's lips whiten. "Do you know what he's doing? Oh, never mind that. Does Caleb know what he's doing?"<br/>
<br/>
"I think so."<br/>
<br/>
Your dad lets out a long, weary exhale of the sort you know so well. He glowers, then with a shake of his head leaves you to it, pulling Robert after him.<br/>
<br/>
But there's still one more step. You set the mirror on the sigil and pour the bubbling mixture over it. It hardens almost instantly, and you put a match to it.<br/>
<br/>
For fifteen minutes ghostly blue flames dance over the still-forming mask. When they wink out, the hardened mixture is a dull grey color and cool to the touch. Gingerly, you pull it off the mirror.<br/>
<br/>
It has a feel like alabaster. You are running your fingers lightly over it when it twists from your hand and bounces harmlessly off the carpeted floor; when you pick it up, it has changed shape, from a smooth and regular half-globe into something like the mold of a face. You loose a low whistle. Now you <i>know</i> you're dealing with magic!<br/>
<br/>
The last step is to "polish" it, so you clean up the mess and flop onto your bed with the mask and a cloth. The spell is vague about how much polishing is needed, and after a few minutes work, you put a movie into your laptop so you have something to watch while your fingers mindlessly rub the mask. <br/>
<br/>
Two hours later, the mask doesn't look any different, and still nothing happens when you put it to your own face. Maybe you should bring in a confidante, someone who knows something about chemistry.</span></div></div>


path: 1111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Solo Magician
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You get together with Caleb on Sunday afternoon at his place. He's pleased when you tell him that you asked your dad about part-time work at Salopek; he's less pleased when you bring up the subject of Lisa, and he has to admit that he couldn't get her to tell him anything enlightening about her breakup with you. <br/>
<br/>
"Jesus, you had, like, all day Saturday to talk to her!" you explode.<br/>
<br/>
"No I didn't,'" he retorts. "I told you, I just ran into her at the mall. We had about fifteen minutes at the food court, and she spent most of the time looking over my shoulder for Eva and Jessica."<br/>
<br/>
"So why didn't you call her and set up a special meeting?"<br/>
<br/>
"And how was I supposed to do that?" He sounds peevish and hounded. "What was I gonna say. 'Hey, you wanna get together and talk about how come you dumped Will?' Cut me some slack."<br/>
<br/>
"You could've made it a study session. She needs help in Chemistry."<br/>
<br/>
"Someone needs help with something," he mutters. "But all she said was that it wasn't working for her. Why do you think there has to be some reason for it, other than that maybe she wasn't all that into you?"<br/>
<br/>
You clench your jaw. The thing is, that's exactly the conclusion you've been trying to avoid.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
That she dumped you is less of a mystery than the fact that Lisa Yarborough ever went out with you in the first place. You're not that funny looking, you flatter yourself. Sure, maybe you're a little too tall and gangly, and maybe your nose is a little too big and prone to zits, and maybe your hair sticks out stiffly like windblown mats of straw. But you must have something going for you, because during your junior year she turned down approaches by guys on the football and basketball teams, but she let you hang out with her starting at the end of May. And boy, was that fun, even if you didn't do much except sit close to each other. Lisa has violet eyes and thick, shoulder-length, raven-colored hair; bosoms that are large without flopping all over the place; and rocking hips that induce something like seasickness's pleasant, fun-loving cousin when you watch her walking away from you. <br/>
<br/>
You saw a lot of her over the summer, and she wouldn't just sit next to you when you hung out at the park. She'd put her arm around your waist and nestle her head against your chest and let you lean your own head against the top of hers. And if she never got a bright, shiny stare when she looked at you, her eyes would still dance with pleasure. <br/>
<br/>
But then, shortly after school started up again, she started making excuses for not hanging out after classes; and then during one horrible break between classes, when you went up to her and put your arm around her shoulder, she turned and calmly told you that you'd never actually said you were going out together. It was like the start of your summer-long fling, except in reverse: very cool and very casual, and without the hint that there was any meaning at all behind it.<br/>
<br/>
It's hard not to replay that scene in your head. It's almost as bad as the scene that has Lisa talking to Geoff Mansfield, and smiling up at him. <br/>
<br/>
Which is exactly the scene you saw on Friday afternoon when you got out of sixth period.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
When you get home you catch your brother in your room, sitting in your chair, at your desk, hunched over your laptop with one hand pressing hard into his lap while the other hovers inches from the pornographic image that fills the computer screen. He leaps when you roar at him and tries to run past you out the door, but you catch and hurl him onto the bed. "Quit it!" he yells as you pound on him. "Quit it or I'll tell mom!"<br/>
<br/>
"Tell mom what, that you were using my computer to look at porn? You'll be in bigger trouble than me."<br/>
<br/>
"She'll put those blocks on your laptop too!"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, and then you'll lose all your access too. Take your punishment like a man, you little shit!"<br/>
<br/>
After delivering five hard punches to his gut and groin, you let him wriggle out and run away, then slam and lock your bedroom door behind him. You hurl yourself into the chair, close the browser, and—<br/>
<br/>
And open it up again, returning to the image he'd found and was working himself over with.<br/>
<br/>
You let out a low whistle. It's a good find. You copy it to your desktop, then move it into an innocuously titled folder buried deep inside fifty other folders.<br/>
<br/>
Then you go looking for more.<br/>
<br/>
When you're done and have got most of the tension worked out, you turn your attention back to the mask—you've nothing better to do than to work on it some more. But instead of polishing it all over, as you'd done before, you decide to concentrate on one spot and see if that makes a difference. Again, you start up a movie while you absent-mindedly rub a small place between your thumb and the knuckle of your index finger<br/>
<br/>
Halfway through the movie you're called downstairs to take out the garbage. When you return and pick up the mask you notice a change in the place you've been rubbing: a spot, about the size of a quarter, has turned from dull white to a soft but brilliant blue. At first you are elated: your work has paid off, and you've some idea of what you should be doing to finish off the mask. But the feeling of happiness fades as it occurs to you that an hour of work has only buffed this one small patch. At the rate of an hour per square inch, it will take you more than week (and almost all your spare time) to finish it off. <br/>
<br/>
You resume watching the DVD, but this time you take frequent pauses to assess your work, and are relieved to see that it doesn't take as long as you'd feared to polish up a patch. But it is still going to be a long and boring task.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The week brings a lot of homework, which doesn't give you a lot of time to spend on the mask: maybe two hours a day, tops, to polish it as you surf the internet or watch videos. School itself isn't very exciting, and Caleb, despite his promise, is very slow and reluctant to do any more snooping on your behalf. You have one infuriating conversation, though, when you go to the library for seventh-period study hall and stumble upon Geoff Mansfield.<br/>
<br/>
He's typing on his laptop when you come in, and gets a gleam in his eye when he looks up to see you. It stops you short.<br/>
<br/>
"Prescott," he says coolly. <br/>
<br/>
"Mansfield," you reply, trying to be just as cool.<br/>
<br/>
"I hear you and Lisa broke up."<br/>
<br/>
You only bite your lip. He continues, leaning back in his chair.<br/>
<br/>
"I thought maybe there'd been something going on between you two, so, you know, I've been real careful not to come between you guys. It wouldn't be cool to make a play for another guy's girl. I suppose there'd be nothing wrong with asking her out now, though, would there?"<br/>
<br/>
Mansfield is only a few months older than you, but he's solidly escaped the awkward puberty phase. He's at least an inch taller than you, with clear skin and thick, dark hair that curls behind his ears and over his forehead. He cruises confidently through the school corridors with shoulders back and chin out, and gazes calmly at the world out of dark, amused eyes. You've never been particularly jealous of the athletes in the school—buncha muscle-bound jerks—but Geoff is more or less like you. Just with all the kinks and awkward angles straightened out and all the blemishes erased. Which somehow makes it worse.<br/>
<br/>
"You can do what you want," you snort. You suddenly feel the awkward weight of your backpack on your shoulder, and want to find a place to escape to.<br/>
<br/>
"Of course I can do what I want," he replies with casual insolence. "I wasn't asking for permission. I was just expressing a thought."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, find someone else to share your thoughts with," you mutter lamely as you brush past him. You can't be sure, but you think you hear him snicker.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The weekend comes, and after finishing up all your required chores on Saturday morning you attack the remaining portions of the mask. You've got a system going by this time, trading the mask between hands when you get tired, and polishing in ever-widening circles. More and more of the mask turns a clear and brilliant blue. By Saturday night only a few streaks mar its glowing surface.<br/>
<br/>
You return to the spell to double-check for anything that you might have overlooked. Nothing leaps out at you, though now that you are so close to finishing the job you are given pause by its ambiguity in describing how the mask is supposed to work. As best you can translate, the mask, when prepared, will "absorb the form" of any face it is laid against. Does this mean it will somehow suck out the very shape of the person you try it out on, leaving behind ... What? A sodden mass of flesh? Or will it only copy the person's features? How much will it copy: just the face or the entire body? You are also made nervous by the lack of any clue about how to unlock the rest of the book. Will it be enough to simply polish the mask to completion? Or will you have to take a chance and try the mask on someone—yourself or another—before the magic will let you proceed?<br/>
<br/>
This leaves you feeling very worried about trying to use this thing you've created, whether on yourself or on another person. If it's a dangerous thing, you'd prefer trying it on someone you dislike, but it would be very hard to get close to that kind of person. That leaves a friend or family member as the only kind of readily available guinea pig.</span></div></div>


path: 11111
author_id: seuzz
title: Myself, the Guinea Pig
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You sit down at your desk and take up the mask; you've smoothed away even the tiniest imperfection you could find on its surface. There seems nothing else to do but try it out.<br/>
<br/>
You lie on your bed, holding the mask in your hands. You've taken the precaution of taking off all your clothes, in case they should interfere with whatever is supposed to happen. And so it's with a chill—but also a tingle—that you take a deep breath and slowly lower the mask onto your own face.<br/>
<br/>
It feels very warm against your flesh, and you suddenly feel very drowsy. Great weights seem to be resting on your eyes and on all your joints. You try lifting your arm, but it is very heavy. There's a fog in your head, too, which makes thinking very difficult. Something warm and relaxing, almost like liquid sunlight, seems to be flowing over you. A buzzing sound, like a fly in a window, whispers distantly in your ear ...<br/>
<br/>
Then your eyes snap open. You are very cold all over, and stiff. Your eyes are, of course, hooded by the mask, so you can't see anything. In a claustrophobic panic you snatch it off your face and sit up. The blood rushes to your head and you almost topple over from dizziness.<br/>
<br/>
Looking down, you see that you still have arms and legs and a torso and other important appendages, all in the right places and all apparently unchanged. You blink stupidly and rub your eyes, feeling for all the world like you've just awoken from a very short but deep sleep. You glance at the clock: ten minutes have passed since you lay down, which means you almost certainly have been asleep. But you don't feel refreshed.<br/>
<br/>
You look down at the mask. It is still blue, and seemingly unchanged. And yet ... There is a reflective gleam there you hadn't seen before. You look more closely, and the gleam resolves into a shape. With a shock, you recognize it as your own face, held in the mask like a 3-D image. Though faded and almost colorless, it seems to be a perfect simulacrum, too, except for the black ovals where your eyes should be. As you turn and twist the mask, you find that you can glimpse different parts of the image from different angles, and when you tip it to peer at the top edge—as though looking down on your crown—you are amazed to see it also holds an image of your torso and stomach; when you tip it to the side, you are also able to glimpse part of your shoulder. It seems reasonable to conclude that the mask copies not just your face but your entire body.<br/>
<br/>
You get dressed and return to the book. A light, oval-shaped stain has appeared on the spell page; its meaning seems clear enough, and you lay the newly enchanted mask on it. When you lift it, you are able to turn the page. <br/>
<br/>
The reverse page contains more writing—what looks like a continuation of the spell—while a new spell is written on the facing page. You ignore the latter, though, in order to concentrate on figuring out the rest of the old spell. It would suck if the book has saved any warnings about side effects or booby-traps for after the mask has been made.<br/>
<br/>
Fortunately, there aren't any surprises, though there is much new information. The mask will continue to "absorb" new body images each time it is laid upon a face, melding the new image with the old and thus creating new faces. You guess this means that if you put the mask on Robert, the mask would create a new form that looked like someone halfway between you and your brother—a useful feature if you wanted to change your appearance without looking exactly like someone else. (You can't help wondering, though, what would happen if you combined male and female body types.) The mask won't work as a proper disguise, though, until you "seal" it—that's the next spell, you confirm with a quick glance at the next chapter—after which anyone who dons the mask will take on the form of whatever image the mask contains.</span></div></div>


path: 111111
author_id: seuzz
title: The High Cost of a Deeper Education
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You can always create another mask to experiment on; right now you are just eager to see what further surprises the book holds. So you turn your attention to the "sealing" spell. This one appears to be simpler than the mask-creation spell, and requires no materials you haven't on hand. Rather less, in fact.<br/>
<br/>
Mindful of what happened last time, you wait until the next day, when the rest of your family is outside or off running errands, before setting up the desk and fan near the window. You carefully draw the sigil, set a bowl in it, and begin mixing ingredients.<br/>
<br/>
There are no explosions this time, even though you again have to put a flame to it. The result is a puddle of stuff with the consistency of paint, and when you lift the bowl the page flutters free. You concentrate on finishing the spell, though, and with a brush you coat the mask's inner surface with the stuff. It dries almost instantly and becomes transparent. Luckily no polishing is required, and you settle back to look over your newly sealed mask.<br/>
<br/>
It appears to be unchanged. Again, you take off your clothes and gingerly put it to your own face. Again, a deep feeling of drowsiness overcomes you, and you struggle to stay awake as warmth flows over your trunk and limbs. And then it evaporates, leaving you feeling very cold and shaky. You remove the mask and examine yourself, but there are no changes to yourself or the mask that you can spot. On reflection, you're not sure that you could have expected anything different. After all, would it have made sense to disguise yourself <i>as</i> yourself? At some point, you realize, you are going to have to try it on someone else. But how to do that without tipping the fact that you have this mask, and a book that describes how to make it?<br/>
<br/>
You toss the problem aside and after getting dressed you flip forward a page. On the reverse side of the spell is a single sentence that tells you no more than you've already figured: You have sealed up the mask. <br/>
<br/>
But you sigh heavily as you study the list of ingredients for the next spell. It requires a bunch of stuff you don't already have, and some of them—like quicksilver—will be hard to find. You're in lower spirits still when you get through deciphering the instructions on making the mysterious new item: it will apparently be some kind of metal band onto which you will have to inscribe some complicated runes and symbols. That will require you to purchase some new tools as well.<br/>
<br/>
You glance over at your top dresser drawer, where you keep your cash stash. It's already pretty depleted from your earlier purchases. You drum your fingers for awhile, until your hear voices from downstairs.<br/>
<br/>
Your dad is watching TV as you come down, and he glances up only briefly when you ask if you can borrow some money. "How much?" he asks, returning  his attention to the ball game.<br/>
<br/>
"Two hundred?"<br/>
<br/>
That earns you his full attention. "What the hell for?"<br/>
<br/>
"That science project?"<br/>
<br/>
"Why doesn't Caleb pay for it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because I'm doing some side stuff on my own. I mean, it's related, but ..."<br/>
<br/>
He eyes you carefully. "Why don't you take that part-time job at Salopek?" You make a face. "If you don't, I don't see how you're going to pay me back."<br/>
<br/>
"Caleb really wanted it."<br/>
<br/>
"Then find another job for yourself." He turns back to the TV.<br/>
<br/>
You could look for a job, but who knows how long it would take, and you're eager to get your hands on some cash now.<br/>
<br/>
"If I applied for that job, would you lend me the money?"<br/>
<br/>
"If you apply, I'll loan you a hundred. If you <i>get</i> it, I'll loan you the rest."<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, I'll do it. How do I apply?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'll bring you the forms tomorrow." He reaches into his wallet and plucks out a stack of twenties—ten of them. "You'll get it," he explains as he hands them to you, "but I'll want those bills back if you screw up."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
After school you use the advance to purchase supplies. But instead of taking them home, you drive to the old elementary school, which is about two blocks over from your house.<br/>
<br/>
It's an ancient, graying hulk, with a half-abandoned playground out back that some of the younger neighborhood kids still haunt. A few years ago the village renovated the old cafeteria and turned it into a community center, but the rest of the building was left alone. You've been in it a few times, passing through old, dusty classrooms that appear to have been last renovated in the 1940s. The most interesting thing about the building—and what recommended it to you several years ago as a hang out—was its basement, which is accessible only from a sunken, recessed door hidden under the old gymnasium. You'd found that door, which is on the outside of the building, last year by poking around. With a little jimmying you got it open and explored inside, which you found stuffed with a jumble of old desks and tables and bookcases and cast-off gym equipment. <br/>
<br/>
You'd improvised yourself a small fort, more out of mischief than a sense of fun, and found your fort still intact when you checked back a few days later. So you installed a brand-new padlock on the door, as you were curious to see how long it would be before someone needed to go into the basement and cut your lock off. A few weeks later, it was still undisturbed.<br/>
<br/>
So you'd taken to rearranging the basement to suit your own tastes, hiding in it some stuff you didn't want your parents to find, and inviting Caleb and Keith and few others to hang out and explore.You and the guys even spent last Halloween down there, telling ghost stories and sampling some liquor that Keith had gotten ahold of. <br/>
<br/>
That was about the last time that you'd been out there, and you're surprised but pleased to see that your padlock is still on the door. Inside, you clear away spaces next to some of the windows that peek out just above ground level, set up some tables, and generally go about making it into a workshop and laboratory. If you're going to burn anyplace down, you'd rather it be the old school than your own house.<br/>
<br/>
You worry about ventilation and so have brought plenty of fans, but the new item you're making proves to need little in the way of combustion. You dribble a drop of mercury on the copper strip as directed, cover it with a strip of zinc, then sandwich the strips between two mirrors laid flat on the sigil in the book. With a steel-nib pen scratch the specified symbols on the back of the top-most mirror. Only a subtle hissing tells you that something is happening. When you pull out the metal strip you find that it has turned a brilliant silver and become almost infinitely flexible.<br/>
<br/>
You make a second one, then return home, where you can complete the etching and engraving in the comfort of your own room.<br/>
<br/>
Your dad is waiting there with the application for the job at Salopek and the assurance that the job is already yours; you will start it next Monday, working three hours a day after school on weekdays and five hours on Saturday. This will <i>really</i> cut into your free time, so you decide tomorrow to start preparing a new mask so that you can start getting it polished before the new job starts.<br/>
<br/>
Upstairs, you take out the small metal engraving tools and start cutting the runes into one of the bands. It is slow, delicate work, but you push through and stay up past four in the morning, working by the lamp on your desk, until you have completed both bands. You eyes are drooping when you fall onto your bed and lay one of the bands across your forehead. <br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The shrill buzzing from your alarm clock wakes you, and you sit up in surprise and alarm. What is it about these things that they put you to sleep?<br/>
<br/>
You rip the band from your forehead. It doesn't seem to have changed— No, wait, something glitters around the runes. You look at them more closely.<br/>
<br/>
Thin, blue letters seem to float above the runework: WILLIAM MARTIN PRESCOTT, they read<br/>
<br/>
Your hand drops nervelessly into your lap. The thing knows your name! It was odd enough that the magic could copy your face and body. But it's is far scarier to find that the magic can reproduce your name, a thing that isn't on your body, but, if it is anywhere, is inside your body, inside your <i>mind</i>—<br/>
<br/>
You stagger over to the book and lay the newly made band across the spell's sigil. When you try it, the page turns, revealing a new spell and the remainder of the old. The latter is only a few words long, and can fit inside a browser window without causing it to crash: "to know the mind of another" appears to be the best translation. <br/>
<br/>
A low whistle escapes your lips.<br/>
<br/>
Of course: It wouldn't do to try imitating someone if you couldn't carry off the deception perfectly, which would require somehow gaining their memories. With such an instrument you could learn everything you desired to know about a person: what they know, what they fear, what they desire, what they hate ...<br/>
<br/>
Your eye falls on the second band, already prepared and ready to be used on another person.</span></div></div>


path: 1111112
author_id: seuzz
title: Dead Ends
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>The new spell is an exciting one, but though you are sorely tempted to use the fresh band right away, you decide to wait: Each new spell has pulled up something useful, and maybe something even more useful is around the corner. You hunch over the next spell— <br/>
<br/>
"Will!" your mom calls from downstairs, and you jump. "Are you up?"<br/>
<br/>
"Heading for the shower!" you shout back.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It's relatively late in the afternoon before you get back to the old school, where you carefully spread out all the material at a table before settling down with the book. You read it carefully and discover that the next spell is fairly straightforward, using only material that you already used to make the masks and sealant. It's the work of only a few minutes to make a thin paste, which (under the book's direction) you use to attach the metal band to the mask. You set the modified mask onto the page; when you lift it again, the page beneath flutters free.<br/>
<br/>
The reverse side (characteristically) tells you what you've done: You've glued a copy of your brain to a copy of your body. (Dur!) But it means that anyone who puts on the mask now will not only get your looks, but your memories and personality traits, making for a perfect imposture. Soberly, you reflect that you will have to keep your mask in a very safe place, and you hide it in one of the desks back against the basement wall.<br/>
<br/>
You then make up a new, blank mask, then take it and the book back to your house before it gets dark.<br/>
<br/>
Your dad is working late again, so you take your dinner upstairs and turn your attention to the next spell. It takes a lot of careful reading, translating and note taking; and with a sinking heart you go online to see how easy it will be to get the materials. The outlook is grim: it calls for a lot of chemicals and fuels, some of which may be hard to find and all of which will be quite expensive. You've already blown through almost all of the advance your dad gave you. <br/>
<br/>
But it's the main ingredient that gives you the most pause, even though it should cost next to nothing: earth taken from a graveyard.<br/>
<br/>
You drum your fingers on the desk and stare off into nothingness. You'll be starting that job at Salopek next week, but it'll be two weeks before you get a paycheck. It's an engineering company; maybe they will have some of the expensive items, and you could lift some? Tricky, risky. You open up your desk drawer and look down at the blank mind band you still have. You could put it on someone at Salopek, and that might tell you how to get ahold of anything that they have out there ...<br/>
<br/>
But that's still only a medium-range plan. <br/>
<br/>
Well, you can still make a start. Tomorrow you'll see about getting out into a graveyard.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
<i>The next day.</i> You stop a few feet from your locker and blink. Three girls, two in cheerleader togs, are standing in front of it, chatting intently. One is Kendra Saunders, one of the snootier and stuck-up members of the squad. The second you don't recognize. The third— <br/>
<br/>
<i>Oh my God.</i> It's Chelsea Cooper. Head cheerleader and unofficial queen of the school. The tippy-top of the tippy-top of the pyramid. On a clear day you can almost see her from the gloomy depths that you and Caleb and Keith inhabit. <br/>
<br/>
Nervously, you glance over your shoulder to see if her boyfriend, the basketball team captain, is around. Dude will punch you into next week if he sees you up close and talking to his girlfriend, which you'll have to do if you're to get into your locker. You gulp and draw up.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey," you say to the third girl while pretending to not notice the other two. "I need to get into my locker here," you mumble.<br/>
<br/>
Chelsea turns on you with a bright eye. "Oh, hey," she chirps. "Have you seen Lisa around?" You stare and shake your head. "Don't you share lockers?"<br/>
<br/>
You feel the color rising in your cheeks. "No," you murmur. "She's over in C wing."<br/>
<br/>
Chelsea's smile instantly falls off her face. "I thought you shared lockers with her." She wheels on the third girl in her trio, who though you don't recognize her as a cheerleader is of exactly that type. "You said they share lockers."<br/>
<br/>
"No," the poor girl mumbles. "I said they're going out together."<br/>
<br/>
"You said they share lockers." Chelsea's sweet soprano is like a sheath for the icy dagger in her voice.<br/>
<br/>
The girl shrinks up.<br/>
<br/>
"We were going out," you blurt out, "and we did share lockers for a little while." That's not true, but you are feeling really sorry for the girl. "But not any more."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, thanks for nothing anyway." Chelsea rolls her eyes and stalks off with Kendra in tow. The third girl shoots you a quick look—of gratitude? anger? bafflement? you can't tell—and hustles after.<br/>
<br/>
You, though, take some compensation in watching Chelsea's magnificently swaying ass until it vanishes around a corner.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Fortunately, the town has several cemeteries, but the nearest is the Masonic cemetery a mile from your house. You wait until it is good and dark, then drive out to it, parking in the back. The book said nothing about dirt from an actual grave, so you pick a spot just inside the wall and start digging.<br/>
<br/>
It's long, hard work, as the spell calls for four hundred pounds of earth. You begin by carefully packing it into sandbags, which you stack neatly by the wall. But the wind comes up, and the trees begin to creak, and the thin, crescent moon falls below the horizon, leaving you plunged in darkness. That's bad enough, but you are soon made jumpy by the sound of cars passing. You're sure no one can see you, but if someone spots your truck and comes investigating, you'll have a hell of a time explaining what you're doing. Before long, you're just shoving dirt into bags and pushing them feverishly aside. <br/>
<br/>
Your arms are aching badly long before you're finished, but you grimly press through to the end, taking the bags back to the school and transferring them to the basement. Back at the house, you can barely lift your feet from the floor as you shuffle into the living room. Your dad and father swing around to gape at you; Robert puts his hand over his nose.<br/>
<br/>
"What the hell have you been doing?" your dad demands.<br/>
<br/>
You glance down: you are covered in dirt and sweat and grime and ... well, you hope it's nothing worse than those three. "Uh, just out with some friends. Kind of started, uh, rough housing."<br/>
<br/>
"Into a tub," your father orders, stabbing his fingers at the stairs. "And put those clothes in the garage before you get in. There's no way they're going into a regular load."<br/>
<br/>
You roll your eyes and return whence you came. Your clothes are filthy, you have to admit as you peel them off. Far filthier than they should be, you think, to your own discomfort.<br/>
<br/>
You take the new mask into the bathroom with you, and start polishing it while you soak in the tub. You haven't much hope that soap and water will make the job go faster, and it doesn't seem to. You rub and you rub, and your mind drifts back to Lisa and thence back to the episode at your locker. Chelsea is a cunt, but God! she is gorgeous. Long, golden hair; thrusting lips; bosoms you could rest a saucer on; an ass that swishes invitingly inside that pleated cheerleader skirt; long, strong, shapely legs ...<br/>
<br/>
The mask slips from your hand to the floor beside the tub, and soon you are polishing something else.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Caleb, can I borrow some money from you?" you ask him the next day when you're in the library before classes have started.<br/>
<br/>
"How much?"<br/>
<br/>
"Two hundred?"<br/>
<br/>
He smiles. "Lemme call my financial adviser." You blink as he takes out his cell phone. "Yo, Warren," he says jauntily into it. "How's the market doing, old bean? You don't say. Telephone's down. Railroad's down. Steel's down. How is ILovePrescott-dot-com? In the shitter? That's too bad. And PrescottSucks-dot-com? Through the roof? Tsk tsk. Should've put my money there." He closes it and serenely returns your glare. "Sorry, old chum. Portfolio completely wiped out. Gonna have to let some of the servants go, in fact, it looks like."<br/>
<br/>
"You could've just said 'Fuck you'."<br/>
<br/>
"Yes, I could've. In fact, I think I will. Fuck you."<br/>
<br/>
"You're still sore about that job at Salopek."<br/>
<br/>
He twists his mouth up hard.<br/>
<br/>
"You take a job that I wanted and you didn't," he snarls. "A job with a pretty good salary and lots of connections. And before you even start it, you hit me up for ... two hundred dollars?"<br/>
<br/>
"I've got the job! I'm good for it!"<br/>
<br/>
"You're good for fuck all, Will."<br/>
<br/>
"You want the job? I'd give it to you, but—!" you start, and then snap your mouth shut. Your brain starts to feel hot.<br/>
<br/>
Will Prescott has the job, sure, but does Will Prescott—the real Will Prescott—have to be the one who shows up? If Caleb wore the mask you made of yourself he could go out there for you. Of course, that would mean taking him into your confidence, but you've come real close a couple of times to doing just that. And after seeing what you've stumbled onto, he'd probably be real happy to chip in some money right away for those chemicals.<br/>
<br/>
The downside—well, one of several, you suppose—is that he'd want to keep at least part of that work salary for himself. But you could afford to be generous, since he'd be doing you a big favor. Heck, you might even give him ... thirty percent of your paycheck?<br/>
</span></div></div>


path: 11111121
author_id: seuzz
title: Caleb as Conspirator
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"Eighty percent," Caleb says.<br/>
<br/>
"What?! Don't fuck with me!"<br/>
<br/>
"Dude, it's worth ninety percent of your paycheck to keep me from going in on Monday, totally fucking things up, and getting your ass fired."<br/>
<br/>
You pale. "You wouldn't!"<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, I was the one who wanted the job."<br/>
<br/>
You stare at Caleb, who, thanks to the mask he is wearing, is sporting both your face and a most infuriatingly smug expression. You're in the elementary school basement. There's a floor-to-ceiling mirror propped up against one of the walls—probably rescued from a school gymnasium—and he has been studying himself in it for the last five minutes.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I know you wanted that job," you tell Caleb through gritted teeth, "and that's why I'm giving you this chance to take it. And it's why I'm offering you ... forty percent?"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb gives you a withering look. "Dude, I should get a hundred percent, since I'd be doing all the goddamned work for you. The money is the only thing in it for me."<br/>
<br/>
"But you wanted the job and you'd have it!" you exclaim, trying to turn his earlier statement against him.<br/>
<br/>
"I wanted the job for the money and the connections. I can't get the connections if I'm being Will Fuck Up Prescott. That leaves the money as the only attraction. 'All work and all pay' is the only way I'll take you up on your offer."<br/>
<br/>
You suppress the urge to throttle him; choking a guy who looks like yourself would be too weird. You slump onto one of the many dusty tables jumbled up in the basement, and sigh.<br/>
<br/>
"I brought you in on this ... really cool secret," you protest. "That's gotta be worth something!"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb eyes you shrewdly. "You want some of the work money, you do some of the work. We'll keep a schedule. At the end of each pay period we'll split the pot in proportion to how much we worked."<br/>
<br/>
"I still deserve some kind of bonus for bringing you in," you insist. "I bought the book, I bought the shit that went into that mask you're wearing, I shoveled that pile of shit back there—" You jerk your head at the pile of sandbags in the corner.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, what is that for?" he asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Ya got me. Freakin' book tells you what to do with it, but not what it does."<br/>
<br/>
"Okay," Caleb says. "What you say is a fair point. For an equal partnership I'll chip in as much as you've already spent. How much would that be?"<br/>
<br/>
"A little more than two hundred."<br/>
<br/>
"I got forty to my name at the moment."<br/>
<br/>
This time you do fly at for his throat. "The whole reason I showed you this shit was so you could kick in some shit to pay for the shit that I need to shit shit use to shit finish the next shit spell!"<br/>
<br/>
He just grins. "And how much do you need to finish it?"<br/>
<br/>
"At least two hundred!"<br/>
<br/>
He shrugs. "Well, payday would be in a few weeks. It might take two pay days to raise it, what with taxes and all, but—"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't want to wait that long! If I could've waited that long we wouldn't be having this conversation!"<br/>
<br/>
"I can't help it that you've the patience of a squirrel." He checks himself out in the mirror again, and brushes his hair over. "I can understand it better, but I can't fix it."<br/>
<br/>
You glower. "You know, it occurs to me that you are taking all this magic stuff pretty calmly."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm still not convinced it's really happening. Like, I thought you told me this thing was supposed to give me your memories and not just your crappy looks."<br/>
<br/>
"It does!"<br/>
<br/>
"No it doesn't. Tell me something I should be remembering," Caleb challenges you.<br/>
<br/>
You frown at him. "How much money did I have when I started this project?"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb gives you a look. "Do even <i>you</i> know the answer to that?"<br/>
<br/>
You have to admit that you don't, not to the dollar, at any rate. But no matter what you throw at him, he affects to not know anything about your life that he doesn't already know.<br/>
<br/>
"Sounds like you fucked it up," Caleb eventually says. "Not that I'm surprised."<br/>
<br/>
"Look in the mirror," you retort, "and tell me again that I fucked up."<br/>
<br/>
"That's a fuck up of a different kind," Caleb says. But he does give himself a once-over that you flatter yourself is at least a little appreciative. "Anyway, it does seem like a good idea you brought me in on this. Maybe I can keep you from blowing yourself up. At the very least, I'll be able to look things over, make sure you're doing things right. Speaking of which, now that we've settled the financials, what can I help you with? What else can you do with that book you got?"<br/>
<br/>
"That's why I need money from you. I can't do the next spell 'cos I don't have the money for it."<br/>
<br/>
"So why don't you just skip ahead to some other spell?"<br/>
<br/>
You explain how the pages of the book are locked, and how to unlock them. He demands to see the book himself, and makes a sour face when he finds that you weren't mistaken.<br/>
<br/>
"So we can make things like this thing that you fucked up making," Caleb observes. "You still got the stuff to make those things, at least?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah. I also got— Oh yeah!" You snap your finger. "I got another one of those memory stick things. By itself. I was thinking of using it on someone at Salopek. Maybe they've got a bunch of the chemicals we need for the next spell, and if we knew where they were, you could pick up some after you go in to work."<br/>
<br/>
"Assuming it works," he says. "So, have you done that? Have you used it on someone?"<br/>
<br/>
"I haven't connected with anyone who works at Salopek yet," you tell him with grinding patience.<br/>
<br/>
He walks over and grabs your shoulders. "And where does our dad work?" he asks in a weary tone.<br/>
<br/>
Something catches in your throat. "You're not serious."<br/>
<br/>
"Will, why is neither of us capable of using your brain this afternoon?"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You hunch in front of your father. It's Saturday, and he's taking his afternoon siesta on the couch. His sleep is a bit deeper than normal because he's got a mind band inside him at the moment ...<br/>
<br/>
Your attention is caught by a movement in the corner of your eye. Your younger brother frowns down at you from the entryway. "What are you doing? If you wake him up--"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not doing anything. Push off."<br/>
<br/>
He walks over to crouch down next to you. "What's up?" He peers at your father.<br/>
<br/>
You shove him. "I said go away!"<br/>
<br/>
He pushes you back. "He's my dad too!"<br/>
<br/>
"If you wake him up—!"<br/>
<br/>
"Then be quiet!" he shouts.<br/>
<br/>
You grab him and wrestle him away. He howls, and the two of you roll on the floor, tearing at each others' shirts. "Mom!" he yells.<br/>
<br/>
"Shut up!" You work your way on top of him and clamp your hand over his mouth. He glares up at you, and then his eyes go wide. A firm hand grabs you by the shoulder and hauls you up. Your dad's icy eyes bore into yours. <br/>
<br/>
"What the hell is going on!" he roars.<br/>
<br/>
"He started it!" Robert yells.<br/>
<br/>
"I wasn't doing anything!" you protest.<br/>
<br/>
"Then both of you can do it outside!" He puts his hands on his hips. <br/>
<br/>
Robert scrambles up and stomps away, but you hurl yourself into the easy chair and snatch up a school book. "I was studying," you mutter.<br/>
<br/>
He just snorts and starts to turn away. As he does so, something catches his eye, and he bends down to pick a strip of metal up from the floor. You nearly choke, but he just sets it on the coffee table, and with a quiet oath leaves the room. You grab the mind band and shove it into your pocket.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Awesome!" says Caleb when you meet him at his house later, holding the mind band aloft. "Lemme see it."<br/>
<br/>
You pull it back from his outstretched hand. "Who says you're going to put it on?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'll be the one working at Salopek."<br/>
<br/>
"He's my dad."<br/>
<br/>
He shrugs. "Whatever. So put it on, see if it works."<br/>
<br/>
You make a rude noise with your lips, look down at it ... and freeze. It's your dad's name—HARRIS BRIAN PRESCOTT—floating over its silvery surface.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Ewww.</i> Do you really want to get inside your dad's head? The squick factor, clearly, was the reason you hadn't even thought to use him as an entry point to Salopek. <br/>
<br/>
You lick your lips. Maybe you would feel more comfortable if Caleb were the one to put it on.</span></div></div>


path: 111111211
author_id: seuzz
title: Daddy Issues
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You thrust the band at Caleb. "I don't need getting inside my dad's head," you tell him.<br/>
<br/>
He just snorts, then hops onto his bed, fingers the band a moment, and puts it to his forehead. It glows, sinking into him, and he falls onto his back. You watch him for what seems like forever, pacing back and forth in a tight circle, then freeze when his eyes pop open. His brow furrows, he blinks at the ceiling, and he sits up. The expression he gives you is rather puzzled. Then his brow darkens, and his mouth turns down. With a shock, you recognize it as your father's characteristic frown. "Caleb?" you squeak.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I'm here," he says brusquely. "You know, you're getting yourself into a shitload of trouble, young man. Science experiment, my ass."<br/>
<br/>
You back up against the wall as he gets to his feet and surveys the bedroom, hands on hips. "Dude, this is pretty freaky," you whisper, and can't quite keep a quaver out of your voice.<br/>
<br/>
"How do you think I feel?" he retorts. He looks down at his feet, then examines his palms, flexing his fingers. "At least your friend here has a pretty solid brain."<br/>
<br/>
"Who exactly am I talking to?" Your voice is now edging toward a shriek.<br/>
<br/>
He jogs the side of his head with the heel of his hand. "It's me, Will," he says, though that doesn't exactly answer your question. "But your dad has a pretty strong personality." He blinks and shakes his head. "God, you can be such an idiot."<br/>
<br/>
"Don't  start that with me," you retort, recovering a little. "I get enough of that at home!"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, alright." He shakes his head again, then sighs. "Okay, let's look at that list of ingredients you need from work."<br/>
<br/>
With more reluctance than you'd like to feel, you dig your notebook out of your backpack and hand it to him. He flips through it, and frowns at the list of materials you need. He sniffs and pulls at his nose--another creepily Dad-esque gesture. <br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, we got this stuff at Salopek," he says. "Or we can get it. But how were you planning on walking out the front gate with it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, how would you do it? You'll be the one going in to work on Monday."<br/>
<br/>
He gives you one of those parental looks that makes you bridle. <br/>
<br/>
"The thing to do is to get"—he stumbles a little—"your dad to pick them up and take them out. If you try walking out of the complex with this stuff you'll get busted and fired and grounded and maybe even arrested. The thing to do is to make a phone call." His throat seems to work. "Have you done your homework yet?" he asks with peevish impatience. "What did you get on your last math test?"<br/>
<br/>
"What are you talking about?" you ask in bewilderment.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm trying to do your dad's voice. Did I sound like him?"<br/>
<br/>
"Not really. I mean, that's the way he talks, but your voice isn't—"<br/>
<br/>
"Then we have to get a copy of his body. Make a total copy of him." <br/>
<br/>
"Are you out of your mind?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, I'm inside his. <i>You</i> couldn't outwit a gerbil."<br/>
<br/>
He sits at his desk, pushing the mess aside with a loud snort, and begins scribbling in your notebook. The hair on your back rises as you recognize your dad's handwriting as it flows across the page.<br/>
<br/>
"I'll make a phone call on Monday, have them put together what we need," he says. "They'll pack it all up, nice and neat, and we can have it messengered out of the complex." He taps his finger. "No, that'll require signatures and expense accounts. Finance is bollixed up, but Tom might notice something." His frown deepens. "No, as long as we've got a copy of your dad, we'll just have to use it. He'll pick it up, take it over to the clubhouse."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't want to copy my dad! Getting that mind band was creepy enough."<br/>
<br/>
His eyes freeze. "Look, do want these chemicals or not? You go in half-assed and you'll get your whole ass blown off."<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe I could just lift his credit card, buy the stuff in town."<br/>
<br/>
"Now you're just looking to get busted, mister. I'll defin— Your dad will definitely notice those kinds of charges on the statement. The card company might even decline the charges while you're standing at the register, and then what will happen?"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It'll be the middle of the week before you can get the new mask polished up, and the weekend probably before you can try getting it onto your dad. You spend Monday afternoon hiding out in the elementary school basement, polishing the mask and watching a movie on your laptop while Caleb goes into work for you. Afterward you drive over to Caleb's to talk about his day at Salopek. "Oh, you know Sean Mitchell?" he says after giving a brief description of what sounds like a very boring job. "He works out there, they've got me paired up with him. Pretty nice. If we could copy him for you to wear, we could have some fun out there."<br/>
<br/>
"And how would we get him out of the way?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I know, I'm not serious. Anyway, it's not a lot of fun, but it's more fun with him than it could be. You know he's got a bottle of Scotch stashed away in one of the buildings? We had a little nip before quitting time."<br/>
<br/>
You just grunt, and then a thought hits you. "Say, what'll happen if he tries talking to me at school about work?" <br/>
<br/>
"I dunno. I guess you'll have to improvise. Anyway, what are the chances you'll have to talk to him?" Sean is a wrester and football player: not a jerk, but not someone you know except by acquaintance.<br/>
<br/>
A sudden thought comes to you. "Hand me the mask. I wanna try something." He cocks an eyebrow as he hands it over. You finger it tentatively. Putting it to your face might destroy the day's memories it contains; or it might give them to you. Taking a deep breath you put it on.<br/>
<br/>
What seems like ages later you wake with a feeling of claustrophobia and slap the mask off. Caleb is sitting on the bed by your side, staring at you intently. "What happened?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"It went into you, then came back out. You've been out for twenty minutes. What happened on your end?"<br/>
<br/>
You let your memories roll back, to remember—<br/>
<br/>
Driving to work in Caleb's car; filling out paperwork; meeting your supervisor and Sean; working; the drink in the distribution center.<br/>
<br/>
"I remember what happened today," you tell Caleb, and feel relief. Before you can stop him, Caleb takes the mask from you and puts it on himself. The transformation into you takes a few minutes, and then you compare notes after your newly reborn twin sits up. "Whoa, double vision," he says. "I remember being at work, but I also remember— God, that was a boring movie."<br/>
<br/>
You part soon afterward, and are glad for having done the experiment after you go home and have to endure a third degree from your dad about the day's events at Salopek.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
On Saturday you manage to get the new mask onto your dad without a repeat of the incident with Robert. You also filch one of your dad's dress shirts and slacks from his closet and take them over to Caleb's: You still don't want to get inside your dad's head, so you'll be going to work on Monday as yourself, and Caleb will play your dad. <br/>
<br/>
When Monday afternoon arrives, you're glad that you have the past week's memories of being at Salopek to draw on, for it makes working with Sean and the others at the complex very natural and easy. Sean himself, as you "remember," is very friendly and easygoing, and you enjoy your time working with him. At around four-thirty, your supervisor, Andy Keyes, sends you around to the distribution center, where Jack has a package for your dad—seems he asked for you specifically to deliver it to him. <i>Ah, the stuff,</i> you think happily to yourself. To your surprise, as you round a corner you find that Caleb hasn't contented himself with waiting for you by the front office, but has plunged into the complex to find you. You thrust the box at him. "Jesus, better get outta here before someone spots you," you mutter.<br/>
<br/>
He stares at you as he takes the box. "So what'll happen if someone 'spots' me?"<br/>
<br/>
"Could be kinda awkward. Just get out of here. I gotta get back to work anyway." You hurry off, but at the corner of a building you turn and catch sight of him, rooted to the pavement, staring at you. <i>Moron,</i> you think.<br/>
<br/>
But the route back to your current task takes you by the front office, and as you pass you hear someone call your name sharply. You turn and do a double-take: It's your dad. "You got something for me, mister?" he asks in a hard voice. "It's been nearly ten minutes since I called for it. There something wrong with the gears in your ass?"<br/>
<br/>
Your jaw drops, and in a daze you point back whence you came. "I just— I just gave it to you. Back—" He frowns, and you feel your cheeks pale: He's wearing a different shirt—the shirt you pulled from his closet. You gulp. "I just gave it to you a minute ago." You point again.<br/>
<br/>
He follows the direction of your finger, and you see him swallow. His eyes flick back to you.<br/>
<br/>
"We'll talk about this later," he says in a cold, meaningful tone. "You just see what you can do about fixing your little screw up." He turns and stalks off into the parking lot.<br/>
<br/>
How on earth are you going to explain your behavior to your dad--especially while trying to get the mis-delivered package back from him? Every fiber in your body says you should run and hide and leave well enough alone; maybe it will work out if you just stay still. But what will happen if he looks in that box and starts asking why someone was delivering a box of that stuff to him?</span></div></div>


path: 1111112111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Hot Box
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"That was fast," Keyes says when you hook up with him and Sean again in the machine shop. Your heart is still your mouth, so you just shrug. "Did you get a voucher back over to Jack?"<br/>
<br/>
You start. "A what?"<br/>
<br/>
"A voucher." Andy looks at you over the tops of his glasses. "All internal deliveries have to be signed for, and the voucher returned to the distribution center."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, Cripes. I didn't know that. I mean, I forgot," you hastily correct yourself when Andy's eyebrow goes up. "It freaks me out, having to deal with my dad at work."<br/>
<br/>
"Mm. Well, you'll get used to it all the quicker the more you see of him," Andy says with slightly folksy sarcasm. "Go back and get the voucher. Hop to it."<br/>
<br/>
But you hang back unwillingly just long enough for Sean to rescue you. "I can go, Andy," he tells your supervisor. "Mr. Prescott doesn't freak <i>me</i> out."<br/>
<br/>
You look between Sean and Andy with an intense sense of mortification. Sean rescues you there, too, by just sauntering out of the center. He shoots you a wink over his shoulder as he disappears out the door.<br/>
<br/>
"Don't look so impressed with him, Prescott," Andy says, and you realize you mouth is hanging open. "I don't think much of anything could freak Mitchell out."<br/>
<br/>
<i>True,</i> you reflect as you hang your head. <i>But he </i>is<i> a football player and wrestler, and is built like one.</i><br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
And the punch line, of course, is that Sean has left you with all the heavy work while he gets to take a relaxing stroll through the complex. And you do mean <i>all the heavy work,</i> for Andy himself returns to his office to take care of some sudden business, leaving you alone to sweat and strain and grunt and struggle with heavy iron equipment that needs moving off the dirty, greasy floor and onto some handcarts. <br/>
<br/>
So you're in a bad mood when Sean saunters back in. The son of a bitch is whistling, even. "What, did you take a vacation while you were at it?" you ask him.<br/>
<br/>
He answers by knocking the cap off your head, and you shoot him a dirty look as you bend to pick it up.<br/>
<br/>
"Your dad made me wait while he looked inside that box," he says with a grin. "Then he made me take it back to the distribution center 'cos he didn't ask for any of the crap in it. <i>Then</i> Jack had a <i>different</i> box for me to take to your dad, and then he gave me a <i>different</i> voucher to give back to Jack. Oh, yeah, I've been busy." He lifts his chin and smirks good-naturedly at you.<br/>
<br/>
But you blink hard at his words. "That box? My dad sent it back?" you ask. "To the distribution center?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yep."<br/>
<br/>
Your brain and your heart both start running at a hundred miles an hour. "I gotta take a piss," you mutter. "Can you handle things till I get back from the head?" Sean rolls his eyes and with those massive biceps of his he picks up a drill piece that ought to have required the services of a forklift.<br/>
<br/>
You're already on your phone even before you reach the facilities. You almost trip in mid-stride when your dad answers the call, and you stammer uncertainly as you try to figure out if you hit the right item on your call list. "Uh, hi," you say. "Did, uh, did Sean get that voucher from you?"<br/>
<br/>
There's a pause. "The fuck are you talking about, Will?" your dad says.<br/>
<br/>
Your heart flops almost audibly about your chest. "Caleb?" you squeak.<br/>
<br/>
"No, it's yo mama."<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck you!" You catch yourself and whirl around, to make sure you weren't overheard. "Bad enough you're being my dad, you leave my mom out of it! But listen, I got things set up for you. Just go to the distribution center. Jack has the box there—"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not setting foot inside the complex while your dad's still there," Caleb tells you in your dad's firmest tones. "If you can get to those supplies, mister, <i>you</i> can carry them out."<br/>
<br/>
"I can't! Not after the—!" You charge into the restroom, and drop an F-bomb as an almost solid stench of urine and sweat whomps you in the face. "God <i>damn</i> it!"<br/>
<br/>
"What's wrong?" For instant Caleb sounds like himself.<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing, just— Faugh! Anyway, after the fuck up I just pulled, I can't be seen with that box! So you're gonna hafta—"<br/>
<br/>
"Hang on, hang on." Your dad's voice returns, then cuts out. As you wait for him to continue, you experiment with breathing the foul air through your tongue and tonsils, and when that doesn't work you experiment with breathing directly through the pores in your skin.<br/>
<br/>
"Is Mitchell there?" Caleb finally asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Who? Sean?"<br/>
<br/>
"Is there another Mitchell?"<br/>
<br/>
"Stop sounding just like my dad!"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, go find Jack and tell him— No, wait. Just go find him and tell him I want to talk to him. On your phone."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Gladly!</i> You nearly tear the door off the restroom as you run outside.<br/>
<br/>
In the distribution center you find Jack typing at the computer; that box you delivered is sitting on the counter in front of him. "Here," you tell him as you thrust your phone at him. "My friend— My dad, I mean! My dad want to talk to you." You feel yourself turning a bright red as Jack takes your phone with a frown.<br/>
<br/>
Jack mutters gruffly into the phone, and he copies something down on a sheet of paper. When he's done, he hands the phone back to you. "Send Mitchell back over here," he says.<br/>
<br/>
"For what? I mean, yes sir." To Caleb, once you're out of earshot: "What's going on?"<br/>
<br/>
"Just do as you're told," he barks. "I've got it covered."<br/>
<br/>
Sean looks vastly amused—but also slightly puzzled—when you give him the message. He is gone for a very long time, almost to the end of the workday, which leaves you huffing and straining and sweeping and cleaning. But you keep your temper when Sean finally shows back up. "Where'd you go?" is all you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"Had to play delivery boy," he says. He looks around the cleared spaces with an expression of deep satisfaction, and slowly brushes his hands together. "I'd say we did a good day's work here. Wouldn't you?" He returns your glower with a grin.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"It's like fucking Christmas," Caleb chortles. He's still in your dad's clothes, but at least he's out of the mask. "I do so enjoy being a genius."<br/>
<br/>
"I bet it was my dad's idea," you retort as you pull out the neatly labeled canisters that you got Salopek Aerospace to order and buy for you. "You were using his brain when you thought of it."<br/>
<br/>
"Nonsense. He was using <i>my</i> brain. His brains were in his office, with him, so—"<br/>
<br/>
"And your brains are gonna be all over the basement wall if you don't shut up!"<br/>
<br/>
But still you have to give Caleb credit, both for the initial plan and for being able to salvage it at the last minute. Using your dad's voice and knowledge, he got Jack to give the package to Sean with orders to deliver it to the recreation center in Acheson. Then Caleb, watching at a distance, only had to saunter over and claim it using the ID of the person that he had told Jack to tell Sean to tell the rec center would be collecting it: one "Caleb Johansson."<br/>
<br/>
And then he only had to carry it around the corner and into the basement.<br/>
<br/>
After cataloging all the items and confirming that you have everything you need, you get down to the work of concocting the spell. While Caleb measures out the chemicals, you draw a copy of the requisite sigil atop a conference table, then unload four hundred pounds of cemetery earth onto it and douse it with chemicals. Caleb double-checks the recipe, and snips off a bit of your hair to add to the pile.<br/>
<br/>
For a couple of minutes you hesitate and argue, for the next part requires you to put a match to it, and considering the kind of incendiaries on that pile you and Caleb both worry about setting the old school ablaze. But you've gone into it this far, so you position yourself near the door while Caleb, standing at some distance, strikes a match and flings it onto the dirt pile. For a moment you think the match must have gone out. But then a purple bloom of flame rushes off it with a gentle <i>whoosh.</i> After you and Caleb have recovered from your shock, you advance cautiously on the violet flames that have engulfed the dirt.<br/>
<br/>
"No heat," Caleb says, and he thrusts his hands into it. "None at all."<br/>
<br/>
"So we just leave it?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"I guess so. But how long is it supposed to burn?" You check the spell, but it only says to let the pile burn until it cannot be relit. Caleb eventually goes to get you both some supper while you sit and watch, and when he gets back you treat it almost like a campfire, sitting and watching the flames as the night settles about you. Along about ten, though, you decide there's no point in watching any further, and go home.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
According to your partnership agreement, Caleb still owes you two hundred dollars, so each day of the following week he dons your mask and goes in to work at Salopek. You keep hidden, meanwhile, at the basement, where you watch (and occasionally relight the fire) while doing homework and/or polishing up a new mask and mind band. The plan for the latter, of course, is to make a copy of Caleb to complement the mask of yourself.<br/>
<br/>
But you're still not done with it when, on Saturday, the fire goes out and will not relight. Your fingers tremble with excitement as you dial Caleb (who is working at Salopek) to tell him that it's done.</span></div></div>


path: 11111121111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Docile Duplicate
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>The fire has definitely done something to the dirt. For a start, it has shrunk and tightened up into a solid object with something like the consistency of baked clay. Fissures have opened in it: one running up the middle of the central axis almost to the midpoint, and two shorter ones opening on opposite flanks higher up. These give it the appearance of a crude, quarter-finished statue of a person, with legs at the bottom and two arms on the sides. A certain bulbousness at the other end contributes to the illusion by resembling an onion-shaped head.<br/>
<br/>
The last step of the spell says that it has to be "polished," and you and Caleb both groan. If it takes a week to polish a mask, this will take a year! Or two years! But, to your relief, it turns out only to need a light dusting to get the remaining impurities off it. Then Caleb lays the book, spell-side down, on the thing's "chest". The page is already dangling loose when he flips the book back over.<br/>
<br/>
"It's a golem!" Caleb says in an awed whisper after you and he have pored over the reverse side of the spell. "You know, like in those old East European stories!" You shake your head. "These magicians would make a clay statue, and they'd imbue it with life somehow," he continues, "and it would be their servant. Kind of like a robot!"<br/>
<br/>
You look at the pile. "So how do we turn it on?"<br/>
<br/>
"You jerk it off?" Caleb chortles. "No, seriously, you put a mask on it." He points to one of the passages in the book. "Where's—? Here!" He grabs up the mask he's been wearing to Salopek and drops it onto the thing's "face."<br/>
<br/>
It vanishes like a dinner plate slipping into a still pool of water. You'd almost think that ripples run through it ...<br/>
<br/>
Then, during a microsecond when you weren't paying attention, the clay pile is replaced by a human figure: a skinny, scrawny human with patchy hair at its shins and pubes and chest, and thick, straw-like hair at its crown. Its eyes crinkle and open, and it blinks at Caleb, and then at you as it sits up.<br/>
<br/>
You and both leap up and back away. "Holy fuck!" you cry in unison. You bang the back of your legs on a table, which collapses with a crash to the floor.<br/>
<br/>
A second later, a kid who look a lot like you has put his head up and, with a wild-eyed look of terror on his face, has backed up against a wall.<br/>
<br/>
Caleb howls with laughter. "Jesus Christ, Will! It's just like you!"<br/>
<br/>
"What is? That?" you gasp. The other kid—who, yes, is your exact twin—stares with terrified horror between you and Caleb.<br/>
<br/>
"Dude!" he wails, and he points at you. "What's <i>that?</i>" He looks down and hiccups. "And why's it wearing my shit?"<br/>
<br/>
"God damn!" Caleb hoots. "It doesn't know it's a fake!"<br/>
<br/>
"Look, everybody just calm down!" you shriek. "Just calm fucking down!" Your breath is coming is such short gasps you're afraid you'll hyperventilate. "You!" You jab a finger at the naked you. "Who? Who are you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Will!" He gulps, and his face twists up. "Will Prescott!"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb interrupts. "What's the last thing you remember?"<br/>
<br/>
"What? I dunno!" It wipes its face. "Going to work, driving here? Wait!" It straightens up and its look of panic darkens into one of suspicion as it looks between you and Caleb. "I came here, and I talked to—" He points at you. "I talked to you about work. And then I—" His brow furrows and his lips work as he peers at Caleb. "Shouldn't I be <i>you?</i>" he squeaks.<br/>
<br/>
Caleb nods, but you can only stare.<br/>
<br/>
"Look here," Caleb says. The boy who looks like you flinches but suffers to let your friend drop a hand on his shoulder. "You're a mask, okay? You remember that, right? Going onto and off my face? And then I'd go around and pretend to be you? Right?"<br/>
<br/>
The thing licks its lips, and nods.<br/>
<br/>
"And sometimes you'd go onto that fucker's face," Caleb continues, and points to you. ("Fucker?" you mouth at him.) "And then you'd remember things that he's done. Right?" Again, the boy nods. "So you remember how we made a pile of dirt and set it on fire?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure," your twin croaks. "We got that stuff from Salopek."<br/>
<br/>
"Exactly!" Caleb spreads his hands. "Well, you're that pile of dirt. It finished burning, and we put that mask on it, and voila! Here you are."<br/>
<br/>
Your twin staggers and puts his hand out to catch himself. "You mean I'm—?" He turns green.<br/>
<br/>
"You're a golem," says Caleb. "Don't let it bother you," he adds cheerfully. "So you're made of dirt and clay. So are we!" He spreads his arms. "Whole fucking universe is made of dirt and clay, basically! Well, hydrogen, if you wanna be pedantic—"<br/>
<br/>
The thing doesn't look any happier at his words. "So what are you going to do with me?" it cries.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah!" you exclaim. "My dad thinks one of me is enough!"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb rolls his eyes. "Dude! Use your imagination! Use him to do all the stuff you don't want to do! Like, I don't have to go in to work for you anymore! We can send Clayface here instead! He can go to school for you, and go home and do your chores!"<br/>
<br/>
You gape. "And what do <i>I</i> do while he's doing that?"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb shrugs. "Hang out here and jerk off."<br/>
<br/>
Strangely, that doesn't sound very appealing. "And what do we do with it while I'm out doing the stuff I want to do? Shit! Caleb!" You feel yourself turning very pale. "Does it have to eat? Am I gonna have to get <i>another</i> job to buy food for it so it doesn't <i>starve</i> to death?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah!" the golem says. "And what if I don't want to do that stuff like school and chores?"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb marches over to the book. "It says right here," he calls out in a loud voice, "that the golem has to obey the master!" He looks around with a triumphant expression.<br/>
<br/>
"Is that me?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"It's your mask," says Caleb.<br/>
<br/>
You look at the golem, which is turning green again. "Do you have to do what I say?"<br/>
<br/>
A rictus spreads across its face. "Something in me says I have to say yes," it tells you.<br/>
<br/>
Dizziness sweeps over you. "Touch your toes," you say faintly, and your twin, with a miserable expression, bends over to grasp his naked feet. "Do a jumping jack." It flails like a marionette with tangled strings. "Er ..."<br/>
<br/>
"Tell it to suck my cock," Caleb says.<br/>
<br/>
"Shut up." You advance on the golem, which returns you a terrified grin. "Huh," you say. "I guess it could be useful. But if it has to be fed—"<br/>
<br/>
"Hang on," Caleb says, and he pulls you back. "Let me try something."<br/>
<br/>
He reaches for your twin's face, but the latter slaps him away with a snarled, "Get away from me!" <br/>
<br/>
"Will?" Caleb says, and you tell the unhappy creature to put its hands down and hold still. It complies, though it looks like it's about to burst into tears.<br/>
<br/>
Caleb grasps it by the brow, mutters under his breath, and pulls.<br/>
<br/>
Your face and form vanish, to be replaced by that clay statue again, now standing upright with appendages slightly akimbo. Caleb turns to you with a grin, and shows you the mask in his hand.<br/>
<br/>
"And <i>that's</i> how come you don't have to feed it," he chortles.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Caleb wants to put the mask back onto the golem and order it to finish polishing the new mask, but you tell him he can polish it himself. Caleb relents with bad grace, but cheers up when you suggest taking a look at the next spell.<br/>
<br/>
"Same freaking stuff as we needed for the last one," he reports as he copies down a list of ingredients. (It makes sense that one person go through the book instead of two, so you're goofing off with YouTube videos on your phone.) "Good thing your dad ordered us so much stuff," he chortles. "Say!"<br/>
<br/>
"No!"<br/>
<br/>
"What?"<br/>
<br/>
"We are not putting my dad's mask on that thing! It was creepy enough when you were wearing it," you add as he grins at you. "Having a completely fake him down here with us?" You shiver hard.<br/>
<br/>
"You just don't have a sense of fun," Caleb says as he bends over the book again.<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe we should get a mask of your mom," you retort.<br/>
<br/>
"Now <i>that's</i> not funny," Caleb barks. "Now, if we knew where <i>my</i> dad was, and we got a mask of him, there's a few things I'd like to say and do to him." His normally good-natured countenance falls into a hard glower. But he doesn't continue, and just resumes scribbling on a piece of paper. His father abandoned him and his mother when he was young, and this is one of the few times you've heard him speak openly of the man.<br/>
<br/>
"At least we don't need to make another trip to the cemetery," Caleb says a minute later. "This one only calls for forty pounds of dirt, and I think we've got that much left in the corner." You nod vacantly. But a minute later you look up when Caleb says "Uh oh."<br/>
<br/>
"What?"<br/>
<br/>
He doesn't answer, but starts working furiously at his phone. "What?" you ask again, and still he doesn't answer.<br/>
<br/>
For several minutes you stare at him as he scowls at the book and taps at his phone and pulls at his nose and lips.<br/>
<br/>
Finally, he says, "Maybe we do need to make a trip to the cemetery."<br/>
<br/>
"For what?"<br/>
<br/>
"A body."<br/>
<br/>
Your mouth falls open. "A corpse? The spell calls for a <i>corpse?"</i><br/>
<br/>
"I hope so," Caleb says grimly. "Actually it just calls for a human body. But if it doesn't mean 'corpse,' then the recipe calls for a live person to be sacrificed."</span></div></div>


path: 111111211111
author_id: seuzz
title: A Duplicitous Duplicate
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"We're not digging up a corpse," you declare.<br/>
<br/>
"You want to use someone who's alive?" Caleb asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Is there another option? Something in between?"<br/>
<br/>
He gives you a look. "Alive or not-alive," he says. "It tends to be a binary choice."<br/>
<br/>
You talk for some time about the problem—that the recipe for the next spell calls for a <i>corpus humanus</i> to be used in it, and there seems no other translation but "human body." Neither of you are happy to find yourself stymied; neither of you want to do something so icky as to add necromancy or human sacrifice to your list of magical practices.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, let's look on the bright side," Caleb says at last. "We got masks, we got a golem. The first means we can have fun, the second means we're living on easy street."<br/>
<br/>
"I got a golem," you remind him. "What do you got?"<br/>
<br/>
"This," he says, brandishing his not-finished mask. "Soon as I'm done, I'll have me a good-looking guy I can order around."<br/>
<br/>
You hoot. "You mean you're going to copy Marc Garner into it?" Marc Garner, captain of the soccer team, is one of the better-looking guys in your school.<br/>
<br/>
He hoots back. "You have a crush on Marc Garner?"<br/>
<br/>
"Shut up. I just meant— Never mind!"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb laughs, then turns serious. "Forget Marc," he says. "We could use it on one of his sisters." Marc is one of a set of triplets, and Eva and Jessica are on the cheerleader squad.<br/>
<br/>
"To do what with it?"<br/>
<br/>
His eyes bulge. "What do <i>you</i> think to do what with?"<br/>
<br/>
"You'd put it on and let me finger you?"<br/>
<br/>
"I meant we could put it on the golem over there! Then we—" He waggles his eyebrows.<br/>
<br/>
You study the golem. "But who would be the master? Me, because I own the book? Or Eva, if it's her face we put in the mask?"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb looks at the golem, and looks at the mask. <br/>
<br/>
"I don't know," he says. "I guess we should run a test first. I know!" He snaps his fingers. "Your dad's mask! Put it on the golem and—"<br/>
<br/>
"No!"<br/>
<br/>
"Will! We gotta find out if it obeys us! Well, you."<br/>
<br/>
"And what happens if it doesn't?" you retort. "I don't need my dad, even a fake dad, down here trying to order me around!"<br/>
<br/>
"Will, it won't order you around, you'll order <i>it</i>—"<br/>
<br/>
"Unless my dad is it's master because it obeys whoever is inside the mask!"<br/>
<br/>
"But your dad won't be here to—"<br/>
<br/>
But you insist that you <i>won't</i> put your dad's mask onto the golem, and that Caleb will just have to finish making his mask and use <i>it</i> in a test. And just to be sure he doesn't fuck around with it, you take your dad's mask and mind-band home with you and hide it in your stuff.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The next day is Sunday, and you have church to suffer through. When it's over, you text Caleb, suggesting you meet at the clubhouse. <i>No my house,</i> he replies. So you drive over after lunch. He's in his bedroom, and he does a wide-eyed double-take at you when you saunter in.<br/>
<br/>
"Dude, you are so lucky you don't have to go to church," you say as you flop onto his bed. You regale him—or try to; he remains very sober—with an imitation of the youth pastor. "So, you get that mask done?" you sigh when your comedy routine has drawn no response.<br/>
<br/>
The muscles in his cheeks tighten. "What mask?"<br/>
<br/>
"What do you mean, 'What mask'?" you jeer. "The one you were gonna finish up today." You leer at him. "Or did you spend the morning polishing something else?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know how to answer that," he mutters.<br/>
<br/>
"Like I really want to know." You sprawl out on his bed. "So is that mask ready?"<br/>
<br/>
"I guess so," he says.<br/>
<br/>
"So what do you want to do with it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Me?" he asks after a pause. "What do <i>I</i> want to do with it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Who the fuck else would—?" You sit up sharply. "Did you show it to somebody else?"<br/>
<br/>
"No!"<br/>
<br/>
"Okay then! So where is it?"<br/>
<br/>
His lips tremble. "Um ..."<br/>
<br/>
"Caleb. What's wrong?"<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing!"<br/>
<br/>
"Did something happen to the mask?" You grab him by the knee. He flinches. "Did something happen out at the clubhouse?"<br/>
<br/>
He huddles up. "Which question do you want answered?"<br/>
<br/>
You blink at him a couple of times. You really dislike this evasiveness. "Were you at the clubhouse this morning?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yes," he says through gritted teeth.<br/>
<br/>
"Did you experiment with the golem?"<br/>
<br/>
He hesitates. "In a manner of speaking."<br/>
<br/>
You get chills all up and down your body. "Get your keys," you tell him as you stand up. "We're going out there."<br/>
<br/>
He must have a very bad conscience about something, because he follows you very docilely.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
At least the building is still standing, you note when you arrive. You sit in the truck, drumming your fingers while you wait for Caleb to pull up next to you. You noticed him hanging back all during the drive, and he caught at least one light red that you got green.<br/>
<br/>
But after five minutes, he pulls up and gets out. "Is there something you want to tell me?" you ask him. "Before I go in and see it mys—?"<br/>
<br/>
"Will!" a voice shouts from far away. "Will! Get away from it! That's not me!"<br/>
<br/>
"No, there's nothing I want to tell you!" Caleb shrieks. "Come on, man, let's go get something eat! My treat!"<br/>
<br/>
"Will! Over here, you fucking moron!"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb clutches at you. His eyes are bugging out. "It's not my fault!" he says. "I mean, I guess it is! But it's mostly <i>his</i> fault, if he wasn't such a moron!"<br/>
<br/>
You pull away and look around. Something is waving at you from a window in the basement. You step forward and peer at it.<br/>
<br/>
It's Caleb. He's in the basement. "Will! Watch out!" he shouts, and his voice is muffled by the glass. "Don't let it get away!"<br/>
<br/>
You wheel around. The other Caleb, the one you drove out with, is sprinting off.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"You are a grade-A ding-dong, you know that?" you tell Caleb.<br/>
<br/>
"Shut up!" he snarls. "Same thing could've happened to you!" He pulls on the shirt he got off the golem after you ordered it to come back. The thing, stripped of Caleb's mask, is now standing mutely in the corner.<br/>
<br/>
"You should have waited for me to show up."<br/>
<br/>
"You were at church!"<br/>
<br/>
You smile broadly. "Pastor was right. God smites the wicked."<br/>
<br/>
And that's when Caleb clocks you in the mouth.<br/>
<br/>
It was his own damn fault, of course. He'd finished polishing the mask during the night, and come out early to the clubhouse to attach the mind band to it and to copy himself into it. He'd set it on the golem.<br/>
<br/>
And at first everything went swimmingly. They talked and compared memories and bodies, and the golem assured Caleb that he totally had to obey him as its master. Then the golem, with a sly grin, suggested that he put on Caleb's clothes and go home as him, so that he could "prank Will." Caleb agreed.<br/>
<br/>
Only when he heard the padlock close did he begin to suspect he'd been played for a sucker. Then he realized he didn't have a phone or any way to contact you. It was by purest serendipity that you showed up to rescue him before the golem could do any more damage.<br/>
<br/>
Or maybe not serendipity. The golem had foolishly let you get too close to it, and discovered to its undoing that you were its master, and that it had to do what you said. It even had a hard time lying to you—though it tried—when you questioned it.<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe it's because we used your hair when we made it," Caleb mutters as he looks through the spell. <br/>
<br/>
"Or maybe it's because it's my book," you chortle back. He replies with a spiteful glance. "Only thing to do is make another one and see what happens."<br/>
<br/>
His face falls. "You mean we dig up another four hundred pounds of dirt?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know what you mean by 'we,'" you retort. "I'm the one who dug up the first batch, motherfucker. You can go out and get your own."<br/>
<br/>
"You mean you won't help?" he shrieks.<br/>
<br/>
You pat him on the shoulder. "No. But someone will."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Fucker," Caleb snarls at you the next day at school. He's slumped in his desk. "I'm not talking to you!"<br/>
<br/>
"How come?"<br/>
<br/>
"On account of last night!"<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't even see you last night."<br/>
<br/>
"And that's why I'm pissed!"<br/>
<br/>
You look around. You're in Mr. Walberg's classroom, and though it is mostly empty, for the first-period bell hasn't rung yet, there are still enough people nearby that you can't speak openly. "I sent someone along to hold your hand," you remind him.<br/>
<br/>
"And he spent the whole time jerking off!"<br/>
<br/>
"How? Didn't he—?"<br/>
<br/>
"He didn't do anything, Will! We got out to the—" He looks around, and lowers his voice. "To the cemetery, and then he just told me I was on my own." His eyes blaze. "Why didn't you tell him to help?"<br/>
<br/>
"I did! I told him—" You're talking about your golem, which you sent along with Caleb to help him get the dirt, of course. "I told him to give you all the help you needed!"<br/>
<br/>
"Those things are fucking slippery, Will," Caleb mutters, and he slumps lower in his seat with folded arms. "We got out there, he looked around, and then he said, 'Looks to me like you don't need any help at all'." Caleb curses under his breath. "Then he got back in the car and spent the night playing on my phone."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb's right. That's pretty damn slippery behavior. You were going to send him to work for you today. But maybe you should handle it yourself.</span></div></div>


path: 1111112111112
author_id: seuzz
title: The Unraveling Conspiracy
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"So what are you gonna do while I'm at work?" you ask Caleb as you and he trudge out to the student parking lot when classes are over. You're wedged inside a small mob of Westside students, all surging down the covered walk toward the breezeway that runs in front of the gym. Basketball practice will be starting soon, but you feel safe enough in the crowd that you don't feel like you have to keep an eye out for assholes. <br/>
<br/>
"I dunno," he grumbles. "Why don't you let <i>me</i> go in? Are you even up to speed on what to do out there?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure I am. I put my— Uh, I got up to speed last night." You hastily correct yourself so no one in the crowd will hear you talking of "masks" and "getting" or "putting" memories into them. "We were in perfect synch last night before I sent, uh, that guy out to help you."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh! So it's like it really <i>was</i> you out there with me," he sneers. "I don't know why I broke my promise never to speak to you again."<br/>
<br/>
You roll your eyes. For awhile you thought Caleb was over the "prank" your golem played on him last night, but you're tired of apologizing for what that your twin did (or, technically, in this case, didn't) do at the cemetery.<br/>
<br/>
"Look, I should earn at least one day's honest living," you tell him. You don't add your real reason for going in to work yourself: You're afraid that Caleb might get revenge on you for what your golem did last night by fucking things up for you at Salopek. "Tomorrow, maybe I'll let you cover for me."<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck that. Send your gay twin."<br/>
<br/>
"Shut up," you hiss, for even though you're out of the breezeway and into the parking lot, there are still students around. "If we can get him figured out, then sure, we can start using him. But I'm with you," you add. "These things are slippery."<br/>
<br/>
Then, when Caleb doesn't reply, you repeat your initial question. "So what are you gonna do while I'm at work?"<br/>
<br/>
"I guess I could start on a new project," he says, and adds more acidly, "After all, I did get the dirt we need."<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno," you mumble. "You're not having the best luck with those things. Maybe you better wait until I can meet up with you. After supper, maybe. How about you start on another mask," you suggest after a moment's thought. "We'll need one if we want to do that thing with the girls like we were talking about." You hope that will mollify him.<br/>
<br/>
It doesn't. "Jesus. First you tell me I can't get lucky with a dirt pile, then you suggest we turn the dirt pile into a girl I can't get lucky with!"<br/>
<br/>
"That's not what I meant! We'll get it figured out." <i>Eventually,</i> you add <i>sotto voce.</i><br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Work is relatively relaxed, at least for the first hour, for Andy sends you and Sean to help out at the distribution center, where an audit of the inventory has been ordered. "Yeah, everything's all balled up," Jack says. His manner is very peevish, and you think you catch him shooting you dirty looks. "Make it fast but make it accurate, guys," he tells you. "I got people screaming at me to get their shit delivered, but I been told by His Exalted Poobahness"—and here you're certain he's shot you a look of loathing—"that nothing gets shipped or sorted until we know exactly what we got in here."<br/>
<br/>
So important is the task, you discover, that other employees have been pressed into service, and you and Sean join a dozen others who swarm through the postal-style back rooms with clipboards and inch-thick sheaves of invoices and vouchers.<br/>
<br/>
The all-hands effort has been going on long enough, and has enough workers attached to it, that it winds down before five, and the building clears and packages begin to move again. But Andy comes to find you and Sean while you're relaxing and splitting a Coke to tell you that you're both wanted again. Sean gets sent back to the distribution center, and you're sent to see your dad.<br/>
<br/>
Your knees are quaking as you cross the reception area and knock on his door.<br/>
<br/>
He's on the phone when you enter, and he looks even more pissed off than usual. We waves you into a chair, tells the person on the other end of the phone there's a difference between "possessing proprietary information" and "having your head up your ass" and hangs up.<br/>
<br/>
"Last Monday you delivered a box to me," he says to you. "You remember. You <i>thrust</i> it at me in the middle of the complex with a smartass remark."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh. Yeah. But that was just a joke! The remark, I mean, not the—"<br/>
<br/>
"You didn't get a voucher from me."<br/>
<br/>
"Huh? Oh. No, I didn't know that— Didn't Sean get one from you? He went to—"<br/>
<br/>
"I gave him the box to take back. Because I didn't order it." He leans across his desk to glare at you. "What happened then?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know! Ask Sean."<br/>
<br/>
"Did you go to the distribution center with a message about that box?"<br/>
<br/>
A warning bell goes off in the back of your head, and sweat breaks out all over your body. "Uh. Yeah."<br/>
<br/>
"What was the message?" Your dad's eyes are fixed hard on you.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know," you stammer. "I was just told— <i>You</i> told me—"<br/>
<br/>
<i>Ulp.</i> Did you just make a mistake by starting to tell your dad that <i>he</i> was supposedly the one with the instructions for handling that box?<br/>
<br/>
Too late now. You press on. "You called me, told me to go to the distribution center and give the phone to Jack, you had a message for him."<br/>
<br/>
Your dad's eyebrows go up. "I did?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah! I recognized your voice and everything!"<br/>
<br/>
White spots show in your dad's cheeks. Your eyes water as, unblinking, he holds your gaze in his.<br/>
<br/>
Then he puts out his hand. "Let me see your phone."<br/>
<br/>
With infinite reluctance, you hand it over. He scrolls through it, quickly at first, and then carefully.<br/>
<br/>
He looks up. "My number isn't in here."<br/>
<br/>
"Huh? Well maybe you—"<br/>
<br/>
"None of my numbers are in here. In fact, you never got a phone call on Monday." He turns the phone around to show you. "You called Caleb that afternoon, but you never got—"<br/>
<br/>
You swallow hard, and pray for an earthquake that will bury you alive.<br/>
<br/>
"So who did you talk to?" your dad says with barely restrained anger.<br/>
<br/>
There's nothing to do but persist in the lie: "You! I don't know why my phone didn't record your call! Maybe it messed up! Or—! I think erased all my calls from that day!" You grab for your phone but your dad pulls it away. "Because I <i>know</i> I got calls that day from people!"<br/>
<br/>
"Your call history goes back to before Monday."<br/>
<br/>
"Then I don't know what happened! Why it didn't record the number! Because I talked to you, and told me to find Jack and give him the phone! Talk to Jack! He'll tell you—"<br/>
<br/>
"I already did." Your dad slumps back in his chair and drums his fingers. He frowns fiercely at his desk. "This phone call from me," he says after a moment's thought, "did it come before or after you talked to Caleb?"<br/>
<br/>
"Before. I mean after!" You grin weakly at your dad. "Let me think." You wrack your brains, trying to figure out the safest answer. "After," you finally decide. "I remember, because when you called I thought it might be him calling back. The phone calls were right next to each other. I was taking a bathroom break at time."<br/>
<br/>
Your dad slumps further in his chair. "Did I do something wrong?" you ask him.<br/>
<br/>
"No," he says after a heavy sigh. "And if anyone asks you about this, tell them the truth." He dismisses you with a wave.<br/>
<br/>
But he stops you at the doorway. "Did it really sound like me?" he asks.<br/>
<br/>
You nod. "You even yelled at me."<br/>
<br/>
You're not sure, but you think he winces at your words.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You sweat out the rest of the day alone, for Sean doesn't return before quitting time, and you race away from the complex as fast as you can. Not until you're away and rocketing back home do you remember that you forgot to get your phone back from your dad.<br/>
<br/>
So you stop by Caleb's house to see if he's there; he isn't, and as his mom has just got back from work herself, she can't tell you where he is. You take a guess and race out to the elementary school.<br/>
<br/>
Caleb's car is parked in front of the basement door, and the lock is off. Your heart is pounding as you burst in.<br/>
<br/>
Halfway down the stairs, you freeze.<br/>
<br/>
A guy who looks like you is staring back up at you from the basement floor. His eyes are very wide.<br/>
<br/>
Wide too are the eyes of Caleb Johansson, who is standing a few feet behind and to the left of your twin.<br/>
<br/>
And on the other side of the conference table, another Caleb Johansson goes bug-eyed as he looks up at you. A heavy book—the grimoire—falls from his nerveless fingers with a loud thud.<br/>
<br/>
"Caleb?" you squeak.<br/>
<br/>
One of the Calebs raises his hand. Then the other raises his. Your doppelganger does a double take back at them, and raises his hand too.<br/>
<br/>
And at that bit of tomfoolery, you lose your shit.</span></div></div>


path: 11111121111121
author_id: seuzz
title: How Caleb Made a New Golem
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"What the fuck is going on here?" you roar.<br/>
<br/>
One of the Calebs points to the other. "It was his idea, Will! I tried stopping him!"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't try pinning this on me, motherfucker!" the other Caleb retorts. "I wouldn'a had the idea, boss," he yells up at you, "if he didn't have it first!"<br/>
<br/>
Your doppelganger grins and hops on the balls of his feet. "They're both in on it together!" he shouts. "You take one of 'em, and I'll take the other!"<br/>
<br/>
"Will the fake Caleb Johansson please go home now!" you holler.<br/>
<br/>
The Caleb who called you "boss" immediately moves for the stairs. The other does a double take and tries to follow, but you block him. "Wait out in the car," you hiss at the one who passes you on the way up. "And if you drive off, I will find you and kick your ass," you add.<br/>
<br/>
The remaining Caleb slumps onto a table, then bends over to pick up the book he had dropped. You turn to your double. "And who the fuck are you?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm Will Prescott," he tells you through that cheerful grin. "We've been through this before, remember?"<br/>
<br/>
"Go out and wait with the other Caleb," you tell him.<br/>
<br/>
"No, I wanna see what happens," he says.<br/>
<br/>
Your eyes nearly pop out of your head. Before you can answer it, Caleb says, "Go wait in the car."<br/>
<br/>
Your doppelganger's face falls, and with gritted teeth he makes for the stairs. You flinch back as he approaches you. "Boo!" he says as he passes.<br/>
<br/>
When the door closes you wheel on Caleb. "You made a golem?" you shriek.<br/>
<br/>
"Apparently," he mutters.<br/>
<br/>
"How did you get it finished so fast?" You do a double-take at the stack of sandbags still standing in the corner. Your voice rises to a nearly operatic scream. "And without using any of the dirt?"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb covers his ears and winces.<br/>
<br/>
"Well," he says after he's answered your glare by lowering his hands. "I got an easy answer to where the other me came from. I just hung my mask on that golem we made. I wanted to see if I could, uh, civilize it."<br/>
<br/>
"G'yuh? And?"<br/>
<br/>
He shrugs. "We worked things out. We talked while I was working on another thing. Oh," he adds. "And I figured out how to speed up mask production. You just need a car polisher and—"<br/>
<br/>
"Whoa whoa whoa!" You raise your hands. "What 'other thing' were you working on? Another golem?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, another mask. Like you suggested after school." He's begun to get back some of his spirit, and snaps his fingers impatiently. "Over there, you see?" He points to the worktable, where a handheld motor with an attached cloth has been added to your tools. "I got the idea on the way home that maybe a polisher could speed the work up. So I dug out this old polisher we had in my garage, and when I got here I made a mask and polished it up. It only took about forty-five minutes that way."<br/>
<br/>
"And the golem helped you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure. We talked, straightened things out between us." He gives you a narrow look. "I told him about what happened last night, with fake Will not helping me dig up the dirt, and we both agreed it was a shit thing for you do. We bonded over that."<br/>
<br/>
You return his dirty look with one of your own. "So glad I was available to be the common enemy. Okay, that puts you and your twin here at the scene of the crime." You jerk your head toward the door. "So where did that <i>other</i> me come from?" <br/>
<br/>
"I'm getting to that. I guess it started when my guy took over for the polishing while I started putting together the stuff to make another golem."<br/>
<br/>
"And you found a way to speed up production on that too?" You glance back at the pile of dirt. "Without using that shit?"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb lowers his head. "Yes. Sort of."<br/>
<br/>
You put your hands on your hips. "What do you mean 'sort of'?"<br/>
<br/>
"Look, Will, like I said, it's not my fault!" He thrusts a finger at the window. "It was him, my twin, my evil twin! He's the one who—"<br/>
<br/>
<i>"Who what?"</i><br/>
<br/>
Caleb puts the table between yourself and him.<br/>
<br/>
"Sean Mitchell came in. He saw us and he kind of freaked. Because he knows who I am, and he knows I don't have a twin."<br/>
<br/>
Dread encloses your heart. "What happened then?"<br/>
<br/>
"So, my doppelganger had the mask all done by that point, and he was showing it to me. When Sean came down the stairs, my other self jumped on him and slapped the mask on him. To knock him out, see, until we could figure out what to do."<br/>
<br/>
Your voice has crawled back into a distant cavity in your chest, and only emerges as a whisper. "Then what happened?"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb's shrugs; it looks more like a spasm. His eyes dodge about your face without ever settling on it. <br/>
<br/>
"Well, at that point certain decisions got made," he says. "Sean's a big guy, you know, and even though he's a good guy he was also asking certain questions that none of us wanted to see answered."<br/>
<br/>
You grab your head and sink into a chair.<br/>
<br/>
"The good news," Caleb says with desperate cheer, "is that we're on to the next spell in the book. And there'll be a spell after that and a spell after that, and there's <i>bound</i> to be a way of fixing him, I betcha!"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You have to get up on tiptoes to look Sean Mitchell in the eye. He can't look at you back, though, for his eyes are closed.<br/>
<br/>
Also, he's been turned into stone.<br/>
<br/>
That, at least, is the impression you've got. From the tips of his shaggy hair all the way to his toenails, Sean is the color of concrete. He's hard as concrete, too, though you don't test the hypothesis by tapping too hard at him.<br/>
<br/>
But he's not petrified, not like a fossil. By putting your hand on him, you think can detect just the barest hint of a swelling and contracting chest. <br/>
<br/>
The next spell in the book—the one neither you nor Caleb wanted to chance—has done this to him. Caleb and his twin—who weren't thinking very clearly at the time; at least, that's the charitable hypothesis you have decided to subscribe to—laid him on the grimoire as it lay open on the table, covered him with the same chemicals and dirt as used in the spell that made a golem, then set him on fire, like the spell prescribed.<br/>
<br/>
"And what would have happened if it took him a week to burn?" you demanded of Caleb.<br/>
<br/>
"It would have kept him quiet and out of the way," Caleb replied. "Which is what we were wanting."<br/>
<br/>
And at the back of it all was that damn box of chemicals your dad was asking about.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Hey, you pick up a box here last Monday?</i> Sean had asked on appearing at the head of the basement stairs. Then his jaw dropped when he saw that there were two Caleb Johanssons in the room, and <i>then</i> he saw the shipping box, still with some of the open containers in it. <i>Is that it?</i> he yelled, and came charging down the stairs. The fact that there were two Calebs was probably his doom, as he likely didn't know which of them to grab, which left the golem free to slam a mask onto his face.<br/>
<br/>
You're holding the mask now. The name SEAN JASON MITCHELL floats above its inner surface.<br/>
<br/>
"Why didn't you put this mask on the new golem? Why put mine on it?" You indicate the "Will Prescott" mask that Caleb had taken off this Sean-shaped golem.<br/>
<br/>
"Because I didn't know what would happen," Caleb says. "What if he tried killing us? So I put <i>your</i> mask on it, to test it out. You, I could take if it turned into a fight. Especially given there were two of me down here."<br/>
<br/>
You roll your eyes. "What did you find out?"<br/>
<br/>
"That it thought it was you. It had no idea that Sean had been here, didn't know anything about him, except what it knew about him from work. Oh, and he obeyed me." He pats his chest. "So you got a golem you can order around, and I got a golem I can order around, and—"<br/>
<br/>
"And then what were you going to do? After you put my mask on Sean" —you tap the petrified wrestler— "and found you could order him around?"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb sighs. "Well, we started to explain things to, er, you. The fake you. We knew we'd have to explain things to you anyway, and we thought we'd get some practice in first. But we'd just started when you showed up." <br/>
<br/>
You turn back to the petrified Sean. <i>What a fucking mess.</i> "Well, we can't leave him like this," you sigh.<br/>
<br/>
"We'll fix him," Caleb says with cheery confidence.<br/>
<br/>
"Not this afternoon we won't be able to," you retort.<br/>
<br/>
"You don't know that. Maybe the next spell tells how to reverse it." Caleb picks up the grimoire.<br/>
<br/>
You grab it away from him. "Then we can look at it tonight. Sean's been out of circulation too long." You check the time on your phone. "He probably should have been back at Salopek an hour ago! So the way I see it," you continue as Caleb looks amused, "is either we put his mask on this thing and hope it brings him back to normal—"<br/>
<br/>
"You might hope that, but I sure as hell don't!" Caleb interjects. "At least not yet!"<br/>
<br/>
"Or we put one of our masks back on it, and one of us goes back home as him."<br/>
<br/>
And Caleb only returns your look with a blank one of his own as you cock your head.<br/>
<br/>
Eventually your meaning dawns on him. "Fine." He rolls his eyes. "If you really want me to, I'll go home as him."<br/>
<br/>
To go home as Sean (non-canonical): "<a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/2236945/action/view/chapter_map/111111211111212" target="_top" title="Interactive Story Chapter in Item # 2236945">Into the Life of Sean Mitchell</a>" <a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/2236945/action/view/chapter_map/111111211111212" target="_blank" title="Open in new window."><img border="0" height="12" loading="lazy" onmouseout="$(this).css('opacity', '.4');" onmouseover="$(this).css('opacity', '1');" src="https://www.Writing.Com/nw.gif" style="opacity:.4;" width="12"/></a></span></div></div>


path: 111111211111212
author_id: seuzz
title: Into the Life of Sean Mitchell
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"No, <i>I'll</i> do it," you growl at Caleb. You notice that he hasn't even made a move toward the mask. "Christ, I didn't think I'd have to <i>guilt</i> you into it."<br/>
<br/>
"No, I'll do it," Caleb blurts out. But his heart clearly isn't in it, for he doesn't fight for the mask. "You're going to kill me, aren't you?" he says.<br/>
<br/>
"I haven't killed you yet," you retort.<br/>
<br/>
"The day's young. And you know, maybe it won't be you, maybe it'll be <i>Sean</i> who comes back when you put that thing on." His brow furrows, and his eyes grow wet with worry. "Maybe we should tie you up before you—"<br/>
<br/>
You push him back and hop onto the table. Before you can think through the ramifications of what you're about to do, you jam Sean's mask to your face.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You're being squeezed to death. Someone's got their arms wrapped around you in an unbreakable hold, and they are squeezing you hard. You struggle, and as you are a talented wrestler, you know exactly how to twist and leverage your mass. But they are too strong, and they have wrapped themselves all about you. They are a snake, and you are a sausage casing, and they are squeezing you, and in a minute your raw flesh will come bursting out of your skin and splatter all over the walls and ceiling ...<br/>
<br/>
You open your eyes with a gasping choke. You're on your back, and hands are pulling at you and squeezing you. You slap at them, and someone yells sharply.<br/>
<br/>
You rise up on one elbow. God! The pain in your abdomen! Feverishly you grab at it. There's a hard, tight right about your waist, and it is squeezing your organs into jelly.<br/>
<br/>
"Hold still, Will!"<br/>
<br/>
Your fingers close on metal. A buckle! You pull at it, and it feels like something inside you has popped. Hands flap at yours. "I'll get it!" the voice yells again.<br/>
<br/>
But you've too tight a hold. Somehow, your fingers knowing better than your brain, you pull a length of leather free, a skinny tongue of metal pops loose, and—<br/>
<br/>
Thank God! You let out a deep sigh as all the pressure relents.<br/>
<br/>
Well, most of it. Things are still a little tight down there.<br/>
<br/>
Tight upstairs as well. You feel like you've got wound up inside some bed clothes.<br/>
<br/>
You're staring at a dusky ceiling and trying to figure out what's going on when a face appears in your line of vision. You frown at it. You know it.<br/>
<br/>
"Will?"<br/>
<br/>
<i>Caleb!</i> Your fingers flex, and he jumps back as you reach for his throat.<br/>
<br/>
Then you remember who you are, and what has happened. <br/>
<br/>
"Oh, God <i>damn</i> it," you mutter, and kick off shoes that are now several sizes too small for you. You take a couple of deep breaths, then peel off jeans that are also a too tight fit.<br/>
<br/>
Not that Sean Mitchell is fat or anything. But he is bulky about the abdomen, and he's built on a larger scale anyway. You peel off the constricting underwear, too, and after you sit up you take the socks and shirt off as well. You scratch and rub yourself all over, and grimace, then sit up and swing your legs off the side of the table.<br/>
<br/>
At first you think Caleb must have run off, but then you see his face peering around a bookcase. He freezes when he sees that you've spotted him.<br/>
<br/>
You roll your eyes. "You can come out now. I've decided not to kill you after all."<br/>
<br/>
He doesn't move. "Who?" he asks in the plaintive manner of a terrified owl, and points at you.<br/>
<br/>
"Me. Will. Your friend. Which doesn't always stop me from wanting to kill you, and today wasn't the first time I've wanted to."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb steps out from behind the case, but he still hangs back. "Yeah, well," he says in a shaky voice. "It's not like you could'a killed me before."<br/>
<br/>
"I know where you sleep," you remind him. "But damn!" You stretch, and kick your feet back and forth. "So it works? I look like Sean Mitchell now?"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb nods, and points to the mirror. You glance back at it, then stand with a grunt and shuffle over to give yourself a look over.<br/>
<br/>
Yes, it's a familiar face. Broad, a little flat, with soft, whitish whiskers running along the jaw and cheek, and shaggy blond hair that falls over your brows and ears. You grin. It's an easy, confident thing that goes with the direct, confident gaze. You raise and flex a bicep—it's like a python rippling under your skin—and scratch at a hairy pit.<br/>
<br/>
Caleb appears in the mirror behind you. "How much have you got?"<br/>
<br/>
"Everything," you tell him, and turn around to flap your cock at him. He jumps back.<br/>
<br/>
"Ha ha. I mean—" He taps his forehead.<br/>
<br/>
You put your head back and think a moment.<br/>
<br/>
"Birthday, Social Security number, parents' names—" You stop to frown at that, and at another name. "Address. Best friend when I was five years old. Uh, name of my third-grade teacher. My class schedule." You pinch the bridge of your nose. "Oh yeah, and how to do <i>this!"<br/>
<br/>
Whomp!</i> You grab Caleb, throw him onto a table, and inside of three seconds have him pinned.<br/>
<br/>
"Erk," Caleb croaks. "Yes. I think you've got it." You grin and let him up.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You bump fists with Eli Anders as you saunter past to drop into the desk behind him. Across from you, Tanner Evans, one of the nastier of the school bullies, hunches over his phone and ignores the blatant stare of disdain you're giving him.<br/>
<br/>
<i>I could never get away with that kind of a stare before,</i> you think to yourself with a smile. Then: <i>I could get used to this.</i><br/>
<br/>
"This" is being Sean Mitchell. Despite the playful confidence you felt in the basement immediately after waking, you actually went to bed last night feeling spastically mortified, both at being in a strange bedroom and in a strange bed. But when you woke this morning with wood you felt hardly any compunction about filling a sock with cum. <i>It keeps the pipes clean and shiny,</i> was all you thought as you dropped heavy feet to the floor afterward and stumbled to the shower.<br/>
<br/>
"Morning, dear," Mrs. Mitchell said when you padded into the kitchen, already dressed for the day in comfortably broken-in Levis and a sleeveless sweatshirt with "Westside Dragons" stenciled on one side and "Wrestling" on the other. (The one with "Football" on its back is in the hamper.) You kissed her and made some coffee and breakfast, and after she asked you about that thing, you told her "I'll talk to some of the guys about it." Then you cleaned up for both her and you and drove yourself to school.<br/>
<br/>
It's first period now. Mr. Santiago's "Current Issues" class. Your friend Keith is in here too, sitting on the other side of the room and scoping out the girls. You're watching the open door, though. You gave Sean's schedule to Caleb before parting with him for the evening, and your best friend and collaborator in magic glances into the classroom with a querying eyebrow just before the first bell rings. You stretch meaty arms with upraised thumbs, and grin. He nods, and is about to turn away when Will Prescott pads up behind. The latter does a wide-eyed double-take at you, and for a moment it looks like he's about to come in to talk, but Caleb grabs him by the neck and hauls him into Mr. Walberg's room, which is directly across the hall.<br/>
<br/>
Eli, who is on the wrestling team with Sean, turns around with a quizzical expression. "Guys I work with after school," you tell him. "There was some excitement yesterday."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah?"<br/>
<br/>
You shrug. "But it's all over with." <br/>
<br/>
<i>Well, so you hope.</i> You returned to Salopek to tell Jack that the mystery box you'd been sent to track and recover couldn't be traced further than the rec room of the Acheson Community Center, where "you" had delivered it last Monday.<br/>
<br/>
Eli turns back around as Mr. Santiago steps to the front of the class. You lean back and play with the brim of your cap, flipping it up and down.<br/>
<br/>
Then you drop your hands into your lap. <i>Don't break it,</i> you chide yourself. <i>It's too valuable.</i><br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Second period is wrestling practice, which is probably Sean's favorite class, and as you have not only his memories but his talents, his tastes, and his intuitions, you find yourself having a blast in it as well. <br/>
<br/>
And yet you are distracted enough by another issue that Laurent Delacroix, the captain, pulls you aside to ask where your head is.<br/>
<br/>
You roll your eyes. "Well, it's not up my ass, if that's what you're asking," you reply. Laurent snorts, but smiles. You wince and bite the inside of your cheek and remind yourself that it's really not any of your business.<br/>
<br/>
<i>I'm not here for long,</i> you remind yourself. <i>A day or two? Hopefully? Even if we don't get Sean ... fixed ... then Caleb can take over for me. Or we'll put the mask on a golem. I'm not really Sean, even though it feels like it. I didn't mess up Sean's life, Caleb did, so it's not up to me to fix it.<br/>
<br/>
And what I'm thinking of doing might not even be the right thing to do.</i><br/>
<br/>
But then you remember the expression of wan worry on the face of Sean's mother, and what she said just before you'd made the (so you thought) rote reply, "I'll talk to some guys about it."<br/>
<br/>
If you don't do it for Sean, can you at least do it for her?</span></div></div>


path: 1111112111112121
author_id: seuzz
title: Certain Dramatic Incidents
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><i>Fuck it. This is for Mom,</i> you think. Then, in another voice you add, <i>For Mrs. Mitchell. To make up a little for losing another—</i><br/>
<br/>
"It's Bickelmeir," you tell Laurent. His expression tightens. "It's getting worse."<br/>
<br/>
"I thought you were going to give him some distance," Laurent says. "You know, what you can't see won't piss you off." That was the quote Sean had given him the last time he and Laurent talked about the issue.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, he's closing the distance. He's started parking in front of my house. Not when I'm there, though. When my <i>mom</i> is. When she's there <i>by herself.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
Laurent's eyes go wide. Then they narrow. A purple flush rises up his swarthy cheeks, and his black hair visibly bristles. He's part Iroquois—the best part: dark, with hard cheekbones and a strong chin—and it's almost like watching an aboriginal warrior stepping from out from behind a tree.<br/>
<br/>
"And you know this because?" he says.<br/>
<br/>
"Because my <i>mom</i> told me about this car that's been parking in front of the house, and I caught it there last week and it was Bickelmeir." Sean's own hot anger starts rising in your gorge. "I told him to get lost, but my mom said he was back there again on Friday, and I think I saw him drive past on Sunday. He was definitely there yesterday, though, for almost an hour, she said, and he only drove off just before I got home. Like, he must have been watching for me."<br/>
<br/>
Laurent pulls at his nose, and looks away. "This is fucked up, Mitchell," he says.<br/>
<br/>
"Just try telling me it isn't. No, I don't think he's going to do anything" —Laurent looks over at you sharply— "because he knows I won't wait for any cops if he does. It'll be me and him and then it'll just be me. But I don't want it to get that far."<br/>
<br/>
Laurent goes back to staring over your shoulder. Something catches his attention, and he shouts, "Hold him, Mull! You're wrestling with him, not spooning with him!" Then he turns back to you with a sigh. "Who else knows about this?"<br/>
<br/>
"About him hassling my mom? Just you. I've talked to Cameron about the general situation—"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I heard you and Scott almost tore each other's faces off a week or two back."<br/>
<br/>
"Right. But Cameron's got his own problems, and Bickelmeir's not someone he can exactly afford to piss off."<br/>
<br/>
"Uh huh." Laurent's interest is either fading or deepening, for his gaze has gone very distant. But after a moment he retrieves it. "What lunch you have? Fourth?" You nod. "Go find Brownie in the library then. Talk to him. Tell him everything."<br/>
<br/>
"Look, I'm not looking for any favors—"<br/>
<br/>
"Then you're not likely to get any," Laurent says, and he smiles tightly. "As my grandfather used to say."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not looking for any favors," you repeat. "You just asked where my head is, and—"<br/>
<br/>
"And I don't want you losing it." Laurent claps you on the arm.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It was Sean's plan, but you've got it bubbling your brain now—to get Laurent's help with Scott. That's what you meant when, on instinct, you told Mrs. Mitchell you would "talk to some guys" about it. But as you talked to Laurent you felt Sean's own prickly pride erecting a barrier. <i>I should take care of this myself,</i> you kept telling yourself. <br/>
<br/>
But still it came out. The anger and (yes) the fear that comes from knowing that a creep has been watching your mother in defiance of your warnings. It comes bubbling out more strongly when you sit down with Alec "Brownie" Brown in the library during fourth period. "I always thought of Scott as a good guy," the other wrestler says after you've talked a bit.<br/>
<br/>
Your hands clench under the table. Not that grabbing Brownie would do any good, for even though he's not as massive as you, he is quicker <i>and</i> he knows lots more moves. (He grew up in a family of fighters—literally. They're Army brats.) Besides, Brownie is just about the straightest-shooter Sean knows. That's probably why Laurent wanted you to talk to him. If you can convince Brownie that there's something the matter with Bickelmeir, he can carry half the sports teams at the school with him.<br/>
<br/>
Brownie's comment comes after you've told him what Scott Bickelmeir, the school's wide receiver, has been doing at your house. You have to admit that, in isolation, it sounds like a weird but not necessarily malicious thing. So when Brownie asks if there's a "history" between you and Scott, you plunge into it.<br/>
<br/>
"It goes back to him hanging out with my brother Taylor," you say. "You know about Taylor, right?"<br/>
<br/>
Brownie blinks. "I've heard, but never from you. Tell me yourself so I've got it straight."<br/>
<br/>
You feel the old anger building again. "Taylor was my twin brother. Identical. People couldn't tell us apart. We were close. Always close. Forever close."<br/>
<br/>
You feel the sudden tears in your throat. Brownie's eyes soften.<br/>
<br/>
"We went to Eastman, him and me. Bickelmeir went to Eastman too, you know. He and Taylor started hanging out the start of last summer. They started working at the same place, too. I saw less and less Taylor. I felt it but didn't say anything. I mean, we're twins, but we're not the same person, you know?" Brownie nods slightly.<br/>
<br/>
You have to swallow before you can say the next few words: "The last time I saw Taylor, he was driving off with Scott."<br/>
<br/>
Silence envelops you, and the titter of freshmen girls at the next table suddenly seems very loud.<br/>
<br/>
"Did Scott have anything to do with the accident?" Brownie asks.<br/>
<br/>
The question explodes your resentments.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know!" You grab the edge of the table to keep from flying off. "He won't say <i>anything</i> about it! He and Taylor and some other kid from work, they went up to the school, to Eastman, together. The next thing anyone knows, Taylor's in a car wreck."<br/>
<br/>
Brownie's eyes narrow. "What makes you think Scott had anything to do with it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because it wasn't just Taylor. There were three of them out there that day. Taylor was in a wreck, and the other guy went into a coma, all on the same day. Only Scott made it home that day."<br/>
<br/>
"Have you tried asking him about it?"<br/>
<br/>
"He won't tell me anything!"<br/>
<br/>
Brownie bites the inside of his cheek. "That doesn't mean—"<br/>
<br/>
"Look, there were two casualties that day, both under really funny circumstances. And the third guy who was out there sure is acting like he's guilty of something!"<br/>
<br/>
You sink back in your chair. "And then he started following me," you continue. "I moved to Westside this year, for a fresh start, you know." You wipe your brow and your hand touches the cap. <i>Taylor's cap. Your father's cap, before he died.</i> "And then Bickelmeir followed me over. It's like he's <i>haunting</i> me, but he won't say <i>why.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"And now he's started haunting your mom," Brownie says.<br/>
<br/>
"I said 'haunting', but 'stalking' is probably better," you growl. "I told him to stay away, but he <i>won't.</i> And he's <i>scaring</i> her."<br/>
<br/>
Brownie nods. "Well, thanks for telling me this," he says, and he abruptly gets up. "Hang out here till I get back." He leaves, and leaves you startled as well.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
But you don't see Brownie again until the start of fifth period, when you're already inside Mr. Hartford's classroom. That's when you glance over and notice him loitering in the doorway.<br/>
<br/>
Then you notice Laurent loitering there too. And Eli Anders. And Austin Mull and Chris Ratliff and Devin Haney. All clustered in the doorway.<br/>
<br/>
Then Scott appears. The gang closes about him. <br/>
<br/>
For a moment he looks confused. Then the cluster moves, and he is swept out of sight.<br/>
<br/>
Your heart beats for a solid minute, and you squirm in your seat. <i>What have you done?</i><br/>
<br/>
The bell rings and class starts and Scott is absent.<br/>
<br/>
No, actually, he's only tardy. He is pale when he comes in five minutes later, but he looks healthy.<br/>
<br/>
He doesn't look at you.<br/>
<br/>
And he doesn't look at you during football practice either.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Get me out of this thing," you snarl as you run down into the basement after work. Will Prescott (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) clatters down after you. <br/>
<br/>
Caleb looks up in alarm. "What's wrong?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sean's life is just too dramatic for my taste," you reply. You throw yourself onto a table and grab at your face. But you pause long enough to point to your placeholder. "Get the mask off him—take your clothes off!" you bark. "We're gonna try putting Sean's mask on him, see what happens."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb's reply is swallowed in the swirling darkness as you rip Sean's face from your own.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"The next time we pull a stunt," you tell Caleb after you're awake and are in your jeans if not your shirt, "we research the asshole first, make sure his life isn't stressful."<br/>
<br/>
"What's wrong with Sean's life?" Caleb asks. He's peering out the window of the basement. "He seems like a guy who has his shit together."<br/>
<br/>
You tick the items off your fingers. "His dad's dead, his twin brother's dead, his mom is barely hanging onto her own shit, and he's being stalked by Scott Bickelmeir."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb turns wide eyes on you. "Who?"<br/>
<br/>
"Scott Bickelmeir. You know, he plays football."<br/>
<br/>
"And he's stalking Sean? As in, following him around?" Caleb's eyes are like saucers.<br/>
<br/>
"Basically. He—"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb dives under a table at the same time the basement door opens. You stand rooted to the spot—like the petrified Sean at your elbow—as Scott Bickelmeir comes down the stairs.<br/>
<br/>
He looks around. He stares at Sean. He stares at the masks on the table.<br/>
<br/>
Then he looks at you and says, "What the fuck did you do to my brother?"</span></div></div>


path: 1111112112
author_id: seuzz
title: Surprise Package
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You'll get it later, you decide, when your nerves have settled, and return to the machine shop, where Andy Keyes and Sean are waiting for you. <br/>
<br/>
But it's only a short respite, for as soon as you step inside, Andy nonchalantly asks if you got the voucher from your dad.<br/>
<br/>
"The what?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
Keyes looks at you over the top of his glasses. "The voucher. All internal deliveries have to be signed for, and the voucher returned to the distribution center."<br/>
<br/>
You cringe. "Cripes, I— I forgot."<br/>
<br/>
Keyes smiles. "Well, trot back around to the center, tell Jack you delivered it. He'll cover for you." You're so glad Keyes isn't nearly the hard-ass your dad is.<br/>
<br/>
But then Jack has another job for you. "Forgot to have you give this one to your dad too," he says, thrusting another, larger, heavier box at you. "You can get the voucher for the other one when you take this one over." He holds up two fingers. "That's <i>two</i> vouchers you owe me now, kid," he grins.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Shit.</i> Looks like you'll have to see your dad anyway. But which one is the package that Caleb prepared?<br/>
<br/>
Your dad glowers up at you from his desk when you stick your head in through his doorway; the first package is sitting unopened by his elbow. "Uh, Jack says you need this one too," you say nervously, setting the second box on the chair in front of him. "Also, I need a signed voucher from you for this one and the other one."<br/>
<br/>
Slowly, methodically, he signs first one piece of paper and then another. "You know," he says heavily. "It's a bad idea to make too many trips out to the distribution center. We had to fire a couple of high school students a few weeks ago for <i>drinking on the job.</i>" He holds the papers close, so that you have to lean across his very wide desk to take them from his fingers. <br/>
<br/>
"I'm not drinking on the job, Dad," you say. "Or after it. I was just, you know, joking around with you earlier. Like, 'Come here often? What's your sign?'" He just stares at you, and you practically run from his office.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You call Caleb after work, and nearly drop the phone when your dad answers. "Uh," you stammer, not sure if you pushed the right entry on your call list. "Sorry, I was trying to call Caleb."<br/>
<br/>
"You keep hanging around that kid and you'll come to a bad end," he snorts. "Did you get that stuff like I told you to?"<br/>
<br/>
You stop yourself from cursing just in time: You're still not sure it's Caleb. "What stuff?" you ask guardedly.<br/>
<br/>
"I had a package of some very important chemicals put together," he says in a strained voice. "And like a complete dumbass you managed to hand it over to exactly the wrong person."<br/>
<br/>
"Will you take that fucking thing off already?" you scream into the phone. "Or tell me where you are, and I'll come over and rip it off you! I'll take some skin with it when I do!"<br/>
<br/>
"Watch your mouth," he says. "I'm at the clubhouse. Did you get the stuff?" But you just hang up.<br/>
<br/>
At least he's returned to his normal form when you show up, and he also has the wit to duck when you take a swing at him. "Alright, pax," he says, holding up his hands. "But I am pissed at you. Jesus, could you have fucked things up more?"<br/>
<br/>
He has a point, but you're in no mood to confess it. "It might not have even been the right package anyway," you retort. You tell him about the second box. "I couldn't have walked off with both. My life wouldn't be worth living, assuming I even <i>had</i> a life afterward."<br/>
<br/>
He sighs and leans against the edge of a desk, arms folded. "I suppose we go with Plan B, then. Get a credit card or debit card off him and buy the stuff."<br/>
<br/>
This time he doesn't get out of the way, and staggers back as your fist connects with his jaw. You hope you hurt him as much you hurt yourself, for your fingers sting hard. "I thought you said we couldn't use his plastic!"<br/>
<br/>
"Not <i>just</i> his plastic," Caleb shouts back, though his voice is muzzy. He holds his jaw and winces. "If <i>he</i> goes in and uses plastic to buy the stuff, it'll work."<br/>
<br/>
"The more we use that thing, the more trouble I get into!"<br/>
<br/>
"Of course," he retorts. "We're duplicating people. You think you can do that and <i>not</i> get in trouble?"<br/>
<br/>
"I can't get into his wallet. He will <i>kill</i> me if he catches me!"<br/>
<br/>
"What about a check? Get a blank one and we can cash it. Does he keep a checkbook in his desk?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't think you can cash a check without a driver's license, and anyway, you've been wearing those things way too much."<br/>
<br/>
"Then what's <i>your</i> bright idea?" He picks up the book that's gotten you into all this trouble and flips to the last open page. "If you want to finish this spell—"<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe I don't," you say in a ragged voice. "Maybe you're right, this is all just going to lead to too much trouble."<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't say that was a reason to <i>stop,</i>" he retorts. You stalk off to the door without replying. He calls after you: "Look, give me a call after your dad gets home. Tell me what happened with the boxes." You flip him off without turning around.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You pass a sleepless night, tossing and turning, wondering if all this has been worth the hassle. Oh, it's fun exploring magical stuff, until someone gets hurt—especially if it's going to be <i>you.</i> At the same time, you keep being drawn back to that last spell. Damn that book and the way it hides the good stuff until you've performed a spell. Surely that is part of the design: to tease you with the promise of some kind of revelation <i>if only</i> you follow through and finish a spell. It's nearly three in the morning before you drift into a kind of slumber, which is punctuated with all manner of many-faced monsters, some of which sport your own visage.<br/>
<br/>
Caleb is chipper the next morning despite your fight, and ostentatiously avoids the subject of masks and magic. At least, he avoids it until last period, when he asks you to cover for him at work. "I got some stuff I need to do," he says. "But meet up with me at the clubhouse afterward."<br/>
<br/>
You shove a finger in his face. "You stay out of my dad's stuff."<br/>
<br/>
"Pfft, please. I'm all done with that." <br/>
<br/>
Only after work do you realize how ambiguous his disclaimer was, when you walk into the basement to find him grinning at you. There are a couple of plastic mixing bowls on the table by his elbow, and you start when you see a large box open next to them. "Ready for the next spell?" he asks.<br/>
<br/>
"The fuck did you do?"<br/>
<br/>
"You didn't call last night," he says, "so I waited until I figured your dad would be gone, then went back to Salopek as him. I had to talk to a few people, but found out that your dad had opened the box I'd packed up and then sent it back to the distribution center because he didn't know what the hell it was. I went over and gave whatsisname a new address to ship it to. So here it is. Same-day service."<br/>
<br/>
You stare at it all: neatly boxed-up packages of chemicals and tightly sealed canisters of liquids. Caleb already has the book open to the page. All you have to do is put it all together.<br/>
<br/>
You temporize before answering. "What about that second box?"<br/>
<br/>
He shrugs. "He sent it back too. Quick glance told me it wasn't the stuff we wanted." He hops on the balls of his feet. "You're the magician, I figure you'd want to be on hand for the thing."<br/>
<br/>
You wince. It <i>is</i> all ready for you, but your mood hasn't improved from last night. If you can resist temptation <i>now,</i> maybe you can end all this before it gets completely out of hand.</span></div></div>


path: 11111121122
author_id: seuzz
title: A Temporary Twin
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"I've got a bad feeling about this," you say. "But what the hell. So, we got everything?"<br/>
<br/>
"Except one thing." In a flash Caleb reaches up and with a pair of pocket scissors snips off a lock of your hair.<br/>
<br/>
"The fuck?"<br/>
<br/>
"Book says it needs a bit of your hair." He tosses it into one of the mixing bowls. "Shall we get cooking?"<br/>
<br/>
Together, you dump the dirt and chemicals onto the book because that's the only way to get them into the necessary sigil, and that leads to a nerve-wracking moment when it's time to set the stuff on fire. You and Caleb almost chicken out. Not only are you risking destroying the book, but there's a lot of volatile chemicals that you stole, and you both worry it might set the dry, junk-filled basement ablaze. You position yourself near the door while Caleb, standing at some distance, strikes a match and flings it onto the pile of earth. There is a brief pause, and a purple bloom of flame rushes off it with a gentle <i>whoomp</i>. Caleb throws himself to the ground, and you almost tear yourself in two as one leg tries to dash up the stairs to the outside while the other tries running downstairs to get your friend. But the flash dissipates as quickly as it had appeared; in its place is a low, violet flame wafting off the pile of dirt.<br/>
<br/>
You and Caleb approach it carefully, and he puts his hand over it. "No heat," he says, and thrusts his hand into one of the flames. "No heat at all. It should be okay, then."<br/>
<br/>
The book is buried under the dirt and flame, so you can't consult it to see how long it should take to finish, but you do know that the fire is supposed to be relit if it goes out. After another hour, you and Caleb give up watching it and you both go home.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Caleb still owes you two hundred dollars, per your agreement to bring him into partnership, so he takes your place at work for the rest of the week while you spend each afternoon in the basement watching the burning pile, playing on your laptop, and lazily polishing up a new mask and finishing a new mind band--two raw items you that Caleb made up before starting the new spell. Caleb has suggested that you should make a mask of him, and you agreed it would only be fair. By a nice coincidence, you are both in the basement on Sunday afternoon, having just finished up both items and used them to copy Caleb, when the glow fades from the dirt pile. Caleb tries relighting it, but it won't ignite. He calls you over. "I think it's done!"<br/>
<br/>
"About fucking time." You both press around it. The magical flame has caused the heap to congeal into a mass of something that looks like baked clay. Three great rents have opened up in it, giving it the appearance of having two arms and two legs, and a misshapen lump at one end further contributes to the illusion of a crude, humanoid figure. You pull the book out from under it to see what comes next. Both of you groan to see that it has to be polished.<br/>
<br/>
Luckily, it turns out that polishing in this case consists of little more than a light dusting that brushes loose impurities from its surface, leaving it a dull, chalky, grayish color, and there seems nothing else to do. The page has turned loose, and you turn it over to see what you have made.<br/>
<br/>
"It's a golem!" Caleb says after you've worked out a translation of the reverse of the spell page. "A magical robot!"<br/>
<br/>
"How do we get it to work?" Not that it sounds very useful: you couldn't let it out of the basement, and what jobs could you give it down here?<br/>
<br/>
"Like this." Caleb snatches up a mask, frowns at it, exchanges it for a second mask, changes his mind again, and picks up the third mask. He hops excitedly over to the thing. He sets the mask on its "face," and to your astonishment it glows and sinks into the thing. The golem glimmers and shimmers, and its form distorts, and moment later reconfigures itself as a naked duplicate of Caleb himself.<br/>
<br/>
You glance over at Caleb, whose slightly mad expression suggests he is, simultaneously, both immensely pleased and a little freaked out. Your attention is quickly reengaged by the new addition to your club when it groans and stretches its limbs. "Oh, Jesus," he yawns. "Those things really knock you out, don't they." He sits up, then freezes in a double take when he sees you and Caleb.<br/>
<br/>
The atmosphere tenses as the new Caleb swallows. "The fuck is going on?" He points to your friend. "Who the fuck is that?"<br/>
<br/>
"It's you," you say. "The real you."<br/>
<br/>
The thing on the table turns pale, and then very red. "The fuck are you--?" he growls. He looks down, notices that he is naked, and glares up at Caleb. "You trying to get rid of me, get yourself a new friend to play with?" There's a tremble in his voice.<br/>
<br/>
Your throat works, but no sounds come out. Caleb steps in. "You're our slave," he says sharply. "You have to do what we say."<br/>
<br/>
With a snarl the thing leaps off the table and hurls himself at Caleb, tearing at him. "Stop it!" you yell, grabbing at them. "Get off!" The naked Caleb abruptly releases the real Caleb and falls back, panting wildly. "What are you doing?"<br/>
<br/>
"Trying to get my life back," the thing says, its eyes mad with anger and fear. "All I know is we made a copy of me, and when I wake up--" His nostrils flare and he glares over at Caleb. "You put the mask on--? Who is that?"<br/>
<br/>
"That's Caleb!" you tell it. "The real Caleb. You're--" You wheel the thing around to face the now-empty table. "We finished the spell. It made a golem, a slave. We put the mask on it and ... Well, that's what you are."<br/>
<br/>
It stares at the table, breathing heavily. "Get the mask off it, Will!" Caleb snaps. <br/>
<br/>
You reach up to the thing's face, but it bats your hand away. "Hold still!" you order, and it falls into a slump. Gingerly, you reach up to its brow, mutter the incantation, and pull the mask off. It instantly reverts to a lump of clay-like flesh, now standing instead of reclining.<br/>
<br/>
"Fucking thing is broken," Caleb says. He's breathing heavily. "We can't have fake versions of us running around, not if they're going to act like that."<br/>
<br/>
You frown into the mask, thinking furiously. "No, hang on," you say. "It didn't know what it was. It didn't know we'd finished the spell."<br/>
<br/>
"What difference does that make?"<br/>
<br/>
You thrust the mask at him. "Just put it on. Recharge it with your memories. We'll see what happens when we put it back on him."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb grumbles but complies. While he's unconscious you pace, thinking hard. A convincing duplicate should act like the original, so you're not quite as freaked out as Caleb had been at the thing's behavior. At the same time, Caleb is right: a slave needs to do what its maker says. But who's the maker? You have a sudden thought and wheel to examine the spell again: <i>Ah, yes,</i> you think. <i>That hank of hair that Caleb put into the mix.</i> Maybe that's the secret. It didn't fight you the way it fought with Caleb; maybe it is supposed to obey you.<br/>
<br/>
When Caleb reawakes you quickly outline your deduction to him; he is still skeptical and jumpy, but doesn't fight when you put the mask back onto the golem. The duplicate Caleb, when he reappears, is much calmer, but looks warily between you and his original. "Okay, I see what's going on," it says in a guarded tone when you ask it what it knows and remembers. "You can't expect me to be happy about it, but I understand now."<br/>
<br/>
"You understand that you're our slave, right?" you ask it.<br/>
<br/>
Its eyes flick between you and Caleb. "I don't have to do what this cocksucker says," he says, glowering at his original, who flushes. "You? Okay, something inside me says I have to follow your orders." It makes a face.<br/>
<br/>
It's been a fraught afternoon, so you remove the mask from the thing shortly afterward. After talking things over with Caleb, though, you both brighten up considerably. "You know what this means," he points out to you. "You don't have to go in to work tomorrow. I don't have to go in to work for you tomorrow. You can put your mask on that thing and it can go in for you. It could even go to school for you."<br/>
<br/>
"You still owe me some money."<br/>
<br/>
"Two weeks should just about cover it," he says. "You get paid tomorrow, so we'll see what it comes to after taxes and shit."<br/>
<br/>
"I'd still rather you go in for me. Remember how I fucked up the one day I went in."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, let the golem go in and fuck it up for you. The job isn't awful, but I got a life and am a little sick of giving twenty hours a week of it to you."</span></div></div>


path: 111111211221
author_id: seuzz
title: Disaster for Dad
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>After talking it over with Caleb a little more at school on Monday, you decide you will try out the golem at Salopek, and the two of you dash over to the clubhouse after classes to get it ready. You swap out into a second set of clothes that you picked up at home, charge the mask of yourself with your most recent memories, and put it on the golem. "Someone's getting the short end of the stick on this deal," your new double grouses as he dresses. "And I think it's me." But except for that one complaint, it is completely docile, with you and Caleb both.<br/>
<br/>
When it's gone, you and Caleb turn your attention to the next spell. "Most of the same ingredients as the last one," Caleb says, surveying your supplies. "Good thing I ordered up a double helping of the stuff we needed for the golem." He starts mixing stuff together before you've even finished translating the list. "Can we use my hair in this next one?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure thing," you reply. "You need a golem of your own."<br/>
<br/>
"What I need is a girlfriend," he says. "When your double gets back with the cash, we should make a store run and pick up supplies for some new masks."<br/>
<br/>
"What are you thinking?"<br/>
<br/>
He gives you a pitying look. "We get the masks onto some girls. Like, really good-looking girls. Hot girls. Some of the cheerleaders. Maybe Lisa?" He waggles his eyebrows suggestively. "Put 'em on the golem and wham! Instant lays!"<br/>
<br/>
You were with him up until Lisa got mentioned. "The only way we get a mask of Lisa is if you agree to wear it and give me a blow job," you tell him coldly.<br/>
<br/>
"But the golem--!"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't wanna hear you talking about Lisa that way. What we had was special, it wasn't just ... sex!"<br/>
<br/>
"It wasn't even that," he sniggers under his breath.<br/>
<br/>
"Shut up!"<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, okay," he says. "Still. Cheerleaders. Yumi would be yummy, but Chelsea would be the jackpot."<br/>
<br/>
You talk a little more, until you hit the last ingredient on the spell list. You'd expected it to call for another pile of dirt, but this item is far more disquieting. "A human body?" Caleb exclaims in disbelief.<br/>
<br/>
"A corpse? Or a real person?" You stare at the spell too.<br/>
<br/>
The translation algorithm doesn't turn up an unambiguous answer to the question. "I'm not digging up a dead body," Caleb says firmly.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, we're not using a living person!"<br/>
<br/>
"So, we use ourselves as guinea pigs?" He doesn't sound convinced, even after he adds, "We've been experimenting on ourselves so far."<br/>
<br/>
You pace the basement. This is definitely the place to break off your experiments, and you tell Caleb so. He's unwilling to make the same conclusion, but there's not a lot of heat in his argument. At the same time, you still feel the tug of curiosity, and the two of you go round and round on possible ways of proceeding.<br/>
<br/>
You're still arguing when the door opens and your double walks in. "Guys," he says, raising his hands in a mollifying gesture. "It's not my fault."<br/>
<br/>
Your heart goes into your throat, and for the first time in your life you sympathize with your father: How many times have you opened a conversation with him with those words or variants on them? "What?" The word, as it escapes your throat, even sounds like the kind of growl your dad makes.<br/>
<br/>
"I haven't got any money for you. Dad confiscated it. Called me into his office and had me sign the check over to him."<br/>
<br/>
"What for?" Caleb demands, but you groan and put your face in your hands.<br/>
<br/>
So the golem answers for you. "I owe him— We owe him— God, pronouns are hard to use right now," he says. "But he lent, uh, <i>us</i> two hundred dollars in exchange for getting the job at Salopek. First paycheck goes to paying him back. In fact, you still owe him fourteen dollars and eighty-three cents," he tells you.<br/>
<br/>
"Why do you say he lent <i>us</i> the money but <i>I</i> still owe him?" you peevishly demand.<br/>
<br/>
"Consider what I am," he shrugs. "A counterfeit Will Prescott would be dealing in counterfeit money."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, this sucks," Caleb says. "You mean I was working to pay off <i>your</i> debts?"<br/>
<br/>
"Looks like you'll be going in to work for me another two weeks," you say.<br/>
<br/>
"How do you figure that?" he demands.<br/>
<br/>
You hold out your hand. "Where's the two hundred you promised me for our partnership?"<br/>
<br/>
He opens his mouth to speak, but says nothing. He points to you, then to the golem, then to you again. "Lemme get a piece of paper," he finally says.<br/>
<br/>
It takes almost twenty minutes of argument before you all agree—with no help from the golem, who seems inclined on causing mischief—that he has paid for the partnership by paying off your debt to your dad. Which still leaves both of you broke. "Well, as long as this asshole can go in to work for you, it's no big deal," Caleb shrugs, nodding at the golem. "We can wait for the next payday."<br/>
<br/>
But you decide to go to work the next day as yourself, figuring that if you're going to get in trouble it might as well be you and not your equally feckless twin. "Well, leave your mask with me," Caleb says when you tell him at school. "I'll put it on the golem, and between our two brains maybe I figure out a way around the next spell."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Turns out you were right about one thing: it's a disaster to leave your duplicate in charge of your life. Not that you discover anything wrong at work the next day. It's when you get back to the clubhouse early in the evening you find yourself in the equivalent of the <i>Titanic</i> after it's been hit by the <i>Hindenberg.</i> You hear raised voices emanating from the basement even before you open the door. "Jesus Christ," you yell, adding your voice to the cacophony. "Could you be any louder? I don't think the guys in the community center can hear you!" Both Caleb and your double jump and stare guiltily. "What is going on?"<br/>
<br/>
They look at the ground or at the walls or at the ceiling—anyplace but your face. Finally, the fake you nudges Caleb, who furiously nudges him back. "You're the one who did it," the golem hisses. "Well, you went along with it," Caleb hisses back.<br/>
<br/>
"What the fuck is it?" you demand, putting your hands to your hips.<br/>
<br/>
The golem pales. "Jesus, you sounded just like Dad when you said that." He laughs nervously. "Speaking of whom," he adds in a high, squeaky voice. "He stopped by today."<br/>
<br/>
You blink. "What?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, he stopped by the clubhouse. Had a good yell at us. Freaked us out. Then Caleb got a bright idea—"<br/>
<br/>
"Shut up!" Caleb says. He is very green.<br/>
<br/>
"What? Happened?" you growl.<br/>
<br/>
The golem swallows a couple of times. "Actually, Dad's still here. In a manner of speaking." He tugs at his shirt.<br/>
<br/>
You stare. Only now do you notice that your double is wearing one of your dad's dress shirts ... and slacks ... and shoes. And then you notice that the golem—the big, claylike slab—is standing in the corner, where you last left it.<br/>
<br/>
You eyes bug out of your head. "Dad?" you ask, and it's your turn for your voice to turn squeaky.<br/>
<br/>
"Um ... Not really," your twin says. He turns to Caleb. "Do the honors?"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb gulps, then reaches over and pulls at golem's face. It comes off ... And standing there is your father. <br/>
<br/>
Sort of. The thing's skin is chalky, grayish-white, as is its hair. But in form it looks just like your dad. You draw close. The detail work is perfect. It's a life-size statue of your dad. Except—<br/>
<br/>
"The good news is that I unlocked the next spell," Caleb says in a rush. "The bad news is ... Well, apparently I turned your dad into a golem."<br/>
<br/>
Through the knot in your throat you choke out the words: "And how did this happen?"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb puts the mask back onto the thing, and your twin reappears. "Is he still there?" it asks. <br/>
<br/>
"You were in on this?" you yell.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, you'd have done the same thing," it says defensively. "We're exactly alike, right? So if I helped Caleb do it, then it stands to reason that if you'd been here--"<br/>
<br/>
Only a sense of paralyzed horror keeps you from throttling the thing with your bare hands. Before you can move, Caleb jumps in. "The quickest way to explain things is for you to put this on." He holds out a mask, which you recognize as your dad's. You rear back, but Caleb won't be dissuaded. "Look, Will, someone is going to have to go home as your old man. It might as well be you."</span></div></div>


path: 1111112112211
author_id: seuzz
title: A Dad's-Eye View
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Your hands feel numb as you take the mask from Caleb. He says nothing as you hop onto the table and lay back. With a vast reluctance you lay the mask over your face. The world goes dark.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Your first feeling on waking is anger. You raise your head and glare at Caleb and at— <br/>
<br/>
No, you realize, that's not your son. It's a fake. <br/>
<br/>
And then you have to remind yourself that it's not a fake of your son, but of you. You take a deep breath as you sit up, and have to grip the edge of the table to keep your hands from shaking.<br/>
<br/>
A whole welter of confusing memories, impressions, and bits of knowledge press upon you, and you have to concentrate to sort them out. You— No, your father was jumped by these two, and something ... a mask ... was pressed on to your ... his ... face. He was investigating the basement because of the car parked nearby, and he was investigating because no one at the community center proper could explain where that mystery box went after it was picked up. And the mystery box was important because—<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, I see now what happened," you growl. "Christ, Johansson, you had my— my dad's head, and you still managed to not cover your tracks!"<br/>
<br/>
"What do you mean?"<br/>
<br/>
"The box. You put— You put his name to it when you mailed it here from Salopek, here to the community center."<br/>
<br/>
"That was the only way to do it," he says. "I was pretending to be your dad at the time—"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, but the delivery confirmation went back to Salopek and from there back to his office. He got curious because he didn't remember putting in a request to have anything sent out, and certainly not to this address. So he talked to Jack this afternoon, and from there tracked it here. The guys at the community center said a kid picked it up. He spotted your car and this door, and that's why he came in here. He took one look at you two jokers"—you glare at the fake Will Prescott—"and naturally figured it was you two behind it all."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb blinks. "Okay, I guess that makes sense. He started yelling—I guess you, uh, remember that part—"<br/>
<br/>
"And so you jumped on him with his own mask."<br/>
<br/>
"I had to get him to shut up," Caleb protests. "I couldn't explain anything to him. He wouldn't understand."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, he'd understand if you explained it all to him. He'd have killed you, but he'd have understood."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I didn't want to be killed!"<br/>
<br/>
"Which makes you a minority of one." Caleb turns red at your retort. "Now, how did this golem business come about?"<br/>
<br/>
"I couldn't leave the mask on him permanently," Caleb says. "I thought ... Well, I thought 'Let's try the next spell'."<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus. Did you even have a clue what it would do?"<br/>
<br/>
"It might not have done anything bad."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, and where would you have been then? What if it gave him superpowers?"<br/>
<br/>
"Then he wouldn't have been pissed, would he?"<br/>
<br/>
"After wearing his face so many times, you think he would have been okay with being mugged?" You can't tell where your own rage ends and your dad's begins. The sheer idiocy on display in this room—<br/>
<br/>
"Look, what's done is done," Caleb says. "You wanna hit me? Hit me. I guess I deserve it."<br/>
<br/>
Something like a red mist seems to descend over your vision, and it takes a supreme effort of self-control not to follow through on the invitation. You lower your head and say, through gritted teeth, "That won't do any good."<br/>
<br/>
There's silence for a moment, and then the golem speaks. "So, what do we do now?"<br/>
<br/>
You look at him, and something like a cold knife goes through your heart. <i>You dumb kid.</i> But you're talking to yourself, too, when you think it. The thing is right—if you'd been here you'd probably have helped Caleb do it because you'd be in such a panic. And your dad—<br/>
<br/>
Goddamn it, your dad actually would understand. It's not that he has such a low opinion of you, but— You stare at your twin, and actually want to burst out crying. <br/>
<br/>
<i>I was actually the same way when I was his age,</i> a voice says in your head. It's a familiar voice and a familiar caution, one that your dad has often given himself. <i>I was smarter than him, I could do worse things and walk away from them.</i> You catch yourself smiling grimly at your dad's memories, at incidents you never knew about. <i>Remember the time you nearly burned down the house? Remember the time you blew up your bedroom at three in the morning because you set the timer on that homemade bomb wrong? Remember the time the Air Force visited because your homemade UFO—a lawn chair, dozens of helium balloons, and a string of Christmas lights—showed up on their tracking radar ...<br/>
<br/>
If Will had half my ingenuity he could do the same things. If he had half my wit he could walk away from his own disasters. But he's got my sense of curiosity but he's missing that same little voice that says 'Think real hard before you attach those rockets to your roller skates, and try to anticipate all the bad things that could happen'.</i><br/>
<br/>
You suddenly feel very tired, and your shoulders slump. You glance at your watch.<br/>
<br/>
"I have to get back to Salopek," you say. "You two pack everything up—hide the first golem in the back somewhere—and take the stuff to my house. I'll look through the book and see if I can figure anything out."<br/>
<br/>
"When do we get together? Tomorrow?" Caleb asks.<br/>
<br/>
"We won't." You reach for your wallet and remember who's wearing whose clothes. You snap your fingers at "Will" and tell him to undress. "I'll give you your two hundred back later."<br/>
<br/>
"You're not serious," Caleb frowns. "You're ending our partnership?"<br/>
<br/>
You frown at him. "After this, you really think I want your help and input?" Caleb thrusts his lip out belligerently, then shrinks back again as you stare stonily at him. "Anyway, I've got a new partner," you continue. "My dad, and he's a hell of a lot smarter than you."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The basement is quiet as you change into your dad's clothes, and then you drive back to Salopek to finish up for the day. Back at the house afterward, you find two large boxes in your study. You take them out to the garage and carefully stow away the more flammable elements for eventual disposal. Dinner is muted, and it only takes a glance to get Robert to stop him horsing around. Afterward, when the boys are upstairs, Martha—your mother, your wife—sits next to you on the sofa and asks what's wrong. "Just a hard day at work," you tell her.<br/>
<br/>
"Is it something Will did?" she asks.<br/>
<br/>
"No," you grunt. But lying does not come easily to your father. "Not at work, at least. I told you he was helping his friend Caleb out with a science project." She nods. "I found out what it involved. Someone was going to get hurt, so I had to put a stop to it."<br/>
<br/>
"What was it?" Her eyes widen in concern.<br/>
<br/>
"They were just playing with some dangerous chemicals. It wasn't school sanctioned or supervised."<br/>
<br/>
"You know, Robert doesn't have a dollhouse for them to blow up."<br/>
<br/>
You wince, then smile at the private joke. "Does Amanda still carry a grudge over that?"<br/>
<br/>
"You could have just built a house out of Legos and used that as a prop for your volcano."<br/>
<br/>
"It wouldn't have had the structural properties I needed to demonstrate the power of pyroclastic flows."<br/>
<br/>
"That wasn't a school-sanctioned experiment either."<br/>
<br/>
"No, but it was a success. And her dollhouse did make a nice little one-house Pompeii. Surely she's old enough now to appreciate that."<br/>
<br/>
"She's an interior decorator, Harris, not a volcano-ologist." She puts her arm in yours. "And I think she ruled out Hawaii for her honeymoon because of bad memories of mountains blowing up."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, the point is that she can visit now without worrying that her nephew is going to reenact the experiment for her." You snort. "But it will just be something else when it happens."<br/>
<br/>
She giggles and kisses your neck deeply. "All this talk of fireworks," she murmurs.<br/>
<br/>
You groan softly. Two teenage boys in the house, and twenty years of marriage, and ... and they still do it at least once a week. Visions and memories bat at your imagination. A shudder passes through you—one that combines dread and anticipation. You should switch back into your own form before going to bed, let a fake dad sleep next to your mom. At the same time, though, it's easier to deal with what happened by pretending to be your dad. It makes him feel less absent. You're not sure you'd be able to look at his replacement.<br/>
<br/>
Your mind flashes back to the dinner table: Yes, Will never once looked you in the face all during the meal.</span></div></div>


path: 11111121122112
author_id: seuzz
title: Fathers and Sons
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You lay on your back and stare at the ceiling. You're in your dad's boxers (and nothing else) because you're in his body, and you're also in his bed. From behind the bathroom door come the sounds of your mom getting ready to join you.<br/>
<br/>
You pinch the bridge of your nose, then return to staring at the ceiling.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Boxers.</i> Your dad sleeps in his boxers. No pajamas. So there will be nothing but them between you and your mom when she joins you.<br/>
<br/>
You force the thought away. That's why you're staring at the featureless ceiling. To turn your mind into the kind of blank that won't have thoughts like that drifting through it.<br/>
<br/>
But it's hard to avoid them, given where you are and, yes, what you're wearing. You remember, when you were a kid, your dad coming out in boxers on Saturday mornings, back when you were awake early enough on Saturday mornings, and back (now that you think of it, with both your brain and your dad's, for he's in here with you) when you were young enough that he thought nothing of parading around in his boxers in front of his kid and the kid's baby brother. It made sense to you at the time that your dad would sleep in his underwear, for you did too.<br/>
<br/>
Since turning twelve (or thereabouts), to the extent that you do think of your parents' sleeping arrangements, you imagine them both swaddled like mummies and sleeping in separate beds with an iron door, of the kind that falls from the ceiling in the title sequence of the old <i>Get Smart</i> sitcom, dropping between them with a thunderous clang when it's time to go to bed. <i>Well, that's not literally what you imagine, but ...</i><br/>
<br/>
A smile twitches at the corners of your lips. <br/>
<br/>
You fantasized about having a door like that for your room, back when you were twelve. With an electronic eye that would recognize you so it would lift when you approached it, and would drop once you were on the other side. <i>Let the old man try to get in with </i>that<i> between me and him,</i> you chortled, and you even drew up blueprints—not childish drawings, but actual blueprints taking weight and tension into account—and clambered into the attic to study the layout to see if such a door would fit—<br/>
<br/>
Your smile drops into a frown. <i>No, wait, it was your </i>dad<i> who did that. It was your </i>dad<i> who was always trying to avoid his father, to avoid the chores and the questions and expressions of pinched incomprehension, by dropping an iron door between them.</i> <br/>
<br/>
An electric arc, a spark of fellow feeling, leaps between Harris and Will Prescott, who are cohabiting the same skull, as they recognize what fathers and sons so often have in common. Your dad couldn't build that <i>Get Smart</i>-style door for his bedroom, so he had to be content with hanging up a sign that said "DANGER: LIVE FIRE EXERCISES" and installing an electronic eye—yes, he did fashion one of those—that triggered a spray bottle aimed to hit the cat when it tried wandering in. <i>Well, the cat and your father's—grandfather's—ankles.</i> The cat learned quicker than the old man did ... <br/>
<br/>
You jump as your mom hits the bed, and it's not just the action of the springs that lifts you. You tense all over, and she notices when she throws her arm over your chest and kisses you deeply on the neck. "You are stiff all over, hon. Just not where I want."<br/>
<br/>
You stiffen even more—but not where she wants—as she plunges her hand down the front of your boxers and cradles your junk. Sweat breaks out on your brow. "I'm preoccupied," you mumble.<br/>
<br/>
"With what?" she croons softly, and kisses you again.<br/>
<br/>
"Will."<br/>
<br/>
"Mm. That experiment you made him stop?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yes. No. In general. It's got me thinking." <i>Distract her, yes, distract her!</i><br/>
<br/>
"About what?"<br/>
<br/>
<i>Ummmmm ... </i> "I don't know. Which is part of what's bothering me." You are very much aware that you're gabbling. "It's like it lit a fuse somewhere inside my brain, and there's going to be an explosion, and I don't know what's going to explode."<br/>
<br/>
She raises up. "You're not worried you're having a stroke, are you?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, I don't mean physically. I mean, uh, emotionally." <i>Yeah, that's it! Get her talking about feelings! Women love that!</i> (According to the magazines you—your dad—has noticed her reading.) "You know, he's going to graduate this year. And next year Robert's going to start high school."<br/>
<br/>
She sighs. "You're worried about what Will's going to do after he graduates."<br/>
<br/>
"Yes." You grit your teeth. <br/>
<br/>
Your dad is in absolute agonies about your academics and what they portend for you. <i>Is Will going to be one of those kids who won't figure out what he wants to do or what he's good at until after he's left college with a useless degree?</i> <br/>
<br/>
You rub your forehead. "I mean, I already knew I was going to be an engineer before I was even a junior in high school, and my dad used to actually complain—he'd complain!—about the college catalogs I kept sending away for. But Will ... "<br/>
<br/>
"He doesn't respond well to pressure."<br/>
<br/>
"I know. I try not to put any on him." Something like a heavy weight settles onto your chest. "I think I do anyway. Or he thinks I do. God!" You rub your face again. "If he only knew just how hard I <i>could</i> come down on him."<br/>
<br/>
The funny thing is, as you imagine what your dad could do to you, and imagine how you'd respond, you realize you would hardly feel worse than you actually do. Your dad doesn't have to say or do anything. Even just in his eyes, long before you made this mess that left you crawling into his brain, you could see the disappointment he feels.<br/>
<br/>
No, not disappointment. <i>Fear.</i> Fear that you will wind up lost and unhappy.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, we can't worry about the things that have already happened or what we did or didn't do," your mom says, and she returns to stroking you. "We just carry on the best we can from now on."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Which means doing what?</i> you almost ask. <br/>
<br/>
Then you realize that her words apply just as much to you and what you've done to your dad.<br/>
<br/>
There's no point in obsessing over how you got here. The best thing to do is to use all your wits (which are little enough) and all of your dad's to fix this problem.<br/>
<br/>
Your mom kisses you again on the neck. "Harris, honey," she says, "you shouldn't" —she kisses you again— "go to bed with it."<br/>
<br/>
You sigh and turn your head to kiss her forehead. "I know. But it's kind of ruined me for, uh—" You feel her freeze. You turn onto your side and pull her toward you. "Can I just hold onto you? To remind me you've always been the best thing to ever happen to me?"<br/>
<br/>
You feel rather than see her smile, and it's not long after she's fallen asleep that you do too.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You're up and showered and shaved long before Will and Robert are up, though one of them—Robert probably—is running the water in their bathroom as you button up your dress shirt. Harris Prescott is forty-eight years old, and he's your dad, so there's lots of horror in looking at yourself in the mirror and seeing <i>him</i> looking back at you with hardened eyes. <br/>
<br/>
But other than that there's nothing much wrong with him. He eats right and spends an hour a day at the Salopek gym exercising, and that has kept the inexorable paunch to a minimum. He has all his hair still—it's a sandy color, and he keeps it in a short but not severe trim. He looks at the world with a direct stare out of cool hazel eyes, and his grin is broad and confident when he's of a mind to deploy it. As you expertly knot a silvery silk tie around your neck, you remember a couple of business trips to Houston and to Seattle, and the women at the hotel bars after hours who flirted hard with ... with your dad. He didn't do anything with them—he's been faithful since his bachelor party, at least—but he was flattered and didn't resist the temptation to flirt hard with them.<br/>
<br/>
Downstairs, you fix yourself some coffee—an upscale brand carried by the Milagro Beanfield Warehouse; your dad is a real coffee snob—while your ... wife ... puts the finishing touches on your breakfast: scrambled Eggbeaters and lean ham on a sprouted whole grain English muffin. (Your dad went on a paleo diet last spring, but has since relaxed it a little.) You bring in the Wall Street Journal from the porch and give it a quick read while eating. Your mouth purses as you read one of the guest editorials, but you say nothing. Your dad has some very strong political opinions, but he keeps them to himself because he hates "blowhards" even more than he hates the current Administration and congressional leadership. (Not that he has much respect for the opposition, either; "When I think of one I prefer the other" is his attitude toward both parties.) Your ... wife ... settles in with her own coffee and the <i>Saratoga Falls Morning-Journal</i>; she saves her breakfasts for after you leave.<br/>
<br/>
From upstairs comes the sound of male teenage voices, low at first, then rising. You look up at the ceiling. You're about to open your mouth when you catch your ... wife's ... expression, and lower your head. Feet sound on the stairs, and Robert runs through the dining room into the kitchen. A few minutes later, Will, very red in the face and with his eyes bugging out, thunders in after him. He stops short, though, when he catches you out of the corner of his eye.<br/>
<br/>
With his hair sticking out all which way, and his shirt crooked, he looks like a scarecrow washed and thrown wet into a tumble dryer without fabric softener.<br/>
<br/>
And <i>this</i> is who you're going to work with to restore your dad? Maybe you'd better get Caleb's help after all.</span></div></div>


path: 111111211221121
author_id: seuzz
title: The Life of a Dad
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Will starts to move into the kitchen, but you halt him with a word. "What's your friend Caleb doing these days? After school, I mean."<br/>
<br/>
With his mouth, Will says, "Nothing. Hanging out after school. I dunno, I'm at work." With his eyes, which glare up dully at you from under lowered brows, he says, <i>You totally know what he does after school.</i><br/>
<br/>
"Well, bring him in with you today. I want to talk to him. You can tell him it's about this 'experiment' you guys have been running." <br/>
<br/>
You notice your ... wife ... turning very quiet.<br/>
<br/>
"Is that all?" Will mumbles.<br/>
<br/>
"Don't lip me."<br/>
<br/>
He runs into the kitchen. More male teenage voices, surly and biting, and you're pretty sure you hear someone drop the f-bomb under his breath.<br/>
<br/>
"Harris," says your wife. "Caleb is not your responsibility."<br/>
<br/>
"Then whose responsibility is he? If he wants to kill himself, that's fine. I just want to tell him that he's not going to take your son with him." You finish your coffee and return your wife's steady stare with one of your own.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It's a goddamn mess at the office. You never understood what your dad did, and now you understand it's because he does a little bit of everything. "Vice President of Shit Shoveling" is the title he's threatened to put on his business cards—so he's told Gavin Wagner, his immediate boss, when the man's brought him yet <i>another</i> screwball problem to fix. Technical, contractual, legal, personnel—whatever the type of problem, one way or another it almost <i>always</i> crosses your dad's desk, for advice if nothing else, for he seems to know everything, and typically he's the only with enough stick to go after problems with a baseball bat.<br/>
<br/>
Take the crisis that Griffiths brings you at ten-thirty. You're on the phone to Atlanta, explaining to your counterpart at Murray-Huemler that if they do <i>not</i> come across with certain proprietary information about the construction of their jet engines then Salopek will <i>not</i> be able to guarantee proper engineering for the turbine blades they have ordered, and that it would be very bad for everyone if one of Murray-Huemler's next-generation engines subsequently died over the south Atlantic and took two-hundred-fifty passengers and crew with it because it dreaded the loneliness of the cold ocean below. You're tapping your pencil and listening to a lot of hemming when Jerry Griffiths puts his head into your office.<br/>
<br/>
"Call me back at five," you growl into the phone, "if you've got an affirmative. If you don't, your great-great-grandchildren will <i>still</i> be awaiting delivery of those turbine blades." You drop the phone into its cradle. "Yes?" you snap at Jerry.<br/>
<br/>
He hustles in. He has big, wet eyes set in a hound dog face. "Legal asked me to show you this, when you have a minute," he says as he sets a fat file folder in front of you.<br/>
<br/>
"I have plenty of minutes. I just don't have time. What is it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, it's these darn contracts we're drawing up for the city—"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not a lawyer, Jerry."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, who the heck says you are?" He laughs nervously, and flips through the file. "But Bill, he's asking if we can—"<br/>
<br/>
"Bill who?"<br/>
<br/>
"Stutzman, in Facilities? He's asking if we can change this number here"—Jerry points to a four-digit figure underlined in red—"to, uh ... " He fumbles a slip of paper from his shirt pocket and sets it before you.<br/>
<br/>
You peer through the contract, then look back at the number on the scrap of paper. Your eyes pop, and you grab up the phone. <br/>
<br/>
"I want Bill Stutzman," you tell your floor's receptionist. "Did you talk to him about this?" you ask Griffiths. "Why didn't he call me with—? Bill, it's Harris. How much shit are you actually planning to flush into the municipal waste system? Or is this number that legal is showing me— <i>Sit. Down</i>," you mouth at Jerry, who has begun edging toward the door. "Is that just a negotiating ploy?" You allow Bill ten words of explanation before cutting him off. "Not that big, we're not going to get, not if we're flushing—" You eyeball that number again. "Christ! Because even if the city lets us flush away that much heavy metal contaminant, we'll wind up with the EPA hanging a Superfund site designation on us, and <i>they'll</i> bust us back until we're in nothing but the organic, hand-crafted <i>thumbtack</i> business!"<br/>
<br/>
You listen a bit more, then say, "No, <i>I'll</i> call Roberts. You just write, <i>Sometimes I have to tell the boss 'No'</i> one hundred times on your office wall with a permanent marker." You punch a button on the phone, and Jerry quails as you stab him with a short, hot glare. "Linda, I need to talk to Mr. Roberts," you tell the woman who answers. "Tell him it's about the upcoming CNN expose that's going to bankrupt us." As she relays your message, you scribble three names on a scrap of paper and push it at Jerry. "Call these guys," you tell him, "and tell them to clear their afternoon schedules in case there's a meeting. Yes sir," you say into the phone. "No, not yet there isn't, but there will be if the city accepts this number that Bill Stutzman wants to slip past them."<br/>
<br/>
Over the next three hours you conduct a running battle with the president of the company, sometimes abetted and sometimes opposed by three vice presidents and two facilities engineers, along with pop-up support by the head of the legal affairs office, in which you argue against both the ethics and the practicalities of dumping excessive amounts of toxic waste into a municipal system that Salopek—but not the city's own engineers—know can't handle them. The president doesn't back down until you threaten to resign over the issue, and even then you buttonhole Gupta in legal and tell him that you'll be visiting the city's own lawyers on your own time to look over the contracts that Salopek gives them to make sure that the company keeps its promise to you.<br/>
<br/>
And in the middle of that, while jogging on a treadmill in the exercise facility, you have to field a call from the accounting department wanting to know how to itemize a certain disassembled drill press for depreciation purposes.<br/>
<br/>
"Harris, is there anything that goes on around here you don't know about?" asks Larry Haygood, who is puffing along on the machine next to yours.<br/>
<br/>
"I lay awake nights dreading that there is," you reply, and wipe the streaming sweat from your brow as you slow the treadmill to a walking pace.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
So consumed are you by your father's work that you forget all about your afternoon meeting with Caleb until four o'clock, when there's a sharp knock on your door and a skinny kid in a sloppy hat and cargo shorts looks in at you. "Hey Dad," he grins.<br/>
<br/>
You're on the phone, so you growl a "What?" at your son before things click into place. "Oh. Right." You listen impatiently to Pete Ritter for another minute while glaring at Will, who has plopped his butt and his shit-eating grin into a chair. He waggles his legs back and forth and lets his arms dangle to the floor.<br/>
<br/>
"I told you to bring Caleb along," you snap at him after hanging up.<br/>
<br/>
"I did." Will's grin widens.<br/>
<br/>
"Then where the—?" A penny drops. "Oh. God. No."<br/>
<br/>
Will—Caleb—rubs his nose. "Hey, I been coming in like this for the last week anyway, and this way it doesn't look funny if—"<br/>
<br/>
"Did you tell Andy Keyes you were coming up to see me?"<br/>
<br/>
His smile vanishes. "Uh. No. I just—"<br/>
<br/>
"Close the door." As you dial Andy to tell him that your son is up in your office, and that he'll be down to work in fifteen minutes, and to deduct his pay accordingly, Will, his butt still wedged in the chair, stretches his lanky arm <i>waaaaaaaaayyyy</i> over at the door. He still can't reach it, though, and has to tip himself over, raising both clodhopper feet into the air to counterbalance himself, until he can weakly brush the door closed with his fingertips. "So, whaddaya wanna see me about?" he asks with cheerful insolence once he's restored himself to something vaguely like a dignified sitting position.<br/>
<br/>
You drum the desk, weighing the decision, before replying, "Get used to being inside that mask. You're not taking it off until we get things fixed."<br/>
<br/>
That smile, which had crept back onto his face, vanishes. "The fuck?"<br/>
<br/>
"Watch your language," you snap before you can stop yourself, and he smirks sourly back. "I want you at home, in character as me—" A patch of sweat breaks out between your shoulder blades as you contemplate what <i>that</i> is going to be like. "Tonight and going forward. It's an all-hands project to get my dad back to normal and I want you around until then."<br/>
<br/>
"Your dad seems pretty normal now," your friend grumbles.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, am I freaking you out? You think I'm not freaking <i>myself</i> out?" You knead your forehead, which is warm. "Yeah, I want your help. Will you help me?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, sure!" He actually looks insulted by the implication that he wouldn't. "I just don't see why I have to stop being me in order to."<br/>
<br/>
"It'll give you an incentive. The sooner my dad's back, the sooner I'll be back, which means the sooner you'll be back. Besides," you add as Caleb shrugs. "He's got a job here and you don't. You want the money Will Prescott's earning? You play Will Prescott."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb shrugs again. "Okay, it's a deal. But will you at least stop barking at your son all the time?"<br/>
<br/>
You open your mouth to bark at him, then catch yourself. You sag, and your eyes drop.<br/>
<br/>
"I'll try," you say. You look up again. "Maybe that's another reason I want you there, playing me." Caleb's eyebrows goes up. "I'll have an easier time dealing with my—" You swallow thickly. "My goofball son if he's better than the goofball he usually is."<br/>
<br/>
Your heart rises, just a little, at Caleb's wince and his reply: "You're not a goofball, Will."</span></div></div>


path: 1111112112211211
author_id: seuzz
title: A Family Project
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Your dad may have a ton of problems at work, but he tries not to take them home with him. "And how many dragons did you slay today?" your wife asks when you trudge wearily into the kitchen.<br/>
<br/>
"No dragons, just idiots." You put your arms around her and kiss her on the cheek. "A dragon would make a nice change." You hang on to her, and dimly you're aware that you shouldn't be enjoying this quite so much, and that your cock shouldn't be stiffening. But you're too tired to care. "You?"<br/>
<br/>
"Pork medallions for supper. Green beans and a salad."<br/>
<br/>
"I asked about you." You nuzzle her ear. "Not supper."<br/>
<br/>
She wilts a little, and puts her arm around your back. "I fought dragons. Cleaned Robert's room. Umm ..."<br/>
<br/>
"Mm-hmm?" You put your nose in her hair and smell it. It's still got some of the shampoo scent, but it's mixed with honest sweat and her own musk. Your motor thrums a little harder.<br/>
<br/>
"We're getting up close to the time, I think, when we'll have to talk to him about ... emissions."<br/>
<br/>
And the motor sputters and stops. "Intentional or accidental?"<br/>
<br/>
"Accidental. Haven't had a big patch yet, unless they happened where I didn't find 'em, but—"<br/>
<br/>
"Okay." You let go of her and rub your eyes. You yourself know that Robert is into the porn, and your dad suspects it. Your mom? You've no idea what she knows, suspects, or plain just won't tell herself about her sons.<br/>
<br/>
And that reminds you that this is your <i>mom</i> you were feeling up. "Where's Will?" you ask as you lean back against a counter. Your wife— <i>Focus, Will, that's your mom!</i>—turns back to the stove, where the beans are gently simmering. "His truck's here, so—"<br/>
<br/>
"Upstairs, I guess. Did you have that talk with Caleb?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yes. I also found out what it's all about."<br/>
<br/>
"I thought you knew what it was all about," she says as she checks inside the oven, where a pork tenderloin is sizzling. Your mom loves cooking and baking and sewing and cleaning. "They were trying to blow themselves up."<br/>
<br/>
"Yes, but I found out what Caleb thought he was doing and why Will was helping. He needed help with his math, and this was his way of paying Caleb back." It's a plausible lie, and you take no great satisfaction in your ingenuity at coming up with it.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, that's good, isn't it?" Martha asks. <i>Yes, think of her as 'Martha'.</i> "It means he knows he needs help and is getting it and he's paying his way. Sort of."<br/>
<br/>
"I'll try to remember to look at it that way," you reply in your dad's driest tone. "But I put a stop to it, and told Will I'd be taking over as his tutor. A couple of hours every night, just the two of us, in my study."<br/>
<br/>
Martha turns with an expression of pure alarm. "Are you sure, honey? Your blood pressure—"<br/>
<br/>
"I'll be fine. I can't very well <i>yell</i> at him two hours straight. Besides, maybe this will, you know, break the ice between us." You wince at the expression, which is horribly apt. "Maybe that's why it's been so long since we've gotten along. We're like strangers to each other."<br/>
<br/>
Martha's expression softens, and she pulls you into a gentle hug.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Alright, tomorrow I want you to switch out with yourself after school," you tell your fake son later that evening as you close the grimoire. "Send Will in to work, and you go back to the clubhouse to execute the spell."<br/>
<br/>
"Do I still get paid for his time?" Caleb asks with one of your old, raffish grins. He is clutching a list of the ingredients you will need for the next spell. Will Prescott's calculus homework still lies unopened at his elbow. <br/>
<br/>
"Sure." You tap your pen on the desk. "I wish we could find a more secure facility to do this stuff in," you mutter.<br/>
<br/>
"A building at Salopek, maybe?"<br/>
<br/>
"That's the opposite of secure," you retort. <br/>
<br/>
Still you muse on the idea, and your eye settles on your replacement thoughtfully.  "You know, if you were older we might fake up a sublease that would give you one of the smaller units to work in." And that gives you another idea, and you study it from a couple of different angles before laying it aside. "But for tomorrow," you resume, "just do it at the clubhouse."<br/>
<br/>
"I could go over there tonight," Caleb says. "Tell your mom I'm going for a quick jog, and you could finish my homework for me."<br/>
<br/>
"Tomorrow is soon enough. And <i>don't</i> go on to whatever spell comes after it," you add more firmly. "I want to look over everything before you do <i>anything.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
He rolls his eyes. "Yes, <i>Daaaad,</i>" he whines.<br/>
<br/>
"Am I going to get attitude from you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, dur. Don't you <i>always?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
You return his snicker with a glower.<br/>
<br/>
The spell Caleb will be executing tomorrow is the one he unlocked by turning your dad into a golem. It looks like a variation on the last two spells, for it uses almost the exact same ingredients but on a smaller scale. The main difference, thankfully, is that it calls for <i>no</i> bodies whatsoever, and only a handful of cemetery dirt. As ever, there is no indication what it makes or what it does, but Caleb will have an answer to that when he brings you the results.<br/>
<br/>
And it seems like the only way forward. None of the spells have come with a "reverse," so the only thing you can hope is that by going forward you will eventually come upon something that will fix your dad. You hope you don't have to keep doing horrible things to people in order to reach it.<br/>
<br/>
Business transacted, you push the grimoire back into your old book bag and pull out some of the other homework while Caleb tackles your math. You can write in both your and your dad's handwriting, so you scrawl out some answers on your Sociology homework, then check over Caleb's work. You only find three errors, and you tell him to leave them uncorrected. "I want Bs, not As," you tell him, "or Mr. Kowalski will spot a fraud. B-minuses, if you can cut it that fine."<br/>
<br/>
Later, you release him to goof off upstairs, and pad into the living room to watch TV with your wife. "It went okay," you reply to her querying glance. "He only rolled his eyes at me seven times. Okay, five times," you say when she gasps. You kiss her. "Thanks for the philosophy talk last night."<br/>
<br/>
"What philosophy talk?"<br/>
<br/>
"About how this is the first day of the rest of our son's educational career."<br/>
<br/>
"Did I say that? I was <i>trying</i> to get you to—" She grabs you down low, and you jump, and she giggles. Fortunately, just then Robert comes through on his way to the kitchen, and she lets go of you.<br/>
<br/>
But she won't let go of you when you get upstairs and in bed, not until you've peeled off your boxers and turned over to get on top of her. You let go and try to pass out as you let your dad's instincts take over.<br/>
<br/>
And your dad's instincts are that he <i>loves</i> having sex with his wife. Hot, grinding, deep-thrusting sex.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Whew! Someone sure wanted in bad, didn't they?" Jack Weiland says as he shakes his head.<br/>
<br/>
You and Andy Keyes exchange annoyed looks behind his back, but you say nothing, and Andy only says, "I'll set some guys to fixing it."<br/>
<br/>
"It" is a window, high up in the back wall of one of the secure units where Salopek keeps its most valuable materials. The glass has been blown out and lies scattered on the asphalt beneath your feet. The heavy steel shutters have been peeled back like the skin off a banana and hang limply from busted hinges. You are one of half a dozen Salopek employees staring up at it. <br/>
<br/>
You shake your head over it. It's the second burglary within the last two months.<br/>
<br/>
Then you countermand Andy before he can move. "I want Mike Salazar and his team to look it over before we start fixing it up." You turn to Sean Mitchell, who is standing next to you and craning his neck to stare up at the window. "Go find Will, the two of you will start making an inventory of what's in that room. Andy will get you a manifest so we can find out what was taken." You take out your cell phone to call security. "Get in there before the door codes change." <br/>
<br/>
"Why change the door codes?" Sean asks. "If it was burglars, they went in through the window."<br/>
<br/>
"They went <i>out</i> through the windows, Mitchell. The glass." It crunches as you shift your feet. "The explosion came from inside. My first guess is they let the door close on them after they were inside, and this was how they chose to get back out. Phil," you say into the phone, and begin directions to get all the door codes of the complex changed.<br/>
<br/>
And that reminds you that you want to find a new spot for Caleb to do his research in.</span></div></div>


path: 11111121122112111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Next Spell
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>The kid who looks like Will Prescott is practically vibrating in the kitchen entryway when you come in from the garage. "So what happened at work today?" he blurts out.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know," you reply. "Weren't you there?" You brush past him so you can give Martha a kiss.<br/>
<br/>
"What happened at work today?" she asks.<br/>
<br/>
You shoot Caleb a dirty glance over your shoulder. "Nothing happened at work," you say as you loosen your tie and undo the top button of your shirt. "I had the usual messes to clean up, and so did Will—"<br/>
<br/>
"Your son told me there was an explosion," Martha says. "I almost called to find out—"<br/>
<br/>
"<i>Your</i> son needs to learn to leave the daily recap to <i>me,</i>" you retort. "There was no explosion at work today, except the metaphorical kind," you continue as you take a beer from the refrigerator. "We fired three guys."<br/>
<br/>
"Harris," your wife says in that tone she reserves for when her husband is in deep trouble. "What? Happened?"<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing. I told you. Oh, something happened last night. Someone got into one of the units and it looks like they used an explosive to get back out again. Funny thing is, they would have brought their own. Isn't that right, Will?" You give him a hard look as you take a swig from the bottle.<br/>
<br/>
"Yes sir," he says in a low voice. "Me and Sean" —You let the ungrammatical expression slide by— "didn't find anything missing. Everything accounted for on the manifest."<br/>
<br/>
"We'll be double-checking that because it doesn't make any sense," you reply in a very cold tone. "Though you won't be the only guys in trouble if there's a discrepancy. We need to hire three new security guards because the two last night didn't hear anything like the earth-shattering kaboom the damage would indicate, and the one this morning who was supposed to be patrolling the alley didn't even see anything. We only found the busted window at around three this afternoon when his replacement came on duty." You take another refreshing swig of beer.<br/>
<br/>
Martha looks between you and Will in a way that tells you that the conversation has only been suspended, not terminated.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Dinner is pleasant enough, as Will has begun to leave Robert alone, so that you only have to squash one of your obstreperous offspring instead of both of them. Your wife tries cornering you in the kitchen as she cleans up, but you tell her you'll talk later, as you have "homework duties" with your son.<br/>
<br/>
"Why are you riding my ass about that thing at work?" he waspishly demands after you've shut the study doors on the rest of the family. "I wasn't even there, I was at the clubhouse, like you told me to be!"<br/>
<br/>
"Just keeping up appearances," you say. "What's your sense of things? Did Will and Sean miss something in that room? Did they go at it half-assed?"<br/>
<br/>
"No. Sean was an anal-retentive prick about checking everything. Or that's the impression I've got." He rubs at his forehead, where a new crop of zits is breaking out. "Unless someone made an explosive cocktail from the things in those drums and then got the seals back on, everything's accounted for."<br/>
<br/>
"Then I'll order an audit on the manifests. Maybe they were incorrect." You sit at the desk. Your old book bag is already sitting atop it, and you begin emptying it for the night's session.<br/>
<br/>
"It wasn't an explosion, <i>Dad,</i>" Caleb sneers. "Not from the inside. Sean told me what you said, but you saw what it looked like inside there. Nothing knocked over, no burns, no nothing. Anything that could have taken those shutters out would have—"<br/>
<br/>
"There are ways of making a unidirectional explosion," you reply. "But it's nothing for you to worry about. You need to worry that your mother is going to make you quit that job because it's too dangerous."<br/>
<br/>
"Really?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yes. I know that look she got."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, cool. Then maybe you can get them to hire Caleb Johansson as a replacement." He beams. "You know, he's been bugging me like a fucker about it, and he came real close to kicking my ass when I stabbed him in the back by taking it myself!"<br/>
<br/>
You smile thinly. "Maybe we can arrange for Caleb to get your job. You'll still be living here, though, and doing the research I set you. Speaking of which— What happened at the clubhouse?"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb takes out a mask and a Tupperware container. "This is the stuff it made," he says as he opens the tub. It is filled with a thin, grayish paste with the consistency of watery oatmeal. "That was what came out, and it was enough to get the page to turn." <br/>
<br/>
He pulls off his cap long enough to comb out the stiff locks with his fingers before continuing. "I think this is the stuff that's got your dad covered up. If it is then maybe we can chip it off him."<br/>
<br/>
"You mean it's covered him like a shell?"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb hunches his shoulders and squints. "Well, I don't know. We won't know unless we try. But it's made with the same stuff, mostly. And instead of pouring it over a body—"<br/>
<br/>
"You didn't 'pour' it over my dad," you remind him. "You piled the stuff on him and set him on fire."<br/>
<br/>
"Don't be pedantic. But this stuff, instead of going on the person, goes inside a mask. See?" He pushes the mask across the desk toward you, and you pick it up.<br/>
<br/>
The masks you've made and seen to this point are, when completed, polished a brilliant blue all over. But this one is blue only on its convex side. On the side that sits on the face, it's a pasty white, the same color as the stuff in the Tupperware tub. But you can feel the raised spot where the metal band is, and Caleb's name still floats over the inner surface.<br/>
<br/>
"I guess you had to use your mask, huh?" you say. "Whose hair did you use?"<br/>
<br/>
"Mine. The way I figure it, based on what the spell says—"<br/>
<br/>
He outlines his theory, then you pore over the revealed reverse of the spell page with him. After some discussion, you tentatively concur with his reading of it. "Of course, the only way to find out," you tell him, "is to try it out on someone." You push the mask into his hands. "Go put it on your brother."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb's face—the face of Will Prescott—collapses in shock. "Are you serious?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm totally serious, mister." You set your mouth in a grim line. "Now. Text me when you've done it so I can come up to look."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb turns white, and he swallows, then he gets to his feet. He gives you a backward glance in the doorway, then shuffles out.<br/>
<br/>
You pick up a pencil and doodle on a notepad, trying not to think of all the ways this could go wrong, until your phone dings. <i>redy,</i> says your son. You heave yourself to your feet.<br/>
<br/>
Upstairs, you shut the door to Robert's room behind you. Will and his friend Caleb—the latter squeezed into clothes that are too small for him—stare back at you palely from the bed.<br/>
<br/>
It takes you a few seconds to find your voice. "What's your name?" you ask the kid with the short, tightly curled hair.<br/>
<br/>
"You know me, Mr. Prescott," he says. "Caleb Johansson? And I'm really, really sorry about what I did to you back at the, er—"<br/>
<br/>
"It seems to be, uh, me," Will says. "I asked it a few questions, and it knows everything I know. And it obeys me too, just like a golem."<br/>
<br/>
"What do you know about Robert?" you ask the fake Caleb. "Will's brother?"<br/>
<br/>
"Only that Will thinks he's a pest," he says warily.<br/>
<br/>
"You know where he is?"<br/>
<br/>
He looks around the room, but shakes his head.<br/>
<br/>
"Alright, take it off him," you tell Will. Your heart thumps hard. "Let's see what it did to him."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb flinches as Will reaches for his face, but relents long enough for your "son" to pull at  his brow. It comes away, and Robert falls back unconscious on the bed. Other than that, he seems none the worse for wear.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, scram," you tell Will, and he doesn't wait for a repeat of the order. "Wait for me in the study." Then you sit on the bed next to Robert.<br/>
<br/>
You look him over carefully—his pulse and breathing are consistent with merely being asleep—before gently waking him. "Hey, Bobby," you call to him, using his childhood endearment. "Bobby buddy. Wake up?"<br/>
<br/>
He stirs, opens his eyes, blinks at you, then bolts up.<br/>
<br/>
"Shh," you tell him. "Are you okay?"<br/>
<br/>
He gasps. "It was Will, Dad! He—"<br/>
<br/>
"He what?"<br/>
<br/>
Robert blinks and shakes his head. "He came in here," he says, "and he jumped on me with something, shoved it in my face. I couldn't breath, and then ..."<br/>
<br/>
He trails off, and the little hairs on your body rise. "Then what?"<br/>
<br/>
"Then I woke up and you were here!"<br/>
<br/>
You look closely and deeply into his eyes. They are clear. "You don't remember anything after Will came in?" you ask. He shakes his head. "You didn't hear me come in?"<br/>
<br/>
"No. Will just—" He turns red. "Will just socked me in the face and then—" He gingerly touches himself all over.<br/>
<br/>
You look him over, too, and tell him that he's fit as a fiddle. "You must have fainted," you tell him. "I've already yelled a blue streak at your brother, and he won't do it again. It was just a prank that went wrong." Robert doesn't look mollified, but he doesn't make any more trouble.<br/>
<br/>
At least not for you.<br/>
<br/>
In the study, you tell Caleb that your hypothesis has been confirmed.<br/>
<br/>
"The question now is," you say, "whether we use these masks to set us up a safe space at Salopek or at some other facility?"<br/>
<br/>
"What's wrong with sticking to the clubhouse?" Caleb asks.</span></div></div>


path: 111111211221121112
author_id: rugal
title: Where the Heart Is
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"What's wrong with--" you say with indignation, pausing as if you can't quite wrap your head around the question. "It would look odd if I--my dad kept going over to the old school and into the basement, don't you think?"<br/>
<br/>
"Huh? I dunno, maybe? Why would it--"<br/>
<br/>
"And what happens, then, if I get caught?" you ask. "If it was Will Prescott getting caught going into a locked basement in an abandoned building, it'd just be chalked up as a teenager getting into mischief. The type of thing that my dad," you wince, "would chew me out over but nobody would think anything of. But if <i>Harris</i> Prescott got caught--"<br/>
<br/>
"What, would they think you were using it to cook meth or something?" Will asks with a laugh.<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe, maybe not," you say glumly, "but it would look suspicious either way. It'd be the type of thing that could affect his reputation... his job, even. When we return him to normal--"<br/>
<br/>
"If we return him to normal," he interrupts.<br/>
<br/>
"<i>When</i> we return him to normal," you shoot back with force, "we want everything to be as undisturbed for him as possible."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, okay," he snorts. "You're the one who just recommended we set up something at Salopek. Wouldn't that be just as weird?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah," you nod, "I kind of realized that was probably a dumb suggestion almost as soon as I said it. It'd be difficult to do anything there unless we managed to wrangle up some new identities; people who work there and such. But there's just too much that could go wrong."<br/>
<br/>
You can't help but feel like you're channeling your father's own conservative, slow and steady mind in coming to that conclusion. Sure in his younger days your father could be impulsive and a little wild and you can tell that he himself likely wouldn't be above a little mischief making when he was your age. But that's changed considerably as he's grown older, gotten a good and reliable job and a family to provide for. The days of youthful irresponsibility have long since passed him by.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, I guess that's true," says WIll in defeat. "So then where should we work on it? Maybe I could skip your third period tomorrow, head into the portables, and--"<br/>
<br/>
"Absolutely not," you say firmly. "Trying to do anything at school would be... well, I don't know; not very smart." You feel yourself tense up at the thought of someone else seeing the book or the mask, if god forbid someone like the Molester or Kirkham decided to mess with Caleb and saw any of that...<br/>
<br/>
Yeah, it's a terrifying thought. You really hope that you'll have a place -- a safe place -- picked out by tomorrow.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
With that settled for now, you let Will head over to the school so he can place his mask, the mask of Caleb that is, onto the golem that looks like your father and drive his double home.<br/>
<br/>
Meanwhile, you get down to business with the book. Unfortunately, it soon turns out to be an exercise in frustration. Oh sure, it starts off with no problem. There's not much instruction but the ingredients are more or less the same as what would be needed to make a mind band. But that single line isn't really description -- "Use me, solve me" is the best translation you can manage -- and when you look below...<br/>
<br/>
There's no sigil that you can see. Instead what you see is letters, blurry and shifting... changing! It's enough positively disorienting, so much so that within a minute or two you find yourself having to look away to deal with the sense of vertigo you're suddenly feeling. You take a few minutes to recompose yourselves before taking another look at the book. That turns out to be the real kicker.<br/>
<br/>
It's not the letters on the page that are shifting, it's the letters on the page <i>behind</i> it!<br/>
<br/>
Indeed, to get to the next page you have to solve the spell from the preceding one. Unfortunately, it seems as if some clown has gone and torn off the bottom section of the current page. As such, you the words from the next page appear but as this one hasn't been solved they're a jumbled, headache-inducing mess. It's not long before Will returns and you fill him in on what's gone on. He fares no better than you and eventually you both decide to put the brakes on thing for the evening and try again tomorrow.<br/>
<br/>
Just as frustratingly, you're no closer to finding a suitable place to work either.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
In bed that night, Martha prods you about the dangers of Will working a job where explosions can occur but you're able to, with skill, deflect and parry these blows enough for her to eventually give up. And though she does at least tepidly accept your arguments, she firmly rejects your attempts at intimacy.<br/>
<br/>
It's as your washing up after using the bathroom not long after that you're struck by a frankly disturbing thought: why are you disappointed that Martha froze you out? No, not Martha... Mom. You've tried so hard to maintain appearances as Harris, as your father, that you've even... you shudder and suddenly feel like hopping in the shower; you almost do. You're getting a little too deep into your assumed identity and you wonder if you should dial it back some.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Work the next day largely goes off without any incident. There's a meeting discussing the break in but nobody, not yourself or anyone else, is able to offer a reasonable explanation as to what happened. The damage is just so odd and with nothing taken you're all at a loss as to what to really make of it and in the end there's no real consensus achieved.<br/>
<br/>
Yet another headache now brought on by diving too far into your father's life.<br/>
<br/>
At home, you tell your mom that as best as the investigation can determine it was just some punks with hammers who broke in to cause trouble and not an actual explosion though that seems to do little to her worries. So add yet another frustration onto the pile of things you're dealing with as your father.<br/>
<br/>
It's enough to make you want to just abandon his mask entirely, a sentiment you relay to Will later that evening as the both of you sit in your father's study that evening while waiting on your mom to finish up dinner.<br/>
<br/>
"Honestly," you say with a tone that is more like yourself than your father, "it's just really starting to wear on me. I mean, my mom's prodding and questioning and truth be told I'll probably have to give into her eventually." You chuckle a bit at that. It's a small thought of your father's, that your mom can at times is silk hiding steel. "Then there's just... the intimacy. When I sank myself into being Dad, of course it felt natural but once I was able to take a step back..."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I get you." Will then lets out a small laugh of his own. "I guess that's the upside to my dad not being around, huh? Don't have to worry about getting all Oedipal if he's not in the picture."<br/>
<br/>
"Do you really think this is the time for jokes?" you ask as you shake your head. "It's not just that but the work, the meetings, all of this stuff with the explosion. I want to get past that page but if I'm having to worry more about work then that cuts into the time I have to look at the book. Plus we still don't have a real place to work."<br/>
<br/>
The two of you are silent for a couple of moments but it's Will who speaks first. "What about here?" he quietly asks.<br/>
<br/>
"What do you mean?"<br/>
<br/>
He says nothing as he opens the backpack and, to your shock, pulls out a completed mask and brain band. "I stopped by my place after school and made a few of these," he explains. "Kinda got it in my head to try a car buffer and oh baby, you can get these things done in like half an hour with it."<br/>
<br/>
"So what does that have to do with using here as a place to work?" you ask, unsure as to what he's getting at.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, you're worried about your mom and everything so..."<br/>
<br/>
"Wait, you want to use those masks on my mom!?"<br/>
<br/>
"And switch with her, yeah. That'd eliminate the skeeviness, right? Plus she's a homemaker so you'd have all the time in the world to study the book."<br/>
<br/>
"But that's--" you sputter. "What about Robert? Do we stick one of those new masks on <i>him</i> too?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure, if we have to."<br/>
<br/>
You can't believe how flippant he's being with your family, even though he's wearing your face! "And what if I suggested that I switch with your mom instead?" you ask incredulously.<br/>
<br/>
"I'd say that sounds like a good idea," he answers without pause. "It's just the two of us there so it'd be a good place to work on things and with these new masks it's not like I can't just bring her back easily unlike..." He pauses and breathes in deeply. "You can consider it payback, you know; for what I did to your dad. You get my mom in exchange."<br/>
<br/>
You <i>really</i> can't believe he's offering up his own mother as a trade. And suggesting your mom as well! The most frustrating thing, though, is that his suggestions are smart. They make a lot of sense and you can see the benefits in either one.<br/>
<br/>
But becoming your own mother or becoming Caleb's... maybe you're going a little too far and getting inside your own head. Maybe you should just pump the brakes and try to figure out something else first.</span></div></div>


path: 1111112112211211123
author_id: seuzz
id: DN8PLLHM9
title: A Home Away from Home
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>That night, after you've gotten into bed, Martha asks you what's wrong.<br/>
<br/>
"What makes you think something's wrong?" you grunt.<br/>
<br/>
"You've been chewing on something all evening," she replies. "I can tell."<br/>
<br/>
"Just work."<br/>
<br/>
"You didn't have your 'trouble at work' frown."<br/>
<br/>
"My what?"<br/>
<br/>
She smiles. "I can tell when it's work and when it isn't, by your frown."<br/>
<br/>
"You're kidding."<br/>
<br/>
"No, I've had lots of experience by now. I can read you—"<br/>
<br/>
She cocks her head. <br/>
<br/>
"All last week," she says, "since you caught Will doing that chemistry experiment." Her eyebrows go up. "Was it really bad?" Then her expression turns alarmed. "Did it have something to do with the explosion at work?"<br/>
<br/>
"It wasn't an explosion," you tell her firmly. "And it isn't Will. It's his friend. Caleb." <i>Might as well put the blame where it really lies.</i> "He's a bad influence."<br/>
<br/>
"I thought you liked Caleb!"<br/>
<br/>
"I do."<br/>
<br/>
"Then how is he—?"<br/>
<br/>
"He's smart, but he's careless, and he gets in over his head. And Will hasn't even got as good a head as Caleb does." You turn onto your side, putting your back to her. "Will's been telling me some of the ideas that Caleb's had." You sigh. "That's all."<br/>
<br/>
Martha rubs your shoulder. "So what are you going to do about it?"<br/>
<br/>
"That's why I'm distracted. I'm trying to figure something out."<br/>
<br/>
But when you wake the next morning, you've got a solution.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"I need you to do a little research at school," you tell your "son" the next evening, as you do "homework" together in your study. "I need you to find who at school lives with a single parent. Also, they have to have their own transportation. It's a bonus if they've got money, but it's not a necessity."<br/>
<br/>
"There's my friend Caleb," he blurts out. His grin is cheeky.<br/>
<br/>
You give him a look. "That's what I'm trying to avoid. I've been thinking about your suggestion, the one about finding a, uh, secure place to work. It's a good idea, but I don't want to do it here or at, uh, your friend Caleb's place."<br/>
<br/>
"There's my other friend, Keith Tilley. It's just him and his dad."<br/>
<br/>
You'd forgotten about Keith, but you give the suggestion short shrift. He's a friend. And because your plan involves victimizing people, you want it to be people you don't know.<br/>
<br/>
Or, if it has to be someone you know, that it be someone you dislike.<br/>
<br/>
"I want it to be a household," you tell him. "Two people, so it can just be you and me. Transportation so we can get around. And money, if possible, so that—" You grimace. "So it's not all on my dad's credit card."<br/>
<br/>
"What will we do about your dad? If we move to someplace else?"<br/>
<br/>
"We leave this mask behind to cover for him."<br/>
<br/>
"Can you find someone at work?" Will asks. "Maybe we don't want to use someone at school. Besides," he adds, "if it's two adults—"<br/>
<br/>
"Like a husband and wife?" When Will freezes, you ratchet the question tighter. "Maybe a couple of gay roommates?"<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, forget I said that," he mutters. "Though if you know a couple of lesbians—"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, how am I supposed to find anyone at school?" Will demands. "What am I supposed to do, stop people in the halls? 'Excuse me, do you live with a single parent? Do you have your own car? What's your disposable income?'"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't sass me, young man."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, bite me, 'Dad'. You'd have a much better chance finding someone at work—"<br/>
<br/>
"Ask Kim Walsh," you tell him, seizing the sudden idea before it can vanish. "She's a nosy little busybody. I'm sure she knows every kid in school who comes from a broken home."<br/>
<br/>
"How do I ask her?" Will demands. "Am I just after gossip, or—"<br/>
<br/>
"Tell her you're working on a project. Something extracurricular for your college applications. She'll love that. She might even offer to help."<br/>
<br/>
"Do we want her help?"<br/>
<br/>
"We just want leads. After you get some, you can flake out like you always do, tell her you changed your mind."<br/>
<br/>
Will makes a face. "You sure are cynical about my follow through, 'Dad'."<br/>
<br/>
"I just know you, mister."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The weekend is already here by that point, but you don't let that stop you. Though it's Saturday, you order Caleb to go find Kim and get started on a list of possible new "locations" to do your work in.<br/>
<br/>
But you have to admit he's got a good idea too, about finding a "location" through work. So you go into the office, to do some research in the personnel files.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
<i>Monday evening. Your study.</i> "You got your schoolwork?" you ask Will as you settle in at your desk. He had hinted broadly at the dinner table about finding some real interesting "research" that he wanted to talk to you about.<br/>
<br/>
"My schoolwork, Kim's homework," he chortles. "Man, that girl just came <i>alive</i> when I told her I was looking for single-parent kids at school to interview." Kim is the president of the student council, and her eagerness to help was so intense (Caleb reports) that she spent her own weekend compiling a list of names. Which is why it's Monday night before you can start looking over the possibilities. "And I did some research of my own after I got home this afternoon," he adds. "Did you get my email?"<br/>
<br/>
You glance at your laptop screen. "I got it but I haven't looked at it."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I went online and found some pictures to go with the names." His grin lights up the room.<br/>
<br/>
"Why's that?"<br/>
<br/>
His face falls. "Well, don't you want to see who—?"<br/>
<br/>
"We're looking for a house. The faces don't—"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, God!" he exclaims. "Are you serious? You don't care what they look like?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, that's not the point of thing, is it?"<br/>
<br/>
"So if I told you— Grossie Gutierrez," he says, and folds his arms.<br/>
<br/>
"What about her?" She's a girl at school—fat, ugly, with a visible mustache on her upper lip.<br/>
<br/>
"That's one of the names Kim gave me. So I guess I'll bring her over, and you—"<br/>
<br/>
"Alright, alright! Who else did you—?"<br/>
<br/>
"I emailed some selfies I found online. I mean, some of them you know already. Like Kim. She's at the top of the list." He leans across your desk to grasp the edge of your laptop.<br/>
<br/>
You slap him away. "Really? I didn't know that."<br/>
<br/>
"Single dad. So, you know, Kim herself is definitely one who—"<br/>
<br/>
"Who else?"<br/>
<br/>
Will sucks in a deep breath, then unzips his pack and and takes out a notebook. You open up the email he sent. There's at least a dozen photo attachments.<br/>
<br/>
<i>This is gonna take awhile,</i> you think.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Indeed it does. For almost an hour you and Caleb go over the list, and after he leaves you go over it again, cross-checking the names with the photos and with results of internet searches on the names as you try to learn where they live and what their living arrangements are.<br/>
<br/>
It's the latter that leads you to strike out a variety of choices, some of which Caleb had plumped hard for—like a certain Melanie Saxon—and others he was indifferent to—like Dane Matthias. In the cases of those two, it's because you doubt that you want to do this kind of work inside a mobile home. You also eliminate anyone who isn't at least a junior, as you want someone who is at least semi-independent, and you also eliminate those who have younger siblings.<br/>
<br/>
But you are ambivalent about the resulting list, even after you look it over. <i>Independence. Privacy. Mobility.</i> These are the things you need in an ... impersonation. And the longer you look over the list of classmates, the less inclined you are to choose from them. Really, the only reason to pick one, you decide, is because a teenager is likely to have more free time to do the work. So in the back of the notebook Will left with you, you jot down some additional ideas.<br/>
<br/>
Some are particular names—co-workers at Salopek, and acquaintances at church—while others are just general ideas. "A teacher at school," for instance. <br/>
<br/>
You're still working at this very general level when Martha looks in at you to ask if you're coming to bed any time soon. That's when you look at the clock, and see that it's nearly ten-thirty. "In a minute," you tell her. Silently, you add, <i>Pick a place, Harris, before you go to bed. Then sleep on it.</i><br/>
<br/>
The next morning, when you wake, you haven't picked a particular person. But you have settled on a general idea. It will be—<span class="ejnjuszMT"></span></span></div></div>


path: 11111121122112111234
author_id: seuzz
id: TFTV98LFW
title: Teacher Feature
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>You meet Will at the head of the stairs the next morning. You can't keep your lip from curling a little as you study him, with his wild hair jammed under a sloppy ball cap, his lanky frame lost inside a floppy t-shirt and some worn-out jeans. You're in a crisp, buttoned-up white dress shirt, slacks, stiff dress shoes, and a tie. But if he reads your glance of disapproval, he doesn't register it.<br/>
<br/>
"Teachers," you tell him in a low voice, and glance at the nearby door (closed) to Robert's room. "I want you to make notes of some of the teachers. Put them on the list we were talking over last night."<br/>
<br/>
His eyes pop, but you just turn and precede him downstairs.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It was with a sense of certainty that you grasped the thought when you woke the next morning. <i>A teacher at school,</i> you told yourself. <i>If they're not married, or if they at least don't have children. That would give us a base, and access to the school and to our doppelgangers. We wouldn't have as much free time as we maybe need, but we'd have at least as much as I've got now. And they'd be pretty easy to get to, easier than some of the other people we were talking about.</i><br/>
<br/>
Of course, your first thought went to the teachers you've got or have had. Most of them, though, give you the shudders when you think of turning yourself into them. Mr Walberg? Vomit. Mr. Hawks? Yeargh! Mr. Peters? You almost faint. Ms. Gladstone, though, is a possibility, and being Mr. Kowalski or Mr. Cash would be no worse than being your own dad. (Which is still pretty gross, even after getting somewhat used to it over the past few days.) But there are lots of other teachers at Westside, and if you can get a line on which ones are promising, you can start constructing a list.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Naturally, Caleb winds up being no help. He texts you a list of possibilities later that morning, and though you have no time—being consumed with Salopek work—to give it more than a glance-over, you can tell just by the names that he's only thinking in physical terms. As in, which teachers give him a boner.<br/>
<br/>
So you call your son during his lunch break to give him an earful.<br/>
<br/>
"You're not taking this seriously," you growl at him. "Ms. Willett? Mrs. Oliver? First of all, why the fuck do you think I want to be someone who has a <i>husband?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"These are for you?" he asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Of course they're for fucking me!" You quickly close the door to your office, and lock it. "Who did you think they were—?"<br/>
<br/>
"I thought this was a partnership!" he sputters back. "I thought we were— Like with the kids you were having me research! Find a house where there's just two people, one for you and one for me."<br/>
<br/>
"So <i>you</i> want to be Mrs. Oliver?"<br/>
<br/>
"She's hot," he says, defensively.<br/>
<br/>
"And I'd be her husband? Yeah, you're not thinking this through," you snort when there's no answer. "Or you are, but you're thinking with your cock, not your—"<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, what exactly are we looking for now?" he snaps. "'Cos if it's a teacher, and if you want both of us in a house, it's probably gonna be husband and wife!"<br/>
<br/>
Alright, he's got you there, he's caught <i>you</i> not thinking things through.<br/>
<br/>
"Fine, point taken," you reply. "But I'd like it to be someone with a brain. I need to be someone at least as smart as my dad, 'cos this stuff is hard and I need all the help I can get."<br/>
<br/>
"So what's wrong with Mrs. Oliver?"<br/>
<br/>
"She's math. I think science would be—"<br/>
<br/>
"Mrs. Gambetta, then."<br/>
<br/>
"So <i>you</i> could be Mr. Gambetta?"<br/>
<br/>
"Mr. Gelding."<br/>
<br/>
<i>That</i> suggestion is like a hammer blow between the eyes. Mr. Gelding—a.k.a. "The Nutcracker"—is the hardest hard-ass at the school. He's not as old and decrepit as many of the teachers there, but he's not young, either. Oh, but there you go again, judging based on looks. You know exactly why Caleb is suggesting Mr. Gelding: because he has the reputation for also being the smartest teacher on staff at Westside. If anyone at the school could crack the challenge you've set yourself, it would be him.<br/>
<br/>
Also, you can sense that Caleb is trying to corner you into either accepting Mr. Gelding as a candidate, or into rejecting him for the same reason he is trying to suggest people like Mrs. Willett. Because they are attractive.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, put Mr. Gelding on the list," you tell him. "Along with his wife. If he's got one."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb makes a slight choking noise. "I don't know if there is."<br/>
<br/>
"Then, lucky you, we can swap you in for—"<br/>
<br/>
"And what if he's got kids?"<br/>
<br/>
That stops you dead. Teachers? With kids? It hadn't occurred to you—and you could kick yourself—that they might.<br/>
<br/>
You certainly can't have kids in the house, not with the kind of thing you're planning. You'd have to put a mask on them, and that's not a step you want to take unless there's no other option.<br/>
<br/>
After a moment's heavy thought, during which you hear only Will's ragged breath over the phone, and the distant voices of kids shouting at Westside, you say, "How do we find out which teachers don't have kids?"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
One of the perks of being the hardest-working (and maybe the most indispensable) man at Salopek is that you can take off from work early (or even in the middle of the day) for an hour without getting docked and without even having to get permission. So, at four-forty-five that same afternoon, you are parked out front of Westside High School. The school busses have gone, and the teacher's lot has been emptying. But the school is still busy with students doing extracurricular activities, teachers finishing up their work, and administrators wrapping up for the day.<br/>
<br/>
It is the latter you are interested in. Maybe.<br/>
<br/>
It was Caleb who suggested the obvious strategy for finding a suitable teacher at Westside: interview one of the administrators. But since you can't really "interview" such an administrator, not about the kind of personal information you need about the staff, you are going to have to use more ... intrusive ... methods.<br/>
<br/>
As you frown at the front doors to the school, your old truck finally pulls into the lot and parks next to you. Will hops out, then gets into the car with you. "Sorry, got caught in traffic," he says as he digs inside the plastic bag he's carrying.<br/>
<br/>
"We still got plenty of time. I think half the school's still here," you say. You look over as he pulls two masks out of the sack. You answer his grin with the query, "I thought I said we only need one."<br/>
<br/>
"I <i>got</i> one," he retorts. "And I got another one, just in case."<br/>
<br/>
"Just in case what? You mess up?"<br/>
<br/>
"Just in case we see a chance to score a second one! <i>Dad!</i>" he sasses. "Aren't you the one that's supposed to be thinking three steps ahead?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, let's not rush into anything. I wasn't exactly planning on making a <i>switch</i> here, just on copying someone so we could— Jesus!" you exclaim, for Will has also pulled out the tub of the goop you need to enslave a mask to your control.<br/>
<br/>
"Always be prepared," he says. "We gonna use your hair or mine?"<br/>
<br/>
"We'll decide that after we decide if we're going to do a switch."<br/>
<br/>
"I still think we should be prepared."<br/>
<br/>
"Alright," you grumble. "Then we'll use mine."<br/>
<br/>
You reach up to pull the mask of your dad off—because you need to use your hair, not his—but Caleb stops you.<br/>
<br/>
"Hang on," he says, "we can't have two Will Prescotts sitting in a car together. One of you is bad news enough. I'll take off my mask first—"<br/>
<br/>
"You go inside and do it in a restroom," you growl. "I'll do it out here."<br/>
<br/>
You expect him to argue, but he opens the car door with a grin.<br/>
<br/>
"Great idea," he says. "And after that, I'll scout around the school, see who's left to grab." He hops out with the bag, but he does leave one mask for you. He sprints across the front quad for the school doors.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You set an alarm on your phone to wake you, so from the time you take your dad's mask off to the time you wake up back inside it (having clipped off some of your hair and put it on the dashboard in between), you lose only two minutes. The experience leaves you very groggy and a more than a little bad-tempered.<br/>
<br/>
So you ignore the text from Will, telling you that Mr. Gelding and Mrs. Gambetta are both still in their classrooms, and are the only teachers left in the science wing, and when he pokes you again you tell him to just keep still and watch. Two seconds after hitting "send," though, he lobs another text at you, suggesting that you ambush whichever teacher happens to be the last one in the Agricultural Annex in back of the school. You remind him that you're here to snag an administrator.<br/>
<br/>
Still, you have to admit he has a point. Maybe you should just grab a teacher. Even if they are not the best choice, a teacher—any teacher—would be a place to work from, at least toward a better alias. As it is, you are gambling that you can catch the last administrator in the building.<br/>
<br/>
Or what about the security guard, who you glimpse opening the door for Mrs. Epstein and Ms. Goretsky? He's a new guy, looking very young and fit. He's probably single. And he'd also have access to the school while being relatively invisible.<br/>
<br/>
You hesitate, then choose:<span class="ejnjuszMT"></span></span></div></div>


path: 111111211221121112344
author_id: seuzz
id: NC73TFQGQ
title: Inheriting the Meek
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>You hesitate a long time, long enough for Caleb to report that Mr. Gelding is leaving, then that Mrs. Gambetta is on her way out too. And when you ask him to check out the Ag Annex, he texts back that the doors are locked.<br/>
<br/>
This puts you onto your back foot, and you renew your concentration on the administrators, who at around five begin trickling out. The security guard—who you dismiss as an absolute, last-only resort—holds the door for each as they exit.<br/>
<br/>
First to leave is the gray-faced, decrepit Mr. Dow, and that's a relief, because of the school admins he would be your absolute last choice. Then out comes Mr. Staufford. He sits in his car for awhile, and you are tempted to go over and plant a mask on him, but he drives off before you can work up your nerve. Then the secretaries head out in a cluster. Finally, Mr. Sagansky comes out with Ms. Meek, the chief assistant. They walk together until they reach the parking lot, where they stop to chat and laugh briefly. They make quite a pair: Mr. Sagansky, who is tall and lean and rangy, looking even in his navy-blue blazer like he should be sporting a cowboy hat and boots; and Ms. Meek, who is short, dumpy, and has the demeanor of a woodchuck hopped up on goofballs. After a minute or two, they part in opposite ways, for two of the few cars now left in the lot.<br/>
<br/>
Mr. Sagansky spots you, and you stiffen as he stops to stare at you through the windshield. Then he starts to come over.<br/>
<br/>
So you roll down your window and shout, "Waiting for my son to come out!"<br/>
<br/>
The principal glances at the building. "Place is gonna be locked up soon!"<br/>
<br/>
"He's out back in the athletic fields, I think!"<br/>
<br/>
"You should park in the student lot, then!"<br/>
<br/>
You shrug, and he does too, and sets off for his car.<br/>
<br/>
You hesitate, then get out, with a mask in your hand.<br/>
<br/>
But Sagansky has his car started before you can reach him, and he pulls out without seeing you approach. You watch him leave, then turn to squint back the other way. Ms. Meek is in her car, hunching over her phone (it looks like). You hurry over before she too can make an escape.<br/>
<br/>
She looks up at you with a violent double-take as you loom over her window, then with a grin that is either very cheerful or else very terrified, she rolls the window down. "Hello!" she gabbles.<br/>
<br/>
You paste her in the face with the mask.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
A couple of more teachers—coaches, by the look of them—come out while you are loitering by Ms. Meek's car, carefully blocking off the sight of her by leaning against the door. Will, in answer to your summons, comes jogging in from God knows where in back of the school. (Maybe from the athletic fields, like you told Mr. Sagansky.) He stops dead when he sees who you've caught. "You're shitting me!" he exclaims.<br/>
<br/>
"She was the last one I could get. And she can get us into the personnel files, I'm pretty sure."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, she's all yours, Dad."<br/>
<br/>
You just grunt, and tell him to take your spot while you fetch the rest of the necessary gear from your car. You climb into the passenger seat of her car, and as the last of the minutes tick down, you text Martha to tell her that you met Will at the school and will be taking him for a father-son dinner someplace. You wince at the spanner this is likely to throw into her own supper preparations, and the stern little lecture you'll get when you return home.<br/>
<br/>
You watch Ms. Meek carefully, and catch the mask as soon as it reappears on her moon face. You seal it up, then coat it with the special paste, push that bit of your hair into it, and set it afire. It quickly burns the paste dry, and you put the mask back onto her. Her eyes instantly open, and she draws a deep breath, then gasps when she sees you in the cabin of her car with her.<br/>
<br/>
"Quiet. You have to do what I say," you tell her. "You understand, don't you?" She nods; a terrified grin full of flat, white teeth spreads over her face. "Where do you live?" She stammers out an address.<br/>
<br/>
"Don't be scared," you tell her, and she relaxes visibly. "Just drive home. I'll meet you there." After giving her a long look, for you are feeling doubtful, you get out. She doesn't wait, but instantly starts the car and pulls out. She doesn't even glance back as she races for the street.<br/>
<br/>
"Is she gonna call the cops?" Will asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Shit, I hope not," you confess. "Anyway, I gotta go, I said I'd meet her at her place."<br/>
<br/>
"What for?"<br/>
<br/>
"To talk to her. Start finding out what she knows. You better come with me."<br/>
<br/>
"How come?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because I told your mom I was taking you out to eat."<br/>
<br/>
He brightens. "Are you?"<br/>
<br/>
"I guess. Hope you like Taco Bell."<br/>
<br/>
His face falls.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Ms. Meek lives in the Mellon Village Apartments complex, just a few blocks east of the river (and not too far from the Taco Bell, as it happens), and she is waiting nervously in front of her door as you park next to  her car.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't get what's going on, boss," she says in a quavery voice as you join her.<br/>
<br/>
The "boss" catches you a little off-stride, but you ignore it.<br/>
<br/>
"Just go inside, and I'll follow," you tell her. You nod over your shoulder at Will, who has pulled up beside your car, as she unlocks her door. You follow her in, shutting the door for her, and pushing her out of the foyer and into the living room just beyond. With a grouchy <i>mkiaow,</i> a black-and-white tabby runs in and rubs itself alongside Ms. Meek's ankles. "Let's go sit down," you tell her, and with a white face she leads you over to a sofa.<br/>
<br/>
"Do you live alone?" you ask her, and instantly wish you had asked her that first thing, back at the school. When she nods, you add, "Are you supposed to go out or meet anyone tonight?"<br/>
<br/>
"No," she stammers.<br/>
<br/>
"Good. Give me your phone."<br/>
<br/>
You continue to question her, about her family and friends, as you scroll through her texts, none of which make sense to you. She lives alone, she says; her family lives out of state, but she has a clutch of girlfriends from the school, the district offices, and from church, who she does things with. But she has no plans for the night. As for whether she can help you at the school: "Of course I can get into the personnel files," she blusters. "I'm an assistant principal!"<br/>
<br/>
You thought she was just an aide, but this is better.<br/>
<br/>
In fact, it's so much better that you make a snap decision. "Go back in your bedroom and take off your clothes," you order her.<br/>
<br/>
"What?" she gasps even as she staggers to her feet.<br/>
<br/>
"It'll be alright. Do you have a spare bedroom?"<br/>
<br/>
"Just one I use as a study," she stammers as she totters toward a hallway.<br/>
<br/>
So you decide to use the bathroom to change. You are loosening your tie, and thumbing in a text to Caleb, telling him to hold tight for now, as you follow in the wake of your imposture-to-be.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You open your eyes with a groan and squint at the ceiling. Your limbs are stiff and your joints ache. At least you don't have a headache. But for about the thousandth time, you swear off frozen margaritas.<br/>
<br/>
Then you remember that you haven't been out drinking with Miriam and the gang.<br/>
<br/>
You gasp. <i>That freaking weirdo, and the teenager, who followed you into your apartment!</i> You bolt upright—<br/>
<br/>
—and the <i>clang</i> that rings inside your head is as loud and hard as though you'd banged it into something. You grab your face and groan again as it all floods back to you. With a deep sigh, you heave your naked self off the bed and stagger into the bathroom.<br/>
<br/>
The visage of Barbara Ann Meek peeps out at you from the depths of the mirror, from behind the vine of dirty-blonde ringlets that drapes over your face. You push it aside with a chubby hand.<br/>
<br/>
Barbara Meek looks short and dumpy when fully dressed because she is short and dumpy when she is undressed, and she doesn't really dressing to hide it. Your belly bulges and wobbles, and your hips bulge and wobble, and your thighs just bulge. You've got big breasts, though, and they still are still taut. You cup and lift them now as you stare down at them, and their nipples harden in the chill of the bathroom. When you look back up into the mirror, some of the color has returned to your face, so that there are roses in your cheek. And when you attempt a smile—<br/>
<br/>
<i>Oh God!</i> She really can't help it, can she? Your eyes pop wide and your mouth gapes open, so that you look like a demented gopher or groundhog or woodchuck or some other roly-poly, oversized rodent; one that's just opened a door and found, to its lunatic glee, a free, all-you-can-eat buffet of breadsticks and lasagna on the other side. <i>Golly!</i> your expression says as your head wobbles on your neck, <i>if I'd known you was coming I wouldn't have eaten that cake I just baked! All of it!</i><br/>
<br/>
You're limping back into the bedroom to dress when the phone—you gave her number to your dad (his treated mask now gripping the face of the real Barbara Meeks) before sending him out—chimes with a text. You pick it up, read the text, then call Will Prescott back direct. "Hey," you chirp drunkenly at him. "You wanna come in and scope out a fat, naked chick?"<br/>
<br/>
There's a long pause before Caleb answers. "Only if I have a chance of scoring."<br/>
<br/>
Well, he hasn't got a chance of that. But Barbara has some friends he could become.<span class="ejnjuszMT"></span></span></div></div>


path: 1111112112211211123442
author_id: seuzz
id: Y7WKT3CX3
title: Administrative Action
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>"Well, I wasn't serious about having you come over anyway," you tell Caleb. "It would be weird."<br/>
<br/>
"How would it be weird?" he asks.<br/>
<br/>
You plop heavily onto the bed and blink at the obtuseness of the question. "Um, because you're a seventeen-year-old high school student, and I'm a thirty-year-old school administrator?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, okay," he sighs. "So how are we supposed to meet up? If we do need to meet up?"<br/>
<br/>
"Just come into the office and tell me you've got a, uh, scheduling problem. I'll take you back into the conference room and we'll talk there."<br/>
<br/>
"I thought we were supposed to be working together on this thing."<br/>
<br/>
"We are. We will. But I still gotta figure out we're going to do this." You catch yourself squeezing and massaging one of you massive boobs, and force yourself to drop it. "I just woke up, like, two minutes ago, my head isn't where it needs to be yet. Trust me, after I figure this gal's life out, I'll find a spot to put you in."<br/>
<br/>
"How long'll that be?"<br/>
<br/>
"Why are you in such a hurry?" You twist around and start to paw one-handed through Barbara's discarded clothes.<br/>
<br/>
"'Cos it's gonna be kind of weird here, Will. At your place, I mean. It was weird enough dealing with your mom and brother when <i>you</i> were here with me. But when your dad gets home, he's going to be <i>your dad</i>—"<br/>
<br/>
"It's not my dad," you retort. "That's the whole reason we're doing this, because <i>you</i> fucked up my—"<br/>
<br/>
"You know what I mean! It's just gonna be <i>me</i>, playing <i>you</i>, with <i>your</i> family! Which isn't the worst place to be, but it's gonna be freaking <i>weird!</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"Alright," you grumble. "I'll figure something out for you— Jeez, I got another call," you interrupt yourself, for your phone is beeping in your ear. "But I'll call you into the office tomorrow for a 'conference', and we'll talk about it."<br/>
<br/>
"Can you call me in third period? I hate that bullshit Career Plan—"<br/>
<br/>
"I'll call you in when it's convenient for me. Now, go do my dad proud and get me an A on all tonight's homework."<br/>
<br/>
You switch to answer the other call.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It was Miriam Haskins, Barbara's best friend, and she would have been a good choice for Caleb to switch into, except that you don't want to leap into anything without putting some more thought into it.<br/>
<br/>
But first things first.<br/>
<br/>
After binding yourself up inside fresh panties and bra, you pull on some sloppy sweatpants and a sweatshirt, and house slippers, and dump your office clothes into the "dry cleaning" hamper. Then you shuffle into the kitchen to begin supper.<br/>
<br/>
That starts by refreshing the cat's food bowl (Banjo is her name), and then standing in front of the open freezer  door until you are on the verge of catching a cold while deciding which frozen entree to prepare. You settle on lasagna because there's a salad pack you need to get rid of. Then, while the frozen dinner heats up in the oven, you perch on a stool by the countertop and hunch over your phone to review your social media and contacts. In the back of your mind, you assess each as a possible imposture for Caleb.<br/>
<br/>
Top of the list would have to be Miriam Haskins, from the school district offices. She and Barbara are the same age—thirty-three—and they quickly bonded as best friends when Miriam came to work at the offices two years ago. The two women are very similar—lumpy and wobbly, but cheerfully so—and they just dote on each other. Miriam, on those Saturday nights when she hasn't got a date, will come over to watch Netflix with Barbara, and most every Friday the two of them put together a party of half-a-dozen gals from the school offices to go out for "Margaritas and Mexican" night. They even shop together.<br/>
<br/>
The only difference between them is that Miriam is black. That all by itself would be a delightful thing to spring on Caleb. But the real advantage would be that Barbara and Miriam are always doing things together, so you and he would look natural together in their faces.<br/>
<br/>
In fact, their very inseparability would make it hard to put Caleb anyplace else. You'd have to cancel a lot of Barbara's social life while you and he were working.<br/>
<br/>
And yet, though the prospect is of turning the skinny, fish-faced, very white Caleb Johansson into a fat, sassy black woman is delicious, you find yourself edging away from it. Even though the whole point of these impersonations is to find yourself a safe and private place to work, and even though it was Caleb's idea that you find yourself some other place than the Prescotts' to work in, you can't escape the feeling that he in part is hankering for an impersonation because he wants to have some fun. And although Miriam, with her "Margarita and Mexican" nights, her dating life, and her constant moviegoing—she goes to the movies at least twice a week, and will see almost anything that is playing—is someone who likes to have fun, and does have fun, you wonder if it is really the kind of fun that Caleb is looking for.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Look, it's going to be Miriam or no one,</i> you imagine yourself impatiently sighing at him after explaining the situation. <i>If I'm going to be Barbara Meek—<br/>
<br/>
But why do you have to be Barbara Meek,</i> you imagine him retorting. After all, didn't you pick her so she could help you find the <i>real</i> impersonation to carry out inside Westside?<br/>
<br/>
So perhaps you should be thinking of Barbara as a just a temporary way-station. Instead of looking for a place for Caleb, you should be looking for a new place for yourself.<br/>
<br/>
You let your mind drift through the obvious possibilities as you settle onto the sofa with your lasagna and Caeser salad, with Banjo purring on a throw pillow nearby, to watch reruns of <i>The Office.</i><br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"So you're saying you wouldn't mind turning black?"<br/>
<br/>
Will Prescott answers your question with a very level look, then leans over to look past your shoulder. He is (you can tell) ostentatiously checking to confirm that you shut the door to the administrative conference room.<br/>
<br/>
It's Wednesday afternoon, and you're making him miss his lunch. But this is the first chance you've had to pull him in to talk about what comes next.<br/>
<br/>
He tensed all over when you greeted him at the front desk with an exuberant, "So you're Will Prescott! I've seen you around but now I get to put a name to the face!" And he followed very stiffly as you led him down the short hallway to the conference room you had reserved for this meeting.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm willing to do whatever we need to do, Will," your doppelganger says. He sounds very unenthusiastic. "I mean," he continues as he pricks you over with a cool glance, "when I look at what <i>you're</i> willing to do to yourself—"<br/>
<br/>
"But you'd like something else," you finish for him. He shrugs.<br/>
<br/>
At least he didn't shoot you down right away, when you told him about Miriam Haskins, and how he would probably have to become her. He didn't look very upset, either, when you took out your phone and showed a picture of Barbara and Miriam, standing in front of the movie theater, both grinning like a couple of high school girls, as they came out of the most recent Chris Previn blockbuster. <br/>
<br/>
He just took it very coolly. So you're not sure if he's telling you that he'd rather have a different face, or that he'd just settle for <i>you</i> settling on someone for him.<br/>
<br/>
The thing is, if you're going to give Caleb a face other than Miriam Haskins's, you are either going to have to put a lot more thought into things, or you're going to have to shift from under Barbara Meek's face into another. And in fact you did make a short list of likely alternatives last night, and you surreptitiously double-checked the personnel files this morning to confirm what Barbara thought she knew about them.<br/>
<br/>
If you want to shift yourself into a teacher or administrator who is single (and who isn't grotesquely ugly), your best choices would be Hannah Cho, Michael Hagerman, or Fidvi Rehman.<br/>
<br/>
Ms. Cho is the new freshman English teacher, a quiet, and stylishly dressed twenty-something woman. She might be the best choice period, simply because she has a younger sister who is a sophomore at Westside, which would surely make it very convenient for you and Caleb to meet by replacing that sister with Caleb.<br/>
<br/>
Mr. Hagerman is another English teacher, a studly one who all the girls crush on. You've no idea what his private life is like, but there would probably be someone in his life who is the equivalent of Miriam Haskins in Barbara's. Or maybe you could pair Mr. Hagerman with Ms. Cho or with one of the other possibles you picked out.<br/>
<br/>
One of these would be Mr. Rehman, who just this last Monday replaced Mr. Fernandez after the administration finally got fed up with the old teacher's habit of showing up to class half-drunk. Barbara doesn't know Fidvi Rehman anything about the teacher, except that he is a twenty-something Pakistani-American with dark good looks, a winning smile, and a faint but exotic accent. And that there has been a thin traffic of female teachers into the office since Monday inquiring about his marital status.<br/>
<br/>
A fourth good possibility you identified is Shannon Welch, who is one of the tutors. At first you thought she was single, but a check on her files shows that she is married to someone named Stephen. Shannon is cute and pert and in her late twenties. She and her husband don't have any children, and if you (and Caleb) could stand being married to each other, a two-couple household would probably be an ideal workplace for the research you need to do.<span class="ejnjuszMT"></span></span></div></div>


path: 11111121122112111234422
author_id: seuzz
id: N5TY64SPZ
title: Welching on Your First Bet
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>Caleb doesn't really seem enthused at the idea of turning himself into a fat black woman named Miriam Haskins.<br/>
<br/>
"Well," you explain to him in a voice tight with impatience, "it doesn't have to be Miriam. Except to get someone else for you, I'll have to switch places with someone else—"<br/>
<br/>
"And wouldn't that be a tragedy," your doppelganger retorts.<br/>
<br/>
You are suddenly very conscious of this body you are wearing. It is a heavy body, a shapeless body, squeezed into a bra and tight-fitting foundation garments, and a black-and-white silk dress that binds tightly to every bulge of belly and hip.<br/>
<br/>
It wasn't bad as you were getting dressed this morning. You didn't feel "sexy," but you did feel ... <i>beautiful in your amplitude.</i><br/>
<br/>
But maybe that was Barbara's psychology and personality at work. Because now, under your friend's caustic eye, you just feel fat and wobbly.<br/>
<br/>
"I only care about finding a good place to work from," you growl at him. "Remember, this was <i>your</i> idea, getting ourselves into someone's house so we could—"<br/>
<br/>
"I thought <i>you</i> wanted out of <i>your</i> house."<br/>
<br/>
"So it's what we <i>both</i> wanted! But if you've got a problem with it—" You glare at him. "Well, what are <i>your</i> ideas?"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't you have any?" he coolly replies.<br/>
<br/>
You glare at him. Then you heave yourself to your feet—you're uncomfortably conscious that you have to push yourself up from the table, while Will Prescott scrambles directly onto his—and gesture him to follow you out. The girls at the front desk are busy with students, or are eating at their desks, so no one pays the slightest attention as you wobble your way out of the office and around the corner.<br/>
<br/>
Just across from the offices, behind a long series of floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows, are the tutorial/guidance offices. Visible through the transparent walls are the desks of the tutors, and at one of them sits Shannon Welch.<br/>
<br/>
She is a small, young woman with pale, almost translucent skin, large eyes, and dark-red hair pulled back in a bun. She is dressed today, as she is always dressed, rather mannishly in a lumpy blue sports jacket, pale slacks, and a white shirt buttoned all the way up to her throat. The remains of her lunch are sitting at hand while she concentrates on her laptop with a frown.<br/>
<br/>
You turn your back on her and fold your arms to address Will.<br/>
<br/>
"That's Shannon Welch," you tell him. "She's one of the tutors. Is she prettier than me?"<br/>
<br/>
Will looks startled, then peevish, as he glances between you and Shannon.<br/>
<br/>
"What does that matter?" he asks. "We're not doing this 'cos—"<br/>
<br/>
"Are you sure that's not why we're doing it? Then what was with the personal remarks back there in the office?"<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus, Will!"<br/>
<br/>
You snort and turn to the doors to the tutorial offices. Will starts to follow, but then hangs back.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey!" you bellow at Shannon. She starts, and looks up at you with a hanging jaw. "How come I always see you eating by yourself?" You grin. "Or do ya just not like the cafeteria food?" You glance down at the remains of her lunch: some kind of tomato-and-pasta dish, in a plastic container.<br/>
<br/>
"It's the only time I have off at school to work on personal stuff," Shannon says. Her brow furrows, and her eyes dart about.<br/>
<br/>
"Better not be porn!" You giggle. "But seriously, I got a favor to ask."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
So, without even bothering to consult with Caleb, you set up an afterschool meeting to capture and switch places with Shannon Welch. You (that is to say, Barbara) have had little to do with her, and you are surprised at how mousy and compliant she is to your request to stay after five for a little "talk." To Caleb, you give a special set of orders, which with a sour expression he agrees to follow.<br/>
<br/>
The rest of the day passes for normal. You deal with paperwork involving the school clubs and sports teams—there is some drama involving the East-West Club, and Kim Walsh, as student council president, has asked you to see if there's some money that can be squeezed out of the school district to smooth things over—and gossip with the other girls in the office about Mr. Rehman and Mr. Fernandez. A couple of parents come in to talk about disciplinary problems with their children. Basically, just a succession of small fires that have to be put out. You also field texts from Miriam, who has been hankering to do something special with you and the other gals for Halloween, which is only week away.<br/>
<br/>
By four o'clock, though, the office is clear of student aides, and the secretaries are packing up by four-thirty. Mr. Dow (who, it turns out, has recently been diagnosed with prostate cancer, though that's a fact known only to you, Mr. Sagansky, and Mr. Staufford) is looking so tired and down at the mouth that you insist on sending him home early, promising that you'll finish up the budgetary items he has been working on. But you are not merely being thoughtful in the Barbara Meek manner when you do so. It's the excuse you give Staufford and Sagansky when you tell them, as they are getting ready to go, that you need to stay a little late. They wish you a good night and leave you alone in the school.<br/>
<br/>
Except for the new security guard. And Shannon Welch. Who you made sure was waiting around for you.<br/>
<br/>
Caleb has also been and gone from the office, stopping in only long enough to give you a sack with the blank but prepared mask he fetched from the old basement. You are armed with this when you waddle out of the office.<br/>
<br/>
"Good night, Rick!" you call to the security guard—who is quite handsome, but also very intimidating in a "hard-ass cop" kind of way. He smiles curtly back at you from the front doors. <br/>
<br/>
And since you don't want him accidentally stumbling on what you'll be getting up, you follow up with, "Oh, and can I get you to go ahead and check all the outside doors, make sure they're locked? Including the music annex and theater and those? I know you will anyway, but one of our teachers— I don't wanna say who," you stammer a little, for Rick is giving you a very hard look. "But she was asking if—"<br/>
<br/>
"Yes ma'am," Rick says. The skin and muscles of his face are very tight as he marches off toward A-wing. <i>Well, you've just stored yourself up some trouble, Barbara,</i> you tell yourself. He's probably going to make a point of reporting back to you after he's made those rounds.<br/>
<br/>
So you don't waste any time. Shannon is tapping away on her laptop as you approach the tutorial offices, but she sees you coming, and quickly wraps up whatever she is working on. You don't go in, and only crook a finger at her. With a puzzled frown, she gets up.<br/>
<br/>
You wait for her at the office door, and squeeze her arm comfortingly as you open it for her.<br/>
<br/>
"I hope I didn't make you nervous or anything when I asked you to stay," you tell her. "It's only that it's kind of a sensitive topic." Out of the corner of your eye you see Will Prescott loitering outside the main doors into the school, but you ignore him for the moment. <br/>
<br/>
"It looks like we're going to have a position open up in the administration," you continue as you gesture Shannon to precede you down the hallway into the back," and Jeff wanted me to sound you out about it." With her back turned, you quickly pull the mask out of the bag you had positioned on the front counter. "There's going to be some competition for it, and, well, we don't want other people knowing who we're talking to. Door on your left," you add. She steps through the doorway to the conference room and you're right behind her, and once you're over the threshold you catch her from behind and push the mask into her face. She instantly goes limp, and almost drags you to the floor as you catch her. With a lot of sudden puffing, you lay Shannon out flat on the ground. Then you hustle back out.<br/>
<br/>
Will starts pulling at the front doors when he sees you, but they don't open. Nor do they open when you push at the arm. You look up into each other's faces in alarm. Rick has already locked the front doors!<br/>
<br/>
"Run around to the side entrance," you yell through the glass, and point off in the direction of the gym. "Hurry!" He bolts off. You chew your lip, because what happens if Rick has already locked those doors as well? He was headed the opposite way when you saw him, and it will take him awhile to work his way back to the other side, where Caleb is going to try getting in.<br/>
<br/>
It turns out that the other doors were <i>not</i> locked, and so just a minute or two later your doppelganger comes pounding down the hallway toward you. For a moment you feel a pang of spiteful jealousy at his ability to hustle hard. You'd give yourself a heart attack if you tried running even half as fast as him.<br/>
<br/>
"Quick, in the back, into that conference room," you tell him as you push him into the office. You lock the doors behind you, so you won't be bothered by Rick.<br/>
<br/>
You meet Will in the conference room, where he is looking down at Shannon Welch.<br/>
<br/>
"So, which of us is going to put on her mask?" he asks.<span class="ejnjuszMT"></span></span></div></div>


path: 111111211221121112344221
author_id: seuzz
id: TN8VLL2DB
title: Meek and Meeker
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>"I'll put it on," you tell Caleb. With a hammering heart you look down at the prone body of Shannon Welch. <br/>
<br/>
"Okay," Will says. "What are we going to do about, uh, the real whatserame here?"<br/>
<br/>
"Who? Shannon?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, whale-woman."<br/>
<br/>
You feel a flash of anger, but suppress it. "We'll put her mask onto Shannon."<br/>
<br/>
"And what's Shannon gonna think when she wakes up and finds she's been transformed into a human-manatee hybrid?"<br/>
<br/>
You give him a dirty look as you reach behind for the zipper to your dress.<br/>
<br/>
"She's not gonna wake up and find anything like that," you say. "I put summa that stuff into Barbara's mask, so she'll just be, you know, Barbara Meek when she wakes up." The dress relaxes around your shoulders as you pull the zipper all the way down, and you kick off your shoes. "We can switch people back around later, put the real Barbara back to normal and put my dad's mask on Shannon. Or— I dunno, maybe we'll leave everyone where they are. It might be convenient having Barbara Meek's place as a second hideout."<br/>
<br/>
You slough the dress off your shoulders but leave it wrapped around your waist as you reach under it to start pulling your hose down. That's when you catch the look of alarm—even disgust—on your doppelganger's face.<br/>
<br/>
"You know, dude," you snarl at him, "you don't have to stay and watch."<br/>
<br/>
At least he has the grace to look a little embarrassed as he bolts from the conference room.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You're cold and itchy when you wake for the second time, and your head pounds with what feels like a migraine. But you ignore it as you turn over and frantically pat at the carpeted floor for the chiming phone. You find it, sit up, tap the alarm off, and catch your breath. To your relief, that migraine quickly recedes until it's only an acrid fog clouding your mind.<br/>
<br/>
You feel as though you've woken from a deep sleep and are dragging the ruins of an intense dream into waking, for your head is a jostling jumble of memories and instincts. You rub your face and will yourself into clarity and wakefulness. <i>My name is Will Prescott,</i> you mutter to yourself. <i>Will Prescott. I'm a student at Westside High School. But now I'm also—</i><br/>
<br/>
You reach for a nearby, almost-as-instinctual thought. <i>Barbara Meek?</i> No, that was—<br/>
<br/>
Then it hits, like a slap of cold water the face. The memory of Barbara Meek, her eyes rolling and her grin gigantic as she waddled into your office and asked you to join her in the conference room. <i>We're gonna have a new position open up,</i> she said as you followed her down the hallway, <i>and we don't want everyone knowing who we're talking to about it.</i> This was a surprise, because the last that you had heard—<br/>
<br/>
The last that <i>you</i> had heard—<br/>
<br/>
You. Shannon Welch.<br/>
<br/>
You raise your head, and push the hair from your face. You wrap your left hand across your torso, supporting your bare boobs with your forearm.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Shannon Welch. I'm Shannon Welch now, not Barbara Meek.</i> And yet Barbara's personality still seems to linger about your, like a heavy fog.<br/>
<br/>
Maybe it's because you were hardly out of her mask before getting into Shannon's. You told Caleb to wake you up after you got the mask off, and you were groggy and headachy when you came to under his violent shaking. He said something to you and you said something back, but you can't remember what it was, except it must have been about Shannon's mask, because you have the dim impression of him handing it to you.<br/>
<br/>
You frown, and glance around, and find that phone again, the one with the alarm set. It's Barbara Meek's phone. <i>The heck?</i> And where is—?<br/>
<br/>
You scramble to your feet, and the cool, dry air of the conference room scratches at your bare skin. Also at the back of your throat. <i>Ugh, I hate the climate control in this place,</i> you vaguely think as you paw at the clothes—at once strange and familiar—on the conference table. <i>It always makes me feel like I'm coming down with a cold.</i><br/>
<br/>
Voices are murmuring low from somewhere outside the room, but you ignore them and concentrate on dressing as quickly as you can: panties, bra, dress blouse ... It's after five, which means you're going to be late—probably very late—getting home.  You should probably send Stephen a text—<br/>
<br/>
<i>Oh, let him wait,</i> you spitefully think as you pull the slim dress slacks on and tuck your blouse into them. <i>Besides, it's meatloaf night and that'll keep in the oven.</i><br/>
<br/>
You pause in the act of buttoning up the slacks as you contemplate the fact of your husband.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Hmm, that's going to be tricky,</i> you think.<br/>
<br/>
Then your smile wrenches up into a wry grin. <i>No it won't. Because it's going to be Caleb!</i><br/>
<br/>
You find yourself gloating a little as you wrap the loose-fitting dress jacket about yourself, and slide the low-heeled shoes on.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Barbara Meek and Will Prescott are sitting in the front office, talking in low voices, when you emerge from the back. Barbara does a double-take at you, and her eyes roll like marbles as a slightly nauseous grin spreads over her face. "Oh, hey boss," she says. "We were just talking about you!"<br/>
<br/>
"That's nice," you retort as you twist your hair back into a bun. "Can you come help me with this?" She hurries over, and you hand her the clutch of bobby-pins that you took from Shannon's hair as you undressed her. "So what were two talking about?" you ask Will as Barbara grabs a fistful of your hair.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, just general stuff. The new security guard?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, what about him? Oh, and what's the deal with him? What happened to the old guy?"<br/>
<br/>
Will stares at you. "Don't you remember?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't think so."<br/>
<br/>
"'Cos Ms. Meek was telling me about him."<br/>
<br/>
You frown and let your mind's eye turn inward. No, there's nothing really there, nothing that Shannon Welch doesn't know, when you go searching. In fact, now that you think about it ... You can't even really remember Barbara apartment, except in a vague way. Or her cat, except that it was black and white. Could you pick her car out of the parking lot? Maybe.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, no, I can't remember anything," you confess as Barbara finishes pinning up the bun for you. "But I guess it doesn't matter. Is he still locking up?"<br/>
<br/>
"I guess so," Barbara says when Will doesn't answer. "There, pretty as a picture," she says as she comes around to grin at you, as though you were a Danish just begging to be gobbled up.<br/>
<br/>
"Thanks." Her grin makes you nervous, and you find you can't look her in the face. "Well, I have to get home now, I'm late—"<br/>
<br/>
"Does this gal live alone?" Will asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Gal?" you ask him with a frown. The word is an insult.<br/>
<br/>
"Woman. Whatever, Will."<br/>
<br/>
You sigh. "No, she's got a husband. And he's waiting for me."<br/>
<br/>
"So what are we going to do about him?" He looks at you closely.<br/>
<br/>
You're about to reply, but you catch yourself. Now that Caleb has asked the question, you're not nearly so certain as you were before about how to handle him.<br/>
<br/>
"Do we have another mask ready?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, not ready to go," he says. "But I just have to glue some pieces together."<br/>
<br/>
"But they're all polished up?<br/>
<br/>
"Sure. I just gotta glue one of those brain doohickies into it. But that's the last brain doohicky we got. And we'll have to polish up more masks, if we're going to do any more."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, we don't need anymore." You look around, vaguely, for your purse, then remember that it and the rest of your stuff will be back in the tutorial offices.<br/>
<br/>
"So, you need me to go get the stuff?" Will asks. "Put it together and, um—?" He sucks his lips as he watches you closely.<br/>
<br/>
You nod because, yes, you do need a mask to put onto Stephen Welch. But do you need to put Caleb under that mask? Really, all you need is to put a mask onto him to control him, like you've got Barbara Meek under control at the moment. And that doesn't require moving Caleb from where he is.<br/>
<br/>
Except then you'd have to set up another way for you to meet with Caleb, easily and conveniently. And Shannon, unlike Barbara Meek, doesn't really have many friends.<br/>
<br/>
In fact—and this scares you a little when you think about it—she doesn't have any friends at all.<br/>
<br/>
Not even her husband, really.<span class="ejnjuszMT"></span></span></div></div>


path: 1111112112211211123442211
author_id: seuzz
id: CPNB3DFSZ
title: Meet the Welches
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>"What's wrong?" Will asks, for you've shivered.<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing. Yeah, bring me a mask so I can use it on"—<br/>
<br/>
The words catch in your throat.<br/>
<br/>
"On my husband." When Will's eyebrows go up in a query, you add, more waspishly, "You get to be him."<br/>
<br/>
His expression turns slightly puckish, and he dashes from the office.<br/>
<br/>
You glance at Barbara Meek—her doppelganger, rather—who has been listening to all this with a cheerful placidity. "Wait here," you tell her, "while I get my stuff."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Why am I so nervous?</i> you ask yourself as you pack up the laptop and gather up your new stuff. <i>There's nothing bad at home. Stephen is ...</i><br/>
<br/>
Well, it would be too much to say that Stephen is a loving husband. It would be nearer the truth to say that he is a good roommate. <br/>
<br/>
Because that is what the Welch's marriage has deteriorated into over the last few years. Two people who are friendly enough with each other, and who comfortably share a living space. But there's no love between them.<br/>
<br/>
At least, not on Shannon's side. And there's little evidence of it on Stephen's.<br/>
<br/>
Which, at least in theory, makes their house a perfect set up for you and Caleb. Not that the two of you would be <i>pretending</i> to be husband and wife when it's just you at home, even if Stephen and Shannon were bonking like bunnies. But now there won't even be a question of role-playing.<br/>
<br/>
<i>So why am I so nervous?</i><br/>
<br/>
Maybe it's just because that's the way Shannon Welch is. Nervous.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Rick lets you and Barbara out when he returns from checking all the doors, and you quail a little under his hard, glittering eye. <i>I don't like him,</i> says the Shannon-echo in the back of your head. <i>I sure wouldn't trust him if we were alone in the school together. Where'd they find such a creep to be the new security guard?</i><br/>
<br/>
Once outside, you send Barbara away with orders to act normal and await further instructions; then, once you're in your car, you text Stephen to tell him that you have to run an errand before coming home and so you will be late. You're miffed a little by his reply—<i>Okay will put your plate in the oven</i>; he's not even going to wait for you before he eats?—but concentrate on the text you send to Caleb, telling him to meet you in the South Creek Shopping Center with the mask.<br/>
<br/>
The drive out there, and the wait once you arrive, give you more time for a little introspection.<br/>
<br/>
Shannon Fredericks was originally from Oregon, where she grew up as an only child, immersed in her own world of private play and books. She wasn't very sociable growing up, and the best that could be said of her high school years is that none of the other girls paid her much attention. She only briefly dated one guy, during her senior year, and only until he got a little handsy. After high school she attended a small liberal arts college not far from her home, where she got a bachelors in English Literature.<br/>
<br/>
That's also where she met Stephen Welch, who was getting his doctorate in economics. There was something ... irresistible ... about him, not in the sense that Shannon was hopelessly attracted to him, but in the sense that he had a way of exerting a pressure that she simply couldn't resist, at least not for long. They met at a party—Shannon, tired for once of her dorm-room walls, had ventured out with her roommate—and Stephen had backed her into a corner and talked long and intently at her. He'd listened long and intently as well, pressing everything out of her like she was a grape. And when he suggested they take a walk together, it wasn't so much a suggestion or an invitation or even an imperative, but simply an indicative statement. Though phrased as the question "Want to take a walk?" it had the sense of <i>We will now go for a walk together.</i><br/>
<br/>
Her whole relationship with him was like that. He was the ocean, and she was a cork bobbing along in it. She went out casually with him a few times, because he indicated that she would; she went on dates, because he so indicated. They slept together, because it was now time for that to happen. His manner was never the least bit threatening—he was always unfailing courteous and thoughtful. It was simply that she had no resistance to his moods or decisions.<br/>
<br/>
This made her uneasy. But she told herself it was proof of how much she loved him. She told herself she was lucky to be going out with a guy whose presence felt so natural that she simply wanted to do whatever he wanted to do.<br/>
<br/>
And everyone thought she was lucky too. Stephen was strikingly handsome, with a broad, strong face and a thick head of well-coiffed brown hair. He was also very fit, with a footballer's physique: barrel chest, biceps like melons, strong legs and calves. Well hung, too, being both fat and long in that department. If his gaze and his manners weren't so courteous and intellectual—and if his features weren't softened by a pair of large, professorial eyeglasses—he could even look rather thuggish. So everyone told Shannon how lucky she was when he proposed to her the semester she was to graduate and he was to get his PhD.<br/>
<br/>
That was six years ago, and they've been in Saratoga Falls ever since: when he graduated, he already had in hand a job offer to teach at Keyserling. And for the last two years she has been a tutor at Westside. Even that career choice was Stephen's. If he had wanted her to stay home, she would have stayed home. But he had indicated that she would get more stimulation if she had a job, so she took a job, at Westside.<br/>
<br/>
So why don't they have children? Why don't they even have sex anymore? Why are they like strangers cohabiting under the same roof?<br/>
<br/>
Maybe it's because there's no more pressure from Stephen to be anything else.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Caleb gives you the mask when you rendezvous, and he follows you out to the Welches' house, near the college campus. The house, a classic two-story affair of white clapboard with dark green shingles and shutters, is actually far too big for just the two of them. The Welches, after Stephen had indicated that they would not have children, extensively remodeled the inside, so that the ground floor is dominated by a very large kitchen, a medium-sized dining room, a laundry room, and an enormous living/entertainment room, while the upstairs is given over to a master bedroom, a guest room, two full baths (one for him and one for her, after Stephen said they would get along better with separate sinks and vanities), and two offices—a very large one for him, and a smaller one for her. Stephen's SUV is parked curbside when you arrive, and you pull Shannon's little red Honda in behind. Caleb, driving your truck, swings around in the middle of the street to park in front of the house opposite. You and he exchange a glance as you get out of your car, lugging the laptop bag, purse, and plastic sack containing the mask and supplies with you.<br/>
<br/>
The air in the foyer is softly fragrant with the scent of meatloaf, but you ignore it and march directly into the living room, where you set your burdens down on the small oak desk reserved for his and her bags. The TV—a 65-inch 4K—is tuned to ESPN, and Stephen, changed into track pants and a sweatshirt, is plopped firmly onto the sofa in front of it. A mostly empty dinner plate sits by his hips. "Hey," he says with only a quick glance at you. "Done with your errands?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yes. Thanks for waiting for me before eating."<br/>
<br/>
He does a little double-take at that. But his expression is, as always, cool, unruffled, and more than a little arrogant.<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't know how long you'd be," he explains, and instantly your nerve crumples.<br/>
<br/>
"Sorry, it's been a day. Barbara Meek kept me late."<br/>
<br/>
"And how's the Meerkat?" That's the nickname he bestowed on her after meeting her at a school-admin function. He thinks he's so clever. But meerkats are skinny things, and Barbara Meek is a dumpling. You give him a look, but he's gone back to watching the TV, where guys behind a desk are dissecting the latest games with lots of whiz-bang graphics.<br/>
<br/>
"It was interesting. She ambushed me with something." <i>And now I'm going to ambush you!</i> you silently add to yourself as you pull the mask from its plastic bag. "It's why I wanted to talk to you over dinner."<br/>
<br/>
Stephen looks mildly annoyed as you pick the dinner plate up from off the sofa and set it on the desk. Then his eyes widen as you straddle his lap, locking his hips between your knees. He flinches as you tweak the glasses from off his face.<br/>
<br/>
But Stephen Welch is so complacent, so sure of himself, that he doesn't even move his hands before you are pushing the mask into his broad, smug face.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Whoa, where does this guy work out?" Will asks after you've summoned him into the house. He has been helping you strip  Welch of his clothes, and the man now lies, with staring eyes, stretched out on the sofa.<br/>
<br/>
"At the university gym. He teaches Econ there. And you can stop staring at his dick."<br/>
<br/>
Will shoots you a dirty glance.<br/>
<br/>
"So I'm gonna be a university prof," he says. "Nice! How come you didn't tell me any of this before? I was getting worried you were gonna stick me— I dunno, but someplace pretty rancid."<br/>
<br/>
"No, I bet you'll like it." You make a face to yourself. "Just don't get any ideas."<br/>
<br/>
"About what?"<br/>
<br/>
"About using that thing you were staring at. At least, not on me."<br/>
<br/>
Then, almost before you know what you're saying, you add, "But you'll probably get to use it anyway. I'm pretty sure he's having an affair."<span class="ejnjuszMT"></span></span></div></div>


path: 11111121122112111234422111
author_id: seuzz
id: N5JQT6ZXQ
title: Switching Husbands
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>Caleb looks up at you from under his eyebrows.<br/>
<br/>
"This dude's cheating on you?" he says. "Seriously?"<br/>
<br/>
"On Shannon? Yeah, pretty sure. They're not sleeping together anymore, and Stephan—"<br/>
<br/>
You bite your lip before you can add <i>Was always pretty highly sexed,</i> which is not a revelation likely to trigger any sympathy from your friend. Instead, you close with, "And Stephan's always been a huge flirt."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I guess I can confirm whatever's going on," Caleb says, "after I'm—"<br/>
<br/>
"It doesn't matter. Just don't fuck anything up for us after you're in his mask."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb gives you a wry look.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
He goes upstairs to the master bedroom to disrobe and remove the "Will Prescott" mask, leaving you downstairs with the unconscious Stephan Welch. You wince as you look at him.<br/>
<br/>
He's still in fine shape, and part of Shannon remembers what it was like to be embraced, cuddled, kissed, petted, mauled, and impaled by him. He wasn't a beast, but even when being gentle, Stephan was so strong that sometimes his lovemaking was like being gently crushed by an avalanche. Though his body was never sculpted, and it is softening now that he's in his early thirties, he has a barrel chest, veiled abs, and tree-trunk legs. His arms are meaty as well. The only really unappetizing thing is the hair that covers him. He's not a wolfman, but he's got a serious rug across his pecs, and hairy calves and forearms. The top of his back, too, would be hairy except that he shaves it. He's got a thick beard as well, and his five o'clock shadow is already showing.<br/>
<br/>
You rouse yourself and hustle upstairs to the bedroom, where Caleb, undressed and restored to his natural face, is sprawled atop the bed. You take your clothes and the mask of yourself downstairs.<br/>
<br/>
The new mask materializes on Stephan's face while you're still sealing up your own mask with the golem-making paste. <i>So I guess this is it for Caleb pretending to be me,</i> you reflect as you burn a bit of your hair into it. <i>Anyone who puts this mask on now is just going to turn into one of those slave things.</i> That's actually something of a relief.<br/>
<br/>
Once you've got the mask finished, you gently lift the mask off Stephan's face and place the other mask there. Your heart briefly leaps into your throat as Stephan Welch vanishes and Will Prescott appears. His eyes snap open, and he half sits up to give you first a puzzled glance, and then a shocked one.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, Jesus, boss!" he gasps. "What are you looking at me like that for?"<br/>
<br/>
"How am I looking at you?" you demand, feeling shocked in turn.<br/>
<br/>
He shakes his head, then makes a face.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I guess this is all kinds of ... freaky," he mutters. His glance turns suspicious. "Are we still going to be working together?"<br/>
<br/>
"I ... don't know."<br/>
<br/>
"Because the way you and—" He licks his lips. "You and me were talking, about ... me ... turning into your husband—" He breaks off to look furtively around.<br/>
<br/>
"That was Caleb I was talking to," you remind him. "He was just ... wearing the mask."<br/>
<br/>
Will's expression turns uneasy, and he mutters something that sounds like, "wearing me like a freaking skinsuit." Then his eyes fall upon his clothes, which are bunched up on the coffee table. "Can I get dressed now?" he asks with a whine in his voice.<br/>
<br/>
"Please," you reply. "Get dressed and go home. But come look for me tomorrow at school during—" You mentally try to review your schedule, but you're too frantic to think clearly. "When it's convenient."<br/>
<br/>
"Uh huh," he says as he scrambles for his things. "Third period it is," he adds, and you roll your eyes.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Caleb was awake by the time you got Will sent off and Stephan's mask ready to wear. (Sealed, but you didn't put any of the golem-paste into it.) He takes it quietly and doesn't waste time with it, for when you glance back at him from the doorway, the naked body of Stephan Welch is splayed unconsciously on the bed. You go down to the kitchen, where you contemplate eating the meatloaf that is warming in the oven. But you haven't much of an appetite, and content yourself with a double-glass of white wine.<br/>
<br/>
You're staring off into space, your mind a gauzy blank of worried indecision, when you hear a heavy tread coming down the stairs. You tense against the coming of your husband.<br/>
<br/>
He looks big—a mass of muscle slowly morphing into a dad bod—as he steps around the corner with a slight frown on his face. He's dressed again in the gray sweatshirt and navy-blue track pants, but he's barefoot and his hair is a little disordered. His eyes seem to wobble behind the round frames of his glasses.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey," he says, his tone uncertain.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey yourself." You take a deep swallow from your wine glass. "So how is it?"<br/>
<br/>
He flexes his hands as he studies them, and sways a little on his feet.<br/>
<br/>
"Body feels ... fine," he says. "Memories not so much."<br/>
<br/>
"What's wrong?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't got 'em." His jaw works, and he glowers at you from under his heavy brow. "You fuck up the mask, man?"<br/>
<br/>
"You're the one who made it," you retort.<br/>
<br/>
"You're the one who put it on this guy, and fixed it up."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I don't know," you snap back. "Maybe we should take it off you and—"<br/>
<br/>
"What's wrong with you?" he growls. His face turns red. "You're acting like a ... a passive-aggressive bitch."<br/>
<br/>
The words are like a stinging welt across your face, and you catch your breath. <i>I ... am being a bitch,</i> you realize. You focus on Stephan, and realize why that is. <i>I'm acting like a bitch because I'm looking at this son of a bitch, and I can't help myself.</i><br/>
<br/>
But you can, because you're not really Shannon Welch, and you force yourself to relax.<br/>
<br/>
"Sorry," you mumble. "Force of habit. Her and her ... husband, they don't really get along that good."<br/>
<br/>
"Really," Stephan says. "Is that how come he's having an affair?" Though he doesn't really sound like Stephan—cool, condescending, a little smirky—you can't help hearing Stephan's usual tone.<br/>
<br/>
"I guess so." You look down into your wine glass. You start to take another gulp, but instead set it down on the countertop with a very audible <i>clink.</i> "I think it's gotten where he just rubs his wife the wrong way, and she can't help—" You wince.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, maybe it's a good thing I don't got his memories then," Stephan says. "So I don't know how to act like him."<br/>
<br/>
"You're gonna have to learn if you're gonna go in to the university tomorrow and teach Econ."<br/>
<br/>
He snorts lightly, then catches himself.<br/>
<br/>
"You know," he says, "we had this problem before. Yeah!" He snaps his fingers. "Remember when you were showing me this stuff, and I put on that mask of you? By the way—" He looks around with a vague expression on his face. "Where's, uh, Will?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sent him home. You were saying?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, first time I put your mask on, I couldn't get the memories. I remember it was after I, uh, moved in to cover for you full time that I got them. I think I had to sleep in it, or something."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, we can try that," you say. "Otherwise, we'll have to figure out something else."<br/>
<br/>
He gets kind of a cagey look, and not so furtively looks you up and down. "Well, what am I going to remember after I remember what this cocksucker knows?"<br/>
<br/>
"I guess you'll remember everything about him," you flatly answer. "And everything about us. You know," you add, "if you want to at least <i>try</i> getting into character, he was watching ESPN when I came in."<br/>
<br/>
He makes a face, and pads back into the living room.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You put the meatloaf into the refrigerator and content yourself with a slice of grapefruit and some cottage cheese—eating them over the sink as the chatter and bustle of the TV spills out of the living room—then go upstairs to Shannon's office where you polish off the little afterschool work you brought with you. (That would be tracking and recording assignments for the students that Shannon tutors.) Then you peel off your office clothes and change into flannel shorts and a sweatshirt of your own. After a moment's consideration, you also peel off your bra and let your breasts dangle freely.<br/>
<br/>
It's like taking off a suit of armor.<br/>
<br/>
You sit on the bed and let all the stress and strain drain off, rubbing it away by stroking your calves. <i>Oh my God,</i> you groan. <i>Why do I do this to myself? I'm all uptight and scared. But what am I scared off?</i> You bite your lip. <i>The future,</i> you have to admit. <i>A future that is just ... </i>this<i> ... day after day, month after month, year after year. Marching into the office to tutor the same lessons to the same kids, and coming home to a cold husband who's no longer interested in me.<br/>
<br/>
And that's if I'm lucky! If Stephan ever leaves me—</i><br/>
<br/>
A shudder runs through you, and you push yourself upright. You've tensed up and stressed yourself out again.<br/>
<br/>
<i>I'm not Shannon Welch,</i> you remind yourself. <i>I'm just pretending to be her for a little while.</i><br/>
<br/>
But look how easy it is to fall back into her moods and persona!<br/>
<br/>
<i>Don't let that happen,</i> you growl to yourself, even as you recognize that that's the kind of advice that Shannon would give herself.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Do things different, Will,</i> you tell yourself. <i>Don't act like her when you're not out in public. Do the opposite when you're at home.</i><br/>
<br/>
But what does "Doing the opposite" mean when Stephan comes up a few hours later to bed?<span class="fngigffkfmg3610"></span></span></div></div>


path: 111111211221121112344221111
author_id: seuzz
id: FZ59PW9DQ
title: A Change of Routine
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>Your husband looks uncharacteristically nervous as he comes into the bedroom.<br/>
<br/>
Because of course he isn't your husband. Just as you are not his wife.<br/>
<br/>
"So, I forgot to ask," he says without quite meeting your eyes. "Do these two sleep in the same bed?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah," you grunt.<br/>
<br/>
Okay." His unease visibly deepens. "What's he wear? Pee-jays?"<br/>
<br/>
"Shorts."<br/>
<br/>
His eyes widen. They widen again after you extract some skimpy black workout shorts from the dresser, and toss them to him. <br/>
<br/>
"Maybe I should sleep on the sofa," he mutters as he fingers them.<br/>
<br/>
After a short hesitation, he starts for the bedroom door.<br/>
<br/>
And almost you let him pass.<br/>
<br/>
But then you stop.<br/>
<br/>
"Do you think Shannon Welch is sexy?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
His jaw drops. "Guh?" he says.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't especially like being this girl," you say as you draw close to him. "But I like this body. It's got breasts, it's got tits. It comes with a pussy." Caleb whitens. "She doesn't like doing things with them. But I kind of want to. Probably," you admit, "because she doesn't."<br/>
<br/>
You pull yourself close to him.<br/>
<br/>
"Besides," you add, "you've been making noises ever since we started this about wanting to do something."<br/>
<br/>
You put your mouth close to his.<br/>
<br/>
"So do you? Now's your chance."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
He is a lot slower and a lot more tentative with you than he ever was with Shannon. For a start, he takes the bottom, which Stephan rarely did. But his body responds as it should to your caresses as you hunch over his meaty torso, kissing him in the crook of his neck and gripping and squeezing his lats. His cock, which is long and thick like a kielbasa, rises and bobs against your ass cheeks. But he himself is uncertain what to do, and his hands, which would usually busy themselves at half-a-dozen places on your body, limply grip your sides, and his own kisses are tentative. Even when you push a firm breast into his face, he is slow to take it in his mouth, and he suckles at it like a child instead of nursing and teasing it.<br/>
<br/>
Finally, though, when you sense that he is ready for the climax, you straddle his waist and with one hand slowly guide his member into you, and gently mount yourself on it. His face twists with an agony of pleasure, and his back arches. You gasp and pant as your own tender and throbbing tissues are forced apart, and your eyes briefly cross as a quick jolt rattles your guts. He is thick and he is hard, and he is thickening and hardening still inside you as you sink more firmly onto him, until he is wedged all the way up and inside you. Rhythmically, you begin squeeze and pull at him, and the bed squeaks and jounces as he rises and falls in a sympathetic rhythm of his own. He fumbles for and grabs your hands, supporting you from below almost as a gymnast would.<br/>
<br/>
His face turns very red, and he clenches his eyes shut, and you have the sudden thought, <i>This isn't Stephan. He was in charge but he's not in charge anymore, I'm in charge. I gave him to someone else, someone else gets to be Stephan now, but I'm in charge of him.</i><br/>
<br/>
The thought fills and pleasures you, like another cock.<br/>
<br/>
<i>It's a new Stephan and he's under me, and I'm in charge of him, I'm in charge of the new Stephan, I'm in charge ... in ... charge—!</i><br/>
<br/>
With a shriek you erupt in an orgasm. It's like a low, tearing scream that rips from your cunny up your backbone, and through the back of your throat. <i>Oh, God!</i> you roar, and drive yourself down as hard as you can on the upthrusting bone. You shudder and shake as you shriek, and the flesh threatens to quiver and slip like loose meat off your bones.<br/>
<br/>
Then, just as the boiling fit is passing, Stephan erupts within you, almost lofting you off the bed in the fury of his spent. You twine fingers with his, clutching in a death grip as he bucks and rockets from below. Secondary shudders, like aftershocks from a deep quake, ripple through you. When he is done, you fall forward bonelessly, to splay yourself on his chest with your nose in the crook of his shoulder. He crushes you to him.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You're woken the next morning by the once-familiar sensation of being cuddled and suffocated by Stephan's arms and face. He is lying half atop you, one arm under your shoulders, the other under your legs, and his face in yours with lips snuffling at your mouth, cheeks, nose and eyes. The hair on his chest scratches your bare breast.<br/>
<br/>
For a moment it's as though time has slipped and you are a newlywed again, but then you remember when and where and who you are, and you thrash him off.<br/>
<br/>
"Stop it, man," you snap.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, come on," he chortles as he leans in to paw at you some more. "I got wake-up wood."<br/>
<br/>
"Then take it in the bathroom and beat it out!" You shove him back and sit up to glare down blearily at him.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Oh fuck,</i> you think as he smirks up at you from under heavy-lidded eyes. <i>He's back. And he thinks he's going to start getting lucky again.</i> Even as you glower at him, his lip curls and he reaches up to caress your cheek.<br/>
<br/>
You slap him away.<br/>
<br/>
"Stop it," you say. "Last night was last night, but this morning is— Oh, and I guess you and Stephan got acquainted during the night."<br/>
<br/>
"Mmm?" he says. Then: "Oh. Sure. I guess." His smirk deepens. "Been a long time since we—" He reaches for your breasts with both hands, but you roll away out of bed.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, don't get used to it," you retort as you sweep a filmy dressing robe off the chair next to the bed. "Last night was last night," you continue as you pull it on and push the hair from your eyes. "And besides, last night I wasn't doing anything with <i>Stephan Welch.</i> I was doing it with the guy who's taking his place."<br/>
<br/>
"Makes me feel even more special," he says with a knowing leer. "And I can do a better job of it, too." He twists around to glance at the digital clock on the bed stand. "Come on," he says as he turns back to reach for you. "We got twenty minutes before the alarm goes off. "That's ten minutes for me, and ten minutes for—"<br/>
<br/>
"No!" You slap his hand away.<br/>
<br/>
He grins. "Why not? I made you scream last night. Don't want to—" He clutches the sheet that entwines his engorging member. "Feel great again?"<br/>
<br/>
"Get this, man," you sigh. "You wanna do it some more, okay, we'll do it some more. But!" You shove a stiff finger into his grinning face. "I'm doing it with <i>you,</i> Caleb, not this ape! And you're not doing it with Shannon," you continue, even though you know it's going to come out all wrong, "you're doing it with me!"<br/>
<br/>
He howls with laughter as, crimson-faced, you storm into the bathroom to start getting ready for the day.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
But life at the Welches has seemingly returned to normal. Anyway, you come downstairs at the usual time that Shannon Welch comes down, dressed in her usual work outfit of creamy slacks, white blouse, navy blazer, and low-slung heels, to find Stephan, in his usual early-morning dress of t-shirt and track pants, just getting your breakfast ready. The Welches may only be roommates rather than married partners these days, but they have a routine and they stick to it. That includes Stephan, whose classes this semester don't start until ten, getting Shannon out the door by seven-forty-five.<br/>
<br/>
Caleb has settled not only into routine, but something like character, for he sets your plate of scrambled egg whites, peaches, and toasted half bagel on the table in front of you without a word before retreating back into the kitchen. You also start to lapse into character by setting your tablet up in front of you and opening it to the news sites.<br/>
<br/>
But then you turn and call into the kitchen: "Can you come sit down so we can talk?"<br/>
<br/>
So he settles in next to you, cocking his head back and smirking at you languidly with a soft mouth and heavy-lidded eyes behind his glasses.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't want us to do the usual routine with these two, okay?" you tell him. "That's what last night was about. About <i>not</i> doing the usual."<br/>
<br/>
"So you don't want me fixing you breakfast?"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't be a shit, Caleb. Stephan's a shit, and Shannon thinks he's a shit, only she's too miserable and scared to say so." <i>Or even to really think so,</i> you reflect. "Do your 'smartest person in the world' routine up at the college, but don't do it with me. And yes, I'll help with breakfast."<br/>
<br/>
"Uh huh," he says. "Do I get to do everything else up at the college that he does?"<br/>
<br/>
You feel your guts tighten. "Which is what?"<br/>
<br/>
"Getting the occasional blow job from one of the grad students."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, fuck me!" you gasp. "I knew it!"<br/>
<br/>
"You told me you thought he—"<br/>
<br/>
"Yes, fine! And then you're gonna come home and we're gonna work on— Stuff!"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure," he says in that insufferably agreeable way that Stephan has when he doesn't give a shit and so is willing to go along with you.<br/>
<br/>
"And sometimes we're going to switch masks."<br/>
<br/>
"What?" he says. You thought that would get his attention.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah! So don't get too comfortable in that thing, cocksucker. We're not going to do anything that you won't want done to yourself."<br/>
<br/>
He makes a face.<br/>
<br/>
"Fine," he says. "Do you wanna switch now? This morning?"<br/>
<br/>
"You won't have time to get ready for school."<br/>
<br/>
"Westside, I can call in sick and stay home, get a head start on working on the spells some more."<span class="fmjggefeffi3711"></span></span></div></div>


path: 1111112112211211123442211112
author_id: seuzz
id: WKYWZHMFQ
title: Solving Other People's Problems
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>"Good morning, Thomas," you gasp as you totter into the Westside tutorial offices at seven-fifty-three. Clocks aren't exactly punched at Westside, but Shannon is never later than eight getting in.<br/>
<br/>
Thomas Luna looks up at you from under his brows. "You missed the staff meeting," he growls.<br/>
<br/>
You stop dead and stare at him with an open mouth. <i>Staff meeting? I forgot a staff meeting?</i><br/>
<br/>
"Oh, shut up," Michelle Clayton snarls from behind your shoulder. "He tried the same joke on me." She holds out a small plate to you, on which roll a couple of donut holes. "It's not funny,"<br/>
<br/>
"Says you," Thomas smirks. "I got both of you."<br/>
<br/>
You take one of the donut holes and leave Michelle to fuss at Thomas. Her voice carries, and you can see both of them clearly through the floor-to-ceiling glass walls of the tutorial offices. <i>Fishbowls inside of fishbowls</i> is the way the Westside staff describe it, and they all hate it.<br/>
<br/>
Thomas and Michelle continue to nag at each other as you take out your laptop and set up for the day. You're not sure if their constant fighting is because they really don't like each other, or if there's an attraction there they are both trying to fight off.<br/>
<br/>
Thomas, a Hispanic whose dark complexion is almost black (but without the African features normally associated with that hue) is the only male on staff, there's a lot of chatter amongst the girls that he likes being the office's stallion and rooster, and given it's an open secret he's carrying on a torrid affair with one of the female coaches, you'd not put it past him to try seducing the younger tutorial staff. (Michelle has told you in confidence that she's sure Elina D'Cruz had a fling shortly after she was hired.) And you— Well, <i>Shannon</i>— has caught him casting some meaningfully hooded looks in your direction more than once.<br/>
<br/>
Michelle's possible attraction to Thomas you're less sure of. She's married, for a start, which is why a full-blooded Korean immigrant (she even still has a noticeable accent) can have the name "Michelle Clayton." She's also a lot more serious than Thomas is, and has no noticeable sense of humor. Yet aren't opposites supposed to attract? The way she can't stop hectoring sure suggests some kind of fascination on her part, like he's a scab she just can't stop picking at.<br/>
<br/>
You greet the other members of the staff as they come in one by one: Sandra Johnson, the tall, elegant, fifty-something head of the department; the dumpy and grandmotherly Elaine Browning; and Elina, a Filipino immigrant who is almost as mousy as Shannon. Sandra does like to have staff meetings which accomplish nothing but which leaves her feeling involved and managerial, but otherwise everyone on staff is allowed pretty much to run their own affairs. And as there is no staff meeting this morning, you are soon immersed in your regular work.<br/>
<br/>
That means one-on-one tutoring sessions with a succession of students. You have to immerse yourself deeply inside Shannon's head in order to get through them, but the deeper in you push yourself, the more relaxed and enjoyable the experience becomes.<br/>
<br/>
<i>I can't imagine teaching a roomful of the little monsters,</i> Elaine once told you out of earshot of the others. <i>But get them alone?</i> She beamed.<br/>
<br/>
You—Shannon—get what she means. How draining it would be to try to control a roomful of high school students, and how hard it would be tell if any of the lesson work were actually seeping in. But when it's just you and a student across the desk ... Well, sometimes it's like pulling teeth, or trying to herd a cat, but at least you can usually tell when you're getting through.<br/>
<br/>
And there are some surprising cases. Today, for example, you have Brady Wilson as your  seventh-period student. (Each student comes in once a week, for a full class period.) Brady is a freshman, though he is almost as tall and as packed with muscle as a senior, and he has the bold impudence of a class clown. He's a fidgeter and a joker. But he is also alert and a hard worker, even though it might be easier teaching Algebra I to a Labrador retriever. Maybe it's because his bad math scores are what kept him off the JV football squad. Or maybe (so Michelle suggested recently, in what might have been one of her rare attempts at sly humor) it's because he's got a little bit of a crush on you. Whatever. Brady makes it easy to tutor, even if every week he returns having forgotten ninety-nine percent of what you taught him the week before.<br/>
<br/>
On the other hand, there's Rhea Ware. Usually it's the girls who are eager students and the boys who resent their lessons. But Rhea (who needs all the help she can get if she's not to flunk French II) just slouches and sulks and shrugs as you try going over the vocabulary with her. Three times you have to tell her put her phone away, and when you finally yank it from her she slides down in her seat and glowers back with a frank hostility.<br/>
<br/>
Barbara Meek comes in at lunchtime—which startles and even alarms you a little—to ask if there's anything she can help you with; you thank her and tell her there isn't. She leaves with a slightly glazed smile on her empty face. And at a little before final bell, Mr. Staufford comes in to tell you that one of your worst problem cases, a sophomore named Trask McKinney, is being withdrawn from the school for unspecified reasons, which comes as a relief. Otherwise, it's simply a day like any other for Shannon.<br/>
<br/>
Then, as you're packing up, comes a text from Stephan: <i>Hey, pick up sashimi sampler and volcano roll plus whatever you want from Osaka on way home. Celebrate.</i><br/>
<br/>
You blink. <i>Celebrate?</i><br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Stephan looks like the proverbial "cat that ate the canary" when you get home. He positively preens but says nothing when you ask him what there is to celebrate. "What'd you get for yourself?" is all he asks as he unpacks the sixty-dollar meal you picked up.<br/>
<br/>
And still he says nothing when you press, but only smirks with pleasure as he gums and sucks at a wad of tuna sashimi.<br/>
<br/>
"You know," he says, "I used to think the whole idea of eating raw fish was positively revolting. I think now I could totally eat this every day." Expertly he plucks up another sashimi with a pair of chopsticks and brushes it quickly through a small bowl of soy sauce. "What about you?"<br/>
<br/>
"It's nice having money," you agree. "But is this all it's about? Celebrating that we've got money and no one else to spend it on but us?"<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck me," he says with a full mouth. "When I think of that trip to these two took three years ago—" His expression turns hooded. "We gonna start doing stuff like that again? I mean, if we're gonna bring back the sexy times in bed, how come we don't—"<br/>
<br/>
"We moved in here so we'd have a place to work," you remind him. "My dad? Remember him, and what you <i>did</i> to him?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh. Well." He shrugs, and his expression turns even more puckish. "Maybe then I won't tell you what I accomplished this afternoon."<br/>
<br/>
You feel your back hairs rising.<br/>
<br/>
But he waits until he's bitten off, chewed, savored, and swallowed a yellowtail sashimi before he puts down the chopsticks and beckons you to follow him into the living room.<br/>
<br/>
"I took the day off early, right after I finished my second class. Came home, got out the book, started looking it over again," he says. The grimoire is on the coffee table and he picks it up. "Remember where we left off?"<br/>
<br/>
It's been almost a week, and you have to cast your mind back. "Yeah," you say after a short hesitation. "There was that funky page with the blurry lettering."<br/>
<br/>
"You mean that funky page that someone tore," he retorts as he pulls open the front cover and starts flipping pages.<br/>
<br/>
That's right: There was a page with a set of instructions. But the bottom part of the page had been torn away. The writing on the following page was visible but blurry, and there was no way to turn the page to reach it, on account of the sigil to complete the spell on the torn page was missing.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I fixed it," Stephan says with smug pride as he turns the book around to show you. "See?"<br/>
<br/>
You look down at the book.<br/>
<br/>
The page he shows you is complete but half blank, with a set of instructions (in Latin, naturally) taking up the top half while the bottom half is white and unblemished. You tentatively touch it, and find no sign of a tear or of a repair.<br/>
<br/>
"What did you do?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"I did what it says here." He points to the final line of instructions. "<i>Utere me ad me reparandum.</i> 'Use me to repair me.' You have to use something from the book in order to fix it."<br/>
<br/>
"Uh huh? So what did you use?" You are quickly losing your patience.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I asked myself, what does the book make? It makes masks and those metal doohickies. And pastes. So I came home early and made up one of everything."<br/>
<br/>
He drops onto the sofa, and you sit down next to him, feeling more than a little resentful at the way he's so gleefully boasting of how smart he is.<br/>
<br/>
"I tried some of the pastes first, but they didn't stick. And when I put a mask on the book, and nothing happened. But when I put one of those metal memory things on it—" He grins. "It sucked it right in, like when you put it on someone. And I waited a bit and then it spat the thing back out. I put that on the torn page and— Bam!" He punches the air.<br/>
<br/>
"And then I turned the page to the next spell."<span class="fngigffkfml3610"></span></span></div></div>


path: 111111211221121113
author_id: seuzz
title: A Dead End and a Detour
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Caleb argues, and you come real close to forcing a decision on your terms. Before you can settle firmly on an alternate decision, though, you let him return to the clubhouse so he can set his mask back on the golem—the one you turned your father into—so he can send it home. While he's gone, you open up the grimoire so you can study the next spell.<br/>
<br/>
At first it goes easily enough. It opens with a list of ingredients, which some cross-checking shows is identical to the list of ingredients for the mind-band. There is only a single line of instructions on assembly, though, and the translation seems to be ambiguous: "Use me, solve me" seems to be the most straightforward translation, and there are any number of ways of understanding that gnomic line.<br/>
<br/>
Is there any clarification below? Apparently not, for the bottom half of the page, where the sigil should be, is a jumble of blurry lettering, as though the page had got wet and the ink had run.<br/>
<br/>
But wait, that's not right. You frown at it. It's not only blurred. It is also ... blurring. Actively shifting, like words glimpsed at the bottom of a choppy pond.<br/>
<br/>
You rub your eyes, then focus on a spot in the middle of the page. Yes, the letters are shifting. A word that looks like <i>mrefph</i> turns into <i>nncigb</i> and then into <i>imq8s.</i> At the same time, the words you glimpse in your peripheral vision seem to stand still, and if they weren't in Latin you could <i>almost,</i> you'd swear, be able to make them out. But when you shift your gaze to look at them, they begin to dodge and weave.<br/>
<br/>
After only a minute of this you feel a headache coming on, and rest your eyes.<br/>
<br/>
When you open them again, you attack the page in a more relaxed way, skimming it lightly and picking up details from the corner of your eye. In this way you're able to pick out that there's a faint line running across the middle of the page, just below that one bit of Latin. You brush it with your fingertips, and find that it's an imperfection in the paper itself. It feels as though—<br/>
<br/>
You cover that mad, dancing gibberish with your left hand, and peer at and brush the page with your right.<br/>
<br/>
It's a tear. The bottom half of the page has been torn away. You're not seeing the bottom half of the spell. You're seeing the bottom half of the spell <i>behind</i> it.<br/>
<br/>
And in a flash you understand what must be happening. The book will not let you see the next spell it contains until you've solved the previous spell—it keeps the page locked. But some idiot has tried to get around that by tearing out a page. And instead of becoming legible, the text beneath has become dancing gibberish.<br/>
<br/>
Caleb, when he returns, finds you grinning angrily at the book. "What's wrong?" he asks. You show him the book and explain your deduction. "Can we do the spell anyway?" he asks.<br/>
<br/>
"No instructions," you point out. "Unless this 'use me, solve me' is it. But even then—" You flip to the earlier spells. "They all use sigils, see? Sigils at the bottom of each page." You return to the torn page. "The sigil has been torn out."<br/>
<br/>
"So it's a dead end?" Caleb asks. He has the grace to sound horrified.<br/>
<br/>
You don't answer. Your dad wouldn't give up, and neither will you, for both your sakes. But neither can you see a way forward.<br/>
<br/>
Except to execute this spell as far as you can, in case there is a clue to be had there.<br/>
<br/>
"It's looks like it makes a mind band," you point out to him, "at least until the sigil does its work. Tomorrow, do like you did today, send Will in to work, and make the thing up like it's a mind band. We'll look at it tomorrow night. Maybe one of us will have a brilliant idea in the meantime."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb nods soberly.<br/>
<br/>
After that, you do homework together.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Later, in bed, Martha brings up the topic of Will's working someplace where explosions can go off so easily. You remind her that you're at greater risk than he is; and besides, while you were tutoring him he told of some things he noticed in that that room that make it look like it <i>wasn't</i> an explosion. She gives up on convincing you that he should quit; but you don't get lucky a second night in a row.<br/>
<br/>
Which is, admittedly, an ambivalent defeat.<br/>
<br/>
The next day, at a meeting to discuss the break in, Mike Salazar reports that he's at a loss to explain the damaged window. <i>No residue on the glass, no residue on the shutters, nothing on the walls or floor or ceiling, no damage to anything in the room. Not even to the dust on the top shelves.</i> Maybe the damage was inflicted from outside? Some machinery that pulled the shutters back? <i>But the glass was exploded outward.</i> Mike is utterly baffled. "If you ask me, it was the Incredible Hulk," he says. "He was inside the room and he <i>punched</i> his way out."<br/>
<br/>
You just tell your wife, when you get home, that the investigation ruled out an explosion of any kind. "Just someone with a sledgehammer," you tell her. If you thought that blaming the mistake on a maniac would make her feel better, you were wrong.<br/>
<br/>
Will doesn't look very happy either when he gets back from Caleb's, where (he explains) he stopped off on his way back from work. When you're alone with him for the evening, he violently tugs the grimoire from his bag. <br/>
<br/>
"Fucking Molester," he snarls. That would be Lester "The Molester" Pozniak, the soccer goalie and bully who occasionally pops into the lives of you and your friends long enough to make you miserable. "So I'm standing at my locker, about to go to math, and he grabs my book bag and goes walking off with it. It and <i>everything in it,</i>" he adds as he yanks more books out and drops them with a clatter on the desk. "I had to tackle him to get it back. Right in front of the main office." His head sinks. "I have three days' detention, starting on Monday," he mutters.<br/>
<br/>
For an instant only, you'd like to yell at him. But you know the Molester too well. "What's the Molester's punishment?"<br/>
<br/>
"<i>Nothing!</i>" Will flings out his arms. "Get this, he grabs my bag away, but according to Sagansky, that's not worth detention. But <i>I'm</i> supposed to be punished because I 'used violence'" —He makes very violent air quotes around the phrase— "to get it back instead squawling off to a teacher."<br/>
<br/>
"Christ."<br/>
<br/>
"Am I in trouble?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, not with me. As long as you didn't lose anything."<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't." He shuffles through the book bag, then pauses. "Unless I did."<br/>
<br/>
Your scalp starts to crawl. "What?"<br/>
<br/>
"Keep it together, man," he mutters, and starts methodically pulling out the rest of his books and papers and looking through them.<br/>
<br/>
"What did you lose?"<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing, I hope! But, um—" He bites his lip. "Could you help me find a metal band, about yea inches long and yea inches wide" —He pinches the air to show the dimensions— "that looks kind of like a—"<br/>
<br/>
"You didn't lose it at school if you made it after school, Will! Er, Caleb!"<br/>
<br/>
"But I did make it at school. I skipped third period." Caleb paws through the untidy pile of schoolwork without meeting your eye. "I snuck into one of the portables and made it there. What?" he exclaims when you start breathing heavily. "I could get it done then! Save time afterward! And even if I lost it, I can make another one lickety-split, it only took, like—"<br/>
<br/>
You cut him off with a word and start helping him to look. Fifteen minutes later, after looking through each book, each notebook, each wad of paper, and the pockets and lining of the bag, you find no sign of it.<br/>
<br/>
You sigh and open the grimoire. "Then you'll make me another one," you tell him grimly as you leaf through the book to the torn page.<br/>
<br/>
You reach it and you go right past it. Not until you've turned it does the fact register. You flip back and stare.<br/>
<br/>
The page looks very different when it is whole than when it is torn away. You have to check to see that the previous spell is the one that makes that stuff you put inside a mask, and that the ingredients at the top of the page, and that curious instruction "Use me, solve me" is there.<br/>
<br/>
And the really strange thing is that there is no tear immediately below that line. Instead the page is whole, and shows no seam or any other sign of repair. It is also unblemished by any kind of mark: no words, no pictures, no stains, and no sigils. You and Caleb can only stare at it with looks of dumbfounded stupefaction. "You saw it too, didn't you?" you ask him. "Last night?" He nods. You turn the page, then flip it back, then turn it again. There is nothing written on the other side.<br/>
<br/>
The page magically repairing itself is almost worse than its being torn, and you very nearly declare yourself ready to be rid of the book. <i>If it is going to be this strange and this creepy ...</i><br/>
<br/>
But your dad's mulishness pushes you ahead, and you and Caleb bend your heads cautiously over the next spell.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Later that evening, after you're watching TV with your wife: "Honey, do you think you're bonding with Will?"<br/>
<br/>
You look at her. "Somewhat," you allow, then decide to go further. "Yes, I think I really am."<br/>
<br/>
"So you're not angry with him? I noticed you didn't say anything at dinner."<br/>
<br/>
"About what?"<br/>
<br/>
"His detention."<br/>
<br/>
You blink. You didn't know Caleb had told her about that.<br/>
<br/>
You grunt and turn your eyes back to the TV. "No. He explained it. The other guy was in the wrong."<br/>
<br/>
"So you're okay with it?" she says. "Even though he sent that other boy to the nurse's office?"</span></div></div>


path: 1111112112211211132
author_id: seuzz
title: One Well-Armed Research Project
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Caleb, using your body, sent the Molester to the nurse's office? Your dad's reaction: <i>The hell?</i> Your reaction: <i>Way to go, Caleb!</i><br/>
<br/>
"Three days' detention?" you ask Martha, and you keep your voice very neutral. She nods. "Will told you this?"<br/>
<br/>
"The school called." She hesitates. "I didn't tell you because I was hoping that Will would."<br/>
<br/>
"Mm. Well, he did. He just didn't mention the nurse's office." Martha's eyes widen as you get to your feet. "I think I will have a word with my son," you tell her.<br/>
<br/>
"Harris," she says. "Harris?" But you ignore her and slowly mount the stairs.<br/>
<br/>
You rap on the door to a bedroom that was once yours, and enter without waiting for a summons. Will Prescott, splayed on his bed, tries to levitate off it. He thrusts his cell phone half under his butt, and turns very red.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Ah. Porn.</i><br/>
<br/>
You close the door behind you. "I hear that the school called. They had a much more complete report about what happened."<br/>
<br/>
Will's face twists up. "What do you mean, 'more complete'? I told you what happened!"<br/>
<br/>
"About the nurse's office?"<br/>
<br/>
His face freezes, then falls. "Oh. Heh." He grins weakly.<br/>
<br/>
"Not that I'm not proud of you," you say in a very level tone, "for laying out the Molester so bad he needed— Well, what did he need from the nurse, anyway?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh, some pain medicine?"<br/>
<br/>
You raise one eyebrow, a gesture that both you and father know means, "Pull the other one, it's got bells on it."<br/>
<br/>
"Because he was kind of woozy."<br/>
<br/>
Up goes the other eyebrow, in a gesture that means, "Strike two."<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, I knocked him cold!" That grin reappears, wider and more nervous than ever.<br/>
<br/>
You lock the bedroom door. Will swallows.<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck you, Caleb," you murmur in a low, hard voice, "but I will tear that face off you and put it on myself and find out directly what happened at school today if you don't—"<br/>
<br/>
"Alright, I put a mask on him and it knocked him out! Jeez, are you happy now?"<br/>
<br/>
Your jaw slackens. "A mask?" It takes you a moment to get the word out past the blockage in your throat. "You slapped a mask onto the Molester in full view of the—?" You slam your mouth shut before your voice can rise to a shriek. "Never mind that, where the <i>freaking fuck</i> did you get a mask?"<br/>
<br/>
"I made one?" The sweat has popped out on his brow. "Um, a couple, actually. With mind-bands and everything."<br/>
<br/>
It's like your eyeballs want to jump out of your head. "Fuck you, no you didn't. When did you find time, those things take fucking <i>days,</i> mister, to—"<br/>
<br/>
"I used a car buffer! You know, for waxing cars? Makes it go a lot faster, you can get one buffed in less than an hour!"<br/>
<br/>
Your knees buckle, and you sit on the edge of the bed. "And you didn't. Freaking. Tell me?"<br/>
<br/>
"It was going to be a surprise," Caleb says. He twists on the bed, like he's trying to burrow into it with his butt.<br/>
<br/>
You blink. "So what happened at school?" Froth starts to fill your mouth. "The truth, this time!"<br/>
<br/>
Well, it turns out he did tell you the truth. Mostly. He was slipping a blank mask out of his backpack and into his locker while reorganizing his shit when the Molester loped past, grabbed the bag, and went down the hall. Caleb ran after, mask still in hand, and leaped on the soccer goalie. They twisted about for a time, with Caleb whaling feebly at him, and accidentally smacked him in the face with the mask. That knocked the Molester down and out, and he and Will both got shipped to the nurse's office for observation. There was a lot of panic in the office over the Molester's condition, for nothing they tried could revive him. Luckily, Caleb was alone with him when the mask came out, and he hastily snatched it up and hid it in his shorts. But the apparent seriousness of the injury was the reason Caleb got suspended.<br/>
<br/>
Considering the circumstance, you think, your friend got off light.<br/>
<br/>
"So you've been making masks," you say when he's done. It's a topic less likely to set you off. "How many?"<br/>
<br/>
"Somewhere between a few and a bunch?"<br/>
<br/>
"A number, God damn it."<br/>
<br/>
"Three. Definitely three," Caleb says. And when you continue to stare, he adds. "Polished."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Oh God.</i> "What about unpolished?"<br/>
<br/>
His grin is a rictus. "Nine?"<br/>
<br/>
You pinch the bridge of your nose. "Twelve. You've made twelve masks. That you hadn't told me about."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I've told you n—"<br/>
<br/>
"God damn it, Caleb! You know what we're supposed to be doing!"<br/>
<br/>
"But we <i>are</i> doing it!" He flings his arms out. "We're getting your dad back!"<br/>
<br/>
"And that's all! That's <i>all</i>, Will! Caleb!" you correct yourself. You thrust a finger at him. "So you stop what you're doing right now! No more! You just do what I say from this point on, and no more!"<br/>
<br/>
"You're not the boss of me," he says sulkily.<br/>
<br/>
You leap halfway across the bed at him. "I can <i>make</i> myself the boss of you!" you roar. "I can <i>make</i> myself—!" Your voice dies in a strangulated choke as Caleb, eyes wide with terror, stares back at you.<br/>
<br/>
You straighten up and take a deep breath. Your face is boiling hot. But you keep your voice very calm.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, so you've got some masks," you say when you speak again. "I will overlook the fact that you <i>have</i> got them, because it saves me the trouble of telling you that I <i>want</i> you to make some."<br/>
<br/>
He perks up. "You do? That's great! Because I know who we can—"<br/>
<br/>
"One." You hold up a finger. "We only need one. And until I tell you otherwise, you will stay where you are, as my son— As me, I mean, and you will give me <i>everything</i> you have made so I can lock it away."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb grimaces like he's sucking on twenty-five lemons, all at once, but nods.<br/>
<br/>
"Good. Because I'm not going to let you distract me while I'm trying to get that fucking book figured out."<br/>
<br/>
You leave him with that and return downstairs. Martha is very pale. "I heard you," she says as you sit down next to her.<br/>
<br/>
"Did you hear what I said?"<br/>
<br/>
"Not the words, just the tone." She rubs your back. "What happened to the bonding?"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, we're still bonded." You settle back on the sofa, and she raises her hand to massage your neck. "I just explained to him that I really appreciated that he told me about what happened at school, but that in the future he should tell me <i>all</i> of what happened."<br/>
<br/>
"You got really intense," she says.<br/>
<br/>
"I suppose I did." You rub your face in your hands. "Because I really thought we were on the same page. And I wanted him to understand how much it <i>hurt</i> me, to find out that we weren't."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, Harris," she says, and she pulls you toward her.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Those were conversations that happened later. Much later. Before, when you and Caleb were still down in the study, and were bending over the next spell together:<br/>
<br/>
After staring at it in horrified fascination, you talk about it for a few minutes, then tackle it from opposite ends of the page. There seems no better way to attack it, for it is just a solid wall of text.<br/>
<br/>
No list of ingredients. No set of instructions. And certainly no sigil. Just closely set words in a cramped handwriting.<br/>
<br/>
Worse comes when you try entering the words into a translation program, and then into Google. None of them are real; all are just nonsensical.<br/>
<br/>
For an hour you and Caleb struggle with it. Are the words anagrams? Are they sensible words, but broken up with odd spacing? A combination of both? For awhile you think you'd found a key in a set of words that, if rearranged and respaced, yielded a Latin phrase meaning "three dogs windows kicked" but that leads to nothing.<br/>
<br/>
After ninety minutes of fruitless fiddling, you send Caleb upstairs. Before going out to join your better half on the sofa (where she will tell you the rest of the story of your son's day at school) you study the spells that have come before.<br/>
<br/>
There is a definite pattern to their progress. A mask to copy the body. A sealant to make it wearable. A metallic strip to copy the mind. A glue to bind one to the other. A golem that wears a mask and so become a servant. A spell that turns a person into a golem so that they can be replaced by a duplicate. A mask that hides a person so he can be replaced with a duplicate but without transforming them into a golem.<br/>
<br/>
You wonder in almost spastic irritation why the book tossed that next-to-the-last one into the progression. It's like a "fuck you" dick move on the part of the book. It occurs to you then that maybe that's the point. It's there to separate the ethical people from the unethical.<br/>
<br/>
Then there's that page that was torn and then just as mysteriously got repaired. Or did it? You wonder if the page is still damaged, and that's why the page that follows is such a mess of gobbledygook.<br/>
<br/>
To be balked is a terrible frustration, to yourself but still more to Harris Prescott. Words have never much interested him, but matters mathematical, scientific, or engineering have never baffled him for long. You can't but feel a swelling rage at discovering a science-like method that won't yield to your mental battering ram.<br/>
<br/>
But there must be people who do understand magic, for one of them has written a book of it.<br/>
<br/>
You're not sure you want to know who those people are. But you do an internet search, and that yields a local name to go with two others you already know of.<br/>
<br/>
So now you're going to get one of them—or a golem of them, now that you know what Caleb has done—to help you.</span></div></div>


path: 11111121122112111321
author_id: seuzz
title: The Student Warlock
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span><i>Saturday.</i> You have the day off, but Will owes Salopek three hours of work, from nine in the morning until noon. Even so, you're up two hours before the lazybones has dragged himself into the dining room for a bite of breakfast. You let him finish his cereal before dropping the anvil on him.<br/>
<br/>
"It takes fifteen minutes if the traffic is right to get home from work," you tell him. "You be home by twelve-twenty, or you're in a world of hurt. You're grounded until suppertime."<br/>
<br/>
He flies back in his chair and gasps. "Dad!"<br/>
<br/>
"You want to try a grounding that lasts till bedtime? Every hour of detention at school, you match it here."<br/>
<br/>
Your wife looks in at you from the kitchen, her face showing almost as much surprise as your son's.<br/>
<br/>
Robert chortles. "Detention at home!" he jeers.<br/>
<br/>
You stab a finger at him. "You want to try it out yourself?" He shuts up and hangs his head. To Will: "Get your stuff together, I got extra words for you outside."<br/>
<br/>
With the sullenness of a snail on its way to a shell extraction, Will puts his gear together and follows you out to the garage. It's all you can do to keep from slapping the hat off his head. Instead—<br/>
<br/>
"Stop by your place on your way to work," you tell Caleb in a low voice, "then switch out and send, uh, Will to Salopek." Your friend instantly perks up. "Then you follow. Come find me in my office."<br/>
<br/>
"What's it for?" he says with barely restrained excitement. "Is it about those masks?"<br/>
<br/>
"Exactly. I got a job for you." <br/>
<br/>
He grins.<br/>
<br/>
You watch until he's gone, and the roar of the truck motor has hardly died away before your wife comes into the garage. "Harris," she says.<br/>
<br/>
"All that in there was for Robert's benefit," you interrupt her. "I don't want him getting the idea it's okay to hit bullies, so I'm piling extra punishment on Will. I told him that if he serves out the extra detention here this weekend, I'll relax his curfew by an hour starting Monday."<br/>
<br/>
She raises her eyebrows, but doesn't argue.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
After Will is away, you go back in the house to gather some stuff for the morning's plan. That done, you announce that you've got some errands to run, and take the SUV in to Salopek. The lie is necessary because Martha doesn't like it when her husband goes in to work on the weekends, and he does his best not to. But every once in a while he has to, but will tell her he's going someplace else.<br/>
<br/>
Will's truck isn't in the lot when you arrive, and you can't help snorting softly to see that he'll be at least five minutes late when he does get there. Up in your office you kill some time by working on some papers that you'd abandoned yesterday, and you're soon so absorbed in them that you don't hear your visitor until he's knocked. "Mr. Prescott?" he says.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh. Caleb. How are you doing? Come in. Close the door." He obliges. "Sit down." He sits. You hold his eye. "Why the fuck was my son late for work?"<br/>
<br/>
He rolls his eyes. "He stopped to get donuts first," he says, and holds up a sack. "Got enough to share."<br/>
<br/>
"Not on my diet. Now, about those items you made. Those masks."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb bites on his grin.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know magic," you say as you lean back. "And you don't either, and neither does my dad. It's a real pisser, 'cos that book's doing stuff we don't understand."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't understand it either, sir."<br/>
<br/>
"I already mentioned that fact." Caleb's grin fades a little at your words. "We need to get some help. From a professional."<br/>
<br/>
His eyebrows quirk. "Like who? David Copperfield? Penn and Teller?"<br/>
<br/>
"I have a couple of people in mind, but I want to start with someone, mm, small. Maybe learn just enough that we can then learn the rest on our own."<br/>
<br/>
Alarm now shows in his face. "You want to show this person the masks?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, I want to use a mask on them. Copy them and put it on a golem. Then they'll work for us."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh." Caleb's face has lost all its animation by now. "So I guess you're not talking about using a mask on Cindy Vredenburg."<br/>
<br/>
"Why, you think she would know anything about this stuff?"<br/>
<br/>
Now Caleb's expression turns shifty. "Uh. Maybe I do."<br/>
<br/>
"No you don't. I was thinking of Braydon Delp."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb jerks so hard he almost comes out of the chair. "Delp?"<br/>
<br/>
"He's into this stuff. More than we are. I've heard he knows about Tarot cards and stuff like that. And people gossip about him and what he—"<br/>
<br/>
"But he's just a guy in high school! Like us! How about Morgana, Will, if you want—? She's a girl at least, and—" He cuts himself off as you cock your head at him.<br/>
<br/>
"I told you what I want," you say. "I get the impression Delp is real serious about this stuff, and I've heard him talk about Morgana and he doesn't think much of <i>her.</i>" You frown as Caleb clucks his tongue. "What were <i>you</i> planning to do with Morgana?"<br/>
<br/>
"With Morgana? Nothing. But I was thinking we could—"<br/>
<br/>
"Have you used any of those masks yet?" you demand. "Except on the Molester?"<br/>
<br/>
He sinks in the chair. "You mean besides him? And us? And your Dad?"<br/>
<br/>
"Obviously."<br/>
<br/>
He shakes his head.<br/>
<br/>
"And you're not going to. Go home and put all that stuff you made in a duffel bag—"<br/>
<br/>
"It's at the clubhouse."<br/>
<br/>
"Then go to the clubhouse and put that stuff in a duffel bag, and go get Delp and bring him up here."<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus! How am I supposed to do that? I hardly know him!"<br/>
<br/>
You're already taking out  your cell phone, and you swipe and tap into it while you talk. "I'm sending you a jpeg," you say. "You go find Delp, you show him the jpeg, you tell him the thing is up here at my office, and that he should come in to take a look at it."<br/>
<br/>
"Really?" Half of Caleb's face curls up into a quizzical smile. "What is it? Porn?"<br/>
<br/>
"Delp's kind of porn," you say as you hit "Send." "It's a picture of that book we're using to make masks. I snapped a photo of it before I came up here."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
After Caleb has gone, you take the grimoire out of your briefcase—it's been there the whole time, but you saw no reason to tell Caleb that—and a few more items. These include a list of ingredients, and you go downstairs to do some shopping.<br/>
<br/>
On your way back you do a search of the complex until you find Sean Mitchell. "What's Andy got you and Will doing?" you ask him.<br/>
<br/>
"Putting up new shutters on that storeroom," he tells you.<br/>
<br/>
"And Will's actually helping?" You have a hard time imagining anyone of your bulk and frame being able to manipulate things of that size and weight.<br/>
<br/>
Sean grins. "Sure. He's keeping me company."<br/>
<br/>
You grunt. "Can you miss him for the next thirty minutes?" you ask, and Sean shrugs. "Send him up to my office."<br/>
<br/>
Five minutes later, there's a soft knock at your door. "Come in, son," you say, and he enters.<br/>
<br/>
You're struck by his appearance. Gone is that grinning rapscallion you sent away this morning when Caleb was wearing the mask. This kid is shy, tentative, and he looks at you with sidelong wariness. You frown. Is that really you? Or is it the golem? Is that "kid" you've been "bonding with" for the past few days really Caleb and not in any sense yourself?<br/>
<br/>
When you catch him frowning in turn, you tell him to shut the door and take off his clothes. He pales, and asks if he has to.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Worse and worse.</i> This is the golem of your {i]dad under there. It's under Caleb's control, but that's not what's worrying you. It's that you'll have to look at your dad's petrified form again when you make this switch.<br/>
<br/>
Well, the sooner you make it, the sooner you'll be past it. You gruffly repeat the order to strip, and when he's done you rip the mask off, like a band-aid off a wound.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The last stage of the comedy begins with a knock at your dad's office door. "Come in," your dad calls, and he shoots you a querying look. You nod.<br/>
<br/>
Caleb enters. "Mr. Prescott?" he says. "I've got that friend I was telling you about who might, uh—"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh yes. Come in, er, Braydon isn't it?" Your dad stands and puts out a hand to his visitor.<br/>
<br/>
The latter seems to have oozed in. Braydon Delp is a short, skinny, slump-shouldered slacker in dark jeans and a dark tee; hair clumsily cut into a fauxhawk and darkened with what looks like shoe polish; mascara on the lashes of his droopy eyes; and, in a contrast to the aura of black he's surrounded himself with, an abundance of silver around his neck, wrists and fingers. Even from across the room, you can tell that the handshake he gives your dad is as limp as a twice-boiled noodle.<br/>
<br/>
While pleasantries are made, you cross the room and kick the door shut. Caleb frowns at you when you snap your fingers at him; then understanding dawns in his eyes, and he unslings the bag from his shoulder and unzips it. You pull from it a blue mask.<br/>
<br/>
Braydon is bending over your dad's desk, studying the grimoire, when you grab him from behind and press the mask to his face. He sinks into your arms.<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus, Will!" Caleb explodes. "You could'a told me you were yourself again!"<br/>
<br/>
"I just did." You've got enough of your dad still in your head that you've no time for foolery.<br/>
<br/>
"So what do we do now?" Caleb asks. "I've got some of that paste I made. We can put it in Braydon's mask if we want."<br/>
<br/>
"If we do, we'll use a batch I made after you left," you reply. "I put it in my dad's mask."<br/>
<br/>
But do you put yourself back under dad's mask, take over for Braydon, or let Braydon go and rely on the mask to tell you what you want to know?</span></div></div>


path: 111111211221121113211
author_id: seuzz
title: Becoming Braydon Delp
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You have just enough of your dad's mind inside yours to judge the thing to a fineness: Harris Prescott is not going to have enough time to study whatever books Braydon Delp has read, so you're going to have to do it from inside Delp. Caleb grumbles about it when you tell him what you're going to do. "Always taking the good stuff for yourself, aren't you?" he says.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't think <i>this</i> counts as 'good stuff'," you retort as you yank off one of Braydon's Doc Martens. <br/>
<br/>
"But he has a girlfriend, doesn't he?"<br/>
<br/>
"Does he?" <br/>
<br/>
"Gillian Kiefer, right?"<br/>
<br/>
"Mm." You have a vague memory of seeing Braydon and a girl together. "But that's not why I'm doing this." You pull off Braydon's other shoe.<br/>
<br/>
And as you start to unbutton his pants, you catch sight of your dad frowning at you from behind his desk. It gives you the briefest spasm of panic at being caught out by him before you remember yourself. "Uh, Dad," you stammer, "can you give us a little privacy?" Even now, with him as an obedient golem, you can't bring yourself to order him around<br/>
<br/>
You see it in his eyes and you hear it in Caleb's snicker: You asking for "privacy" as you strip another guy of his pants. Your face burns like a hot coal as your dad stalks out, and you turn your back on Caleb as you complete the job of stripping Braydon of his things. To cover your embarrassment, when you're done with that you snatch up the mask of yourself and start coating it with the "golem goop" that you made up while waiting for Caleb and Braydon to show up.<br/>
<br/>
Caleb waits until you're almost done before making the laconic observation: "So I suppose I'm not gonna be playing <i>you</i> anymore." That's when you realize that by coating your mask with stuff that will enslave it to your will, you have made it so that Caleb can't wear it anymore. You mutter a curse word.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I guess not," you say. "Well, if Braydon can hang out with me, he can hang out with you. And yes, you'll still get paid for what 'Will' does."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb settles back in a chair with a contented sigh. "It's a sweet life. Someone to do my work and give me his paycheck." You snort.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
To save time, you're already out of your clothes and into Braydon's by the time the mask has reappeared on your classmate's face, and you waste no time dropping your modified mask onto him. You ought to feel guilty about imprisoning Braydon this way, but you don't. It's for the greater good.<br/>
<br/>
Well, it's to help get your dad back. Even now, you're a little ambivalent about whether that's for the "good" of the universe or not.<br/>
<br/>
After "Will" has dressed, you send him and Caleb out to join your dad while you lift Braydon's mask to your face. You feel very cold as you do so.<br/>
<br/>
Then you feel very warm as the mask covers you with a sensation like hot syrup pouring over you and into you.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You're cold again when you wake, though, and you sit up with a jerk. For a moment you are lost and confused, and you frown at the strange room you find yourself in. But is it strange? It also feels very familiar, and you're struck with deja vu.<br/>
<br/>
Then all floods back, and you know where you are. But still the sense of oddity lingers, for this office is a strange place to Braydon Delp, and now you are also him, on the inside and the outside.<br/>
<br/>
You are also quite alone. But you're in no hurry to catch up to Caleb, so you lay back on the desk and blink at the ceiling a couple of times. You raise your hands and look at them. The fingers are long and white. Your forearms are white too, with black hairs that stand out against the pallor. You wriggle down inside your clothes, and pluck at your t-shirt thoughtfully.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Your silver!</i> You sit up sharply. The jewelry is spread out on the desk next to you, but it's no longer a strange affectation. Each piece is meaningful, and it tells you its meaning as you pick them up and put them on. <br/>
<br/>
The silver ring carved all about with intertwined pentagrams, which Braydon empowered the day of the summer solstice by heating it in a brazier over a bed of charcoal and a dead blackbird. According to <i>The Book of Balaam</i>, wearing it on your right index finger—you slip it on there now—increases your potency to command others.<br/>
<br/>
Around your right wrist you wrap a silver chain, among the links of which are scattered disks into which are stamped the mystical letters (of five different alphabets) associated with Sol. Have Braydon's grades improved since wearing this charm meant to invoke the academical prodigies of the Sun? Maybe by a little ...<br/>
<br/>
Over your head and about your neck and under your shirt you slip the polished bicycle chain Braydon stole off Ian Rush's bike his sophomore year. Ian was a senior, and a track star, and Braydon was sunk in envy of his athleticism. It was out of no mean desire to hurt Ian that he lifted the chain, however. According to Cornelius Agrippa, the virtues of one man may be communicated to another, like an infection, through an appropriate physical medium. Braydon lost interest in track soon thereafter, but he keeps the chain still, for he likes it as a decorative piece; and who knows, maybe one day he will discover the proper way to unlock that virtue of speed that Ian put in it all those days that he pedaled furiously to and from school.<br/>
<br/>
You're up now, and you stand and settle into your clothes. The grimoire you slide into the book bag that Braydon brought with him. From one of its pockets you take the bottle of mascara and step into the office lobby. Your dad looks back at you from the window he's staring out of, and does a double take. "All yours again, Mr. Will's dad," you call softly back to him. His brow darkens, but he nods. You go looking for a bathroom.<br/>
<br/>
The face that looks back at you from the restroom mirror is thin and pale enough that very faint freckles stand out on your nose if you look closely enough. The heavy eyelids and down-sloping eyebrows give your large, hazel-colored eyes a slightly worried look even when you're relaxed. You darken your lashes with the mascara: not enough to look like a transvestite, but enough, with the died fauxhawk, to give you just the slightest androgynous look. You resettle your clothes and twist at the ring. Does it work? That's the thing about the magic that Braydon has tried: It does not <i>do</i> or grant anything that he does not, to some degree already, possess. It is only supposed to augment it, and so there is no obvious test that will confirm or disconfirm its efficacy. Braydon is acutely aware that he is playing with a theory that cannot be verified—or even tested—but tries to ignore it.<br/>
<br/>
So you feel his hunger for magical power more sharply as you think of that grimoire: It certainly counts as <i>proof</i> that the "magic" he has tried invoking, and been roundly mocked for believing in, is <i>real.</i><br/>
<br/>
That worried expression softens a little as you smile at yourself. <i>Time to go find Johansson, and to put Braydon's brain to work on that book.</i><br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"It's not about potions or wands or Latin catch-phrases," you tell Caleb when you're in the school basement. He's in an old, broken-down swivel chair; you're sitting on a desk. "That's not what magic is."<br/>
<br/>
"It isn't?" He raises his eyebrows and lifts the cover of the grimoire to flip through the pages. "Then no wonder we fucked up, man. We been doing it wrong."<br/>
<br/>
You smile sourly. "I'm just telling you what Braydon believes."<br/>
<br/>
"Then Braydon's a dipshit and you're wasting your time in that mask."<br/>
<br/>
"It's just a recipe book we've got there," you explain, and pull the grimoire away from him. "Braydon's got a bunch of them too, and there's nothing wrong with them. You find something that works, you write it down. But Braydon's all about finding the <i>principles</i> underneath the magic, like the way a chef finds the principles in back of how to cook a roast."<br/>
<br/>
"Is that Braydon's analogy?" Caleb chortles. "Are you sure he's fucking Gillian? 'Cos that just sounds gay."<br/>
<br/>
"Shut up, man. I'm trying to explain to you that magic is about making the elements do what you want. Figure out the elements, and we can figure out the spells. And if we can figure out the spells, then we can figure out what the <i>fuck</i> is going on with this one." You hold up the grimoire, and point to the gibberish-encrusted page that has you both stumped.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah? So you have ideas about what's going on there, Houdini?"<br/>
<br/>
You bite your tongue, not at the gibe—though you and Braydon both are getting pretty tired of the way Caleb is riding you—but because you don't have a ghost of an answer to give him.<br/>
<br/>
And because according to Braydon's preferred philosophy, real magic isn't even about the elements.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Magic is about the soul,</i> he has written in his secret journal. <i>Only a special kind of soul is capable of discerning and using magic. A magician is a musician, and only those blessed with high and rare talent can practice it and develop their practice to the most perfect pitch.</i><br/>
<br/>
He wrote that in a moment of boastfulness, and still believes it. The conceit has soured into fear and anxiety, however, as his various magical practices have yielded nullities. For it implies he hasn't got the kind of soul he thinks he should have.<br/>
<br/>
Caleb is still looking at you expectantly. Luckily, your phone dings just then with a message from Gillian. Which is a perfect excuse for getting away from him before you embarrass yourself further with Braydon's lack of real knowledge.</span></div></div>


path: 1111112112211211132111
author_id: seuzz
title: Braydon's Big Distraction
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"I have to take this," you tell Caleb as you get to your feet. "Gotta meet this girl." You tuck the grimoire under your elbow.<br/>
<br/>
"Gillian?" he says.<br/>
<br/>
"My mom. Braydon's mom. I'll call you tomorrow. You gonna be up by eleven?"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't you have church?"<br/>
<br/>
"Will Prescott does. Braydon Delp doesn't."<br/>
<br/>
He smirks. "You mean he doesn't attend the First Church of Goatfuckers?"<br/>
<br/>
You rub the side of your nose with your middle finger.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
When you're in your car—Braydon drives a beat up old sedan that was maybe a luxury vehicle in the early oughts but is now just one cut above "junker"—you text Gillian back. <i>something up this afternoon meet at 8?</i> She ripostes with <i>4?</i>; you compromise on 6:30 at Besandwitched.<br/>
<br/>
You rub your eye with the heel of your hand. Gillian Kiefer is going to be a serious distraction.<br/>
<br/>
She's already a serious distraction to Braydon Delp.<br/>
<br/>
Oh, he doesn't think of her as a distraction. He thinks of her as the most wonderful thing in his life. But she really does like to keep him off balance.<br/>
<br/>
Take the way she talks about him. Delp isn't her boyfriend. He's her "hubby," and she talks to other people as though he and she are already married but are content to live apart.<br/>
<br/>
Well, that's for the best. They <i>shouldn't</i> be moving in together, not while they're both still in high school, and maybe not for a couple of years yet, even if they do wind up attending the local university, as they both plan.<br/>
<br/>
But Gillian really is content to live apart from Braydon. And there are days when, if he doesn't go looking for her at school, he won't see her at all. Sometimes they never so much as exchange a text over a weekend. Well, Braydon will send her texts. She'll ignore them.<br/>
<br/>
And she likes to flirt with other guys. Hard. She even goes on dates with them. Braydon has asked her if they have an "open relationship." She only laughs and says that if he wants an open relationship he'll have to have it with girls not named Gillian because she won't stand for that. Once, when he got jealous of all the time she was spending with Aaron Flood, he asked her if she thought she got to have multiple SOs while he (Braydon) didn't. She just told him not to be sulky.<br/>
<br/>
And then sometimes she will practically move in with him, not leaving his bedroom for hours and hours at a time, and giggling and playing with his ... appendages.<br/>
<br/>
You sink back with a groan. Gillian really knows how to keep a guy entertained and feeling good, even without touching the magic spots.<br/>
<br/>
But she seems to have a gift for knowing when he wants to do some serious studying, particularly of the occult stuff, for that's when she likes to pounce and make him pay attention to her.<br/>
<br/>
At least you've carved out an afternoon for yourself. Braydon hasn't got any homework, so you'll have five or more hours to start acquainting yourself with his library.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Thirty minutes after you get home, and are just settling in on Braydon's bed with a glass of OJ and a peanut-butter sandwich, the doorbell rings. You set your lunch aside with a sigh: Mrs. Delp is at work, and you're home alone.<br/>
<br/>
Gillian beams at you through the screen door when you answer the bell. "Hi."<br/>
<br/>
"Uh, hi."<br/>
<br/>
"Let me in? I notice your mom's not here."<br/>
<br/>
"She's at work."<br/>
<br/>
"Perfect. Let me in?"<br/>
<br/>
You unlatch the screen door. "I thought we weren't meeting until six-thirty."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, we're meeting at six-thirty. But no one said anything about not meeting before then."<br/>
<br/>
Gillian Kiefer is only slightly shorter than Braydon, and Braydon is pretty short as it is. She has soft brown hair that she wears in a bob that curls out just under her earlobes. She has chipmunk cheeks and pert lips that curve naturally into a secretive smile, and her brown eyes glint and glimmer with mischief. Her bare arms are downed with light brown hair, and her wrists are wrapped with flimsy leather friendship bracelets. She has the cutest little overbite that she likes to play up when she's feeling puckish.<br/>
<br/>
She is obviously feeling very puckish now, for she has her hands clasped behind her back. "When's your mom get off?"<br/>
<br/>
"Five-thirty."<br/>
<br/>
"Plenty of time. You hanging out in your room?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah. Listen, Gillian—" You rub your forehead. It has gotten very hot where you're standing, like a blast furnace has opened up right behind you, and parts of you are getting rigid in a way that bodes ill for your willpower. "I'm working on some stuff—"<br/>
<br/>
"Homework? I can help you."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't need your help."<br/>
<br/>
"Don't you want me to help you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, sure, but—"<br/>
<br/>
"So show me?" She sways from side to side, like a little girl trying to tease her elders. "I won't come in if you don't invite me."<br/>
<br/>
Your resistance doesn't fold so much as it flops to the floor into a limp heap, like linen slipping off a clothesline. "Come on." You pull her inside and close the door after her.<br/>
<br/>
She leans against you, cradling her head on your shoulder, so you have to half support and half tug her toward the staircase. "What are you working on?"<br/>
<br/>
"My books. You know the ones."<br/>
<br/>
"Are you ever going to make me a love potion?"<br/>
<br/>
"What do you need one for?"<br/>
<br/>
"Silly. There's a guy that I want to use it on."<br/>
<br/>
You stiffen, and not in a pleasant way. "You don't need to use one on me."<br/>
<br/>
"Good, 'cos it's for another guy. I want him to be sadly, sadly in love with me," she goes on as you tense all over. "I want him to be so sadly in love with me that he can't even eat. I want him to waste away, sighing and sighing until there's nothing left of him but a ghostly sigh that lingers in the air." You're upstairs now, and she hops into your bedroom and onto your bed. "A sigh that lingers like a stain in the air over his bed."<br/>
<br/>
"Who is the guy?"<br/>
<br/>
"I haven't decided yet. But wouldn't it be poetical and tragical and romantical?"<br/>
<br/>
"You wouldn't feed <i>me</i> that kind of potion, would you?"<br/>
<br/>
She scrunches her nose, and does a double-take at your sandwich. "You don't eat enough as it is." She picks it up and peels back the bread to study the insides, then starts eating it. "I worry about you sometimes, Braydon," she mumbles around the peanut butter as she sits on your bed.<br/>
<br/>
"I give my food rations to starving children. Karmic investment to counterbalance the black magic." You fall onto the bed next to her and stroke her calf. "What are you gonna do while I read?"<br/>
<br/>
She chews carefully, and swallows, and sucks on her teeth before answering. "I could go down on you while you study. Would that help? It seems to me that having sex while studying black magic is a pretty natural combination."<br/>
<br/>
You roll onto your back with a groan. "I really am pursuing a project, Gillian."<br/>
<br/>
"You always are."<br/>
<br/>
"No, this time is serious. It's for someone else. They want me to do some research for them." It's the only way you can think of to maybe give you some space and time.<br/>
<br/>
"Who?"<br/>
<br/>
"That's confidential."<br/>
<br/>
"Bullshit."<br/>
<br/>
"It's true. They don't want me—"<br/>
<br/>
"How come? Who is it?"<br/>
<br/>
You sigh. "Just some guys."<br/>
<br/>
Her tone turns sour and skeptical. "You're not an expert on this stuff, Braydon."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm more of an expert than anyone else."<br/>
<br/>
"So what are they asking you about, and how come you can't tell me who it is?"<br/>
<br/>
"They're embarrassed."<br/>
<br/>
"<i>You</i> should be embarrassed." <br/>
<br/>
"It's just a couple of guys from school. They found this book and they want to know what it's all about, so they asked me to read it and explain it to them."<br/>
<br/>
"What book? Is it this one?" She picks up the paperback—Van Dunkel's <i>Elements of Natural Magic</i>—that you were starting to peruse. "This is yours, Braydon, I've seen you with it a hundred times—"<br/>
<br/>
"It overlaps with this other book. This other one is, like, more advanced or something."<br/>
<br/>
"Hmph. Well, how much are they paying you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Paying?" You blink.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, God, Braydon! You're not doing someone else's work for free are you?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm getting something out of it too! This other book, it's got stuff in it that's—!"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, <i>I</i> need to get paid, if it's going to be worth my time!"<br/>
<br/>
"Your time?" You can only gape like a landed fish.<br/>
<br/>
That chipmunk smile flashes onto her face. "Sure! I'm going to help you!"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
She's finally exasperated you enough that you force her off your bed and out of your bedroom. "I said I was going to meet you at six-thirty, Gillian, and I'm going to meet you at six-thirty," you tell her at the door.<br/>
<br/>
"But—"<br/>
<br/>
"I really have to buckle down on this stuff. I'll have homework next week, and—"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't you love me anymore?"<br/>
<br/>
You pull her to yourself long enough to kiss her while fondling her butt.<br/>
<br/>
"I love you more than ever," you say when you let go of her. "So why don't you go make me jealous or something with another guy while I do this? That way we can both be mad at each other." You push her gently away and shut the door on her.<br/>
<br/>
Not till you're halfway up the stairs do you realize what you just said.<br/>
<br/>
And not until you're inside the bedroom do you wonder if maybe you should put Caleb on "distract Gillian" duties. He keeps talking about wanting to do something with masks and girls.<br/>
<br/>
To turn Gillian into a golem (non-canonical): "<a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/2236945/action/view/chapter_map/11111121122112111321113" target="_top" title="Interactive Story Chapter in Item # 2236945">Hijacking Gillian</a>" <a href="https://www.Writing.Com/main/interactive-story/item_id/2236945/action/view/chapter_map/11111121122112111321113" target="_blank" title="Open in new window."><img border="0" height="12" loading="lazy" onmouseout="$(this).css('opacity', '.4');" onmouseover="$(this).css('opacity', '1');" src="https://www.Writing.Com/nw.gif" style="opacity:.4;" width="12"/></a></span></div></div>


path: 11111121122112111321113
author_id: seuzz
title: Hijacking Gillian
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"Thanks for bringing it over," you tell Caleb as you open the screen door. But he just grins at you and makes no move toward opening his back pack. You sigh. "Come on, man, I'm up against a time limit here."<br/>
<br/>
"Who?" he replies, still grinning. "Who's it for? You said you'd tell me when I got out here with it, and now I'm here so out with the rest of it. Who's the mask for?"<br/>
<br/>
You wince.<br/>
<br/>
Oh, you could lie to Caleb and tell him it's for Braydon's mother or his aunt or Christian Knouse—one of Braydon's RPG-playing friends—or for Mr. Walberg or for any other number of people. Anyone less embarrassing than who it is actually for. But Caleb would figure it out sooner or later, probably, and then you'd be both embarrassed and busted. So—<br/>
<br/>
"It's for Gillian."<br/>
<br/>
"I knew it! Ha!" It hardly seems possible, but Caleb's grin gets even wider. "She not putting out for you?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, she is. Which is why I thought of you and how you keep trying to get into a mask of a girl. I thought <i>you'd</i> like to put it on and spend your time <i>not</i> sucking me off."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb's grin fades only a little, though his eye hardens.<br/>
<br/>
"Funny, Will, but you don't need <i>me</i> for that, 'specially when you asked me to bring along that golem goop you made for yourself. Come on, let me in, and we'll talk about how you're gonna turn Gillian Kiefer into your love slave."<br/>
<br/>
You step aside. Just inside the foyer is the formal dining room (never used) and Caleb unloads the goods onto the cherry-wood table: a blank mask with attached mind band, a tub of golem sealant, and a brush. "Where's your mom?" he asks as he looks around.<br/>
<br/>
"Braydon's mom? At work. You can go now. Thanks again."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not going anywhere, Will." Caleb pulls another blank mask from his satchel and drops it with a clatter on the table. He folds his arms. "Let's talk about who <i>else</i> you're going to copy."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Gillian smiles at you from under a squint as you enter Besandwitched with Caleb in tow. "Oh, aren't you sweet," she says as she gently pushes you back and grabs Caleb by the elbow. "And I didn't bring <i>you</i> anything." She pulls your best friend into the booth beside her. Caleb turns a little pale as she puts her arm in his.<br/>
<br/>
You return Gillian's scrunched-up smile with a tight one of your own. "Pop quiz," you say as you drop into the booth opposite them. "What's his name?"<br/>
<br/>
"What's whose name?"<br/>
<br/>
"His." You point at Caleb. "The guy you're feeling up."<br/>
<br/>
Gillian pauses, the resumes rubbing Caleb's arm. She peers into his face with a chipmunk smile.<br/>
<br/>
Your friend swallows. "Caleb," he says.<br/>
<br/>
"He's adorable," Gillian tells you. "Is he one of the guys you're working for? He says they're shy and easy to embarrass," she continues, addressing Caleb again. "Are you shy and easy to embarrass?" She rubs him harder.<br/>
<br/>
"Gillian's the reason I'm gonna have a hard time getting that reading done," you tell Caleb. "She likes to get in the way." Gillian sticks her tongue out at you. "So let's talk about who we're going to get to distract <i>her.</i>" You pause. "Hey, Ursula."<br/>
<br/>
The last is addressed to the waitress, who has materialized and is standing at your elbow without introducing herself. You give her only a flick of a glance before adding, "Just some water."<br/>
<br/>
"Ooh, I want one of your fancy coffees," Gillian says. Into Caleb's ear she says, very audibly, "Get whatever you want, my hubby is buying." Caleb murmurs, "Water," and Ursula leaves.<br/>
<br/>
"So what's this plot you guys are hatching?" Gillian asks. "Braydon <i>never</i>"— she shows you her teeth—"tells me to fuck off when he's working on something, so it must be really evil."<br/>
<br/>
"Two projects," you tell her. "The really evil one, and the one to distract you while we work on the evil one. That's the one I'd really like your help with."<br/>
<br/>
Gillian again makes a face at you. You answer by hooking your foot into hers under the table. She resists, then relents and lets you pull her foot into your lap. You untie and pull off her shoe and massage her foot inside the sock. She slides down a little in her seat, but continues to knead Caleb's hand.<br/>
<br/>
Your best friend, meanwhile, is sitting up very straight, and gives the impression that he's a rocket eager to escape the launch pad for someplace else—anyplace else.<br/>
<br/>
"Who do you hang out with when you're not bothering me?" you ask Gillian.<br/>
<br/>
She just shrugs. "If you don't want my help, Braydon, I won't force it on you."<br/>
<br/>
"Is that a promise?"<br/>
<br/>
She doesn't reply, but you can tell by the tightening around her eyes that you're pissing her off.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not trying to shake you off, honestly. It's just that these guys have a project—"<br/>
<br/>
"What project? And why do I have to keep asking you that?" Gillian squeezes Caleb's hand. Caleb's face shows surprise—and pain.<br/>
<br/>
"And I keep telling you it's just some— You see what I'm up against," you tell Caleb.<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe we should show her," he blurts out.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, it's something you can show me?" Gillian coos. "Sounds fascinating."<br/>
<br/>
You slide out of the booth and gesture to Gillian. "Hold things down here," you tell Caleb. "Tell Ursula I want a number eight, no pickles. Gillian?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'll have half of what you're having," Again, you give Caleb a look that says, <i>See what I have to put up with?</i> Gillian herself answers by stepping on your foot.<br/>
<br/>
"Back seat," you tell her when you're outside and at your car. She looks puzzled, but slides in as you hold the door for her. "Scoot over, the thing's in the bag in the foot well."<br/>
<br/>
"In here?" She grabs at the satchel.<br/>
<br/>
"Let me get it out." You crawl in after her. She giggles, and grabs your head long enough to bite at your ear. "It's this thing," you tell her as you take out the blank mask.<br/>
<br/>
Her eyes light up. "Oooh! Looks fascin—!"<br/>
<br/>
But that's all she gets out. You push her hands down and jam the mask at her face. She just has time to flinch before it rams home, true and hard, and vanishes into her.<br/>
<br/>
For a moment, she holds a rigid pose. Then her head flops back, cracking against the car window.<br/>
<br/>
You sigh, close the door behind you, and snuggle up close to her with your arm around her shoulders. You pull her head close and press her face into your neck. She smells good, and with your free hand you fondle her breasts. You kiss her forehead.<br/>
<br/>
Your cock stiffens.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Dammit, even unconscious she is a </i>huge<i> distraction.</i> <br/>
<br/>
But for ten minutes you rest there with her, feeling yourself get excited all over. And as you rub her and stroke her, it occurs to you that it would make you very happy if you <i>had</i> her body.<br/>
<br/>
Then your phone wakes up, and with a grunt and grimace you pull it out. The text is from Caleb: <i>so who for me?<br/>
<br/>
hang on and let me think</i>, you reply.<br/>
<br/>
There's actually no shortage of people that Caleb could step in for: Gillian, despite her "goth" proclivities, is a very vivacious and sociable girl with a wide set of acquaintances. Girls in the marching band and orchestra, girls in the chorales (Gillian was in them her junior year), some of the girls on the swim team and volleyball teams. And she's friends with lots of the juniors as well. <br/>
<br/>
To pick the right one of those, though, would probably require getting into her head. There are, however, a couple of girls who might work for your present needs even if they are not friends of Gillian's. Caleb unintentionally raises the first possibility when he pokes you with the alert, <i>coffees here.</i><br/>
<br/>
Like Braydon, Ursula—your waitress—is into the occult. Of course she is, since she works at Besandwitched, which has pentagrams and astrological symbols painted on its walls. Giving Caleb her brain while you run Braydon's could help your research efforts.<br/>
<br/>
Trouble is that Ursula doesn't attend Westside. She goes to Eastman, which means you'd only be able to get together with her/Caleb outside of school. Then, too, you're not sure how much she knows about anything useful: Braydon has the impression that she's only into the crystals and mumbo-jumbo and has almost no grounding in actual theory or practice. And that's the third strike against her: She and Braydon just don't like each other very much.<br/>
<br/>
You doubt Caleb would be much interested in an alternate possibility: Morgana Hollis, another girl with an interest in the occult, but one who goes to Westside. She's a dumpy and unattractive thing. And yet, spitefully, you find yourself attracted to the idea of forcing her upon him as revenge for his making himself into a nuisance.<br/>
<br/>
But probably Caleb wants someone from among the few girls that you and he know. In fact, you're sure he's thinking of the four cheerleaders who sometimes talk to you because they're friends with Jenny Ashton.</span></div></div>


path: 111111211221121113211134
author_id: seuzz
title: Girl in a Blanket
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>To answer Caleb's question—<i>who for me?</i>—you're going to have to get inside Gillian Kiefer's head. But the parking lot of Besandwitched—which fronts onto Grant Boulevard—is not the place to pull off a bodyswitch.<br/>
<br/>
<i>get fod to go,</i> you text him back. <i>pay u bac meet at school.</i><br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It's not until later, when you're pulling into the Westside student parking lot, that you realize that you should have been clearer about which school you meant.<br/>
<br/>
"What are we doing here?" Gillian asks from the back seat.<br/>
<br/>
You glance at her in the rearview mirror as you shut off the engine. "Did I say you could talk?"<br/>
<br/>
"I thought you just meant, you know, on the drive over," she says. She wears a very vexed expression.<br/>
<br/>
Her reply annoys you—and, in truth, frightens you—enough that you ask her, "Who has to do exactly what I say?"<br/>
<br/>
"I do," she says. "But—"<br/>
<br/>
"Then don't argue," you interrupt, and she claps her mouth shut with a frown.<br/>
<br/>
So that's a relief. At the same time, you don't much enjoy it. Though you're glad to see Gillian Kiefer for once docilely doing what you ask of her, you have to admit that you'll miss the teasing, the goading, the arguing that Braydon is used to getting from her, and which is part of the huge turn on that he has for her.<br/>
<br/>
And that you, as Braydon Delp now, have for her.<br/>
<br/>
You glance around as you get out of the car. There are a couple of cars parked up next to the gym, which worries you. Those will belong to the jocks, who will be up in the fabled "fuck room" over the gym. You've parked in the farthest corner of the lot from them, and you doubt they'll come down to investigate or to hassle you. But you can never tell about these things.<br/>
<br/>
From the trunk you fetch a heavy blanket, and Gillian's eyes go wide as you clamber into the back seat with it. For a moment it looks like she's going to speak or even argue, but she keeps still, though she shrinks back a little from you.<br/>
<br/>
Odd, that. She doesn't normally flinch from Braydon. But then, she doesn't normally find herself tongue-tied at his behest.<br/>
<br/>
It's on account of the mask, of course. She's not really Gillian Kiefer anymore; she's a golem. The mask came out of her while you were still parked at Besandwitched, and after getting your "golem goop" into it you pasted it back onto her face. The resulting golem picked up exactly where the real Gillian had left off, but to her own astonishment she'd clammed up when you told her to be quiet and stay still in the back seat while you went up front and drove off, leaving her car back at the restaurant. Now it's time to complete a transformation, at least long enough for you to figure out where to put Caleb.<br/>
<br/>
You throw the blanket over Gillian and tuck it around her; when she pulls it off her head, you push it back over her. "I need you to get out of your things, Gillian," you tell her. "Take your clothes off, sweetheart."<br/>
<br/>
She groans, and the blanket writhes.<br/>
<br/>
And you? Well, you hadn't thought through this next part completely, and you cast a wary eye at the gym first. But while Gillian is still disrobing, you pull off your shoes and unbutton everything. "Keep the blanket over your head," you tell Gillian. "Keep quiet. Try to go to sleep." It would be nice, you reflect, if she actually did go to sleep.<br/>
<br/>
Because that's what you're about to do. You grab your face by the brow, murmur a string of nonsense syllables, and pull.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
<i>where r u?</i> is the text that greets you when you wake with a groan and a grimace. You blink at it stupidly before you remember where and who you are again. Without thinking, you reach under the blanket to grab Gillian's face.<br/>
<br/>
She bites you.<br/>
<br/>
As you nurse your fingers, the blanket falls off her, and Gillian blinks at you in surprise.<br/>
<br/>
"What the—?" She looks around. "Where's my hubby?"<br/>
<br/>
"It's me, Gillian," you snap. "I'm in disguise."<br/>
<br/>
She gasps. Then to your immense annoyance, she bursts out laughing. You lunge for her face.<br/>
<br/>
But she bats you away. "No, seriously, Will," she says. "What's going on?"<br/>
<br/>
Pleased as you are to see that she knows your name even if she doesn't know Caleb's, you're made wary by her resistance. "Who's your boss, Gillian?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
Her eyes go wide, and her laughing smile fades. "You are," she says. She looks you up and down. "You're my— <i>Braydon?"</i> she gulps.<br/>
<br/>
"That's right," you tell her. "It's me. I told you, I'm in disguise."<br/>
<br/>
"But how did you—?"<br/>
<br/>
"Shh! Just be quiet, Gillian. You'll understand everything in a minute. You'll understand everything, because <i>I</i> understand everything. And in a minute—"<br/>
<br/>
Your voice turns ragged as you grasp her forehead. Her eyes flutter shut.<br/>
<br/>
"In a minute, I'll <i>be</i> you."<br/>
<br/>
Well, it's a cheesy line, but it gives you a thrill to utter anyway. The mask comes away in your hand, leaving a sleeping Gillian behind. If she woke now she wouldn't know where she was or how she got there, and she certainly wouldn't be happy to find herself naked—even if under a blanket—in the back seat of her boyfriend's car with Will Prescott, even if he is dressed like her "hubby."<br/>
<br/>
So you quickly press Braydon's mask onto her. You'd slopped some of the "golem goop" into it before setting out to meet her at Besandwitched, just in case.<br/>
<br/>
Braydon's face appears where hers had been, with a muzzy and puzzled expression on it. His eyes sharpen when he does a double-take at you, though. You let him look you up and down, as Gillian had done, and he peers under the blanket at his state of undress. "Um," he says.<br/>
<br/>
You start stripping. "So what do you think is going on?" you ask him.<br/>
<br/>
He presses his lips shut, and waits until you're disrobed before speaking. "If I had to guess," he says, "I'd say that there's some kind of switch-off happening."<br/>
<br/>
"That's it exactly," you tell him. "Now, you give me that blanket and you get dressed." You shove his shirt and pants at him. "Then text Caleb back and tell him we're on our way, and drive us out to the old elementary school in Acheson."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know where that is."<br/>
<br/>
You are briefly interested to note that, although you knew everything that was going on in Braydon's head while you were using the mask, the mask doesn't appear to have picked up anything that you knew or were planning. But there'll be time enough to think about that later, if it continues to be interesting. "Use Google Maps," you tell him as you pull the blanket around yourself. Once you're comfortable, you pull Gillian's mask out, and with a gulping breath push it to your face.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The world is softly vibrating when you wake. It's also dark and closed in. But it's warm too.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Mm.</i> You like this blanket. It smells like Braydon. You smile and snuffle in a deep breath.<br/>
<br/>
The world seems to make a left turn, and it vibrates harder. A moment later it stops, and the vibrations cease. So too does the sound of a motor. You throw the blanket off and frown at the roof of the car.<br/>
<br/>
It's Braydon's car, and you're not shocked. It must be Braydon behind the wheel. What the hell is going on with him? First he's all mysterious with you, then he starts ordering you around—and you go along with it!—and then he's turning himself into a copy of Will Prescott? <i>It's like something out of a dream!</i><br/>
<br/>
But even as you savor the delicious feeling of mystery, you sigh as the mystery dissipates, like a vapor under a strong sun. A car door opens, and Braydon says, "Hey."<br/>
<br/>
"Hey." That's Caleb, indulging his impatient honk. "Where the fuck were you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Out at the school. Westside. Switching around, apparently."<br/>
<br/>
"Switching? Switching with—? What the—?"<br/>
<br/>
You sit up with a grunt, wrapping the blanket around your bust. Caleb jumps back from the car a couple of feet, his eyes bugging out. "Tell him it's me," you order your hubby.<br/>
<br/>
"It's Gillian," Braydon calls out to Caleb.<br/>
<br/>
"No, no thtat!" You whack at your hubby's head, but only manage to hit the headrest. "Tell him it's Will, I changed places with Gillian."<br/>
<br/>
"Gillian says to tell you it's Will," Braydon calls out, sounding tired. "He changed places with Gillian."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb, still hunched over, advances a few wary steps. "Will?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yes." You sigh and push your bangs out of your eyes. "Get up front with Braydon. Oh, you bring that sandwich?" Caleb brandishes a brown paper bag. "Great. Braydon will take his half and I'll take mine."<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus, man," Caleb chortles after he's crawled into the car and shut it. "I didn't know you were going to go all the way with her."<br/>
<br/>
"Funny. But I don't know for how long," you reply as you take half of the paper-wrapped sandwich he's extended you. "I'm just in here long enough to figure out where we can put you. Mask-wise, I mean."<br/>
<br/>
"And?" Caleb's breathing sounds very loud.<br/>
<br/>
You take a bite of the sandwich, and chew it very long and slowly, and you swallow it before answering. "It'll take me awhile."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb groans. "Come on, Will! You're having all the fun! It's my turn now!"<br/>
<br/>
You just take another bite of the sandwich. And another. And another.<br/>
<br/>
And another. Caleb slams his face into the seat.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Monday,</i> you want to tell him. <i>I'll tell you Monday, and I'll try to get it arranged for you by Tuesday.</i> That's how much you want to punish him.<br/>
<br/>
Or you could just give him one of the most recent three names to show up in Gillian's text messages. You take out your phone and open them up.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Interesting,</i> you think as you thumb down them.</span></div></div>


path: 1111112112211211132111341
author_id: seuzz
title: At Home with Yourself
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"Susie Lekuawehe," you say around the last bite of your sandwich.<br/>
<br/>
"Is that someone's name?" Caleb asks. "Or do you have peanut butter stuck to the roof of your mouth?"<br/>
<br/>
"She's in the marching band," you tell him. "And she's Hawaiian. Not that those two things have anything to do with each other."<br/>
<br/>
"Never heard of her."<br/>
<br/>
"That's because you don't have a social life."<br/>
<br/>
"Neither do you."<br/>
<br/>
"I do now." You dimple at your best friend and pull out Gillian's phone. "Let's get you one too. She's got lots of boyfriends."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, God!"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, what do you want, Caleb?" You suck the last of your sandwich out of your teeth as, with a delicately poised fingertip you scroll through Gillian's many, many contacts. "You wanna be a cute girl like me? Then either you're gonna have to have a hubby—like me—or you're gonna have lots of guys getting up close to you and touching you."<br/>
<br/>
It's remarkable how much noise a teenage boy can make when he <i>slumps</i> really hard into his seat.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Susie is so sociable that of course you're unable to get her out to see you on a Saturday night, and in her texts back she keeps goading you to bring Braydon out to the party where she's hanging out. But you decline and send Caleb home with the promise that you'll get Susie for him on Sunday afternoon. Braydon drives you back to Besandwitched to pick up Gillian's car. You really ought to switch masks with Braydon, and return home to do some work—the reason you turned Gillian into a golem, after all, was to give yourself some breathing space to get work done. But you'd just have to turn yourself into Gillian again tomorrow—wouldn't you?—so it seems easiest to go home and spend the night as her.<br/>
<br/>
Besides ...<br/>
<br/>
"Braydon's being a butt-head," you airily announce as you enter Gillian's house to be met with stares of surprise from her mother and father, who are cuddled up watching television. "I'll be in my room, see you tomorrow."<br/>
<br/>
The Kiefers live in a house that built back in the early '70s by builders who apparently tried to mate the hippie and Brady Bunch aesthetics. The owners who came after have tried softening the hard edges—replacing mustard-yellow and vomit-green colors  with whites and grayish-blonde woods. But there are still some kooky design choices, like the three porthole-shaped windows looking into the back yard, and the three-foot-high door that opens onto a hobbit-sized passageway connecting her bedroom to her parents'. (Like, WTF is that?) Her bed has no headboard but is instead shoved into an alcove formed by an arch-shaped book case. As you grimace at it you can't help thinking that a bedroom like this couldn't help warping the person who slept in it, and that maybe that's how come Gillian turned out so funky.<br/>
<br/>
With a sigh you flop onto the bed with its heavy, homemade quilt—navy blue and snowy white; "Sailor Moon," Braydon calls it—and squeeze up into the cubbyhole formed by the bookcases. You waggle your toes. You are suddenly very conscious of your body.<br/>
<br/>
You are wearing a heavy peasant skirt with lots of pleats and ruffles and folds, and a sleeveless blouse. You rub your bare arms and hike up one leg to cross the ankle over a raised knee. You make a face at your white calf. Gillian certainly isn't fat, and she doesn't think of herself as fat, but she is covered all over with soft baby fat, and she does think of her calves as chunky. Her arms, too, have no tone, and their flesh flaps and jiggles a little. Her fingers are short, and when you cup your face in your palms there is a lot of cheek to play with.<br/>
<br/>
But she is so tender, and so sensitive, and Braydon knows <i>exactly</i> how hard to nibble and bite and suck in a way that gives Gillian little whirlpools of excitement under her skin. You hug yourself and think of your hubby and irritably wonder why he was being such a butt-munch this afternoon when you only wanted to cuddle and play and stroke and tease him into making you feel good all over.<br/>
<br/>
You know the answer to that question, of course, but still pout over it as you peel off your sandals and rub your feet. They're small with stubby toes, and you make a face at them and at the green nail polish on them.<br/>
<br/>
You open up your blouse and loosen your skirt and sprawl on the bed with a sigh. You still can't quite bring yourself to molest yourself in your new body, though you can think of lots of delightful things to do with your fingers and boobs and other pieces and parts. You give some thought to taking a bath—Gillian loves a good bubble bath—but that would be too much of a hasty plunge. Instead, you slowly work at and burrow into yourself.<br/>
<br/>
After you've got the blouse open, for instance, you spend some time running fingertips delicately your bra. Gillian has enormous breasts, though not so big and sloppy as to be gross, and they warm and tingle as you gently squeeze them. You unzip the skirt and cast it aside to stroke and smooth a creamy thigh. You twist on the bed, digging into it with your hips and shoulder blades until, impatient with the final encumbrances, you flop over to grab and grasp at the bra, peeling it off. You cross your right arm beneath them in support while clasping your left bra. They prickle in the air, and you peer down with a smile at their rosy tips. <br/>
<br/>
A noise in the rest of the house reminds you of your exposed position, so you sit up and pull the sheets and blankets back on the bed, then pad into the bathroom to fill the tub with water. There you pull off the rest of your clothes and change into a short, belted kimono. You lean against the sink and peer at yourself in the mirror.<br/>
<br/>
Your face is round and soft and a little doughy when slack, but a smile is all it take sot transform into something toothsome. Gillian's dad still calls her "dumpling," and there is something delectable about the way her cheeks both fill out and dimple when she smiles. But it's a mischievous smile, too, one that can't help show a little flash of teeth behind it. You pat at the soft, dark bangs of your bob, then brush it out.<br/>
<br/>
The bathwater is very warm when you slide into it, and you shiver all over as it touches your tits. You didn't put any bath crystals or bubbles into, so it's just you, and with only your toes and knees breaching the surface as you sink down so that your chin touches the waterline. You grip your inner thighs and pull gently at them, and tease at the bush to let the water in. Slowly, a bit at a time, your fingertips dig more deeply in, rubbing and stroking and relaxing and stimulating ...<br/>
<br/>
Something turns loose, but it's not the fabled female orgasm. It goes deeper than that, as though a fault line has slipped and all the bones and sinews of your body have shifted and settled and submerged under a warm, inundating sea. A deep groan fills you, and you suddenly hunger for a mouth to close over yours, and for a tongue to suck on. <i>Braydon, why aren't you here?</i> ...<br/>
<br/>
With a short sigh and a quick, vigorous rub, you give up on pleasuring yourself, and let your body steep in the bath water, filling it from the steaming tap whenever it turns tepid. You have pruned all over, and your hair has lost its bounce when you come out. You dry yourself slowly all over with a flannel towel, then put your kimono back on and clamber into bed. You answer a few texts from friends who are wondering why you're not at any parties with them, then before it's even eleven o'clock, you change into PJs, put out your lights, and amuse yourself by watching some random videos on your phone. When you feel your eyes sinking back in your head, you lay your phone aside and go to sleep.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Saturday was drizzly and cool, and Sunday continues to be cool as well, but at least the sun comes out from behind the rain-fattened clouds. There are Pillsbury cinnamon rolls for breakfast and KFC for lunch, so there's a reason Gillian isn't the trimmest girl in school. But you don't partake of much of it, so there's a reason she's only soft and not plump all over.<br/>
<br/>
It's not until after one that Susie finally responds to your texts telling her that she should hang out with you and Braydon and "this other guy." <i>eyah who?</i> she wants to know. Yu reply, <i>trust me he wants to be into you.</i> You smirk at your clever play on "into" until you realize it could be taken in just a really dumb sexual way. But if the innuendo causes Susie to raise an eyebrow, she doesn't show it when you meet her.<br/>
<br/>
"Isn't this nice? Like a little suburban oasis?" you ask her when you meet at the old Acheson Elementary School. You and Susie and Braydon are strolling through the playground. The old building rears up on one side, but suburban houses overlook the park from the other three directions.<br/>
<br/>
"It's just an old school," she says. You smile at her but don't argue as you pull Braydon closer to your side.<br/>
<br/>
Susie is Hawaiian, which means she has an Asian cast to her features without looking like she just got off a plane from Tokyo. Her face is flat with high cheekbones. She has a nice, wide smile that lifts all of her features, and her face is framed by long, silky brown hair that falls in gentle waves halfway to her elbows. You're dressed down in sweat pants and windbreaker, but she's in a maroon sweater and dark jeans.<br/>
<br/>
"There he is," you say as Caleb's car pulls into the lot. You smile to yourself as your gawky, geeky friend untangles himself from behind the wheel.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh no," Susie moans. "Not him!"</span></div></div>


