This choice: Use this girl here--she's ideal • Go Back...Chapter #11The Girl You Could Be by: Seuzz   Fuck it. This is too good of an opportunity to pass up. You're alone in the coffee shop with this strange girl, and you'll probably never have as good a chance to catch someone unaware.
You pass her on the way back to your booth, straining to keep your eyes off her, and pick up the completed mask from your table. Then, holding your breath, you creep into the booth behind her. You get up on your knees, and look over the top of her booth onto the crown of her head. After shooting a quick glance behind to confirm the coast is clear, you reach down and press the mask onto her face from behind.
For a moment you feel the hard, cool surface of the mask. Then it vanishes beneath your palm, and you're pressing your fingertips into soft, yielding flesh.
For a moment panic washes over you. What if the girl is still awake? What if she screams? What if she bites your fingers off at the knuckles?
But there's no sound, and her head falls heavily into your hand. You look over the partition. She is starting to slump, and if you let go of her, she'll face-plant hard into the table.
Sweat breaks out all over you. What have you done? How are you going to get out of this? What if someone catches you?
Carefully, stretching your arm as long as it will go so as to keep hold of the girl's face, you slide out of your booth. Your toes slip on the concrete floor, and you let go of the girl in order to catch yourself. At the same time, you lurch forward and shoot out your other hand to catch her head. You bang your ribs against the partition.
But you've still got her, and you're out of the booth, so you're okay. You let her face fall gently onto her books and pull your hand free. Then you sit down next to her, bend down, and peer anxiously into her face.
She's quite beautiful, with the almond eyes and the high cheekbones of an East Asian. Her skin is the color of dark, tarnished bronze, and her long black hair drapes past her elbows. Her eyes are closed, and she is breathing deeply and regularly. Of the mask there is no sign.
Only now does it occur to you that the book said nothing about how long it takes to copy someone. You scramble back to your table, and check the time on your phone. Five-thirty-seven. You'll give the mask three minutes to do its stuff before you panic. You return to the girl's booth with your phone, and hunker over to wait.
You're panicking before two minutes are up, and when "5:40" flashes on your phone you suppress a wave of hysteria. To keep from losing your shit entirely, you gather up your stuff for a quick getaway. At 5:41 you move to a table on the wall across from the unconscious girl's booth so you can watch her from a safe spot.
At 5:43 the barista trudges through the dining room. You lower your head and swallow your heart before it can force its way up your throat. He goes into the bathroom without glancing at either you or the girl.
By 5:46 your fear is starting to give way to a sickly worry. What if you fucked up the mask? What if it has put the girl into a coma or something? Well, there's no way anyone can trace it to you if that's what you've done. Still, you don't like the idea of hurting the girl.
At least, you don't like the idea of pointlessly hurting her.
If you've fucked up, you are not going to repeat the experiment. You'll take the book and the stuff to Chelsea and tell her to burn it, that the magic stuff is just way too dangerous and you need to just stop doing anything and everything with it. Sure, Gordon will be—
A blue glow from the other table catches your eye. You cast an anxious look at the girl. There's something wrong with her face.
Then you realize it's the mask. It's reappeared there, and is wedged between her head and the table.
You grab up your book bag and dash over. Yes, there's the mask. The girl still isn't moving, though.
Gingerly, you push her head up just enough that you can slide the mask out from under her. Her eyes remain fast shut, and she's still breathing. You hold your own breath and you lower her face back to the table.
Then you run like fuck out of the coffee shop.
* * * * *
You text your mom to tell her that you'll be eating with the guy whose art project you're helping out on; a minute later she texts back a curt, Okay, which might mean she's okay with it and might mean she's pissed off but too busy to let you have it between the eyes. You'll worry about that later. You've got a mask to try on.
You're back in the elementary school basement, which is already dim with the evening light. You've cleared out a space beneath a conference table, because you're shy about doing what comes next out in the open, on the million-to-one chance that someone will come in and catch you. You've got your clothes off, and you're crouched over the mask you've just sealed, cupping it in both hands. The name of the girl floats in blue letters over the inside of the mask.
At least, you assume it's her name. It's not in English or even in the Latin alphabet. You vaguely recognize it as Vietnamese or Thai or something like that. You wonder, with a light thrill, if you're about to become bilingual in some exotic tongue.
Your mouth is very dry, and you have a hard time bringing yourself to follow through on your plan. But here it is, now. The experiment you said you had to try.
You're about to use one of these masks to turn yourself into another person.
If you've done the spell right.
Oh God.
With a spasm, you shove the mask into your own face before you can change your mind.
It's like being punched in the face with an iron girder.
* * * * *
From dark, cold depths you rise to breach the surface of consciousness. You gasp, then cry out faintly at the pain in your hand. (You must have flung your arm out in a spasm.) Your breath is coming in fast, short bursts, and your heart is hammering in your chest. Slowly, you try to come to grips with where you are and what has happened.
It's dark and cool, and you're sitting on a cold floor. The thin padding under you—vaguely it occurs to you that it's your t-shirt and jeans—hasn't kept the chill of the floor from invading your body. You put your hands out and touch hard surfaces beside you and above you. What's going on? Are you sitting under a table?
It floods back. Yes, that's exactly where you are. You are crouching under a table in the basement of the old elementary school. You took your clothes off because you didn't know if they would interfere with the spell when you put that girl's mask on.
You stop cold. You did put in it on. And now—
You shriek softly as a thing like a spider runs down your face. You put her hand up and catch it.
It's a lock of hair. A long, coarse lock of hair.
At that moment you realize the experiment must be a success. Your frozen fingers are locked around a strand of Summer Nguyen's hair.
Summer Nguyen. That tells you that the rest of the experiment is a success. You groan, close your eyes, and let your head fall forward. Your hair flops forward with it.
You were in The Flying Saucer coffee shop, doing your math and waiting for Lisa and Mandy to show up, when you heard a noise, and then something cool and dark went over your face. Or, at least, that's the impression you have. The next thing you knew you were waking up here.
Backward reels your mind and memories, to the day just past. The drive out to the coffee shop. Afternoon classes. Lunch in the science lab with Chris. The drive to school, where you met Chris in the parking lot, and took from her the first kiss of the day. The anxieties earlier in the week as the calculus test approached. Talking with Chris and hanging out with Chris and her band mates. Lisa's offhand comments about your relationship with Chris and the hurt they gave you. The time Alyssa took you aside, soon after you started dating Chris, to tell you that you were very lucky but you had be very careful about Chris, because under her surface spikiness was a real spikiness that might hurt you, but that she (Alyssa) would always be there for you if you needed to talk.
The loneliness of the summer vacation, and the excited trepidation you felt when Chris Yves first noticed you, and talked to you, and pulled you close, and with her tongue and mouth showed you that she wanted you to be her friend and companion, and the terrified gladness you felt for days after you indicated that her friendship would make you happy ... the terrified gladness you still feel.
You rub your face with your hands, then drop them with a sniff. Suddenly this body feels very familiar and comfortable. You hadn't even noticed it, being dizzy and preoccupied in the darkness with finding yourself, but now it's a totally expected thing when you reach down to cup and squeeze a pear-like breast in one hand, and to probe the bushy mound with your other. For a moment you squeeze and press them thoughtfully.
Then you clamber out from under the table, to stand in the darkening basement. For a moment you feel dizzy.
Summer Nguyen goes to Eastman High School. You could hide out there as her. Because with her mind you know how to get to her again, and are fully confident of your ability to replace her. | Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
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