Ch. 5 / Pt. 4 : When They Wear the Mask

When Deirdre had first walked into the salon, not even a facemask could disguise the stylist’s expression of horror. ‘Teesha, Rehani’s stylist, had all but recoiled at first glance. Deirdre had almost turned around and walked right back out. ‘Teesha had apologized, saying that she’d seen worse. Deirdre had hesitated. ‘Teesha had told her that everyone had let the quarantine get to them in one way or another. Deirdre hadn’t corrected the woman. What would she have said? Oh, don't worry, this started way before the quarantine.

Clippers had buzzed off most of the weight. The wash and condition had taken forever, though the scalp massage helped, but the initial attack happened quickly. Half of Deirdre’s hair hit the floor before any real work even began. After that came the questions. Deirdre had worn the same high-top fade since sixteen. She’d considered changing it several times, especially recently, but everything she thought looked good seemed like so much work.

“You’ve been going through some shit,” ‘Teesha had observed.

And maybe because she didn’t know this other woman, not in any real way, Deirdre had admitted in a quaking voice, “I really, really have.”

She hadn’t cried. Sometimes the not crying was the only way she felt she had any power over everything that had happened. So she hadn’t cried. But the impulse had rolled through her anyway, all the way up to the ridges of her eyes. She’d cleared her throat.

“Let me show you some pictures,” ‘Teesha had suggested.

And Deirdre had nodded assent.

As evening shaded toward twilight, as Deirdre drove Rehani’s car back to her squat, she glanced at herself in the rearview. ‘Teesha had told her that the top-heavy mantle of undercut finger curls required frequent attending, routine and regular maintenance. Deirdre had to spend the next night sleeping with oil in her bonnet. She’d had to buy a special spray to tame unexpected frizz. And while Deirdre had more expendable income than most of Squatter City’s desperate residents, she preferred to avoid unnecessary expenses, frizz-taming sprays included.

Still, she hadn’t felt pretty in a long time. ‘Beautiful’ in even longer.

So there was that.

Parking on the ragged border where the cracked asphalt of her street me the ankle- and shin-high overgrowth of her yard, she saw Paul sitting on the steps to her front porch. He waved as she climbed out of the car. His own thin hair curled and shagged, shapeless save for barely-there hints of a natural mullet. He’d washed his clothes, at least. And judging from the freshened scent Deirdre noticed on approach, he’d showered.

“Wow,” he said, standing up as she came near. “Uh…yeah, wow.”

He wore the slightly-lidded and faintly-grinned expression of someone high on cannabis and swaddled in psychic depressants.

“Wow, what?” she asked.

He hesitated, dropped his gaze. “Nothing. Really, nothing. Nevermind.” He gestured toward her front door, “Rehani’s just about done with dinner, I think.”

“And you?”

“Avoiding the cat,” he said. He sniffled and swallowed. “You know, the allergies.”

“The allergies, yeah.”

“I’ll tell you, they didn’t help the hangover.”

“The hangover?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know what else to call it. Whatever that spell did to me last night, I woke up feeling like…well, like I’d spent one half the night puking up the other half. I couldn’t even get out of bed until after noon.”

“Do you feel okay now?”

“Okay enough to go over the notes.”

“And you’re down for whatever happens next?” she leaned against a railing, mirroring him. “If we go over everything and it turns out this is dangerous or something, or it turns out we need you to do something serious on the other side…”

“I made a promise,” Paul said. “And, uh…I can’t be the person who breaks his promises anymore. Not the important ones.”

She nodded, stepped away from the railing. “So…ready to face the dander?”

“I’ll get through it, I guess.”

They headed inside.

###############

After dinner, after the dishes were cleaned and left sinkside to drip-dry, a silence fell over the kitchen. Paul and Rehani spread out their notes, shuffling things around, making small anxious gestures. Deirdre watched, not wanting to ask any leading questions. They’d shared food as friends and now had to prepare to somberly address a dread and dark conflict ahead. Nobody knew how to begin.

Paul spoke first. “I saw—or felt, or whatever—something out there besides just the dead. Something that wasn’t a ghost or a geist or a minor spirit or anything else I’ve seen or felt or communicated with before. And it…it scared me. Not as much as when I felt the Devourer last year, but still. I knew it was malignant instantly. Without a doubt. And I knew that all the ghosts that usually clamored and shrieked and cried out…I knew they were being quiet so that it wouldn’t hear them.”

“So this thing is already here?” Deirdre asked.

“I don’t know,” Paul admitted. “I don’t know how literal everything was, especially with the dreamer. But if it’s not here, it’s well on its way. And since, as far as I’m aware, the dead can’t exactly die again, I’m not sure why they’d hide from it.”

Leaned against the stove while Paul and Rehani reviewed their documentation on the eat-in, Deirdre wrote notes about the notes in an old memo-pad. “Is there anything else?”

“It was slender. It felt powerful but I could tell it wasn’t big. At least not yet. It had limbs as thin as swordblades, knife-edge fingers…every part of it felt sharp except…something about the face…”

Pencil poised, Deirdre waited for more.

Paul shook his head. “That’s all I wrote down. Everything I could make sense of, anyway.”

“Thanks for going through that,” Deirdre said. “I know it’s hard for you.”

Paul shrugged, slouching in his seat. “No problem.”

“Rehani?”

Rehani leaned forward, shuffling through sheets of automatic writing. “In the cards, I saw someone strong as stone, of the earth,” she bobbed her head to indicate Deirdre, “someone who rises when called upon,” she waved her hand so-so at Paul, “and…a widow. Do we know a widow?”

“I don’t know. Maybe?”

“The cards warn of strained relationships, conflict, and, ah, bad luck. A powerful party stands with us and against us, maybe a man. And the cards warn of death, of course. Death, great change, or shifting worlds.”

“What, is it multiple choice?” Paul asked. “Do we have to pick?”

“See this, Haley Joel?” Rehani held up her middle finger.

Paul chuckled.

It relieved Deirdre, seeing Paul laugh. It eased at least one of the many anxieties tightening vice-like around her ribs.

Rehani continued, “It’s more ‘up for interpretation.’ And after what we caught off the spell, it’d be weirder if the cards didn’t warn of death.”

“Fair enough.”

Deirdre tapped her pen against blank paper. “Anything else?”

“Some numbers,” Rehani flipped a few papers around. “These two don’t mean nothing to me, might as well be Greek, but the last one’s a date.”

“A date?”

“A deadline,” Rehani corrected. “Five days from now.”

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