The Mask That Sang (5 page)

chapter nine

Cass unlocked the door and pushed it open. Degan followed behind her into the calm blue kitchen and stood awkwardly, hands in his pockets. It was the strangest thing possible, to be returning home with a kid from school at the end of her first day. Maybe he was even going to be a new friend, something Cass would have never imagined.

There was a note on the kitchen table, with an apple on top of it. A bowl of fruit sat on the table. Mom had been to the food bank.

Hey, sweetness, I'm out returning the cube van and pounding the pavement but will be back probably around the time you get home from school. Hope today was good. I thought about you every minute and sent you heart phone calls! Lots of love, Mom.

“What's a heart phone call?” Degan asked.

Cass blushed. She and Mom had started it ages ago to help with everything. Whenever Mom was down and doubting herself, or Cass was trying to get up the nerve to go back to school, they'd think about the other one so strongly, so lovingly, that they figured that the message was surely being passed between them. It was as if they were linked by a phone connection nobody could see.

“Just—how we support each other,” she said. “Mom and me.”

“What about your dad?”

“There's no dad. Just us. He left before I was born.” She said shyly, “I don't think they were together long. Or maybe at all.”

She half-flinched when she checked to see if he was giving her the withering look all of the kids had done at her old school. Looking down on her as if she was less than they were. White trash, they had called her.

But Degan wasn't looking at her that way at all.

He said matter-of-factly, “My aunt isn't really my aunt. She was my mom's best friend. She left the reservation to come and get me after my mom got sick, because she had a dream about it. But then my mom died, and by then my aunt was working as a healer here in the city. So she's raising me here. She thinks that's how it's supposed to go.”

It took Cass a minute to take this all in. “What about your dad?”

“He had some problems. There are a lot of reasons. He couldn't help to raise a baby.”

Cass stared at Degan, scarcely able to believe how easily he spoke of his parents, amazed that his story was so like her own in parts, but that he hadn't any trace of shame about it. The bullies had shown her so many times that everything about her was something to be ashamed of. But something had prevented Degan from believing that about himself, even though people like Ellis had surely tried to make him feel puny and worthless. What had kept him proud about himself and his background?

“Can I see your mask?”

“Come on.”

Cass led the way down the little hallway, listening for the music of the false face, the curling voice so similar to the vines in Degan's sketch. It was pulsing there, at the back of her mind. The mask was pleased she was inviting Degan to see it, happy Cass had met him. Everything was somehow going as the mask thought it should.

But Degan's words echoed in her mind.
You have to be careful with a false face. Those are tricky. It can go either way with them.

™

Cass led Degan into her little bedroom, and over to the dresser where the mask lay in the drawer. “It's in here.”

She slid the drawer open.

And froze.

It was empty.

“Where is it?” Cass asked.

Degan said nothing.

Then she was frantically pulling out each drawer, rummaging through clothes. She ran to the closet, pulled the door open, tore through everything hanging there.

“It's gone! It's gone!”

But the mask was still singing in her head, far away, like the impossible sound of a finger beckoning.

It was a blur after that. She tore through the house, Degan behind her. She searched in the cupboards of the kitchen, poked through the cushions in the couch, looked in the wood cupboard by the fireplace. There was no sign of the mask.

The panic rose in her as she realized it was not to be found in the house. Where else could it be?

The backyard?

“I'm going to search outside,” she said to Degan. Although there was no reason it should be out there. No reason it should have moved at all.

And how did it move? Did someone take it?
Or did it move on its own?

“Okay,” Degan said. His voice was calm. Like it was perfectly normal that they should search outside for a false face that might have gone for a walk. “We'll search outside.”

They walked slowly down the slope of the hill, looking behind trees and bushes. Overhead, birds wheeled as if everything was normal. Toward the bottom, they neared the dumping ground that was just beyond the limits of the backyard. The no-man's-land.

Cass climbed the back fence and stepped carefully down into the garbage, seeking out those rolling eyes and that black hair. Instead she saw garbage bags strewn everywhere, along with broken furniture, cracked bottles, and other things nobody wanted.

She almost didn't see the crumpled envelope, lying where it had landed next to a broken cardboard box. It was bright white against the ground. After a moment's hesitation, Cass leaned down and picked it up, smoothing it out. The typed words on the front were still clearly visible:
Ms. Denise Foster.

She stood holding it for a minute, trying to decide. Should she leave it where it was, and respect Mom's wish not to know what was in it? Or should she at least bring it back to the house? Should she read it?

No, she couldn't read it—that wouldn't be right.

But, a little voice whispered,
“What if Mom changes her mind one day? What if Mom decides she wants to know what's inside, and you could bring it out for her, kept safe for as long as was needed?”

Cass stared at it for a minute longer, then shoved the envelope in her pocket.

™

Mom's excited voice rang out from up the hill.

“Cass? I'm home! Is that you? I have something amazing to show you! What are you doing down there?”

Cass straightened.

“Just—just showing my friend the backyard!” she called, hearing the strangeness of those words.
My friend.

They climbed up the hill toward Mom.

“Hello,” Mom said, glancing from Cass to Degan and back again, with a cautious and then delighted smile that spread across her face. Cass had never brought anyone home before.

“This is Degan Hill,” Cass said. “Degan, that's my mom.”

“It's a pleasure to meet you!” Mom kept grinning like a fool. She was obviously thrilled and struck with shyness at the same time, wanting to be welcoming but not having much idea how. And meanwhile, all that Cass could think of, desperately, was the mask.

“Hi.” Degan shook her hand. Mom beamed even harder, looking flustered.

“Okay, both of you, come on up to the house. I have a big surprise!”

They followed Mom back up the hill and through the gate to the kitchen door. Mom pushed it open and rushed in. Then she stepped to the side of the kitchen table, waved her arm with a flourish, and said, “Ta-da!”

It was a computer. More specifically, it was a big box with a photo of the computer on the front. Mom had opened the top, and Cass could see all of the components inside.

“Wow,” Cass breathed. “Is that for us?”

For a minute, she almost forgot about the mask.

Mom nodded, nearly bursting. “There's a printer too. We can use it for so many things. You can do your schoolwork on it, I can make résumés, and we'll be able to see the school's website and everything! Do you like it?”

“I love it.” Cass ran her hand down the side of the box, almost afraid to touch it. They had never owned anything so marvelous before. Other kids had computers, but she had never expected to.

Then a thought occurred to her. “How could we afford this? Aren't computers expensive?”

“That's the best part,” Mom said, practically dancing. “It didn't cost us a penny. I pawned a few things we didn't need and then I went over and bought the computer. It's second hand, but the computer guy said it's certified to be like brand-new.”

Degan caught his breath.

At first, she had no idea why. Then a dark feeling crept over her.

But it couldn't be. Mom couldn't have.

“You—pawned a few things? Like what?”

She was afraid to hear the answer.

“Some things left in cupboards that we don't need. Nothing important, don't worry!” Mom could always read Cass's face, and her expression suddenly mirrored the anxiety Cass was feeling inside. “It's okay, my darling!” She put her arm around Cass's shoulders and squeezed reassuringly.

“The mask,” Cass said in a tiny voice. “You didn't pawn the mask, did you? The one in the drawer in my room?”

Mom's face got even more worried. She didn't answer for a minute.

“But you didn't like it,” she said at last. “It upset you. Don't you remember? It made you nervous.” Helplessly she added, “I thought you'd be glad.”

Cass's heart was beating so fast that she could hardly see straight. “I loved it! I need it! We have to get it back, Mom! We have to!”

She burst into tears, scarcely able to believe the mask was gone. It couldn't be, because the voice was still singing, deep inside her mind. But now it was the lost cry of one who had been cast away.

Degan was edging toward the door. “I should go home,” he said quietly.

Cass hardly heard him.

He closed the door, leaving Mom and Cass alone.

“We have money!” Cass said, her voice shaking. “Can't we use it? Can't we buy the things we need with it, and not pawn my mask?”

Mom sank into a kitchen chair, her face looking aged all of a sudden. Her eyes seemed to droop a little, as if the weight she had inside was too heavy and was pulling her down with it.

“I can't. I can't use it. It's for you, Cass, for when you're older. So I can provide for you in a way that she couldn't—or didn't want to.” She breathed out slowly. “I can't explain it very well, but that money is tainted for me. It's—like poison. Too little too late. Some money doesn't make up for the years in those homes, the things that happened.”

She put her head in her hands for awhile.

“When I land a job, I will buy it back for you, I promise,” she said in a muffled voice.

Mom looked so small and so sad that Cass couldn't even answer, couldn't say everything she needed to say, couldn't explain that she needed the mask so desperately because it sang about soaring above the clouds and the birds, showed her the shining lake below.

She put her arms around Mom instead.

chapter ten

The rest of the evening passed in a kind of fog. Mom struggled with the computer, fiddling with wires and cables and putting them all in the wrong holes while she said things under her breath about how it was broken.

When Mr. Gregor knocked on the door later, he had some extra tomatoes for them because he had bought more than he could possibly use. When he saw the wires everywhere, he ended up offering to put together the computer himself. At first, Mom refused, but after he showed her the first connection, she let him continue. Then he and Mom tried turning it on, and Mr. Gregor ended up teaching Mom about how to get on the Internet and how to create files. He kept making impossibly bad jokes while he did it. Cass imagined he could probably tame a wild tiger, just through patience and listening and kindness and humor. He seemed almost like someone from another planet, like nothing bad had ever touched him.

But even though he was filling the kitchen with nonsense and laughter, she escaped to her bedroom with homework. It had been too much, a day too filled with things. Starting a new school, standing up to a bully, meeting a possible new friend, and finally—horribly—losing the mask. Not to mention watching Mom crumple like a used newspaper no one wanted, broken and so sad to see Cass unhappy.

Cass hunched on the bed, knees drawn tightly up to her chin, eyes dry but full of unshed tears. Why did she care so much about the mask, anyway? And why did it sing to her still, even when it was gone? It sang of lost things, lost children, lost lives. It didn't make any sense. Who were those children, and why did Cass need to know?

™

“Cass,” Mom called, much later. “Mr. Gregor's leaving.”

Cass came out to the kitchen, where the computer was set up at one end of the table. The printer sat beside it, with some paper in it.

“It looks great,” she said, trying to make a show of smiling.

Mr. Gregor grinned, standing in the doorway. “I'll give you a lesson on it tomorrow, if you like. You won't take long to pick it up, though.” Then his eyes crinkled gently and he added: “I wanted to ask—everything okay at school today?”

“Yes! Why?” Cass said, sounding a little too loud even to her own ears.

“Just checking. I promised things were going to be different at this school. Nobody picking on you? If someone was giving you a hard time, you'd tell me, wouldn't you?” His face was serious now. “You know I would help.”

“Nobody's picking on me,” she said. Then she flushed. She wanted to say,
Ellis is picking on Degan, though.
But something stopped her from speaking. Somehow she felt like she needed to clear it with Degan first.

When she crept into bed soon after, she fell asleep almost immediately, exhausted from feelings that rolled and crashed like waves on an unsettled sea. She could feel herself sinking down into a dark hole of forgetting. And then she began to dream.

™

It started as a song. It was a single voice this time, strong but far away. Cass opened her eyes and sat up. The voice wrapped around her, like the aftereffect of a firework, a thin line of flame that urged her up, up!

Cass climbed out of the bed, following the voice with ears and eyes, watching as it roped around her room, climbed high up the wall then darted through, crying out to her to follow. It was like a battle cry.

She stepped lightly across the room, running her hand hesitantly through the rope of sound. As she did it changed ever so slightly, like ripples in water.

“What do you want?” Cass asked the voice.

She trailed her fingers along the rope, following till it met with the wall. There, instead of touching the solid mass she expected, she discovered that her fingers disappeared out of sight, as if the wall was made of mist.

She was afraid, but pressed harder. Her whole arm vanished smoothly out of sight. Then it was the easiest thing in the world to keep pushing until her whole self emerged into a night brilliant with stars.

Cass stood there, outside the house, with the sky whirling overhead and the very grass seeming to shiver with music she hadn't been able to hear before. The trees, the rocks, the bricks that made up the fancy houses nearby—they rang out with a song that was elemental, that had been forever there, long before people, long before there even had been an Earth.

She could have stood there forever, drinking it in, the wildness of it all. But she could see the voice rippling onward, down the driveway that was wild with pulsing flowers.

The voice wanted her to follow.

So Cass did, stepping hesitantly into a night and a world that was like her own and yet not. This was a world of magic, of uncanny spirits and secrets. Anything might happen here. And she was venturing into it alone, with no one to guide her. No one except the keening voice of the mask.

The voice wound along a path that was her street but not. The houses loomed overhead, but they weren't simply houses. They were all of the things that combined to be houses—living brick and wood and stone, watching her and knowing her under those intelligent stars. Cass followed the voice past them all, then past the school. It wasn't just the school anymore either. It saw her go by, wakeful.

Then she came to a place where there seemed to be stars that had fallen to Earth. Constellations blinked around her, on and off, like fireflies, like gleaming eyes. Cass ran her fingers through them so that the stars rang like chimes.

The voice wove through them, a rope of fire that called to her to push on. Now they came to a tunnel carved out of red rock. Cass held up her hands to feel her way through that knowing darkness, following the voice's battle cry.

She emerged out the other end of the tunnel, and there the world curved, like a huge living snake that showed Cass the way to go. She followed the curve, and it suddenly gave way to a bleak place where the stars were dimmed by cloud that covered the sky. Only the voice glowed here, although thinly through the fog. Things moved around Cass, living beings maybe. She didn't know what they wanted. They might need help, or they might not. If they could see the voice, perhaps they would follow it out of this place. Or maybe they could see and hear it, but could not follow. She was filled with sadness for them, and she wished she could help.

But the voice was ahead of her now, and she hurried to follow. Silently, she sent the message to those shadowy beings: I won't forget you. Someday, somehow she would be back and she would help them.

They climbed up, out of that valley and back into the clear night sky, rising like an arc with the world turning beneath. The voice roped across the heavens and back down again to the living earth.

And all around Cass, suddenly, was a sweetness. It was a smell, a taste. Around her, she sensed others coming together in this place, drawn by the promise of abundance. She wished to stay here too, where things were freely given, where no one would go without. She wanted to go back to those beings in the fog, to tell them about this place. They would be safe here, in the light and in the warmth.

But the voice zoomed past, turned sharply and then came to a wall of living glass and rock. There it stopped, and called her.

Cass raced to catch up.

And her heart leapt.

For there, glowing through the glass, alive, calling to her all along, was the mask. The fire rope of song vanished into its mouth, and the mouth moved now, joyfully singing in its own right.

She had found it!