The Mask That Sang (8 page)

chapter seventeen

Mom hugged her and hugged her, and tucked the blankets all around her chin, just as she had when Cass was little. Then she kissed her on the forehead. “Good night, my darling.”

After Mom had closed the door, Cass lay in bed thinking. What would it have been like for Mom, for Cass, if Mom had not become a foster child? Would Mom have had the confidence to finish high school, or to even go to university? And would Cass have been there at all?

She thought, as she had several times, of the crumpled envelope. After rescuing it from the garbage, she had put it in her pocket. Later she had placed it in the dresser, in the empty drawer where the mask had been. Since then, she had opened the drawer to look at it, but that was all.

Cass's mind churned around that envelope and whatever secrets it might hold. What did it say?

She pushed the covers back and slipped out of bed, pulled out the drawer softly. Cass lifted the smoothed-out envelope in her hands, staring at it.

Should she?

But if she learned something, something important, how could she ever tell Mom about it?

And could she live with knowing something important, but not sharing it?

The mask might be far off, in Ray's Pawnshop. But it was still quietly thrumming, as if letting her work it out. It was like a heartbeat in the background, encouraging but not directing her. Like she had to figure out what to do herself.

Cass wanted badly to open it. She wanted to know. She wanted Mom to know.

She sat a long time on the edge of the bed, holding the envelope. It was right here, everything, she was sure.

But in the end, she placed the envelope back in the drawer and slid it shut.

Not right now,
she thought.
Maybe never, or maybe someday.

She drifted down into another dream.

™

The mask was calling her again, intertwined voices like vines of fire, drawing her out of her bed. Again, the wall was like mist. Cass floated through.

The voices led her through the gate. Then Cass was floating along the grass, down the hill toward the river and into the dumping ground beyond. The voices began to swirl around each other, like a tornado. As they swirled, they grew ever higher.

And in their midst, something green and determined thrust itself up through the garbage and began to grow.

It was tiny at first, a seedling. But as it grew, Cass could see it was a white pine tree. Stronger and taller it stretched, as the voices spun around it.

Then Cass felt herself rising, beginning to swirl around the tree too. She rose dizzyingly, ever higher. The earth fell away beneath her, and she was amid the stars. She could see everything, like an eagle.

There were lakes there, stretching out like fingers. And around the lakes, winking lights looked like little fires. People were grouped around them, families. Thin spires of smoke spiraled upward from the fires, carrying prayers toward the sky that seemed so fragile that they might blow away on the wind.

Something was familiar. Something in the glint of starlight on the waters, reflecting Cass back at herself.

Suddenly it came to her.

This was the lake! The one she would float upon when bullies were too much and she needed to escape. It was the one from her daydream, where she drifted with the movement of the water.

A fireball exploded below.

It spread out across the quiet land, bathing it in flames. The people cried out, their voices mingling with the tortured singing of the mask.

Cass could hear her own voice crying “No!”

The people were running now, trying to escape. They scattered, and the families were all separated. They rushed blindly in all directions.

But they couldn't escape, for the fire organized itself and it became lines of brutal flames, a grid that came down over the land. It held the people in as if it were the window of a jail, and they could barely move.

The children still reached for the sky, where Cass was watching in horror. But the flames separated them from everyone else, drew them together like bewildered cattle, put them in their own jail.

With a shock, Cass realized: the jail was that building. The dark one from her earlier dream, with the bell tower and bars on the windows.

The children had been rounded up like animals, corralled in by the lines of fire, and they had no hope of escape.

Then the mask's voices rose in grief. Their cries cast across the sky, seeking justice. They were no match for that cruel fire. Not yet. So all they could do was sob with the unfairness of it.

Cass sobbed too.

™

When she awoke, her cheeks were wet with real tears and she was gasping for breath. She sat up, blinked at the sunshine coming in through the windows.

It was all right, she told herself. Cass was safe and Mom was safe. It had just been a bad dream.

But it lingered with her as she got dressed. That fire. Those children.

Why did she keep dreaming of the children?

Mom was making oatmeal in the kitchen, and the smell of coffee hung in the air. Cass hugged her from behind, because it was all so warm. She and Mom, they were really managing. And everything would be okay.

When they sat down to eat together, Mom said, “I've been thinking about what you said. About going back to school. You are such a wise kid.”

Cass took a spoonful of oatmeal and waited.

“Should I…talk to Mr. Gregor about it?” Mom asked.

“About going back to school?”

“All of it,” Mom said, her voice slow. “Is it possible for me to work and look after you if I go back to school? Maybe he has advice about jobs, what courses I'd need to take if I went past school into—well—college or something.” She laughed. “It sounds pretty stupid when I say it out loud. And I don't even know how much he'd be willing to help. I don't really like to ask for help, anyway.”

She sounded like she was trying to talk herself out of it.

“I might not be able to do it. I'm pretty dumb, really.”

Cass heard her voice exploding in the same moment as the mask's voices exploded inside her. “You are not dumb! And yes, I think you should talk to Mr. Gregor. He already said he wants to help!”

The images from her dream were so fresh, so stark in her head. It was as if Mom was caught in that grid and couldn't get out.

chapter eighteen

Degan was beside the tree again, leaning against it, arms crossed, when Cass left for school. It had been only a day since she had last seen him, since they had made that extraordinary, magical journey to find the mask. Yet so much had happened with Cass and Mom, that time seemed all mixed up.

“I have an idea,” he said, looking up as she walked down the driveway.

“Good morning to you too.”

“Good morning.” He flashed a brief grin at her, then got back to business. “So, I think I've figured out how we can make money to buy the mask. Wanna hear?”

Cass glanced up at the big houses they were passing, where people probably had all the money in the world. What would it be like to live in one of them, to be one of those people? They could buy the mask in an instant.

“Sure.”

“Well, you actually gave me the idea. You said I could be an artist one day.” Degan's eyes were dancing. “What if we go to the mall after school, and I put up a sign saying I'll sketch people's portraits for five dollars?”

Cass frowned, not sure why. “I can't take your money.”

“It wouldn't be mine. It would be ours.”

“You'd be doing their portraits. It'd be your money.”

Degan let out a long breath. “You'd be, you know, collecting the money, talking to people, drumming up business.”

Cass shook her head and kept walking.

“Well, why not?” Degan said, sounding like he was trying not to be exasperated. “Why can't you let me try to help you? What's wrong with letting people help you?”

The words made Cass stop.

It was almost exactly what she had just said to Mom.

If Mom was caught in that grid from Cass's dream, was Cass caught in it too?

“I…don't know,” she said slowly.

“Exactly,” said Degan. “So let me help.”

™

During class, Degan worked on some practice sketches that he would use to advertise for business when they got to the mall. He drew Cass while she worked and exactly captured her expression, even down to how frustrated she felt trying to complete the assignment their teacher had just explained. He also sketched Ms. Clemens and did a wide view of the whole classroom, providing a perfect likeness of students writing, staring out the window, playing with items in their desks, or chatting with each other.

Meanwhile, Ellis was building a miniature golf course on his desk. He fashioned obstacles and various towers with moving parts. There were embankments and cunning turns the ball had to make in order to reach the targets. When Ms. Clemens came by, he held his open binder above it, so it looked like he was working. The golf course occupied most of his attention, although Cass caught him sneaking urgent glances at her as if he had something he really wanted to say but couldn't figure out how to do it.

At least he is quiet for once,
Cass thought.

After school, they waited again while Ellis trudged off. Then Degan said, “I have to stop by my house to get my good art supplies.”

“Okay.”

They walked toward King Street, taking a direct route today, instead of the roundabout journey the mask had taken them on yesterday. They passed the houses in need of paint and repair, and turned onto Degan's street.

He stopped in front of a small two-story house. At the side of it was a metal fire-escape staircase. “We go up here. We live upstairs, my aunt and I.”

Cass followed Degan up the staircase, trying to ignore that it was shaking slightly. She convinced herself not to look down at the ground below.

Degan practically ran up the stairs, not bothered at all by the height. At the top, he wiped his feet on the mat, knocked lightly, and opened the door. Then he walked through and gestured for Cass to follow him.

Cass stepped into a little hallway with yellow wallpaper, where shoes were neatly lined up. She removed her shoes and lined them up too.

A voice called, “Deganawida?”

“Yes, Kehji. It's me.”

“Sge:no, baby.”

“I want to introduce you to someone, Kehji,” Degan said.

He gestured to Cass to follow him along the hallway and into a living space. Cass's heart beat a bit faster, suddenly shy. Her whole life, it had never been a very good thing meeting new people. She gulped and glanced back at the door, half-wondering if she should make an excuse and leave.

But a woman with flowing black hair stepped into the hallway, smiling.

“This is Cass,” Degan said. “The one I told you about.”

He turned to Cass. “This is my aunt.”

Degan's aunt smiled down at Cass, eyes crinkling with welcome. They held a kindness that seemed to go on forever. She took Cass's hands. “I've heard so much about you. You're the one who hears the Orenda, yes?”

Cass blinked, utterly startled by Degan's aunt's calm words.

“Hears the wh—what?”

Was that her mask's name? Orenda?

Could Degan's aunt help to explain what was going on?

Her shyness forgotten, she stared into the lady's kind face with its limitless calm. She said, “Why do I hear it? Why me?”

“I'm going to make us tea,” Degan's aunt said.

Degan protested, “We only have a little while. We're going to the mall. I'm going to make sketches, and we're going to earn money to buy back the false face I told you about.”

“All the more reason,” Degan's aunt said very calmly, “to have a small talk first. She should know what she's getting into. Those things are slippery.”

She disappeared out of the room, and Cass could hear clinking cups, a kettle being filled.

Degan ran his hands distractedly through his hair. But Cass didn't mind the delay. In fact, her insides were very nearly buzzing with excitement. She suspected that she was about to get answers to a whole lot of questions.

chapter nineteen

“So—how did a kid such as yourself get a mask like that?”

Degan's aunt poured out tea into chipped mugs and handed them around.

Cass looked into her face. She felt that she could trust her.

“It's a long story.”

“Long stories,” said Degan's aunt, “are the best kind.”

Then the words were suddenly spilling out of Cass. It was the story of everything. She told about Mom growing up in the foster care system. About how when Mom was a teen she had Cass and struggled to raise her baby even though she was little more than a child herself. Then, about how they had heard the news from Ms. Maracle about Mom's mom. About Mom being so angry about taking anything, but finally deciding to put it all in Cass's name.

She told about Mom taking that letter from Ms. Maracle and throwing it into the garbage at the end of the yard. And about Cass rescuing it. But about how she couldn't open it.

Then Cass described moving into the house, and the strange moment of tracing the music to the drawer, sliding it open, and finding the mask. And about how the mask had not left her alone since, whether she was awake or asleep. Even when it had been sold to the pawnshop, it kept singing. It was always tangling around her thoughts, embedding itself in everything Cass was doing or thinking.

At last she finished, while the music from the mask licked around the sides of her mind like the memory of flames.

She waited anxiously to hear what Degan's aunt would have to say.

“What's it singing about?”

Cass thought hard about that.

“I—I don't know, really,” she said at last. “The mask is showing me things. Telling me things. It's in my dreams.”

“Tell
me
.” Degan's aunt sipped her tea, hands cupped around the mug.

Cass took a deep breath, then she began. As she spoke, the pictures from her dreams rose in her mind as if they were happening all over again.

There was the dark building with bars on the windows. Suddenly Cass was back inside with the children who had been rounded up. Again, she was feeling their terror and confusion. They didn't know why they were there, what they had done wrong.

Next she was remembering that white pine tree. It was growing taller, while the mask's voices encircled it like ropes of living fire. Again, Cass rose high, high into the air, circling around the tree like an eagle, until she could see everything: the winking fires below that sent fragile prayers into the sky, the horrible explosions rolling across the land like lakes of fire, and the grid stretching over the land, ensnaring everyone and rounding the children up like beasts.

She wasn't aware of the tears rolling down her face until Degan handed her a tissue. He patted her shoulder.

“That's a lot to live through,” Degan's aunt said kindly. She clasped Cass's hands, put them together, patted them.

“What does it mean?” Cass whispered.

Degan's aunt kept patting her hands.

“That mask is telling you the story of our people. The Haudenosaunee. The Iroquois. From the beginning, right up to now.”

She smiled into Cass's eyes. “We are the people you saw by the lakes, you know. There were five nations that came together in peace, the Iroquois Confederacy. They were the Seneca, Mohawk, Cayuga, Oneida, and Onondaga. Then, later, the Tuscarora. Our symbol is the white pine, with an eagle at the top.”

Her eyes grew dark. “Those explosions, that grid of fire that you saw—I can tell you about that too. We were driven from our homes by people who came from other places. White people, Europeans. They killed many of us. They tried to force the rest of us into small pieces of land. Reservations. We weren't allowed to leave. That's how they kept track of us, controlled us.”

“Tell her about the schools,” Degan said softly. “With the kids.”

“They took our children,” Degan's aunt said, patting Cass's hands some more. It was strangely comforting, an act of peace, supporting Cass through bad news. “They put them in schools. Those places were called residential schools. They wanted to make the children forget who they were, forget their past. They tortured them, beat them, starved them. Made them ashamed of who they were. Now those children are grown up. They are having a terrible time knowing who they are.”

The tears welled up in Cass again, for the mask was singing beautifully alongside Degan's aunt, calling out that her words were true. It was a raw, gorgeous cry.

“Why is it singing to me?”

Degan's aunt smiled. “Why does anything happen? You know how to listen. You're able to hear the Orenda, flowing through that false face, going right back to the beginning of time. Believe me, that's a rare gift.”

There was that word again.

“What does it mean—
Orenda
?” Cass asked.

“It's the life force, powerful healing magic. You can direct it to help people. But be careful. It can be channeled for bad things too. Used to hurt. Then we could call it the Otkon.”

Suddenly Cass thought of the rage that had built in her yesterday when she couldn't rescue the mask. She had come home and her fury had burst at Mom. The mask had sung right along with her, as angry as she was. She had used her words to hurt Mom.

Had that been the Otkon?

“I can teach you,” said Degan's aunt, as if reading her mind. “Teach you about how people channel the Orenda for healing. Help you to know the Otkon and avoid it. Also, if you're going to have that false face around, you could probably use some lessons in how to get along with it. Because they can be ornery things, you know.”

Cass nodded, her mind reeling.

“But first,” Degan's aunt added gently, “you need to rescue it from the pawnshop. A mask like that should never have been sold and put on display. It's alive. A holy thing. Our people don't believe a false face is a decoration, something to buy to brighten up a wall.”

“That's why we have to go.” Degan got up. “We need to make the money so we can buy it back.”

Cass whispered, “My mom didn't mean to do the wrong thing. She—we needed money, that's all. She didn't know false faces shouldn't be sold. She didn't mean to be disrespectful.”

“There's no shame in needing money.”

Degan's aunt stood too, with nothing but peace in her eyes. She held out her hands to Cass, who also rose.

“You and Degan, you can go and make this right.”