Mask of Silver

by Rosemary Jones

  He stopped again and slowly packed the cords back into their box. He dismantled the microphone and put it away.

  “As if what?” I said. I’d never known Fred so hesitant to speak, so slow to say what he was thinking. Usually he had a hundred ideas about why, and what, and how something happened, especially when it came to the gadgets in his clever hands.

  Fred turned to me, his ordinary pleasant face screwed up into a grimace of remembered pain. “In the War, back when I was driving a truck full of supplies to the boys at the front, I got hit by a bomb.”

  “Fred!”

  “Well, I got missed by a bomb. It exploded right in front of us. And I was deaf for hours. Jeany, it was like that. Like an explosion, and all of a sudden, I couldn’t hear.”

  “But what did you see?” I asked, thinking of the strange reflections in the mirrors, the alien landscape that I thought I glimpsed.

  “Nothing,” said Fred. “I couldn’t hear and… and… no, it’s like a dream. When you wake up and you’re sure that you remember everything, but nothing is there.”

  I knew exactly what he was describing. I felt the same. The shadows in the mirrors, already the images were fading. I struggled to hold onto those pictures in my mind. To hold onto other ideas as well. Warnings from the professor, from Julius, from Florie, and Pete. It was if the house knew how much I hated it and was trying to make me forget. Make us all forget how much danger that we were in.

  A car honked outside and a door slammed. Quick footsteps tapped across the porch, and Betsy opened the door. “Do you have a dollar for a cab?” she said. “I spent my money on chocolates for Hal and forgot to put extra in my purse.”

  Eleanor came out of the parlor. “Do you have a cab? Tell him to wait,” she said. Turning to us, she added, “I’m taking Lulu to the hospital. Somebody needs to look at her throat. She can’t talk.”

  “Are you coming back tonight?”

  Eleanor paused, and seemed to recover a little of the elegant poise that marked her when she first came to the Fitzmaurice house, but then she said, “We may send someone for the car and our things. I want to be out of here now. I never meant this to happen, but I don’t dare write another word for Sydney. Here, you take this, I don’t want it. I don’t want anything to do with movies.”

  She thrust a piece of paper into my hand and went back into the parlor to fetch Lulu. The pair hurried outside to Betsy’s cab. With a crunch of gravel, the taxi left.

  “What did she give you?” Betsy asked.

  It was a piece of paper covered with Eleanor’s neat typing. Two scenes were laid out in two brief, pithy paragraphs. The ending of our film.

  The first said, “The Hooded Stranger arrives. The younger sister recognizes that her doom is on her. Cassilda screams, a haunting sound that can never be forgotten, and then she is silenced forever. Her voice is gone.”

  That was the scene that they had just finished rehearsing. The scene that had destroyed Lulu’s voice. But it was the second paragraph that terrified me. It was the second paragraph that described Renee’s fate.

  The second said, “Camilla dons the silver mask. She becomes a creature of the Hooded Stranger and opens the way, and herself is lost forever in the world of the Hooded Stranger. But the Hooded Stranger advances, stepping straight toward the audience and into our world. The power of the Hooded Stranger cannot be denied by any who watch.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The rest of the evening was my nightmares made real. Wherever I turned, whoever I talked to, it was if there was a wall of glass between us. As if they could hear nothing that I said. As if I was speaking to reflections in a mirror.

  I went to Renee first, with Eleanor’s horrible script folded in my pants pocket. My sister barely lifted her eyes from her dressing table mirror to acknowledge my presence. No matter what I said, no matter how I pleaded, Renee only shook her head and said, “Nearly done. Then we go home.”

  Betsy and Jim were just the same. Mumbling agreement but then retreating to their rooms. Locking their doors against me, even as I knocked, and cried, and in one angry moment, kicked the panels of Betsy’s door so hard that it shook.

  Fred retreated to the barn to blow up mirrors. Despite all he had seen and heard, he seemed determined to finish the film. Talking to him, shouting at him, I felt as if I was yelling at an imitation Fred, one who kept nodding at what I said but forgot it as soon as he turned away from me.

  So I searched the house for Max, hoping to find him and get him to stop everything. To call the studio and tell them. Tell them something, but I found myself forgetting exactly what the professor said and so tired that I couldn’t keep searching, so tired that I had to retreat to my room. I forced myself to drag open my sketchbook and began to draw. A young woman consumed by fire; two young women, one flying above the other, a college student and a circus aerialist – two women whose stories had been forgotten except by a few. Two women whose names were slipping away from me as well, the longer I stayed in that horrible house.

  By morning, Eleanor and Lulu had not returned. Renee remained in bed, mumbling and rolling away from me when I tried to shake her awake. Everyone else was unnaturally silent at the breakfast table. I could barely hold my eyes open. I certainly felt as if I was being gagged, being smothered, by the atmosphere. We all were like wan ghosts of our normal selves.

  Except for Sydney and Max; Max splendidly dressed for the final day of filming, chatting with an unbearably jolly Sydney. The pair spent the entire meal talking about box office expectations and predicting great profits for the studio. It was so horribly ordinary, but I couldn’t seem to say anything there, inside the house, even now that I had Max in front of me.

  After breakfast I fled to the porch, gulping the fresh air, glad to be out of the house, terrified to go back in, trying to think where to go next. Betsy and Fred followed me, and seemed more alert outside the house. But when I proposed that we pack our bags and leave, they turned shocked stares to me.

  “But I’m going to play Cassilda,” said Betsy. “Max says with Lulu gone, I can be the younger sister in this scene.” Her eyes glittered unnaturally and her voice was brittle. An imitation Betsy, with none of her usual good-humored sparkle. I shook my head at that mad idea. This was one of my best friends, of course I could convince her of the danger.

  “I’ll wear the white dress and stand in the back, with a veil over my head, the second priestess, Max says. Max will tell the studio what a trouper I was, helping out when Lulu left, and that should help with getting bigger parts.” Betsy spoke like a wind-up doll, the words sensible but the tone of her voice flat and almost drugged. How many times had she played the victim of a mesmerist, a vampire, a creature that sapped her will? How had she suddenly become the characters that she played in real life?

  “Oh, Max says that,” I said with some sarcasm, hoping to provoke a reaction. “And why do you want to stay, Fred? I thought you cared about us. That you wanted to prevent these accidents.”

  Fred sounded as compliant as Betsy. “I have prevented the accidents. Everyone is safe because of me. You are safe, Jeany.” He spoke in a monotone, pointing at a stack of crates on the porch. “It’s all in the can. And packed up for shipping back to the studio.” He meant the film canisters neatly crated for shipping. “We’ll all work together when we get back to California.”

  “It will all be wonderful, the best picture ever. Max said so,” Betsy repeated.

  “Max said so.” I parroted her intonation from earlier. “But aren’t you tired of waiting around for Max? Going to get on with your career?” It was as if she’d forgotten all that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. As if she’d forgotten everything that she’d said to me just yesterday.

  “Max says everything will be wonderful,” Betsy told me so earnestly.

  “Max says the studio is very happy,” added Fred. “I need to explode those m
irrors. We need that to finish the picture. I have a job to do,” He picked up 242. He even patted it on the side as he walked down to the barn.

  Betsy grabbed the tripod and hurried after him, obviously not wanting to stay and argue with me.

  And, as stunned as I was by their sudden change in attitude, I never thought once about the strangest part of the conversation. Neither mentioned Sydney. Both acted as if Max was in charge.

  As the sound of shattering glass and probable bad luck filled the air, I paced the porch. No matter what I said, nobody seemed inclined to leave. We’d been loyal to Sydney for years, putting up with his fits and starts, but this was something different. This was a danger to Renee.

  But nothing could happen without the mask, I thought. The mask was well hidden in my room. But was it? The more I thought about it, simply being in a suitcase under my bed wasn’t enough.

  I entered the house, determined to hide or destroy the mask totally. That would delay the filming. Once past the solstice, the professor had claimed that it would be another five years before Sydney could try again.

  Peeking into Renee’s room, I saw that she was still a dreaming beauty, lost amid the pile of lace-edged pillows. I closed the door softly and hurried to my room.

  Pulling my suitcase out from under the bed, I flipped open the top. It was near bursting with my sketchbooks, each page filled with drawings of strange monstrous women, twisted pale spires rising above a mist-enfolded city, trees that dripped poison, dog-headed men, and the distant figure of the Hooded Stranger. All the records of my dreams during that long strange month in Arkham. And under and over and around the edges of every picture was sketch after sketch of the silver mask.

  But as I lifted out the sketchbooks and stacked them on the floor, I realized that the bottom of my suitcase was completely empty. The metal mask and its paper twin were gone.

  “Sydney,” I gasped. Who else would take the masks? No wonder he had been so pleased at breakfast. He had everything now. Eleanor’s scenario, the masks, the recording of Lulu’s scream, all the elements that he needed for tonight’s ritual, including my beautiful sister as his sacrifice. Suddenly my head was clearer than it had been for hours, anger at Sydney and his manipulations burning away the horrible fog that I had struggled in.

  Now I would force Max to listen to me. I would tell him about the women who disappeared. I would make him realize that continuing this film could bring unprecedented scandal to the studio. That he should stop or at least delay Sydney past this year’s summer solstice.

  I heard the men’s voices outside my bedroom window. Looking out, I saw Max and Sydney walking across the back lawn towards the woods. Sydney carried a shotgun in the crook of his arm. Hunting for crows, I thought. As if he hadn’t caused enough trouble the last time.

  I ran out of the room and down the little hidden stair at the back, exiting through the pantry. The kitchen was eerily empty, all the breakfast dishes neatly washed and stacked beside the sink, but no sign of Mrs Mayhew or the cook. Their hats and coats were missing from their usual hooks beside the door. As if they too had vanished into a mirror.

  But it was Friday, I thought, and Mrs Mayhew did her shopping on Friday for the weekend. No doubt Ethel had gone with her.

  I crossed the lawn to the gate that led into the woods. I saw nothing of Sydney or Max. From the barn came the sound of more exploding glass. I hoped Fred’s barrier of hay bales was protecting Betsy and him from the mayhem. Then I opened the gate and ran down the path toward the pond, determined to catch up with Max and get him away from Sydney long enough to talk. To stop the filming of the final scene.

  The woods were worse than I remembered. Sticky hot under the trees and the buzzing of insects more shrill than ever before. As I ran, I heard a horrid panting sound amid the rustling of the bushes. I didn’t slow, I didn’t look, I just kept running, determined to catch up to the men. Even Sydney, carrying his shotgun, would be preferable to whatever stalked through the trees behind me.

  I reached the pond. The murky waters smelled worse than before, a stench of decay, as if a thousand fish had died here. I circled the pond. There was no sign of the men. I kept to the path that we’d followed earlier. My panting shadow kept pace with me but never so close that I could catch a glimpse of it.

  But after the pond I could find nothing familiar. Once or twice I thought I heard Sydney’s big laugh or a shout from Max. But when I shouted back, nothing answered. Nothing but the buzzing of insects and the huffing bark of my shadow pursuer.

  Every turn of the path took me deeper into the trees. The long, pallid trunks stretching above me, the branches bare of all but the most withered leaves, none of it looked like the summer woods that we’d filmed in. Nowhere could I find the foundations of the little burned house or the tree with the black coat swinging from its branches.

  Instead I stumbled through my nightmare forest, endless shadowed paths twisting me around and around, until I nearly dropped to the ground, so tired, so hopeless, that I wanted to curl up in the muddy leaves and let whatever pursued me in the shadows finally win our strange race.

  Somewhere, somewhere too close, a barking laugh of triumph mocked my despair. I knew I had lost. Renee was lost. I could not save anyone.

  Then the crows attacked. With harsh cries they flew in my face, claws tangling in my hair, wings buffeting me. I flung my arms to the side, trying to beat them off, screaming in fear and frustration, as I’d wanted to scream all night. The crows swooped and dived unrelentingly, until I turned in my tracks. Under a rain of black tormentors, I ran through the woods as fast I could.

  Every time I stumbled, every time I paused, the crows dived down again and drove me along the path with terrible shrieks and caws. The smell of the pond overwhelmed me. I wanted to stop, to vomit, to give up, but the crows wouldn’t let me. I stumbled on.

  At last I reached the gate to the lawn. With trembling hands, I wrenched it open and fell forward onto the newly mown grass. With long graceful swoops, the crows flew past me, whirling through the sky to settle on the roof.

  As I watched the birds fly away from me, I saw that the sun had moved much further in the sky than I expected. Long evening shadows, the house’s shadow the longest and crookedest of them all, stretched across the lawn. I’d lost the entire solstice day in those terrible woods.

  I veered toward the barn, determined to find Fred and recruit his help. But the barn was empty except for the shattered remains of a dozen mirrors, the glass winking red reflections in the light of the setting sun.

  Tired beyond anything that I had ever known, I turned back to the house. This time, I decided that nothing would stop me. I would find Max. I would keep Sydney from filming on the solstice. I would take Renee out of this cursed house and away from Sydney. Not even those terrible crows would keep hold me back.

  I circled round the house to the front door. The crates for the studio were still stacked neatly at the end of the porch, ready to be sent to the train station, ready for the studio to take possession.

  The sun was nearly down. Looking through the half-open front door, I could see that Sydney had lined the hallway with candles, the flames flickering brighter than I expected, reflected in every mirror. At one end of the hallway, furthest away from me, Fred was busy cranking old 242. Nearer to the door was Jim, dressed in the robes of the Hooded Stranger. Betsy was arranged beside him in a long veil that covered her hair and face completely. Between them and the camera, Renee stood perfectly still in the long white dress that I had made for her original performance as the murderous siren. But this time, she held in her hand the silver mask. As I watched, she slowly raised the mask to her face. I screamed at her to stop, but nobody moved, nobody looked at me. Once again, just like in my nightmares, I was on the wrong side of the mirror.

  Somewhere further down the shadowed hallway, I heard Sydney’s voice, not shouting directions, but intoning some si
bilant syllables. Nonsense words, but the more he spoke, the greater my feeling of terror grew.

  “Stop,” I shouted. “Max, you have to stop them.”

  As I went across the porch, Max stepped into the doorway.

  “Max,” I sobbed in relief. Finally somebody who looked straight at me. Finally somebody who would listen to me. “You have to stop him. Something terrible is going to happen.”

  Max looked at me, as mild as ever, pushing his notebook into the breast pocket of his finely tailored suit. “Yes,” he said. “That’s what the studio is paying for.”

  “No, no,” I cried. “Max, you don’t understand. This time the magic is real.”

  Max laughed. “That’s what Sydney promised. Now go away, Jeany.” He smiled at me with a broad grin, the bravado of Sydney at his very worst. “We have the mask. We don’t need you any more. Nobody needs you any more.”

  Then Max slammed the door in my face. I heard the lock click into place, even as I rattled on the knob and then bloodied my hands beating on the panels, screaming for my sister, screaming for Fred.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I quickly realized that bruising my hands upon the door would do nothing to help Fred and Betsy, to save my sister. So I started around the house, determined to enter through the kitchen door. Max had obviously thought of that too. It was locked. No matter how hard I shook it or kicked it, the door would not budge.

  All the windows were locked too. Every door barred. All the time, I could feel that horrible, terrible house pushing against me. I remembered what the professor had said. That the house could keep out those that it did not want. That it was part of the terrible Fitzmaurice magic.

  I circled back to the porch and then I spotted it. A long heavy hammer sitting on top of one of the boxes on the porch. Humbert must have left it there after nailing the wooden crates shut. It was just what I needed.