THE TWO MASKS

The Masks

White dust was drifting down from the edge of the wardrobe.

There wasn’t much of it, just a fine powder settling on the floorboards,

but it didn’t look like the dust in the rest of the house. Old dust was gray

and matted and stuck to everything. This was clean and white, almost

bright, as if it had been sealed away somewhere for years and only now

let out.

Thomas stood a few paces back and didn’t move any closer. A thin line

of it had crept out from under the two doors and was working its way

across the floor. There was no obvious reason for it to be there, and he

didn’t much like the reasons he could think of.

He raised his hand toward the handle and stopped just short of touching

it.

The house was quiet. The heater hummed somewhere in the distance, and

at the far end of the hallway the old clock went on ticking, steady as ever.

He listened for anything else and heard nothing.

“No…”

It slipped out before he could stop it.

He stood there a little longer. Then he closed his hand around the handle.

From inside the wardrobe came a faint sound, something scraping against

wood.

2Thomas pulled his hand back.

* * *

Hours earlier.

“Impossible,” Adrian said, laughing at the camera while the chat scrolled

by faster than he could read it. “No, I’m not changing the game. You lost

the right to vote after that last round.”

Another virtual gift lit up the corner of the screen, and he grinned.

“Thanks, Daniel. At least there’s one person here who understands me.”

Then his eyes landed on the clock on his monitor, and the grin went

slack.

“Oh… dinner.”

He cut the stream off without another word and shut down the computer.

On his way out he leaned over the banister and shouted, “Mom! If you

finish dinner without me, I’m declaring war!”

Evelyn’s voice floated up from below. “Come downstairs first. Then you

can declare whatever you want.”

Adrian smiled to himself and headed down.

* * *

Evelyn was setting the last dish on the table when Adrian walked into the

dining room. Thomas looked up from his usual seat.

“You’re late.”

Adrian pulled out his chair. “But I got here before the food went cold.”

Evelyn sat down across from him, and they started eating.

Adrian did most of the talking, the way he always did. School first, then

the stream, then a player he’d beaten, then a ridiculous comment

someone had dropped in the chat that he had to stop and laugh at all over

again. Evelyn smiled in the right places and asked a question now and

3then. Thomas barely said a word. He mostly pushed his food from one

side of the plate to the other.

Adrian didn’t notice at first. Then he glanced up and found his father

watching him, and the look went on several seconds too long.

He lowered his fork. “What?”

Thomas dropped his eyes to his plate. “What?”

“You’ve been staring at me for like a minute.”

Thomas raised an eyebrow. “I’m looking at my son. Is that forbidden?”

Adrian gave him a small smile. “No. It’s just weird.”

Evelyn had lifted her glass, and she stopped with it halfway to her mouth

and looked at Thomas.

“Thomas.”

That was all she said. It was plenty.

He looked away from Adrian. “Nothing.”

Adrian picked his fork back up, but the easy rhythm was gone from his

voice. After a moment Thomas asked, “You were in your room all

afternoon?”

Adrian looked at him. “Pretty much.”

“Alone?”

The fork went down against the edge of the plate. “Dad, why are you

asking me that like I committed a crime?”

“Just a question.”

“A weird question.”

Evelyn stepped in before it could go any further. “How was the stream

today?”

Adrian picked the fork up again. “Good.”

“Just good?”

4“Excellent.”

Evelyn smiled. Thomas didn’t.

* * *

A little after midnight, Thomas eased Adrian’s bedroom door shut.

Evelyn was waiting for him in the hallway.

“He’s not a child anymore,” she said.

Thomas looked at the door. “I know.”

“Then you can’t expect him not to ask questions.”

He said nothing. She stepped closer and lowered her voice.

“Fifteen years, Thomas.”

He rubbed a hand over his face. “I know how long it’s been.”

“All these years, we’ve been living as if nothing happened.”

That made him look at her. “Because nothing happened.”

She held his gaze. “Not yet.”

He had no answer to that.

Evelyn turned toward the far end of the hallway, where the old wardrobe

stood in the dark. “You’re still afraid of it.”

“I’m not afraid of it.”

“Then why won’t you go near it?”

Thomas looked at the wardrobe. He searched for something that would

satisfy her, or himself, and came up empty.

“I just want to know that Adrian is safe,” Evelyn said.

“He is.”

“Safe from what?”

He opened his mouth, but the answer stayed where it was. He knew what

he could tell her. He also knew everything he couldn’t.

5“Go to bed,” he said quietly.

Evelyn watched him a little longer, then walked into their bedroom.

Thomas stayed in the hallway alone. His eyes went to the wardrobe, then

to Adrian’s door, and for the first time in fifteen years the distance

between the two seemed much too short.

* * *

Fifteen years earlier.

The hospital room was too bright and smelled of disinfectant. Evelyn lay

on the bed, exhausted, barely able to keep her eyes open, and still she

couldn’t look away from the baby in her arms.

Thomas stepped closer. The baby opened his eyes and looked straight at

him.

Thomas stopped. There was nothing wrong with the child’s face, nothing

at all, and yet the hair on his arm stood up.

He held out one finger. The tiny hand closed around it with a strength he

hadn’t expected, and he looked down at it and didn’t move.

Evelyn gave a tired laugh. “Looks like he doesn’t want to let you go.”

Thomas smiled. “Maybe I’m the one who doesn’t want to let him go.”

He lowered his eyes to the baby again. The baby kept looking back. Then

his eyes closed.

* * *

A year and a half later.

Adrian was on the living room floor, pushing a small wooden car along

the rug, while Evelyn moved around in the kitchen. Thomas came in

looking for his keys, took one step, and stopped.

Something white lay on the floor.

6He crouched down. It wasn’t ordinary dust. He followed the pale trail

with his eyes until it led him to Adrian, and to what sat directly in front of

the boy.

A mask. Completely white.

It hadn’t been dropped there or left lying carelessly. It stood upright,

facing the child, as if someone had set it down with great care and then

walked away.

Thomas edged closer. Adrian was staring at it, and one small hand was

already reaching out.

“No.”

It came out sharper than Thomas meant it to. The little hand snapped

back, and Adrian turned to look at his father.

Evelyn appeared in the doorway. “What happened?”

Thomas didn’t answer. She followed his eyes to the floor, and the smile

left her face.

“Where did that come from?”

“I don’t know.”

She picked Adrian up at once and carried him away from it. Thomas

stayed where he was, standing over the mask. He didn’t touch it. He

didn’t need to.

Not long after, four other members of the family had crowded into the

room. Someone drew the curtains and someone else locked the door, and

only one lamp was left burning above the table.

The mask was set down in front of an elderly man seated at the far end.

His hair was completely white, and one hand rested on the head of a dark

wooden cane. He studied the mask for a long time.

“Who found it?” he asked.

“Adrian,” Thomas said.

The old man looked up. “Did he touch it?”

7“He was about to.”

The old man’s fingers tightened around the cane. “Did it move?”

Thomas frowned. “What do you mean?”

The old man said nothing. His eyes went back to the mask.

Another man spoke. “Was the boy alone when he found it?”

“Yes.”

For a moment, nobody said anything.

“Then no one knows,” the old man said at last.

“We need to know what it is.”

The old man raised his eyes. “You already know what it is.”

Thomas didn’t answer right away. When he did, his voice was quiet. “It’s

been a long time.”

“It changes nothing.”

One of the men nodded at the mask. “What do we do with it?”

“We hide it,” the old man said, without hesitating.

“For how long?”

The old man looked across the room to where Adrian was still held tight

in Evelyn’s arms. “Until he is older.”

“And after that?”

No one answered. Evelyn pressed her son against her chest, and Thomas

stood at her side.

At last the old man spoke again. “If we’re lucky, nothing will happen.”

His eyes returned to the mask. “And if we’re not… then it won’t be time

for us to know.”

No one asked what he meant.

That night the mask was placed inside an old wooden box, and the box

was sealed tight. Then it disappeared. Adrian was never told anything.

8* * *

Thomas was back in the hallway, his hand still on the wardrobe handle.

He opened the door.

The box was there. The same old wood, the same scratches across the lid,

even the small lock still in place. He stared at it, and for a moment the

last fifteen years were gone.

He reached out and touched the lid. It was cold, colder than old wood had

any reason to be, like something that had spent years in a place the

warmth of the house never reached.

He thought of the baby. The white mask. Those small eyes fixed on him.

He drew a slow breath and laid his whole hand flat on the box.

The lid shifted under his palm.

His fingers jerked back. The box slid a little way across the shelf, though

he wasn’t touching it, and then it moved again, another inch, with a dry

scrape of wood on wood. A coldness ran from his hand up his arm.

Then he noticed something along the edge of the box. Dust. It was

seeping out from the inside. He touched it with one finger and it clung to

his skin, fine and white.

He was still staring at his hand when a voice spoke behind him.

“Dad?”

Thomas turned. Adrian stood at the end of the hallway, hair sticking up,

eyes half closed with sleep. He looked at the wardrobe, then at his

father’s hand.

“What are you doing?”

Thomas shut the wardrobe door. “Nothing.”

Adrian stepped closer. “Why is your hand white?”

Thomas wiped his fingers on his pants. “Something old.”

“What is it?”

9“It doesn’t matter.”

Adrian kept looking at him, and Thomas knew that look. His son wasn’t

going to believe him.

“Dad…”

Adrian hesitated, and waited.

Thomas almost told him the truth. Not everything, of course, but

something. Anything. Then the image of the mask came back to him.

“Go back to your room.”

Adrian didn’t move. He studied his father’s face for a long while before

he spoke, and when he did his voice was low.

“You don’t want me to know.”

Thomas said nothing. Adrian stood there waiting for a denial, and none

came. He lowered his eyes and turned away. At his bedroom door he

stopped, half expecting to be called back, but the hallway stayed silent.

He went in and closed the door.

Thomas turned back to the wardrobe. He didn’t open it. But a thin line of

white dust had crept from beneath it across the floor, and it had reached

his feet.

* * *

Far from that house, a small room sat in darkness. A window stood half

open, and the cold air coming through it stirred an old curtain against the

wall.

A man sat on a wooden chair in front of a small table. His left hand rested

on his knee, the fingers moving one after another, as if he were counting

something he didn’t want to forget. He raised his other hand toward an

object lying on the table, and his fingers stopped just above it. He didn’t

touch it. He closed his eyes and sat without moving. Then, slowly, he

opened them and looked at what lay in front of him.

10“It has returned,” he said quietly.