The Mask That Sang (6 page)

chapter eleven

When Cass awoke in the morning, she was exhausted, as if she really had traveled all night, following that bright song.

Mom looked even worse than Cass felt. She was sitting in front of the computer, an empty coffee cup beside her and a nearly empty pot of coffee on the counter. Nonetheless, she smiled brightly when Cass stumbled in.

“How long have you been up?” Cass asked. Mom had clearly been typing something, as it was on the screen. She caught the word
Résumé
at the top of it.

Mom ran hands through her hair, yawning. “Just about all night. I wanted to get a résumé written so I could take it around places today.” Her voice was excited, even though she was tired. “It could make a real difference in getting a good job, having a résumé. I've never had one before. I was learning all about fonts and things, to make it look professional.”

Cass helped herself to toast and sat down beside Mom. She was trying to listen to Mom, but the dream was still fresh in her head, and she could hear the voice of the mask echoing still in her memory. Mom and her résumé almost seemed like a dream, and the dream like reality.

It had been so detailed, so clear. She could remember the stars glowing around her, feel the despair of the beings in the fog, smell the glorious aromas in that place near the mask.

Most of all, she could remember the urgency. The mask was calling to her, and she was desperately following that rope of fire.

“Did you sleep okay?” Mom asked her, yawning again and leaning close to the screen. “Nice dreams?”

Cass thought about telling Mom about the dream. But that would raise the issue of the mask again, and Cass couldn't bear the thought of seeing Mom's face so discouraged and sad. She had decided she wasn't going to mention it again, not if she could help it.

“I don't know,” she said awkwardly, biting into her toast.

“I don't often remember my dreams either,” Mom said, and she clicked
Print
on the screen. The printer growled to life beside them, and Mom's résumé came rolling out. “How many should I make, I wonder. Maybe twenty? Thirty?”

She squeezed Cass's hand. “Things are changing now. I'm going to get a decent job, something with potential. By the end of the day, I'm going to have interviews lined up.”

“I know,” Cass said encouragingly. It was so good to see Mom hopeful.

“I forgot to tell you yesterday. Mr. Gregor says if you ever need anything after school, and I'm not here, to go next door. If I'm a little late tonight, he's right there for you.” Mom was studying the résumé page, looking for typos.

“Okay. Although I'm old enough to stay on my own.”

“I know! Just if you need something. In an emergency.” Mom squeezed Cass's hand again. “So you know you aren't alone.”

When Cass left the house, Degan stepped out from the maple tree out front.

“Hi!” Cass said, surprised.

“I'm sorry about your mask.” He fell into step beside her, and they walked down the dirt driveway to the sidewalk.

“Thanks.”

They walked in silence for a minute.

“Are you still hearing it?” he asked. “The music?”

She struggled for a minute, since saying it out loud made it sound impossible. But Degan seemed to be no stranger to unusual things.

“I dreamed about it last night,” she said softly. “It was calling me. I had to follow it.”

Degan nodded. She immediately felt better. She wasn't crazy if Degan believed her.

“What happened?” he asked. “Where did you follow it?”

Then she told him about everything. The stars, the tunnel, the great snake curling round, the land of mist and fog, the bridge through the sky, the place of plenty, and finally the wall of stone and glass, where the mask shone out at her, alive and mouthing to her.

By the time she was finished, they were almost at school.

“I don't even have the mask anymore,” Cass said miserably, “but I'm
still
dreaming about it. I don't know why.”

“There's a reason. Dreams aren't just dreams. Not for my people.”

“Who are your people?” Cass asked.

“Cayuga Nation. One of the five original nations of the Iroquois confederacy.” He spoke simply, but with pride.

“So, what do you think the dream is telling me?”

Degan looked at her sideways, under his fringe of hair. “What do you think?”

“I don't know.”

“Really?” Degan flashed a rare grin at her. “Even
I
can tell you what that dream means, and it's not my dream.”

“Okay, so what is it telling me, then?”

“Where the mask is, of course.”

Cass laughed out loud. “That's crazy. Mom didn't climb into the sky to pawn it. She took it somewhere here in the city. Somewhere she could walk to, since we don't have a car.”

Degan let her laugh. When she had stopped, he said, “Dreams talk in codes, in pictures. You have to think hard, meditate on it. The mask is telling you how to find it.”

He was about to go on, but at that moment a familiar form came loping across the playground toward them. Red-haired, big, with that fine-featured face. Two other boys ran behind him.

“Here he comes,” Degan said softly. Not with fear, more with resignation. And something else—pity?

Ellis ran right up in front of them so they couldn't go any farther. Degan stood calmly, with a neutral expression on his face.

“Make it home all right last night?” Ellis asked Degan. “Did she walk you to your door? Sensitive artists need protectors.”

Degan didn't answer.

All the old fears were bubbling up in Cass, but she was tired of it. She had walked alone through a strange land last night, following the mask's battle cry. Ellis was nothing compared to that.

“You must be a sensitive artist, then,” she said to Ellis.

He stiffened, like there had just been a loud noise. “What are you talking about?”

She gestured to the boys behind him. “You have your protectors too.”

Ellis flushed. “They're not my protectors. They just wanted to come. I don't know why they're there.”

“Because you can't handle things on your own, I guess,” Cass said, scarcely able to believe the words coming out of her.

Ellis's face looked stricken.

Degan's hand was on her arm, telling her to stop.

Ellis said, “I don't need any protectors.” He waved at the boys. “Go on, get out of here.”

The two boys looked confused for a minute. Then they turned and began walking deliberately away, not looking back.

Ellis crossed his arms, still standing in front of Degan and Cass.

“See? I don't need anyone.”

“Yes,” Cass snapped, indignation and fury suddenly flowing through her. “I can see you're a perfect bully all on your own.”

Strange expressions shot across Ellis's face. Surprise, shock even. Defiance. Misery. Confusion.

“I'm not a bully!”

Then the bell rang.

chapter twelve

Ellis could not keep still, with an energy that was almost frantic. His fingers nimbly constructed small buildings out of marker caps, erasers, tiny ends of pencils that had been chewed to nothing, and stolen sticky tack. They had gables, second stories, porches, shutters. When he was satisfied with them, he knocked them over while making explosion noises, or he fashioned battering rams made from the remains of a broken pencil sharpener and paper clips, and bashed them to pieces.

He kept flicking glances at Cass and Degan, who were passing wadded-up notes back and forth when Ms. Clemens wasn't looking.

Degan wrote, “We can find the mask.”

“How?”

“Where did the dream start?”

“My house.”

“You should try to remember it.”

So Cass sat with her head on her hand, half-closing her eyes, letting her mind drift back to the dream of the night before. At first, all she could think about was that she couldn't empty her mind at all. It was too full of the classroom with shifting students, Ms. Clemens's voice, the movement of the clock. There was too much Ellis sulking in his chair, being angry or hurt or whatever.

But as she grew still, things slowed down.

That sky. Those stars.

Fleeting images shot across her eyes. The stars had almost pulsed, hadn't they?

“I went past the school,” she said suddenly.

“I went past the school,” Ellis said in a high voice, glaring at the house he was ripping into tiny parts. It was clear he wanted an argument.

Ignoring him, Degan said to Cass: “Then what?”

“I don't know. The stars came after that.”

She tried to picture them, floating around her, blinking on and off.

“You two,” said Ellis in a low voice, “are crazy.”

The annoyance grew in Cass again, a surge made of things the mask sang about that she could scarcely hear but could feel.

“Well, you're racist,” she said. Then her eyes opened wide. She could not believe she had said it. Something angry in the mask was encouraging her, and she could hardly help herself.

“No, I'm not!”

“Cass,” Degan said softly. “It's all right.”

“You are so. You told Degan not to scalp you, and you said something about taxes that I think was supposed to be mean, and you called him an Indian.”

“He is an Indian,” Ellis said. He frowned. “That's not racist. Everyone talks that way. Besides, it's just a joke.”

“I haven't heard anyone else talk that way. Just you.”

“Is everything all right?”

Ms. Clemens had walked across the room to them and was now standing over the table.

“It's fine.” Ellis sat back in his chair, crossing his arms and slouching down.

“Cass? Degan?”

They nodded.

“How's your work coming along?”

™

It felt like forever till the end of the day. The clock seemed to slow down while Ellis sat in offended silence, twisting the sticky tack into little animals and people and then ripping them apart methodically. Meanwhile, Degan and Cass fashioned their plan.

When the bell finally rang, they waited until everyone else had walked out of the class. They put on their coats slowly so that they would be the last to leave the school.

“There he is,” Cass whispered.

Ellis was standing on the pavement, looking around, waiting for them.

They waited up against the wall inside the door. Ellis stood there a long time, by himself. Finally, slowly, he began to walk home. He looked surprisingly small.

When he was out of sight, they slipped out the doors and crossed the pavement until they reached the sidewalk.

“This is sort of insane,” Cass said, peering around at the perfectly ordinary houses and trees. Along the street in one direction was her home. In the other direction lay an area with shops. Neither direction had any stars at all.

“You were walking away from your house,” Degan said calmly. “So…”

He gestured toward the shopping area.

“But it was a place with stars all around, blinking on and off.”

He looked at her from under that dark fringe of hair, eyes calm. “Just keep an open mind. And if it turns out this doesn't lead anywhere, what have you lost—besides your mask?”

She took a deep breath.

“Okay. Let's go that way.”

They passed a pizza place, a convenience store, a secondhand shop. They walked slowly, looking everywhere for something that might resemble stars. But everywhere were ordinary shop windows, ordinary people going in and out of doors, carrying bags.

Cass said, “I think this is a mistake—” She stopped, and caught her breath.

Ahead of them a neon sign blinked on and off, some of the bulbs burnt out, but enough still glowing. Animated stars seemed to spin around with a jerky motion. Cass could scarcely breathe as she read the words:
STARLIGHT DINER. Our food is stellar!

chapter thirteen

Cass stared at the sign. It was rusted, practically falling apart. There were certainly stars surrounding the flashing words, but they were flimsy ones that were partially burnt out.

Surely a shabby restaurant sign could not also be a signpost in a dream?

She stared up and down the street of shops, suddenly seeing everything in a new way. Could ordinary, mundane things also be something else?

“Is this it?” Degan asked softly.

She stared up at those blinking lights, that rusted and shabby billboard.

“Yes. Maybe. At least, I think so.”

Degan squeezed her arm, his eyes dancing. “You see? This is working!”

She grinned back, catching his excitement.

Now, what had come next in the dream? Would she find that too?

Cass half-closed her eyes. Something about red rock. She remembered darkness, feeling her way through.

“I think we need to look for something red,” she whispered to Degan.

It didn't take long to locate the hardware store, made of brownish-red brick. It was next to a barbershop of the same kind of brick. In between the two buildings was a wooden wall connecting them, decorated with posters and advertisements. Inside the barbershop people waited for their haircuts, reading magazines and checking their phones and looking perfectly ordinary. As if the most incredible thing wasn't happening to Cass. As if she wasn't beginning to see how something could be ordinary and part of a dream place at the same time.

“I went through…red rock,” she said, remembering. “I…think it was a tunnel. It was dark. I didn't know what was coming.”

“Come on.” Degan led the way across the road, till they were in front of the red brick hardware store. He walked along the front of the store, running his hand across the brick, looking for a place where a tunnel might be disguised.

Cass hurried to the barbershop and walked closely in front of it too. The people inside looked out at her curiously. A little boy put his hand on the window from the inside. Cass matched her hand with his. He smiled at her, and she smiled back. Everything felt so hopeful all at once.

“I don't see any tunnel,” Degan said, coming up beside her. “Maybe there are some other red buildings.”

But as they looked up and down the street, they could see only the gray of cement and glass windows.

“Maybe that star sign was just a coincidence,” Cass said softly.

Just then, part of the wooden wall between the two buildings opened inward. A woman emerged, walking a dog. She closed the door behind her, turned right, and clicked away.

Cass and Degan stared at each other.

Cass waited till the woman had gone far enough. Then she walked over to the wall. When she was close enough, she could see the hinges. She hesitated, then pushed gently on it.

The door swung inward to reveal an alleyway. It was flanked on both sides by the red brick of the hardware store and the barbershop. The sun could not penetrate it, and so it was dark. Litter scuttled across the alley. A stray cat washed itself on a doorsill.

“Is this it?” Degan asked.

“I—don't know,” she said doubtfully.

She stepped into the alley. Somewhere deep in her mind something stirred, a faraway cry.

Suddenly Cass felt half in one world and half in the other. She led the way silently, as if it was a place where it would be wrong to make any noises. There was just the sound of their footsteps. The traffic noises behind them died away, and new sounds began to be heard from what lay ahead.

What
did
lie ahead, anyway? Cass tried to remember the next part of her dream. When she concentrated, an image swam into her mind of something that had been massive, and writhing somehow, curling around.

A snake.

She gulped, and slowed to a stop.

“What is it?” Degan whispered.

“There was a snake next. I went by a gigantic snake.”

Degan let out a slow breath. They stared at each other as the magnitude of it sank in.

They had no way of protecting themselves.

Mom didn't even know where Cass was.

Then that faraway sound inside Cass thrummed, like a cat's comforting purr. It seemed to sing that Cass hadn't died in her dream after all, not even when the snake appeared. The mask didn't intend to put her in harm's way. It wanted to be found, that was all. To be with Cass again. It wanted to tell her about things—about how Cass was not the first to be afraid, not alone in being bullied at school.

She took a deep breath, and suddenly she knew she was brave enough to go on, to face whatever was coming. Ignoring the trembling in her legs, Cass started moving forward again. Degan walked beside her.

Then she heard it: a low roaring sound that practically shook the ground underfoot. It grew louder as Cass approached the end of the alleyway—as she drew closer to whatever monster lay ahead.

Did snakes roar?

But the mask was still thrumming reassuringly inside Cass. Its thin faraway sound was somehow stronger in her head than that roaring noise. She took a deep breath and plunged out the end of the alley into whatever might come next.

Flashing, bright colors raced by her at a great speed, blowing Cass's hair back. There was a whir of blurred images, windows blinking one by one, people's faces seen for only a moment before they were gone. The noise was deafening as it hurtled past.

Cass fell back against Degan, who stumbled and fell. They landed in a heap as the thing shot past them, then sat up and watched it go.

Then it dawned on her.

“A train!” she shouted above the din. “The snake is a train!”

Then they were laughing at the top of their lungs, scarcely able to hear each other over the roar of the engine. As quickly as it was there, the train was gone. Then their laughter was much too loud—which made them laugh harder, with relief as much as anything else.

Cass stood up, panting and wiping her eyes.

She grinned at Degan, who was smiling back. It transformed his whole face, and he was suddenly entirely different from the boy she had first met in Ms. Clemens's class, the boy who had sat with his head in his hand and eyes half-closed, sketching and tuning everyone out. Could it really be only yesterday? Somehow it felt like she had known him much longer.

“You're okay,” Degan said.

“You're okay too.”

And she flushed, because no kid had ever told her that before, ever.

“So where next?” Degan asked at last.

She straightened, closed her eyes. She had followed the curve of the snake to—somewhere.

Then, slowly, she remembered an empty, unhappy place. There had been a kind of mist all around, and even the fiery line of the mask's song had struggled to be seen. Strange shapes had been moving in the fog. She hadn't been able to see them exactly, but she had felt their presence.

Cass shivered involuntarily, as if that fog was trying to get inside her.

“We have to follow the curve of the snake,” she said slowly. “I think…it's going to lead us into a place that isn't very happy.”

Degan nodded, not questioning for a moment. “Okay.”

They walked slowly alongside the fence that separated them from the railway tracks. It curved around, through an area with big cement buildings where the wind whistled, almost like a canyon in the city. They passed a factory with a smokestack. Soon there was nothing but industrial buildings. Still the tracks went on. They curved again, and went down a small slope.

A few scattered houses emerged, small and narrow, with peeling paint. They felt lonely and neglected, Cass thought. More houses appeared, finally becoming a neighborhood. But unlike Cass's own area of town, where her tough little house was the only one that was not enormous, this whole area was clearly not so well-off. Some of the houses practically backed right up onto the tracks, some of their backyards a jumble of abandoned and rusting things. They were small, narrow, with bending fences and laundry blowing on clotheslines. There were trailers parked on grass. Garbage was strewn in the streets.

“This is it,” Cass said softly. “This is the place in the fog. It's the unhappy place.”

Degan let out his breath slowly, as if he was going to say something. But then he didn't. Instead, he shoved his hands in his pockets and walked beside her without speaking. She looked sideways at him, sensing the change in his mood. She couldn't see his face because he was looking down at the ground, his hair hanging forward.

“What is it?”

“I live here,” Degan said.