"Are you tutoring today?" I asked, around a mouthful of food.
"Yep," he replied. "English today, shouldn't be too hard."
"What are they studying?"
He smiled -- small but honest, full of pleasure. "Term projects. They're doing a report on fairy tales. The boy's idea."
"That should be interesting. I have a copy of Hans Christian Andersen back at the shop," I added. He chuckled.
"They're more interested in the Brothers Grimm," he said. "I think the boy's looking forward to finally getting to shock his teachers a little. Cinderella's sisters dancing themselves to death in hot iron boots, that sort of thing."
"Brutal little kiddies. I approve," I answered, and took another bite of food. "Right up your alley, anyway, huh? The truth behind the pleasantries?"
He gave me an odd look, full of regret and an odd kind of resolution. "Suppose so."
Once we'd finished and he'd quietly insisted on paying, I left him at the front of the cafe.
"I'll come by this evening before I leave for The Pines, drop off some masks," he said. "Will you be around?"
"Where would I go?" I asked with a grin.
That evening I left the lights on in the shop and carefully did not hang the Closed sign, though I gave discouraging looks to my few evening patrons. It was well past dark and I was beginning to think Lucas had forgotten – or had decided to stand me up, which given his shyness wouldn't have been unexpected – when Nameless appeared. He pawed politely, not at easily-scratched green paint on the door itself but on the weathered wooden frame. I opened the door and he snorted, shaking snow off his feet as he walked in.
"Hiya, Nameless," I said, shutting the door behind him. "Staying the night?"
He turned to face me and whined, backing towards the fire as if inviting me along. I went to pick up a book and he barked; chastised, I glanced down at him, then crouched and rubbed his fur just below his ears.
"What's up?" I asked, looking for any signs he'd been hurt. He pulled out of my grasp and backed away again, then began to scratch at his muzzle as if he had something caught in his nose. I reached out to help, but he growled at me and I began to worry.
He managed to get his front paw behind his ear, right at the line where the black marking on his face ended, and it seemed to catch. It was a few more seconds before I realized, in a dreamlike way, that the black fur was coming off – and by then it was not black fur anymore at all. It was smooth black suede, laced to an ear made of black leather and part of a forehead that looked like thick, doubled-over white linen.
I don't recall actually seeing the change. So much happened at once. I recall seeing the fur, and then seeing that it was not fur at all, but after that I remember only the soft noise the mask made as it fell and the look in Lucas's eyes as he stared up at me, sitting on my bookshop floor, wearing the gray coat he'd bought from the Friendly and a battered pair of black pants.
The world began to tip precariously. It seemed to have an erratic pulse of its own that caught me up – thud-ump, thud-ump-ump-ump, thud-thud-ump...
"Christopher, your heart," he said, eyes widening. I must have looked terrible, because he scrambled up off the rug and took me by the shoulders. I couldn't breathe. "Are you all right?"
I looked at him, mute and panicking. I wasn't sure what I was thinking or how to say it and my pulse was too fast –
Lucas put a hand on my chest and pressed, his other hand holding onto my arm. I stumbled back but he held me up, and then there was a sharp pain, like a muscle spasm or a cramp.
The black tunnel that had been forming in my vision cleared and my heartbeat evened out, much more suddenly than it ever had before. I could feel it under Lucas's palm, strong and solid, and I felt sure he could feel it too.
There was a long silence between us.
"I did this thing," Lucas said slowly, head bent over the hand still resting on my chest. "The greatest thing. Out of a book, with my own hands, I did it."
I drew a quick breath, my lungs still expecting to aid a failing body, then had to let it out again. I cautiously took a few more. Lucas removed his hand, gave me a searching look, and then bent to pick up the mask still lying on the floor nearby.
"I thought I'd better just show you," he said apologetically. "I didn't think about your heart."
"That's all right," I heard myself say, distantly. "I think it's fine."
"Are you okay?" he asked. I stared at the mask, mind utterly blank. "Christopher?"
"I'm...I need to sit down," I said, still staring. He was blocking the most direct way to the chairs near the fireplace, and I was in no condition to come up with detours, so I stood there until he moved aside, then made my way to the nearest seat. I sat down in it, leaning forward, elbows on my knees. My eyes came to rest about a foot above the fireplace, near Dottore.
Strangely, I had no urge to question what he'd done. Tricks were beneath Lucas, and even a skeptic knows – maybe they know best – that life is too short to ignore what we see with our own eyes. It never occurred to me that Lucas had not actually done what I had just seen him do. The ice-prints I could rationalize away; there was no rational excuse for this.
He sat in the chair across the hearth from me and regarded me carefully. "Are you sure you're all right, Christopher?"
"Yes," I answered. And then I stopped talking until I thought of something new to say.
"How long? Since New Year's?" I asked. He nodded. I nodded. The world began to settle a little more with every word I actually spoke. "Magic, huh?"
"Something like," he said ruefully. "I don't know what to call it, exactly."
"Can I see the mask?"
He offered and I took it, turning it so that the ears were right-side-up and the muzzle faced me. It was a friendly face, actually: black and gray and white, made of scraps stitched tightly together, molded into the shape of a dog's head, the finished product of the mess of scraps I'd seen on Christmas Eve. On a man it would fit high on the forehead and extend down over nose and upper lip, leaving the chin free to speak – actually it would have looked a little silly, I think.
There was no head-strap to hold it on with, which struck me as strange until I understood what it meant. He had made the mask with remarkable faith, gambling on the fact that it would never need to be secured. Because it would never be worn – not as any ordinary mask would.