Apex Magazine - August 2009 (Issue 2) by Apex Publications

Author:Apex Publications
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: eugie foster, apex magazine, apex publications, monica valentinelli, brad becraft, apex book company, maurice broaddus, gene oneill

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I search for a hint of green glass or sepia lace. Where is she? “I’d never let someone use Iolite Bronze on me.”

“Didn’t you say it was a gift when I sold it to you?”

“What?”

“I was the shop girl in the onyx mask.”

I am shocked beyond words, beyond reaction. It is the biggest taboo in our society, so profane and obscene that it is not even in our law books. We do not discuss the events and encounters of our other masks. It is not done. What if people started blaming one face for what another did, merely because the same citizen wore both?

The moment of speechless paralysis ends, and I run. I fly through the glittering doors, not caring that I’ve left my best friend behind, and run, run, run until I am back to the dormitory on Center at Corridor. I huddle in the lift, and it whisks me to my quarters. On my bed, I sob, the tears wetting the inside of my mask. A part of me worries that I will stain the satin, but it is a distant part.

When the tears run out, I am done with the day, done with this mask. But the unmasking time is still far off. If I’d only worn the tan mask today, with the bronze veneer and dripping beadwork, I wouldn’t have fled from the pewter-masked deviant. I’d have punched him in the golden flesh of his gut or hauled him to the queen’s gendarmes for a reckoning.

Then I realize what I’m thinking, what I’m wanting—another mask, but not during the morning selection, not during the unmasking—while I’m still wearing today’s.

And I’m afraid.

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