Unmasked (2 page)

She wanted to make him proud again.

“Noelle!” Elm snapped her to attention as the image of the Author dissolved. “If you can’t pay attention now, how can you expect to do well after orientation? Remember, everything in your story depends on how well you do in the tests. If you prove to be a failure, you’re going to have an awful story experience. But if you prove that you’re Main Character material, it’ll be the best adventure of your life. Of course, this is just all that I’ve heard from those that I’ve run into. I don’t really know exactly what it’s like…”

Noelle sighed as she tried to force herself to listen carefully. Elm mentioned something about different activities that campers would do to train for their story. She noted something about a competition, but her thoughts were interrupted because a silhouette made a mad dash a few yards into the depths of the forest.

Her first instinct was that it was the Author, but something felt unfriendly and ominous about the creature.

Its presence felt icy and heartless, not warm and radiant like the Author. So much so that the forest itself plunged into a faint, eerie darkness.

It was almost as if the creature was never meant to be unleashed, but there it was, bounding away in the woods menacingly.

Although Noelle could not see it’s face through the hood, a melody eerily poisoned the air from a wide gaping hold space that Noelle assumed to be its mouth.

It captivated the air with chanting in some language Noelle could not understand, but she didn’t like the sound of the strange hissing laced in the lyrics of the chant.

A chill rippled down her spine as the creature drew nearer. Her blood turned to ice, and she could hear her heartbeat anxiously hammering in her ears.

She began to shake Elm anxiously, and perhaps with much more force than intended, “What was that?”

“What?” Elm looked very irritated that Noelle interrupted her explanation, and slightly dizzy by Noelle’s constant shaking her back and forth.

“I saw some creature.”

Noelle pointed in the general direction, and Elm cautiously glanced over but found nothing.

“Describe it,” Elm demanded.

Noelle fastened her eyes shut to try to recall exactly.

“It had a dark cloak on and was chanting something, I couldn’t decipher. It had a hood on too,” she added unhelpfully.

“What else?” Elm prompted.

“Well, it was large. It was dangling in the air and arms outstretched like a puppet, and it’s cloak had nearly thousands of – eyes on it,” she remembered suddenly, “But they never blinked like they were always watching or something.”

“But that’s
impossible
,” Elm gasped suddenly. “They’re impossible – I mean – I didn’t think they existed.”

Curious as to what ‘they’ meant, Noelle peered over to make sure that she didn’t see the shadow again.

“Who isn’t supposed to exist?” she whispered, not daring to raise her voice over a nearly inaudible level.

Elm lowered her voice, following suit, “Legend has it that they used to work for the Author. They’re called the
Lapsus
. But they deserted the Author to work for another fallen creature... It’s said that the Lapsus destroy everything in their path. They hate the Author’s creations – but I used to think those were just stories to keep young characters out of trouble at campus.”

Suddenly a chill crept down Noelle’s spine as she continued down the path, feeling as frozen as ever. She wiggled her toes one by one to discover that each felt like an ice cube about to shatter into a thousand pieces.

She began to feel weak, as if all the strength had left her body, and she felt as if she could not continue. Her breath became quick and shallow as she had the feeling that something or someone was following her.

She wished that Elm would change the subject, but her friend had fallen silent. Perhaps the anxiety gripped her as well. Noelle secretly wanted to feel gratitude for the silence, but more than ever she wanted to hear Elm’s voice distracting her mind from the creature that she thought she saw.

“Let’s talk about something else, Elm,” she insisted. “You said something earlier about training for stories at campus.  What sort of stuff are we going to do for that? Elm?”

Noelle whipped around to find that Elm was missing.

Seized by panic, Noelle tried her best to think clearly. Perhaps Elm was just trying to scare her.

“Very funny Elm,” Noelle forced a laugh to suppress her anxiety. “But we really need to get to campus now, could you please come out of where you are hiding so that we can get to orientation on time?”

No response.

She’s probably just hiding in a tree. She probably thinks she’s clever because she can climb up them so easily.

Noelle peered up into a canopy of leaves above her just in time to catch a glimpse of the
Lapsus
descending down upon her.

Noelle felt herself drowning in an ocean of fear.

She tried gasping for air, but no oxygen arrived to aid her. 

She began to pointlessly claw the air in a desperate fight to escape, but the swirling darkness did not relent. As a last resort, she opened her mouth to cry for help, but no sound came.

Elm let out a bloodcurdling scream from somewhere nearby, but yet, she seemed miles and miles away with the hurricane-like winds knocking her down once more.

“
Tenebris vade!”
growled a deep voice from nearby as a great light penetrated the swirling darkness. The Lapsus let out furious shriek before scattering to a thousand pieces of silvery confetti that dissolved when they hit the forest floor.

Noelle’s shaky legs gave way as darkness encumbered her once more. She once again peeled open her eyes to find two pairs of hands gently lifting her to her feet.

As two shadows came into focus, Noelle spotted a knight in unnaturally polished armor. He lifted the lid of his helmet to reveal a pair of dark brown eyes and a mop of sweat-soaked, sooty hair to match.

Another boy nearby appeared in the corner of her eye. Noelle didn’t have much time to note his sun kissed hair or his freckle-lathered face due to the fact that she stood up far too quickly and nearly collapsed again.

She pressed her fingers to her temples to defend herself against the inevitable headache soon to follow her rash actions.

“Easy does it. You and your friend may have bitten off more than you could chew,” soothed a baritone voice coming from the knight.

Noelle’s heart gave a jolt as she remembered hearing Elm’s piercing cries when the Lapsus attacked them. But before she could ask the knight any questions, Elm appeared from practically nowhere, or it seemed like it. Noelle’s blurry vision had not yet quite recovered. Elm’s eyes dissolved from blank confusion to a furious glare when she spotted to the two men.

She dramatically flipped her long sheath of golden hair over her shoulder as she strode over to the two liberators.

“Where am I?! What the heck just happened?! Where did that Lapsus go? And what’s with the armor? Are you late for your meeting with King Arthur or something?!” she sneered scornfully.
The knight shot Noelle a quizzical look, but she simply buried her head into her hands knowing full well that Elm’s rant wouldn’t end any time soon.

“– and why was the Lapsus so close to campus? Shouldn’t they have someone guarding the barriers? What were you two doing, playing chess? While we were out here fighting for our lives and – ”

Her eyes narrowed when they locked on the freckled boy with sand-textured hair.

“You’re the boy I ran into a few miles back.”

The boy shrugged indifferently as if he couldn’t care less about his first encounter with Elm.

Judging by the purpling of Elm’s face, Noelle guessed that she didn’t appreciate the boy’s disinterested reaction to her claim.

Elm frowned, “Dude, like, what is your problem? Why don’t you talk? You gave me no name, nothing! And don’t give me some lame ‘I can’t talk’ sort of excuse,” she rang mimicking a low bass voice in a rather derisive tone. “Because you said, like, two words to me before you completely ignored the rest of the conversation!”

Noelle enjoyed five blessed seconds of silence waiting for Elm to continue her rant, but Elm clamped her mouth shut and folded her arms as if awaiting an apology from the soft spoken boy.

The knight smiled humorously, “After all that, what can we say?”

Not quite understanding that it was a rhetorical question, Elm took the opportunity at full force.

“Well you can start with your name, Lancelot.” she growled grumpily at the knight.

“Terryn,” he said simply.

“Elm,” she grunted regrettably after several more awkward moments of silence. Then she rounded on the boy. “Gonna give me a name or what?”

Terryn held up a hand in protest.

He can’t talk. He has what we call a
mendum
on campus.”

“A what?” Noelle asked automatically as she began to wonder why she knew nothing about campus before the journey.

“A flaw. It’s nothing to be ashamed about,” Terryn added quickly as a wave of disappointment stretched across the boy’s face. “But I’m afraid that the condition is permanent.”

“But I heard him!” Elm protested. “I asked him what a certain tree was called and he said, ‘It’s elm’.”

“You mean you actually listened?” Noelle blurted out with mock surprise.

Elm shot her a dissolving glare.

“Sorry, couldn’t help it,” Noelle shrugged apologetically, but she did not fail to catch the appreciative nod of approval from Terryn.

“So
does
he have a name?” Elm asked clearly furious by everyone’s reaction to Noelle’s dig at her.

“We ran into someone back there who suggested a name that he liked,” Terryn explained as he began shuffling back onto the path that led to campus. “Jim.”

Elm frowned, “What kind of name choice is that?” she rounded on Jim once more. “You only had one shot at a name, and you chose
Jim
? You could have been so creative with your name! There must be at least a hundred other boys on campus that have your name!”

Jim shrugged indifferently as if to say,
‘I don’t know, I kind of like it.’

Terryn waved the others to follow him down the winding path.

“Come on, or we’ll be late for the campus mixer,” he called importantly as he set off.

Noelle shrugged and motioned for Elm to accompany her down the path. Elm folded her arms defiantly.

“Or would you rather be escorted by a Lapsus?” Noelle asked. 

After a few moments, Elm finally surrendered as she trudged slowly behind muttering something about how she hated boys.

#

Five minutes later, Noelle sighted the rustic gate line by several hedges towering above her. She began to wonder how the gardeners managed to trim it, but didn’t have much time to ponder, so she resorted to guessing that they used a step ladder.

Passing under the gates she read the words etched on the mixture of brass and unwanted vines snaking their way through the crevices of the entrance:

Cognitio boni et mali.

“Is everything in some unknown language?” Noelle pondered aloud. “The lapsus chanting, Terryn’s words he used to defeat the lapsus, and now this. How are we supposed to understand anything?”

Before Elm could reply, an ungodly sound belonging to a stout lady attacked both of the girls unexpectedly.

“Welcome to campus,” cried the woman’s voice far too artificially sweet she stepped forth with a corn syrup smile planted right on her face. Noelle tried to ignore the honey-ish color smothered on the woman’s lips, noting that it complimented her features just as well as eye shadow on a snail.

“I’m Dana Willows, but
Miss
Willows is just fine,” she extended a hand to Elm, and Noelle noted that she looked reluctant to take it with Miss Willow’s uneven, bitten nails.

“Placement takes place tomorrow afternoon,” she continued sweetly. “But for now, we’ll just have you stay in the counselor cabins until further notice.”

She handed each of the girls a packet titled:
Campus Handbook

“Everything you need to know, you’ll find in there. If you need name assignments, the desk is right over there,” she motioned in the general direction while Elm didn’t manage to choke down a shudder at another sight of her bitten-nails. “First, stop by the campus director’s station for your guest cabin assignments; then, I’d suggest you go to the newbie mixer to get to know the other campers. Have a great day!”

Elm bolted away faster than her usual pace. Noelle had to jog to keep up.

Elm threw a glance over her shoulder to make sure Miss Willows was out of earshot before muttering, “Wow. She is the biggest Unwanted if I’ve ever seen one.”

Noelle frowned trying to comprehend, and Elm rolled her eyes clearly irritated that she had to explain everything.

“An Unwanted is an Extra character. It’s the place where pretty much no one wants to be. Occasionally they’ll say a cute line in the story, but other than that, they’re just background characters.  They don’t really help or hurt the plot, so we have to hear them moping around all day about how they wish they had made it bigger. That’s why you need to do well during the tests; otherwise you’ll end up as an Unwanted.”

Noelle shuddered at the thought of being miserable the rest of her time at campus, and even in her story life. Certainly the Author had bigger plans for her than some character that watched from the sidelines!

Suddenly a slight agitation toward the Author bubbled up in her stomach because he did not give her more information in advance.

“You all right?” Elm’s shrill voice dissolved her thoughts.

Noelle shrugged indifferently, and by Elm’s response, she realized that she might have done the wrong thing.

“You sound just like Jim,” Elm spat his name disdainfully.

Noelle didn’t have the heart to tell Elm that she couldn’t
sound
like Jim, because Jim didn’t speak. Or at least, Elm claimed to have heard him say two words, but Noelle highly doubted that Elm liked the sound of anyone’s voice but her own.

The two made a brief stop at a booth that could’ve been easily mistaken for a concession stand.

A very tall girl beamed at them with dull blue eyes and a pink rose clip delicately placed near her hairline and handed them each an assignment for the Medley cabin. Noelle began to wonder what had happened to the campus director. Surely a girl could not be running the campus!

Elm looked slightly bewildered, “Aren’t you going to ask for our names? That Willows lady told us that certain people are assigned certain guest cabins.”

The slim giant grinned mischievously while running a hand through her wavy brunette hair.

“Don’t worry about it,” she assured them. “I already know your names. Noelle and Elm.”

“How?”  Elm gawked at her. “I’ve only told Terryn, Noelle, and Jim my name!”

“I know,” the girl laughed, “speaking of, they’re late. Haven’t stopped by here, maybe they’re still recovering from that Lapsus attack.”

“How do you know about that? Who are you?”

The tall girl, held up a bony hand, “A friend, who you should deem very close, but I would not advise getting on my bad side…let’s say things won’t go well for you then.”

Elm cocked her head to the side like a sad puppy, “Does a name happen to go with that description?”

The girl’s lips curled into a sly smile as she pointed to Elm, “You will see me later on, although I’m not sure you’ll be terribly excited about it,” she then turned to Noelle. “And I’m afraid this will be our last encounter in person, but I won’t forget about you.”

With an awkward silence, the girl proceeded to point to an expanding circle of campers.

“That’s where the campus mixer is, I guess you best be heading in that way…and Noelle…
watch out for sharp objects
. While they seem bright and appealing to the eye, they can cut much deeper than intended.”

Noelle and Elm spun around now at a near running pace, but Noelle rotated back curiously to ask the girl what she had meant, but she was gone.

“Well that was substantially weird,” Elm muttered.

The two girls trotted over to a few new campers who automatically began to form a large circle with other newbies.

“What game are we playing?” Noelle asked a boy with dark red hair and ice blue eyes.

“Some sort of get to know you thing where you pass a ball to someone and they have to tell you something about themselves,” he explained while some leader bolted to the middle of the improvised circle to toss a ball to a girl with raven tinted hair, dark skin, with a few light lilac streaks dribbling down from her scalp.

“Um, my name is Cynthy, and I–uh–like the color purple, I guess,”

Most could already guess this by the very dark purple t-shirt she dawned and the sloppily-applied nail polish plastered onto her claw like fingers.

Cynthy’s “fun fact” earned her a round of unconvincing applause from a cluster of sweet-looking girls.

She gave a pathetic toss to Elm.

“Hi,” she beamed at the group. “I’m Elm, and oh, gosh, really one thing? Just one? Can I do two? Oh, are you sure? Oh fine, well, I’m Elm, and I really like to climb, and are you sure, just one? I’ll go really quick…”

While Elm begged for another turn, a counselor forcefully took the ball away from her and handed it to Jim.

Jim quickly tossed the ball to another boy with a mess of dark hair, accompanied by several protests from the campers because he didn’t use his turn.

The dark haired boy looked as if he were about to endure a punch and decided to get it over with quickly.

“Wes,” he said hastily. “I don’t like to do much really.”

Wes earned a few appreciative laughs from a plethora of boys. He sort of ducked low and smiled shyly, so much so, that Noelle assumed that he often didn’t receive approval from most anyone. Before the crowd’s affection wore of, the boy chucked the ball at Noelle.