Night of the Mask Read online

  FOR ERIK

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Sneak Peek

  Copyright

  Tucker opened the small gold envelope that had his name written across the front in perfectly printed letters, and removed the pink card from inside. Instead of having ordinary writing on it, it was engraved like a fancy invitation.

  COME CELEBRATE SASHA’S BIRTHDAY! it said.

  “It’s Saturday,” said Sasha, who just moments ago had handed Tucker the envelope and was still standing in front of him, smiling widely. Before Tucker could even read the rest of the card, she continued. “It starts at two o’clock. You don’t have to bring a present, but I won’t be mad if you do. Oh, and it’s a costume party. Well, sort of. Everyone is going to wear masks. I thought that would be fun.”

  “What kind of masks?” Tucker asked.

  “Any kind really,” said Sasha. “Superheroes. Animals. Monsters. Whatever you want. And don’t worry about being able to get around in your chair. The hallways are super wide, there are ramps to the doors, and there’s even an elevator that goes between floors. You’ll have no problem.”

  “Cool,” Tucker said. He tried to sound like it was no big deal, but going to Sasha’s house was actually a huge deal. She didn’t just live in a house—she lived in a mansion. It sat on a hill overlooking the town, and had a long driveway that circled the hill five times before reaching the top. The mansion was very old, with lots of pointed roofs, and seven chimneys, and probably hundreds of windows. It even had a name—Stormwatch House. Tucker had always wanted to see the inside of it. Now he was going to.

  “So, you’ll come?” Sasha asked.

  “Definitely,” said Tucker.

  Sasha grinned and bounced on her toes. “Yay,” she said. “Okay, I’ve got to hand out the rest of these invitations. I’ll see you later.”

  She darted off. Tucker looked at the invitation again, thinking about what kind of mask he might want to wear. There were so many possibilities. As he was considering them, his mother pulled up in their minivan. The side door slid open, and the ramp extended. Tucker expertly maneuvered his electric chair up it and into the van.

  “How was your day?” his mother asked as the ramp retracted and the door slid shut.

  “Great,” Tucker said. “I got a ninety-three on my science test, and my audition for the musical went really well. I’m pretty sure I’m going to be either the Tin Man or the Cowardly Lion.”

  “That sounds like a pretty great day,” his mother said as she pulled out of the school parking lot.

  “Maybe that’s what I should be for the party,” Tucker said, thinking out loud. “A lion.”

  “What party?” his mother asked.

  Tucker told her about Sasha’s birthday party.

  “You’re going to get to see the inside of Stormwatch House?” his mother said. “Maybe I should call Sasha’s mother and volunteer to help. I’m dying to see the inside of that house. It would be the perfect setting for this idea I have.”

  Tucker groaned. His mother wrote horror novels, and she was always having ideas. So far, she’d published four books. She wasn’t as famous as some other writers, but her books were great. At least, Tucker assumed they were. He hadn’t actually read any of them, because he didn’t like to be scared. But lots of people had told them how good they were.

  “This party isn’t for you!” he objected.

  His mother laughed. “Okay,” she said. “But I want you to take notes on how the rooms look.”

  “Mom!” Tucker said, making a face at her in the rearview mirror.

  “I’m joking,” his mother said. “Well, mostly.”

  “Anyway, I need to get a mask,” Tucker said, hoping to distract her. “It’s kind of a costume party.”

  “I know just the place,” his mother said. “I saw a new store the other day when I drove to the cemetery to get ideas for character names from the old gravestones. It’s called Frightville.”

  “Frightville?” Tucker said. “That sounds—”

  “Scary,” his mother interrupted. “I know. That’s why I want to check it out. It looks like some kind of antique shop or something. I bet they’ll have masks.”

  Tucker started to ask her why an antique store would have masks, but he knew better. His mother wanted to check out Frightville, and she was using this as her excuse. He would go along with her, and when it turned out the store didn’t have anything for him, he would ask her to take him to Party World in the shopping center. Then maybe he could talk her into getting a ham and pineapple pizza at Pie in the Sky for dinner, since it was right next door.

  A few minutes later, they pulled up to Frightville. Tucker wheeled himself down the van’s ramp, then through the door of the store. As his mother went off to browse on her own, Tucker took a look around. His mother had kind of been right about it being an antique store, but not the sort of antiques you usually found for sale. Everything in Frightville was a little bit creepy. Instead of old tables and lamps, the store was filled with things like real stuffed crows with glinting glass eyes and cases crammed with books that had titles like Toadstool Soup and Other Deadly Dishes. There was even a cabinet cluttered with dusty glass bottles and a sign that read: MAY CONTAIN GENIES: OPEN AT YOUR OWN RISK.

  “Good afternoon,” a voice said, making Tucker jump.

  A man was standing beside him. He was tall and thin, and he was dressed in a black suit. His gray hair was slicked back, and he regarded Tucker with eyes the same color as his hair. “My apologies for startling you,” he said. “My name is Odson Ends. This is my store.”

  “Oh,” Tucker said. “It’s, um, really great.” He looked around, hoping his mother had finished browsing and they could go, but she was nowhere to be seen.

  “Is there anything I can help you find?” Mr. Ends inquired.

  “I don’t think so,” Tucker said. “I mean, I need a mask for this party I’m going to, but I doubt you have anything like that.”

  Mr. Ends smiled. It was like a crack appearing on frozen ice. “Come with me,” he said.

  Tucker followed along behind as Mr. Ends went down an aisle. They stopped in front of a wall on which dozens of masks dangled from wooden pegs. They weren’t the usual plastic or rubber masks like the ones sold at Party World. These looked handmade.

  “They’re papier-mâché,” Mr. Ends explained, pronouncing the last part with an accent.

  Tucker knew that papier-mâché was just a fancy word meaning paper mixed with water and glue. He’d made some himself the summer before in art class at Camp Weedpatch. But he’d never seen anything like the masks on the wall. They were weird and wonderful. A few were scary, like the witch face with a long, crooked nose and the thing that looked like a sea monster. Others were more fanciful, like a big-eared rabbit and an elf.

  “The magical thing about masks is that they let you turn yourself into what you want the world to see you as,” Mr. Ends said. “Do you see anything here you would like to be?”

  Tucker thought it was a strange way of asking if he liked any of them. He looked at all the faces staring back at him. Who do I want to be? he wondered. Or what?

  He liked a lot of the masks. But which one felt the most like who he was? He considered a cat face, which was kind of like the lion from The Wizard of Oz, but it wasn’t quite right. Neither were the clown, or the fish head, or the face made out of green leaves and flowers. He was about to say that none of them were what he was looki
ng for. Then his eyes stopped on a mask. It was shaped like a bat, and the eyeholes were in the middle of its wings. It wasn’t as unusual or fanciful as the others, but Tucker liked it.

  “That one,” he said, pointing.

  “An interesting choice,” Mr. Ends said as he took the mask from its peg and handed it to Tucker.

  “What’s interesting about it?” Tucker asked.

  “I’m sure you’ve heard the expression ‘blind as a bat,’ ” Mr. Ends said. “It’s not true, of course. Bats actually see quite well. But they also use echolocation—sound waves—to navigate in the dark and find food. It’s an extraordinary ability, being able to see things that would otherwise be invisible.”

  Tucker placed the mask over his face and looked through the eyeholes.

  “Do things look any different?” Mr. Ends asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Tucker said.

  “Hmm,” Mr. Ends replied. “Well, sometimes a mask is just a mask.”

  “Sure,” Tucker agreed, although he really had no idea what the man was talking about. He removed the mask and held it in his hands. He still wasn’t quite sure why he liked it so much, but somehow, he knew it was perfect for Sasha’s party. He looked up at Mr. Ends. “I’ll take it.”

  On Saturday, Tucker’s mom and dad flipped a coin to see who would get to drive him to the party and who would stay there to wait for Tucker’s great-aunt Hilda, who was due to arrive for a week’s visit. To Tucker’s relief, his dad won.

  “She’s your aunt,” his mother said to his father as he gleefully hopped into the van. “And I’m picking you up!” she told Tucker.

  Tucker couldn’t blame her for being disappointed. He was excited too. Fifteen minutes later, as they rounded the final curve of the driveway and Stormwatch House loomed over them, he stared up at it through the window in awe. “Wow,” he said. “It’s practically a castle.”

  While he was rolling his chair down the ramp, the front door of the house opened and Sasha came running out, accompanied by a short, round woman who looked like a grown-up version of Sasha. The two of them came over to the van, and the woman held out her hand to Tucker.

  “I’m Aretta Okafor,” she said. “Sasha’s mother.”

  “Dr. Okafor,” said Sasha proudly.

  Her mother laughed. “Only when I’m at the hospital,” she said.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Dr. Okafor,” Tucker said, shaking her hand. “This is my dad. He’s a plumber.”

  “That’s almost the same thing,” Sasha’s mother said. “We both figure out what’s going on with the insides.”

  “Speaking of plumbing,” Tucker’s dad said, pointing at the house, “this place must have miles of pipes in it.”

  “It does,” Dr. Okafor agreed. “And all of them are a hundred years old and leaking. Maybe when you have time, you can come look at them for us.”

  “I’d be happy to,” Tucker’s dad said. “Right now, I think these two have a party to get to.”

  Sasha glanced down at the wrapped box resting on Tucker’s lap. “Is that for me?” she said. “I told you that you didn’t have to bring a present.” She grinned. “But I’m glad you did. Come on, I’ll show you where you can put it.”

  Tucker said goodbye to his dad, then followed Sasha to the door of the house. Sasha’s mother followed behind them. “I’m going to go see how your father is getting on with the refreshments,” she said, disappearing through a doorway and leaving Sasha and Tucker alone.

  “Am I the first one here?” Tucker asked.

  “There are some others,” Sasha said as she started walking down a long hallway. “They’re in the ballroom.”

  “This place has a ballroom?” said Tucker.

  “It has all kinds of rooms,” Sasha told him. “I don’t think I’ve even seen all of them. Once, my brother and I played hide-and-seek, and I didn’t find him for two days.”

  Tucker wasn’t sure whether to believe that or not, so he turned his attention to the walls. They were covered in paintings of all kinds. Mostly, they were modern-looking, with lots of bright blobs and streaks of color.

  “My dad did these,” Sasha said. “He’s an artist.” She stopped in front of one that was different from the rest. “Except this one. This one was here when we moved in.”

  The painting was a portrait. It depicted a serious, dark-haired man with a long beard and small, round glasses standing in what seemed to be a workshop of some kind. In the background was a bench covered in tools and various pieces of metal and wood. The man wore an apron over his clothes, and sitting on one outstretched hand was a doll of some kind. The doll looked like a little old man with brownish skin the color of dried oak leaves. He had a long, crooked nose and a wrinkled face like a withered apple. He was dressed in red clothes, and had a short, pointed red hat on his head.

  “That’s a painting of Felix Thatcher,” Sasha informed Tucker. “He was an inventor. He lived here a long time ago.”

  “Did he build the house?” Tucker asked.

  Sasha shook his head. “His grandfather did. His name was Ahab Thatcher. He owned a bunch of whaling ships a billion years ago. That’s why this house is called Stormwatch House. There’s a room in one of the towers where you can see all the way to the ocean. Ahab used to go up there to see what the weather was like out at sea. They worried about that kind of thing a lot back then, since there were a lot of shipwrecks.”

  “So, why is Felix’s portrait here and not Ahab’s?” asked Tucker.

  “It used to be here,” Sasha explained. “Then there was a fire. Part of the house burned, including the portrait of Ahab. But Felix was a woodworker, and he rebuilt everything almost exactly like it had been before, so you can’t even tell.”

  “What’s that toy he’s holding?”

  Sasha turned and looked at Tucker. “I don’t know if I should tell you,” she said. “I know you don’t like scary things.”

  Tucker felt himself blush. Ever since he’d admitted to not reading his mom’s books, the other kids sometimes teased him for being afraid. Not in a mean way. More like they were looking out for him. But it still made him feel like he should be braver than he felt.

  “It’s okay,” he said, trying to sound confident. “I mean, how scary can it be?”

  “Pretty scary,” Sasha warned. “You sure you want to hear it?”

  Tucker wasn’t sure at all, but he nodded anyway.

  “Okay,” Sasha said. “Well, like I told you, Felix was a woodworker. He was also a toymaker. Dolls. Marionettes. Jack-in-the-boxes. All kinds of things.”

  “How is that scary?” Tucker asked.

  “The toys aren’t the scary part,” said Sasha. “It’s how he made them. That thing he’s holding? It’s a creature called a grelkin. It’s a kind of gnome, or troll, or something like that. Supposedly, Felix had a whole bunch of them working for him. They helped build the toys.”

  “Grelkins?” Tucker said. “I’ve never heard of anything like that. Where did they come from?”

  “One of Ahab’s ships,” said Sasha. “He brought them back with him. Or they stowed away on the ship. The story is, the fire that burned this place was started by them because they were angry that Ahab didn’t believe in them. See, grelkins are usually invisible. You can only see them with special glasses. Ahab didn’t have those, so he never saw the grelkins. That made them mad. Grelkins are like that.”

  Tucker wasn’t sure what to think about Sasha’s story. It was pretty ridiculous. It also sounded like some of the stories he’d read about other make-believe creatures, like elves or pixies who helped people make clothes and shoes in exchange for gifts, then pulled pranks when they were ignored or the humans gave them the wrong presents. He suspected Sasha had read the same stories and was making this one up.

  “Why did they help Felix, then?” he asked.

  Sasha rolled her eyes. “Because,” she said as if the answer should be obvious, “he believed in them. He made those glasses he’s wearing and—”
br />   “Sasha!” a girl’s voice shouted.

  Tucker turned his head and saw that a door had opened at the end of the hall. Someone wearing a giant cat head was standing there. “There you are,” the girl said. “Come on. You’re missing your own party.”

  “That’s totally Ping Zhao,” Sasha whispered to Tucker. “But pretend you don’t know. And you should probably put your mask on too. We’re all supposed to be in disguise.”

  Tucker wanted to ask her more about Felix Thatcher and how she knew so much about him and the grelkins, but Sasha was already walking toward the open door. As she passed a small table, she picked up a mask that was sitting there—a big black-and-yellow-striped bee’s face topped by a tall gold crown—and slipped it over her head. Of course, she’s the birthday girl so she gets to be the queen bee, Tucker thought as he put his own mask on.

  He was dressed in black pants and a black shirt that had scalloped wings sewn on the sleeves. With the mask on, he felt even more bat-like. Even though looking through the eyeholes made it a little difficult to see, he was able to maneuver his chair in the direction of the party. Sasha had already gone inside the room, and the sound of people having a good time spilled out into the hall. Tucker couldn’t wait to be part of it.

  As he neared the door, he thought he saw something out of the corner of his left eye, a quick movement, as if someone or something had darted past him. He turned his head, but there was no one else in the hallway. He resumed his course for the door, and had almost reached it when something moved on the other side of him. This time, he was sure he saw something, but only for a moment. He wheeled his chair around and looked. But once again, there was nothing there.

  He glanced back at the portrait of Felix Thatcher, and his eyes went to the grelkin sitting on the man’s hand. It seemed to be looking right at him. Tucker turned away. It’s just a stupid story, he told himself as he motored quickly toward the ballroom and the party inside.

  Tucker laughed as Dr. Okafor carefully spun his chair in circles. He was blindfolded, the wide strip of cloth placed over his eyes and tied behind his head making it impossible to know where he was. He could have turned the chair himself, but half the fun of the game was feeling like he was on a carnival ride. The movement made him a little dizzy. It felt great.