Unmasked (12 page)

Suddenly images of a beautiful woman, terrifying, yet beautiful popped into Noelle’s head. She seemed friendly, after all, she had so much knowledge, and unlike the Author she was far more willing to divide the wisdom among those who wanted to befriend her.

“Um yeah,” Noelle lied. “I left right after.”

Relief flooded over Bri as a pink flush returned to her cheeks and she seemed to be full of life again.

“Sorry, I didn’t have much time to explain,” Bri bobbed apologetically. “But you just can’t trust that woman, Noelle. She used to be in the service of the Author.”

“He has people
serve
him?” Noelle asked incredulously with a hint of disgust.

“They aren’t like us,” Bri said calmly, bouncing up and down. “He created them too, but they willingly serve him, and she used to be one of them until she tried to make herself author.”

Noelle had a very difficult time believing this. How could a woman so sweet and welcoming ever want to overthrow some Author who didn’t even do his job right?

“And she’s not just in
this
story,” Bri continued. “She’s in every one, just she’s not easily recognizable. That is, people would expect her to run around with fangs or something, but if she wanted to bring so many people down with her, would she really make herself
look
evil?”

Noelle ignored most of the rest that Bri said because she considered it utter garbage. Bri began rambling on about how the principal only had three tricks, so she warned her to watch for them.

Something about tricks of the eyes, mind, and body. But all Noelle could think about was the plan that the Principal wanted for her to complete that very night.

But what if she got caught? Certainly, her life would be ruined and then all would be despair.

She first contemplated the deed.

Then she thought about completing the deed. She played out the scenario thousands of times in her head, but implementing it would be the trickiest part.

“The most interesting part about her is that people in certain stories never seem to remember her at all,” Bri interrupted Noelle’s thoughts. “In fact, her biggest success is convincing most of the characters in the Author’s story that
she
doesn’t exist.”

“Why would she do that?” Noelle countered.

“Well, I guess that if people don’t know about her, then she can work however she pleases in peace without being interrupted by anyone.”

What’s so wrong with that?
Noelle wondered.

They returned to their sleeping quarters, which reminded Noelle somewhat of her cabin, but in a drabber sense. They roomed in classrooms that had couches and several air mattresses stored in closets.

Other than a few decorations that marked the room from class projects, Noelle slept in the Literature classroom with Bri; it had almost no similarity to Sage Peak, and she immediately began to feel homesick.

Or ‘campus’ sick.

When all grew quiet in the room, hours later, she arose and silently slid off of her bed.

She then proceeded to the door, fully equipped to do the deed that the principal issued for her earlier that day.

She hesitated for a moment when she palmed the stone cold door handle, but somehow she managed to push herself out that door. She was past the point of no return, and there was no way that she would ever want to turn back. 

Noelle felt rather foolish crawling along the hallways fumbling around with a pair of kitchen shears. She tiptoed past a hall monitor three times, twice without him tracing a shadow, although once he doubled back to make check and then shook his head, convincing himself that he saw nothing.

But she had managed to pry into that kitchen drawer where she gingerly slid the scissors out of the drawer and triple glanced down the hallway before proceeding toward the Main Character dormitories.

Her hair stood on end at every sound that echoed down the hallway, including the drilling of the monitor’s steps. Though he was a reasonable distance away, she felt as if he was merely inches and if she made a sudden move, he could see right through her intentions immediately.

As one might guess, she had second thoughts. So much so, that she paused her pursuit by pacing up and down the hallway, thoroughly trying to talk herself out of the deed.

After all, she could simply place the shears on the ground and sneak back into her dormitory without another moment’s notice. Why didn’t the principal do this deed herself anyway?

This is to become the new Main Character,
Noelle reminded herself after nervously ripping a few strands of hair out of her head.
After all, if a Main Character has no beauty, she has nothing.

The Extras, and other characters, would see her act of justice and would elect her to be leader. No one really liked Hera anyway.

Noelle pushed herself back into the hallway and tiptoed down the stairs toward Hera’s room.

She remembered a story that her cabin mates, back in Sage Peak, had watched with her. It was the story of some Main Character named Samson. He had the strength like a lion and slayed his enemies with ease.

But there was one problem. He had done something wrong along the way, or something Noelle couldn’t quite remember. Not that it really mattered much to her anyway, she had to focus on avoiding the monitor, but either way, someone ended up slicing off his locks of hair that gave him strength. Things sort of tumbled downhill for him after that.

Noelle stared feebly down at her scissors and nervously at the door before her.

Her shaking hands grasped the handle that betrayed her with the soft noise of squeaking metal as she clicked open the door.

She drew in a deep breath tiptoeing softly into the room at any moment expecting to wake up from the nightmare.

She saw the elegant figure resting there like a handful of gold in front of a poor man. The task was so simple, but usually the simplest of choice can be the most deadly.

She had already made up her mind. After all, one choice couldn’t mess up a life forever, she reasoned, after this; she would do well as a Main Character. She would be fair to the Extras offering them a chance to shine,
she would be different
.

Her rapid breathing torturously echoed throughout the room as she loomed over the delicate creature, scissors readily in her hand.

Suddenly, Hera stirred, and Noelle peeled against the wall, moving faster than she had ever imagined doing during tryouts for Redemption.

Hera shoved her hand onto her stomach as she flickered a light on. Noelle stood frozen in horror, praying that Hera would not turn around and spot her.

Hera, though, frowned slightly as she clutched her stomach letting out sighs of disappointment as she slowly padded over toward the bathroom.

When she shut the door, Noelle bolted to walk-in closet, safely hiding in the dark.

She opened the door a crack just to wait for Hera to fall back asleep. She gazed around the room with a mixture of jealousy and pity stirring inside of her.

Jealousy that Hera had a room to herself with a Queen sized bed to rest upon, which seemed to be crafted by angels of feathers.

Pity because it seemed terribly lonely. Because Hera was the only girl Main Character, she had no one to really relate to. All the Extras who loved her treated her more like a celebrity than a person, and everyone else eyed her every move praying that she would mess up and make a fool of herself.

Is this really worth it? Is this really worth it?

Noelle wondered over and over again as she heard a horrible retching noise coming from inside the bathroom.

Hera was sick, terribly sick, but she hadn’t looked that way earlier. Perhaps she caught a virus the night before.

Moments later, Hera exited the bathroom, not looking sick to her stomach, but anxious. Anxious about what?

Hera rushed over to the vanity mirror, her flurry of perfectly golden hair taunting Noelle to shear it clean off.

Hera placed her hands on her stomach, glanced into the mirror, and tightened her tank top by grabbing a fistful of it in the back.

Noelle stared enviously at Hera’s perfectly etched figure as sense of unsatisfied want stirred in her chest.

Then fury replaced this feeling as the truth about Hera’s beauty hit her like a hard stone.

Hera had puked whatever contents were in her stomach to stay thin.

What an awful, selfish girl,
Noelle thought indignantly,
what a terribly greedy thing to do!

Yet, somehow it seemed like a brilliant idea. Subconsciously, Noelle’s hand reached for her stomach, and instantly, all she wanted to do was hurl the contents in the bathroom.

Hera flickered off the light, still seemingly unsatisfied with her weight, but there were no more contents in her stomach to be rid of.

Noelle waited silently for what seemed like hours constantly asking herself the question.

Is it really worth it?

Then Hera’s deep breathing resounded throughout the room, and Noelle stepped gingerly out toward the bed.

She stared greedily at the golden curls as a shaky hand reach forth and grasped it.

Noelle expected for Hera’s hand to instantly yank hers and crush her bones to dust, but Hera didn’t stir.

She grazed the scissors up and down determining a spot to cut, and finally rested upon trimming at Hera’s forehead line.

Remember,
a voice in her mind echoed,
the simplest of choices are the most deadly? Is this really worth it?

Tears suddenly spilling down her cheeks Noelle gingerly sliced the scissors down upon Hera’s hair.

#

Hera’s screamed pierced the hallways and rattled Noelle when she awoke that next morning. The rest of the night had passed like a dream as she cradled half a head of Hera’s hair back to their room without the monitor catching her.

The other cabin members awoke to the scream, and Noelle stared guiltily as well as nervously at Bri’s pillow case. Underneath she had stuffed Hera’s hair and the kitchen shears, when Bri had taken a bathroom break in the middle of the night, considering there was nowhere else to hide it in their room. Or at least, nowhere else that was as far away from her as possible.

“What the heck is going on?” a girl with an untamable mane of hair began rubbing her eyes grumpily.

Five minutes later an adult, who apparently worked at the school, entered the room with a stiff air around him.

“It seems,” he boomed in a cold voice, “that someone managed to sneak into one of the girl’s dormitories and pull a very nasty prank. I can assure you that when we find the culprit, they will face severe punishment.”

“What happened?” Noelle tried her best to look innocent while asking this. She half expected a few of the girls to immediately point fingers at her, accusingly, but instead they also followed up the man with similar questions.

Suddenly a sniffling thin figure strode into the room while Noelle’s stomach did a somersault.

Hera stood, still somehow with pride, furiously gazing upon them. Much to Noelle’s surprise, all of her hair below the forehead had been chopped off, and she assumed that Hera must have asked someone else to finish the job that she had already started.

A gasp of horror echoed the room, and Noelle did her best to replicate it to not look suspicious.

“If any of you finds who did this,” Hera said holding back tears, “I will grant them a Main or Supporting Character role who will be a close friend to me in the story…”

The Unwanteds stared greedily around at each other as Noelle half expected that they would begin jumping at the opportunity.

“But don’t you Unwanteds think,” Hera added hastily, “that you can just give me every name of every person in the story. I want evidence! If you can find, oh I don’t know, half of my hair, in someone’s bag or a pair of scissors that is where it shouldn’t be…”

She then drew herself up and glared at them.

“And if one of you did this, I can assure you that we have the best people searching for you, and they will find evidence, I guarantee it!”

With no more words, Hera reached a hand toward where her hair used to be to toss it haughtily at them, but when she realized that it wasn’t there anymore, she stormed off into the distance.

#

They cancelled the story session for that day desperately looking for a plot twist, while a member of the story board threatened that they would have to start at the beginning.

“That was a terrible thing to do,” Bri said contemptuously staring at her pumpkin soup in great dislike as they ate in almost silence in the cafeteria. “Who would ever do something like that?”

“I don’t know,” Noelle added distractedly as she began thinking about the hair underneath Bri’s mattress. Why had she put it there in the first place? Why didn’t she just leave it in the hallway where no one could link the trace to her?

Rumors spread throughout the cafeteria about fingerprint detections that the sleuths would be able to track down the culprit through a single finger print scan.

Just go back to the room,
Noelle thought anxiously,
grab the hair and scissors and toss them out a window in another classroom.

She knew, though, that this plan would never work. Now they had placed monitors in every corner of every hallways waiting for a guilty student to return to stash the hair and scissors.

Eventually they would search the beds too; they would pluck out the hair and find her out.

I need to do something,
Noelle thought frantically.

Bri excused herself politely as she headed off in the direction of the kitchen.

“I thought that we couldn’t have second servings,” a girl whispered softly to a guy Supporting Character.

“She helps out in the kitchens by cleaning dishes and stuff,” he replied. “Dunno why, because they don’t pay her.”

Noelle, seemingly, wasn’t surprised.

Bri would do something just like that to please the
ever so wonderful
Author
, Noelle thought sarcastically.

Then Noelle had the most awful, yet clever idea that surely beat out any idea that the story board advisors had been contemplating that very moment. Noelle had an idea that would have probably given her full marks to be in the Villain category if she had taken the placement test all over again.

She desperately arose and bolted toward Hera’s table before she could change her mind.

“Hera,” she cried speaking so terribly fast that no one could even understand what she was saying, “Ino oo stol-yur hare.”

Hera shot her a bewildered look, “Sorry?”

Noelle drew in a deep breath long enough to suck in a mix of guilt into the mix of emotions springing on a wild roller coaster ride.

“I know who stole your hair,” Noelle said.

“Oh this is going to be good,” Blade piped up disdainfully.

“What?” Noelle asked puzzled.

“Five Unwanteds already came to us with clumps of hair,” Hera explained with a significant air around her. “Some tried even cutting their own hair with a kitchen knife until a few cooks shoed them out.”

“But there’s not only half a head of hair inside her pillowcase,” Noelle cried. “There’s the shears too!”

Hera paused for a moment while her beautiful face scanned Noelle’s thoughtfully at the sound of the scissors.

“All right,” she said finally, “you got one shot, Extra. Show me.”

#

As one might guess, Noelle didn’t come right out and tell Hera the truth. Quite the opposite in fact. After she explained that Bri had made a clean cut the other night, she suddenly wondered what would happen to her friend.

Her ever so gracious Author will protect her,
Noelle thought sarcastically,
after all; he hates me so much that he’ll just strike me down if he sees me lying.

Although, she did gazed frightened at the ceiling wondering if he would actually take her thoughts into consideration and send a lightning bolt in her direction.

“What’s going to happen to Bri?” Noelle did her best not to sound curious. “Are they just going to kick her out of the story?”

“Oh, I won’t tell anybody,” Hera said with a wink, “not yet, at least.”

“What?” Noelle asked confused.