Roshaan
She knocks lightly.
She forces a smile. “It’s time to select a persona mask for the Moonlight & Mentalism Soiree. Can I come in?”
He steps back and allows her to push her cart into the suite. She takes it to a table near the window and sets out a tray holding masks in bronze, silver, and gold.
“They’re crafted to look like they’re made of ancient metal,” she explains. “But they’re surprisingly light. They can float, even.” She sets out a second tray.
“The others on the trolley are duplicates,” she says. “Sometimes guests want to wear the same masks as one another, but when Theo—Sorin—interprets their choices, they always reveal very different secrets about the person wearing them.”
As Patrick peruses the selection, she notes that he’s packed away his fiancée’s luggage. She also knows security was not able to locate her, and that her passport was left with Souda port police.
But Patrick doesn’t appear at all worried. He just seems cleansed—chipper, even.
“Tell me a bit more about these.” He gestures to the gold masks.
“The gold ones generally represent the radiant, outward-facing personas, or archetypes.” She gestures to the tray.
“Apollo. Dionysus, the Hero, the Muse, the Comedian. While these, the silver faces, depict the shadow, or inward-facing archetypes. Faces that don’t exude their own light, but reflect the light of others—as the moon reflects the sun’s light.
” She points. “These ones—Hades, Persephone, the Oracle, Tragedy, the Trickster—are what I like to call the wild card masks. Either in bronze, or dual-toned. Medusa. And Hecate, Circe, the Chorus, Hermes.”
Patrick rubs his freshly shaved chin, deciding on how he wants to present.
He picks the Echo mask. Beautiful smooth features on the outside, but hollowed and cavernous inside—a persona that echoes the expectations of others, never his authentic self.
She doesn’t ask why a choice is made, and she never fully explains the masks.
That’s Theo’s role. In the unmasking.
He puts it on his face, testing the fit and weight of it. He glances in the mirror and laughs. The sound coming from behind the Echo facade is hollow.
“Will you be there?” he asks.
“I will.”
“In a mask, too?”
“Of course.” Her words come out strained. Nerves about the show are hollowing her from the inside.
She leaves Patrick and proceeds to Dr. Gideon Marsh’s suite.
Roshaan knocks on the door.
She’s welcomed in. She sets out the masks again. Sarah comes through the adjoining door, which is open.
“Can I also pick one?” Carter asks.
“The soiree is for adults, Carter,” Sarah says. “I’m sorry, hon. I really am—we will do the Disney cruise next time. I promise.”
He glances at his grandfather, a small scowl forming. “Why can’t I come?”
Roshaan wants to say of course he can attend, but she can’t.
Not tonight. Tonight is going to be different.
Billed as Sorin’s most truth-piercing, dangerous performance—it most certainly will be.
But not in the way people think. Tonight, she suspects, could be deadly.
Literally. She doesn’t know this for a fact, but every little sense in her body is foreshadowing this, whispering it, warning of it.
Nausea coils low in her belly.
“I tell you what,” Dr. Marsh says to Carter. “Pick a mask anyway—if that’s okay, Roshaan?”
She gives a tight nod. “Of course.”
Carter studies them excitedly.
“What one is this?” he asks.
“That’s the Hero,” she says.
“And this one?” He points to a stark, expressionless silver face. Smooth and lean with deeply hollowed-out eyes. No smile. No anger. Impassive.
“The mask of Thanatos. The silent death.”
“Why does Thanatos not have any expressions?”
“To show his lack of passion. Death just is. Inevitable. Inescapable.”
“My gramps said life comes with a one hundred percent death rate.”
This rattles her. She glances at Dr. Marsh. “It’s true, I guess. If you are born, you are guaranteed to die. I hadn’t really thought about it that way.”
“Yep. Death comes for us all sooner or later in some form. That’s what Gramps said, too.”
“Hopefully later rather than sooner,” she says. “And in a fairly comfortable form.”
“What kind of person would pick the death mask, I wonder?” Carter asks with the brightly macabre curiosity that children often have.
“Well,” she says, “if I was Sorin the Magnificent, I’d say someone who perhaps sees themselves as death’s quiet servant. No morality. No judgment. Just the mission of death.”
“Hmm,” says Carter. “And this one?” He points to a mask with a playful but cunning silver smile. Eyes shaped as though full of mischief. Pointed ears. Half human, half animal. A spirited, puckish face frozen between innocence and mischief.
“That’s the mask of the Satyr.”
“What does it depict?”
“Well, in ancient Greek tradition, I believe the Satyr symbolizes an earthy wit, trickery, a playful lust and zest, freedom—but it comes with deep and dark lessons hidden behind the pranks and cheekiness.”
Carter vacillates between the Hero and the grinning Trickster.
He reaches for the Satyr.
“Good choice.” She allows a smile. “I figured you’d like that one.”
“I do.” He holds it over his face and does a funny little jig in front of a long mirror.
For a surreal moment, the eight-year-old—small for his age—actually becomes a little evil, mischievous sprite.
She almost laughs, but instead feels a chill. Like a cloud over the moon.
Her gaze flicks toward the darkness of the ocean beyond the window. The sky is clear, full with stars. No clouds cross the moon. Its light shines clear on the water and is luminous on little white horses foaming on the waves that are growing with the wind.
Dr. Marsh whispers conspiratorially to Carter, “Maybe I’ll come down and get you at intermission, and we can sneak onto the deck and peek in a window when no one is looking.”
“There’s no window into the theater lounge, I’m afraid,” Roshaan offers, trying to dissuade them.
“Well, maybe we can peek in via a side door or something, then,” Dr. Marsh says to Carter.
Roshaan desperately wants to say, Please, not tonight. She opens her mouth, but Sarah interjects before she can speak.
“I’ll take this one.” She picks up the beautiful bronze mask of Demeter.
Her face is serene. Maternal features. High cheekbones, closed lips.
A crown of wheat worked in relief across the brow.
The shape of her eyes, however, is sad. And while her face is smooth, cracks and veins show in the bronze at the edges, as though the earth that the goddess of harvest is supposed to nourish, is drying, and dying.
“What about you, Dad?” Sarah asks Dr. Marsh.
He picks up the Oedipal Father mask. “This looks about right for me.” He grins, holds it up. The face is made of heavy browned gold. Deeply lined. Authority that has outlived its time. A man, Theo will undoubtedly say, who fears irrelevance, but can’t let go.
She leaves the family, feeling sick.
As she wheels her cart down the carpeted corridor, she thinks that whatever goes down tonight, it’s her fault. She has a burden to bear, a price to pay.
None of this would be happening if she hadn’t listened to Theo. If she hadn’t planted those bugs.