Stamps, Vamps & Tramps (A Three Little Words Anthology)

by Rachel Caine

“How can you talk?”

  Not really talking buddy. Just thinking out loud.

  It was then that Grimshaw noticed that he wasn’t hearing the paper speak; the deep, scratchy voice was echoing inside his head.

  “How can you think? You’re just a—”

  Scrap of parchment. I know what I be, Grimshaw. I don’t know how I be, but I be.

  “Any ideas at all?”

  There was a silence in his head, but Grimshaw believed he could feel the parchment—Chernyl—thinking.

  Prolly has something to do with the Plague.

  Grimshaw jumped up, holding his hand at arm’s length.

  “The Plague? The Fiendborne Parchment Plague? Where you slough off sheets of skin by the ream?”

  Calm down. I was fixed in brine, photo-like. Damn near pickled, in fact.

  Grimshaw looked at his hand. If Chernyl was Plague-ridden, Grimshaw’d already be cracking and flaking.

  “Something to do with the Plague—what? Trapped you? Preserved you?”

  That’s the kicker: I dunno. When I was tore all up and scattered by the Plague winds, me memories were too.

  Grimshaw sighed. “How do I get you off my hand?”

  Ah, and I thought we was bonding for real, like.

  “Chernyl.”

  Fine. Seeing as it’s a small question, I’ll answer it. No Fiend-lovin’ idea.

  “What do you mean?”

  Outside ‘a lopping the thing off, I’ve no idea what you’d do to get rid’a me. Maybe a different scrap would know? For now, just think’a me like a very thin leech. Eat plenty of red meat, too. Don’t want ya fainting on me.

  Grimshaw paced the room. The sky outside turned gray with the promise of dawn.

  “So, you’re telling me that I have to find another scrap of demon paper and attach it to my body in the hopes that it’s the part of your mind that knows how to get you off me?” Grimshaw stopped pacing and stared at the brown-yellow patch on his hand.

  No, Chernyl said, I’m telling you that we have to find all the scraps.

  Grimshaw sighed.

  And don’t forget to eat more red meat. They’ll be hungry. You know, Grimshaw paused, for the iron.

  “How?” Grimshaw asked, buttoning up his third overcoat. The blizzard had quieted down, but it was still cold enough to freeze the blood solid in your veins if you weren’t well protected. Ice Rigor, they called it.

  There ya go again with those big questions, but I’ll tell ya anyway, ’cause we’re buddies.

  Grimshaw’s hand flexed and moved without his effort.

  This here hand’s mine now, see? I will point you in the right direction. His hand curled into a fist with just the pointer wavering like the needle on a compass.

  “But how do you know where to go?”

  Instinct.

  Grimshaw had reconsidered the blade when Chernyl first had taken control of his hand, but he had wrested control back with a concerted effort of will, which had calmed him a bit. It was still unnerving to see his fingers flex and wave by themselves.

  But is this any stranger than a piece of possessed parchment talking in your head? Grimshaw thought.

  No, I wouldn’t say stranger, Chernyl said.

  Grimshaw hung his head.

  “You can read my mind?”

  I can hear your thoughts. Difference there, buddy.

  Grimshaw reached for a scarf, but only one hand found the thick fabric.

  “Chernyl, let’s make a deal. I get control of both hands until you need to use one, okay?”

  Whatever you say, boss.

  Grimshaw’s other hand shot forward toward the scarf. He wrapped the long length of heavy wool around his head a few times and then secured everything under a stocking cap. Finally, he pulled on two pairs of wool mitten liners and then waterproof leather mittens over the top of them.

  “Let’s get this over with,” Grimshaw said, and stepped out into the cold. The only exposed skin on his entire body was an oval from his eyebrows to his lower lip. Still, the cold penetrated his layers of clothing immediately. He sucked in a breath and felt little ice crystals form in his lungs.

  Slowly, through your nose.

  Grimshaw knew he couldn’t form words through the shivering, so he thought them.

  If I close my mouth, my lips will freeze together.

  If you don’t, your lungs’ll get frostbitten.

  Grimshaw didn’t have the will to argue. Already, snow caked his eyelashes and he felt the tip of his nose freezing solid. He closed his lips. A thin weld of ice formed, and kept them closed.

  Where to? Grimshaw asked. The wind picked up and threw his outermost cloak out behind him. It cracked like a bullwhip.

  Grimshaw’s hand pointed forward.

  Down this street two blocks, then a left.

  How far is this first scrap?

  Two blocks and then a left away.

  Grimshaw thanked the Fiend that at least something went his way today.

  Grimshaw cursed the Fiend for Chernyl’s gift of understatement. The first scrap had been in a poster for Malakai’s Premium Invisible Ink, and it had been two blocks and a left away, but that left had stretched until the sun hung high in the east.

  He tore the second scrap of Chernyl from the corner of the poster and stuffed it into his pocket.

  Why not take off yer glove and give me a little more to work with.

  Ha! I’m not going to just give you bits and pieces of my body. We’ll collect the rest of you lot and get it done in one fell swoop.

  Suit yourself buddy, but jus’ warning ya: may take a bit longer than it should if’n it’s only the one scrap’a me. The more scraps, the quicker. For sure like.

  You really are a right bastard.

  They walked in silence back to the shop. Grimshaw’s skin tingled when the warm air hit his face, and then followed the usual cycle of relief, pain, incredible pain, relief, normalization, as his body warmed back up.

  Grimshaw stripped out of his winter gear but left a pair of glove liners on. He wanted to be able to handle the second scrap without letting it touch his skin. And he wanted to keep the sickly brown patch of Chernyl out of his sight.

  The scrap had “Together” written on it in black, just like the first, along with the torn letters of the poster.

  “I think you’re lying about leaving my body once we find the rest of you.”

  Grimshaw, I’m hurt. I thoughts wer was buddies?

  “The paper only has ‘Together’ written on it. Nothing else. No ‘Apart’ or ‘Leave’ or ‘Remove.’ What would happen if I wrote that on you?”

  You wouldn’t wanna do that, Grimshaw.

  “Why?”

  ’cause it’s only me. I wouldn’t be able ta control what is “Removed” or what came “Apart.” It could just be me leaving your hand, or it could be your hand leaving you.

  “Maybe we should try anyway?”

  Grimshaw’s gloved left hand clamped on his right, pinning it to the arm of the chair he was sitting in. There was more strength in that hand now then there had ever been before.

  No. Buddy.

  He could feel the bones in his wrist grinding against each other as the grip tightened.

  “Okay, okay,” he said. “Just trying to rile you up, you know, like—like buddies do.”

  There was the briefest of pauses, and the hand released, back in Grimshaw’s control.

  Aye, Grimshaw. Like buddies do.

  The blizzard bent back on Lacuna, keeping Grimshaw and Chernyl inside for first a day, then two. Grimshaw passed the time by reading. Chernyl spent the time bothering Grimshaw.

  Who’s the broad? Chernyl asked, using his hand to grab the picture of Naveana.

  Grimshaw snatched the picture back. “None of your damn business,” he said, voice low and cold as the winter wind.

  Buddies tell each other about their sweethearts.

  “Buddies mind their own damn business.”

  Ah, come on Grimshaw. She’s quite
a looker.

  “How can you see her anyway?”

  I see through you, and you’ve been staring at her for an hour now.

  Grimshaw set his book down.

  “Promise to keep quiet for the rest of the day if I tell you?”

  Cross me heart.

  Grimshaw tried to figure out if that meant his heart or Chernyl’s, or if a paper man could even have a heart, and gave up.

  “Her name is Naveana, and she was my wife.”

  Was?

  “She passed five years ago from the Plague.”

  Chernyl made a tutting noise. Poor thing.

  Grimshaw picked his book up again. “Yeah, well, that’s that.”

  No reminiscing or heartfelt stories or nothing? Just that you was married and now yer not?

  “You wanted to know who she was and I told you. Now please leave me alone. I don’t like to talk about it.”

  Then don’t. Just think about it.

  And Grimshaw, tired and frustrated, did.

  Naveana held the spoon up to my mouth.

  “Open up,” she said. The wriggling brown mass on the spoon smelled of burnt wood and turned earth. I shook my head.

  “Viritov Grimshaw, you open your mouth this instant.”

  I patted my belly, indicating I was full up of wriggling brown mass.

  “Fine, fine,” she said, lowering the spoon. I sighed and found myself biting down on silver.

  “Gotcha! Good, right?” To my surprise, it was delicious. Like a combination of lamb jous and briny capers, but with the texture of soft butter. I nodded my head.

  Naveana pushed a hair behind her ear and cocked her head to the side. “Why do you ever doubt me?” she asked, smiling.

  “Because I’m a right idiot,” I said, wrapping my arms around her and kissing the top of her head. Her hair smelled faintly of plum.

  “And to think I could have married an alchemist,” she muttered.

  “Yeah, me too.”

  We laughed until the maître d’ threw us out.

  What a lovely lady.

  “I’m not done yet.”

  The physician smeared what look like bacon fat on a thin, transparent piece of parchment and pressed it onto Naveana’s swollen belly. We both held our breath as he dropped a spot of ink onto the paper. The ink floated on top of the paper for a moment, and then began to trace the delicate curves of the child.

  “It’s a girl,” the physician said, bending close to the paper. There were tears in Naveana’s eyes and a smile that nearly split her face in two, and it was like I was seeing her again for the first time. She was beautiful.

  It’s okay buddy. I’m good now.

  “Shut your mouth.”

  She wiped a tear as it rolled down my cheek. Our daughter—Felice Kay Grimshaw—lay cold and blue in her crib. The midwife shook her head and pulled a white blanket over the still form of our little girl.

  Please stop Grimshaw. I can’t—

  “Once more around the fen. Right buddy?”

  I looked through the silk canopy at Naveana crumbling in our bed. The Plague had taken her in under a month. I hadn’t been able to touch her that entire time, under pain of death by Plague or pulping for violating the quarantine. Still, I pushed the silk to its limits to grasp her hand one more time. It crumbled in my grasp.

  She coughed and a cloud of flakes shot into her little tent.

  “I love you,” I whispered. She coughed again and was still. I rolled her in the silk and handed her to a Scribe of the Church, as the law says. I allowed another Scribe to burn our marriage bed, as the law says. I allowed a third Scribe to search the entire shop for any scrap of Plague skin, as the law says. After the devouts left, I pried loose a floorboard and reached underneath for a piece of Naveana, already rendered inert by fixative. Holding that piece of paper, I slumped into a corner and wept.

  Grimshaw spun the ring on his finger and wiped his nose on his sleeve.

  That’d be her, wouldn’t it?

  He nodded. “Will we really be able to find the rest of you quicker if I attach this other scrap?”

  Yes, buddy.

  Grimshaw sighed and took off the gloves. He lined up the torn edge of the scrap with its inverse on Chernyl.

  “Together,” he muttered. The word glowed white. Grimshaw felt Chernyl smile in his head as the scrap took hold. Red arteries spread through the piece, making Chernyl momentarily lightheaded.

  Didn’t I tell ya to eat more red meat?

  With the help of the second piece, Grimshaw found an entire arm’s worth of Chernyl being used as a blanket by a woman sleeping in a box a dozen blocks away.

  “Why didn’t you meld to her?”

  Broad prolly can’t read. You gotta read the word.

  Back at the shop, Grimshaw wrapped the scrap around his arm.

  “Together,” he said, nearly fainting. Blood poured form his body into the sheath of parchment. The world became a pinpoint of light as blackness pushed in from his peripheral vision.

  Sit down, buddy. Take it easy.

  Grimshaw half-collapsed on the floor, breathing heavily. He was thirsty, head pounding with dehydration and anemia.

  Now, from wrist to shoulder, his arm was encased in the mottled parchment. His fingertips were still clear of Chernyl, but it was a moot point. He couldn’t have wiggled his pointer finger if he had the will of the Fiend.

  Grimshaw ran his hand over the sheathed arm. He could almost, but not quite, feel the motion. He brought a fist around and punched his bicep, but it only registered as a dull pressure.

  Ow. Buddies shouldn’t hit, man.

  “If I can hardly feel it as flesh and blood, I doubt as paper you can feel more.”

  Parchment, man. And it’s a spiritual hurt. Like a betrayal, one buddy by another.

  “Says the parasitic parchment that took over my hand.”

  Fine. We’s even then.

  “Even.”

  Grimshaw picked up a book and tried to ignore the constant tugging on his shoulder as Chernyl went about his own business. He kept his head turned to the right to avoid looking at the ghost limb.

  After the fourth time the stool nearly tipped over due to Chernyl tugging on his body, Grimshaw had to find out what the disembodied arm was doing.

  Chernyl had an entire ream of parchment—good, lambskin parchment at that—and was scrawling at speed. Already, a stack of about twenty pages lay covered in tiny black script, as precise as a typewriter.

  “What are you doing staining high quality parchment?”

  Writing my memoir, of course. What else should I do while you sulk between two covers?

  “Could you at least use less expensive paper? I have a cord’s worth of rough-cut, fifteen-pound bond in the back.”

  Would you ask the Timescribe to write on anything but hammered gold?

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  Exactly.

  He sighed and went back to reading his book.

  Grimshaw dreamed he was swimming in the Broken Spine just like when he was a child, splashing his older brother. The bright orange sun hung in the sky like a ripe fruit.

  “Throw me again, Verome,” Grimshaw said, tugging at his brother’s hand. Verome smiled.

  “Okay,” he said, although his mouth didn’t move. Verome grabbed Grimshaw under the arms and lifted him into the air.

  Grimshaw giggled with delight as he anticipated the splash. He plunged into the warm water of the Broken Spine and sunk like a poorly thrown skipping stone. He opened his eyes and started to paddle toward the rippling orange ball above him, and felt something cold wrap around his wrist, cutting into his arm. Blood bloomed in the water before spawning bright red jellyfish. He breathed out in alarm and started to swim furiously toward the surface, but the tentacle dragged him deeper and deeper until it was nearly black.

  Grimshaw stared at the ceiling above his bed, veins popping from his head as the hand around his neck squeezed harder.

  Chernyl. Let go, Chernyl.
Let go, buddy, he thought as loud as he could. He used his free hand to pry at the hand encircling his neck.

  Just as Grimshaw was about to black out, the hand released.

  Oh Fiend! You okay, buddy? I’s having this mighty strange dream. I was one’a them kraken things on the hunt. Just as I snatched a juicy morsel, ya roused me with yer shouting.

  “Wasn’t. Shouting. Just. Thinking. Loudly,” Grimshaw said, panting.

  You gonna live, Grimshaw?

  A growl escaped Grimshaw’s throat.

  Then no harm, right, buddy?

  Grimshaw rubbed his neck. He could feel the heat where Chernyl’s hand had squeezed the life from him. A full bottle of sleep syrup sat on the nightstand next to Naveana’s photo, but he was too shaken to go back to sleep. He got up, and set the kettle on the stove.

  “You tried to kill me. You were the kraken in my dream,” Grimshaw said as the kettle heated.

  Ah, Grimmy, you can’t take that so seriously. I wasn’t trying to kill you. Just having a dream.

  “You nearly killed me.”

  Trust me, buddy, if I wanted to kill you, you wouldn’t be here asking me why I tried to do it.

  Grimshaw dumped a spoonful of tea leaves into the pot. “I’ll never be able to sleep again unless I strap you down for the night.”

  So be it. Another option would be to go and find the rest of me. Then you wouldn’t have to worry about my idle hand.

  “We’ve only found two more fingers in a week of searching. Never find the rest of you at this rate.”

  Chernyl was quiet for a moment. Ya know, buddy. There may be a way to expedite the process.

  The kettle whistled. “And that would be?”

  I think I know where me head’s gone.

  “Seriously?” Grimshaw asked, ducking behind a caryatid of the Worldscribe. Dozens of sculptures of the gods of Lacuna ringed the Church: Timescribes scratched the seconds onto sheets of gold; Lifescribes tattooed the names of newborns into books of living skin, and crossed out the names of those who needed to die; Worldscribes hammered history into the sides of mountains, their thousand floating eyes showing them all events. The sculptures held up the coliseum-like Church of the Scribes, encircling the penance area, where a yearly auto-de-fe took place.