The Otherwhere Post

Chapter 5

As the coach set off, Maeve’s blood pounded in her ears. Tristan was far more observant than she’d bargained for, and it made her ill. She pinched her temple. When the sickening feeling didn’t subside, she grabbed The Scriptomancer’s Companion and flung it open, then spent the next hour paging through a twelve-chapter introduction that made her eyes glaze over, mostly because she knew the material already from her father.

It brought up a memory—of the day he had placed her great-aunt’s grocery list in front of her.

“This spot right here is a scriptomancer’s canvas,” he’d said, tapping the empty space below the last line of her aunt’s handwriting. “If a trained scriptomancer wanted to enchant this list, they would dip their quill in special pigment, then jot down a single sentence right here called a scribing.”

“It sounds so easy.”

“Indeed, darling, but a scribing is the most difficult sentence in the worlds to write. If done correctly, the words in the scribing pull in arcane magic, then disappear immediately, leaving Aggie’s grocery list all by itself, enchanted to do something marvelous when you read it.”

“Like what?” Maeve had asked. Her father merely answered with one of his secretive smiles.

The memory was small, but it made her mind wander to other, heavier thoughts.

She slammed the book shut and forced her attention out the fogged window. The ride was bumpy, and the carriage jostled to and fro as they crossed over the river Liss, passing through the claustrophobic streets of Old Town, where university buildings were pinched together like wax melts beside blackened smoking taverns and boarding houses. They soon rolled through Edding’s Close, then up the narrow road bordering Blackcaster Square.

The wrought-iron perimeter fence stood tall, topped with sharp spikes. Mourners paying their respects wandered around the fence, where the ground was littered with a river of candles, bouquets of flowers, and little sepiagraphs of lost loved ones, all waterlogged from the rain. They passed an older woman as she placed a sepiagraph beside a bouquet of tulips then collapsed to her knees, bowing over the memorial, her face contorted in anguish.

Maeve’s heart lurched, but she couldn’t do anything with the carriage rolling. It didn’t take long, however, for a flurry of Leylish clinicians in long gray robes to rush to the woman’s aid.

The clinicians were courtesy of the House of Ministers and stationed at makeshift tents around the square, in case of incidents like this woman—or worse. They were put into place after two men gored themselves trying to scale the fence because they believed in conspiracy theories that the Written Doors were never burned, that scriptomancy was a hoax dreamed up by the ministers to control communication, that Inverly still thrived.

Maeve wished it were all true.

She peered past the fence, across the sea of ancient cobblestones, to the small building in the center of the square.

Leyland’s Blackcaster Station.

Salt from ocean winds streaked the station’s verdigris walls, coating the two turnstiles in front that once led inside to each Written Door. Two turnstiles long chained.

The last time Maeve stood inside that square was the day the Written Doors burned, when a stranger dragged her away by her shoulders. The memory tasted like a flash of ash against her tongue.

Things were much different now. A long line of couriers waited to enter the station through the small employee entrance on the north side. A pair of university couriers in flowing plum robes stood at the front, chatting away with a group of constabulary couriers in dove-gray officer’s coats.

There were vicious stories of constabulary couriers in action. A courier’s ability to track people to deliver letters came in handy when you needed to hunt down a criminal. Fortunately for her, the only kind of courier who lived at the Post were otherwhere couriers. All other types still went through the apprenticeship program, then were recruited afterward to train in the specialized disciplines and made to live closer to their respective organizations.

Maeve squinted but couldn’t see any minister couriers in deep scarlet raiment, but there were fifty or so otherwhere couriers, black cloaks billowing, mail-filled saddlebags strung across their hearts.

The most common type, given the enormity of their task.

Maeve knew a little of how it worked. Couriers went inside that station and used scriptomancy to somehow create a courier door that took them close to their deliveries—the same type of door Tristan had disappeared through in Alewick.

Entering that station was a part of the job. But after narrowly escaping Inverly, Maeve doubted she’d ever be able to step foot inside that building again.

The carriage rounded the north corner of the square, where a sea of protesters filled the road between the north gate leading into Blackcaster Square and the large gate across the street that led into the Post’s forested grounds.

Maeve recognized the same types of banners she’d seen in front of Galbraith Hall, calling for more apprenticeship positions, more equality in the writing programs, quicker delivery times, more news about the repair of the Written Doors.

As they rolled toward the crowd, Maeve tensed. But the protesters parted, giving the carriage a wide berth. The reaction surprised her, but then she remembered how a few months after the Written Doors burned, a line of coaches was set ablaze by an angry mob, destroying all the precious letters inside. After that, everyone still made a fuss, but they allowed otherwhere couriers to do their jobs.

The carriage lurched to a halt at the Post’s gate, throwing Maeve against the seat.

She scrambled up and pressed her forehead against the cold windowpane, straining to see.

The gate was propped open, but a pair of officers blocked their way through.

Tristan hopped down and began arguing with them. He gestured at the coach, furious.

Was this about her? She gripped the seat while one officer walked around the coach, then back over to Tristan. They exchanged more words, and Tristan kicked the ground. After what seemed like forever, the officers stepped aside and waved them through.

Maeve ripped off her gloves and splayed her blue-tinged fingers. They were shaking, but she was past the gate, rolling up the forested drive. Gnarled, autumn-bare branches scraped the wheels. Then the trees parted for an ancient stone archway carved with quills and inkwells and overrun by dead ivy. Two stone statues of ancient scriptomancers stood on either side, carrying globes, baring their teeth to all who passed. The College of Scriptomantic Arts was carved across the top.

It was a wonder nobody had chiseled those words away.

Right after the Written Doors burned, Leyland’s House of Ministers founded the Otherwhere Post. They built a new office in Barrow, but here in Leyland, they took over the crumbling buildings of this old college, repurposing them for the Post’s new headquarters. For centuries before that, this was simply an underfunded program at the University of Gloam, set back in the woods because scriptomancers insisted the art was dangerous.

But they weren’t called scriptomancers anymore.

Beyond the archway, cloaked otherwhere couriers walked in groups along winding pathways lit by gas lampposts glowing a luminous white.

Her father’s home, where he lived in a residence hall so he could send the entirety of his academic’s salary to her and her great-aunt. She half expected “Jonathan Abenthy” to be carved on that stone archway for how much he adored this place. Now here she was, Maeve Abenthy, being driven right inside.

She’d hated this place for so long, wanted nothing more than to see it burn, along with everything else that reminded her of her father. Tears clouded her eyes.

Of course, Tristan chose that exact moment to stop and unlock the carriage door.

“I was just—” he began, staring at her.

Maeve blinked. “Dust in my eye.”

He pulled out a crumpled handkerchief. She took it and dabbed her eyes, then tried to return it.

“How about you keep that,” he said.

Her fingers tangled in the powdery material. The edge was embroidered with the initials T.B.

“What does the B stand for?”

“I’m not falling for that.” He reached past her and stacked the shopping parcels into a tall pile, then attempted to carry them out. But the stack was too tall, and he lost his grip, sending clothing and shoes spilling across the drive. He stood there for a long moment, staring.

“Do you want help cleaning it up?” Maeve offered.

“Perhaps. If the gate officers hadn’t taken up every spare minute with their nonsense.” He kicked a box. “I’ll have to come back for it,” he said, then started at a furious pace down a stone pathway.

“What exactly were you arguing with the officers about?” Maeve asked, catching up with him.

He glanced at her. “We weren’t arguing. They were simply making things difficult for me like they usually do.”

At least it wasn’t anything to do with her. Her nerves, however, remained on edge as they skirted an ancient building with a sign that read: Henbane House . They passed Pricklesweet Hall next, then Wolfsbane Residence.

“They’re all named for herbs,” Maeve said.

Tristan nodded. “An old scriptomancer thought it would be fun to name the buildings after the sacred herbs we use in scribing pigments. Be grateful they don’t smell like the herbs as well.” He wrinkled his nose, then wove her past a few more herb buildings. One was left to ruin, but most appeared refurbished.

Her father always complained about leaky windows and cracked foundations, how the university board didn’t care a whit for the College of Scriptomantic Arts. Back when the Written Doors were in place, there was no need to use scriptomancy for traveling between worlds, and most other uses were either deemed too dangerous to practice or considered nothing more than parlor tricks. There were rumors the House of Ministers even asked the university board to archive the scriptomantic libraries and shut down the college permanently, leaving only a small team in place to help track criminals for the constabulary.

The past seven years had changed everything.

A piercing chill cut into Maeve’s coat. She tucked it tight around her as they came upon an oak-filled courtyard, a fountain in the center.

Black liquid sprayed from a spout on a top tier, raining down the sides. Lampblack ink. The stone figure of a woman in robes was perched at the top.

“Molly Blackcaster?” Maeve asked, wandering to the fountain’s edge.

Tristan came up beside her. “The magnanimous founder of the College of Scriptomantic Arts herself. This fountain was carved nine hundred years ago, right after Molly finished scribing the Written Doors into existence. It was filled with ink to commemorate the day she banned travel outside of the three known worlds.”

Molly’s small mouth was carved into a smirk. A monstrous quill hung from her hip to her knee, as large as a knight’s scabbard.

The greatest scriptomancer to ever live.

Maeve inhaled, tasting loamy soil and pungent fumes from the lampblack ink. “I wanted to be just like Molly once,” she said, staring at the statue’s face.

Tristan lifted an eyebrow. “Then you’ll be pleased to know old Molly was also gifted at throwing soap.”

Maeve cut him a glare, then fixed her eyes on Molly’s cloak, covered in a pattern of spirals, circles, outlines of eyes, and triangles, some overlapping. Her father would often draw those same symbols when he scribed but never explained them. “What are those symbols?”

“Dangerous,” Tristan said. “But I still like the statue.” He placed both his hands on the rim. “The House of Ministers wants to have the whole thing removed to put the money spent on the lampblack toward more pressing things.”

“They can do that?”

“They’ve done worse. They approve everything here now, down to what we eat for breakfast. Prepare yourself for some delectable government fare.” He grimaced. “They think that if they can put enough money into the right places and keep it out of the wrong places, we’ll somehow sprout extra arms and deliver more letters.” He patted the fountain and turned to her. “So? Where’s your empty inkwell?”

All the inkwells in her writing kit were already topped off.

“I don’t need any ink.”

“Is that so?” He cocked his head. “All new apprentices stop here to fill a well from this fountain for good luck. It’s tradition.”

Her pulse fluttered. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“That’s strange. All writing programs give out an empty inkwell in case you make it here.”

“Then mine must be behind the times,” Maeve said. “Shouldn’t we get going?”

Tristan gave her a searching look. His brow furrowed, and his eyes narrowed for a long moment. Then he finally— finally —nodded.

Maeve thought she might have a few minutes to calm her skittering nerves, but Tristan led her inside an adjacent building with cold, stale air and cracked stone floors. They turned down a tight corridor that emptied into a massive lecture hall lit by a single, shuddering gasolier. It hung like an octopus from a coffered ceiling, illuminating sharp rows of seating that descended to a pit in the front—a stage, a lectern pushed off to one side. People sat along the first row of seats. There were at least fifteen, all holding clipboards against their laps. All gray-haired and straight-backed.

“The stewards,” Tristan whispered.

The scriptomancers who ran the Otherwhere Post.

Maeve’s hand scrambled for her right pocket, hoping the feel of the letters might help keep her together.

An elderly man stopped them on the steps, his blue-veined hands clinging to the top of a pitch-black wooden cane. His pink face sloped forward to peer at Tristan through spectacles as thick as a milk bottle. “Is that you, Tristan? God’s nose, boy, you’re late! Did you bring the last of them?”

Tristan nudged Maeve forward. “She’s all yours.”

The man’s glittering eyes raked over her. “Have you used the lavatory recently, madam?”

“I haven’t, I—”

He waved his hand. “Never mind. It’s much too late anyhow.” He looked toward the people with clipboards. “Those are my colleagues. I’m Steward Eamon Mordraig, in charge of the apprenticeship.”

The man who penned Eilidh Hill’s admittance letter.

He touched Maeve’s elbow, and she flinched. “You come with me,” he said, tugging her down the steps.

Maeve shot a nervous glance at Tristan. He merely smiled and tumbled into a seat off to one side, kicking his feet up.

Steward Mordraig brought her to stand in the center of the stage.

She hugged her sides and dared a look at the row of stewards, immediately wishing she’d kept her gaze down. Over a dozen pairs of eyes scrutinized her. They were all older and had probably worked for the college before the Post was established. They would have known her father.

But you don’t look anything like him , she reminded herself. She had never met any of these people. Even if she had, they wouldn’t recognize her now.

She searched the faces for Postmaster Byrne. She knew what he looked like; his portrait hung in most government buildings. But he wasn’t here, thankfully; he had a brutish reputation, especially toward apprentices.

Steward Mordraig turned to Maeve. “Now listen carefully, because I don’t like to repeat myself. The House of Ministers thinks that they can give us all the money in the worlds in hopes that we might churn out couriers faster, but it doesn’t work like that.”

He motioned for one of the stewards to stand. And stand he did, stretching nearly half a foot taller than all the others. He looked like a willow branch, with spindly brown limbs and a head of curling gray hair.

“This here is old Tallowmeade, the Steward of Inks and Pigments, and the meanest knucklenook player this side of the river Liss. Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Steward Mordraig said.

“Welcome.” Tallowmeade spoke in a voice as smooth as a skipping stone. He bowed his head, sending the corked inkpots he wore around his neck jangling. Then he pulled something from his pocket and handed it to Steward Mordraig. A blank envelope.

“This envelope contains a piece of paper with a written, firsthand account of events that have been enchanted with a memory scribing,” Mordraig explained. “Both the Leyland and Barrow Houses of Ministers have dictated that all new apprentices read this particular memory in order to understand the danger of what we do. And since they pay for all our quills, you have to do as they say.” He handed her the envelope. “Go on, madam. Crack open that letter, and give it a nice little read.”

As far as Maeve knew, memory scribings allowed a reader to picture whatever memory was written about in a letter as if they were remembering it themselves. She glanced over at Tristan. He gave her a forbidding smile.

The envelope felt heavy in her hands, but she opened it and pulled out the paper inside. A page of lampblack ink began:

It happened on a summer afternoon…

Her ears popped.

“W-what is this?” she stammered as her vision clouded. The lecture hall winked away, and she now stood on the cobblestones outside of Blackcaster Station.

There was no perimeter fence, no mourning candles or waterlogged bouquets. People were coming and going from the station’s shining turnstiles.

Maeve wasn’t herself; she stood much taller than her normal height. She tried to step but found she couldn’t control her legs; they were moving of their own volition. Running, then skidding to a halt.

She was somehow inside someone else’s memory, looking out through eyes locked on Blackcaster Station, where a strange green vine grew along the north edge of the roof. A vine that had overrun most other worlds; a vine that had caused Molly Blackcaster to ban travel outside the bounds of the three known worlds all those centuries ago.

The Aldervine.

A scream tore through the crowd, and Maeve knew which memory this was. She was standing in Inverly right before the Written Doors burned. In the moments before Inverly was lost forever, along with everyone trapped inside.

People grew frantic around her. The body she inhabited raced toward the station, halting as a sweet scent wafted through the air. It stung her nostrils.

Across the square, a woman sat beside a baby’s buggy, her long fingers entwined through the handle while delicate green tendrils coiled around her ankles, their thorns drawing rivulets of blood. The woman’s chest rose and fell, as if she had fallen asleep, save for her eyes that remained wide open, the irises pure white from the Aldervine’s poison.

A single prick from the Aldervine’s thorns sent its victims into an endless nightmare of sleep. It didn’t kill them outright but left them unconscious and unaware of the world around them, growing older but never waking. It might sound like a fairy tale if it weren’t so horrific.

More dark vines grew from behind the station, threading over a nearby building.

“Keep your head down!” a woman shouted.

Maeve knew that voice.

Her stomach lurched as her great-aunt Agatha stepped into her field of vision, heading with the crowd toward the station, her arms wrapped around an eleven-year-old version of Maeve. She’d forgotten how scrawny and pale she was back then.

A riderless horse tore through the crowd, bounding toward her aunt.

Maeve tried to scream, to tell her aunt to run. But this was a memory—there was no changing it, she realized. She was forced to watch as the horse reared its legs. Aggie tossed the younger Maeve out of the way just in time for the horse’s thick hoof to crack down on her great-aunt’s neck, snapping it like fragile porcelain. The horse left blooms of red hoofprints against the wet cobblestones as it fled.

Eleven-year-old Maeve tucked her knees to her chin, staring at her aunt’s lifeless body, shuddering. A moment later, a man ran over and hoisted her younger self up, walking her to where armed officers stood on either side of the turnstiles, shouting and shoving people through, panicked.

Maeve could never remember what the man who saved her looked like. But there he was, standing a few paces away, his back to her.

Turn around , she willed, hoping to see his face, but he disappeared inside the station with her younger self before she could make out any features.

The body she was stuck inside then turned to gaze out at Inverly, or what was left of it.

Dark green vines covered nearly every building in a filmy sheath as fine as a bridal veil. It was eerily silent; most everyone left in the square had fallen into the poisoned sleep.

They were gone. Inverly was left to ruin.

Maeve’s eyes snapped open. She was on her knees, gasping and breathless. Blood leaked from one of her nostrils, dripping to the floor—of a stage. The lecture hall at the Otherwhere Post. The memory was over.

She stared down at her reflection in the gleaming wood—at eyes as wide as hallions. A drugged sensation rolled through her as she lifted her head. The memory-scribed paper was now on the floor a few feet away. She caught Tristan’s eye. He watched her with a furrowed brow.

Steward Mordraig hobbled across the wood to help her up. “That’s one hell of a memory, isn’t it? The account of the last man to escape Inverly alive. Our very own Postmaster Byrne.”

Maeve wasn’t expecting that. Onrich Byrne had lit the fire that burned down the Written Doors before the Aldervine could get through, which saved both Leyland and Barrow. He had been the hero of that day, promoted from a fledgling steward to the head of the Otherwhere Post because of it. But she had no idea he had seen her in Inverly.

The Postmaster had watched her being carried away, along with every person who viewed this memory scribing. What if he recognized her? No, he wouldn’t; she looked too different now. Besides, everyone assumed she was long gone. There was no way the Postmaster would connect her with that scrawny little girl.

“You are now officially a courier apprentice in the Otherwhere Post’s Program for Scriptomantic Arts.” Mordraig clapped her on the back. “You will receive lodging, meals, a uniform, supplies, and six shills a week as payment for your time during the length of the apprenticeship, which continues until next spring. Make it through to the end, and you will become an otherwhere courier.”

Maeve drew in a long breath, trying to push Postmaster Byrne out of her mind. This scheme would work. She would find her answers without speaking to anyone besides the occasional steward. It wouldn’t be much different from sorting pounce powders in Mr.Braithwaite’s back room.

She felt a measure of relief, until Mordraig turned to Tristan and said, “You can now take her to meet the Postmaster.”