text: Have you ever fallen for a book character in your life? Have you ever wished you could make some kind of connection with a book character you found attractive? To talk with them? To meet them? To befriend them and even replace their counterpart with yourself? If you are a reader, you certainly have. Book characters are strong, just like real people. Someone gave them life and character. They have personalities, feelings, likes and dislikes, and everything a normal person would have. The moment an author pens their characteristics on the manuscript, they start breathing in their universe. They are so real that sometimes the reader has a brief encounter with them if they are engrossed enough in the book. But the thing about book characters is that they are mysterious. Apart from what the author reveals in words, we have no other way to know about their other traits. Just like in the real world, they have their hidden side. What if you were given a chance to write a letter to your favourite book character and receive a reply? Wouldn't that be exciting? If you thought this could happen only in your imagination, you are probably wrong because that was what Henrietta's whole business was about. Henrietta lived in an old cottage in the village and ran a small stationery shop. It sold all sorts of pens, pencils, a decent selection of art supplies, and special homemade paper she called "dream paper". They came in different pastel shades and contained bits of dried flower petals and a tad of glitter. These papers had all the typical characteristics of homemade paper. They were thick, textured, had uneven edges, and were full of glorious handmade beauty. They came only in letter size, and if you buy a dozen at once, you get free envelopes, equally pretty. Henrietta had a small shed in her luscious garden where she used to carry out the process. She collected old receipts, scrap papers, junk mail, old newspapers, and copy paper about to be thrown away in cardboard boxes and used them for pulp. During the flowering seasons, she would collect as many flowers as possible and press them to be used in her craft. Throughout the year, she made paper using dried flower petals and a little bit of glitter as accompaniments. The sales peaked during the Autumn and Winter seasons when the air grew colder, and people started to feel lonely and depressed. If you needed a bit of excitement and purpose in your life, all you had to do was write a letter to the character you wanted on one of Henrietta’s dream papers, put it in the envelope, write the name and the book title on the envelope, paste it, and burn it on the stove. Then it is all about waiting. Within two or three days, you may find a reply letter in your postbox that gives you euphoria for the next week, and you won't be able to stop talking about it. Henrietta had regular customers. Gale, the village librarian, used to buy these papers for years and wrote letters to so many book characters she knew and even received replies. It was Gale who provided all feedback to Henrietta. According to Gale, some replied promptly. Some characters took time. Some never replied. According to this nerdy 35-year-old lady, those were the ones who were too busy, illiterate, or shy and preferred to stay low-key. Most of the time, criminals and mentally ill characters didn't reply too. The dead characters never did. Henrietta listened with interest. When she saw the enthusiasm of her customers for sharing these tales, she was glad about her business. It was more than a business, she often felt. 49-year-old William was another regular customer. He was reserved and didn't share a word unless Henrietta explicitly asked him a question. He was a regular writer to the characters in sad novels. Being single for so long, he chose depressed and hopeless characters because they shared much in common. Young girls often wrote to a male character to whom they were attracted, but Henrietta noticed that young boys didn't care as much. Sometimes a girl came running to the shop and cried ugly saying how the reply broke her heart or how the character didn't reply, buying more stacks of paper. One late October afternoon, 21-year-old Bri came to the shop on her way home after walking her small terrier, a rescued from the streets. Bri was a slender girl with thin blond hair worn in a ponytail and thick-rimmed glasses. She stopped at the shop door and inquisitively looked around. Henrietta stopped dusting the shelves and looked at her with a smile. She liked it when young girls visited her shop because they are full of fascination and easily attracted to book characters, making good customers. Bri looked a bit nervous, though. " Hi, love. How can I help you?" Henrietta stopped dusting and came to the counter, sporting a genuinely kind smile on her face. Bri looked at her with hopeful eyes and pushed the glasses up the bridge of her nose using her index finger momentarily revealing a nail bitten to blood. "Heard you sell a special kind of paper. Can I buy some?" Bri asked while tugging at the leash to prevent Chip from wandering out. "Yes...I do sell special paper...but do you know what it is used for?" Henrietta asked. "Yes. Miss Gale, the librarian told me." Bri confessed. "Oh, is that so...do you have anyone to write to?" Henrietta's question was genuine. "Oh, yes. I am so into this Cain, the guy from the last book I read. I so wanna write to him. I’m kind of obsessed and spoke with Gale about him so much, and it was then that she told me about you and the paper." Bri said breathlessly. "I hope it was not the Bible." Henrietta gave a hearty laugh as she took a pack of dream paper from the top shelf and placed it on the counter. Bri's eyes shone as she touched the paper. "Do they really reply?" Bri's voice was desperate. She looked at Henrietta with shining eyes while her thin fingers caressed the textured surface of the paper. "Mm...huh...people say so. If you buy a dozen, you get free envelopes." Henrietta grinned. "Do you write to them?" Henrietta knew it was a genuine question. "No, dear. Unfortunately, I'm not much into reading." Henrietta smiled. "I'll buy one for now. I'm not sure if this is gonna work for me. Cain is too good to be true. He will not take an interest in writing back. But I'm just gonna give it a try." Bri brightly smiled as she paid and collected the single sheet of dream paper securely placed in a clear bag. "He will. Good luck! See you again soon." Henrietta waved as Bri left the shop, and the girl was too excited to look back and wave. She smiled to herself and went back to dusting. With the fine dust, the memory of Bri went away from her mind. Bri went home triumphantly. After feeding Chip, she hurriedly changed her chilled and slightly damp clothes into warm and comfortable ones and sat at her desk with a cup of tea. She had so much to write and didn't know where to start. She had no idea whether her hands trembled from cold or excitement. She took her favourite pen from the holder and carefully started to write a letter after admiring the paper and its texture for a while. She told Cain how she got to know him and how much she enjoyed the book. She boldly told him how much she liked him. Unlike in real life, being direct with book characters is easy. You can tell them anything and everything without hesitation, even that you like them. Bri vented her excitement on the paper, read it more than five-six times, and finally deposited it inside the matching blue envelope she had bought. Bri sighed. If it were someone like Superman or Wonderwoman, she could find a dozen pictures from newspapers and magazines. But since Cain lived just inside a book, he had no face. Bri wondered how he might look based on the facts given in the book. Tall, sandy blond hair, lean and fit physique, ice-blue piercing eyes, and a tattoo of a sea serpent running along the outside of the right arm up to the wrist. Its mouth open, showing a pair of fangs as if biting his hand. Bri closed her eyes and tried so hard to imagine a face. But the human brain cannot imagine new faces. What we imagine in our heads is always related to a face we have seen before. Therefore, every time Bri tried to imagine Cain, she saw a celebrity's face but was pleased with the look. But she had no idea about his qualities apart from what the author had revealed. She hoped Cain to be a good and kind person. This character so smote young Bri that she imagined him with all the ideal qualities she expected. Bri opened her eyes with a smile, looked at the envelope again, took it to the stove, and burned it, her heart fluttering like a hummingbird's wings. The letter burned with a crimson flame, giving out black smoke that billowed from the chimney and disappeared in the autumn air. After two days, Henrietta saw Bri scampering towards the shop, bubbling with smiles and flashing her perfect set of teeth. Henrietta smiled, thinking how Bri still acted like a teenager and instinctively guessed that she was coming for more paper. Bri entered the shop and panted, waving a paper in her hand. Henrietta raised her brows. "What's up?" She asked. "He has replied!!!" Bri couldn't contain her excitement. "Already? Wow! He is prompt. Mind if I have a look?" Henrietta really didn't want to read the letter. But she wanted to show the girl that she was interested. So, she took the letter and started reading it. First, she started reading it aloud. But as she went, something in the letter piqued her curiosity, so she silently read it with her brow furrowed. The letter was written in black ink in an elegant cursive hand on red paper. Henrietta didn't like some of the things written there. Cain's words made her imagine an arrogant person who is almost narcissistic. She hated how he had addressed Bri as "Wee lassie" . Things made her feel uneasy in her gut, like a warning. But she brushed it away. Henrietta raised her head occasionally, looked at smiling Bri, vaguely returned the smile, and kept reading. As she came to an end, Henrietta lost that faint smile on her face and gasped. She didn't like how he had ended the letter. She looked at Bri with concern. "Oh, my God! He is so confident and proud of himself, isn't he?" Bri beamed. "I wanna reply to him tonight. Can't wait to receive a reply." Henrietta decided she would not supply Bri with more paper until she ensured where this was headed and that this letter conversation was safe. That reply was something odd. So, she said that she had run out of dream paper, which annoyed and disappointed Bri. "Sorry, honey. You'll have to wait till next week. I am sure Cain won't be...." She searched for a word. Annoyed? Angry? All she could see was his self-obsession and arrogance throughout the letter. "He won't mind waiting a few days." Henrietta finally added with a nervous smile. Bri left the shop crestfallen and impatient. Henrietta assured her that there would be paper in the coming weeks. As she left the shop, Henrietta dialled the number of the village library. She needed to ask Gale about the book where Cain lived and who authored it. Then, she wanted to meet the author and ask who this Cain really was. Bri sulked in the days to come. She was so heartbroken that she couldn't reply to Cain as fast as he did. She was worried that they might lose connection. But two days later, Bri was overjoyed to find another letter in their mailbox from Cain, even without her writing to him. Bri was shaken a bit after reading the letter. It demanded the reasons for not replying. Bri kept it to herself and visited the shop for several days looking to buy paper but was turned down. In the next week, Bri received three more letters from him. Each letter became more demanding and ruder that it almost frightened Bri. She didn't speak of her horror but visited the shop twice a day, but Henrietta said she had no more dream paper with her every time. Bri, out of desperation, tried with regular paper, but it didn't work. Meanwhile, Henrietta found that the particular book’s author was an elderly gentleman called Victor, a former marine. But he was now so elderly and was suffering from Alzheimer's and was living in an elders' nursing home in a remote place. Henrietta wanted to visit him but couldn't find enough time to spare as her business was booming in the late Autumn. Even if she could, Henrietta was unsure what useful information she would learn from a demented elderly person. One week later, on a drizzly November morning, Bri was barely awake when she heard a sharp tap on the front door. Her parents were out to work, so she was alone at home. She groggily came downstairs and looked through the peeping hole but only saw a smudge. Annoyed, she opened the door and was taken by the most unexpected and unpleasant surprise. In the doorway was a man towering above her, easily a 6'+ tall with sandy blond hair and a serious-looking face. No smile. Not handsome in particular, either. For a moment, Bri thought it was a friend of her father. She opened her mouth to say he was out and would be back in the evening, but the words choked inside her throat as she saw it. A sea serpent tattoo on the man's right outer forearm snaked its way up to the wrist, and its mouth opened, flashing a pair of fangs. Bri's ice-cold hands went up to her mouth, covering it in utter bewilderment and horror, and the pupils in her light grey eyes bloomed like black ink drops fallen on blotting paper. Her heart sledgehammered on her chest wall. "So, you... are... Bri. What took you so long, wee lassie ?”, Bri heard a deep, cold voice whisper as she screamed at the top of her lungs. The hollow echo of her scream resonated inside the empty house. Her petrified brain registered yellow-stained, broken nails on thick, calloused fingers reeking of tobacco and the gaping mouth of a sea serpent before the inky-black oblivion engulfed her. -----------------------------------------------------------