The Stamps of Valenza pt.1 (Patreon)

It is said that the universe does not believe in coincidences, and it really felt like that when we found the box in Freiburg, southern Germany. We had started our honeymoon in Paris, like everyone who has no clue about Europe. We rented a car and started our tour, driving where we felt, sleeping where we found room. Down through Lyon to Cannes, Nice (hey!) and Monaco. Over to Italy, through Genoa, Alessandria and Milan.

We had spent the night in Alessandria and were driving towards Milan when we stopped at an antiquarian in Valenza. My wife study to become a nurse, while I struggle to finish my PhD in anthropology. We are however both interested in history and all things old, so we wanted to make the most of our tour through the old world and not only visit museums. Most of the books were in Italian, as one would expect, but that didn’t stop me from purchasing a small, handwritten note book from early 1800 or late 1700.

The shop owner described it as notes of someones experience with the occult, somewhere between a diary and fiction. We can’t read Italian, but the hand drawings were wonderful and the price was right. We spent the next night in Zürich, Switzerland, and kept each other awake trying to make out the handwriting and marvel at the pictures.

But it was in Freiburg I thought my heart would stop. In an unassuming antique and second hand shop we went our different ways to look at all the old things. Manufacturing, materials and style were local until recently, so an antique shop look dramatically different just hours apart in Europe. It was my wife who found it. I heard her scream of surprise and excitement, running from the far side of the store, carrying a plain, well crafted wooden box. She opened it to me, and revealed a pair of ornate stamps. They were made of bronze and wood and bone, and each could stamp a two inch circle filled with intricate signs and patterns. Exactly as drawn in the note book.

We had to buy it, of course. It was a masterfully crafted, one of a kind, antique. Naturally that meant it was expensive. That night, at a small bed and breakfast, we ate kebab from around the corner and tried to learn as much as we could from the note book. Deciphering the authors calligraphy. Understanding the old Italian.

Our European trip became more backdrop than attraction. Prague, fine. Wroclaw, sure. As we were getting close to Berlin, and our flight back home, a picture started to emerge. The author referred to the stamps as “The Devils Marks”, and named them “Canvas” and “Landscape”. Used in its simplest form you mix seven parts ink with one part of your own blood, and stamp a mark on a sheet of paper with The Canvas. You then do the same with the blood of someone else, and stamp The Landscape in a blank book. Finally, by placing the paper inside the book “the landscape is drawn on the canvas”.

What that meant we could only speculate on. The author somehow becomes more and more cryptic in his notes from this point forward, as if to hide his results. We speculated on possessions, body swaps, transforming bodies, sharing memories, and all kinds of fantasy tropes. On the flight back, with book and stamps in carry on, we made the decision to give it a try. I would find time accurate ink, books and paper of the same quality as the note book. My wife would collect everything needed to draw a vial of blood each.

Even though we gathered everything we needed in less than two days, we decided to wait until Friday and make a little event to bookend our trip through Europe. We have dinner and instead of sexy time do candle lit craft and art. We draw blood, mix with the ink I have prepared, pour into petri dishes, and stamp the Canvas and Landscape on one paper and book each. I then go first. I take my paper and place it in her book, and the lights go out.

When I open my eyes I no longer sit at the table, but am lying on the couch. As I stir, I see the pale and concerned face of my wife rushing to assist me. “Are you OK? Are you hurt? Take it slow!” she rambles. “I’m fine” I say with my wife’s voice. There is huge beat of silence. “Hoooly shit…” I say as I realize that I inhabit a clone of my wife’s body. Or is it that my body looks like my wife?

“What happened? How long was I out?” I asked. “Almost three hours. You collapsed into some sort of coma with no response. All vitals were good though. Then the transformation started…” I had of course fantasized about how it would be to be in my wife’s body. Touching the body all over, dressing and undressing, taking a shower, work out, do even more intimate things. Now that it actually is real my bucket list is gone. I’m just worried about if this is permanent. If I have to live like the twin of my wife from now on. If there are other consequences. In the note book he did call it the devils mark after all.

“Should we remove the paper from the book to see if it reverts me?” I ask. “I’ve already done that. That was the first thing I did to see if that would wake you.” I’m getting more anxious, and I hear a bit of trepidation in my wife’s voice as well. “What about putting my paper in my book?” I ask. “OK, I’ll do it.” she says, walks over to the table, shuffles the paper and I black out again.

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