Chapter Text
Sticky goes out to find Grace, up in Petr Stamatin’s loft. He’s kind of happy that Grace has moved up into the town. He’s never much liked the cemetery. He doesn’t like the smell of the dead, and Grace had always been someone who carried that around with her, and Sticky didn’t like going there. So, he’d never seen her much, outside of meeting up with Old Isidor. But now, it seems better, like she’s in a better place, even if she is living with a crazy artist. And Sticky gets to meet her in a more normal place, like the Park, or the Mistress’s Cape.
“Grace?” Sticky calls, opening the door to Grace’s loft apartment, and climbing up the stairs. “Grace, are you in—oh, hello Mister Stamatin.”
Grace does not seem to be visible in the apartment, but Petr Stamatin, who seems to be slumped face down in his pile of cushions, with one leg twisted strangely out to the side is.
“She went out to go get flowers. She said it would help.” Petr says, his voice morose.
“Help with what?” asks Sticky, a little concerned.
“The painting, old boy, the painting!” Petr doesn’t lift his head up from the cushions, but gestures vaguely towards his canvas, in the corner of the room. It does look like it needs help, honestly. Sticky’s not much of an artist or an appreciator of art, so maybe the blobs and splotches are supposed to mean something. But it does seem just a little...unhinged, especially with how many weird red streaks are all over it. “It’s not right. Not right at all. I’ll never paint another day in my life, all my talent has fled me! The elixir of the gods which once flowed through my palms hath run dry, the beauty of the unknowable now smiles mockingly at me. I am bereft, I am desolate!”
“Uh....huh.” Sticky says, warily. “I’m just gonna...go find Grace, Mister Stamatin. Have a good day.”
“When is a day ever good?” laments Petr, but Sticky does get a wave in his vague direction for his troubles.
He runs into Grace, who’s taken a seat on the bench facing out towards the river, steadily weaving her flowers into a strange, asymmetrical structure. “Hello Grace.” Sticky says, dropping down next to her on the bench. He’d bought a pastry from the bakery nearby their house on his way over, and he splits it in half, to pass on half to her.
“Hullo Sticky.” she says, pleasantly, happily accepting the pastry, as she carefully sets the impossible structure down in her lap. “You’re early, didn’t you want to meet after lunch?”
“Lara said I finished the tests pretty early, because my math is good, and my reading is good, even if my spelling is bad. And I know more about science than most other people because of Old Isidor and Stakh. But I don’t know anything about history or philosophy or nothing, so she’ll probably put me in the baby classes for those.” Artemy’s friend, Lara wants to start up a school, something she’s planning on setting up with Yulia from the other side of town, but she doesn’t know what the students now already, so every kid that’s interested in joining school, is being tested over the next couple of days. Notkin managed to get his whole gang enrolled, and about a third of Khan’s seem interested too, which seems to make Yulia and Lara happy, even if Lara looks very harried and stressed.
Grace nods, looking interested, as she nibbles at her pastry. “I think I’m going to be in the baby classes for everything except reading.” she admits, looking down at her lap. “I used to read to the baby ghosts, they used to like that. But I don’t really know anything else.”
“That’s alright. You know how to sing to the dead, bet nobody else knows how to do that. Besides, you can keep Murky company. She’s gonna be in all the baby classes and she’s really angry about it.” Sticky says, inbetween a mouthful of sweet, sticky bread.
“She is a baby!” Grace exclaims, and they both giggle to each other.
“Hey, is Petr...okay? I stopped by your house and he seemed kinda down.” Sticky asks, tentatively. He knows Artemy doesn’t much like any of the people from the Capital too much, except Yulia, so he’d be hesitant to ask Artemy to come and treat them, but Petr had looked...not good.
Grace shrugs, with a sigh. “That’s just kind of the way he is sometimes.”
“Does he like need help? I can ask Artemy to make a house-call. Or Stakh could too. Sticky offers, unsure of whether he’s overstepping or not.
Grace shakes her head. “No, it’s okay. I have a system for it. If he gets over it in a day, he’s fine, Petr’s just being Dramatic. If it lasts any longer, I have to call Uncle Andrey, and go stay with Miss Yulia until it’s all good. He’s usually alright, though.”
It still doesn’t sound ideal, but well. Grace hasn’t exactly had a good childhood, and Petr does seem to genuinely love her. Sticky’s seen her bedroom, painted and covered in the landscape of the steppe, all done by the artist, so he won’t push. “I get that. If Artemy orders Stakh to do too many things, he just sits down in the middle of the room and complains about being used like slave labour until Artemy kisses him. He’s also Dramatic. It’s gross.”
Grace laughs, covering her mouth in her mirth. “I keep telling Petr he should find love too, but he says he too dedicated to me and the art, and that also I shouldn’t talk about dates, because I am just a child.”
Sticky snorts. “He knows you’re fifteen, right?”
“Maybe?” Grace says, not sounding too concerned, “Petr doesn’t really know how children work, but he’s getting better at it.”
“Artemy doesn’t know much either. He does okay with me because I’m old enough that he can just treat me kind of like a friend he has to physically feed and take care of, but he has a hard time with Murky sometimes.” Sticky admits. “It’s strange. I take care of him as much as he takes care of me.”
“All of it’s probably going to feel strange for a while.” Grace agrees, licking her fingers clean off the sticky pastry, and going back to her flower creation. “I have a hard time adjusting to taking care of Petr. I thought it would be similar to taking care of the dead, but it really isn’t. He’s in so much pain as well, so much hidden depths of pain, but he wants different things, needs different things. And he lies too. The dead never lied, they just told me what they wanted, told me how they were feeling and how I could fix that. But Petr says one thing and means another...”
Sticky hums, in agreement. “I think it’s stupid that Artemy doesn’t know what he wants. He gets all grumpy sometimes, and he doesn’t recognize it’s because he’s lonely and e hasn’t talked to his friends for a while. But then I get to hug him a lot, on some other pretext and he calms down, and I get to insult Stakh and bring him around, and just send a letter about food to Grigory... It’s kind of like a puzzle in that way, it’s fun, trying to solve and figure out what he wants.”
Grace nods, vigorously. “I like hugging Petr. He’s very tall and warm. That always feels like the reward for helping him figure himself out. He’s very smart sometimes, but he’s very stupid too.”
Sticky nods, conspiratorially. “I don’t know how he took care of himself before.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter. we’re there now.” Grace says, quite happily. “We’ll learn how to do a good job, you and me.”
Sticky smiles and holds out his hand. “Want to drop off your flowers with Petr, then go and hang out at the Mistress’s Cape? Notkin’s kids are racing their Halves there, and I want to bet some fingernails.”
Grace smiles back, quite pleased. “That sounds like fun!”