PAINTER WOKE IN his rooms back in his world, the indignity of the rock fiasco fresh in his mind.
He still didn’t understand what he’d done wrong.
No, wait.
He didn’t understand what would have been right. Rocks? What had been the point of those rocks?
Yumi sat up from the blanket on the floor, her hair a twisted mess.
“Ow,” she said softly. “I think I…somehow slept on my nose…” She focused on him, and despite the frizzy hair and rumpled pajamas, she became more commanding. “You have failed.”
“I stacked the rocks!” he said, sitting up. “I did it six different ways before you had me leave.”
As the people watching had grown increasingly distraught, Yumi had told him to plead fatigue to Liyun. The dignified woman, plainly troubled by whatever it was he’d done wrong, had led him back to the wagon, where he’d succumbed to sleep. He probably hadn’t even been awake six hours. Something about this transfer seemed to require a lot of energy, and they tired far faster than normal.
“The stacking,” Yumi said, standing up and putting her hands on her hips, “must be done with skill and artistry.”
“Stacking,” he said, “does not require artistry.”
“To do it ritually does.”
“Ritually. Of course. I should have known!”
She stalked over and pointed at his face as if threatening to touch him. But he lay down on his futon and shrugged. “Go ahead. I’m feeling a bit of a chill anyway. Might warm me up.”
She set her jaw, then stalked away, arms folded. She appeared to be shivering. The apartment looked as they’d left it, but he had a suspicion that they’d lost another day. Which meant the foreman would be furious.
Hopefully the foreman had dealt with the stable nightmare. Painter hadn’t warned him about the family who might need money to relocate. The foreman would put it together, right?
Maybe he should check in anyway. Make certain the Dreamwatch had arrived and everything was under control. It wasn’t his problem, now that he’d reported it, but he kept remembering that little boy with blood on his cheek from the nightmare’s claws. He at least wanted an update.
How, though? He didn’t have a phone—those required expensive dedicated hion lines and were beyond a mere nightmare painter’s wages. So to get information from the foreman, they’d have to find a public phone and wait in line, or—since the office was so close— simply walk over. Both would require them to leave the apartment, however.
Yumi was talking again. “To properly stack, one needs years of training.”
“And you just expected me to do it with none?”
“I…hoped you would have natural talent,” she admitted. “I was wrong, obviously. The only solution remaining is a difficult one. We must contact the spirits, which means you’re going to have to learn.
We’ll come up with some excuse to Liyun, then train you, like I was as a child. Until you’re good enough to draw spirits.”
Delightful. Training under her sounded about as much fun as a hornet-eating competition. And these spirits? Were they even real?
Everyone on her world seemed to think so, and she had shown him
some kind of goblinlike statues underneath her wagon that made it float. Those came from somewhere.
Regardless, he had his own troubles. “I want to go talk to the foreman,” he said. “And check in. Make sure I still have a job…”
“No,” she said. “We’re going to stay in here and I’m going to start training you. Your education begins now.”
“My education? My training? To do what? Stack?” He sat up and waved his hand through the table. “Wow. That’s going to be so effective, Yumi.”
“I can demonstrate,” she said. “Instruct.”
“No,” he said, standing. “This is my world. I should get to make the rules. There’s a dangerous nightmare out there, and I want to be certain it’s been dealt with. Foreman doesn’t always…think the most
highly of me—”
“I wonder why.”
“Yumi,” he said. “That nightmare is dangerous. It could be fully stable by now, and violently murderous! It could kill dozens or more if not stopped, and no regular painter is equipped to deal with one so strong. It requires talent beyond what someone like me has.
“We are going to go make sure the foreman understood my warning, then get him to check on a family I helped. Who knows— maybe those spirits sent you to me, not the other way around! Maybe they need you to do something here! You ever consider that?”
She huffed, arms still folded, but then glanced away. “Fine,” she said softly. “But…I can’t go out like this. I look, and feel, grimy. I don’t think bathing when I’m a spirit cleans this body.”
“Well, we can fix that,” he said, walking across his living room to the small bathroom. He waved to it, and she sullenly stepped over and pulled open the door. He showed her the knobs on the shower, which she turned. Then she yelped, her eyes wide as the water sprayed down.
“You have a geyser,” she said. “But…the water seems cold?”
“It will warm,” he said. “Unless Mrs. Shinja used it all up again— avoid showering at nine in the morning, unless you like to freeze.
Also, warning, she gets very possessive over the water. Be careful not to use too much yourself.”
“Shower,” she said softly, letting the water run over her hand.
“Soap here,” he said, pointing. “Shampoo and conditioner here.
Clean towel there.” He nodded to her, then stepped toward the door.
“Wait,” Yumi said, then turned, looking at him.
“What?”
“I’m…supposed to do it myself?” she asked. “You don’t have any…
attendants I can call?”
“Uh, no. Not a thing in my world.”
“Right,” she said, and appeared strangely daunted. How could you be intimidated by something like showering? He smiled, finding it cathartic to see her, the tyrant, suddenly terrified of something so trivial. It was like finding out that a fearsome tiger was scared of getting its nails done.
He shut the door, but then—because he couldn’t get too far from her—leaned against it. He did so absently, but then was shocked to discover he didn’t fall straight through. Just like he didn’t fall through the floor. So…why did he sometimes pass through things, but not always? (I could have explained. Unfortunately, at that moment I was being used to hold a large overstuffed coat, three bags, a puppy in a carrying case, and three boiled eggs. Don’t ask.) The sound of the water grew louder in the bathroom, then the telltale noise of splashing followed as Yumi stepped in. A few moments later, Painter was pretty sure he heard her sigh in
satisfaction.
“Nice, eh?” he said.
“It’s warm,” Yumi’s voice said, echoing in the small bathroom. “I’d begun to think you people had no idea what it was to feel properly warm.” She paused. “Um…what is shampoo?”
“For your hair,” he said. “Lather it up in your hair to clean it. Then use the conditioner to…uh… It’s good for the hair somehow. Trust me. It, um, moisturizes?”
“Right. I’ll…shampoo, then? Do I do it now? Or after I’ve used the soap? And to what count do I lather before rinsing?”
“There aren’t rules, Yumi,” he said. “You’ve really never done this before on your own? What about when you were a kid?”
“I told you I was chosen by the spirits as a baby,” she replied.
“Taken from my parents, raised by the wardens to my singular
purpose.”
“That’s terrible,” he said (lowly). “You didn’t get a childhood at all?”
“A yoki-hijo is not a child,” she said, her voice bearing the air of an oft-recited line. “Nor is she an adult. The yoki-hijo is a manifestation of the will of the spirits. Her entire existence is service.”
No wonder she was so strange. Didn’t excuse her being the human manifestation of what it felt like to miss the last bus home, but— considering all of this—at least she made more sense to him now.
“How is it,” she asked, her voice echoing, “that your people have captured this geyser and channeled it to your will?”
“It’s not a geyser. It’s water pumped from the lake, filtered and heated.”
“Pumped? Are there people working those pumps right now to deliver this?”
“No, it’s machines powered by the hion lines,” he said. “The heating too. Touch opposite hion lines to metal and it will heat up. It’s basic science to turn that into a bus engine or a simple heater.”
“How do you know all this?”
“School,” he said.
“You are a painter.”
“School teaches more than just painting.”
“I was not taught anything but my duties,” she said, her voice softer. “It is better that way. I must keep focus. Other things might… cloud my mind with frivolities.”
The conversation died off, and he let her linger in the shower— longer than he’d have let himself. Eventually Yumi stopped on her own. A few minutes later she said, “Do I put these clothes back on?”
“Please don’t,” he said. “They haven’t been washed in days. Put on a towel for now.”
She stepped out a moment later, wrapped in three towels. Well, fair enough. Painter led her to his pile of clean clothing. “I didn’t get
around to folding these.”
She cocked an eyebrow.
“I intended to,” he said. “I usually fold everything right after it’s washed.”
“I’m sure,” she said, nudging the pile with her toe. “This is all going to be too big on me, isn’t it?”
“Yumi, in your world, you wear a dress that’s roughly the size of a bedspread. I think you’ll be fine.”
She put a hand to her towels, then paused. But he was already walking to the bathroom, which was close enough that he didn’t hit the end of his leash. He stepped inside, giving her privacy.
“Thank you,” she said from outside. “For being so…thoughtful.”
“This isn’t being thoughtful,” he said. “It’s basic decency.”
“Still, I didn’t expect it.”
“It’s almost like it’s unfair to judge a person based on how they react after being forced into someone else’s body, towed off to a strange location, then forcibly stripped. Eh?”
“I guess,” she said, “we’ve both been under…unusual amounts of stress.” A few minutes later she continued. “All right. I don’t like it, but this will have to do.”
Painter stepped out to find her wearing… Well, it certainly met the definition of an outfit. It was clothing, at least. Worn on a body. She’d found one of his longer shirts—a thick turtleneck—and had put that on. He wasn’t too surprised by that, but she’d put a sweatshirt on over that, and the combination of long turtleneck and shorter sweatshirt was comical. In fact, the sweatshirt puffed out a little, as if she had another smaller one on underneath it.
How many layers was she wearing?
Regardless, it was the sweater she was using as a skirt—the sleeves tucked into the waist—that really threw him for a loop. She had put on some trousers underneath that as well, which was good he supposed. But… Wow. The total effect was truly something.
“Do women actually go out like this?” she asked him. “Among your people? Wearing trousers?”
“Not exactly like this…” he said. “Um, you realize that’s…a shirt, not a skirt.”
“I needed to improvise,” she said. “To keep up some semblance of modesty.” She lifted up one foot. “At least your sandals fit, so long as I put on three pairs of socks. But I didn’t see any clogs.”
“You won’t need clogs here…” he said, then trailed off, trying to find something else to say. How could her clothing look so baggy, yet so overstuffed at the same time? It was swallowing her completely, like
her head was peeking out the mouth of some bizarre fish made of cloth.
She stepped over to the mirror on the door of the bathroom and seemed to deflate a little at the sight. Well, after how much he’d been through in her world, it was hard to feel sorry for her. Maybe this
would help her build a little empathy.
“You aren’t too hot in that?” he asked.
“Your world is unnaturally cold,” she said. “I think it’s best to be prepared. I’m ready to go petition your foreman. Please lead the way.”
He had to show her how to lock the door after herself—apparently that was another thing she didn’t understand. “People would come in?” she said, turning the key. “To your home? When you’re not there? Why? To wait for you?”
He shook his head and led her down the steps to the ground floor.
Here, she froze at the exit to the building, looking up at the dark sky.
I don’t blame her. There was something inherently moody about Painter’s world.
In Kilahito it always felt like you’d stepped out right after it finished raining. In Kilahito the streets perpetually felt too empty—but in a way that made you think you were encountering a brief lull, with activity echoing from the next street over. In Kilahito, it always felt like the lights were turned down low to let the land sleep.
In Kilahito you noticed absences. It was a city made from negative space.
“Come on,” Painter said, waving to her from the street.
She stayed in the doorway. “It’s so…empty.”
“Comfortingly so,” he said. “You really find this more unnerving than your world, with that big ball of fire in the sky? With all those things flying around up there? That’s unnerving. It makes me feel like I’m going to get crushed!”
“At least we can see what’s above,” she said. “Here…there’s just nothing.”
“That’s the shroud,” he said. “Scientists have flown beyond it; they found more stars and things up there.” He softened his tone. “Look there. See that? The one that shines through the shroud?”
She hesitantly stepped out onto the street with him and gazed up at the star. “Do you think that’s actually my world?”
“It must be,” he said. “Whatever grabbed me came from the sky, and scientists say there are people there. It’s a planet like ours— they’ve taken pictures of what look like small cities, but they’re vague, too far away to make out much. Whoever lives there doesn’t seem to have radios or anything. They’re…not as advanced as we are.”
She didn’t take this as an insult, instead staring up at the star, then turning her eyes to follow the hion lines above the street, their light painting it the contrasting blue and violet of progress.
“This stable nightmare,” she said. “You said it will…hurt people?
Unless we do something to stop it?”
“Yes,” he said. “But we don’t have to do anything to stop it. My job is to report it. We did that, but I forgot to warn the foreman about a family that the nightmare threatened. I need to see they’ve gotten the assistance I promised them.”
“You mentioned that others would come to stop the nightmare,” she said. “Didn’t you say we could recruit them? Actual heroes?”
The words felt like a punch to Painter’s gut, but she apparently didn’t realize that, so he controlled it. “The foreman will send for a member of the Dreamwatch. Maybe two, with their companions.
They’re spectacular artists, but I don’t think they can help with your problems. Come on.”
She took a deep breath and nodded, then caught up to him. It was early evening, according to the clock in the bank window, and a decent number of people were out. Main thoroughfares like this were wide enough for an emergency vehicle to drive through, but the idea of personal vehicles would have been baffling to the residents of Kilahito. Most people traveled by bus or trolley, which connected to the hion lines and used them for power and guidance.
“The foreman’s office is nearby,” he said as they walked, “so fortunately we won’t need to take the hion trams. The idea of talking you through the daytime tram schedule does not appeal to me.”
She nodded again, although he doubted she knew what he was talking about. She seemed to be trying very hard not to look at the sky and was instead watching everyone they passed. She drew more than a few stares.
It’s often said that nothing fazes people in a big city, and that does tend to be true—to an extent. Big-city people tend to be unfazed by ordinary sorts of strangeness. You don’t give a second glance to the drunk wearing no pants since, well, that’s the third one this week. But an oddity like Yumi? No pants was somehow less strange than what she’d opted to wear.
“They know what I am,” she whispered to Painter. “They can sense the girl of commanding primal spirits.”
“Uh…no,” he said. “We don’t have those here. They just think you look strange.”
“They know,” she said, firm. “They stare at me like the townspeople do. Even if you don’t have yoki-hijo, these people can feel something is different about me. It is my burden. And my blessing.”
Being weird was apparently her primary burden, though he wasn’t certain what was blessed about it. As they passed a shop selling many varieties of hion viewers, with actors moving across the windows in unison, she paused.
“I thought yoki-hijo didn’t gawk,” he noted.
“Oh, sorry,” she said softly, glancing down. “You are correct. I have shamed myself.”
Painter grimaced. He’d been hoping for a more satisfying reaction.
Giving someone a jibe, then having them internalize it, felt awful: the conversational equivalent of going for a comedic burp and accidentally inducing yourself to vomit.
Regardless, he navigated her without incident to the foreman’s office—a small room with its own entrance at the corner of the general Painter Department headquarters. At his prompting, she entered. Foreman Sukishi didn’t care about knocking.
Fortunately, he was in. The older man sat at his usual place behind the small room’s single desk, feet up, reading his paper. Behind him, the many slots where he stored the paintings turned in for the day— tagged and sorted—were mostly empty. Ready for the night’s offerings.
As Yumi entered he lowered his feet and folded his paper, frowning at her. “You look familiar.”
“You met me the other day,” she said softly, “at Painter’s house.
Um…Nikaro, the painter? I’m his sister.”
The foreman blinked, then recognition hit him and he sat back.
“Sister? Of course. That makes so much more sense.”
Painter winced. Why did people keep saying that?
“He didn’t work last night either,” the foreman said. “Is that why
you’re here?”
“He’s sick,” Yumi said.
“Yeah. So sick that when I saw you the other day, he wasn’t sleeping on his futon—but was out somewhere. And had to leave his sister to cover for him.”
Yumi blushed, lowering her eyes. “I apologize for him, honored Foreman-nimi.”
“Oh, it’s not your fault,” the foreman said, softening his tone. Which was horribly unfair. This man had always treated Painter with some shade of contempt—but Yumi, the tyrant? She got his sympathies?
Then again, she did seem to be an expert at milking these kinds of situations. Today she knelt down on the ground and gave the foreman a full ritual bow.
“Honored Foreman-nimi,” she said, her eyes toward the floor, “I am here to ask for information. You said my brother was out doing something the other day, but I remind you: He encountered something he called a stable nightmare. He was watching out for that.
He sent me to ask if perhaps you have an update?”
The foreman leaned forward, eyeing her. He tapped his fingers on the tabletop. “Right,” he said. “Stable nightmare.”
“He did send for the Dreamwatch, didn’t he?” Painter asked, feeling a spike of alarm.
“Did you send for the Dreamwatch, Foreman-nimi?” Yumi asked, looking up. “Have they found the thing? Painter says that it could grow dangerous in a matter of days if not dealt with.”
The foreman leaned backward in his seat, which gave a plaintive creak. “Tell me more about this thing he supposedly saw. Nikaro. Was he wounded, facing a stable nightmare?”
“No,” Painter snapped. “I fought it off, thank you very much.”
“He used his powers,” she said, “to drive it away.”
The foreman squinted his eyes. “Nikaro. Used those half-rate paintings of his to drive away a stable nightmare?”
“That’s what he said.” Yumi looked to Painter, who nodded firmly.
The foreman studied her, then sighed. “I should have expected this…”
Painter frowned. Expected? A stable nightmare?
“Nikaro always likes to be so dramatic,” the foreman said softly—as if more to himself than to Yumi. “Always needs to be at the center of everything. And we know how much he likes a good lie… Doing his job never has been good enough for that one. Needs people paying attention to him, telling him how great he is.”
Painter stepped back, his stomach turning over. He’d long known what the foreman thought of him, but hearing it still hurt.
“Foreman-nimi?” Yumi asked. “There was a family. They saw it, and Painter wants to check on them. He promised them financial help?
He gave me an address…” She stood and wrote it quickly, able to write in his language as he was able to write in hers.
The foreman grunted and read the address. This finally seemed to give him pause. But then he tucked it away in his pocket and shook his head. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Thank you,” she said, bowing again. “Thank you so much.”
She left, holding the door long enough for Painter to slink out behind her.
“There,” she said, halting at the curb. “We handled that.”
“Except we didn’t,” Painter said. “He didn’t believe you.”
“What? He said—”
“He said what he needed to,” Painter explained, “to get you out the door. But he thinks I made up the story about the stable nightmare in order to get attention. That (lowly) man!”
Yumi appeared to shrink farther into her oversized clothing. “So he’s not going to stop the creature?”
“Doubt it,” Painter said. “If we’re lucky, he’ll check on the address.
But it’s been three days—and I told the family to get out of town.
They’ll likely have found a way, even without the money I promised them.”
“He might look into it,” Yumi said. “Maybe he’ll find them and see evidence of the nightmare?”
“Maybe,” Painter said, sighing. “Hopefully. Unless he decides to ‘take care’ of things by writing me up.”
“Your world makes no sense,” Yumi said. “People simply…mislead one another?”
“I’ll bet they do the same on your world,” Painter said. “Just not around you. People are people, Yumi. Your world is different, yes, but I doubt it’s that different.”
She started toward his flat again, and he gave minimal guidance as he walked beside her, fuming. And, deeper inside, feeling utterly humiliated. Based on the foreman’s expression and attitude, the man wasn’t going to investigate at all.
That nightmare had been crafty, powerful. Painter had given it a fright, so it might stay away a few days. But it would be back.
“What if you’re right?” Yumi said as they walked. “What if the spirits sent me here to help you with this nightmare? What do we do?”
“I’m thinking about it, okay?” Painter snapped.
By the time they neared the apartment building though, he still didn’t have any good answers. Maybe…the nightmare would get noticed by someone else? But if it had gone this long without being captured, then it must be distinctly cunning. It would probably only
draw attention once it started killing… “Hey!” a voice said. “It’s you!”
Painter and Yumi stopped on the street by the apartment building as Akane came out the front door. Gorgeous as always, she was wearing street clothing again—skirt, blouse, makeup—rather than her work gear. She went out most evenings before their shift began, clubbing, or…other normal-person things?
He didn’t really know, to be honest. Perhaps this was what she wore to go to the grocery store.
“Yumi, was it?” Akane said, looking her up and down, lingering on the sweater-turned-skirt.
“Yes,” Yumi said. “Um…I lost my trunk of clothing on the way here.
I had to borrow my brother’s things.”
“Good save,” Painter said. “Get rid of her. We need to get back to the flat and discuss what to do.”
“I haven’t seen Nikaro around,” Akane said. “What’s up with him?
He hasn’t been reporting to his shift.”
“Oh!” Yumi said. “He has…um…some big project he’s been doing.
Somewhere else.”
“Your brother,” Akane said flatly, “invited you to the city, then left you alone. After you’d lost your luggage?”
“Yes?” Yumi said, shrinking down in her—his—clothing.
Painter groaned as he saw his chances with Akane fading even further. (Which proved him to be an optimist, since he assumed he’d
ever had chances in the first place.) “Quick!” he said. “Let’s go.”
“Thank you and excuse me,” Yumi said, with a quick bow, then slipped past Akane into the building.
Akane lingered, holding the door. Before Yumi and Painter could reach the stairs, she rushed in after them and caught up to Yumi.
“Hey,” Akane said, “this is probably none of my business, so tell me to go stick my head in the shroud if you want. But…are you all right, Yumi? Could you maybe use some help? Someone to take you
shopping for some new clothes?”
Painter sighed. Akane was always— Yumi, shockingly, burst into tears. “Yes,” she said between sobs.
“Oh, yes, please.”
