YUMI WAS TERRIFIED.
She wasn’t trained for this. Teaching another yoki-hijo? This wasn’t appropriate. It wasn’t what the spirits had chosen her to do.
She was going to screw it up. She felt herself screwing it up as Painter proved to be a stubborn student. She’d been stubborn too, hadn’t she? Liyun talked about how willful she’d been as a young girl, always demanding explanations before doing as she was told.
And yet…that tone in the spirit’s voice when it had spoken to her before beginning their swap—something was terribly wrong, or was going to go terribly wrong, and she had to stop it. Possibly through Painter.
The spirits depended on her. She was terrified she was going to fail them.
“Pay attention,” she said to Painter, trying to give her voice the same weight that Liyun gave hers. “Don’t daydream.”
He sighed, dropping his current rock. She’d caught him staring off into space, likely pondering clever ways to aggravate her.
“How,” he said to her, “am I supposed to ‘feel’ the stones and ‘know’ them if I don’t take some time to contemplate?”
“You don’t need time to contemplate now,” she said. “That’s what meditation time is for.”
“It doesn’t have to be that strict,” he said. “You can’t just force every part of your life into some neat little box, with no overlap.” He’d found a larger boulder to perch on, ignoring her reasonable instruction that he practice squatting or kneeling.
“Life,” she said, “would be chaos without proper boundaries and guidelines.”
He rolled his eyes. “You claim this is art, but there’s not the slightest allowance for an artistic inclination?” He picked up a rock. “If I really wanted to understand this stone, I’d think about where it came from, how these nicks got in the side. I’d look at the shadows created when the light falls on it, and the individual veins running through it.”
“None of that is relevant,” she said. “You need to know the weight of the item and how it balances. That is your art now, Painter.”
“Stupid,” he said (lowly). “So stupid…”
Each minute of training felt like an hour, with Painter needing repeated correction. As the day wore on, Yumi felt nothing but frustration. They had made no progress. Even after all her work, Painter couldn’t tell her how a given stone balanced.
Eventually he dusted off his gloves and removed them. She wanted to tell him to keep going, but his eyes were drooping. Considering how quickly they’d lost strength the first few days, it was remarkable how long he’d lasted: a solid eight hours.
Liyun entered the place of ritual. She’d spent almost the entire day outside it, watching, her normally unflappable expression growing more and more disturbed. Now she led the way back toward their wagon.
Should I, Yumi wondered, let Liyun take over instruction? The woman was certainly better at it than Yumi was.
Except…well, the spirits hadn’t chosen Liyun for this duty. They’d chosen Yumi. As terrified as she was of getting it wrong, it was her responsibility.
But what if Liyun did something drastic? That concern on her face had Yumi unnerved.
In storytelling, we pretend you can read all kinds of things from a furrowed brow or a fleeting expression. This is shorthand for a real phenomenon, but it’s more complex than we pretend. The longer you spend with a person, the more you know them. But beyond the obvious details like learning their favorite foods, we internalize the way that they react. The way that they express worry.
For some, it’s the archetypal furrowed brow. For others it’s the way they linger, the way they won’t meet your eyes. It’s more than eyes, more than posture, more than brow. Human beings are bundles of emotion puppeting muscles like a marionette. We emote not only with our bodies, but with our very souls.
Yumi could read what Liyun was thinking as they walked together.
The woman was contemplating something dangerous. There was a fate worse than going back to basics with Painter. In an emergency, a yoki-hijo could be removed entirely from duty.
Yumi could see herself frantically trying yet again to explain the truth of her situation to Liyun—and the woman taking it as fancy brought on by overwork. Liyun did not like fancy. No, Painter was right in this. She would never accept some tale of a man from another planet invading Yumi’s body. Push too far, and Liyun would be forced to call her superiors and have Yumi…removed. Locked away, forced to do spirit summonings in a prison environment.
Yumi wished she could be as calm and positive as Painter. He yawned as they reached the wagon. But the disappointment, even anger, on Liyun’s face as she watched him step in, exhausted after a mere eight hours awake… “Please,” Yumi said to Liyun. “Please, let me try. Don’t remove us from duty. Don’t send for the executors.”
“Hmmm?” Painter said, turning in the wagon. He’d forgotten to remove his clogs.
“Nothing,” Yumi said as he flopped down. The attendants hurried in to begin feeding him. They were too slow because a second later— —Yumi opened her eyes and found herself in the jumble of blankets on Painter’s floor. It was a uniquely surreal experience, as moments ago she’d been standing outside the wagon. Yet she felt groggy, as if she’d been asleep. Likely this body slumbered while they were on her world. Plus, they did lose time with every transfer, hours
that were unaccounted for—probably spent with both of them unconscious.
Painter ran a hand through his hair, looking scruffy and out of sorts, dressed in the fuzzy cloth material that passed for night clothing here.
Each time she’d been here, he’d spent all day in the same thing. The clothing Yumi was currently dressed in.
“You should try seeing if you can put on some other clothes,” she said. “The souls of them, at least.”
“The souls,” he said groggily, “of the clothing?”
“When I’m a spirit, I’m able to touch the soul of the clothes I’m wearing to take them off, then put them back on. You might be able to do something similar with your other outfits.” She turned and eyed the bathroom. So convenient to have a room like that, where the water flowed directly into the home. “I am going to experience another of those showers.”
She strode in that direction, intent on starting off this day right. No more wasting time as she had the last time she’d been in his world.
Painter yelped as she got far enough away that he was towed off the plush altar and to his feet. She glanced at him, but he just crossed the room and groggily waved for her to continue. She nodded, then shut the door and turned on the lights. Time for focus.
Unfortunately, as soon as she stepped into the steaming water— responsive to her touch upon the knobs, turning the perfect temperature at her command—she caught herself sighing and melting into the luxury. This place was so dangerous. Reluctantly, she turned the knobs until the water was uncomfortably cold. That chill seeped into her, deep down in her soul, dousing the rebellious heat within. That would encourage her not to linger.
She washed—an awkward act without an attendant—then stood shivering in the cold water and said her prayers.
Finally she stepped out and wrapped herself in a towel, then stood in front of the mirror to brush her hair. Here she missed her attendants even more. Chaeyung was expert at getting out snarls without it hurting, and Hwanji would hum while they worked, which was so comforting. They weren’t her friends, as she wasn’t allowed friends. Indeed, if she grew too familiar with them, they would be changed. Regardless, she missed spending time with them.
Strange, she thought, how they barely touch Painter’s hair when they get him ready. They see him as me, but instead of doing a hundred strokes, they run the brush through his hair a few times and are done.
Curious. Design hadn’t been surprised that Yumi could make this body look like hers. Yumi had rewritten Painter’s shape somehow— and the method apparently had to do with her calling as a yoki-hijo.
Perhaps if Painter were more skilled, he’d be able to make her body look like his? That would be a disaster of incredible magnitude, but perhaps it was what the spirits wanted?
She didn’t know. But she would find out.
She finished her brushing, so frigid she felt like she’d never be warm again. This was her duty. She stepped toward the door, then paused. She was wearing only a single towel. But…well, it was just Painter. She pushed out into the main room, which was even colder than the bathroom. Her skin immediately puckered with goosebumps.
She still half believed this place was the land of the dead and frozen spirits.
Painter stood near his heaps of clothing, and had changed. He wore stiff trousers, a simple shirt, and then a second shirt over that with long sleeves, untucked and unbuttoned. It looked…sloppy, but in a managed way? A little like him, actually.
“You were right,” he said, holding his hands to the sides. “I couldn’t touch them at first, but then I…I don’t know, I cleared my mind, then thought only about a specific article of clothing. When I reached for it that way, I could grab it. A copy of it, at least.”
“Its soul,” she said. “You meditated!”
“No!” he said defensively. “I was thinking about something. What I wanted to wear.”
“You cleared your mind first,” she said, pointing. “You learned something!”
He shrugged indifferently, then noticed her picking through the clothing Akane had bought her, so he turned his back toward her to allow her to dress with some privacy.
“Today,” she said as she strapped on the bra, “you will teach me how to paint.”
“I’m not certain I want to,” he said, arms folded, facing away. “What I do is dangerous, Yumi. Especially if a stable nightmare is involved.”
“We already decided this,” she said, trying to dress as quickly as she could, to get covered in something that would hopefully keep her warm. “The spirits might have sent me to stop the stable nightmare.”
“We didn’t decide that,” he replied. “We discussed the possibility.
You can’t face a stable nightmare, Yumi. They require the expertise of extremely talented painters—far beyond my skill level, let alone that of a neophyte.”
“But we can’t let it roam. You’re the one who said that it will be out there hurting people.”
“It might be,” Painter said. “Or it might not. It appeared close to becoming fully stable, but what do I know? I’ve never seen one like that before. It could take weeks to complete the process, particularly if it’s clever and careful. If that’s true, someone else is bound to discover it eventually. Then the experts will get called.”
“And if it kills someone first?” she asked.
He didn’t respond.
“I’m r-ready,” she said.
“Fine,” he said, turning around. “I’ll teach you, but only so you can defend yourself against…” He frowned, looking at her standing there in one of her dresses and tops, arms wrapped around herself. “Are your teeth chattering?”
“Is th-that what you c-call it?” she asked, her jaw trembling from the cold. “I’ve never been this c-cold before.”
“Never?” he asked, seeming surprised.
“No,” she said, shivering. “If you get c-cold, you just l-lie down. D- depending on how h-hot the floor is.”
Perhaps showering in that cold water hadn’t been the smartest idea. Her body was not dealing with it well.
“Here,” he said, walking to the wall. “See this dial? Turn it up to
increase the heat in the room.”
“From the floor?” she asked, hopeful.
“Uh, no,” he said, pointing at the top of the wall. “Vents from a small hion heater.”
Pity. But she shook her head, and would have done so even if it had heated the floor. “No.”
“No?” he said. “I can see you shivering, Yumi.”
“I g-got used to this place after a l-little while before,” she said.
“Besides, it is d-dangerous for me to get t-too comfortable in your w- world. I will instead accept w-what the spirits have g-given me.”
Painter gaped at her as if she’d sprouted leaves and started flying like a tree. “You,” he said, “are so (lowly) strange.” He inspected the dial on the wall, then stuck his finger at it, fiddling. Soon after, a hum came from the vent.
“Ha!” he said. “I made the viewer turn on last time, so I thought I might be able to do this too. I can feel the hion lines. I couldn’t move the dial, but I can tweak them somehow, make them activate…”
A knock on the door interrupted further conversation. Timid, Yumi answered—worried she’d have to lie again. Fortunately, this time all she found was a large envelope taped to the door.
She returned to the room and opened the envelope at Painter’s insistence. Inside was a single sheet full of words. She’d rarely read anything other than prayers, but oddly this felt as if it had some of the same tone or formality to it.
“This is bad, isn’t it?” she asked after reading it to herself. “I don’t understand all the words, but…”
“It’s a letter of suspension,” Painter said softly, staring at the page with an uncharacteristic solemnity. “From the foreman. Relieving me of duty for a month without pay, as punishment for lying about my work.”
“It says he went to the address provided but found nothing? Just an unoccupied home?”
Painter turned away, waving a hand flippantly in the air. “I’ll bet he barely gave it a cursory inspection; might have even sent someone else. He’s been waiting for a chance to reprimand me. Thinks I’ve been turning in fake paintings for some time now. Idiot.”
“So he really doesn’t believe you about the stable nightmare,” Yumi said. “You were right about that.”
“He’s never liked me. Feels I shouldn’t have been able to enter the job lottery out of school in the first place; hates that I drew his sector.”
He put a hand to his forehead, eyes closed. “At least I won’t have to come up with some excuse for missing my rounds this next month.”
“What…happens next?”
“It’s my first offense,” Painter said. “To the other painters, this will be described as medical leave. At least I won’t have to suffer the embarrassment of them knowing I’ve been suspended.” He paused.
“Unless this lasts longer than a month. Unless I’m unable to consistently do my job. Then I’ll get fired. Lose the apartment.”
“We’ll just fix our problems before then,” Yumi said, confident.
“Even if it requires me to find a way to deal with that stable nightmare.” She stared at him, defiant. She wasn’t certain if it was what he’d done with the heat, or if she was again growing accustomed to this place. But her shivering had subsided. That let her maintain some confidence as she met his eyes when he turned back toward her.
“I’ll teach you,” Painter finally said, and walked over to a large trunk beside his fuzzy altar. “But you’re not going to face the stable nightmare, Yumi. I will train you to deal with an ordinary nightmare in an emergency. Then we’ll go out at night and try to find proof of the stable nightmare’s existence. Maybe we can spot it moving through the city, then lead someone else to it. If we have another witness, the foreman will have to accept that it’s real. That will prove I wasn’t lying to him, and he’ll be forced to revoke my suspension and send for help.”
“An excellent plan,” Yumi said, nodding as she walked up beside the trunk as well.
“There’s something odd about that nightmare, Yumi,” Painter said softly. “When I found it, it was almost fully formed. I know I said otherwise, but…my gut says this one should have started rampaging by now. When the nightmares destroyed Futinoro, they didn’t do it quietly. Yet this monster is subtle, sneaky. It’s been days since I spotted it, and not a single attack has been reported…” He shook his head, then gestured to the trunk. “Open it.”
She did so, revealing a collection of large paintbrushes. Some were nearly as tall as a person, like a broom with a brush on the end. Most were somewhat shorter, perhaps two feet long.
There were also jars of ink, all of the same dark shade, and some canvases. Painter directed her to get out one of the shorter brushes, along with a large pad of paper rather than the canvases—which he said were for painting when “on duty.” The paper was for practice.
Judging by the fact that the pad was pristine, never opened, it didn’t seem that Painter did much practicing himself. After setting the things out, Yumi noticed something else at the bottom of the trunk, easy to miss in the shadows. A large black portfolio tied with a cord.
She reached for it.
“No!” Painter said, reaching to take her hand.
The transcendent warmth chased away the chills, erasing them from her body like the wrinkles in a blanket suddenly stretched tight.
She gasped, then let out a soft sigh at the way the heat warmed her to the core.
Painter didn’t snatch his hand away as quickly this time as he had before. He looked down at their hands, where he’d tried in vain to take hold of hers. Instead they had merged, the heat pulsing like a heartbeat and washing away all other thoughts and sensations.
Finally he withdrew his hand. “Sorry,” he said. “But you can’t touch
that portfolio. Ever.”
“Why not?”
“Because I say so,” he snapped. “My world. My rules. You don’t
touch that. Understood?”
She nodded.
“Right, then,” he said, stepping back. “I’ll teach you how to paint bamboo.”
“Wait,” she said, frowning. “You have bamboo on your planet?”
“Sure we do,” he said. “Wait, you have bamboo? It doesn’t fly… does it?”
She shook her head. “It grows where the stone gives way to soil.
Out beyond the searing stone, in the cold wastes. Few people live there because there’s no heat, but I’ve seen bamboo around cold springs also.” She frowned. “How do plants live here? There’s no sunlight.”
“What does sunlight have to do with anything?” he asked.
“It…makes plants grow.”
“It does?” he said. “I guess that’s how you survive without hion lines. Our outer cities have enormous farms where little lines of hion crisscross the fields and sustain the plants.”
She tried to imagine that. There were places here other than Kilahito? How did one reach them? It seemed like everything out
there was pure darkness.
Yumi put aside her questions as Painter began coaching her through painting bamboo. She still didn’t understand why painting had anything to do with nightmares. They were…scared of art?
Well, she would get those explanations when Painter decided to disclose them. For now she tried to be a good student, to give him an example of how he should be. She did as he asked, kneeling beside the pad of paper to draw straight lines with the brush, and did not interrupt or ask questions. (It’s infuriating how many cultures think this is the best way to teach. They make it as convenient to the instructor as possible. As if learning were somehow a performance for their benefit alone.) “You start,” he explained, “by getting a feel for how the ink flows.
Notice how it’s dark at the top, then grows lighter the longer you draw the line, finally running out at the bottom. When you paint, you’re not just creating something from your mind. You’re seeing what the ink wants to become. You…”
He trailed off, and she glanced toward him.
“Never mind that,” he said. “Here’s how you make bamboo.” He snatched his fingers a few times at one of the brushes and managed at last to pull out a copy of it. With some work, he procured the souls of some paper and ink as well, then knelt beside her and showed her a specific method for painting bamboo. It was actually quite clever how he used the natural way the ink filled the brush to create a darker top for the bamboo, the lighter middle, then another blotch at the bottom where he paused briefly. There was something organic about the painting style, as if he were growing the bamboo.
He did it again, exactly the same way.
Then again.
And again.
“Bamboo,” he said, “is easy. It’s great because you can simply memorize the pattern—then create something that looks good with minimal effort.”
“All right,” she said, nodding. “I like how structured that feels.
But…”
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.” Yumi lowered her eyes. “I should not question.”
“How do I know you’re learning if you don’t ask questions?”
It wasn’t the proper way…but it was his world. His rules. “You said in the place of ritual,” she explained, “that art is about emotion. I disagreed, and I like this way of making bamboo you showed me. I merely find it odd to hear you speak of memorizing a pattern, then creating without effort. I guess…I expected something different.”
Painter stared at the soul of the paper in front of him. And then it vanished into smoke, drawn back to the body of the paper nearby. It appeared he couldn’t keep something that way very long. Fortunately, his clothing remained in place… She covered a blush.
“Never mind that,” he said to her, standing up. “Just practice what I’ve shown you. Draw a thousand of them until you can do it by rote.”
She nodded and began, though her fledgling efforts were pathetically out of proportion. How had he made it seem so easy?
Well, she could absolutely do this a thousand times. That sounded like the perfect way to learn. She took the role of a dutiful student, proud of her example. She kept going, not saying a word, until her wrist ached and her knees hurt from kneeling. She didn’t speak, didn’t ask for a break. She would wait for him to offer one.
He didn’t. He sat on his altar, expression distant, the entire time.
He…did know he was supposed to be supervising her, right?
Finally she was interrupted by another knock on the door. Painter shook out of his trance, then looked toward her, finding that she was surrounded by dozens of papers.
“Yumi,” he said (lowly), “are you still going?”
“You said to do a thousand,” she said. “I am at three hundred and sixty-three.”
He put a hand to his head as if befuddled. The knock came again, and he gestured toward her. She took that as permission to pause
her work, so she rose to go to the door. She only cracked it open so whoever was there wouldn’t see what she’d been doing, just in case.
“Hey!” Akane said. “Dinner?”
“Oh,” Yumi said. Her stomach growled. But she would survive on rice cakes and dry noodles today. Painter had shown her where he kept more. “No thank you.”
“Yumi,” Akane said, folding her arms and leaning forward. “Have
you spent all day in here?”
“Uh…” Yumi said.
“You can’t come to Kilahito and hide yourself away!” Akane said. “I won’t allow it.”
Painter groaned. “She does this,” he said softly from behind.
“Adopts people. Um…quick, tell her that you’ve got to study.”
“Study?” Yumi asked.
“Oh,” Akane said. “You haven’t placed in upper school yet? How much younger than Nikaro are you?”
“Say three years. But you just missed the cutoff.”
“Three years,” she said, though surely she didn’t look that young, did she? “But I just missed the cutoff.”
“So you have entrance tests in a few months,” Akane said. “Well, those are not as important as everyone makes them out to be.” She fidgeted. “I’ll bring you some noodles. But don’t work yourself too hard, all right?”
Yumi nodded, then bowed deeply, glad as Akane finally retreated.
“What lie,” Yumi said, closing the door, “did I just tell?”
“When you finish lower school at age sixteen or seventeen,”
Painter explained, “you take tests to place in upper school for professional training. It’s kind of a big deal around here. The last few months before the tests, people spend most hours of the day studying. It will give us a good excuse for why you aren’t letting her adopt you.”
Yumi nodded, grateful at least that Akane might bring her something to eat other than rice cakes. She knelt to return to her training.
“Yumi,” he said, “don’t you want a break or something?”
“Only if you offer it, Master Teacher,” she said, touching her forehead to the ground.
He snorted. “Master? Do I look like a master of anything?”
“You fill the role nonetheless,” she said, still bowed.
“So, wait,” he said. “You’d have simply kept going? Until what? Until
you collapsed?”
“If it is required for my instruction.”
“And…you’d do whatever I asked?”
“If it aids in my learning.”
“I just remembered,” he said, “that it’s essential to the painting process that you learn to do it while standing on your head.” She glanced up and saw him settle back on his altar. “With one finger up your left nostril. We should practice that now. Go ahead.”
She almost did it. Almost tried standing on her head, while wearing a skirt, to test whether he actually wanted her to waste her time flailing around and likely hurting herself. It would have served him right.
But she wasn’t about to establish a precedent by playing games.
She instead rose to a kneeling position and met his gaze, feeling a frustration that she should have been able to control. “You,” she said, “are not treating your position with its due respect.”
“My world,” he said lightly. “My rules.”
“Your world,” she said, “is (lowly) stupid. I’m taking a break.”
She walked to the window, which she fiddled with and managed to open. Cold or not, she wanted some fresh air. Why did he get under her skin? She had legendary patience—Liyun had trained her to that end. Now she was snapping at a boy after he tossed a few half-witted jibes in her direction?
She breathed in the outside air, cool in contrast with the room, which had now heated up considerably. There was a strange scent to the air, crisp and inviting. Like the smell of freshly washed clothing.
And the street below…was wet. She looked to the sky as wind blew water into her face. Rain. Rain that lingered on the ground rather than hissing away the moment it hit. How utterly bizarre. Why didn’t the city drown in a flood of water?
That scent…was that what rain smelled like when it pooled? As much as she disliked the cold, there was something intriguing to scents and sights like these. Exotic and mesmerizing. Water that
covered the ground…rain you could smell…and a street lit violet and blue.
She looked up and down the street, watching the people pass, carrying bright umbrellas and wearing clothing so varied it made her wonder how they ever decided upon anything. Perhaps that was why some women wore those indecent skirts that cut off mid-thigh, despite the cold air. Too many options overwhelmed the brain. It wasn’t immorality; it was decision paralysis.
As she watched, her eyes were drawn to an alley across from the apartment building. She couldn’t say why. Something about the pooling darkness, though there wasn’t anything to see. Indeed, there was literally nothing to see. Just shadows.
The cold of the night air assaulted her right then. The cut of the wind, which seemed to have found a sharpening stone. The bite of the rain, suddenly hungry. She closed the window and returned to her practice—six hundred and thirty-seven more bamboo paintings to go.
If she had looked closer, or if she’d called to Painter, perhaps they would have noticed a living darkness in the alley—one that brushed the bricks with its too-real substance and left clinging wisps of smoke trailing upward in the rain, as if from a candle recently snuffed.
