THE NEXT MORNING, Painter awoke eagerly and stretched. The floor was faintly warm from the wagon having been lowered to the ground for the night. He could imagine how comfortable it must be on a cold night to settle down into that heat: blanket on top, radiance beneath. Like an ember crumbling into the bed of a fire. Though he wasn’t ready to give up his soft futon yet, maybe there was something
to Yumi’s way of doing things.
Well, some of the things she did.
As she was drowsily sitting up and arranging her sleeping gown, Painter strode over to the door. It opened on its own, Chaeyung standing outside with a table and Hwanji beside her with a small tray of food. They arrived early and waited there, listening for noise so they would know when to enter.
Painter took the tray of food. “Thanks!” he said. “I’ll eat alone today.” He winked at them, then shut the door.
Behind him, Yumi gasped.
He walked back to his blankets and sat. Then he dug in, using the maipon sticks for the rice, though the attendants always used a
spoon. Which was odd, but perhaps it was a ritual thing.
He looked up at Yumi’s horrified stare.
“What?” he said, wiping his mouth. “Rice on my lips? Sorry. I was hungry.” He dug back in, picking at all the little bowls of savory delights they always brought to augment the rice. That was a nice touch—made him feel like he was eating a huge feast, even though each side dish contained only a bite or two. Enormous variety, but in microcosm.
“Painter!” she said. “I… What…” Evidently she was having trouble speaking. Almost hyperventilating.
He paused. He’d expected her to be upset. He hadn’t anticipated… well, this.
“Yumi,” he said. “Breathe. It’s all right. The world isn’t going to end because I decide to feed myself.”
She gasped more frantically. As if she thought, just maybe, the world would end.
He reached for her, but stopped shy of touching her. “Yumi,” he said. “Look at what you’ve been doing in my world. Feeding yourself, moving around freely. The spirits gave that to you. They aren’t going to care if I eat on my own.”
She settled down nearby and held her head, not looking at him.
That…really was a stronger reaction than he’d anticipated. Maybe… maybe he should call the attendants back. He turned to do so, but at that very moment the door swung open.
Liyun stood outside, immaculate as always, today in a bell-shaped maroon gown, her white bow tied tightly, not a hair on her head out of place. Though she appeared…more haggard than usual. Bags under her eyes. Had she not been sleeping well?
She stepped into the wagon, leaving her clogs outside, then knelt before Painter, studying him. “You look pale,” she said. “It seems you have not fully recovered from your…malady last week. Perhaps you should lie down, then rise again, starting this day over. After you remember who you are.”
“I remember,” Painter said, then took another bite, out of spite. This woman…“Tell me, Liyun. As a yoki-hijo, is it my prerogative to choose to feed myself?”
“You are blessed by the spirits,” Liyun said, enunciating each word precisely. “You are granted the wisdom to decide to follow their dictates.”
“And if that wisdom leads me to eat on my own?” He took another bite. “I’m not on duty today; I’m just practicing. So if I feel that I should relax a little, what would you do?”
“I follow you,” she said, “as is my responsibility. And hope that you
are not becoming unfit.”
Yumi’s breathing became gasps again.
Painter didn’t back down. Something about Liyun simply set him off. We’ve all had that experience with one human mosquito or another—if it’s not the buzzing, then the leeching of our blood will do it. He hated how Liyun never said what she wanted, but instead left her intent to drip from cold words. Condensation of the pure essence
of patronization.
“Do you think I’m unfit?” he asked.
“I do not decide fitness,” Liyun said, bowing her head with what felt to him to be mock humility. “I only serve.”
“Great,” Painter said. “This is how you serve me today. Make sure I have peace and quiet as I eat. I want to consider the best way to recover.”
“If that is what you wish,” she said slowly, “and you are certain that you do not instead wish to follow proper protocol.”
“Great, thanks,” Painter said. “See you at the place of ritual.
Appreciate your help.”
She rose and lingered there, looming over him.
He took the hint. And tossed it back in her face. “Oh,” he said, “would you get me a small paintbrush, some ink, and something to paint on? Leave it at the shrine. I feel like…painting today.”
“Painting,” Liyun said flatly.
“Painting. Yes. Thank you.”
When he didn’t respond to her looming, she—with obvious reluctance—withdrew. When the door shut, Painter left the food and crawled over to Yumi.
“Hey,” he said. “Look, it’s fine. She has to do what I say.”
“I’m. Trying. Not. To scream. Right now,” Yumi said between gasps.
“Just. Leave. Me.”
Well, all right. Her world. Her rules. Or something. He finished his meal, then threw open the door and nodded to the befuddled attendants standing outside. “Let’s go.”
They held up their fans and hurried along with him toward the cool spring. A moment later, Yumi was yanked out of the wagon after him.
He paused. Hadn’t Design lengthened that leash? They’d tested it, and it had worked… She lengthened the leash between us on my world, he thought.
That must not apply here.
Unfortunate, but Yumi had told him to leave her alone, so he said nothing. He continued on, all the way to the cold spring—Yumi trailing along behind. Once there, he stopped the attendants as they started to undress.
“I’ll bathe myself as well,” he said to them. “I’ll take those soaps… Thank you. Oh, and you can put my clothing on that rock right there.
Thanks. I’ll call for you once I’m ready to proceed to the shrine.”
They stood in place. He gave them a reassuring smile, then nodded toward the pathway out. Once they were gone, he began undressing. Yumi turned her back to him, like he did when she was changing—but with way more subtext. Hell, there was an entire encyclopedia down there.
He stepped into the cool spring with the plate of soaps, which was designed to float on its own. He knew the order of the soaps, and followed it correctly.
Yumi remained standing on the rim of the spring, not coming in. He was briefly tempted to yank her into the water, but resisted.
“I decided,” he told her, lathering up, “that I’m going to do as you
said. Embrace my place here.”
She didn’t reply.
“If I’m here,” he said, “it’s because your spirits decided to choose me. I’ve been thinking of myself as an imitation yoki-hijo, and that was wrong. I have been chosen just as you were. It merely happened to me a little later in life.”
He went through the next soap, which was colored red and came as a powder. It scraped the skin, and he had to stand in a shallower part of the pool to reach his lower portions.
As he was stepping back into the water, Yumi sighed and turned around to face him, sitting on the edge of the pool. Painter hesitated because of his state of undress, but she was staring down at her feet trailing in the water, not at him. Besides, it was only Yumi. He continued on to the next soap.
“You claim,” she said, “that you have started to care about all of this. You respond by breaking the protocol?”
“If I’m chosen by the spirits,” he said, “can’t I make decisions like
this? Isn’t that my right?”
“It is,” she said, “but you can’t.”
He shook his head. “That is (lowly) hypocritical, Yumi. If I can make the decisions—if I legitimately can—then you have to let me do so.
Liyun has to let us do so, even when she disagrees. Otherwise they’re not decisions. Otherwise, what she says about us being the ultimate decider? That is an untruth.” He glanced at Yumi. “And I know how you feel about those.”
Finally, she sighed and pulled off her bulky nightgown—he had no idea how they slept in something made of such thick cloth in this overly hot world—and undergarments, then slipped into the bath. He held the plate of soap out for her, so she could make spiritual versions. She liked that, for the familiarity of it, despite it vanishing from her fingers after a few minutes.
They turned to their standard ritual, bathing back-to-back in the ten- foot-wide pool, close enough for him to periodically float the soap plate her direction.
“I can’t refute your words,” she said. “Because the logic makes sense. Even though I know you’re wrong.”
“That’s because you’ve lived this so long,” he said. “It feels normal to you. It sometimes takes an outsider to point out how broken something is.”
He heard her sink down to wash out her hair, then stand up again.
He scooted her the soap as she glanced at him, then she wiped the water from her eyes and pulled her hair back. “So this is the mysterious thing you said we ‘agree on’? You made me wait a day to find out that—for some bizarre reason—your ‘revelation’ is that you should ignore propriety and piety?”
“We agree,” he said, washing his own hair, “that it’s okay to relax a tad. You went to eat with the others. I decided to eat on my own.”
“Opposite actions.”
“Done for the same reason.”
“I think it’s a stretch that we agree on this.”
“Well, it felt fun to say,” he said.
“This much confusion is worth a chance for you to make a little quip?”
“Well, obviously.” He smiled, glancing over his shoulder at her. “I
thought it was funny, at least.”
“Funny? How?”
He shrugged. “Just…funny?”
She shook her head. “That is not what humor is like, Painter.” (She was, of course, dead wrong. Remember what the poet said: “Never let something trivial, like a sense of humor, get in the way of a
good joke.”
The poet was me.
He said it right now.) Afterward, they both rested on their backs and floated for a time to soak, and didn’t say much. Eventually they climbed out of the bath.
He held the clothing toward her so she could make a copy. This, fortunately, did not vanish once donned. They didn’t know why. (It has to do with them automatically incorporating the clothing into their vision of themselves at the time, but that’s beside the point.) The two turned back-to-back as a token nod toward modesty as they dressed. Which was amusing, since putting on clothing wasn’t exactly the immodest part of the experience.
Painter found it aggravating how difficult it was to tie the bow on his outfit. He pulled it too tight, then tried it loose, and then looked flabbergasted at Yumi, who had tied hers into a basic knot like she often did. She shrugged.
“At least,” she said to him, “I didn’t dismiss the people who could
have done this correctly for me.”
A valid point.
A short time later, the attendants dropped them off at the orchard shrine, where trees drifted and bumped against one another like people in line for concert tickets. Painter felt bad every time they
came here, as he knew for a fact they were interrupting the work of the orchard keepers. Then again, maybe the workers wanted an excuse to take a break.
Liyun was nowhere to be seen—the yoki-hijo was supposed to be alone during meditation—but she had done as Painter had requested, leaving a scroll, some painting ink, and a small brush for him. Judging by the symbol on the leather sheath for the brush, she’d commandeered them from the scholars. Well, they were probably too busy trying to make their machine work to bother with writing anyway.
“So why this?” Yumi asked, gesturing to it.
“Well,” Painter said, “you keep telling me I need to clear my mind
while meditating—”
“You do.”
“—which is basically impossible—”
“It’s absolutely not.”
“—but I considered and realized there is a time when I mostly clear my mind.” He held up his brush. “When I’m painting.”
She cocked her head and watched as he rolled out the scroll, then knelt to begin painting. He started into it, expecting her to condemn him. If she’d hated it when he’d improvised earlier in the day, she would undoubtedly hate this doubly—as he was supposed to be worshipping the spirits at the moment. Or something. He still didn’t quite get the point of this part.
“You’re…actually trying,” she said softly, surprising him. “You’ve given this some thought.”
“A lot of it,” he admitted, doing a quick painting. Just some flourishes of the brush to create curved lines.
She knelt beside him. “When I was painting those bamboo stalks, I…got into a rhythm. Time passed. Almost like I was meditating.”
“So I’m right!”
“It’s wrong,” she said. “You’re not supposed to do anything. But… it’s right anyway, I think.” She peered closer at what he’d done—a painting where he tried to capture a face in as few lines as possible.
“Is that Hwanji?” she asked, pointing.
“Yes,” he said. “It’s an artistic technique for practicing how to see shapes and lines in everything around you. You try to capture a person with only a few strokes.”
“Looks easy,” she said. “Like…you don’t want to do all the work of a real painting.”
“It’s more difficult than it appears,” he said. “It’s like…like poetry written using the fewest syllables possible.”
She appeared skeptical. “It’s pretty, I suppose. But I do think it looks lazy. And it doesn’t seem it would be of much use against the
nightmares.”
“It’s not.”
“Then why—”
“Hey,” he said, “I’m trying to meditate here.” He gave her a wink.
The stare she returned could have boiled water.
So of course he did a quick painting of that—her lips, eyes, the shape of her teardrop face. All done with quick flourishes of the brush to evoke the correct image. An artistic shorthand that had become a form unto itself.
She took this in stride. It was the kind of teasing he’d learned didn’t bother her—or, well, it bothered her in the right way. If he wanted Yumi to play along, he had to tease her, not her station or the spirits.
He continued, and soon moved from faces—he preferred references for those—to his old standby. Bamboo. The more familiar the motions, the better he felt it would be for clearing his mind.
Somehow, an hour passed.
When Liyun arrived, he realized he’d filled the scroll with bamboo.
A part of him was slightly disappointed—he’d hoped, contrary to what Yumi said, that painting would draw the attention of spirits. She said that although other arts could do it, painting wasn’t one of them as far as she knew.
Yumi met his eyes, then glanced at the paintings. He could practically hear her thoughts—part of her had wondered as well. You didn’t need to be in a place of ritual for the spirits to come; that was just where the rocks were stacked, where it was easiest. If skilled painting could accomplish the task, an hour spent here should have been enough.
Or perhaps his painting did not count as skilled.
Regardless, it had been relaxing. He smiled, tucked away his disappointment, and turned toward Liyun. “That was perfect,” he said.
“I’ll want to paint like this every day, please.”
“Why?” she asked.
“It is the will of the spirits,” he said.
Though Yumi gave him a frown at that, he figured his words were true. The spirits wanted him here and meditating, so they would approve. Together he, Yumi, and Liyun left the shrine and crossed out of the orchard and through the town. At the edge, near the place of ritual, a large tent had been erected. He heard voices from inside— mostly sounding annoyed.
“Those scholars haven’t gotten their machine working yet, I assume?” he said softly to Liyun.
“No,” she said. “Their arrival was a surprise to me. It’s an affront to us—bordering on blasphemy—for them to bring one of those here. I hate the things.”
“Wait,” Yumi said. “She knows about them?”
“You know about these?” Painter asked.
“It is nothing for you to worry about, Chosen,” Liyun said with a wave of her fingers. “The efforts of the scholars are a novelty, nothing more.” She hesitated. “Still, how dare they cart one of these to a village where we’re on duty…”
She ushered Painter into the place of ritual, then roosted nearby, as if waiting for carrion. He settled down to practice, and was occasionally distracted by the arguments in the tent.
“That machine is why we’re here,” Yumi said softly. “I think we are to stop it, but we need confirmation from the spirits.” She looked at him. “Well, keep practicing! No dallying. Just because you’ve decided to be insolent where protocol is concerned doesn’t mean I’m going to let you slacken under my tutelage!”
He groaned, but went ahead and got to it, working hard on his stacks beneath the light of that strange sun. Why didn’t it burn out?
What truly kept feeding it?
After a solid few hours, the attendants brought him lunch. He again didn’t let Chaeyung and Hwanji feed him directly, but—feeling
magnanimous—he allowed them to sit and offer him utensils and napkins. Liyun’s glare as she watched him could have boiled stone.
“I still worry she’ll declare us unfit,” Yumi whispered as the attendants left with their table. “She could send us to her superiors, for…special attention. It’s what’s done with yoki-hijo who grow too old, or otherwise infirm.”
“What happens to her if she does that?” he asked.
“Well, she’ll have to wait in line with the other unemployed wardens,” Yumi said, “until she’s given a turn with another yoki-hijo.”
“Whom she’ll have to train from childhood,” he said. “Yeah, she’s not going to take that step lightly, Yumi. I’d bet we could spend months, maybe years, practicing here before she gave up. She won’t want to completely upend her life.”
“She wouldn’t want to,” Yumi agreed, “but you need to understand: Liyun will do what needs to be done. She is strict with herself, not just me.”
He wanted to dispute that, but… Yumi was probably right. Liyun seemed the type who drank her own poison. If only to build up her tolerance.
“I’m sorry today was hard for you,” Painter said. “Maybe I should have talked to you about my plans. I figured you were fine shaking things up in my world, so I should have the same opportunity, shouldn’t I?”
“Maybe,” she said, rapping a stone to make him keep stacking.
“But…it’s different. You’re wearing my body, Painter. What you do is seen as what I do. It’s not the same way in your world.”
He considered that, acknowledging that what he did affected her in unique ways. But he was increasingly certain he’d made the correct choice. If only for his own sanity.
He tried hard to do as she asked during training though, as a kind of…apology. He managed a stack of twelve that day—and not a strictly straight-up one either. It had quirks and some character. Still miles from Yumi’s designs, but he felt proud nonetheless.
Liyun had left by that time to see to something, so the attendants walked him home. His body ached in that good way you feel after doing something difficult. Like walking a long distance. Or thinking of a really great pun.
Painter thought this ache might be what Tojin always talked about after lifting weights. Too bad Tojin wasn’t here, actually. He’d have loved lifting these rocks; it didn’t take long listening to him talk incessantly about reps and muscles to realize what an enormous nerd he was.
At his wagon, Painter nodded to his attendants. Chaeyung handed him his nightgown, laundered for the day. “You will…want to dress
yourself, won’t you?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Leave your clothing outside, Chosen,” she said, “so we can care for it.” She bowed and walked off.
Hwanji, however, lingered. Painter hesitated in his doorway. He’d hardly spoken to the attendants, and to his embarrassment, he realized he barely knew them one from another—and any differentiation he could make was due to their looks. Hwanji was the shorter, more rounded of the two.
Yumi peeked around him, looking curious.
“Hwanji?” Painter asked. “Do you need something?”
To this, the young woman bowed herself formally to the ground— placing a small clog for her knee, using a cloth to rest her hand on the stone. The work these people had to do to not burn themselves was, as you might have noticed, legendary.
“Honored One,” she said. “If Liyun asks, or…well, implies…will you make it clear that this new behavior of yours was not my fault?”
“Of course I will,” Painter said. “But Hwanji, why would she even think that?”
“Oh!” Hwanji said. “Chosen, before entering your service, I was an attendant of the yoki-hijo Dwookim. She was…very vocal in the reform movement.”
Painter glanced at Yumi, who shook her head and shrugged.
“The reform movement?” Painter asked.
Hwanji glanced up sharply. “I thought…you’d heard… The way you’ve been acting…” Her eyes went wide and she scrambled to her feet, turning as if to flee.
Painter seized her by the hand, stumbling and nearly falling onto the overly hot stones. “Hwanji,” he said. “I’ve been so confused lately.
Please. I won’t tell Liyun, but I need to know.”
The attendant looked back, reluctant. Painter dropped her hand, to let her go if she wanted. Instead she spoke in a small voice. “I thought you must have heard that…some of the other yoki-hijo…”
“Eat for themselves?” Painter guessed. “Dress themselves.”
“Decide for themselves,” Hwanji said, with a nod. “Live their lives, until they decide to retire? It is true.”
“No,” Yumi said, stepping down to the ground without clogs—but she didn’t notice, so the heat didn’t bother her. Being a spirit is like
that. “No, she’s…she’s…”
“Lying?” Painter said.
“Honored One?” Hwanji said in a panic. “No, I would never. It’s true. Everyone knows about the schism. Except…well, I guess, you…”
“Liyun trained me,” Painter said, “and she never told me?”
“She and the orthodox wardens keep it from their Chosen,” Hwanji explained. “It’s vital to Liyun that she preserve tradition. Her kind try very hard. It is a good thing to remember the past.”
“How many?” Yumi said, her voice hoarse. “How many of the other
yoki-hijo are…in this reform movement?”
Painter asked.
“Oh,” Hwanji said, looking away. “Most of them, Honored One. Of the fourteen current yoki-hijo, I think there is just one other orthodox.
It…well, you wouldn’t know this, but the reform movement isn’t exactly new. It’s a couple hundred years old now. Almost everyone else feels that there’s no reason to be quite so strict with the yoki- hijo.”
There were only fourteen current yoki-hijo? Painter found that tidbit interesting—Torio might be smaller than he’d imagined—but the other
fact overshadowed it by far.
A schism in the religion.
A couple hundred years old.
Painter nearly laughed. He would have, if not for the horrified— betrayed—expression on Yumi’s face. How could it be that nobody had ever told her?
She lives her life in ritual, he thought. Who is there to tell her? Who is there to even (lowly) talk to her?
His heart broke for her as she fell to her knees. “But…” she said.
“But the spirits… They don’t listen to these women, do they?”
As he repeated it, Hwanji spoke quickly. “No, no. Not like they listen to you. Don’t worry, Honored One. You’re the strongest yoki-hijo.
Everyone knows it. Why, my old yoki-hijo, before she retired, she only averaged around ten spirits summoned per session.”
Yumi wilted. “Ten. I…averaged around twelve…and most yoki-hijo draw no more than five or six, Liyun told me. So…”
So the spirits did not ignore a woman simply because she decided to eat on her own. Painter should have felt vindicated. Instead he felt miserable.
“The others…retire?” Yumi asked. “I was told…this wasn’t possible.
That they have to work even when infirm.”
“They insist on being finished at age seventy,” Hwanji said as Painter repeated Yumi’s words. “And, well, I don’t think the years until that retirement are quite as hard on them as they are for you.
Since…” She winced. “They take days off. Whenever they feel they need them. Dwookim worked around half the days of the week during most of the time I served her.”
“Days off,” Yumi said, Painter repeating. “To do what?”
“Whatever they want,” Hwanji said, with a shrug. “I’m sorry, Honored One.”
“Thank her, please,” Yumi said, bowing to Hwanji. “Thank her, Painter. For being the only person, apparently, to care if I knew the truth.”
“Thank you,” Painter whispered. “Deeply, Hwanji. I will pretend I didn’t learn this from you.”
She nodded and turned away, glancing all around her anxiously, as if frightened Liyun would pop out at any moment.
“It seems,” Yumi whispered, looking up at him with tears in her eyes, “that you were right. Good job.”
“Yumi…” he said, reaching toward her shoulder—then froze. He didn’t want to inflict those feelings upon her. It felt like the wrong time.
“If you please,” Yumi said to him, “would you go in and go to sleep?
I have the distinct and urgent need to be someone else for a while.”
