Yumi and the Nightmare Painter(51)

“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.