Yumi and the Nightmare Painter(69)

She seemed sorry in the same way a tank commander might be apologetic after destroying your house. He might be in the wrong. But he was still in a tank.

“How,” Liyun finally said to Painter, “did you find out?”

He continued eating, but glanced at Yumi, letting her take the lead. She nodded to him in thanks.

“Find out,” Yumi said, “about what, Liyun?”

Painter repeated the words with an appropriate air of indifference. How did he manage that? She would have wilted beneath Liyun’s glare.

“The reform movement,” Liyun admitted at last.

Something had been straining inside of Yumi. It cracked fully when Liyun said the words. Until that moment, a part of Yumi had believed that Hwanji had been lying or confused.

“I…” Yumi said.

“Someone contacted me,” Painter said, fabricating the lie with such ease it concerned her. “Someone who thought I was being treated unfairly. They left me a note a few weeks ago. There was no name. Just a random activist, I suppose.”

Liyun swallowed this lie easily.

“You shouldn’t have taught me to read,” Yumi said, with him repeating the words. “I’d be a much better captive that way.”

“You aren’t a captive,” Liyun said. “You are—”

“A servant, yes,” Yumi said, with him repeating. “I know.”

Liyun took a deep breath. “Is this the reason, then, for all the…strangeness these last weeks?”

Painter looked to Yumi.

“Yes,” she said for him to repeat. “To an extent.” The deception came easily to her as well. Frighteningly easy.

Liyun stood up and nodded. “Very well then.” She turned to leave. “I shall meet you at the place of ritual, where I shall wait upon your needs for the day, Chosen.”

“Wait,” Yumi said through Painter. “That’s it? That’s the end? All you’re going to say?”

“It is not uncommon,” Liyun said as she slipped on her clogs, “for a younger person to seek to stride past their boundaries. I had hoped such a common attitude would not seize you, but we are all weak before the eyes of the spirits.” She looked at Painter. “We are still the servants of the people. Even the most reformed yoki-hijo does her duty in that regard. So we continue. Besides, I know for a fact you were trained well. You will overcome this bout of petulance.”

Yumi gasped softly. Liyun hadn’t spoken to her in such a forward way since the first years of her training.

The woman turned to leave. Yumi found a word bubbling out, too hot to keep in. “Liyun!”

The woman glanced over her shoulder as Painter relayed the word.

“Do the others live with their families?” Yumi asked. “Do they go back to them? At least visit their homes?”

“It is not unheard of,” Liyun said, “for a yoki-hijo among the more…liberal persuasions to spend a few weeks each year with her birth family.” She paused briefly. “You’d hate it, Yumi. Nothing to do? Sitting each day with people you don’t know? Strangers trying to pretend they’re your parents? You would be miserable.”

“Don’t you think I would have wanted to have the choice?” Yumi asked through Painter.

“You have the choice,” Liyun said. “You always have. Forgive me for not pointing you toward it, as it would have destroyed you.”

She left then.

“I (lowly) hate that woman,” Painter muttered.

“Please don’t say that,” Yumi whispered.

“You defend her?” Painter said, standing. “After what she did to you?”

“She’s my…” She couldn’t form the word. “She raised me. The best she knew how. And she is right; I’m still a servant of the people and the spirits. So nothing changes.”

“Nothing?” he said.

“Very little of importance.”

“Your happiness is nothing ‘little,’ Yumi.”

“You think I’m happier?” she said. “Look at me and tell me I’m happier this way, Painter.”

He met her eyes, then glanced away. “Well,” he finally said, “I think you will be happier, once this difficult time passes. I think the spirits believe that too. Have you thought that maybe this is why they wrapped us up in this? So you could learn to be free?”

“Have you thought that maybe they approached me instead of any other yoki-hijo,” she said, “because I was trained to be absolutely obedient to their will? Apparently that’s rarer than I thought.”

She stalked out the door that Liyun had left open. He followed behind, fortunately—because otherwise she’d have been yanked right back toward him.

At the cool spring, she tossed off her clothing and strode straight into the water, then dove underneath and let the soft coolness enwrap her. She turned over and floated to the surface, staring up into the sky filled with twirling plants, kept from drifting too far by the attentive crows and flyers. So far beyond reach that they might as well have been on another planet.

Painter stepped into the water himself, but didn’t start washing. Instead he turned over and floated as well, quiet, drifting next to her.

Yumi squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to let him hear her sniffling. If he did hear, he didn’t say anything.