Yumi and the Nightmare Painter(74)

“You try starting it, Honam,” the leader said. “Once it’s primed, it will keep itself going. Should be enough energy in this town for that. As long as we don’t turn it off, we’ll be good.”

“We don’t even know that it will work for the severing,” Sunjun said. “Maybe we should rethink this entire fiasco.”

“If it doesn’t work,” the lead scholar said, “then we’ll try something else. But first we follow my plan.” He peeked out the parted front of the tent, toward the town. “This is dangerous, what’s happening here. Honam, prime the machine.”

“No,” Honam said. “Not a chance.”

“I order you—”

“I’ll do it.” The fourth scholar spoke from near the wall, where he stood partially in shadows. Yumi squinted at him, making out a man with a full beard on his chin but a mustache that was failing to keep its end of the bargain. He stepped forward, causing Sunjun to scramble farther back from the machine.

“It’s a small machine,” the fourth scholar said. “It will be fine. Just needs a little priming.”

Yumi stepped forward, trying to get into a better position to watch as this last unnamed scholar knelt down in front of the machine and opened a panel. She had to pick her way between the others and lean in close—getting right to the edge of her tether to Painter—so she could observe as the scholar hesitated, then pressed his hand to a plate at the heart of the machine.

There, she was absolutely certain, two lines of light sprang into existence. One was a vibrant magenta. The other a liquid azure.

Hion lines.

She gasped, then clamped her mouth shut. Then felt immediately foolish. They couldn’t hear her. So she leaned forward farther, inches from the man, to make certain she was seeing what she thought she was. Yes, those were hion lines. She couldn’t mistake the distinctive colors. They connected the scholar’s hand to the—

Another pair formed from her face, leading to the plate.

She yelped, jerking back. Lights went up along the machine’s sides, and the scholar who had been kneeling relaxed visibly, pulling his hand away and wiping it on his trousers. The lead scholar and the lounging one cheered in excitement.

The one who had been sitting nearby though—Sunjun, the one with grease on his hands from working on the thing—ignored the achievement. He wasn’t looking at the lights or his companions. No, Sunjun was looking right at Yumi.

She felt a sudden panic and scrambled away, grabbing the spirit of a blanket and holding it up in front of her. If they saw—

He continued staring at where she’d been. Not at her. She was still invisible.

“There’s a spirit in here,” Sunjun said, scrambling to his feet.

“What?” the lead scholar said.

“I saw a second set of lines,” Sunjun said, pointing to where Yumi had been standing. “A spirit.” He turned to fumble with some equipment, then pulled out a box with a trailing wire that he plugged into the larger machine. Yumi felt a coldness come over her. An actual physical coldness, not just a fear. The machine had stolen warmth from her.

Sunjun turned the box, and the needle on a dial atop it swung toward Yumi. She scuttled away, dodging around the scholars and running for the wall of the tent.

The needle followed her.

“There!” Sunjun said, pointing. “It’s moving. Quick! Dig out the capture device!”

Terrified of whatever that was, Yumi closed her eyes and jumped through the wall.





As he waited for Yumi to finish in the tent, Painter spent his time testing his theory about the trees. Though these shade trees were modestly large, most of their bulk was in their foliage, not their height. Minimal effort got him up into the branches and among the leaves, where he felt more hidden.

The chain tethering the tree was looped here around the upper trunk, fastened with a sturdy clipping mechanism. That chain was heavy, but it didn’t weigh the tree down—it just held it in place. Something was making the metal lighter, he figured, like it made his body lighter. As before, the closer he stayed to the trunk, the stronger this effect was.

When he’d first climbed into the tree, his weight had caused it to sag and thump against the ground. But if he hugged it tight, his cheek to the bark—the tree was wide enough that his hands barely touched on the other side—it lifted once more. When doing this, it was as if he became part of its essence and added negligible weight to its bulk. If he moved farther out onto one of the branches, his weight returned, his own flesh noticeable on his bones, his clothing settling back onto his body.

The tree, in turn, slumped downward and hit the ground again. Remarkably, these plants had adapted to this place where the ground was so hot. They had barely any roots, merely some curled vestigial ones at the bottom, like gnarled fingers. How did they manage to—

Yumi burst through the wall of the tent. Running.

Painter dropped to a lower branch to look down at her.

“Scholars saw me somehow!” she shouted, frantic. “They’re coming after me! They mustn’t find me! Or find you! Everyone will see me like this and know that we spied on the scholars and that I’ve given up all semblance of sanity in favor of categoric hooliganism and malfeasance!”

Painter wasn’t sure what shocked him more. The fact that she’d been spotted, or the fact that she’d actually used the word “hooliganism” in practical discourse.