Yumi and the Nightmare Painter(77)

He felt that tugging again.

It was actually working.

It was all real.

An ethereal ball of light seeped up from the ground near the fence, roughly halfway between him and the machine. It glowed like a large glob of liquid metal, softly shimmering with the colors of hion.

Painter placed another rock, struggling to remain calm. The spirit lingered, then turned as if looking toward the clanking machine—though the spirit had no eyes. Part of it stretched in that direction, then the rest followed, like elastic snapping together. As the parts melded, it soared along the stone ground like it was swimming. It passed among the startled people who, their attention on the machine, hadn’t noticed it first appearing.

It swam right up to the scholars.

“No!” Yumi cried, standing. “No, they stole it from us!”

Painter turned, letting his current rock slip. The tower toppled, destabilizing one of the others, which collapsed as well. Outside the fence, the townspeople cheered as one of the scholars picked up the glowing spirit, then raised it in his hands. People crowded around, cutting off Painter’s view of what happened next.

“And now!” The man’s voice drifted to where Painter slouched on the ground, barely noticing the heat from below. “See how we can make this spirit transform into a useful object via the pictures we present as simple inputs. Behold! It is done!”

“That took all day!” a voice shouted. Liyun? “Your machine will never replace the yoki-hijo. A competent girl can draw a half dozen spirits in a day! A master can sometimes get dozens!”

“And how many yoki-hijo are there?” the scholar shouted back. “Sixteen at most! We currently have only fourteen. How long did the people of this town wait between visits of the yoki-hijo? Months? Years? These machines can be placed in every town and village, working all day.”

Liyun didn’t reply.

“You will see!” the scholar said. “We’ll remain here calling spirits until every need of every resident is filled.”

Painter—exhausted, his fingers raw even inside his gloves—turned to Yumi.

“You did well,” she told him.

“Not well enough. Yumi, I don’t think I drew that spirit. I think the machine did.”

“No,” she said, firm. Then she hesitated and spoke a little less certainly. “It was maybe both of you. Spirits always come up right next to me when I’m performing, while that one was between you and the scholars.”

“So the machine works,” Painter said. “It drew the spirit.”

“What you did worked as well, Painter,” she said, kneeling beside him. “It was already obvious the machine works. They wouldn’t have brought it here if it weren’t capable of attracting a spirit. But its stacks are mediocre, barely viable. You can beat it, Painter, do better than it can. Get a spirit for us to talk to, to question.”

He looked around at the many rocks. “More practice?” he said with a sigh.

She nodded.

In response, he took a drink from the canteen Hwanji brought him, shook the stiffness out of his hands, then got back to it. Though he didn’t draw another spirit that day—and he knew it had been months between the first time Yumi had done it and her second—at least it was a nibble at success.

He hoped that would sustain him for however long it took to find his next taste.





A week later, Yumi watched the most shocking thing she’d ever seen. Two people kissing. In front of her. In front of everyone, on the viewer. A man made from the blue hion lines, and a woman from the magenta.

Locking lips, intimate. Right there.

She gasped and pulled her blankets closer, up to her chin. “Can they show that?” she asked.

Painter just chuckled.

She threw a pillow at him in response—it didn’t even disrupt his spirit, but it made her feel better. Then she leaned forward, eyes wide.

It had become her habit, after practicing her painting for several hours, to stop and watch a drama. It felt like a frivolous waste of time, but Painter said that it was important to relax now and then—and it was his world. His rules. She was basically forced to do this.

Besides, the story continued each night—and she needed to see what happened. She followed three separate dramas, but Seasons of Regret was the best. And the most scandalous. She cocked her head as the kiss continued. And continued. And…

“How do they breathe?” she asked.

“In a kiss like that,” he said, “you share breath. You send the air back and forth, exhaling into each other’s lungs. It can keep you going for a good fifteen minutes.”

She believed it for the briefest moment, then saw his smirk. That earned him another pillow, this one straight through the head.

On the viewer, Sir Ashinata and Lady Hinobi broke apart. This was a “historical” drama, according to Painter. Which meant they were pretending to be from another time, before things like showers. Yumi sighed at how the two stared at each other, with the viewer showing their faces up close, tiny hion lines reproducing even their eyelashes.

That look. Could they really be faking? Painter must be wrong—these two actors must actually be in love. Because of that look. She had been waiting to see them look at each other like that for a week now.

Sir Ashinata was some kind of wandering warrior, and their pairing was forbidden. But they had finally admitted their love. It was wonderful.