Yumi and the Nightmare Painter(92)

It wasn’t a very good painting.

Considering the experience of the one responsible, that won’t surprise you. But for a person who’d first picked up a brush twenty-three days earlier, it was quite remarkable—in the same way that the drawing of one eight-year-old might be better than that of another.

Regardless, here’s the thing: art doesn’t need to be good to be valuable. I’ve heard it said that art is the one truly useless creation—intended for no mechanical purpose. Valued only because of the perception of the people who view it.

The thing is, everything is useless, intrinsically. Nothing has value unless we grant it that value. Any object can be worth whatever we decide it to be worth.

And to these two, Yumi’s painting was priceless.

“I realized something earlier,” she said. “When we were talking about owning things. I realized…I don’t own anything. And never will…”

“The clothing—”

“Will stay behind, Nikaro,” she said softly. “When this is all over.”

Right. He hadn’t considered that. Once…whatever had happened to them was through…once the spirits decided to end the Connection…

Well, Yumi would wake up one day in her body. And he in his. On separate planets.

She stood up holding the painting, letting it air-dry. Her eyes large, like pools of ink awaiting a brush. She smiled again, a different smile. Not joyful. Melancholic.

“This,” she said to him, “is for you. To remember me when I am gone. What did you call it?”

“A memento,” he whispered. “To remember the day.”

“Valuable because of the good feelings it evokes,” she whispered, then carefully folded the dried painting and tucked it into the inside pocket of her jacket. “If we wake up tomorrow and it’s all over, you’ll have this. So you don’t forget me.”

“I could never. Yumi, maybe we could…”

What? Travel the space between planets? Even if the government allowed a couple of youths to do something like that—which was highly unlikely—she was still a yoki-hijo. One of only fourteen on her whole world.

She couldn’t have a life like he had briefly let himself dream she could.

“I want you to know,” she told him, “that I don’t think you’re a liar.”

“I literally did lie though,” he said. “It’s a fact.”

“Why did you do it?”

“Because…I was too weak to tell the truth?”

“Because,” she said pointedly, “you didn’t want to hurt the people you loved.”

“I lied to you.”

“Again,” she said, “because you wanted so desperately to be the thing I needed. You wanted to help me, Painter. And yes, maybe you wanted to pretend to be someone great. That’s not the action of a liar, but a dreamer.” She nodded sharply. “I was taught that a liar is someone who takes advantage of others to get gain. That’s not you. It’s never been you.”

She leaned closer to him, as close as they could get without touching. “I don’t blame you, Nikaro. Maybe stop blaming yourself. You see, I’ve learned one thing from your world, more than any other.”

“Which…is?”

“Answers,” she said, “are not simple. They never were.”

He smiled back, then closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. It was strange how much of a difference those words meant. That someone didn’t judge him. That she knew exactly what he’d done, in all its horrors, and…didn’t care? Didn’t blame?

Perhaps he should have been strong enough to come to a similar conclusion on his own. Perhaps he should have been a lot of things he wasn’t. But in this case, having someone say it—someone who mattered…

It was like a painting he could share. He opened his eyes…

To find Yumi stumbling backward, eyes wide, lips frozen in a mask of terror. He spun to see something lurking from the alley behind them: a nightmare of jagged blackness, fully eleven feet tall, with claws that sliced the wall in large gouges. Eyes like pits of white, and a mouth with actual teeth.

The nightmare. It was fully stable now.

It had, inexplicably, come looking for them.





It was Yumi’s second time seeing a nightmare.

The other was to this one as a puppy was to a wolf. The stable nightmare reared on two lupine legs, powerful and somehow more real than the previous one she’d seen. Its darkness had coalesced, hardened, its skin spines, and those eyes—voids of anger. It towered over them, and when it stepped the nails on its feet tore gouges in the pavement.

“Run,” Painter said. “Yumi, RUN!”

His voice sliced through her terror, and she recovered enough to turn and dash away, clinging to her painter’s bag—not because it would be helpful, but because she needed something to hold on to.

The nightmare gave chase. Silent save for what sounded like metal on stone. Painter ran out in front of her, looking as frantic as she felt—she thought he was leaving her, but no. He was leading her. He waved as he dashed for an alley just ahead of her. She followed him in, nearly tripping at the hard left turn.

The nightmare beast, far more bulky, responded less quickly. It skidded past, then had to heave itself back after them. Yumi—against her better interests—glanced behind her as she ran, and saw it darkening the mouth of the alley. It reached in with two enormous hands, one against each wall, raking the stone and cracking a window. Then it fell to all fours and began charging again.