But she had a suspicion that it would be easy for him. That was the realization she’d come to while bathing, and it would explain so much. The spirits had come to her begging for help—yet Yumi had not been enough. She wasn’t skilled enough; wasn’t good enough. She was inadequate.
So they had sent someone who could do what she couldn’t. Painter might not be a hero…but he might be a prodigy. That would explain why they’d picked him. She was now confident that he’d prove to be a natural at stacking, blessed with talent beyond her own even though he’d never known it on his world. The answer was so obvious it made her smile.
She was able to maintain this happy delusion right up to the moment he “stacked” his first rock. It fell.
The very first rock he placed fell. Somehow he managed to fail at balancing a large flat piece of stone on the ground. It toppled to the side and rolled away.
The townspeople behind Yumi gasped. Painter didn’t notice—just gave a goofy smile and piled up some other rocks like he was…pushing blocks into a heap. He didn’t even manage this without squishing his finger, which made him yelp and shake it.
Yumi glanced to Liyun, who watched with a slack jaw, horrified.
Painter put a rock on top of his pile, which collapsed. Then he looked to Yumi and gestured. “Like this?” he asked. “How’s it look?”
Oh no, Yumi thought. Oh, spirits. No.
They were in serious, serious trouble.
Painter woke in his rooms back in his world, the indignity of the rock fiasco fresh in his mind.
He still didn’t understand what he’d done wrong.
No, wait.
He didn’t understand what would have been right. Rocks? What had been the point of those rocks?
Yumi sat up from the blanket on the floor, her hair a twisted mess. “Ow,” she said softly. “I think I…somehow slept on my nose…” She focused on him, and despite the frizzy hair and rumpled pajamas, she became more commanding. “You have failed.”
“I stacked the rocks!” he said, sitting up. “I did it six different ways before you had me leave.”
As the people watching had grown increasingly distraught, Yumi had told him to plead fatigue to Liyun. The dignified woman, plainly troubled by whatever it was he’d done wrong, had led him back to the wagon, where he’d succumbed to sleep. He probably hadn’t even been awake six hours. Something about this transfer seemed to require a lot of energy, and they tired far faster than normal.
“The stacking,” Yumi said, standing up and putting her hands on her hips, “must be done with skill and artistry.”
“Stacking,” he said, “does not require artistry.”
“To do it ritually does.”
“Ritually. Of course. I should have known!”
She stalked over and pointed at his face as if threatening to touch him. But he lay down on his futon and shrugged. “Go ahead. I’m feeling a bit of a chill anyway. Might warm me up.”
She set her jaw, then stalked away, arms folded. She appeared to be shivering. The apartment looked as they’d left it, but he had a suspicion that they’d lost another day. Which meant the foreman would be furious.
Hopefully the foreman had dealt with the stable nightmare. Painter hadn’t warned him about the family who might need money to relocate. The foreman would put it together, right?
Maybe he should check in anyway. Make certain the Dreamwatch had arrived and everything was under control. It wasn’t his problem, now that he’d reported it, but he kept remembering that little boy with blood on his cheek from the nightmare’s claws. He at least wanted an update.
How, though? He didn’t have a phone—those required expensive dedicated hion lines and were beyond a mere nightmare painter’s wages. So to get information from the foreman, they’d have to find a public phone and wait in line, or—since the office was so close—simply walk over. Both would require them to leave the apartment, however.
Yumi was talking again. “To properly stack, one needs years of training.”
“And you just expected me to do it with none?”
“I…hoped you would have natural talent,” she admitted. “I was wrong, obviously. The only solution remaining is a difficult one. We must contact the spirits, which means you’re going to have to learn. We’ll come up with some excuse to Liyun, then train you, like I was as a child. Until you’re good enough to draw spirits.”
Delightful. Training under her sounded about as much fun as a hornet-eating competition. And these spirits? Were they even real? Everyone on her world seemed to think so, and she had shown him some kind of goblinlike statues underneath her wagon that made it float. Those came from somewhere.
Regardless, he had his own troubles. “I want to go talk to the foreman,” he said. “And check in. Make sure I still have a job…”
“No,” she said. “We’re going to stay in here and I’m going to start training you. Your education begins now.”
“My education? My training? To do what? Stack?” He sat up and waved his hand through the table. “Wow. That’s going to be so effective, Yumi.”
“I can demonstrate,” she said. “Instruct.”
“No,” he said, standing. “This is my world. I should get to make the rules. There’s a dangerous nightmare out there, and I want to be certain it’s been dealt with. Foreman doesn’t always…think the most highly of me—”
“I wonder why.”
“Yumi,” he said. “That nightmare is dangerous. It could be fully stable by now, and violently murderous! It could kill dozens or more if not stopped, and no regular painter is equipped to deal with one so strong. It requires talent beyond what someone like me has.
“We are going to go make sure the foreman understood my warning, then get him to check on a family I helped. Who knows—maybe those spirits sent you to me, not the other way around! Maybe they need you to do something here! You ever consider that?”
She huffed, arms still folded, but then glanced away. “Fine,” she said softly. “But…I can’t go out like this. I look, and feel, grimy. I don’t think bathing when I’m a spirit cleans this body.”
“Well, we can fix that,” he said, walking across his living room to the small bathroom. He waved to it, and she sullenly stepped over and pulled open the door. He showed her the knobs on the shower, which she turned. Then she yelped, her eyes wide as the water sprayed down.
“You have a geyser,” she said. “But…the water seems cold?”
“It will warm,” he said. “Unless Mrs. Shinja used it all up again—avoid showering at nine in the morning, unless you like to freeze. Also, warning, she gets very possessive over the water. Be careful not to use too much yourself.”
“Shower,” she said softly, letting the water run over her hand.
“Soap here,” he said, pointing. “Shampoo and conditioner here. Clean towel there.” He nodded to her, then stepped toward the door.
“Wait,” Yumi said, then turned, looking at him.
“What?”
“I’m…supposed to do it myself?” she asked. “You don’t have any…attendants I can call?”