I don’t blame her. There was something inherently moody about Painter’s world.
In Kilahito it always felt like you’d stepped out right after it finished raining. In Kilahito the streets perpetually felt too empty—but in a way that made you think you were encountering a brief lull, with activity echoing from the next street over. In Kilahito, it always felt like the lights were turned down low to let the land sleep.
In Kilahito you noticed absences. It was a city made from negative space.
“Come on,” Painter said, waving to her from the street.
She stayed in the doorway. “It’s so…empty.”
“Comfortingly so,” he said. “You really find this more unnerving than your world, with that big ball of fire in the sky? With all those things flying around up there? That’s unnerving. It makes me feel like I’m going to get crushed!”
“At least we can see what’s above,” she said. “Here…there’s just nothing.”
“That’s the shroud,” he said. “Scientists have flown beyond it; they found more stars and things up there.” He softened his tone. “Look there. See that? The one that shines through the shroud?”
She hesitantly stepped out onto the street with him and gazed up at the star. “Do you think that’s actually my world?”
“It must be,” he said. “Whatever grabbed me came from the sky, and scientists say there are people there. It’s a planet like ours—they’ve taken pictures of what look like small cities, but they’re vague, too far away to make out much. Whoever lives there doesn’t seem to have radios or anything. They’re…not as advanced as we are.”
She didn’t take this as an insult, instead staring up at the star, then turning her eyes to follow the hion lines above the street, their light painting it the contrasting blue and violet of progress.
“This stable nightmare,” she said. “You said it will…hurt people? Unless we do something to stop it?”
“Yes,” he said. “But we don’t have to do anything to stop it. My job is to report it. We did that, but I forgot to warn the foreman about a family that the nightmare threatened. I need to see they’ve gotten the assistance I promised them.”
“You mentioned that others would come to stop the nightmare,” she said. “Didn’t you say we could recruit them? Actual heroes?”
The words felt like a punch to Painter’s gut, but she apparently didn’t realize that, so he controlled it. “The foreman will send for a member of the Dreamwatch. Maybe two, with their companions. They’re spectacular artists, but I don’t think they can help with your problems. Come on.”
She took a deep breath and nodded, then caught up to him. It was early evening, according to the clock in the bank window, and a decent number of people were out. Main thoroughfares like this were wide enough for an emergency vehicle to drive through, but the idea of personal vehicles would have been baffling to the residents of Kilahito. Most people traveled by bus or trolley, which connected to the hion lines and used them for power and guidance.
“The foreman’s office is nearby,” he said as they walked, “so fortunately we won’t need to take the hion trams. The idea of talking you through the daytime tram schedule does not appeal to me.”
She nodded again, although he doubted she knew what he was talking about. She seemed to be trying very hard not to look at the sky and was instead watching everyone they passed. She drew more than a few stares.
It’s often said that nothing fazes people in a big city, and that does tend to be true—to an extent. Big-city people tend to be unfazed by ordinary sorts of strangeness. You don’t give a second glance to the drunk wearing no pants since, well, that’s the third one this week. But an oddity like Yumi? No pants was somehow less strange than what she’d opted to wear.
“They know what I am,” she whispered to Painter. “They can sense the girl of commanding primal spirits.”
“Uh…no,” he said. “We don’t have those here. They just think you look strange.”
“They know,” she said, firm. “They stare at me like the townspeople do. Even if you don’t have yoki-hijo, these people can feel something is different about me. It is my burden. And my blessing.”
Being weird was apparently her primary burden, though he wasn’t certain what was blessed about it. As they passed a shop selling many varieties of hion viewers, with actors moving across the windows in unison, she paused.
“I thought yoki-hijo didn’t gawk,” he noted.
“Oh, sorry,” she said softly, glancing down. “You are correct. I have shamed myself.”
Painter grimaced. He’d been hoping for a more satisfying reaction. Giving someone a jibe, then having them internalize it, felt awful: the conversational equivalent of going for a comedic burp and accidentally inducing yourself to vomit.
Regardless, he navigated her without incident to the foreman’s office—a small room with its own entrance at the corner of the general Painter Department headquarters. At his prompting, she entered. Foreman Sukishi didn’t care about knocking.
Fortunately, he was in. The older man sat at his usual place behind the small room’s single desk, feet up, reading his paper. Behind him, the many slots where he stored the paintings turned in for the day—tagged and sorted—were mostly empty. Ready for the night’s offerings.
As Yumi entered he lowered his feet and folded his paper, frowning at her. “You look familiar.”
“You met me the other day,” she said softly, “at Painter’s house. Um…Nikaro, the painter? I’m his sister.”
The foreman blinked, then recognition hit him and he sat back. “Sister? Of course. That makes so much more sense.”
Painter winced. Why did people keep saying that?
“He didn’t work last night either,” the foreman said. “Is that why you’re here?”
“He’s sick,” Yumi said.
“Yeah. So sick that when I saw you the other day, he wasn’t sleeping on his futon—but was out somewhere. And had to leave his sister to cover for him.”
Yumi blushed, lowering her eyes. “I apologize for him, honored Foreman-nimi.”
“Oh, it’s not your fault,” the foreman said, softening his tone. Which was horribly unfair. This man had always treated Painter with some shade of contempt—but Yumi, the tyrant? She got his sympathies?
Then again, she did seem to be an expert at milking these kinds of situations. Today she knelt down on the ground and gave the foreman a full ritual bow.
“Honored Foreman-nimi,” she said, her eyes toward the floor, “I am here to ask for information. You said my brother was out doing something the other day, but I remind you: He encountered something he called a stable nightmare. He was watching out for that. He sent me to ask if perhaps you have an update?”
The foreman leaned forward, eyeing her. He tapped his fingers on the tabletop. “Right,” he said. “Stable nightmare.”
“He did send for the Dreamwatch, didn’t he?” Painter asked, feeling a spike of alarm.