“Close enough. I think that from a distance I’ll just appear like a worker leaving the orchard.”
“If someone looks closely, they’ll see me, practically naked and absolutely deranged! It’s not going to work.”
He gazed out at the tent, as if he was going to go striding out anyway, but didn’t move. He glanced at her.
“I’ll pull out now if you want,” he said. “This is your life I’m playing with, Yumi. If I get caught, you’ll have to live with it—assuming we swap back eventually. So…do you want me to stop? It’s your choice.”
Her choice? What a terrible idea.
But she felt reckless. And determined. Somehow at once. So before she could think about what she was doing, she threw off her overdress and second layer too, standing in her silks. “Go!” she said.
“Why…did you strip?” he asked. “You’re invisible.”
“Solidarity!” she shouted, then—taking a deep breath—started out across the stone.
Once, she would have assumed that she couldn’t hide, no matter how good the disguise. She would have assumed that people would instantly know a yoki-hijo.
But she had lived in Painter’s world. She’d been normal for a week and a half at this point. Well, at least during the half of each day she spent in his world. Perhaps…perhaps he was right and no one would notice.
She still felt like a field mouse. Yes, a little mouse that had dropped from its nest in the rice plant and fallen to the hot stones during the day, having to scurry for high ground in full sight of all the giant hawks and crows above. Burning up with each step.
She mistook every sound in the distance for a cry of alarm. She was certain every figure moving through the town was dashing to get Liyun. Everyone would soon hear that the yoki-hijo was crazy and running around in her underwear.
Painter just plodded along.
“Hurry!” she hissed at him.
“Hurrying ruins the illusion,” he said. “Trust me. I’ve seen this at least three times in the dramas.”
“Three times? That’s the extent of your experience?” She jumped, looking toward a shadow cast by several rice plants moving overhead.
This was misery. Intoxicating misery. And despite his apparent calm, Painter seemed unable to stop himself from speeding up as they neared the hiding place. He practically ran the last few yards and pulled up against the trunk of one of the shade trees.
The little stand of trees, as she’d hoped, provided some cover. They kept snapping their chains taut in the thermals—since this was near the place of ritual, the stones were extra hot. Painter wiped his brow, then shook his hand, the beads of sweat evaporating quickly on the ground.
“How you people survive in this place,” he whispered, “I’ll never know. But we…”
He trailed off as he saw Yumi, her heart thundering like the ritual drum, her nerves dancers contorting before the spirits, her eyes the blazing bonfires of a night festival.
“You all right?” he asked her.
“That was the worst thing I’ve ever done!” she said, throwing her hands into the air. “It was wonderful!”
“Girl,” he said, “you really need to get out more.”
“I’m trying!” she said, with an uncontrolled grin. Then she pulled her arms tight up beneath her chin, her eyes going even wider. “We could run away. Escape together. Off into the wide world, like in the stories Samjae used to tell me…”
“Usually,” he said, with a dry smile, “I prefer to go on at least one date with a girl before I elope with her. Call me traditional.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” she snapped （lowly）。 “It’s just…this feels so liberating. And terrifying. They don’t care. The spirits don’t actually care.”
“I don’t know about that,” he said. He pointed around the trunk toward the tent, hovering a few feet above the ground on its platform. “The spirits give you things like that platform, right? No cost? No price?”
“No price,” she said. “They want to help, once we summon them. I think they find us intriguing and enjoy watching us.”
“Sounds like they do care,” he said. “About you. If not about a lot of the things you all have made up about them.”
She smiled. “Right, then. What next? How do we get into that tent without being seen?”
“I figure you’ll simply walk over to it,” Painter said.
“Me? Why me?”
“Yumi. You are literally a ghost at the moment.”
“Oh!” She looked down at herself. And despite wearing roughly the same amount of cloth she did when in Painter’s world, she blushed at her state of near undress. “I guess…that’s useful, isn’t it?”
“For spying? It seems like it might be an advantage, yes.” He peeked at the tent. It was large, almost more a pavilion, and made of thick canvas. It had been set up on a wooden platform some twenty or more feet across that had floating devices underneath to keep it off the stones.
“I wonder…” Painter said.
“What?”
“It’s just…this is what the nightmares do at home. Sneaking around, hiding, peeking in to watch people.” His frown deepened. “They can go right through walls. I don’t suppose…” He glanced at her.
Yumi nodded at Painter in understanding. Then, reminding herself that no one could see her, she slipped out from behind the tree and crossed the last bit of ground to the tent. She hadn’t wrapped her clogs, so they continued to clop, wood on stone.
That sound wasn’t real. She wasn’t real, not completely. When she tried to grab things, her hands passed through them unless she concentrated.
So…upon reaching the tent, she bowed to the spirits underneath, then stepped up onto the edge of the hovering wooden platform. There, she determinedly stepped into the cloth wall.
It, with equal determination, pushed right back.
Yumi glared at the cloth, rubbing her nose. Maybe she wasn’t showing it enough respect. She bowed to the wall as best she could from her narrow perch.
“O wall of cloth,” she said, “grant me the honor of—”
“What are you doing?” Painter hissed at her from behind.
“Petitioning the wall.”
“What?”
She spun toward him and gestured to the tent. “All things have souls, and the soul of the wall is akin to the spirits. All nonliving things are of them! That’s—”
“Yumi!” he hissed.
“—why they become statues when we make requests of them! And why rocks draw their attention. It’s—”
“Look at your hand!”
She hesitated, then glanced at her hand—which in her gesticulating she’d thrust straight through the cloth. Huh. Had her petition worked? Or…
Or had she just not been paying attention? Design said they touched things they wanted to—expected to. So perhaps…
She closed her eyes and stepped forward, not thinking about the cloth. Doing that, she walked straight through. When she opened her eyes, she found herself inside the tent. And wow, the scholars traveled in style. Thick rugs on the floor. Fine pillows and cushions for sitting on. A counter with various liquors, and those serving boys—likely scholars in training—to wait upon their needs.