Page 105 of Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

She gave him a flat stare.

“Come on, Yumi,” he said. “Howlong did you spend in the shower yesterday?”

She clasped her hands behind her back and turned away, strolling lightly on her tiptoes, buoyant in the water. “You’re right about Mrs. Shinja,” she said. “Shereallygets mad about running out of hot water. Why do you suppose I like cold springs in my world and near-scalding warmth on yours?”

“Variety, I guess,” Painter said. Then in a lower yet dramatic voice: “Cold noodles with ice for hot days, warm noodles with broth on cool ones. The noodle princess must be master of both realms.”

She splashed a huge wave of water at him, and it was satisfying how he cringed—even though it was spirit water and flew straight through him. She smiled, then continued her strolling.

“I’mtrying,” she said, “to solve our problem. Please make an effort to pay attention.”

“But we’ve solved it. Nightmare is dealt with.”

“And if the nightmare isn’t what caused the spirits to reach out to me? It could still be the machine.”

Those scholarsweresuspicious. She wanted to be wrong—shewanted it all to be over now, finished as soon as the Dreamwatch did their jobs—but she wasafraidshe was right. She couldn’t let go, not until she knew.

“I suppose,” he said, resting back, the tips of his feet popping up out of the water again. “I guess we can solve the problem no matter if we’re from different times or different planets. Nothing changes except…”

She slowed, then met his eyes and again saw the unspoken tragedy he acknowledged in them. Neither of them dared say the words. That they didn’twantthis to end. How crazy was it that they would rather live in limbo like this, disorienting though it was, so long as it meant they could be together?

Why couldn’t she form the words? Why didn’t she dare speak them? Was it because she was afraid if she acknowledged what she felt, she would somehow ruin it? Send whatever it was that was growing between them flying off, like flower petals in a thermal?

Or was it something worse? Something that terrified her more than a nightmare? The worry that maybe he didn’t feel the same way. What if her assumptions when looking in his eyes were untrue? What if hewantedthis to be finished so that he could have his life back, no longer forced to deal with the imperious demands of a yoki-hijo who didn’t know how to person correctly?

She struggled to say something. But all she could think of was waking up one day alone, not knowing where he was.

It’s going to end poorly, isn’t it?she thought with mounting dread.There’s no way for it to work out. It can’t work out, not for the yoki-hijo.

Her life, as Liyun had always promised, was not one of joy. Her life was not her own.

Her life was service.

The two eventually climbed out of the spring to begin dressing. “How long do you think it will take,” she asked him, “before my people invent bras? It’s difficult to return to this time, wrap a band underneath my chest, and pretend that’s good enough.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “You’ll need elastic for bras first, right?”

“How should I know?” Maybeshecould invent them. Sketch it out, tell everyone that the spirits had shown the garment to her in a vision—which, in comparison to some of the ways she’d been forced to distort the facts recently, would be remarkably close to the truth.

They finished and then followed the attendants out to the shrine. There they found a small line of people—as per Painter’s morning request. By this point, Liyun had given up on trying to bully him into doing things the proper way.

The townspeople shuffled, confused, as Painter called the first of them forward. Then, looking to Yumi for support and getting a nod in return, he started painting. He kept the art simple, like he’d done other days in the shrine, but he now had models to use—and so even these simple paintings were more skillful, more realistic. More a test of his talents, even if these weren’t the powerful, dynamic paintings she hoped he’d someday return to.

She was satisfied as he became absorbed by the work. Thiswasa form of meditation for him. She could say the prayers for both of them, and she did so, kneeling and whispering quietly. Like a chorus to accompany the soft sounds of brush on canvas. Music of the most personal variety.

Whatever else happened, this was an accomplishment. A brush in his hand, creating something other than bamboo.

She finished her basic prayers and moved on to meditation. Clearing her mind. Yet when she soothed away everything else, she was leftwith a sense of dread. None of her usual tricks—counting her breaths, repeating a phrase over and over, humming to herself—banished it. Each time she sank toward the deep waters of nothingness, she found that same sensation of doom. Impenetrable. As if it were the natural state. The color and texture of the canvas, once the paint had been washed away.

Something was still profoundly wrong. Solving the trouble with the nightmare was not nearly enough. And their time was running out. She wasn’t certain how, but as she beat her mind against the dread, she knew it to be the case.

“Painter,” she said, opening her eyes.

“Hmm?” he asked as a townswoman bowed to him and moved on, carrying a bemused expression and his painting of her.

“What’s beyond the shroud?” Yumi asked.

“I don’t think anything’s beyond it,” he said as the next townsperson stepped up. “It covers everything.”

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