Page 77 of Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

“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’tactuallycare.”

“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 areliterallya 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 shetried 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…

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