Page 121 of Yumi and the Nightmare Painter
He’d been right. He stood up, feeling exhausted as the nightmare flowed from the alley, slicing the ground with thick claws. It approached him, careful, perhaps remembering their last encounter.
“We first met before the swap happened,” he said to the thing. “Was that a coincidence, or were you looking for me even then?”
It reared up, blackness so deep it could only be imagined. Eyes of scraped-out hollow white. It reached for him.
“Liyun,” he whispered. Remembering the lupine form she’d taken during the confrontation with the scholars.
The thing froze, then crouched close to the ground.
“Have they taken your memory, Liyun?” he asked. “But why?”
The answer struck him immediately—remembered words of the scholars leading him to a single conclusion.
They were afraid of Yumi.
“Is that what is happening?” Painter said. “Are the towns some kind of…charade forherbenefit? To keep her confused, or disoriented, or simply placid?”
The nightmare began to slink forward again. So Painter knelt andbegan to stack. As earlier, his stacks were impressive for him—though not nearly on Yumi’s level. But he felt proud as he placed the stones. And as he’d hoped, the nightmare that was Liyun stopped once more. Drill-hole eyes fixated on the stacks.
“I know,” he said, “I don’t have whatever power or endowment was given to Yumi. Yet I saw you recognize me before—even after someone had robbed you of your shape and your mind. A piece of you is still Liyun. Perhaps the deepest, most important piece. That’s what the scholar said. That you were allowed to be yourself again for a time. When with Yumi.”
The thing stepped forward, its eyes fixed on the stack.
“Remember, Liyun,” Painter whispered. “Remember.”
The beast—hulking, like a boulder of black smoke—reached out a claw toward the stack. But stopped before touching it.
“I remember,” it whispered in Liyun’s voice.
“Is she all right?” Painter asked, pained.
“She forgets,” the thing said. “As we all forget…”
“That,” Painter said, “is why I brought this.”
He took something from his pocket. A piece of paper, painted with a beginner’s skill. It depicted two hands, overlapping each other, above a sea of lights. Yumi’s memory, for him, of her.
He bowed before the beast that was Liyun. “Can you give this to her?”
“I will forget. I…”
“Liyun,” he said, intent. “Do you remember your duty?”
Those white holes fixated on him.
“Serve the yoki-hijo,” Painter whispered. “Protect her.Give her this.”
“I want to be a person again,” Liyun whispered. “So badly. It has been so long…”
“How…long?” Painter asked.
“Since before your people made cities,” the thing whispered. “Since the days when this land had a sun. Centuries.”
The weight of that hit Painter. Centuries.
Yes, it meant Yumi had been right. Kind of. They hadn’t been time traveling. But these people had somehow been trapped, unchanging, forseventeen hundredyears.
“Yumi…” he whispered. “She’d lost memories. But only one day.”
