Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

The book then switches to the point of view of Yumi, a young woman in another world who was chosen at birth to be the yoki-hijo or “[the] girl of commanding primal spirits” (8). Hoid says that Torio, Yumi’s land, is very different from Painter’s. Here, there is no hion, no apartments, and no eternal darkness. Instead, there is a large, scarlet sun.

Yumi wants to ask for permission to attend a celebration called the Festival of Reveals in the capital, Torio City. She wants to see what normal life is like, since hers is defined by ritual. After she wakes up, two attendants enter her wagon to feed her a breakfast of rice and stew. Then, wearing clogs to avoid stepping on the hot ground of her land and hidden by fans, she walks to a spring. Here, she is bathed using a series of soaps, following a set pattern, and then she is dressed in a gown called a tobok. After this, she is brought to the village shrine to begin 13 ritual prayers. Hoid notes that these rituals are seen as a great honor by the Torish people. He also gives more details about Yumi’s surroundings, stating that the plants do not usually touch the ground in Torio because it is extremely hot. Rather, they hover on thermal vents.

The shrine that Yumi prays in is also held off the ground by a “lifting spirit,” which is a being of energy transformed into the physical shape of two stones. As she prays, Yumi thinks about how she can ask for the chance to enjoy the Festival of Reveals while feeling guilty about wanting a life outside of being yoki-hijo. When Liyun, her warden, arrives, Yumi tries to bring up her interest in the festival, but Liyun harshly rebukes her interest in an outside life. Disheartened, Yumi asks to go to the place of ritual.

This chapter returns to Painter’s narrative. Painter passes Akane’s “capstone painting” of a flower while making his rounds. Each capstone painting was made by a nightmare painter and put on a wall facing out to the shroud. Painter has never been able to settle on a design.

He then notices the traces of a nightmare that had passed through. He tracks the nightmare into the city, eventually spotting it: It is a seven-foot-tall creature that looks as if it is made of ink, and it has strangely long arms.

Painter calms his emotions since nightmares are attracted to fearful or active minds. Then, he takes out his painting supplies. All painters use long brushes and black ink that is meant to mimic the look of a nightmare. The ink could make excellent gradations of grays, but Painter rarely bothers with nuance. Looking at the creature, he notices that it has a mostly indistinct form, which means it had rarely been in the city. A nightmare became increasingly solid and dangerous as it fed off people. Hoid explains that this is why nightmare painters are important but disposable—their job is rarely urgent and most nightmares are quickly caught.

Painter begins to paint a bamboo on the canvas. The nightmare notices him as he does this, but it is soon captured by the painting. The creature is transformed into black bamboo and then evaporates.

Back in Yumi’s land, the local geyser erupts as she walks past. The water from geysers is essential in her world. The heat from the ground makes “normal” bodies of water impossible, so most towns are built around geysers where they can gather the water. As Yumi approaches the place of ritual, she hears the crowd discussing her and reminds herself that they have no idea who she really is. She is simply a yoki-hijo to them.

Yumi enters the place of ritual and starts to stack the rocks that have been prepared for her. Hoid comments on the strangeness of stacking stones as an art but concludes that there is nothing intrinsically valuable about any kind of art. All art is given value by its perceivers.

Over the course of several hours, Yumi creates a spiral of stacked rocks, using the Fibonacci sequence as a guide. Her work is at once methodical and organic, as it aligns with mathematical principles while Yumi sways with the ritual music and feels for the unique characteristics of stones as she picks them. She dedicates herself to this task, hoping it will make up for her wish for freedom. Eventually, she manages to summon a record 37 spirits—they are teardrop-shaped, red and blue balls of energy that rise from the ground.

Supplicants from the town then approach her, one at a time. The first man asks Yumi for a light for his house; Yumi, in turn, requests this from a spirit, while picturing what she wants. The spirit turns into two glowing orbs that are given to the man. People continued to approach her, asking for essentials of life, such as stones to keep structures off the hot ground or flying devices to help farm the flying crops of Torio.

At the end of the day, Liyun approaches to offer Yumi congratulations but finds her unconscious from the strain of the work.

Hoid explains that nightmares first came from the sky 17 centuries ago. Some historical accounts from that time mention that nightmares even took on the faces of people. People only survived because of hion.

At the end of his shift, Painter turns in two drawings of bamboo and is criticized by his foreman Sukishi for his laziness. Nightmare painters are meant to model the painting on the shape of the nightmare, but Painter defaulted to bamboo. Sukishi is beginning to suspect that Painter is faking drawings and slacking off on his work. Painter then goes to the restaurant the Noodle Pupil. He sits alone at the bar and begins to talk to the restaurant owner, Design. Design, Hoid explains, is not human but a spren—a sentient, spirit-like creature who also appears in Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive series. Hoid had made Design’s body.

Design and Painter talk about the importance of Painter’s job. Design then sees him look over at Akane and her friends and encourages him to go talk to them. He insists that it wouldn’t go well and leaves before she can push him into socializing, grabbing his bag from a statue of a person that the restaurant uses as a coatrack. Hoid says that this is a statue of him.

Having left the noodle shop to escape socializing, Painter finds it difficult to keep up his lies that he chooses to be alone. He thinks to himself that he is unremarkable as a person, in both skill and courage. While heading to his apartment, he notices the signs of a nightmare that has passed by. He initially ignores this as he has finished his shift, but he doubles back soon after.

Hoid wants to explain his role in the events. He says that when he arrived on the planet, he was immediately frozen in place. Subsequently, he heard voices, and, later, saw images of Painter and Yumi.

He then returns to Yumi, who wakes up in her wagon at night, feeling tired and guilty for passing out. Liyun arrives and criticizes Yumi for her exceptional performance, saying it would make other towns wonder why she had not done this before. When Liyun leaves, Yumi is too angry to go back to sleep. She thinks about leaving the life of a yoki-hijo. Suddenly, she feels a presence. This presence speaks to her, and she realizes it is a spirit. It says that it understands her bindings as they are both trapped. It asks for her help and tells her that it wants to be free. The spirit says it will send someone to help her; Yumi agrees and then faints.

Painter tracks the nightmare, nearly giving up before he spots it through a window. The nightmare is tall, with lupine features and eyes; this is a sign that it is nearly stable. It looms over a child who is in a room with his parents.

Painter begins to panic, knowing this is outside of his skills. However, he sees the nightmare trailing its claws across the face of the child, leaving cuts. He decides to fight it and tries to bring out his supplies, but he draws the nightmare’s attention as he does so. It moves toward him but gets stuck in the wall, as it is not used to having as much substance as it does. This gives Painter time to draw bamboo, but this does not work, as the creature is too developed. Painter instead tries to paint an image of the boy’s mother. While painting, he discovers a beauty in the process that the monotony of drawing bamboo had taken away. Realizing it might be captured, the nightmare flees.

As Painter steps up to the window, the child begins to cry and wakes the parents. Painter urges them to relocate to another town, using a government fund that has been set up for that purpose. He then starts to go to the foreman’s office, but feeling unnaturally tired, he decides to rest first.

In his apartment, he hears a strange sound and looks toward the star. Something falls from the sky, and he loses consciousness. When Painter wakes up later, he is uncomfortably hot and thinks it is strangely bright. He notices that he is wearing strange robes and lying beside a girl, who is Yumi. She wakes up, too, and screams.