Trying to Be a Novelist with AI

Something red spread through the water.

Dani stopped on the bank. It was the lower terrace, flooded the night before, and across the clouded water a red thread had unspooled long. The fog still hung at Fogjaw. The sun had not crossed the ridge, so the paddy water was black, and only the red stood out. Something white lay thin along the edge of the flooded paddy. What settles overnight and lifts when the sun comes, the village called frost.

At the end of the red thread something lay face down. Longer than a dog, leaner than a roe deer. One hind leg was bent outward, and the fur there was wet and matted. Dani did not go closer but crouched on the bank, and the silt smell of the paddy came up from under his feet. The fallen body lifted its neck a little. Its eyes came toward Dani and passed him.

The fur was white. Dark where wet, white where dry, and that white thinned and came back in the space of one breath. Only a colorling's color wavers like that, his father had said. They come down only from Fogjaw. Dani had never seen a colorling. The smell of water carried iron in it.

"You lie there, the water goes all muddy."

The white thing did not move. Dani went down between the rice stalks and lifted the gate board halfway. The red water drained off, and clear water came in from above and passed beneath its throat.

"That's water from upstream."

He lowered the board and climbed back to the bank. The fog was pushed downward, and in the field above the oil cicadas began. Dani sat on the bank and ran his hand along the stalk bases, and a marsh snail came into his hand. In that time the white thing lifted its face twice.

"This is my paddy."

An ear moved once.

"You don't get this."

He gathered the snails on the bank soil.

"You come from the mountain? Up there."

He lifted his chin toward Fogjaw. The white thing did not look that way. The cicadas stopped. The rice in the upper paddy leaned to one side. The wind came from the other.

A feral dog climbed out from between the stalks onto the bank. Its coat was yellow and its shoulder came to Dani's waist. Dani stepped back twice and stopped. Behind him was the retaining wall of the upper paddy. The dog moved along the bank and cut him off. The gathered snails rolled off the bank at his feet.

His throat went dry and he swallowed. The sound of it was loud in his own ears. There was a sound from the water. The white thing rose, and its lean body was the size of the dog. Dragging the bent hind leg, it crossed the paddy water. The dog sprang.

The white thing put its body in the way and the two of them rolled down off the bank. Water flew up and touched Dani's face. It was lukewarm. Dani felt along the bank soil for a stone, and his palm was wet so it slipped once, and he took it again and threw, and the stone struck the dog's back.

"Go. Get away."

His voice came out split. The dog backed off. It went between the stalks, and the smell of wet fur stayed. Dani breathed twice, hard. The backs of his knees prickled.

The white thing lay face down in the water breathing heavily, and from its torn nape something red ran down the white fur and touched the water. The white deepened. The line running from back to neck leaked out past the fur, and the outline reflected in the paddy water shook in two layers. Dani crouched in front of it. He did not put out his hand.

He opened his mouth and closed it.

"The water's all muddy now."

The white thing lifted its face from the water and the color settled a little. Soon it rose and dragged its hind leg two or three steps up the bank and sat down again, and that way was Fogjaw. Dani's hand went forward and stopped. There was nothing to take hold of.

Dani stood, and with his shoulders rolled forward he left his carrying frame on the bank and went down toward the village. By the time the sun came up over the thatched roofs Dani reached Uppertown. Thread was spread out drying in the yard, and the smell of lye rose from an earthenware basin.

"Dani. You came without your frame."

"Give me one red thread, please."

The elder's hand came off the reel. The tips of his fingers were red.

"Do you know what thread this is, coming here?"

"I know. Binding thread."

"A colorling has to put its own neck out for this thread. Wind it by force and it won't last a day."

"It's in the lower paddy. It's hurt."

"A hurt one puts its neck out easily. Because it knows it can't live alone, they say."

Dani did not answer and looked at the reel.

"I'll tell you the price first. Bind it and the world's color drains out."

"All of it?"

"It goes gray. The paddy, the sky, blood, all gray. It drains the moment you pull the knot."

The elder took his hand off the reel.

"When it's near you it comes back. When it goes far it drains again."

"How near is near?"

"You'll know when it's far. It isn't counted in steps."

The elder's shadow lengthened across the yard soil.

"If the colorling shuts itself, it won't come even when it's near."

"When do I know that?"

"You know when it doesn't come. There's no knowing beforehand."

Dani did not answer that.

"And it's until you die. If the thread is cut it won't come back even when it's near."

Dani held his breath once and let it out.

"Give it to me anyway."

The elder picked out a strand, ran it through his fingers, and held it out.

"Three days from now is the grain match. Your paddy's water gate is in it too."

Dani took the thread and put it in his pocket. When the sun tipped toward Fogjaw the paddy water lay red. On the mountain slope the evening cicadas were calling. The white thing had moved two or three steps from where it was that morning and sat. A scab had set over the torn place on its nape and there was a smell of dried blood.

When Dani took the thread from his pocket the smell of lye came up from his fingers. His hand stopped. Three years ago too his hand had been on his father's sleeve. It was going toward Fogjaw and Dani had taken hold and let go. The thread hung loose between his fingers.

The white thing lifted its neck and put it forward. The torn place came under Dani's hand. Dani laid the thread around its neck and wound it twice. When he pulled the knot the thread left his hand, and still something caught at his fingertips. The red in the paddy water, the red of the thread, the dried blood on the back of his hand went gray all at once.

The rice was gray. The sky was gray, and the sun left above Fogjaw was gray. The sounds were the same. Water over the gate, breathing at his feet. The lye and the water smell were the same too.

"I can't see."

Dani stepped back once. As far as he stepped back, the gray thickened. He moved close and sat with his knee against a foreleg. The color came. From where his knee touched, the fur was white, the scab on the nape was dark red, the tilted sun lay red on the paddy water, and the dirt and dried blood under his nails came apart again.

Dani touched the fur with the back of his hand.

"Frost."

An ear moved once.

"Frost."

This time it lifted its neck. Frost rose. Dragging the hind leg it climbed onto the bank, then turned its body toward Fogjaw and stood.

It took a step. Then another.

The color drained. As far as it went, it drained. Gray filled the place.

Dani stayed sitting on the bank. His empty hand pulled taut.

The drained floor of the paddy plot lay exposed and yellow, and the footprints were dense.

Dani stood on the bank and traced it with his eyes, from the dry cracked upper end down to the hollow that was still black. Even with the ditch dammed overnight to drain it, water stays in that hollow. It was three days since he had tied the thread. That evening Frost had gone up to Fogjaw, and at dawn the next day it came back and sat on the paddy bank.

For the holiday match people stood in a ring around the plot. Dyed clothes were mixed in among the faded cotton, and the smell of dry straw came up with the smell of manure. The rice in the terraces above sat yellow, and the sun was high so the shadows clung short underfoot. His fingertips pulled taut.

Frost was in the middle of the plot. It still dragged the hind leg a little and a scab had set on its nape. When the Lowertown boy came down from the far bank, the body that came down after him was a hand's span taller than Frost. Along the line from nape to back a blue sat. The color went all the way to the tips of the fur.

Frost's white thinned and came back.

"That water gate is ours."

The Lowertown boy lifted his chin.

"That gate is mine."

The Uppertown elder climbed onto the upper bank of the plot, then stepped between the two boys and stood, dividing them.

"That's for the match to settle. Only the one who tied the thread goes into the plot."

Dani went down into the plot. The dry soil cracked under his feet.

"Can I touch?"

"A person's hand touches a colorling, that side loses then. The one that sits down loses."

"Is the water gate inside the match too?"

The elder looked at the sky. The sun hung over the middle of the plot.

"Everything inside the plot is the match. Just don't step on the plot soil."

Dani pressed the lower hollow with his toe. The upper soil was hard and at the hollow his foot went in half a knuckle. The elder's eyes passed over the two colorlings in turn.

"White grain. That one's blue grain."

"What does that mean?"

"It means the color they carry is different. The rest they know among themselves."

"Begin."

The two bodies met and came apart in the middle of the plot. Dry soil rose to knee height. Frost's forefoot was pushed back. The footprint drew back in a long line.

"Go."

Dani moved sideways along the inside of the bank. As far as he moved, the white thinned. The blue one came in shoulder first. Frost's neck bent sideways and came back.

"Block."

Frost set its body and took it. As the two came apart, the dust that rose pushed toward the people. Frost turned after it and folded once at the hind leg. It was the hurt side. Frost's white deepened and the outline blurred. The line running from back to neck leaked out past the fur and shook in two layers.

The blue one closed again and bore down with its shoulder. Frost's front knee touched the soil. From where it touched, the knee slipped and the body tilted sideways. Dani's shoulders rolled forward.

"Hold."

Frost held. Its forefeet dug into the dry soil and four claw marks stayed. The blue one pulled its body back and rammed in from the side. Frost went over and rolled once across the soil, and wet earth showed where it had rolled. Frost got up and turned its body toward Fogjaw and stood. Not across the plot and not toward Dani either.

"Turn."

Frost turned. The smell of wet fur came up from inside the plot. It was drained that morning, so the soil was still wet underneath. While the blue one closed and broke away, Frost's feet were pushed a little at a time downward. As far as they were pushed, the lower hollow came nearer.

"Lower."

Dani pointed lower. He pointed the way it was being pushed. Frost's hind leg folded again. This time its neck was pressed down too and its face touched the soil. The white shrank in among the fur. From where it touched the soil, it thinned.

How much water was left in the lower hollow, and from which footprint that water would come eating in if the board were lifted halfway — Dani had marked it with his hands the night before while he was draining it. His hand went toward Frost. Going, it changed direction.

What his hand took hold of was the ditch board.

"Hold there."

Dani ran up along the ditch. The middle of the plot drew back behind him. The white thinned. As far as he went, it thinned. The plot and the rice and the people sat stuck together in one gray mass, and where the board and the trough came apart he had to find by hand.

He lifted the board halfway. The water came over the lip of the ditch. It went past the dry upper end and down into the hollow. The cracked soil drank and made a sound.

The black place the far one had stepped on went under first. One forefoot went in and did not come out. When it twisted its body the hind feet took the silt too. Frost pushed at its shoulder.

The far one tried to set its body up once more and folded its front knees. The water came up under its belly. It sat down. The Uppertown elder came down as far as the water and pressed the soil with his toe.

"It sat down. Lowertown loses."

"That was water."

"He didn't put a hand in and he didn't touch a colorling. Knowing the water's timing is knowing your own paddy."

The elder came up to the ditch and lifted the board the rest of the way.

"The gate is Uppertown's. That's all."

The people scattered off the bank. The elder went down toward the village. At the end of the bank stood a man with a load on his back. He came along the ditch, and his clothes were worn and a damp smell came off the pack.

Around his left wrist a white mark was wound like thread. It was a mark wound twice.

"So you won. But you — you didn't call that colorling's name once."

Dani scratched under his nails.

"What?"

"What went into the plot was a colorling and you stood on the bank. You handle it well enough without a name."

"I can't see color. So I hear a match by sound only, and today no name came up once."

The man ran his hand over his left wrist. His thumb passed over the mark twice.

"Who are you, mister?"

"Don't ask my name. I didn't ask your colorling's name either."

"You're the one who goes around cutting threads?"

"I cut. It's a thread bound because a neck was put out, so unbinding it at the neck is all there is."

The man half closed his eyes.

"Bind it and the person loses color and the colorling loses the mountain. Why they call losing both of them keeping something near, I don't know."

Dani drew his knees in.

"That's your business."

"It's my business. So yours will be my business one day too."

"I'm not cutting now. The thread is at the neck and not in your hand, so there's no hurry."

"Next time I come I'll hear the name. A thread from someone who calls is harder to cut."

The footsteps went off along the bank, and the load stayed on his back. Dani turned around. Frost sat at his feet. His knee touched a foreleg.

There was no white. The paddy water was gray and the rice was gray. The footprints across the plot and the gate where the clouded water still turned were gray too.

Dani lowered his hand.

Under the back of his hand there was fur.

In front of his eyes there was none.

It was the night the match ended.

While he checked all three water gates of the terraces the village was gray. Beyond the wall a dog barked once at some house and stopped. Push the brushwood gate and the yard comes. He pushed the brushwood gate.

Nothing came. The shoulder line of the man standing in the middle of the yard was higher than the wall. The mass set on his back bent that line once. The smell of cold ash came over from the kitchen. The round things on the jar stand under the wall were told apart by size alone.

His empty hand pulled to the side. It was not the side it always pulled.

"You go about late. The water's timing doesn't change for looking at night."

The damp smell of the pack came across the yard. Dani set one foot inside the gate and stopped.

"Your colorling has been sitting here a while."

Two colorlings sat at the man's feet. No line stood between the yard soil and their backs. Dani went two steps and bent his knees, and coarse fur came in between the lines of his palm, and the back was at his wrist. He took his hand away and moved to the side, and there the back was a span lower and a scab caught at the nape. Even close, there was no white.

"What's that one?"

"That isn't yours to ask. What you ask today is the one thread wound at a neck."

Dani stood. His empty hand pulled again, and at the end of it was a man's hand.

"Let go, mister."

"Today it's in my hand. The thread is at the neck, and the neck is here."

"That's my thread."

The man rolled back his left sleeve. The gray of the yard ran on over that wrist too.

"This is a mark wound twice. Yours is twice as well and the price is the same."

"Your color didn't come back?"

"It didn't. A cut thread goes slack. A slack thread has no other end."

Dani ran his fingertips along the thread he could not see and pressed down where it caught. Dani stepped back once.

"I'm not letting go."

"I didn't tell you to. I'm the one who cuts, not the one who coaxes."

Sweat came on his palm and the thread slipped, and he had to find the catch again.

"I don't unbind it here. I walk as far as the mountain path."

When the man turned toward the mountain path the thread pulled, and Frost rose and moved its forelegs the way it was drawn. Dani followed, holding the thread. Behind them came one more set of footsteps. Lower than the man's, and four. The kudzu smell at the roadside came and broke off.

At the head of the silvergrass the man took something out of the pack. It was a hand sickle. The handle was short and the blade curved inward.

"I unbind it here. It has to be unbound on the mountain side to go straight up."

"Not here."

When Dani drew the hand holding the thread in toward his belly, the thread went taut by that much on the man's side. The colorling that had followed the man went into the silvergrass first. That colorling's shoulder pushed at Frost's flank. Frost was driven two steps and its hind leg caught at the base of the grass.

Frost lowered its neck and held. Its forefeet dug and were dragged back. One foreleg of that colorling came up over Frost's back. When the weight went on, Frost's body went over sideways. Frost did not get up.

"Did you tell it to?"

"I never told it. Nobody handles what has no thread."

Outside the silvergrass there was a low breath. The man did not look that way.

"Cutting one thread takes a breath. It doesn't take long."

The man pulled the thread. When the sickle caught, the thread settled inside the curve of the blade.

"Take your hand off. The blade knows thread and doesn't know hands. You get cut, that's yours too."

"Frost."

The man raised his head.

"I heard it. I said a thread from someone who calls is harder to cut. I didn't say it can't be."

Dani shifted the thread into both hands.

"Frost."

Where it was pinned, a breath went in hard. The night wind laid the silvergrass down and the silt smell of the flooded paddy came up from below. Dani's breath caught at the back of his throat.

Dani did not let go of the thread. His hand went in between the blade and the thread, and under his palm the thread still pulled, and neither the man's hand nor the blade stopped where they were. The blade came onto the bone of his right hand. It was not cold, it was slick. The thread was pressed first, on the back of his hand.

Frost gave a cry and threw itself forward. While the cry went over the silvergrass, light began to rise off its body, and the ground rang. From where it had been pinned, a shoulder came up over Dani's head. The forelegs thickened and the back lengthened, and the silvergrass began to lie down outward from that place. The fur stood from the roots and went over from neck to back, and the white passed across the torn place on the nape and covered it.

When the wind pushed out from inside the silvergrass, a smell that was neither dry grass nor silt was mixed into it. Frost's white came. It deepened and spilled out past the fur as far as the head of the silvergrass.

Behind it the silvergrass came. The hop vine at the roadside came, the water of the lower paddy came, the man's worn clothes came. The man lifted his face toward the silvergrass. The bright thing that came off Frost touched his eyes. Red sat on the back of the colorling drawing away. Nothing was wound at its neck.

Frost, grown, pushed the red colorling with its shoulder and put it out past the silvergrass. When the sickle came free of the thread the man's hand opened. The handle fell to the soil and made one short sound.

The man laughed. His shoulders shook twice and stopped.

"Twenty years. So the silvergrass was this color."

The white went back in among the fur, and the thickened outline at the tips of the grass thinned again. Dani traced with his eyes from Frost's neck to his own hand. The color had come back to the silvergrass and the soil and the fallen sickle. In between there was no red strand.

"A colorling grows like that once in its life. That is called the blooming."

"The price is your red. Keep the colorling near and it still doesn't come back."

"Red?"

"Your thread is red too. Now you won't find it by eye, you'll find it by hand."

The man picked up the fallen sickle and set it on the soil beside the base of the silvergrass.

"I'm not cutting. A colorling that steps out I don't cut, I pass by."

"You said you'd cut."

"I came to decide. Put the blade to it and you know."

The man ran his hand over his left wrist. His thumb, passing over the mark, stopped there.

"Look at the water gate again in the morning. Water let in at night has places where it leaks."

He took up the load again and went down toward the village. The small sound of his steps mixed into the ditch and broke off. One gray thing rose and went down after those steps. Frost's grown body was higher than the silvergrass.

Dani put his hand on the nape. When the breath rose and fell hard, his palm went up and down by that much. Frost rose first and climbed the mountain path. Dani picked up the sickle from the soil and followed. It was before dawn.

At the lower boundary of Fogjaw a water mist lay low. Wet silvergrass wound around his ankles. The smell of dew on the grass came up from underfoot. Dani stood holding the sickle. The handle had drunk the dew all night and slipped once in his palm.

Frost stood ahead. The white floated over the mist and cut a long line under the ridge. Dani laid his left hand on the nape and parted the fur and ran his fingertips through it. Between the white fur and the scab something thin caught. It pulled taut.

He put the blade to the place to cut. Inside the curve of the blade the caught thing trembled at his fingertips. The mist came in once and drew back. Dani lowered the sickle.

He set it on the soil beside the base of the silvergrass. He took his hand away. When Frost moved toward Fogjaw, Dani climbed after it. The wet silvergrass reached his knees, then came up to his shoulders.

Where the silvergrass of the boundary ended his feet stopped, and his left hand was still at Frost's nape. Something brushed the back of his right hand. Dani opened his hand and closed it. Between his fingers something thin caught.

He looked down and there were only the lines of his palm.

It pulled taut.

It was not slack.