THE FOREST WAS THE SAME as moments ago, and yet it felt different. Something had shifted in the air, in the color and smell of things. I clung tighter to Father’s note, my hands trembling. Only the desperate, the dying, would write a note written in blood.
Father was gone, truly gone. And I knew that no matter how long and how far I searched, there was nowhere I could go to hear his voice again.
“This is Father’s writing, I’m sure of it.” A burning lump formed in my throat, but I managed to speak around it. “He’s not coming back.”
Maewol stood still by the Grandmother Tree, looking even paler than before, if that was possible. And absolutely lost. “I didn’t think…” Her voice was faint, on the brink of sinking into silence. “I didn’t think he was truly dead.”
I tried to steady my hands as I folded the paper. “Did you really believe that?” I said, and my voice sounded garish; too high, ringing too loud and bright. “You thought he truly was alive.”
“I…”
Silence stretched. The only thing holding me together was my sense of duty. It was my responsibility as his elder daughter to find Father and give him a proper burial. I couldn’t cry now; there would be no end to it then.
“I thought he was hiding.” Maewol’s voice was strained. “I—I thought … maybe … I thought he’d returned to the mainland. Secretly. To investigate something else. But I didn’t think—”
“He was poisoned, Maewol-ah.”
“I told you. You can survive poisoning. He made it all the way to Boksun, so I figured it couldn’t have killed him … I had hoped it hadn’t…”
I’d felt little hope, even before this letter. Any shred of belief that Father might still be alive had crumbled, little by little, when Boksun had told us of his condition. Now I held proof from Father himself. But was this all? I looked around at the trees, leaves gleaming greenish-yellow in the sunlight. Dead leaves covered the soggy forest floor. There were likely thousands of crevices here to pocket secrets in.
At a crime scene, one must always search the periphery, Father had written in his journal, to uncover further details that will piece together to make a whole story. For no man can venture into a forest and leave it with only a single rock disturbed.
“Where are you—” Maewol broke into a fit of coughing. Coughs that rattled with shards and spits of fire.
Physician Aera, whom I’d completely forgotten about, rushed over to her side to pat her back.
Once the coughing eased, Maewol lowered herself onto the ground with the physician’s help, sweating and shaking. “Where are you going?”
I realized I had wandered a few paces deeper into the forest, drawn away by a sense of knowing: Father would have left other clues behind for us. Quickly, I returned to the Grandmother Tree, where Maewol sat against the trunk with her arms around her knees. There were dark shadows smudged beneath her skin, which appeared as thin and frail as hanji, and her eyes clung to me. Wide and vulnerable.
“Agasshi.” Physician Aera knelt next to Maewol, but her eyes were on me. “We should return to the gwanheon. That would be the right thing to do.”
“I know, but…” I hesitated a moment before crouching down to hold Maewol’s icy hand. Her fingers in my grasp felt as delicate and small as they had many years ago. As children, no matter how her whining would snap my patience in half, and no matter how my arrogance would leave a sour expression on Maewol’s face, we’d always hold hands again when traveling outside. There had been a feeling of comfort then in knowing that we were together. In knowing that we were not alone in a kingdom of disappearing daughters.
“I need to inspect our surroundings,” I told my sister, trying to hold her wavering gaze. “I need to see if any other evidence can be found. But I won’t go if you don’t want me to.”
Without answering, Maewol rested her chin on her knee, and for a while, she stayed still. She wanted to go back; I could tell. There was nothing I could do about that. I folded up my plan; I’d have to return to the forest another time.
“Evidence does not wait,” Maewol rasped. “What is here today can be gone tomorrow. Go. Please, go find what happened to Father. We need to know.”
A mixture of relief and remorse prickled through me. “I’ll be back soon. You rest here for now,” I said, and when Maewol didn’t protest, I rose to my feet and took a few steps back, my gaze still fixed on her. “I will be back. I promise.” And then I glanced at Physician Aera; she was a lowborn woman, and yet not even the difference in our status could dim the disapproval sharp in her gaze. “Please, take care of my sister. I will return before noon.”
With reluctance dragging at my heart, I left them and stalked through the crowd of branches, branches as sharp as nails that left cuts on my cheeks and seemed bent on piercing my eyes. I wanted to slow down, to move past the perilous tangle of trees and roots with care, but I felt chained to an inhuman force that tugged me forward. Whatever this feeling was—conviction? Or something otherworldly?—it seemed to know. Father was close.
I finished walking a wide circle around the Grandmother Tree and looked up at the sky. It was not yet noon; not enough time had yet passed for Maewol to begin wondering where I had gone. I had plenty of time still. I tried exploring a larger ring of land that visibly circled the tree, but I grew disoriented. With my poor sense of direction, I’d likely circle the same area a thousand times thinking I was examining the entire forest floor.
“Think,” I whispered to myself. I needed a better method by which to search the woods. A map of sorts. A way to indicate to myself the examined circle of trees. The memory of the X Father had left behind on the Grandmother Tree sparked into mind.
This time as I covered the land, I used my decorative dagger to leave small slashes on each tree, though the farther I got from the Grandmother Tree, the less sure I was that I was traveling in a circle. It didn’t matter. I just needed to cover each point; north, west, south, east. I examined every trunk, probed the forest floor for things disturbed, for any signs of Father, of which way he’d gone after leaving the note.
Finding nothing, I continued to cover the surrounding area, one ring (or whatever shape I was making in my wandering) at a time, marking off each tree. It became almost rhythmic, this motion of sweeping the ground with my eyes, then slashing the bark with my dagger. Ninety-seventh tree, ninety-eighth, ninety-ninth—
I raised my dagger to dig into the hundredth tree trunk, then froze. A breeze rustled through the flickering leaves as I stared at another sword mark, another X carved into the bark. In a flurry, I searched the crevices of the tree. There were no notes, no evidence hidden. I inspected the tree three more times as confusion whirled in my mind. This was Father’s X, it had to be. But it wasn’t a mark to indicate that he’d left something here.
My breath hitched in my throat. Perhaps it was a clue pointing me in a certain direction. Perhaps to the next X. With renewed determination, I moved through the forest, no longer trying to circle around the Grandmother Tree but around this one. This new evidence that whispered in Father’s deep and gentle voice: I was here.
Just as I had hoped—or perhaps, just as I had feared—I discovered another X carved into a trunk. Father had left a trail behind for me to find him with. I continued to find more Xs, and whenever I saw a nearby cave, I peered into a nightmare filled with the possibility of discovering Father’s body. But each time I found only an empty cavern, and relief washed through me and left my legs trembling, until I found the next X. And the fear was renewed. Would I find my dead abeoji here?
The air sharpened with a biting chill as the shadows in the forest deepened, but I didn’t feel it, so consumed by the search was I. And each time I found Father’s mark, I couldn’t stop there, my eyes instantly roving around for the next one and the next. The passing of time did not occur to me until a raindrop plopped onto the blade of my dagger, gleaming there for me to see. What time was it now? I caught sight of my reflection in the trickling stream, my countenance stained blue in the setting sunlight, the tips of my nose and ears red from the evening cold.
It was late. Later than I had hoped.
I gazed up the slope of trees that now shivered against the light rainfall, and I wondered how many more dozens of Xs were waiting to be found. I was so close to the truth my skin prickled. Even the air seemed to tingle and crack, eagerly waiting for me to find the secret hidden in the overgrowth. But already my feet were taking retreating steps; I was walking backward, farther and farther away from where the clues were directing me.
Tend to the living first, I thought. The dead later.
I picked up the hem of my skirt and ran down the gentle slope, following the marks I’d left behind. The eerie blue of the sky condemned me; I should have returned to Maewol sooner. What if my sister’s condition had worsened while I was away?
My chest tightened as I labored to breathe through the tangle of anxiety and dread. Faster, I needed to run faster. My only consolation was in knowing that Maewol, at least, wasn’t alone.
Rushing past the whipping of leaves and branches, I wiped the stream of sweat and raindrops from my brows and resisted the urge to rest. My ankles, my thighs, my lungs were on fire. Everything burned. And when I could run no longer, I forced myself to limp, to cling to trees to keep me from collapsing to the ground in exhaustion.
Not too long later, I found the familiar winding trail, and soon I caught a glimpse of the Grandmother Tree.
“Maewol-ah! Physician Aera!” I called out, delighted to have arrived at my destination without getting lost. But whatever relief I felt was short-lived. Under the covering of the tree, I saw Maewol lying alone on the ground; one pale arm peeked out from her straw cloak and lay across her chest, the other lay unfurled across the earth. Motionless.
Dread thickened into a cold surge of panic as I knelt before her and gathered her in my arms, only to see her head loll and her mouth fall open. “Maewol-ah, I’m here. I came back.” I shook her shoulders, once, twice, thrice—nothing. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe as I stared at her, everything in me frozen cold. Then Maewol’s eyes opened, the slightest bit.
“Maewol-ah,” I tried again, “I’m back. Where is the physician?”
“She…” Maewol swallowed, then winced, as though her throat were on fire, “went to … search for…” Her voice drifted away, her dark pupils rolling back as eyelids shut again.
Physician Aera must have gone to search for me, or to find herbs for Maewol. I had been gone for so long. Clutching Maewol’s trembling body against mine, I stared at the trees, begging for Aera’s return. I waited and waited, but there were no sounds of footsteps crunching across the forest floor, no sound of her crystal-clear voice calling out my name. She could be anywhere in the forest. Waiting for her was the right thing to do, surely, yet the violent shaking of Maewol’s body left me impatient.
It was raining, it was cold, and I’d seen a cave nearby.
Holding both of Maewol’s arms, I lifted her up into a sitting position against the trunk, then taking my dagger, I carved a message onto the trunk for Physician Aera. Hopefully she’d see the words: We went to find shelter. Once that was done, I hurried over to our two horses tethered nearby. The third one was gone, likely with the physician.
I hesitated. Maewol’s pony was rather wild, and the government’s horse was a stranger to me; I didn’t trust either of them not to fling Maewol off. Instead of untethering a horse, I inspected Maewol’s pony and found a saddle blanket. I held it tight against my chest to keep it dry from the light rainfall as I hurried back to the Grandmother Tree.
I untied the straw clock from Maewol, wrapped the blanket around her icy body, then lifted the cloak over her again. Turning my back to her, I carefully drew her forward so that her arms draped over my shoulders. The cave wasn’t too far, and there was one mode of transport I knew would get her to shelter safely—the method Father had often used when Maewol whined about being too tired to walk.
Looping my arms around her legs, I held my breath and used all my strength to struggle to my feet, making sure to lean forward so that my sister didn’t fall backward.
The rainfall was still light, tapping against the straw cloak, pattering against my forehead and sliding down my collar. The rain released the scent of fertile soil and decaying autumnal leaves—a scent once pleasant to me, but now I knew it would forever haunt me. The muddied wildflowers and the moist black earth sank under my steps as I followed the marks I’d left, moving at the pace of a turtle.
I wanted to walk faster, but my legs trembled under the weight, ready to give in at any moment. Please, don’t be too far away. I gazed up at the dizzying number of trees, at the land that sloped upward. The sense of impossibility began to sink into me, but before it could swallow me whole, I shook my head and tried to keep my mind occupied. I focused on the sensation of my sister’s arms over my shoulder, swaying side to side. She was alive still, her breath wheezing near my ear, and now and then she mumbled something. My entire body felt ready to crumble, but at least we were together, and I’d never cherished this more than now.
I didn’t want to lose her. I couldn’t.
We were once inseparable, Maewol and I. How had I forgotten that? My tired mind weaved in and out between the blue-gray forest and my faded old memories, weaving in and out with a thread and needle until the Maewol once my childhood companion and the Maewol hanging over my back became one. Our late-night giggle-filled conversations and our secret sharing, our magical stories spun between us and our silly games, I remembered them now. Maewol had irritated me, even then. Always quite the opposite of me. Loud, brash, and without any sense of self-preservation. She would always fling herself into danger for me.
At last, the cave came into view. Maewol’s weight bounced against my back as I tried running, rain now streaming into my eyes, blurring everything into a wash of green, gray, and shadow. At last, a cool and dry darkness greeted me, and I carefully lowered Maewol onto the ground. My arms burned with exhaustion, my legs wobbled, but instead of letting myself collapse, I adjusted the dry blanket close around my sister. Pulled off her straw cloak and shook out the rain, a sparkle of droplets in the skylight, before draping it over her again.
It wasn’t enough.
Maewol was still shuddering, yet hot to the touch now. Beads of sweat dripped down her white face, and her hair clung to her cheeks like an ink stain. And each time she breathed, there came an awful rattling sound, like there was water in her lungs. My sister was right before me, her hands in my hands, yet she was sinking into the black waves of the sea, and I didn’t know what to do. Take her back down the mountain? That would take two to three hours in the damp cold, and then what? Find a village? I hadn’t seen one on our journey here. I’d likely have to drag Maewol for a few more hours to find help while wandering.
Shiromi.
The memory of Mother prodded at me.
Shiromi berries, she’d said, they grow at the top of Mount Halla. Always there if you look closely enough.
I gazed out of the cave, at the blue trees and the blue sky. I couldn’t be too far from the summit. And perhaps on my journey there, I’d find Physician Aera.
I squeezed my sister’s hand. “Maewol-ah.” I called her name a few times before her eyes opened—just barely, revealing an unfocused gaze, the black waves gripping her so strong she only barely managed to surface. “I’m going to find shiromi berries for you. The ones Mother said help fevers and chills go away. Would that be all right? Blink your eyes once if you want me to go bring them for you. But if you want me to stay by your side, blink twice.”
Maewol slowly closed her eyes, like she was about to fall back into unconsciousness, but then her eyelids opened again. It was a blink. Her hazy gaze clung to me. She wanted my help.
The rain had eased into a fine mist, the woodlands still plunged into a deep-sea blue. As I fetched my horse, and as I rode up the sloping mountain, I fell into the pattern of calling out for Physician Aera, glancing around at the forest for signs of her, then glancing up at the sky—hoping that tonight the clouds would clear and allow the full moon to light my path. But what if it didn’t clear away? And what if the physician was lost, or even injured?
Fear rested heavy on my back as I continued on up the slope thick with trees on all sides, until the path grew too steep and rocky. Gods, how far was it to the summit? I tried calculating. From what I’d heard, it took a total of five hours or so to climb from the bottom to the peak of Mount Halla, and we’d already traveled a good way up to reach the Grandmother Tree. Perhaps I was only two or at most three hours from the peak.
Tethering my horse again, I traveled by foot, continuing to mark my path through the trees as I went. My palm and fingers felt calloused, but I gripped my dagger’s hilt tight, carving deeper and longer marks into the bark. Now and then, I even cut off strips of skirt to tie around branches, a silk marker of vivid purple and silver floral embroidery.
I couldn’t risk getting lost.
I couldn’t risk losing my way back to Maewol.
The slope grew steeper yet. My steady and slow breathing turned into short bursts. Dread pounded in my chest, curses flew from my lips, and I wondered if there was indeed a wrong path upward. Perhaps not all paths led to the summit. Soon I was almost climbing vertical over the sharp slabs of rock, and I dared not glance down. I knew what I’d see: the tops of trees and a frightening drop.
Still, I continued up the slope as the sky darkened into black, and to my relief, the moon shone bright, outlining the rocks and jutting roots of trees. And not long later, the trees were the ones that told me my destination was near, for they were twisted and stunted, sculpted by the wild winds that reigned on mountain peaks.
By the time I secured my feet on level ground, I crouched and placed a hand over my aching side. I tried to catch my breath, but before I could, it was stolen by the scenery around me, at once majestic and terrifying. The forest had thinned out. A delicate layer of snow had settled everywhere, whitening the wide plain, the scattered small rocks and shrubs. And everywhere else was simply moonlit clouds and pitch darkness. It almost felt like I’d climbed into a new world parallel to my own.
I snapped out of the daze. I needed to find the berries and hurry back.
I wrapped my arms around myself, to keep warm in the freezing cold, as I searched the ground for the berries. Those thick, juicy black berries Mother would bring down with her, some of them still attached to branches covered in needle-like green leaves. But all I saw was one berryless shrub after another. I walked higher up the summit, the slopes here gentle yet still treacherous, for the path was narrow and icy.
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
I couldn’t find a single shiromi bush—
I came to an abrupt halt at the sight of berries that glowed round against needlelike green leaves.
I’d found it.
Grabbing my dagger, with a jerk, I sliced off a long piece of my hem. I spread the fabric open on my lap, and with fingers stiff with cold, I awkwardly plucked the shiromi and dropped them into the slice of silk. They were like droplets of hope. Hope that my sister would recover, hope that I could prove to her that I would never abandon her. And I made sure to try one, to ensure that these weren’t death in the guise of life, for better I be poisoned than my sister. I was greeted by a familiar burst of flavors, and with it came no pain. No numbing sensation. “Thank the gods,” I whispered.
All the berries picked off the shrub, I tied the silk into a closed pouch and traced my steps backward, the shiromi a nice weight that swung with my every step. The journey downhill was brutal on my knees, but much easier. I had the berries, the fear was gone, and the marks on the trees and the silk ribbons tied to the branches guided me back to the cave where my sister was.
She was curled in the same position I’d left her several hours ago. The straw cloak draping her shuddered as Maewol let out a rattling cough. My eyes burned wet, my nose tingled, and an emotion I thought I’d never feel again flooded across my mind. Unadulterated joy.
Maewol was still alive, and the berries were going to keep her alive.
Quickly lowering onto my aching knees, I drew out my dagger again. It was the Joseon way, to voluntarily cut your own finger and have the patient drink your blood when it seemed that they would succumb to a grave illness. With my blood dripping, I squeezed the shiromi until black juice filled my palm, and then I watched the two create a dark stream that dribbled into Maewol’s mouth.
Now—now all I could do was wait.
The next morning came like a sigh of relief. I must have fallen asleep; when I opened my eyes and glanced at my sister, still sleeping on my lap, she looked transformed. The color had returned to her cheeks and her lips. She was still coughing, but she no longer felt like a girl drowning in a stormy sea.
“You’re better,” I whispered to myself, and Maewol opened her eyes at the sound of my voice. “Let’s head back to the nearest village. Or is Shaman Nokyung’s hut the closest—? We also need to notify the inspector of Physician Aera’s disappearance—”
“No,” Maewol’s voice croaked. She weakly sat up and rubbed her eyes.
“What do you mean, no?”
“You were talking to me all night. I don’t remember everything, but you mentioned marks Father left behind. Let’s follow them. And if it leads to nowhere by midmorning, then we’ll leave. I know the way back to Shaman Nokyung. It’s not too far.”
I shook my head, determined this time. “I regret bringing you here. I don’t want to regret my decision again. We’re heading back.” The terror of last night, when I’d almost lost Maewol, still lingered in me like a cold. “And there is Physician Aera to worry about. She’s likely lost, possibly injured—”
“The physician knows the forest well; she told me herself while we were waiting for you. She didn’t get lost; she probably returned to the Grandmother Tree soon after we’d left. She must have seen our horses still tethered there.”
“And I left her a message on the tree trunk,” I added.
“Then she must have known we were together, gone to find shelter. She would have left to find one herself. She is probably either searching for us, or—if she is smart—then she would have returned to the gwanheon to request assistance.”
“And that,” I pointed out, “is why we should return. Everyone will be worried about us.”
“How about this,” Maewol rasped. “The moment I feel even the slightest bit strange, or if you feel the slightest concern for the progression of my health, we will leave. For now, let’s venture into the forest a little bit more. A tiny little bit.” When I shook my head again, she rushed to add in a few wheezes, “I’ll stay on the horse the whole time. No walking, no getting off the saddle. I’ll stay warm in this cloak and blanket. And I’ll eat plenty of these berries you picked for me. And if the physician is indeed searching for us, we might bump into her.”
I nibbled on my lower lip, the memory of Father’s Xs returning to me, the beckoning tug of evidence that he had to be somewhere nearby.
“Don’t you want to know?” Maewol dropped her voice into a haggard whisper. “Don’t you want to find out what happened to Father before the masked man discovers what we’re up to? Before he does something to hide Father’s trail?”
I hesitated as Maewol locked her eyes on mine, her gaze determined and filled with curiosity. I was curious myself. “I won’t leave you this time,” I promised. “But first we should eat something.”
I’d packed a simple meal for us, a meal that was supposed to last us only until noon yesterday, but was still waiting for us in my traveling sack. Maewol had been too sick to eat yesterday, and I too anxious and exhausted. We nibbled on it now, a few rice balls that had dried up overnight. A pity, for rice was precious in Jeju, though clearly plentiful in Magistrate Hong’s storage.
Maewol stopped after a few bites. “It’s too coarse,” she said. “My throat is too sore to swallow it.”
“It’s not all coarse, jjinga-jjinga.” I peeled off the hardest layer on each of the rice balls, eating it as I would nooroongji—scorched rice—while Maewol ate the soft, inner clumps of rice. I savored this moment of quiet peacefulness between us, watching the way the morning light softened my little sister’s features.
Cherish this time together, a cold voice whispered, for it will come to an end soon.
“Are you finished eating?” I asked my sister, trying to beat the sorrow away. There was no point to my grief; feelings could change nothing. Whether I handed Shaman Nokyung over to Inspector Yu, or Aunt Min took me back to the mainland, I was going to lose my sister. “If you are, then let’s go.”
We set out through the golden morning mist, the trees and leaves burnished in sunlit yellow. I took Maewol to the last X I’d discovered, and the search for the next one kept my mind occupied, restraining my thoughts from drifting back to the lonely reality that I’d soon face.
It didn’t take long before we found the next X, and my lingering sadness was replaced by a question. “I wonder where Father was leading us,” I murmured.
“These marks,” Maewol said, pausing to cough. “They certainly are not leading us in the direction of Gotjawal forest. It’s going in the complete opposite direction. Southward.”
Her observation was so unexpected, I almost dropped hold of the reins. She is right.
“So Father entered the forest to find the Grandmother Tree, to leave us the note.” I spoke aloud my line of thoughts as I tried piecing threads together. “And from there, he traveled southward … Away from Gotjawal, away from where his bloodied robe was found … But how can you tell we are going southward?”
“I know this forest like I know Shaman Nokyung’s yard.”
My brows crinkled. “The bloodied robe would suggest he died in Gotjawal. That is what the police believe. But Iseul’s testimony points to Father as having visited this forest just before his disappearance. And the note we found tells us he was indeed near the Grandmother Tree…” I tilted my head to the side, unable to account for the wide stretch of land that separated the two places. “What do you know about Gotjawal?”
Maewol shrugged. “I don’t know—” Her head jerked. “Oh.”
“Oh?”
“Maybe…”
I waited. And waited. Then gently prompted her, “Maybe…?”
She shook her head. “Or maybe not.”
“What are you thinking?”
“Around the time Father was here, there were rumors of a wild animal being sighted nearby. A bear. Everyone was talking about it. Everyone was saying to never walk through Gotjawal alone … Perhaps he was never there at all.”
“What?” I said.
“Perhaps the police were searching the wrong place for his disappearance,” Maewol explained. “Someone could have easily planted his robe there, splashed it with blood, to make it look like he’d been attacked by the bear. An accident. And it worked, didn’t it? The troop of police withdrew, and your Commander Ki closed the case, just like that.”
I let her speculation sink in. It didn’t seem entirely impossible.
“Whoever was responsible for Father’s poisoning,” Maewol continued, “they could have wanted to distract the authorities. It also means this person knew Father was in the forest, and had access to his robe. Access enough to rip off a piece to plant elsewhere.”
I cast an uneasy glance at Maewol. Someone had poisoned Father, and that someone was likely Shaman Nokyung. But how could Shaman Nokyung have done all this? She was a frail old woman. But then again, poison had weakened Father, perhaps for this very purpose. To debilitate him enough that she could stalk him through the forest with a knife. To end his life and then to cut off a piece of his military robe.
“Something—or someone—was chasing him,” Maewol concluded.
And as she did, my gaze fell down a gentle slope and landed on a crooked tree, where an unmistakable X stared out at me. Next to it were slabs of rocks that formed an entrance into a cave. I leaped off my horse, landing silently on the wet leaves, then skidded down the slope toward the cave. “I’m going to check inside,” I called over my shoulder.
“And if you don’t come out,” Maewol said, dread in her voice, “I’ll know you found something.”
I walked into the shadows and kept my eyes fixed on the cavern floor, too afraid to look ahead. It had been a year since Father’s disappearance. From what I’d gathered from his journals, I knew that if I found Father’s body, I’d find him in a condition of such decomposition …
Whatever I found wouldn’t look like Father anymore.
The daylight was thinning. Soon I’d be too deep in the cave to see anything. So far I’d found nothing. Perhaps there was nothing—
I froze.
There on the ground. A braiding of yellow, blue, and green strings—a bracelet I’d made when I was a child. It was tied around a wrist—Father’s wrist.
He was lying still on the ground, like he had slept through an entire year.
Time slowed, weighing down my every step as I walked closer to him. He was supposed to be all bones. He was supposed to be unrecognizable. Was he really just asleep? Yet as I got closer, a blade sank into my chest and carved out a hole. Horror filled it. Father looked dried, a waxy substance layering his skin.
My heart heaved and tears burned my eyes. I was standing not before a slumbering Father, but a dead one.
I turned and stumbled out, running from the suffocating cavern. When I could no longer contain myself, I fell to my knees. My stomach lurched, and with each convulsion, vomit surged up my throat before spilling to the ground.
Thoughts reeled in my mind. Father was in the cave. After all these months, I’d found him. Once my stomach completely emptied itself, I felt numb and so drained of strength I collapsed to the ground, leaning against a rock.
“Abeoji,” I rasped. But calling for Father beckoned the image of the waxy stranger lying in the cave. I squeezed my eyes shut, wanting to erase what I had seen, but it wouldn’t go away. And the awful silence that had filled the cave pressed into my ears, filling my mind with its numbing tunes:
Mother, gone.
Father, gone.
Shaman, a traitor.
And once you betray her …
You will lose Maewol, too.
No one to love you.
No one to love.
There’s nothing left.
Nearby, twigs cracked under footsteps. I snapped my gaze up. Through the wetness that blurred my eyes, the colors fused until I blinked fast enough to see Maewol wandering into the cave, her eyes large with fear and curiosity. She must have seen how I’d darted out.
All thoughts of my own grief vanished.
“No.” I scrambled back onto my feet and chased after Maewol. My shoes scraped against the cavern floor as I raced toward my little sister, her straw-cloaked figure disappearing into the shadows.
“Maewol-ah,” I called, “stop! Don’t look—”
A hair-raising scream exploded from the dark. A thousand shrill blades that rang against the rock walls. Puncturing me. Ripping through my heart.
I grabbed Maewol’s wrist and swung her around, away from the corpse. Her face smacked against my chest; her scream muffled, then turned into violent sobs. Sobs that cut into me, jagged and brittle.