BY NIGHTFALL, INSPECTOR YU WOULD return. He would arrest Shaman Nokyung and take her in for an interrogation. I’d told him I was certain it was her, yet doubt now lurked in me, stirred by Maewol’s words. Father didn’t listen to me. That’s how the Forest Incident happened.
I paced the room, and no matter how deeply I breathed, the suffocating sensation wouldn’t leave. The walls were drawing close in around me. My muscles wound so tight, ready to snap apart. In three long strides, I crossed the room and flung open the latticed door.
The sun was setting. Older Sister, Maewol’s voice echoed in my ears, you’re not listening to me.
If Father were here, I knew he would have risked his life to listen to his younger daughter if need be. I ran both hands over my face, and left them there, fingers over my eyes. In the darkness, I forced all the suspicions crowding my mind to fall away, until there was only one question: What was it my sister had tried to tell me?
Convict Baek. His name rose to mind at once. Maewol was convinced it was him. The most obvious suspect of all. But Father could not have died over an answer so easy to find.
I squeezed my eyes shut and focused, returning my thoughts to Convict Baek and his riddle. What bribe is large enough that a beautiful maiden will be set aside?
Shaman Nokyung had offered her answer to it. Another beautiful maiden. The shaman had said that seven years ago her daughter had been stolen from the Seogwipo district to replace the original daughter meant to be taken as a tribute. There were two things I found odd about this. First, that the shaman’s account of her daughter’s kidnapping fit so well into Convict Baek’s riddle. And second, if this were so, then why had Baek told me this riddle at all? Did he want me to find the truth, or was he playing a game?
I needed to know. I had to speak with Convict Baek again. Dread weighed my steps as I moved across my room, snatched up my small journal, pulled my jangot over my head, and collected the jukjangdo sword. I couldn’t risk visiting Baek without some form of self-defense.
Tucking the cane-sword under my silk covering, I stepped out onto the veranda. I was about to hurry down the stone steps when the thought of Maewol grabbed me, bruisingly tight. I turned, glancing down the veranda to my sister’s room.
I didn’t blame myself for having suspected Shaman Nokyung. She was still a suspect. But I had done wrong in hiding my thoughts from Maewol, in lying to her, in always treating the investigation as my own. I wished I could bravely knock on her door now and tell her everything, but our falling-out was still too raw.
I hurried down the steps, then paused again to glance at Maewol’s room. It was nearly nightfall; I had no time to hesitate.
The black stone village lay swamped in a reddish-orange mist, the same color as the sky above. Mud squelched as I rode down the miry path until I arrived at the tree from which Maewol and I had surveyed Convict Baek’s house before. Tethering my pony to a branch, I counted the wooden logs raised on the jeongnang gate. Two: Convict Baek had left and did not intend to return for a long time. Yet there was light glowing in one of the rooms.
Right then, the door creaked open. Gahee stepped out with a basket filled with what looked like laundry. She hoisted it onto her head, clinging to it with one hand while with the other she held the sort of paddle used to pound the wet clothing.
My gaze swept over Gahee’s face, rippling with scars. I had only seen the scars before and had noticed nothing else. But today—perhaps it was the color of sunset that poured over her—I noticed the symmetry and elegance of her features.
What bribe is large enough that a beautiful maiden will be set aside?
“Another beautiful maiden,” I whispered, and then a sudden possibility sparked in my mind, so bright that I flinched. Seven years ago, the shaman’s daughter, Seohyun-Eunsuk, was kidnapped, and on the other side of Mount Halla, Convict Baek had decided to slice his daughter’s face. He had wanted to ensure that Gahee would never be beautiful again, never beautiful enough for an emissary to steal away.
Seven years ago, Gahee would have been twelve.
Most tribute girls were between the ages of eleven and eighteen.
The spark burned like a racing fire. I hurried toward her, the jangot billowing behind me, the cane-sword swaying under the grip of my arm, and when I stepped into her periphery, she cast me a cutting glance.
“What do you want.” It was not a question, but an order.
“You’re doing your laundry this late in the day?” I asked.
She paused, her stony expression wavering. “It is the only time when I can be alone.”
It took me a moment to understand what she meant. In the daytime, other women would be doing their laundry by the brook. Surely the daughter of Convict Baek would not be welcomed among them.
“If you are here to speak with my father,” Gahee said, “he is not here. I don’t know where he left to, but until he returns, I am instructed not to interact with anyone. Especially you.”
For some time, I quietly walked alongside her until we were outside the village, near the small brook. There, she unloaded her laundry and dunked the clothing into the trickling water.
“Your father was searching for Boksun.” I eased the jangot off my head and neatly hung it over my arm, the cane-sword now in my hand. “I found her. It turns out she was a kidnapping victim who managed to escape. Her captor was a man who wore a white mask.”
Gahee gripped the paddle, pounding the clothing on smooth stone. Water splashed. “I don’t want to know.”
“There is also a new magistrate in Nowon. He will preside over the retrial of cases.” He was actually a secret royal inspector, but I didn’t want to bother explaining the situation to her. “And I have spoken with villagers. Everyone suspects your father. The magistrate will, to be sure, have your father investigated, especially now that—” Cold crept up my spine. I tried again. “Especially now that my father’s corpse was found.”
Her grip on the paddle weakened. Gahee looked up at me, and in the pool of her dark eyes, I saw the scales of something dart by. Fear? Remorse? “Your father … was found?”
“He was poisoned,” I whispered. “Then stabbed to death.”
Gahee continued to stare, as though she couldn’t quite understand me. She then blinked and lowered her gaze. “Your father, even knowing whose daughter I was, treated me with so much … kindness.” Then softly, “It has been a long time since anyone showed me such kindness.”
“You spoke with him?”
“Yes. I told him … I told him…” Gahee shook her head and returned to her work.
Kindness. That was what had lured words out of Gahee, not threats. Not fear. Father must have known—when investigating, he was neither kind nor mean without reason. He had two sides of him: the interviewer who treated his suspects like they were birds with a broken wing, and an interrogator who was as ruthless as a sharpened ax.
“So, what did you tell my father?” I asked. “He is dead now, but maybe you could speak for him? Please, tell me what he knew before he died.”
Gahee squeezed the beaten garment, twisting out the water. “You said a new magistrate is in power.”
“Yes.” Or soon to be. “And I have a feeling that we’ll find answers. My father used to say that no matter how deep the lies, truth will always surface. For truth is unyielding; it will strive for the light year after year after year.”
Gahee paused, her eyes fixed blankly at the burbling water, her fingertips red from the icy brook.
“I grew up thinking that no one could stop my father,” she finally said. “No one stopped him from letting Mother die of a broken heart. No one stopped him from … from slicing my face.” She grabbed the wet garments, visibly fighting away a memory. A muscle worked in her jaw as she lay the clothing out on the grass to dry. “He held me by the throat in broad daylight. I screamed for help. The villagers … they stopped by the gate and just watched as Father ruined my face, telling me that I mustn’t stand out or I would become a tribute girl.”
My gaze traced with new horror the scars on Gahee’s face, my suspicion confirmed. Three dark lines grooved through her cheeks, and the puckered ridges extended the corners of her lips. Her father had wounded her face in the way that young women on the mainland were known to do. I’d read of cases in Father’s journal of girls who’d scratch or burn their face with ignited moxa cones, desperate to escape the tribute system. They had risked everything by ruining their faces, for the punishment of trying to escape was severe: all family assets would be taken away, and any father’s government position would be stripped.
Gahee crouched before the wet clothing laid out before her. “My father told me that if I kept my pretty face, I would be taken like Lady Moon.”
An inarticulate sound escaped my mouth, my tongue turned to stone.
“He told me her beauty was a curse,” Gahee went on. “For he had just witnessed the village elder desperately trying to bribe the emissary.” She let out a breath, a puff of cloud in the cold air, as she rose to her feet. “Then later that day, I looked out at the backyard of our home and saw the village elder speaking with my father. I don’t know what they talked about—”
Village Elder Moon couldn’t be involved in any of this. Yet my imagination unfolded in my mind, the village elder’s voice whispering, I have work for you, if you want it. He had everything Baek would have wanted, and it would be Baek’s in return for finding him a replacement girl.
“When Father returned,” Gahee continued, “he told me we were going to be very wealthy, that I would never have to go a day without food again. And the next day, Father was gone. Gone for weeks. And I heard whispers from the villagers that he’d been seen in different parts of Jeju, looking for a beautiful maiden. I think it was Seohyun he found, for when Seohyun wandered into Nowon a few months later—the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen—Father looked utterly terrified, like he’d seen a ghost. And he murmured something about how he wished he’d never assisted Village Elder Moon in the first place.”
I stood still in numb terror for what felt like an eternity, gripping on to Father’s jukjangdo, the bumps of the bamboo handle melding into my palm.
“When the trial begins, promise me something.” Gahee finally tore her gaze away from the laundry and glanced over her shoulder at me, her eyes steady and unapologetic. “Promise that my father will never come back home. If he knows what I told you and returns, I won’t survive it. And then my blood will be on your hands.”
We stared in silence. The weight of her request settled heavy over me.
“If he is the culprit, then he won’t come back.” I was trembling too hard, shocked to the bone. My grip tightened around the bamboo. “That, I can promise you.”
Gahee had just revealed two critical pieces of information: Her father was likely involved in Seohyun’s kidnapping, and Village Elder Moon might have bribed him into doing so.
I stood shivering alone by the brook, Gahee long gone. The weight of disorienting questions anchored me. Whom was I to turn to with this new intelligence? Should I run to Inspector Yu? Only this afternoon I had accused Shaman Nokyung. What would the inspector think if I approached him with a new prime suspect already?
First tell me, Father’s voice prompted, as though we were studying the case together. How does this all connect to the Forest Incident and my murder?
I prodded at the earth with the jukjangdo as my mind paced. Gahee’s testimony had sent my suspicion spinning toward her father; he had to be behind Seohyun’s kidnapping. And most likely not just that. My instincts told me that Convict Baek was responsible for far more atrocities.
Think, Father encouraged me. Pay attention to the details. Find a pattern.
As I sank into my thoughts, I crouched and lowered my hand into the dewy, lush grass, plucking out handfuls of it as I tried unpacking my suspicion, thought by thought.
If Convict Baek was involved in Seohyun’s kidnapping, could he have also been involved in her death? Perhaps Baek feared that Seohyun’s arrival in Nowon had been his fault. And perhaps he’d feared what Village Elder Moon would do if he discovered Seohyun’s identity: the replacement daughter returned to avenge her fate as a tribute girl. So maybe Baek had killed Seohyun to cover up his blunder.
That was how the Forest Incident might have occurred.
On the day of that incident, Maewol had witnessed a masked man holding a sword. If Convict Baek had indeed killed Seohyun, then perhaps he was the wearer of the white mask. A mask that had been witnessed over and over again in the cases of the missing thirteen. I had no idea why Convict Baek would have wanted to steal more girls, but the thread connecting him to the Mask, and thus to the disappearing girls, seemed too clear to ignore.
I released the plucked grass from my hand, watching strands of green fall.
The question now was: What should I do next?
I rose to my feet and clapped the shreds of grass from my palms and skirt, then picked up my overcoat and the jukjangdo. Father was gone, yet I knew what he would have said if he were here with me.
Learn everything you can. Collect every testimony, every rumor, every suspicion.
My legs moved of their own accord, at first long strides, and then a rush of steps. Gahee’s testimony had wide gaps in it; the seemingly condemning connection between Convict Baek and Seohyun was based on pure speculation. I needed something more, something as solid as the earth under my feet.
I needed Village Elder Moon’s testimony.
I barely knew where I was going, but when I blinked, I found myself staggering back into the village and down the path that would lead to Mehwadang, the residence of Village Elder Moon. He was supposed to be like my father, the one solving the case, but now I wondered if he had ever been on my side at all. I recalled the vague remarks he’d made before that brimmed with new meaning.
My daughter was nearly kidnapped once, he had told me. He’d left out that she’d nearly been kidnapped by the tribute system. Yeonhadang. I built it in the hopes that she would recover.
Had he built a second home for her to bury her deep in the wilderness, where no emissary would ever lay eyes on her again? Where she’d be so isolated that everyone would forget her beauty?
I glanced at the sky. The streak of orange light now lay low over the horizon. Inspector Yu would arrive at any moment for Shaman Nokyung, and I needed to be there to tell him what I’d learned—and of the new doubts I had. But more than anything, I needed to speak with Village Elder Moon.
My heart was pounding and my mouth dry by the time I arrived before Mehwadang. I’d heard of this estate before, a humble one made of volcanic rock and thatch, passed down from generation after generation in the Moon lineage. The jeongnang had one wooden log in it, indicating that the village elder was away but nearby.
I slid my azalea-purple jangot over me, letting the overcoat drape around my face and over the jukjangdo as I paused before the pillars. I wanted to call out for a servant to direct me to the elder, wherever he was—but I paused. A sudden flush burned my cheeks. It was evening, and here I was, an unmarried woman, come to demand an audience with a man. It seemed my aunt had left enough scars on my calves that my instinct was to recoil from impropriety. I should have brought Maewol along with me.
I waited for a while in indecision.
“How long will you linger outside?” The voice startled me around, and I found myself standing before the shadowy figure of Village Elder Moon. “If you have come to speak with me, come in.”
I held my hands together and bowed my head. “Sir, I wished to speak with you, but it is late. I’ll come again in the morning.”
He lowered his head, then glanced behind him. “Chaewon-ah.”
From the deep darkness cast by a tree, a young woman stepped out, her face hidden under a jangot of pure green silk, two red collar strips tied together at her chin. We remained frozen in this position, two young women with jangots held over their heads, like we were taking cover from the rain. And I knew she was watching me from within the shadow of her veil.
Village Elder Moon broke the stillness between us. “I brought my daughter out for a stroll; it helps her fall asleep some nights. Perhaps you would like to come in and have tea with us? We were just talking about you.”
“You … you were?” I asked.
“Come,” he insisted as he removed the wooden log from the jeongnang.
I glanced at Lady Moon Chaewon, but the shadow cast by the jangot made her expression impossible to see. Was she aware of what her father had done years ago? As I followed the two across a vast dirt yard, surrounded by three long huts, more questions iced my heart. Had Convict Baek killed Seohyun and my father, or had Village Elder Moon instructed Baek to carry out the killings?
I shook my head; I didn’t want to even entertain this possibility.
Up the stone steps we went and onto the veranda, where we took our shoes off, then down the shadowy main quarter until we arrived before a screened door. A servant appeared out of nowhere, sliding the door aside and entering first; after a shuffling moment, the dark room brightened with the lighting of a lantern. It was a spacious library, filled with floor-to-ceiling bookcases, and on each shelf were stacks of books with five-stitched spines. At the far end of the room was a low-legged table and two silk floor mats.
“My daughter and I like to spend our evenings in this library, built over generations.” Village Elder Moon paused before a shelf and picked up a book. “Chaewon reads poetry here while I go over the investigative records. I remember you asked about the report I took during the Forest Incident.” He handed me the book. “Here. You may read it yourself, if you wish.”
I accepted the book, but nearly dropped it as Chaewon slid off her jangot. Staring at me was the face of the moon itself—round and glowing. Her arrow-nipped chin and straight nose, her delicate brows and perfect red lips. She was the most exquisite young woman I’d ever laid eyes on, and now I understood why the emissary had rushed out of our yard seven years ago. He must have heard that in Nowon existed “the Pearl of Joseon,” the village elder’s daughter. Yet what I noticed the most were the deep purple shadows under her eyes. The mark of a girl haunted by ghosts.
“You are here for a reason,” he said. “Speak.”
I mentally slapped sense into myself. “What I wish to talk about…” I glanced at Lady Moon again. “It might not be fit for your daughter’s ears.”
“If it is about the investigation, then there is no need for caution. Whatever I know, she knows. She has assisted me in the administration of Nowon Village since she was young. You will not find a more intelligent and toughened girl.”
With one hand, I slid my jangot farther over my face so as to examine him more closely from its shadow. I needed to read his every expression, his every passing emotion. None could be missed. “I was made aware that…” I cleared my throat. “That you bribed an emissary to not take your daughter, and that you hired Convict Baek to find a replacement girl. Seohyun ended up taking your daughter’s place seven years ago.”
The village elder’s and his daughter’s faces remained blank. Perhaps they were shocked? They were difficult to read.
“I did what a father had to do.” His voice was so quiet it barely disturbed the silence between us. “I paid a large bribe, thinking it would appease the emissary’s greed. But he wanted more.” His brows lowered, and the remorse he felt was clear—finally, an emotion. “He had promised the emperor the most beautiful woman in Joseon, so he said. If I paid him some more, he would give me a month to find a replacement girl. And I would need to deliver her before the end of his tributary mission.”
“So … you hired Convict Baek?”
“I had heard of his ruthless ways, and that he cared for nothing—except for his daughter, whom he was always struggling to provide for. She was a scrap of a girl: all bones and often seen begging for food. He accepted my task without hesitation and returned with a name: Eunsuk of Seogwipo. That is the name I gave the emissary. I … I have regretted what I’ve done since.”
I shook my head, lost in the maelstrom of leads that seemed to go nowhere. Village Elder Moon had hired Convict Baek to scavenge Jeju for a beautiful girl, but that in itself couldn’t be a crime; it was the emissary who had taken Seohyun-Eunsuk in the end.
“Eunsuk—the tribute girl who replaced your daughter—somehow escaped Ming that same year, made her way to Nowon, and died in the forest two years later. Apparently she was murdered.” I looked down at the investigative record clutched in my hand, and on the cover a date was written in black ink: 1421. “A masked man was also seen that day, and again throughout the case of the missing thirteen—”
“Perhaps Convict Baek acted without my knowledge,” Village Elder Moon said, concern weighing his voice. “The suspicion did occur to me, now and then. I don’t know what he, or anyone, would want with thirteen girls.”
Yes, but still. I couldn’t get past a thought that newly emerged in my mind: Seohyun’s death would have benefited no one more than Village Elder Moon. If Seohyun had discovered the secret of the village elder’s bribery, she would have exposed it and he would have lost his respectability, perhaps even his position.
I nodded nevertheless, playing along. “My thoughts as well. I can’t figure out the connection.” I glanced at Lady Moon, so silent, her gaze lowered. She hadn’t uttered a word. “You must be tired, my lady.”
She smoothed her hand over the green jangot, glowing in the candlelight, and said nothing. She was like her father’s shadow, standing by him so silent and without any will of her own, it seemed.
“It is late,” I whispered. “I should go now. Inspector Yu said he would arrive at the shaman’s hut by nightfall.”
“Ah, I assisted him earlier today. He left a few moments ago, before my short stroll with Chaewon.” Village Elder Moon glanced toward the door. “Night has already fallen.”
I shot a glance to the left, at the latticed hanji window on the other side of the library. The white screen was no longer orange with the dimming skylight, but pitch black. Dread sank into my chest.
“If you wish, I will send a servant right now. I will ask Inspector Yu to come to my residence.” He glanced at his daughter, an apologetic look in his eyes. “And I will explain everything to him. I am tired of hiding this truth for so long.”
“There is more…?”
“Yes. There is more.” Village Elder Moon placed a protective hand on his daughter’s shoulder. “And you will learn of it soon too, when Inspector Yu is here.”
Something like relief blossomed in my chest. Perhaps it would explain everything. “Then I will read these records until Inspector Yu arrives.”
“As you wish.” The village elder turned to leave, then paused. “I am sorry about your father.”
The relief withered; pain jabbed me at the memory.
“I saw the condition of his remains.” He shook his head, bewilderment knotting his brows. “No corpse could be in such a condition, not with the humidity of Jeju. It has to be witchcraft. For now…” He waved his hand at the low-legged table. “Read the report. The parts where Shaman Nokyung is mentioned. She is the woman you must be most wary about.”