THE FATHER I KNEW MADE no mistakes. He calculated his every move a thousand times before making a decision. Yet the acidity in Maewol’s voice made me question him for the first time in my eighteen years of life.
I lifted my bronze hand mirror, a new one I’d purchased from a merchant at the inn, and saw a stormy cloud had descended upon my brows. It felt like everything in me was crumbling; soon I might even see cracks form across my own face.
“You mustn’t,” I whispered to my reflection. “You mustn’t doubt him. He’s your father. Your father.”
I repeated the words over and over until the doubt quieted in me, for now. Letting out a breath, I dipped a cloth into a bowl of warm water and wiped the blood that had smeared from the deep scratch on my right cheek.
When Maewol and I had limped our way back to the hut, we’d found my pony had returned home; Shaman Nokyung was securing the frightened creature in the stable. She’d caught sight of us, bloody, our clothes torn.
“Min Hwani,” she said, “I knew the trouble you would cause when you came.” Then she turned her stern eyes to my sister. “And you, Min Maewol, you come with me.”
They were now in the room across from me, the shadowy wood-floored sangbang between us. I’d left the door to my room open, allowing me to see the candlelight illuminating my sister’s paper-screened door. Shaman Nokyung’s silhouette moved as she tended to Maewol with the gentleness of a grandmother.
And I was here, alone.
I forced my gaze away. The longer I stared, the wider and emptier the space around me seemed.
I dipped the cloth back into the water, twisted it and watched blood unfurl. I’d never seen so much of my own blood. Raising the mirror again, I pressed the cloth against the deepest gash right above my left eyebrow and winced. A sharp branch must have smacked my face while Maewol and I had run and stumbled through the dark forest. Right then, I thought I saw darkness shift against the bronze reflector. I blinked and quickly set the mirror back down, afraid that if I stared too long at the space behind me, I’d see the white-painted mask materialize in the shadows, eyes closed and lips smiling.
I kept myself busy, trying not to remember. I continued to wipe my face until the wounds felt clean, no longer covered in dirt or flecks of tree bark. I then slowly lifted the skirt of my robe. My undergarment, torn, revealed skin ripped and scratched. It didn’t hurt too much, but never had I seen so much blood. There weren’t too many opportunities that would leave me with deep slices while sealed within a mansion, packed with cautious and bowing servants. Except when I upset my aunt.
I pressed the wet cloth against the long gash that ran down my knee, down the calf, stopping right above my ankle. It stung, yet the pain was a mere pinch compared to Aunt Min’s beatings. When she was upset, she would wait for Father to leave before striking my calves with a thin stick, and the humiliation of it had made the cuts all the more excruciating. She would always say, “Your father spoiled you, so it is my duty to instruct you on how to be a good woman, or else your husband will beat you instead.”
I’d never told Father of these incidents; I’d never shown him the thin scars on my legs. I couldn’t. Father had lost our mother; I didn’t want to be responsible for him losing his sister too—
The door slid open, and I quickly pulled the robe over my torn undergarment and struggled to my feet, clenching my teeth against the ache. Shaman Nokyung stepped out with a tray that carried a wet cloth and a bowl of bloody water. Maewol’s blood. I lowered my gaze, ashamed of what I’d gotten my sister into, and I waited for the shaman to walk past me. But she paused and said, “Maewol told me what happened.”
“Yes, she must have,” I whispered. “A masked man attacked us. His mask fell off, but I didn’t get the chance to look at his face…”
It had to be Convict Baek, I thought. Everyone in the village was scared of him, that was what Iseul had told me. But—
I lifted my gaze to meet Shaman Nokyung’s unwavering and angry stare.
But Iseul had also mentioned the shaman’s name, the debt she’d put the family in. Dread coiled in my chest. The villagers had no idea, did they, of how the shaman was using their grief for her own gain. They trusted her. And Maewol trusted her too.
Perhaps too much.
“Do you know,” Shaman Nokyung murmured, “the last thing Maewol said before running out was that her sister needed her? I told her not to get involved, and I was right to worry.”
“Why do you care about her so much?” I asked. “You know, ajimang, my aunt has mentioned bringing her back to the mainland.” It was a lie. Aunt Min had barely agreed to take care of even me. “To live with us.”
The shaman’s stare wavered, and she suddenly appeared fragile and disoriented. She was imagining, perhaps, life without Maewol. “You wish to know why I care so much…”
I stared, waiting.
“I once had a daughter, but when she left me, I felt a pain that would never go away. I used to set the table for two. But then there was only one.” Her lashes lowered, drawing a curtain over her eyes, over her agony, or perhaps her lies. “One day Maewol snuck into my life and has not left it since. She takes care of me in my old age; she boils jeoseulsari roots every week to make herbal medicine for my aching limbs.” She finally looked up and examined me—my eyes, my nose, my ears. “You know, you can lose family, Min Hwani. Family whom you loved more than life. But you can also find family—those who come into your life a stranger yet make you feel as though you’ve known them for all your life … Go home, Hwani-yah. Move on. Find your place and your true family. Your father is not here—I sense it. The gods have told me.”
If I could, I would have taken the bowl of blood-water she carried and thrown it in her face. But Aunt Min had taught me over the span of five years how to be a lady.
A quiet laugh escaped me. “Did you also sense the victim Hyunok’s fate? Did you know she would die in the forest?”
“I sensed something terrible would happen.”
I couldn’t believe her, this thief, this con woman.
“You are on Jeju, the island of eighteen thousand gods, and yet you do not believe in the spirit world?” the shaman said. “Have you never caught the scent of a faraway land in the wind? I always sense that there is far more to this world than what our two eyes can behold. I swear to you, beyond the folds of the earth, sea, and sky resides an invisible realm.”
“You sense that another layer to this world exists,” I retorted. “Perhaps you’re right. But that means nothing to me. Can you actually foresee which girls will go missing? Then give a list of all the girls to me now. Let me deliver the names to the magistrate to keep them safe.”
“I sense darkness over people and places,” Shaman Nokyung explained, “but I cannot determine what the darkness is made of. I had no idea Hyunok would end up murdered.”
“Yet you still put villagers in debt. They believe that you’re able to change their future—”
“Enough,” Shaman Nokyung snapped. “You can investigate all you want, but I came to you to say this: Don’t get Maewol involved. The masked man killed your father. Don’t think he will not kill you and your sister if you are not careful. And do not even consider taking Maewol back to the mainland. Her shamanic calling will rebel against that, and she will also not accept it so easily. Maewol has not yet forgiven her father.”
I stood still, disturbed by the same haunting question from earlier: What had my father done? Both Shaman Nokyung and Maewol spoke of a wrong that had occurred, which I knew nothing about.
“I don’t understand,” I whispered, and half regretted that I’d interrogated the shaman. For she knew the truth about my sister, a truth I was desperate to understand. Sliding a note of politeness into my voice, I asked, “Why does Maewol resent my father so?”
“I will tell you if you promise to convince your aunt not to take her.”
I turned her request over in my mind. There was nothing to lose in agreeing to this. After all, I’d never imagined Maewol living with Aunt Min and me. Such a life would have left her miserable, as it had left me. “I will.”
She hesitated, then glanced over her shoulder at the room where Maewol was. She must have realized Maewol could easily eavesdrop. She put down the tray. “Follow me. Let your sister rest. We have a long day tomorrow—the public kut I told you about.”
A public ritual where many of the villagers would gather—to be scammed, all at once. I didn’t say anything though, and quietly followed her into her personal quarter. Shaman Nokyung sat down and lit a candle, which illuminated the pile of coins on her low-legged table. She’d been counting them, it seemed. Money fished from starving villagers.
I’d always heard that shamans possessed great fortune, even on this harsh and lonely island. I hadn’t realized how true this was until now.
With a sweep of her hand, she slid the great heap of coins into a pouch and placed it inside the drawer of a lacquered cabinet. Inside, I caught a quick glimpse of a small object, but before I could examine it any longer, she shut and locked the drawer, hanging the key around her neck.
“Sit down,” she ordered.
I obeyed, carefully crossing my wounded legs, back straight, hands folded in my lap.
With her twig-thin fingers, she slid open another drawer and took out a pipe, silver like those belonging to nobility. She lit it, and smoke curled from her lips, the tobacco easing the lines of pain etched into her face.
“Every year your father told Maewol that he would bring your family together. Perhaps he truly did mean it, but he’d forget it as soon as he returned to the police bureau, drunk on his title. As everyone would say, he was the greatest detective in Joseon,” she muttered, her lips twisting. “Yet he forgot how to be a great father.”
“He was a great father,” I protested.
“To you,” she said pointedly. “To you, his favorite, his most obedient and filial daughter, of course he was. But to Maewol?”
“I know Father left her behind in Jeju, but that was because you told us her shamanic calling would be deadly if resisted! And after the Forest Incident, Father believed you. But he had to leave; he knew how powerless he was. An officer who serves in an idle and corrupt police bureau has no real authority to investigate. So he had to accept Commander Ki’s offer to be promoted, to try to protect us,” I said. “But he still visited Maewol as often as he could. He’s missing now because he came back for her.”
Shaman Nokyung watched me. “So … do you want to know the truth of what happened in the forest five years ago? Or will you raise a protest over everything I say?”
The outrage in me lost its steam. “I do,” I said sheepishly. “I do want to know.”
“Very well.” She took a few puffs from her pipe, as though trying to calm her nerves. Despite the steadiness of her gaze, her hands were shaking, and it took a while before she said, “The day of the incident, Maewol threw a tantrum. She didn’t want to go into the forest. She was scared and sensed something”—a frown flickered across the shaman’s brows—“something terrible would happen.
“I was once a mother too. I had a girl who always threw tantrums, like Maewol. When my daughter was a child and cried too long, I would always tell her tales about a tiger that would descend into the village to devour crying children.”
“Where is your daughter now?” I interrupted without meaning to. The urge had been too powerful. I had never seen her daughter before.
A ghost of a shadow crossed her face. “Gone. Disappeared. Back when I lived elsewhere.” She waved her hand, as though to disperse my curiosity. “As I was saying, I told my daughter stories of child-eating tigers so she would stay quiet. But … children cry. They misbehave. It is to be expected. But your father, unfortunately, did not just tell his daughter a tale. Your father was a militant man, a man of strict discipline. He punished Maewol.”
The muscles in my body had stiffened to the point of pain. “How did he punish her?”
She didn’t answer me. Instead, she said, “It would always hurt my heart, as it did your mother’s, seeing how harshly he raised you two—always expecting perfect obedience. He was unforgiving, Hwani-yah. And Maewol still remembers that incident as though it were yesterday. She is still trapped in that forest where her father abandoned her, to teach her a lesson. The forest of his wrath.”
I remember, once, finding the doors to Father’s study locked. No one was to enter—not the servants, not my aunt, and not even me. Later, when he’d come out, I’d caught a glimpse of his eyes: red, puffy, wet. And frightened. I had dared not ask why my father, who had braved hundreds of cold-blooded murderers, had been weeping alone. It had been the day he’d returned from his first trip to Jeju, to visit Maewol.
He was the greatest detective in Joseon, Shaman Nokyung’s words echoed in my ear. Yet he forgot how to be a great father.
I closed my eyes, lying on the sleeping mat of my room. Father must have known, I realized. He had known that he’d failed Maewol that day in the forest. He had tried to undo his errors, to undo his sins, but he had failed again. Now he was missing, and Maewol was still angry. And weight of it all sat heavy on my chest. I was the eldest; I should have known, I should have written more letters to Maewol. Letters that might have stitched the gap between her and Father.
I gave up on sleep and left my room, wandered down the veranda outside, breathing in the air that was cool enough to soothe the uneasiness in my chest. I stopped before my sister’s quarter. The lights were on inside her room, even though it was long past midnight.
I leaned toward the hanji door and said, “Maewol-ah?” I waited, but no one answered. “I need to talk to you. Are you asleep?”
Silence continued on the other side. Then a note slid out from between the door: No.
I stared down at the note, remembering when we were young. When Maewol would write me notes, detailing her concerns, requesting the wisdom of her older sister. Even then, we hadn’t talked much to each other outside of our letter exchanges.
“Why not?” I whispered.
Another pause, but this time I strained my ears and could hear the faint sound of paper rustling, of the calligraphy brush tapping against inkstone. Another note appeared, Maewol’s brushstrokes splotchy and smeared: What if the Mask comes? We need to stay awake and keep watch.
I chewed my thumbnail, something I’d stopped doing over the years because Aunt Min would dip my fingers into a nasty-tasting rice vinegar. But ever since I’d come to Jeju, the habit had returned with a vengeance. My nails were cracked and bleeding from the anxiety of looking for Father—and now, the sinking sensation that I should never have dragged my sister into this.
I took a retreating step. I had no right to ask her about the Forest Incident. I’d nearly gotten her killed today.
I turned, meaning to leave, when the sound of paper sliding against wood caught me off guard. I looked to see yet another note:
I overheard you and Shaman Nokyung speaking.
My hand dropped to my side, and I tried to reply, yet no word would form. I didn’t know what to say.
Maewol wrote: If I told you what happened, would you even believe me?
“I promise I will. Just this once … please let me prove to you that you can trust me.”
I’ll tell you, she wrote, if you tell me what you’ll do if you find Father dead. Will you go back to the mainland?
The weight of her question settled heavily upon me. I wanted the truth from Maewol; it was only right that I give her my own. Raw and honest, all my defenses down.
I lowered myself to the ground and stretched out my legs—carefully, to avoid touching my wounds—and stared up at the pitch-dark sky. “Yes. I’m going to get married to the man of Aunt Min’s picking and move across the kingdom to his home. I will be expected to care for his elderly parents.”
Do you love him?
“I don’t even know him.”
You never listen to Shaman Nokyung or me. Why listen to Aunt Min?
“Because I saw Father’s delight,” I whispered. His smile had stretched from ear to ear, the widest smile I’d ever seen since Mother’s passing. “A young man, whose father was a retired military official and a family friend of Aunt Min’s deceased husband, had shown interest in asking for my hand. They must have wanted to forge an alliance with Father. As for Father, he simply wanted a grandchild…”
The birth of a child is a new life for everyone, he had said, and I’ve not held a baby in my arms since Maewol was born.
“After seeing him so glad, I just couldn’t say no. Besides, it is the way of life for women to marry and bear children.”
Behind the door, I could hear Maewol furiously scribbling away. A note was shoved through the door’s side: Your life isn’t meant to be used up to fulfill another person’s dream. That’s what Mother told me. And I’m sure if Father had known your true feelings he would have said the same.
A long and heavy blanket of silence settled around me, and I sank deep into my own thoughts. I didn’t know how to be if I was not pleasing Father or my elders.
I closed my eyes for a moment, my eyelids scratchy from the sudden wave of exhaustion, but when I opened them again, my limbs were freezing and the sky had lightened into a grayish blue. Surprise shot through me. It seemed a few hours had passed. “Maewol-ah?”
She didn’t answer, but the candle was still burning. I rose to my feet, wincing against the sting of my wounded legs, and knocked on the wooden frame of her door before sliding it open, realizing it had never been locked.
Maewol was curled up on the floor, sleeping on a sheet of paper, calligraphy brush in hand. The floor creaked under my step. She woke with a start, her head jolting up, revealing cheeks covered in ink stains and cuts. Her shoulders eased at the sight of me.
“It’s cold, Maewol-ah.” I blew out the candle, then helped her onto her sleeping mat. I took the thick blanket folded in the corner of her room and spread it out over my sister. “I’ll make sure nothing happens to you. I’ll sit outside your bedchamber until the sun comes up.”
I owed this to her.
“No, you don’t need to—” But after a moment of resistance, she was so tired she gave in easily.
The floor creaked as I tiptoed over to the door. Before I could leave, Maewol whispered, “Do you think we’ll die?”
“No,” I said, and I meant it. “I won’t let us die.”
I stepped out, closed the door, and sat on the veranda. The night’s biting cold deepened until I could no longer feel my toes. But I stayed still; I stayed near. I wanted Maewol to know that no harm would come her way—not without facing me first.
Wrapping my arms around myself, I watched the sky. Hours must have passed; slowly, the darkness lifted. A bird chirped, twirling through the air, then perching on the stone gate. The rising sun painted the land in shades of purple, and a sheen of mist hovered over the golden grassland.
Then I heard the familiar sound of paper sliding out. A note fell against my feet. At once, I picked it up.
Five years ago, I sensed something wicked in the forest. I told Father we shouldn’t go in. But he wouldn’t listen. I was so afraid I tried to ride away, but he took my pony’s reins and made me follow.
I screamed at him, I think. Father got so angry with me, he told me to get off my horse. When I didn’t, he dragged me off and he said to you, “Hwani-yah, let’s go. We are leaving your sister behind for the wild animals to eat.”
I tried running after, but he yelled at me not to follow. So I stayed by the Grandmother Tree and counted to a hundred three times. When he didn’t come back, I tried looking for him, but I was crying so hard I didn’t know the direction I was going.
And then I saw a man in a mask wandering through the forest. He was holding a sword, so I ran as fast as I could and hid, and stayed in my hiding place until I heard your voice calling out my name.
After we found each other, we were making our way down the mountain when we stumbled across a young woman at the bottom of a low cliff. You went to inspect her; she was still alive, her legs broken. She told us someone was coming, she told us, “Hide.” So we did; we ran and hid behind a rock and listened to the sound of footsteps, followed by her scream. We must have passed out, either from the cold or from terror. It’s the only possible reason I could think of as to why Father found us both unconscious by dawn.
That is what happened five years ago. And for five years, Father has visited Jeju eleven times. He would go to speak with the village elder and magistrate, always trying to find out what happened that day in the forest. But he never did try to speak with me. He never even looked at me.
My back stiffened as I read her note, then reread it again, chilled by her words. I felt like I was witnessing someone else’s story—not my sister’s, not my father’s. He wasn’t like this. Maewol had to be mistaken—
A whisper tickled my left ear, an echoing memory: Go bring your sister back now.
I frowned ahead as the vision of branches moved at the back of my mind. They twisted and snapped, and I could hear the sound of heavy breathing—my breath, ragged from urging my pony to gallop faster. I could remember thinking, I can’t hear my little sister crying anymore; why is she so silent?
When I had arrived at the spot where we’d left Maewol behind, next to a large ancient tree, I remembered stopping dead in my tracks. She should have been there. She should have known we were going to come back.
But she was gone.