I shut my eyes and opened them again, and the cell door was still there, locked by a key that now jangled against an officer’s waist as he strode down the dark prison hall.
I wasn’t angry. I was calm. But I wasn’t sure what to do now.
On either side of me were cells that held strangers, and they were whispering, “Isn’t that a nurse? What is a nurse doing in prison?” Their voices were amplified in the stillness. I tried not to listen, but that was impossible.
“Maybe she poisoned someone?”
“She doesn’t look like a killer to me.”
“Killers rarely look like killers.”
I sat down and drew my knees up against my chest. A heavy question loomed over me as I listened to the beat of my uneasy heart. Will Father come?
I couldn’t say how long I’d been sitting there when Sulbi tiptoed into the prison block. I stiffly rose to my feet, a warm surge of relief at the sight of a familiar face.
“Inspector Seo is searching for you,” she whispered through the bars of my cell. “I was told to inform him that you’d left for Gaekji House. And he seemed to believe me, since that’s where nurses stay when they’re stuck in the capital.” She hesitated. “I didn’t want to lie to him, but the commander’s servant was spying on me. If you wish me to inform the inspector of your whereabouts now, I will.”
If Sulbi notified the inspector, the commander would find out. I’d caused her enough trouble.
“No,” I whispered. “I wish to be alone…”
Crossing my arms, I paced the cell, a restless undercurrent prickling through me. Then I paused, seeing that Sulbi was still waiting on me, as though she thought I had something more to say.
And I realized I did.
“You were at the Hyeminseo a year ago, I remember that,” I whispered quickly. “Did you perhaps know a student named Minji?”
“You mean the girl that escaped the massacre? I did. In fact, I’ve been assisting Inspector Seo with the search for her.”
My pulse leapt. “You have?”
“I’ve been tasked with questioning all her relatives that live here. I also have a growing list of her family and acquaintances that live outside the capital—places where Inspector Seo believes Minji could have fled to.
“Apparently Minji’s father disappeared for an entire week right after the massacre,” she went on. “Inspector Seo believes he escorted Minji to a hiding place and now her family is too terrified to reveal where she’s gone. He thinks they’re afraid that once their daughter is found, she will be locked up and tortured like Nurse Jeongsu, so he is trying to gain their trust.”
Who knew how long that could take? Nurse Jeongsu had only nine days left.
“There is something I need you to do for me.”
She nodded. “Anything.”
“Go to Nurse Oksun for me. Tell her I no longer need help searching for Nurse Jeongsu’s alibi.” I had to honor my mentor’s wish for me to stop searching for Yong-dal and his seven children. “Tell her instead to ask everyone she knows about Minji’s father, and where he went on the week of the massacre. He might not have trusted Inspector Seo enough to tell, but surely he must have let slip his travels to people he knows.”
“I’ll go to her right now,” Sulbi said, her gaze determined. “I know where she lives.”
“Thank you.”
Once she was gone, I waited in the silence, listening for the striking of the great bell marking the end of curfew. I thought surely Father would come for me soon.
As the hours stretched by, a cold dampness crept across the courtyards and tumbled into my prison cell. My toes were frozen; pain shot up my legs with each step. I paused now and then to crane my neck, to try to catch a clearer glimpse of Nurse Jeongsu far down the line of cells and wooden bars. But she remained curled up on the ground, out of sight—consumed by fever, I feared.
When the bells struck, I was still waiting, listening.
No one came for me.
The jangling of keys startled me awake. I must have fallen asleep sometime after dawn—the light outside indicated it was nearing midday. Rubbing my eyes, I blinked ahead and every limb in my body fell still.
Father stood outside my cell as a guard unlocked it. He stared down at me, his hands gathered behind his back.
I staggered up, and I could hardly breathe as I bowed my head low. I’d rehearsed lies all night long, lies to shield me from his wrath and disappointment. But at the moment, my mind remained blank with fear.
“I received an urgent message in the middle of the night,” Father’s voice droned. “When I arrived at the police bureau, the commander told me how much you have meddled. He informed me that you intruded into the police bureau last night.”
His watchful eyes seemed to say, Defend yourself now … if you dare.
“There must have been a misunderstanding,” I said in a bare whisper. “I snuck into the police bureau hoping to tend to Nurse Jeongsu. Nothing more—”
“So, you are not only a meddler, but a liar, too.”
Pulse hammering, I dropped my gaze to the floor.
“The commander informed me that you snuck into the crime scene of the Hyeminseo massacre. You thoughtlessly touched the corpses, likely tampering with the evidence. Then you again thoughtlessly interfered with the examination of a corpse near the Han River. He believes you must be sharing palace secrets, too, with Inspector Seo.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, attempting to sound sincere. “I will not meddle again—”
“What has Inspector Seo promised in return for assisting him?” Father asked. “Or are you allowing him to use you simply because you are besotted?”
My simpering pretense fell away, and I shot him a look from beneath my lashes. “No, that is not why. He is not using me. We’re friends.”
“Friends?” he scoffed. “A man and a woman cannot be friends. Friendship exists only among equals. You are a vulgar commoner. When this is over, the most he’ll offer is for you to become his concubine. A man with his family ties would never deign marry one such as you.”
I grit my teeth. “I have no intention of becoming a concubine, Lord Shin.”
He shook his head, clearly not believing me. “Whatever the case, you have humiliated me before the commander. And what is more, you have deliberately disobeyed me.” He fell terribly quiet, and in his silence, I could feel the weight of his contempt. “Did I not instruct you not to get involved?”
My petulance withered away, and now I wanted to sink into the earth. “You did,” I whispered.
He let out a breath and shook his head again. “When I learned you had become a nurse, I was proud of you. But now I see I mistook you for something you are not. You are just like every other bastard in this capital: a troublemaker and a lawbreaker.”
As his disappointment bored into me, I remained frozen, gripping the folds of my skirt until my knuckles burned.
“I cannot ignore Commander Song’s words. He is lower than me in rank, yet was so outraged by you as to say to me, ‘How can a Minister of Justice ensure that there is order within the capital when he is unable to bring proper order to his own household?’” Father reached out and tapped a finger against the wooden bar; each tap seemed to jab into me—a countdown to whatever punishment brewed in his mind. “I have sent word to the palace of your improper conduct. I have requested that you be demoted.”
My lips could hardly form the question: “Demoted?”
“Stripped of your title as a nae-uinyeo, for a nae-uinyeo is, first and foremost, a palace woman. Secrets are meant to be guarded, yet I have no doubt you have been leaking information.”
“But I—” I struggled to speak as panic trickled into my veins. Slow and steady, cold and painful. “I worked h-half my life for this position—”
“Samgang oryun,” he said, his voice brusque. “Heaven endowed each person with a specific role according to his or her position. The lord should act like a lord, a servant like a servant, a father like a father, and a son like a son. And you, a daughter like a daughter.”
Ice crept into my heart. I had entered the Hyeminseo, had studied late into the night, surviving on as little as three hours of sleep, my nose bleeding every day, all in order to become this daughter of which he spoke. A daughter he could take pride in.
“But you have broken this harmony.” The lines in his face hardened. “And now you must bear the consequence—”
“You are my father, yet never acted like a father.” My voice cracked, my words trembled, but I had spoken and I couldn’t stop. The unfairness of his words was too outrageous for me to keep silent. “So why should I act like your daughter?”
Father’s face turned ashen with silent fury. An anger I had never before witnessed, like the absence of sunlight and of human warmth, a dark void filled with only wintry cold.
“Who taught you to be so rebellious?” His voice had thinned into a chilly whisper. “So crude?” I could almost feel him counting the number of my bones he wished to crush. But I wasn’t prepared at all for the depths of his cruelty. “By the end of this full moon, you are to leave my residence. You, your brother, and your mother—let our paths never cross again.”
My eyes watered as though he’d struck my cheek. “But it is our home—”
“Nothing you have belongs to you,” he snapped with startling ferocity. “Your home is my property.” The snarl in his face lingered, then he took in a deep breath, smoothed a hand over his silk robe, and he was once again the proper Minister of Justice with his grim and composed countenance. “But if you beg for forgiveness, if you swear upon your mother’s life that you will not meddle anymore, I will reconsider your home at least. I will not take that from you.”
His words stripped the flesh off my bones. These were not things a father should say. I took a step forward and my knees buckled, but I caught myself in time. Beg, a voice in my head whispered. Mother’s voice. Please, don’t turn him against us.
Tears trickled down my cheeks. Father’s gaze darkened as I reached for the cell door and opened it further. “I’m sorry.” I struggled to speak. “But the investigation isn’t over yet.”
He seemed too stunned to follow me as I staggered down the corridor, then out of the bureau.
It was evening by the time I stopped wandering around the empty fields and found the courage to return home. The sky was purple, the land a silhouette, and in between, a crack of orange light shimmered in its dying descent. As the shadows stretched, I felt as though my world had come undone, falling back into darkness, emptiness, and nothingness.
I should tell Mother. The voice in my head hummed as I stumbled up the steps and onto the wooden terrace. I pulled open the door and drifted inside. I should tell her everything.
I made my way to Mother’s chamber, slid open the latticed door, and found it empty. I remembered that she usually put my little brother to sleep at this time. In the next shadowy room, I found them both asleep, my little brother’s head nestled in the crook of her arm.
Mother stirred awake on the mat, her blanket shifting as she rose on her elbow to glance my way. She looked so exhausted.
“What is it?” she whispered.
I should tell her.
“I had a difficult day.” I swallowed hard, wondering what Mother would say if she knew what I had done. Would she be angry? Would she say to me what Father had said? Let our paths never cross again.
“Can I—” I clenched my chattering teeth. “Can I sleep here?”
She stifled a yawn, looking too tired to be confused. “There is an extra blanket in the corner.”
I hobbled my way across and gathered the blanket, then returned to Mother and my little brother—my only family. I lowered myself onto the sleeping mat and lay frozen, staring at her back. One of my childhood dreams had been to fall asleep next to her, safely sheltered in her arms. But I’d always felt too afraid to ask, too certain that she didn’t like me very much.
And once she found out the truth, she would like me even less.
I closed my eyes, trying to stem the growing pain in my chest. Mother would never forgive me. She would leave me behind, just as she had ten years ago.
When morning came, I returned to my chamber and wanted to bury myself under the blanket, but Servant Mokgeum arrived with a freshly washed nursing uniform. She thought it was my workday, and it was, even though I feared the palace gates would not open for me.
“You look as though you’ve seen a ghost,” Mokgeum said, shaking her head. “Are you ill?”
She passed me a bronze mirror, and I stared at my reflection, the events of yesterday hanging over me like a specter. I had lost everything in a single moment. Should I have prostrated myself before Father, begged for his forgiveness, however long it took? Should I have bowed with my forehead pressed to the ground until it bled, until my knees ached and my palms were chafed raw?
Unconsciously, I rubbed away an imaginary bruise on my forehead.
“Will you change into your uniform here?” Servant Mokgeum asked. “Or in the palace?”
“I will change here,” I murmured, then paused.
A thought lurked in the far shadows of my mind. Raising the mirror again, I stared at my reflection—at my forehead—and tried to understand the uneasiness stirring in me.
“One moment, young mistress. I see a little tear in your uniform.” Servant Mokgeum rushed off to find her sewing kit.
In the emptiness of my chamber, I continued to stand still, watching as a memory slowly surfaced onto the bronze mirror. The vision of a forehead marked by mud and a fresh wound. A gasp slipped from my lips as a thought clicked into place.
The odd marks on Physician Khun the day before … they were signs of a man who had prostrated himself in the mud—the marked forehead, the dirtied hands and knees. And an emotion, a fit of desperate grief or uncontrollable rage, had driven him—or someone else—into smashing his head on the ground.
Servant Mokgeum rushed back into the room, fussing over my uniform, a blur in the background as a question roared in my mind: Who had Physician Khun been bowing to?