over, the distraction enough for the dokkaebi to sneak under her guard. The goblin twisted her around, choking her in a headlock.
“His right side!” Jihoon repeated.
If dokkaebi and gumiho were real, then maybe his halmeoni’s other tales were real. The ones that said dokkaebi were good at wrestling but weak on the right.
The girl’s eyes lit with understanding, and her lips pursed in new determination. She leaned all her weight to the right, but the dokkaebi had heard Jihoon’s advice as well. It pulled out a strip of gold paper decorated in red symbols—a bujeok—and placed it over the girl’s heart with a meaty fist. She screeched, pain etched in the piercing sound. The talisman stuck to her like a fluttering badge.
Her legs shook and she started to lose ground. The dokkaebi’s arm tightened and her eyes widened, showing fear for the first time. At this rate, she’d lose more than ground.
Jihoon was not a brave boy. So he was already regretting his half-formed idea as he put Dubu down. He took two deep breaths, clenched his teeth, and took off in a sprint. He barreled headfirst into the dokkaebi’s right side, under the arm that held the girl. The three tumbled to the ground together.
Bodies collided. Limbs grappled madly. The girl twisted until she sat atop the dokkaebi, whose meaty fist looped around her slim neck. Its other gripped Jihoon by the hair.
“Kill the fox,” the dokkaebi kept repeating. “Kill the fox.”
Despite her predicament, the girl didn’t struggle. She wore the calm look of one who had complete control. Perhaps she’d become delusional from pain and lack of oxygen.
The girl placed her hand against the dokkaebi’s heart, her long fingers splayed across his chest.
The beast jerked. The hand holding Jihoon tightened until he felt the sharp pain of hair being ripped from his head. Jihoon let out a yelp and gritted his teeth as he tried to pry open the thick fingers holding him.
The dokkaebi’s legs flailed as if the girl were choking him instead of the other way around. Her eyes were unblinking, dark, and depthless. Sweat beaded over her pale skin.
Around her, shadows danced, like smoke caught in a vortex. The phantom tails wove through them.
The atmosphere thickened, the autumn chill replaced by sweltering heat. There were waves in the air, the kind that rose under a hot summer sun.
The dokkaebi’s fists tore at more of Jihoon’s hair. The heat and pain combined to blur his vision, as white dots danced before his eyes. He watched them coalesce into ghosts that raced through the forest. He watched them fly away and wished he could join them.
Wait for me, he tried to shout. One stopped. A girl? It glanced back at him before sprinting into the darkness.
The howls of the dokkaebi echoed through the trees. The goblin convulsed—leaves crunching and dirt flying—until its body jerked in a final death throe like a fish flopping on a deck.
The smoke dissipated. The girl’s tails faded. The air cleared.
She sat upon the dokkaebi as calm as a child perched on her favorite reading chair. Her hand was still spread over its chest. Then the beast’s body began to crack, fissures racing along its ruddy skin.
The dokkaebi imploded into scattered dust as the girl stood.
“You killed it,” Jihoon sputtered.
“I saved your life.” She stepped over the particles of dead dokkaebi until she loomed above Jihoon. “Make sure I don’t regret it. You will tell no one about what you saw tonight.”
He nodded furiously.
She frowned at the bright yellow paper still plastered to her chest and tried to rip it free. With a hiss of pain she snatched her hand away.
Jihoon stood and reached for it. But she retreated from him, her lips twisting in a snarl.
He held up his hand, palm out. “Can I help?”
She watched him carefully but didn’t move as he reached for the bujeok. The talisman came away as easy as plucking a leaf from a tree. As he wondered what magic had let him remove it when the girl, obviously much stronger than he was, could not, the bujeok dissolved in his hand.
The girl lurched forward and Jihoon barely caught her as she fell. The momentum sent them both falling to the ground.
She convulsed like a person being electrocuted. Foam spilled from her pale lips as her eyes rolled back.
Jihoon wasn’t sure what to do. He’d heard once that if someone was having a seizure, you should put something between their teeth. And while he debated his next