A deep sigh escaped his lips. The sigh of a weary traveler at the end of a long journey.
I looked over my shoulder, and it took seconds before I mustered up enough courage to lower my eyes. Inspector Han’s gaze stared out like windows opened onto a dark and empty expanse.
I fell onto my knees and dragged my fingers across the floor until I touched the tips of his. Cold and still.
The outside wind burst into the office as the physician, along with Commander Yi, rushed in. There was no more space for me now to remain. Through the blurring of my vision, I turned to look at Inspector Han one last time and I smiled—twisted and crooked, but a smile all the same.
His little sister, Jeong Jeong-yun, had been loyal to him in the end.
TWENTY-THREE
FIVE MONTHS HAD gone by.
I could still remember the way Inspector Han had said those two words to me: Tomorrow, Seol. His tone had reminded me of a near-ripe persimmon, bitter and yet slightly sweet. Had I known that he would pass away before sending me home to Inchon, perhaps I would have encouraged him to speak more during our time in Mount Yongma—about our history together. Perhaps I would have been less afraid of what he might have said. Less afraid to know him.
“The inspector’s request to send you home was granted,” Ryun had explained to me, after telling me to pack my belongings. “The days will grow dark here—men, women, and children will run to the mountains during the Catholic purge. And the inspector knew that you have sympathy for those rogues. He didn’t have the heart for you to remain, Seol.”
Winter in Inchon was freezing when it came, the scent of snow and pine carried always in the wind. The snow fell until we were knee-deep.
Then the sun melted it away and I saw sprouts of withered green grass. The spring rain drizzled, the dried plants soaking it up. The pathway outside our hut was muddy now. Sandals squished. Carts got trapped. Oxen loaded with brushwood slogged heavily by, their hooves splattering muck from rain puddles. Nothing like the sound I would have woken up to in the great capital.
Life here in the province was slower, one of labor and tranquility. The work was toilsome, for I worked in the rice paddy with Older Sister and her husband, our backs bent and aching from planting seeds. And yet I was ever surrounded by the azure water flooding the paddy, the bright sun winking in the sky.
These calm days sedated my grief. And never did my soul shudder before the sight of murder victims.
On days when there was little to do, I kept my mind occupied by practicing my writing and reading, or visiting the stream where women rolled and beat their laundry. There, I would sit with my friends on a rock and dip a finger into the chilly flow and listen to the daily gossip.
This is the life I wanted, I told myself every day. I ought to be thankful.
And yet I missed the capital, something I was ashamed to confess to Older Sister. She would have shaken her head, saying, “Not even a year ago you tried running away and ended up with that terrifying mark on your cheek. Now you wish to go back?”
I missed the capital, the center of power, where the people were organized like the land, with its high mountains and low valleys, never a dull day when the air was tense with conspiracy. There in Hanyang, I had been more than an ordinary girl. The capital made me brave and useful.
But more than anything, I missed it because it was where Inspector Han had once been, and where the others I’d come to care for dwelled. Lady Kang and her daughter. Woorim. Madam Song. Even the lying Maid Soyi. What were they up to now?
* * *
More and more these days, my mind and my limbs groaned with restlessness.
I rose early one day, earlier than even the farmers, and made my way through the silent, dawn-lit paths up to Mount Gyeyang. I collected wood for fire; a reason to venture out alone. The repetitive motion of reaching and loading the birchwood onto the wooden A-frame was a peaceful distraction.
That night, I wandered off again to collect some more wood, returning home only when it was late and my tired limbs were trembling. I arrived at the hut only to discover that Older