it. And yet there was someone: a woman. Her presence tugged at the stories Older Brother had told me, and as though I’d stepped into one of them, I could feel myself small enough to be held, lying in the arms of the woman under the tree, staring up at the uncomfortable bright light glaring down through green needles. The tree swayed, and I closed my eyes. I caught the smell of fresh pine in the mountain breeze.
The smell of home.
A thunderbolt struck my core. This wasn’t a scent that rose from Brother’s tales of our past, but I knew, deep down, that this memory belonged to me. Only me. Stunned into a deep trance, I floated through the hall and out into the courtyard. I floated over the mansion wall and landed somehow. I felt more like a spirit than a body until Woorim grabbed and shook me, her voice breaking into my trance.
“Did you see him? Did you see the ghost?”
I think I said, “You need to go home, Woorim.” Then my knees buckled and the next thing I knew, I was holding my head, locking my arms over it so that no one could intrude on my roiling thoughts.
“You saw something.” Woorim crouched before me. “Don’t worry. I am here with you. Open your eyes and look at me.”
I opened my eyes, and at first all I saw was Woorim’s face—round and kind. Then I saw a shadowy figure behind her. He wore a black robe. The lower half of his face was covered by a scarf. A bamboo hat shaded the remainder of his countenance.
“Behind,” I whispered, panic creeping into me. “Behind you.”
* * *
Woorim and I stood with our backs against the wall outside the mansion, holding hands.
“W-what do you want?” she stammered.
The stranger remained still and silent like a corpse.
“A-are you lost, sir?”
I could not see his eyes, but his head was turned toward Woorim. I heard myself wheezing, thinking of the stories about the man in the bamboo hat who had lured Lady O and Scholar Ahn to their deaths. My lungs filled with fear. No, surely not the same man. Thousands of men in our kingdom wore bamboo hats and black robes.
Taking a deep breath, I stood in front of Woorim, dread trickling into my chest and dripping into my stomach. My voice sounded braver than I felt. “You heard her. Go away. Leave us—”
His fist hammered into my chest. My head snapped back into the wall. Stars exploded in front of my eyes. Someone was whimpering. I blinked until my vision cleared and I found myself writhing on the ground, clutching my chest.
“No,” came Woorim’s quivering voice. “P-please no!”
I could not move, my limbs locked by white-hot pain; all I could see was what was before me. Woorim’s skirt flapping around her ankles, her feet resisting the forward tug. Why was he taking Woorim and not me? This question flitted by, weightless compared to the desperation balled up in my throat.
“Help,” was all I managed to say, barely a whisper. “H-help.” This was a neighborhood of many ears. Rescue could not be far.
But no one came to help, and the stranger dragged Woorim far out of my periphery. Her distant voice continued begging, “No! Oh please, no-no-no!”
Her terror willed my legs to move. I rose and steadied myself against the wall.
The stranger had grabbed Woorim’s hair, now wrenching her down the street as she half stumbled and half crawled on her knees. “No-no-no,” she kept stammering, and then she saw something at the corner of the street that I could not see, for she began shaking her head furiously. “A p-palanquin? No! Don’t put me in there! Please!”
In a desperate attempt, she pulled his wrist down and bit into it. Then she was on her feet again, running toward me. Just like when I had first seen her today, her braided hair swinging from side to side, her tiny lips calling out my name.
It all happened too quickly. One moment she was reaching out for me, the next moment I heard a whoosh noise as she went hurtling into the stone wall lining the street. There was the loudest thud, an impact so strong I thought I’d heard the cracking of her skull, the snapping of her bones. Then Woorim dropped and lay on the ground, mouth open, eyes staring at me. It came slowly, a stream of blood down from her temple, then all at once, pooling on the ground