into Hanyang and no one came to grab me. My nerves unraveled, tremors of relief running down my legs. I was safe for now.
Once I recovered a little, I picked my way down the road and stopped before different establishments: shops that sold black hats, silver, jade, and honey; tarped stalls where produce was laid out on straw mats; butcher shops reeking with the coppery scent of blood. I didn’t want to give up on Woorim yet, so before each shopkeeper, I held up a drawing of her. I had sketched her myself last night, using an abandoned piece of charcoal and the back of my brother’s sketch. I’d drawn her wide eyes, her round face, and her most unique feature—her small, small lips.
“Have you seen this girl?” I asked.
The answers never varied. No.
I stopped by a few more shops before arriving at the brushwood gate of the inn. A crowd of men and women were gathered on the spacious platform, eating and drinking, smoking their pipes. I had asked what felt like all the shopkeepers in the capital about Woorim but had not thought to visit the inn, so focused was I on the Northern and Eastern Districts. But here at the inn, there were travelers passing in and out of the capital; surely one of them had seen Woorim!
I entered the yard and interrupted the guests to show them the sketch. “Do you recognize this girl?” I studied each person, hoping to see someone’s eyebrows shoot up with recognition, but there seemed to be no trace of Woorim in their memories.
I ran a hand over my face, frustrated and not knowing what to do. My cheeks were so numb from the cold morning of wandering that I could hardly feel the touch of my own fingers.
Madam Song approached with a tray of bottles. “You again.” She served her customers, then turned to me, and her brows twitched as though in shock. “Look at the state of you.” Her voice was so brusque I thought she would send me away at any moment, but then she said, “Come. I know what you need.”
* * *
I sat down on the veranda at the rear of the kitchen, where huge crocks of soy sauce, soybean paste, and pickles were neatly arranged, and dried leaves that had blown down from the trees sat yellow against the glossy brown pots.
Madam Song soon returned with a small table that bore a bowl of fluffy white rice and a side bowl filled with doenjang stew. As she set the table before me, I saw my reflection in the irises of her eyes: my pale face and windswept hair. This woman pitied me.
“Eat up.” She waved her hand. “You’re twig-thin.”
She wasn’t wrong. A few days ago, when I’d had the rare opportunity to bathe, I had noticed my rib cage protruding enough that I’d managed to count each rib. My appetite had vanished ever since I had found the bloody robe. But as I stirred the stew, watching the tangle of zucchini, onions, mushrooms, and shellfish, my stomach growled with a hunger so fierce that the spoon shook in my hand.
“Go on, eat,” Madam Song urged.
I dumped the rice into the stew, mixed it, then stuck the spoon into my mouth. I was too famished to savor the rich and full taste, wolfing the meal down.
“It seems they don’t feed you at the police bureau,” she remarked, and when I remained silent, too busy eating, she spoke under her breath, as though to herself. “Perhaps you know more about the rumor circulating…”
My mouth full, I managed to ask, “What rumor?”
“It is about an edict. Catholic rogues will be condemned to death as traitors.”
I froze, my appetite disappearing.
“Have you heard of it? No? The police officers who stopped by here for drinks were sharing tricks on how to catch Catholics.”
I set my spoon down. “Tricks?”
“I heard that when Catholics are frightened, they make this strange gesture—touching their forehead, their chest, then each side of their shoulders. They also spend much time chanting on their knees, so the fabric in that area might sometimes be dirtier or more wrinkled than the rest.”
A frown crinkled my brows. Was it a coincidence that Woorim had disappeared the same week this rumor had spread?
“A sea of blood will flow if this rumor is true. It will be an especially difficult time for members of the Southerner Faction…” Her voice trailed off, and a faraway look of concern fogged her gaze. Perhaps