by Julie Lee
Overhead, the jet roared.
My brother and I looked at each other.
“Let’s run to the hill!” I said. Nearly everyone had rushed to the top. Maybe Omahni and Abahji were waiting there, hoping we had the sense to follow the crowd.
We ran across the snowy lowlands. Toward the hill. Where we’d be safe.
Our feet punched through the snow. Our breaths shuddered in and out. Our legs couldn’t pick up fast enough. But we were nearer. I could see faces. Elder Sohn with the furry hat! Girls with long braids!
“Faster, Youngsoo! Faster!” I screamed.
It was loud and close when it came—the deep rumble that rippled through the air.
I stopped, yanking hard on Youngsoo’s hand. We stood motionless as the jet swooped toward us with the focus of a hawk falling on its prey. I squinted at its star, still unsure. To the Reds we were traitors. To the Americans we were communists. There was nowhere to hide.
I looked up, mesmerized, its shadow covering us.
Time slowed as I watched the plane bank and then dive toward the crowd on top of that hill. These were the people who had walked alongside us, whose breath had warmed the air all around us.
I threw my arms up toward the sky, somehow hoping to hold that flying monster back. But it continued. And I saw something drop from its underbelly.
In an instant, a deafening blast struck me to the ground.
A white flash went off before my eyes.
Silence whooshed through my ears. I lay on my back, stunned. Youngsoo was moving his mouth, but I could hear no sound. Where was I? Why was I so tired? Had I just died?
How good it felt to rest in peace and quiet, the blue sky looking so pretty, birds gliding on the wind. I was in a bubble, floating.
I floated on my back in my cotton swimsuit, the sun warming my face. The water was shallow enough to feel the pointy leaves of water thyme along the river bottom.
I stretched my arms and closed my eyes, letting my ears dip below the surface. Now the world was muffled, the way I liked it. No little brothers nagging. No Omahni barking. No wooden paddles banging. The currents rocked and swayed me gently, as if I were in a cradle.
Splash.
Water in my face. I gulped and coughed, getting on my feet.
Jisoo had stomped into the river. He was naked.
“Go, Jisoo!” I said.
But he wouldn’t leave. He clapped and splashed. His chubby belly jiggled up and down.
“He’s just trying to play with you,” Abahji said, gathering wood for a firepit.
“That’s right. If you children can’t play nicely together, then no picnic. We all go home,” Omahni warned.
I got on my stomach in the shallow water, my eyes and nose just above the surface, like a crocodile in waiting. I watched him teeter toward me, his arms reaching closer and closer. What was he doing?
He waddled forward. Small hands gripped the sides of my face. Then, a slobbering kiss on my cheek.
Feeling strangely calm, I watched silent clouds of black smoke begin to creep across my view…until curdling screams flooded my ears. They were deep-throated wails and moans—sounds so full of mortal grief that I knew I couldn’t be dead.
I scrambled to my feet, scattering snow. Black smoke and a blazing fire raged on top of the hill, and I stumbled backward, surprised by the intense heat against my face. I could no longer see waving arms or hopeful faces, only charred lumps, thick smoke, and roaring flames. And all those people…
What if? What if?
No, I couldn’t believe it. Omahni, Abahji, and Jisoo couldn’t have been on that hill.
My stomach twisted.
Something stirred by my side. A mitten-covered hand slipped into mine. Youngsoo stood beside me, staring at the fire. I looked at his face, then looked again. Somehow, he seemed different. The tears were gone, his cheeks washed bare, his eyes sapped of all emotion.
And all at once, I felt it too.
Emptiness.
sixteen
The roaring plane disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared.
A blustery wind spiraled down from the mountains. My teeth chattered, and I clamped a hand over my mouth.
Only the cries of women and children punctured the whistling winds. Creeping out of the woods, mothers and grandmothers stood frozen on the roadside, clutching their chests as if trying to catch all the broken pieces of their hearts. Small children were rooted to the ground, calling out for Mama.
We stood by the hill, staring for what felt like hours. Then a blast struck the earth just beyond the mountain. I jolted. People began emerging from the trees—more than I had expected—trickling, then streaming out from their hiding places. They were all heading south on the dirt road once again.
I ran toward them, grabbing their arms and searching their faces. A few yanked themselves away. Others clucked in pity. And some didn’t respond to my tugging, their expressions hollowed out like a gourd.
If Omahni, Abahji, and Jisoo weren’t here, then maybe they were on that hill. A sickening feeling came surging, and I vomited on the side of the road.
A grandmother with lines raked across her forehead picked up her bundle of things and stepped toward us. “Children, you must continue walking south. You cannot stay here. The Reds are not far behind. They’ll be here soon.” She shooed us along with her arm.
I nearly slapped her hand away. I knew this halmoni was trying to only help, but I wasn’t leaving until we found our family.
“No,” Youngsoo told her, working himself up into a coughing fit. “We need to find our parents and baby brother! I know they’re here!” He clambered up a large, icy rock, gazing out at the stream of passing faces.
“Children, you have to go. No one is staying in the North. Your parents are probably traveling south too, moving along with the crowd,” the halmoni said in a softened tone. “I’m sure you’ll meet up with them again if you continue—”
She hadn’t even finished her sentence when a collective scream rolled in from behind. In the second that I glanced away and back, the old woman was already gone. I grabbed Youngsoo’s hand.
Shots fired in the air. A megaphone echoed: Comrades, return to your Fatherland! Don’t abandon your country! The South is a puppet for the imperialist Americans!
Bullets whizzed past. Bodies fell. Everyone scattered.
We had no choice. We had to go.
Youngsoo and I ran away from the place where our parents could be. Past the woods. Through a valley filled with frozen cornfields. Farther and faster. My mind wrestled every step, but my feet kept moving. The landscape changed like a slideshow—from farmland and terraced hills to mountains and evergreens. We ran until everyone was gone.
Finally, I stopped and looked around.
Youngsoo and I stood gasping for air, our backs bent. The pine trees were taller and skinnier than the ones at home. Where were we? How had we gotten here? Where had everyone else gone? The sun was setting, and I shivered uncontrollably. There was no way we’d find our parents now.
“What do we do?” Youngsoo asked, his chin jittering.
I wanted to confess that I had no idea, that I was terrified. But Youngsoo had the wide-eyed look of a cow about to be slaughtered, so I bit my lip and fought the overwhelming urge to burst into tears. I told him we should keep going south.
With no one to tell us when to stop, we walked for miles into the night.
This was no different from when I was in charge of walking Youngsoo to and from the river, I told myself. But, of course, this was different. What happened to Omahni, Abahji, and Jisoo? Were we heading in the right direction to find them? What about food and shelter?
I took a deep breath and felt the hairs inside my nose crackle and freeze. Snow soaked the bottom of my pants. If we didn’t find a place to stay for the night, we would freeze to death.
The temperature dipped dangerously low, until I could no longer feel my toes. But we continued trudging side by side as miserably as two yo
ked mules.
I noticed Youngsoo’s wet nose and glassy eyes. He was getting sick. He needed a warm bed, a change of dry clothes, and a meal.
Wouldn’t Omahni expect us to meet at home if we were lost?
I thought of everything I had hoped to do once we reached Busan—go to school, have my own books—but an explosion echoing off the mountains shattered my thoughts into a million pieces. It was getting dark, and I wasn’t sure where the bombing was—it was there, then there, then nowhere. Going back would be easier than forging ahead into unknown territory.
“Let’s go home,” I said.
Youngsoo wheezed, and his cheeks flushed. “But that halmoni said we should continue heading south. She said no one is up north anymore.”
“But maybe Omahni and Abahji headed back thinking that we would meet them there. There’s no other way for them to find us, is there? Come on, we’re not too far from home. We should go back.”
A wind blew and trickled into our coats. Youngsoo rubbed his arms for warmth, then nodded.
We turned around and headed north.
As the hours wore on, we passed small groups of people traveling in the opposite direction. “You’re going the wrong way! No one is left up north!” they called.
I ignored their warnings. Youngsoo needed to go home. If Omahni and Abahji were alive, surely they would expect to meet us there.
We continued walking, encountering fewer and fewer travelers on the road. The forest fell away, and snowy fields stretched out on either side of us. A distant blast illuminated a barn perhaps a half mile away. I shuddered, then pulled Youngsoo’s hand and trekked toward the shelter, my muscles stiff and frozen. I was struck by the stillness: there wasn’t even the rustling of leaves in the copses of trees, or the caw of a bird in the distance.
“Noona, do you know the first thing that I’ll do when we get to Busan?” Youngsoo asked through chattering teeth.
I frowned at him, wondering how he could talk nonsense at a time like this. I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to relinquish the hot breath in my body, but Youngsoo waited. Finally, I answered, “I don’t know.”
“I’ll give everybody a hot steam bun as big as my head.”
I laughed, and felt my precious warm breath hit my face. “If they made steam buns that big, I’d dig my frozen fingers and toes into it.”
“I’d sleep with it like a warm, squishy pillow.”
I played along with his little game. “Then, when you woke up in the morning, you could just eat your pillow for breakfast.”
This time, Youngsoo burst out laughing, and I smiled. I imagined cradling that gigantic steam bun and thought I felt warmth rise from the center of my body.
But when he went further, saying, “Jisoo would probably get sticky dough all over his hair,” we both fell silent.
Youngsoo believed that Omahni and Abahji were alive, that Jisoo was somewhere sucking his thumb. A few hours ago, I had too—it was why I had turned around. But now, in the dark, I was beginning to believe only what I knew: I had not seen their faces in the crowd; there was a good chance they had run to the top of that hill; and we should have found each other by now, passing on the road. I remembered that Youngsoo could sometimes be a silly little boy, and a crushing burden of responsibility pressed down on me.
I looked around. Fire burned on the horizon; on the far edge of a cornfield, dried cornstalks were ablaze. Skinny trees, creaking in the wind, dotted the snowy farmland. Abahji had thought I was brave when we had decided to escape. But my voice had shaken when I said I wanted to leave; was that still considered brave?
Strange sounds began cropping up—clicking noises, drifting snow, whistling winds. Perhaps it was just animals. But there were footsteps too; I was sure of it.
“Do you hear that?” I asked suddenly—dried leaves grinding underfoot, slow and measured.
Youngsoo stopped walking. “Hear what?”
I listened. There was only the distant rumbling like thunder.
“Hear what?” Youngsoo repeated.
“Nothing,” I said, letting out a long breath. “Let’s go.”
But then I saw it: the flutter of a coat behind a tree.
seventeen
“Omah, it’s just two little children,” a teenage girl called out, her voice flat.
She and a woman emerged from the shadows. The girl had dirt on her face, but so did her mother. Stained quilts hung over their shoulders like shawls, and they had hardly any possessions, just one small bag—although it was wartime, they seemed worse off than most. I exhaled in relief at seeing this simple family instead of armed soldiers.
“Are you two traveling alone?” the mother asked. Her hair was pulled back, exposing a grimy face as round as a pumpkin.
“Yes,” I said. “But we’re looking for our parents and baby brother. We’re heading back home to find them.”
“You’re going north? No one is up north anymore.”
The wide-open plains swirled around me. Every side looked the same. I was losing my sense of direction. “Then can you tell us which way is south?”
The mother cocked her head. “Your parents just left you?” she asked, ignoring my question.
“No, we lost them in a crowd. I’m sure they’re looking for us, too. Can you please tell us the way to Busan?”
“Do you have bags? Anything you’re carrying?”
“No,” I said. “Please. Can you tell us which way is south?”
The daughter stared, her gaze cold and unflinching. The mother sucked her teeth with her tongue.
In the quiet of this deserted place, it was all I could hear. And suddenly I knew my decision to head north had been a terrible one. There wasn’t a single person left in this valley, except for the woman, the girl, and us. I glanced at Youngsoo; he frowned.
Uneasiness crept over me, like burning paper turning black.
“You two better stick with us. It’s not safe for children to be out here alone,” the mother said, finally. She grasped my arm tightly.
The teenage girl grabbed Youngsoo’s arm. “There’s a storage barn up ahead. Let’s stop there for the night.”
“No!” I blurted, my heart kicking. “My brother and I will go on our way. We don’t want to trouble you.” I didn’t know where we would sleep if not the barn, but we needed to get away.
“It’s no trouble at all,” the mother said. She forced a smile underneath her stony eyes.
They pulled us toward the barn. When we stepped inside, it was dank and cold—somehow even colder than outside. Bales of hay towered against the far wall under a ceiling of exposed beams. There were no animals, but the smell of horse and dung gripped me.
The mother lit a kerosene lamp, casting huge shadows on the walls. Then she set her bag down, and a small chicken popped its head out.
“I can’t believe you don’t have anything on you.” She examined me up and down. “Not even a little bag of rice? Your parents didn’t have you carry anything? A girl practically grown like you? They must have spoiled you.”
I huffed in indignation.
The daughter laughed.
“Here, take some of this hay.” The mother tossed a bale at me. “Use it for bedding.”
It hit me in the stomach, and I stumbled backward. Clumsily, I began to tear out fistfuls of straw and lay them on the floor. It scratched my hands, but I hardly noticed—I was too busy pretending not to listen as the mother and daughter spoke in low tones.
“We could always sell her to soldiers,” the mother murmured. “I’m sure they could find a use for her. She looks old enough.” For a second, she stared at me. “Such a pretty girl, too.”
“She’s not that pretty,” the daughter said. “What about her brother?”
“Too little. He’s not worth much. We’ll decide everything in the morning. For now, let’s get some rest. There’s nowhere for them to go.” They spread thick hay across the floor.
Youngsoo started to speak, but I pinched his arm, and he shut his mouth.
A sob swelled in the back of my throat; I swallowed it down. Somehow, I mustered the courage to say, “I wish we’d had some of this hay to sleep on last night!” and pushed out a carefree laugh, which I worried came out as a petrified bark. A forced smile quivered on my cheeks.
The mother seemed too busy smoothing the hay to notice. But the teenage girl looked at me and grinned. In the eerie light, her impish face looked like a carved wooden mask.
Before the kerosene lamp turned off, I studied the location of the barn door—about twenty paces from where I sat. I noted the door’s latch and how it worked—slide across and lift up. I memorized the exact spots where the mother and girl lay—one on my left and one on my right.
Then everything turned black.
eighteen
November, 1950
Youngsoo lay trembling beside me. I listened, motionless, the darkness amplifying every sound. The mother smacked her lips; the girl turned from side to side. Eventually, the barn quieted, until I was left with only a loud thumping in my ears.
Was it a trick? Were the mother and girl really sleeping?
I thought of Omahni, Abahji, and Jisoo, and how I might never see them again. “Abahji,” I whispered. Tears welled in my eyes, and there in the dark with no one to see, I let them flow freely.
I watched Abahji stir in the early morning shadows. Everyone else was still asleep. He sat up to put on his shoes.
“Abahji, you’re working more every day,” I whispered, lying on my mat.
“I have to work hard to take care of all of you,” he said.
“But we hardly see you anymore.”
Abahji looked out the window. “Hmm, it snowed. First snow of the season.” He paused. “Get your coat, Sora-ya.”
I scrambled to my feet, careful not to wake the others. “What are we doing?”
“Go to the kitchen and get one of Omahni’s trays. A big one. Then meet me out front.” He walked out the door.
I scurried to the kitchen, grabbed a lacquered tray, then slipped out the side door. Soft drifts of snow covered the dirt road and the earth. It was barely light out. Nighttime foxes still padded through the woods, while early morning cranes began their delicate walk across the stubble fields.