by Nick Mamatas
“OK, Halmoni,” said Hae-Sik. “We’ll be careful. You sleep now, OK? You won’t die tonight. It’s Chuseok soon. We’ll have a good time.”
“Yeah, Halmoni. Don’t worry,” said Dal-Soon. “Maybe we’ll get some songpyeon this year. Don’t die yet.” She suddenly stood up and left the hut.
“Dal-Soon?” Hae-Sik called after her. “Little Rabbit? Where are you going?” Turning his gaze back to his grandmother, he noticed her eyes had closed, though her chest slowly rose and fell.
He stepped outside the hut and squatted down, shivering. Where had Dal-Soon gone? He should go find her, but he was so tired. He slipped back out of his squat and onto his back, his eyes rolling lazily up to the moon.
“Dal-Soon?” he called softly. He saw the rabbit in the moon, pounding rice for songpyeon . . . but it wasn’t rice. It was his family: his grandfather, his father, his mother, all being pounded. He saw his sleeping grandmother underneath the heavy wooden mallet, then his sister. He could feel the mallet behind his own eyes, reverberating in his nostrils and down his spine. I’m going crazy, he thought. I need sleep. I need strength. First, find Dal-Soon. “Rabbit?” he called, rising to his feet. “Where are you?”
Another shooting star sped across the Yodok night. Hae-sik’s eyes focused on it this time. He needed to take his mind off the events of the last twenty-four hours. It was actually quite beautiful. A streak of light remained burned into his retinas. He looked back at the moon. He could see the shape of a rabbit, but it was still tonight. An owl flew silently overhead in the direction of the rabbit warrens. Oh well, he thought, that’s someone else’s problem tonight. One less fur coat for the army won’t hurt Dal-Soon. Or Grandmother. Or me.
Suddenly, another shooting star sped across the fullness of the moon, streaking and screaming towards the camp, landing with a crash that sent rocks and dirt and debris into the Yodok air.
Oh, no, thought Hae-Sik, not the hill. Dal-Soon!
Suddenly, the camp was stirring with people. Prisoners slouched out of their huts to see what the commotion was. Guards scrambled from their quarters to defend against attack or revolt. In the aftermath of the meteor impact, only the sound of falling dust and tumbling rocks could be heard.
“A meteor struck the hill,” people began saying. Word soon passed through camp. A few older prisoners muttered about a bad sign and went back into their huts. A few others muttered about a good sign and went back into their huts. Some younger prisoners milled about the common area, looking up at the hill. Nobody moved closer to inspect.
“Burial detail to the hill!” shouted a voice through a megaphone. “Burial detail to the hill at once!”
No, Hae-Sik thought, No. No. No. Not again. Not again.
“Oh Hae-Sik! That means you, too!” the voice continued, “No excuses. Let’s go!”
Turning his back on the moon, Hae-sik obeyed the voice, marching up toward the burial hill for the second time that day.
“Dal-Soon? Where are you Little Rabbit?” Hae-Sik called as he searched for his sister. Though the sky was clear and the almost-full moon bright, he could not find her anywhere.
He slowly searched around their little village area of the camp, the rabbit warrens, the school grounds, the rabbit warrens again, the latrines, the banks of the creek, and stumbled back to the rabbit warrens one last time. He couldn’t see Dal-Soon, but he did see three or four rats at a small pile of lettuce. As quickly as his weakened legs could move, he pounced at the rats.
When he arrived back at the Oh family hut, Dal-Soon had returned. She lay beside Grandmother. Tonight, he thought, we’ll have some meat. Grandmother will be OK. We’ll have full bellies on Chuseok. When she heard Hae-Sik enter the hut, she rolled toward him, her eyes wide and glassy.
“What did you do?” she asked.
“I’ve brought some meat,” he said, holding out his arms, the skinned carcasses hanging from his fists.
Four others joined Hae-Sik in the march up burial hill. Rocks and stones still tumbled down the slope towards them from the impact site. One man pressed a hand on Hae-Sik’s shoulder, muttering, “Be strong, huh? We’ll get through it. It has to be done.” Then in the faintest of whispers: “For Dal-Soon.” Hae-Sik just continued trudging up the hill, thinking about that morning.
He had awoken to the girlish wails of one his classmates, Seo Ji-Hwan. “What happened?” he cried. “Who did this? Who could do this?”
Hae-Sik, feeling stronger than he had in months, suddenly bolted upright. Dal-Soon was beside him and quickly clamped a hand over his mouth. “Don’t get up,” she spoke softly but sternly into his ear. “Stay right here. There’s trouble.”
A lump suddenly forming deep within his throat, Hae-Sik scanned the Oh family hut. His grandmother remained in bed, facing the wall. In the corner beside the door lay a pile of skinned, bloody, carcasses, too large to be rats. In front of him sat his bowl, empty save for a small amount of soup broth, speckled with congealed flecks of waxy fat. Beside him sat Dal-Soon, her legs wrapped in blankets soaked in blood.
“What’s going on?” he asked her.
“Shhh. Stay still. There will be trouble today, Hae-Sik. Bad trouble.”
Suddenly, he could hear people gathering outside their hut.
“The blood leads here,” someone said.
“I told you I saw her at the rabbits last night. It was Oh Dal-Soon,” said Seo Ji-Hwan. “She did this.”
Now about halfway up the hill, Hae-Sik stopped his legs. More rocks continued to tumble down the slope. Something was moving up top, crawling and pushing its way out of the earth. Hae-Sik finally looked up to see his sister Dal-Soon emerge.
“Dal-Soon,” he said voicelessly. “Little Rabbit. What’s happening?”
Her skin had turned grey, but appeared almost silver in the moonlight. Her clothes had been removed for the living, and Hae-Sik could see the cuts and bruises she’d suffered from the guards that morning. Except some areas were hidden from view: patches along her belly, shoulders, and back were covered by rabbit fur, as though the skinned hides of the creatures had been stitched to her own flesh.
As she limped slowly along the crest of the hill, Hae-Sik’s eyes were drawn to her calves. The muscles were gone, but in their place he saw the skinned bodies of two rabbits, fused liked tendons into her body.
“You did this to me,” she spoke.
Suddenly, Seo Ji-Hwan, also part of the burial detail, fell to the ground. Hae-Sik noted the bloody dent in the top of his skull and a bloody fist-sized rock beside the boy’s body.
“What—What’s happening, Dal-Soon?” Hae-Sik asked.
“You have to bury Halmoni,” she said.
“What? She’s sleeping, Little Rabbit. Don’t wake her up. She’s sick, but we have some meat.”
“It’s too late, Hae-Sik. She died last night. Remember?”
“No. No, she was OK this morning. I made her some soup. Some rat soup. It will cure her.”
“No, Hae-Sik. You were too late. She was gone already. There was no rat soup.”
“I ate the rat soup. I’m strong today. Halmoni will get better, too.”
“It’s too late. She’s gone, but you must bury her. Then, we can all be together. That’s why I made you my soup. Be strong now.”
“I brought the rats for you and Halmoni, so we could get strong together. If only I’d got them sooner.”
“There were no rats, Hae-Sik. You killed the rabbits.”
“No. They were rats. They were eating the lettuce. We made rat soup. I’m stronger. Halmoni will be stronger.”
“After you bury her, she will. But there were no rats, Hae-Sik. You killed the rabbits. You killed Our Dear Leader’s rabbits. You killed my rabbits.”
“I’m sorry Dal-Soon. I’m sorry Little—I ate your rabbits? I’m sorry. If only I could have—If only we had—If only that—”
“You didn’t eat my rabbits. I couldn’t let you. I gave you my soup to give you strength. Only you can bury Halmoni. Then,
our family will be together again. You must bury Halmoni.”
“OK, Dal-Soon. OK.”
“Look at the moon, Hae-Sik.”
Hae-Sik turned his gaze towards the moon. He could see the rabbit pounding rice again.
“She’s made us some songpyeon, Hae-Sik. Eat the songpyeon and bury Halmoni,” spoke Dal-Soon, throwing handfuls of the sweet rice-cakes down the hill towards Hae-Sik.
Hae-Sik reached down, filling his hands with songpyeon and shoving them into his mouth. Chewing with all his power, he ground and broke his teeth into dozens of jagged pieces.
“Go bury Halmoni now, Hae-Sik. In the morning, you can join us all in the sky. We’ll have a real Chuseok feast!” Dal-Soon spoke. Then, she squatted down low on all fours, flexing her rabbit-calf muscles and springing into the air, a streak of light reaching across the night sky to the moon.
After watching her ascent, Hae-Sik turned downhill, moving toward the Oh family hut. Everything suddenly became clear, as though a fog had been lifted from his mind. He heard the generators chugging in the distance. He heard the fluorescent lights humming in the guards’ quarters. He even heard the beating of moth wings at their windows. He could smell a burning sulfur stench from atop the hill. He could smell cigarette smoke, the latrines, rabbit urine, and even the wild ginseng roots growing under the soil in the hills around Yodok. He was aware of the tickle of sweat in his armpits and on his legs, and he felt each single hair on his arms and head twitch and flitter in the breeze. Most of all, he could taste the honey and sesame seeds from the songpyeon.
As he walked through the other huts to his grandmother, his neighbors came out to find the source of the sweet, nutty scent that filled the air. They watched Hae-Sik, noting the rich, golden mixture dribbling out between his broken teeth and down his chin. Their stomachs churned and groaned as his tongue flashed out to catch and savor it.
“Hae-Sik,” someone asked him. “Where did you get the songpyeon? It . . . it smells wonderful! Where did you get it?”
“From the moon,” he replied, pointing to the sky. “See? It comes from Dal-Soon.”
David Charlton splits his time between Calgary and Seoul. He writes and edits textbooks for an ESL publisher. When he gets the chance for more exciting pursuits, he works on archaeological projects in Mexico and Nicaragua. “Moon Over Yodok” is his first published story. It was inspired by Kang Chol-Hwan’s real experiences in Yodok as recounted in The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag.
I’LL GNAW YOUR BONES, THE MANTICORE SAID
Cat Rambo
Even Duga the Prestidigitator, who never pays much attention to anything outside his own hands, raised an eyebrow when I announced I’d be hooking the manticore up to my wagon.
“Isn’t that dangerous?” my husband Rik said. He steepled his fingers, regarding me.
“The more we have pulling, the faster we get there,” I pointed out. “And Bupus has been getting fat and lazy as a tabby cat. No one pays to see a fat manticore.”
“More dangerous than any tabby cat,” Rik said.
I knew what he meant, but I kept a lightning rod at hand in the wagon seat in case of trouble. Bupus knew I’d scorch his greasy whiskers if he crossed me.
There is a tacit understanding between a beast trainer and her charges, whether it be great cats, cunning dragons, or apes and other man-like creatures. They know, and the trainer knows, that as long as certain lines aren’t crossed, that if certain expectations are met, everything will be fine and no one will get hurt.
That’s not to say I didn’t keep an eye on Bupus, watching for a twitch to his tail, the way one bulbous eye would go askew when anger was brewing. A beast’s a beast, after all, and not responsible for what they do when circumstances push them too far. Beasts still, no matter how they speak or smile or woo.
At any rate, Bupus felt obliged to maintain his reputation whenever another wagon or traveler was in earshot.
“Gnaw your bones,” he rumbled, rolling a vast oversized eyeball back at me. The woman he was trying to impress shrieked and dropped her chickens, which vanished in a white flutter among the blackberry vines and ferns that began where the road’s ground stone gave way to forest. A blue-headed jay screamed in alarm from a pine.
“Behave yourself,” I said.
He rumbled again, but nothing coherent, just a low, animal sound.
We were coming up on Piperville, which sits on a trade hub. Steel figured we’d pitch there for a week, get a little silver sparkling in our coffers, eat well for a few nights.
It had been a lean winter and times were hard all over—traveling up from Ponce’s Spring, we’d found slim pickings and audiences too worried about the dust storms to pay any attention to even our best: Laxmi the elephant dancing in pink spangles to “Waltzing Genevieve,” the pyramid of crocodiles that we froze and unfroze each performance via a lens-and-clockwork basilisk, the Unicorn Maiden, and, of course, my manticore.
Rik was driving a wagon full of machinery, packed and protected from the dust with layers of waxed canvas. He pulled up near me, so we were riding in tandem for a bit. No one was coming the opposite way for now. We’d hit some road traffic coming out of Ponce’s, but now it was only occasional, a twice-an-hour thing at most.
“You know what I’m looking forward to?” I called over to him.
He considered. I watched him thinking in the sunlight, my broad-shouldered and beautiful husband and just the look of him, his long scholar’s nose and silky beard, made me smile.
“Beer,” he said finally. “And clean sheets. Cleeaaaan sheets.” He drawled out the last words, smiling over at me.
“A bath,” I said.
A heartfelt groan so deep it might have come from the bottom of his soul came from him. “Oh, a bath. With towels. Thick towels.”
I was equally enraptured by the thought, so much so that I didn’t notice the wheel working loose. And Bupus, concerned with looking for people to impress, didn’t warn me. With a sideways lurch, the wagon tilted, and the wheel kept going, rolling down the roadway, neat as you please, until it passed Laxmi and she put out her trunk and snagged it.
I put on my shoes and hopped down to examine the damage. Steel heard the commotion and came back from the front of the train. He rode Beulah, the big white horse that accompanies him in the ring each time. Sometimes we laugh about how attached he is to that horse, but never where he can hear us.
The carts and caravans kept passing us. A few waved and Rik waved back. The august clowns were practicing their routine, somersaulting into the dust behind their wagon, then running to catch up with it again. Duga was practicing card tricks while his assistant drove, dividing her attention between the reins and watching him. Duga was notoriously close-mouthed about his methods; I suspected watching might be her only way to learn.
“Whaddya need?” Steel growled as he reached me.
“Looks like a linchpin fell out. Could have been a while back. Sparky’ll have a new one, I’m sure.”
His blue gaze slid skyward, sideways, anywhere to avoid meeting my eyes. “Sparky’s gone.”
It is an unfortunate fact that circuses are usually made of Family and outsiders—jossers, they call us. Steel treated Family well but was unwilling to extend that courtesy outside the circle. I’d married in, and he was forced to acknowledge me, but Sparky had been a full outsider, and Steel had made his life a misery, maintaining our cranky and antiquidated machines: the fortune teller, the tent-lifter, and Steel’s pride and joy, the spinning cups, packed now on the largest wagon and pulled by Laxmi and three oxen.
The position of circus smith had been vacant of Family for a while now, ever since Big Joy fell in love with a fire-eater and left us for the Whistling Piskie—a small, one-ring outfit that worked the coast.
So we’d lost Sparky because Steel had scrimped and shorted his wages, not to mention refusing to pay prentice fees when he wanted to take one on. More importantly, we’d lost his little traveling cart, fu
ll of tools and scrap and spare linchpins.
“So what am I going to do?” I snapped. Bupus had sat down on the road and was eying the passing caravans, more out of curiosity than hunger or desire to menace. “I’ll gnaw your bones,” he said almost conversationally, but it frightened no one in earshot. He sighed and settled his head between his paws, a green snot dribble bubbling from one kitten-sized nostril.
The Unicorn Girl pulled up her caravan. She’d been trying to repaint it the night before and there were bleary splotches of green and lavender paint smearing its sides.
“What’s going on?’ she said loudly. “Driving badly again, Tara?”
The Unicorn Girl was one of those souls with no volume control. Sitting next to her in taverns or while driving was painful. She’d bray the same stories over and over again, and was tactless and unkind. I tried to avoid her when I could.
But, oh, she pulled them in. That long, narrow, angelic face, the pearly horn emerging from her forehead, and two lush lips, peach-ripe, set like emerging sins beneath the springs of her innocent doe-like eyes.
Even now, she looked like an angel, but I knew she was just looking for gossip, something she might be able to use to buy favor or twist like a knife when necessary.
Steel looked back and forth. “Broken wagon, Lily,” he said. “You can move along.”
She dimpled, pursing her lips at him but took up her reins. The two white mares pulling her wagon were daughters of the one he rode, twins with a bad case of the wobbles but which should be good for years more, if you ignored the faint, constant trembling of their front legs. Most people didn’t notice it.
“She needs to learn to mind her tongue,” I said.
“Rik needs to come in with us,” Steel said, ignoring my comment. “He’s the smartest, he knows how to bargain. These little towns have their own customs and laws and it’s too easy to set a foot awry and land ourselves in trouble.”