The Silence of Bones

by June Hur

  I watched him leave the alley with long and hurried strides, as though he could not contain his eagerness to bring Inspector Han down. He ran and disappeared.

  All my strength drained from me. I dropped to the ground and held my head, stared at the dirt pathway, at the letter I’d let fall onto the ground. Waiting for a thunder of emotions, of anger and grief, remorse and dread. Anything. But all I felt was a numbing cloud of fog filling me, and in the haze I saw a girl clinging to her brother’s back, so that she wouldn’t wash away down the slope with the mud. T-t-t-t-t-t, she’d imitated the sound of rain tapping her brother’s straw cloak, t-t-t-t-t-t.

  An immense weight sat on my chest, and I felt as though I’d suffocate. I thought I’d never change. Not me. But just as my brother had changed, from a delicate flower to a lone mountain—I too had become different.

  I had become a traitor.

  SEVENTEEN

  INSPECTOR HAN’S LETTER TO THE DEAD

  I was once told, Little Sister, that when the flower blossoms, the wind intervenes. When the moon is at its fullest, the clouds intervene. When do the affairs under heaven ever comply with human wishes? It is true. My life rarely goes as planned. But today I observed a change in the wind. Perhaps the cloud shrouding my path will roll away.

  In the five years that have passed since Priest Zhou Wenmo illegally entered Joseon, I have never seen the priest’s face before. I would more easily find a mouse in a reed field, for at least when it moves, the reeds twitch along with it. But when the priest moves, the Catholics around him remain silent and still.

  But I have a new suspicion, and if it is correct, then the man in hiding is the one I have searched for all these years. I will find him, and not even Commander Yi can block my way, which he intends to do. It is better this way, that the priest should die early rather than live long and cause more trouble.

  You must think this harsh, Little Sister, but it is because you were too young for me to tell you about Father. He was a traitor who was executed after months of beatings, interrogated for smuggling in and spreading copies of Catholic books, given to him by the priest. I could have prevented this, since I was the first to discover his heretical ways, but I kept quiet. Afraid. That is how our family was banished to Heuksan, the island of black mountains, covered with vines and thornbushes that left you cut and bruised.

  Every so often, you would ask me if our exile was over yet. “Now can we go home?”

  “No, little sister. We still have many more moons to count.”

  You were also too young to remember our home, and so home became to you the place I spoke so often about, a mansion with five quarters, all connected by courtyards. A tranquil garden and an old pine tree bent into the shape of a river. A place of togetherness. It must have become real in your mind.

  The end of our banishment was when we traveled across the sea to build a new home for the three of us, but my fight with Older Sister resulted in us parting ways. As I walked away from the old life, I looked back to see you crying, your sister holding your hand. She would not let me take you. So you followed your sister, who chose the path of servitude, desperate as she was to escape our past. She preferred the life of anonymity to one of shame.

  As for me, I chose the path that led to Commander Yi. He would later tell me of how he’d looked forward to my letters, and how, upon learning of my release from Heuksan, he had journeyed for three nights without sleep to meet me. Not only did he return me to the capital, but he urged our reluctant uncle on my mother’s side to adopt me into his household, and since then, I’ve tried not to be a burden to him. I dared not ask my uncle for help. I dared not let him know that I was searching for you.

  It took five years. I followed your trail from a slave market all the way north to Gyeongsang Province, and there I found you in a grassy hill. “It is a mass burial site, this place,” an elder said. “The entire Nam household was wiped out by a plague long ago.” No one survived, neither your sister nor you, Jeong-yun. Their servant girl.

  Knowing that you are gone leaves me restless, and this life I wander seems to be stuck in perpetual dusk; neither the sun nor the moon are bright anymore. Yet it consoles me to write to you. You were my sister for too short a time. So read these pages in the afterworld, and when we greet each other again, remember to call me “Older Brother.”

  EIGHTEEN

  I ARRIVED AT Lady Kang’s gate, my eyes swollen from tears, hand pressed against my side to hold down the cramping pain. The last time I stood here, I’d had no idea betrayal would cost me a slice of my heart. One day—one single day of the sun rising and falling—had taken more from me than the past few years.

  Knuckles white, I pounded on the door. This time I would push past the gatekeeper and force myself into the compound if I had to. But I heard only silence, and it persisted.

  “Let me speak with the mistress, please!” I called out, desperation bursting in my voice. The silence went on for too long, leaving me drenched in sweat as I clenched and unclenched my hands, not knowing what to do. I couldn’t risk remaining out in public much longer.

  “Haven’t you heard?”

  I whirled around at the voice and saw a thick-lipped woman with a reddish face. A small infant was strapped to her back with a wraparound blanket. “H-heard what?” I asked.

  “No one opens the gates these days. A rumor has made the workers afraid, so most have fled.”

  “What rumor?” My voice cracked.

  “Soon, all Catholics will be treated as traitors, and you know what that means. The entire household and servants will be punished—”

  Wood creaked, the door opening.

  I darted a glance back to see a young lady around my age, peering out from behind the gate. Her silk jacket was crane white, while her shimmering skirt was pink, and decorating the hem was a colorful floral design. She was, from her appearance alone, a high-class lady.

  “You must be Seol.” Her eyes lifted from the branding on my cheek. “Quick. Come in.”

  I left behind the reddish-faced woman and followed the stranger inside. The emptiness of the courtyard pressed in around me. The pavilions were swamped in shadows and silence. Only two servants passed us by, unlike my previous visit, when I had seen lines of servants flowing in and out and around Lady Kang’s mansion.

  “Are you here to speak with my eomeoni?” the young lady asked.

  I tried to hide my swollen eyes. “Eomeoni?”

  “I am her daughter. Hong Sunhŭi.”

  It took me a moment to remember that Lady Kang was a divorced woman, so Hong was likely the surname of the girl’s father. Hong Sunhŭi certainly did not look like her mother, with her broad forehead and pointed chin, and her ears that stuck out. Not at all similar to Lady Kang’s long and angular face.

  “A pleasure to meet you, agasshi,” I whispered.

  “This way.”

  We stepped through the inner gate into a separate quarter. It was the women’s quarter; the space that was closed off to the world by a gate, bolted at night. I had snuck into this courtyard on my first visit and had witnessed Woorim secretly peering in at a mysterious male guest in the middle pavilion, which Sunhŭi and I now approached.

  “My mother is inside,” Sunhŭi said.

  Taking off my sandals, I followed Sunhŭi into the chamber of hanji screens. There was no one else present but Lady Kang, who lounged on a silk mat, a book open before her. She set it aside upon seeing me, then unfolded both hands, palms out. “Come closer.”

  Lowering my head, I crawled into her shadow.

  “What brings you here, child?” she asked.

  “Woorim,” I whispered. “I have come because of her, mistress.”

  A shadow passed over her face. “She might have gone to visit home, as she sometimes does.”

  “But she would have told us, eomeoni,” Sunhŭi interjected.

  “She was kidnapped,” my voice rasped.

  “Kidnapped?” A note of disbelief rang in Lady Kang’s voice. �
�How did you learn of this?”

  “I … I saw it happen myself. And I think…” I wrung my hands. “I think she was taken by the same man who killed Lady O and Scholar Ahn.”

  As the two ladies blanched, I was drawn to a question I’d had no space in my heart to ponder before. I had spent most of the day crouched in the alley, reading Inspector Han’s letter over and over, sobbing until my uniform was wet with my tears. But now I wondered … What was the killer’s incentive for taking Woorim?

  Lady Kang’s voice was deadly calm as she asked, “How did this happen?”

  “I wished to see Inspector Han’s former residence, the haunted mansion,” I replied, my ears burning with shame. “Woorim offered to accompany me.”

  “What time did she disappear?”

  “Yesterday morning. I’ve searched for her everywhere,” I added, as though this would absolve me of my guilt.

  “You ought to have come to me right away,” Lady Kang snapped. “I was wondering all day where she had gone. I could have helped you.”

  I remained still with my head lowered and fingers intertwined, accepting her scorn. It was all my fault, indeed; I deserved this. But then something stirred beneath my silence. First a molten bubbling, then an erupting sense of unfairness. I looked up at Lady Kang, remembering the red scratch I’d left on the inspector’s face. “I could not come right away, mistress. How could I?” I asked, my voice trembling. “I visited your residence only to be caught and dragged away by the police. I came again only to be told you were away. I tried!”

  “Hmm…” was her only response, deep and solemn, absorbing my words. At length, she asked, “Why did the police take you?”

  “Inspector Han—” The memory of his gentle letter rose up, burning at the hilt of my throat. I swallowed hard, yet my voice still trembled. “He is behind it all. He sent the man to steal Woorim, so I went up to Inspector Han and I demanded that he return Woorim.”

  All fell still, as though time itself had stopped.

  At length, Sunhŭi whispered, “You confronted a military official.”

  Lady Kang’s frown remained. “What do you mean, the inspector has taken Woorim?”

  I felt that I must tell Lady Kang everything, and so I told her all I knew about the night of Lady O’s murder.

  “Lady O had knowledge of the priest’s whereabouts. Scholar Ahn did, too.” My voice was weak, my soul too drained. “So the inspector targeted them. He had motive.”

  “How do you know she had knowledge of this?” Lady Kang asked.

  “The police officers found out that the victim had been baptized by the priest himself,” I explained, and I was about to add that the police also knew Lady Kang had converted Lady O herself when it clicked.

  My lips parted and shock set in. The priest had baptized Lady O, so someone must have introduced him to her, someone with authority in the Catholic community and with enough power to protect the priest. Lady Kang. It had to be her. Leader of the Heretical Virgin Troupe, and furthermore, an aristocratic lady immune to police attention. Woorim had disappeared because, as a servant living in Lady O’s household, she must have possessed valuable information about the person hidden there.

  “You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.” Lady Kang watched me steadily, and I felt that she’d witnessed her secret unfold before my eyes. There was a strained caution to her voice as she said, “Seol, remain here with my daughter, and do not leave the premises. It is safer for you within.”

  Sunhŭi rose with her mother. “Where are you going, eomeoni?”

  “We cannot lose Woorim,” she whispered.

  * * *

  Alone in the middle pavilion, I looked again at the crack in the screen, the hole through which I had once seen the middle-aged gentleman. I remembered his dark hair, tied back, revealing a broad face covered with small scars. It felt bizarre, knowing that in my memory was the face of Priest Zhou Wenmo, the man the entire kingdom was hunting for. As was the killer.

  This could mean my death sentence.

  I shifted and sat in the spot where I had last seen the priest. Cross-legged, I looked around, wondering if I could find a trace of him. A strand of hair. A shred of fabric. But all I saw was an empty cleanliness, as though Lady Kang had ordered the entire quarter to be swept and scrubbed. The priest must have been sent away to hide elsewhere, perhaps when the rumor of the anti-Catholic edict had first circulated. Where was his new hiding place?

  Maybe Woorim knew the answer.

  * * *

  “You can sleep here tonight,” Sunhŭi said. “For however long you need.”

  We arrived before a humble pavilion where four screen doors lined the veranda, its tiled roof held up by beams of timbers. A fishy scent drifted around, rising from the squid left to dry on pegs hammered to the wall outside. A bamboo broom lay abandoned, resting against the stone steps. A typical quarter in which servants slept, but there were no servants occupying the space, only shadows cast by the darkened sky.

  Following Sunhŭi, I stepped into a room. There were two mats and a stack of folded blankets. Setting the paper lamp down, Sunhŭi gestured around. “Whatever you need from outside, do tell me, and I will find a way to retrieve it for you. It will be wise of you to stay hidden.” Her eyes then landed on my cheek. “All the police officers will recognize your scar too easily.”

  “Your mother once said I could burn it off,” I remarked. “I don’t intend to ever return to the police bureau.”

  “For now, should you feel compelled to go beyond the mansion walls, it will be better to conceal it. I have the perfect idea for you!”

  Sunhŭi left the room, returning with a tray of little porcelain pots. “First you must clean your face.” Like a sister, she helped me wash the grime off, even cleaning the corners of my eyes, crusted with dried tears. She ground peach-toned powder into a thick consistency, then painted several layers over my cheek.

  “There,” she said, gesturing at the little mirror propped up before me. “This will do.”

  In the mirror, next to the flickering lantern, was the face of a girl unmarked, unscarred, free. But something had changed. She did not look like the Seol I knew from Inchon Prefecture; her eyes had seen too much. Death had blown out the lights, the shimmer of childhood. I had grown out of myself and into a stranger, just like my brother.

  “I don’t like change,” I whispered. “I despise it.”

  “Hmm?”

  “I do not like change,” I repeated, forgetting momentarily our difference in status. Perhaps it was the way she was looking at me, so open and accepting, or the fact that she was touching me, adding more layers of paint onto my branding. “Change in people, in circumstances, in anything.”

  She smiled. “We must learn to embrace the new seasons in our lives. There is a season to gain, a season to lose; a season for peace, a season for war; a season to laugh, a season to mourn, and to betray. As for me, I long for change,” she added in a whisper. “I will soon be sent to a better place—my real home.”

  “Home.” I thought of the home once glowing in my mind, an echo from a dream, now a gaunt shell. “Where is that?”

  Our conversation halted when footsteps crunched over the dirt yard. Sunhŭi leapt to her feet and peeked out of the door. Her eyes gleamed in the moonlight as she looked over her shoulder at me. “Eomeoni has returned.”

  * * *

  I joined Sunhŭi outside the servants’ quarter and saw Lady Kang standing in the courtyard, her back to us. The moon illuminated the silk dress that flowed down from her waist, glowing like the underside of a seashell, and the long pin that secured her braided coil twinkled. She stared up at the three-horned peaks of Mount Samgak, a jagged silhouette protruding into the sky.

  “‘Gosan,’ they called the traitor’s son,” she said. “I sensed it from the start that his ending would not be good. He accumulated too much hatred.” Then she looked sideways, only enough for me to catch a glimpse of her cheekbone, so sharp my finger would likely bleed if
I touched it. “You have made a mountain fall. Inspector Han is under arrest.”

  I had somehow expected Inspector Han to escape with his cunning. He was supposed to be invincible.

  “After speaking with an acquaintance of mine,” Lady Kang continued, “I visited the bureau and I learned that he is being detained in his office until the end of the inquisition, after which he will be placed under house arrest.”

  Sunhŭi must have sensed that something was wrong with me, for she placed a hand on my shoulder. “What is the evidence against him?” she asked her mother.

  “His uniform covered in dried blood, a gisaeng, and a maid—as well as an officer. This officer was kneeling in the courtyard, and in a loud voice, he said he would not refuse to die ten thousand times for the crime he had committed, and even asked to be punished with execution tools.”

  “What crime did he commit?” Sunhŭi asked.

  “He gave false witness.”

  I only managed to whisper, so quietly that I could barely hear myself, “Was his name Shim?”

  “That was his name. Shim Jaedeok. He confessed that at around dawn, after the murder, he had received a message from Madam Yeonok, begging him to come quickly to the House of Bright Flowers. He arrived and found Inspector Han half-conscious, and he kept saying, ‘She is dead.’”

  I bowed my head. This was the same testimony given to me by Maid Misu.

  “Shim offered to be Inspector Han’s alibi—not only out of loyalty, but because he genuinely believed Han’s account to be true. The account was that Inspector Han had a few drinks, for it was the anniversary of his father’s execution. A little after midnight, he rode toward the South Gate—his father was executed there.”

  I closed my eyes, feeling my heart pound against my chest. Inspector Han had left the House at around midnight. This was so close to the hour of Lady O’s murder.

  “That is when Inspector Han discovered the body of Lady O. He was intoxicated, and thus he claimed he’d mistaken Lady O for his dead mother.”