by June Hur
A memory crept into my mind and lingered, as fine as mist, of Older Brother climbing down a cliff, a rope around his waist. He reached down to touch Mother. Crabs scattered from a pile of splintered bones and flesh. Had this moment stamped itself permanently on his mind, making him see Mother when it was another woman?
Lady Kang placed her hand over her throat to steady her voice. “When he discovered the victim, she was dead. What could have followed next? No one seems to know, and Inspector Han claimed he could not recall the following hours. Shim believed this, for the inspector has an illness … seizures sometimes triggered by blood and the sight of murdered women, which had been suppressed over the years. It was under control until that night. Perhaps it was the alcohol.”
“Inspector Han, afraid of death?” Sunhŭi said. “It cannot be.”
I frowned, concentrating on a sensation in my chest that coiled into a tight, painful knot. A memory that made me say, “It is true.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I just feel that his fear is true.”
The silence that followed unpacked the sharpness I’d felt, unfolding before me something I must have forgotten, which returned to me now. I remembered finding a wild dog too wounded to run away from us, and later Older Sister fighting with Brother, telling him we needed meat for the winter. He had kept refusing to stoop so low.
My sister had pretended to back down, and without him knowing, she dragged the wild beast to the backyard. The creature whimpered, as though sensing its end, right before Older Sister knocked it unconscious. She used a large blade to make an incision along its jaw, severing arteries and veins, cutting across the throat, until I heard the blade scrape its spine. The still-pumping heart squirted blood all over the snow, and I made sure to crouch far away while watching the blood drain.
“How could you…,” a voice had said behind me. I looked over my shoulder, and there he stood, my brother, frozen and staring at us.
“Orabeoni!” I’d called out, clueless, and as though my voice had broken the spell, he turned and stumbled away. At the back of the hut, I later found him curled up into a ball, breathing hard and sweating like he’d run for a hundred li in distance. His fingers had frightened me the most, all cramped up.
Several more incidents came to mind. Times when I had found my brother crippled by fear after a bloody incident, of which there had been many while living on the unforgiving island of Heuksan. Blood made him panic, the death of women made him faint. And now Officer Shim had confessed that the inspector also feared these things, after keeping this truth a secret for so many years.
“Officer Shim confessed all this?” I shook my head. “His loyalty to Inspector Han was unshakable. What made him confess now?”
“He learned of how you’d attacked Inspector Han and of your accusation that he had abducted Maid Woorim. This news weakened him, and then Officer Kyŏn confronted him and told him that Commander Yi had summoned Madam Yeonok and a maid named Misu to the police court. Shim realized that he had been blinded by loyalty.”
“So Shim too will be under arrest,” I said.
A pause, and Lady Kang murmured, “That is what I found odd.” She paced around before us, concern knitting her brows. “Councillor Ch’oi joined in and convinced Commander Yi to show Officer Shim leniency. Shim will be spared punishment if he is able to use Inspector Han’s investigation to capture the priest. For everyone knows that there is no one more capable of finding the priest than Han, and if not Han, better to make use of his closest ally.”
“What…?” Confusion whirred in my head. “Commander Yi would never overlook an offense of that magnitude. It makes no sense.”
“You do not understand the turmoil our kingdom is in.” Lady Kang moved to sit down on the veranda. “Already there is word about a Silk Letter.”
I waited for an explanation, but she kept silent. Sunhŭi stepped closer and whispered to me, “It is rumored that this letter will be smuggled to China, demanding military help to protect us … Catholics … from being murdered by the queen regent. But, mind you,” she quickly added, “we think this Silk Letter is dangerous.”
Military intervention. Did this mean the West would invade Joseon? All this caused by a priest who was spreading heretical teaching. I touched my forehead, feeling feverish. I had followed the thread connecting Lady O’s death to Priest Zhou Wenmo, and never would I have thought it’d lead me into a web of conspiracy and rebellion among heretics, as well as to so much suffering. I remembered that Inspector Han’s father had been beheaded, his corpse later laid out in the open. A father bewitched by the priest’s teaching.
This priest had wrecked so much.
How often, I wondered, had Inspector Han woken at night with unthinkable memories alive in his mind? Was he so wrong in wanting the priest dead? All because of him I had lost my home and family, and I could not even mourn my loss, for I had been deprived of everything at so young an age.
“Priest Zhou Wenmo is a troublesome man,” I said, words I knew I ought not to say aloud, yet they brimmed over. “So troublesome.”
Lady Kang looked at me. “You think you know about the priest, when in fact, you know naught at all,” she said in a sorrowful tone. “The story you know is only one strand of a vast tapestry.”
I remained quiet, wondering what else I had yet to understand; I felt I understood all. Those who did wrong should pay for their crime.
“But let us not concern ourselves with the priest. Let it not divide us,” she added. “We are here because we share a common concern for Woorim’s safety.”
Help me, Woorim had called to me with bloodshot eyes, the veins protruding from her forehead. Her hand slipping out from mine as the killer dragged her away, wrenching her hair. There was no time to be wondering who was right and who was wrong.
“And what is going to happen to Inspector Han if he is charged with murder?” I asked. “Lady O and Scholar Ahn were both aristocrats from influential families.”
“Perhaps he will be poisoned. The gentle way to execute an official.” Lady Kang did not look at me but at the mountain peak again. “This is the consequence of the clash of old and new. We must prepare our hearts, all of us. No matter which side wins, we will all be heartbroken.”
* * *
I lay in the room with no one else but the whispers from my past, filling the space like the fluttering of a thousand wings. I pressed my palms against my ears, burying my face into the pillow, yet I could not escape.
We can’t fight, Older Sister said. It’s just the three of us. We must stick together.
There had been three of us—her, Brother, and myself—but because of my choice to betray Inspector Han, now there would be only two. My sister would have made a different choice. She would have moved heaven and earth to protect her brother, even if he were a murderer, and perhaps I would have gone far to protect him too. Only, Inspector Han would never be my brother.
Older Brother was supposed to be gentle and deeply kind. He had told me stories about home, promising that we would one day sit around a table and eat together, shoulder to shoulder. He had promised to write me a warm poem. He had made so many promises while counting the moons, waiting for our banishment to end in Heuksan, and these promises had sung me to sleep for years afterward. Just for him, I had kept myself from running away again and had stayed in the capital to look for him, for the brother who had promised me a home bursting with the warmth of reunion. But instead I had found a cold and distant superior, a military official who had told the bandit to let me die.
Unable to sleep, I rolled out of the blanket and wandered out of the room. A single black cloud hung in the moonlit sky. As I paced about in restlessness, a fistful of dread churned in my stomach, and I remembered Lady Kang’s words. Inspector Han might die because of what I had discovered, his bloody robe. Was I my brother’s killer?
I pulled out Inspector Han’s letter to the dead. I couldn’t make myself read it again; it wa
s enough just to see the crumpled paper. Enough to remind me that I could not stop now. I’d come too far.
The ground scraped beneath my feet as I walked, and with each step, there was a growing sensation in me that nothing would be the same again. Setting my palm on the wooden double doors, I pushed them open. I ran through the alleys and pathways, then arrived at Jongno Street, a broad road illuminated by women holding lanterns that could easily expose my face. I still had my branding painted over, but most patrolmen would recognize me nevertheless.
Shadows beneath the tiled eaves and narrow alleys cloaked me as I journeyed toward the Capital Police Bureau. My heart pounded so hard in my chest that someone could have heard its echoing beat. Soon, I glimpsed the establishment built on its stone foundation, the roofline flaring out at the ends. The entrance gate, capped with an imposing pagoda, was protected by guards with spears. I had almost forgotten how frightening the police bureau appeared.
I remained hidden in the alley, far enough that the guards wouldn’t see me, but close enough to observe the bustling through the opened gates. Roundsmen stepped out of the bureau, accompanying a man garbed in a blue silk robe, his shoulders drawn back, standing tall and shameless. The silver embroidery on his robe glinted in the moonlight. Inspector Han.
Over the bureau, the moon was bright, and clouds flowed across the spread-out sky. Senior Officer Shim then stepped out of the main gate to stand by Inspector Han’s side, soon joined by Commander Yi on horseback. The horse let out an echoing neigh.
The autumn wind howled; paper lamps hanging from eaves swayed.
Hooves clopping, and again, the loud, echoing cry of the horse.
Horse. I frowned at this word, paced around it in my mind, until another creature appeared by its side. Dragon.
And suddenly scattered pieces shifted into place.
The necklace discovered in Lady O’s hand. The wooden horse-dragon pendant discovered near the place of her death, the same in design as Councillor Ch’oi’s jade piece. All a mere coincidence, possibly. But there was one point that bothered me.
I edged along the wall, closer to the corner. I looked across the dirt path and watched the shadows cast by torchlight stretch and shudder in the wind. Officer Shim, his cheeks so drawn, his eyes like black hollows under the brim of his police hat. All I knew was that he was an illegitimate son, and now also a friend who had betrayed Inspector Han—for what? Had Shim really exposed his comrade merely because he felt bad? Soldiers were known to cover each other’s most heinous crimes in the name of loyalty. So what else had pushed Shim into confessing? It had to do with Councillor Ch’oi somehow. There had to be a connection there—a reason as to why the councillor, of all people, had stepped in and convinced Commander Yi to release Shim. They must have formed a deal … but over what?
I retreated into the shadows and pressed my back against the wall, wondering wildly what could have lured Senior Officer Shim and the councillor into one scheme. Then it hit me. Shim was illegitimate, and I remembered being told that his father had adopted a nephew as his heir, just as Councillor Ch’oi had done. What if this was not a coincidence? What if they were related by blood, and the councillor had known of their ties? How would he have used this to his advantage?
Muscles tightened in my shoulders as I pressed my knuckle to my lips, to keep myself from cursing aloud as emotions roared; of panic, bewilderment, though mostly waves of trepidation that left me edgy.
Seol-ah, came my sister’s reproachful voice. This kind of suspicion will kill you.
A cold prickling sensation warned me that Sister was right; this path would lead me onto a mountain ridged with crumbling, skull-crushing cliffs and ankle-breaking burrows. Not only was a police officer possibly involved in the killings, but a government official, too. Yet I had no intention of backing away, and this left me with only one question.
What should I do next?
NINETEEN
ONCE, ROYAL SOLDIERS docked on Heuksan Island and marched to my neighbor’s hut. His sentence had changed from banishment to execution. Without weeping or trembling, he changed into his best robe, then bowed four times to the east in the direction of Changdeok Palace, expressing gratitude to the king for not shamefully beheading him. Then he sipped the bowl of arsenic poison, melting his innards into a mouthful of blood, which he coughed out, dying a painful death.
Was it possible for Inspector Han to die in such a way? Would he permit his life to end? The man I’d feared had always been just that—a man. Not a god. Commander Yi could crush him like a worm if he so wished.
Following the sound of murmuring voices, I arrived at the east side of the wall enclosing Inspector Han’s residence. The wall was only two heads higher than me. With a leap, I managed to grab onto the ledge, which was capped with black tiles. I hoisted myself up onto my elbows and peered into what looked to be the men’s quarter—the place where men discussed social matters, wrote poems, played instruments like the geomungo—for it was located near the outer wing of the compound. At the center was a pavilion guarded by officers, positioned in all four directions.
My muscles burned, struggling to hold up my weight, but I couldn’t let myself look away. Something bad was going to happen to the inspector. At any moment a soldier might arrive with poison in a porcelain bowl, and I would have to yell out “Stop!” for I was no longer certain of Inspector Han’s guilt.
She is dead, she is dead, Inspector Han had wept on the night of Lady O’s death. She is dead—I’d thought he had been referring to Lady O, but I wondered again. What if, in his terror and intoxication, Inspector Han had indeed mistaken Lady O for his mother? Rain pouring in sheets, a woman bleeding at the neck, blood oozing out from the gash like a mother who had jumped only to land on to the craggy shore. Had he held Lady O in his arms? Hence, the blood on the sleeve and the torso of his robe? Mother is dead, Mother is dead.
A movement caught my attention. A woman’s silhouette crept along the shadowy wall opposite from me. The guards seemed oblivious, standing still. What was a woman doing inside the men’s quarter? Seeing her disappear through the side gate, I leapt off the wall to follow, and soon I heard her footsteps scrambling down the street. The woman had a cotton robe draped over her head and flapping behind her.
“Excuse me?” I called out.
The woman hiked up her skirt and ran faster. My suspicion spiked. Breathing fast, I chased after her, surprised by the woman’s speed. Even in the village when I had raced other girls, I had always won. Pushing myself faster, I managed to latch my hand onto the woman’s shoulder, whipping her around. Her robe came flying off, and I saw not a woman but a young man, his coarse black hair falling over his eyes. It was Ryun, the inspector’s manservant. I gaped at him in confusion.
“Curses. It’s you.” He reached down and threw the robe over himself again, allowing only his face to peek out. “Don’t stare at me like that. Disguise is the only way for me to wander the streets during curfew.”
At length, when my nerves settled, I asked, “Where were you going in such a hurry?”
“You must know what happened. My master got arrested. Not that you would care. You wounded his face, didn’t you?”
“I can explain—”
“No time. I can’t stand around talking to you when his innocence needs to be proved.”
“You don’t think he is guilty of murder?”
“Of course not!” Ryun shook his head, a frown crinkling his thick brows. “Councillor Ch’oi is involved somehow. Only a few days ago, His Lordship summoned Senior Officer Shim to his residence and must have convinced him to betray the inspector. He must have used Officer Shim’s weakness somehow.”
Realization dawned on me. “I think I know how Councillor Ch’oi convinced Shim.”
In the distance, I heard footsteps and the low murmuring of male voices. Patrolmen, perhaps. I couldn’t risk getting caught.
I grabbed Ryun’s cloak. “Come. There is a safe place nearby where we can talk without being se
en.”
I led him toward the haunted mansion, the last place I wanted to be, yet its presence—only a few winding alleys away from us—tugged at me with an inhuman force. The mansion, though swamped in shadows and the coldness of death, was still the place where everything had begun for me.
* * *
We sat on the veranda, staring at the empty courtyard of dirt and weeds. Not wanting to disturb the haunting stillness, I spoke in low murmurs, telling Ryun about Councillor Ch’oi, Madam Byeol, and the bastard son who had been thrown into a well. I also told him about the jade and the wooden horse-dragon pendants, as well as the “Mighty Infant” tale that Senior Officer Shim had mentioned.
“This was a startling coincidence,” I said. “Among the many tales Officer Shim could have chosen from to describe the mythical horse-dragon, he chose the story that was related to Councillor Ch’oi’s bastard son.”
“So what are you suggesting?” Ryun asked.
“Madam Byeol’s son fell into the well at the age of thirteen. This was seventeen years ago; so if the boy had lived, he should be around thirty. And the bastard son would have come to the capital, to the place where his father lives.”
“Thirty…” Ryun stood up and rubbed his chin, the frown never leaving his brows. “That is Officer Shim’s age.”
I nodded and licked my dry lips, my throat parched from talking so much. “You said Councillor Ch’oi must have discovered Officer Shim’s weakness. Perhaps their blood connection became Shim’s downfall. Surrendering a friend to gain his father’s approval.”
“You are making quite the leap … All you’re basing this on is the fact that Shim chose the ‘Mighty Infant’ tale, and nothing else. We don’t have enough information.”
“But I heard there are many horse-dragon legends. Why that one?”
“It is the only horse-dragon legend that belongs to Joseon, not to China. Even when I was young my mother would tell me this tale to frighten me. To keep me from being peculiar.”