by Graci Kim
The inmyeonjo sees it coming and acts immediately. Her eyes burn with hatred and, by fanning her wings, she redirects the flame straight back at Jo, screeching angrily as she does so. The volunteer’s hair catches on fire and the inmyeonjo cackles.
“You will never tame me!” she shrieks.
I cover my mouth. Wait, she talks?! Her voice is so screechy and warbly, it makes me wince. The sound reminds me of those woodcutting saws that people wobble and play like a stringed instrument, except it’s three octaves higher.
Jo jumps into the lake to kill the flames and comes out a few moments later looking decidedly less well-groomed than before. His man bun is scorched.
Sora looks disappointed. “Next!”
The two remaining volunteers step forward together. One of the women has a pixie cut, while the other has a side shave and walks with a cane, but apart from that, they’re identical. They’re both wearing T-shirts with wingless fairies on them and the text TWINS BEFORE WINGS underneath.
They whisper something to each other, and then the pixie-cut woman manipulates the earth, making it move and rise around the inmyeonjo. It swallows the bird-woman until she is trapped in a mountain of soil and only her head is visible. A look of pure hatred passes over the inmyeonjo’s face as she fights to get free, but the witch has her hand clasped tight, and the earth stays firm around the bird body.
That’s when her twin sister strikes. She animates her cane, which I realize now is actually a wooden staff. And with a swift Spider-Man gesture of her wrist, the sharp end of the staff slices through the air, scraping past the inmyeonjo’s face.
The bird-woman lets out a bloodcurdling scream as blood gushes from her cheek. The sisters high-five each other, and the crowd cheers.
“Now yield to us, inmyeonjo!” the earth-witch yells.
The bird-woman stays unmoving, still trapped in the soil mountain, and for a moment the crowd goes silent. This could be it.
The inmyeonjo closes her eyes and takes a big breath. I hold my breath, too.
“Never!” she finally cries. “I will shatter every one of those mirrors, and you can’t stop me!” She caw-caws as she tornadoes out of the mound like a corkscrew.
She flies at the sisters, her talons outstretched. They cover their heads, but the inmyeonjo has the element of surprise on her side. She dips low and swipes at them both with one sharp movement of her talons. Side Shave trips and stumbles onto the soil mound, and the bird-woman goes for her again.
“Stand up, Yumi! Run!”
Pixie Cut helps her sister up just in time, and together, they run for their lives. Austin magicks the cage back down over the bird-woman.
Sora’s face drops. “Good try, Yumi and Yuri, but not quite.”
The clan leader finally turns to me. She gives me a small smile, then addresses the crowd.
“Everyone, I’d like you to meet Riley Oh. She is a Horangi, daughter of the late Mina and Yoon Seo.” Murmurs of recognition and curiosity ripple through the crowd. “But unbeknownst to us, she was taken from our clan and raised by a family of Gom.” The crowd gasps. “Fortunately, she has, defying all odds, returned to us of her own accord. And she wants to pledge her allegiance to our clan. She’s going to volunteer herself today in this task as her initiation, so I ask that you show her a true Horangi welcome.”
She raises her arms and the crowd breaks into applause. As they cheer, something cracks open inside me. There is no backing out now. I am actually doing this.
Sora quiets the crowd with her hands. “Riley, we know you’ve only just been biochipped today, and you may not have had a chance to unlock your power yet, but tell us, what is your dominant element?”
“Um, fire,” I mumble.
“The symbol of transformation and will. How fitting for this occasion. Well, good luck. I hope you burn bright today!”
I gulp. She hopes I burn bright? With four elemental fires, she has no idea….
The crowd applauds again, and Henry and Grace—the two kids who volunteered earlier—cheer the loudest. Jo steps forward and tosses me his lighter. “May you have beginner’s luck, kid,” he says. The lighter has one of those flick tops and the words NOT YOUR AVERAGE JO engraved on the front. I throw him a grateful look.
Then, as Austin raises the metal cage back into the sky, I cautiously approach the inmyeonjo.
Her eyes are piercing and unnaturally still. They blink once in the time that I’ve blinked ten. And I suddenly realize it was a bad idea to go last. She is now angrier than ever, having been singed, squashed, and scraped by the others. The creature lowers her head in a predatory way and opens her wings to their full width. She lets out a snarl/squawk and scratches the ground with her talons.
“Make your move, child,” she says with a hiss.
I look down at my hands. The lighter is shaking, and I realize it’s because I’m trembling. There are over a hundred pairs of eyes on me, and I have no idea what I’m doing. In the absence of a plan, I decide to take my new gift for a test drive. What have I got to lose?
I grab hold of Hattie’s heart vial. Then I repeat her line under my breath. “Sometimes you gotta burn your fingers to enjoy the s’more.”
I rub my wrists together, and, as the heat ignites on my right arm, I watch the gifted mark glow red. I flick the lighter until a small flame appears, and then close my eyes.
Taeyo said to imagine floating in the sea—to be one with the water. So I visualize lying on my back in the Pacific, looking up at the sky. I try to relax and stoke the flame. But when I think of the Pacific, I remember the summoning gone wrong and my sister’s unconscious body floating in the ocean. I recall dragging her limp body onto the sand and feeling more frightened than I ever had before.
The inmyeonjo chuckles and my eyes snap open. The lighter flame hasn’t grown—it has died out.
“Is that all you’ve got?” the bird-woman calls out. Her movements are rapid and jerky, taunting me.
“Don’t give up!” I hear someone yell. I think it’s Taeyo.
I grit my teeth and try Austin’s method. I reignite the lighter flame and stare intently into its core. I don’t blink, I don’t breathe, I just channel my entire concentration into the small flickering fire and will it to grow. Just a little.
As an awkward hush falls over the crowd, the inmyeonjo laughs heartily. “I know it isn’t fair, child,” she croons, “but we can’t all be heroes.”
Something in me snaps. She’s right. It isn’t fair. It’s not fair that both my birth parents were killed. It isn’t fair that Emmett lost his mom. It isn’t fair that Hattie was taken as collateral because I got greedy. And it’s not fair that my parents have to choose between me and their gifts.
As anger fills my body like a poison, the lighter’s flame begins to pulsate. The crowd gasps, and Man Bun Jo calls out from the crowd, “That’s it, kid! Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it!”
In that moment, I realize that, for me, the key is anger. I need to be furious in order to activate my element.
So I let it build. I let the frustration and pain and injustice expand like air in my lungs, and I channel it all toward the lighter flame. I take one deep breath, and then let it out, releasing it toward the inmyeonjo. A fireball flies straight at her….
But it only makes it two-thirds of the way before it loses steam.
The bird-woman’s eyes widen as a small lick of flame bounces forward and singes a talon. She’s surprised, but she doesn’t let it show for long. I used everything I have on that one move, and she knows it. She shrieks and flies over my head, swiping at me with a sharp claw. She misses, but I think she does it on purpose. She’s just showing me she has the upper hand (or wing?).
I rub my wrists again, trying to activate more fire. But my anger is draining away, and even though the crowd is roaring encouragement, I can’t make the flame do anything more than flicker. I am spent.
The inmyeonjo is on the ground now, and she fluffs up her feathers, preparing to attack again. B
lood is still seeping from the cheek wound the twins gave her, but she can see she’s already won the fight against me. She throws me a victorious smile and charges. I cover my face with my arms, but one sharp talon still manages to clip me.
Argh!
I clamp down on the trickle of blood from the wound. This is pointless. I can’t do this.
The crowd lets out a gasp, and I look to Sora for help. She frowns slightly but doesn’t intervene. Her words echo in my ears. If we deem your conduct in the task worthy… And What we’re looking for is your commitment and loyalty.
As the size of the task overwhelms me, I do what I do best. I cry. Tears roll down my face as I realize I was wrong. I thought, by pledging allegiance to the Horangi, I could sacrifice myself and save my family. But I can’t even do this right. Even here, even with my birth clan, I’m still the one who’s not good enough. The outsider. I’m a failure, and they will never let me be initiated after this performance.
Instead, I decide to rely on what I know rather than what I don’t. I grew up in a family of healers, and I was taught to stop pain, not inflict it. If I’m going to fail this initiation, I’m going to do it in style. Gom style.
I take one step forward and the inmyeonjo screeches. I look her in the eye with as much calmness as I can muster. “I’m not going to attack you,” I say quietly. “I am going to pick some of those flowers over there”—I point to the patch of calendula and goldenrod near her talons—“and then get some stones from the water. Will you let me do that?”
The bird-woman’s eyes become slits. “Why?” she asks with a snarl.
“Because you haven’t stopped bleeding,” I say. “And I want to heal your wound.”
She squawks and rips a chunk out of the earth with her talon. “Don’t you dare play tricks with me!”
I shake my head. “I’m not. I swear I’m telling you the truth. No tricks. I just want to get to those flowers.”
Her eyes are full of suspicion, and she has started to make a weird chattering sound that can’t be good news for me. But slowly I make my way toward her, one step in front of the other.
“Be careful!” I hear people murmur from the crowd, but no one stops me. I guess this is what they call watching a train wreck. You don’t want to look, but you can’t not, either.
I don’t know how I do it, but somehow I get closer, inch by inch, until my hair is blown back by the inmyeonjo’s beating wings. My heart is pumping so hard I can feel it pulsating in my head. Keeping my eyes glued to hers, I crouch down and cautiously pick some of the calendula and goldenrod. I may never have had a Gi, but I know that these two flowers have natural healing properties, because I’ve seen Eomma use them at the clinic.
With the petals in hand, I slowly stand back up. “Shh,” I whisper, trying to keep the inmyeonjo calm as her feathers bristle anxiously at my closeness. “I’m just going to step sideways now to get to the lake. I need some stones to grind the flowers.”
I start taking small side steps, shushing her the whole time. Somehow I manage to get to the waterside unscathed, and when I’m sure I’m not going to get mauled, I put the petals on a flat stone and use a smaller rock to grind them into a paste. I scoop up the salve and carefully make my way toward the bird-woman once more.
“You will never tame me!” she cries again as I near.
“I don’t want to tame you,” I say honestly. “I just want to help you. Will you let me do that?”
Her stare could burn holes, but she lets me approach. And, somehow, I find myself reaching up to spread the healing balm on her cheek with a trembling hand.
When my fingers first touch her feathery face, she lets out a high-pitched whine, and a shiver runs down my spine. Every instinct in my body tells me to turn and run. But I stay put. And when she realizes this is not a trick, she starts to calm down.
Eventually, she lets out a deep sigh, and her bird shoulders relax. Her feathers settle and her eyes soften until they look like molten syrup. “Thank you,” she warbles, and it almost sounds melodious.
I think of the third answer to the cheollima’s verification question. How the sun was mightier than the wind. I guess it’s true that empathy is more powerful than brute force. In a moment of trust, I reach out and stroke her feathers. And instead of screeching or screaming or slashing, the inmyeonjo coos and edges farther into my touch.
“Let go of your anger,” I say quietly, echoing the words Gwisin Halmeoni had said to Jennie. “Anger will only make it hurt more. And I know you don’t like mirrors, but these are people’s homes that you’re destroying.”
She whines and lets out a sad caw-caw. “But it is part of who I am. The curse of my ancestor makes me this way.”
I stroke her wing feathers, now tucked snugly into her body. “Don’t let a curse define who you can and can’t be. Only you have the power to decide that.”
She twitches her head to the side as if contemplating my words, and I realize how true they are. She and I aren’t dissimilar, if you think about it. We’re both trapped in a story someone else wrote about us. But we have the power to take the reins. If we want to.
“You’re beautiful just the way you are,” I say, “and you should be proud of your reflection.” I picture my smiling face in the library’s pond water, and I’m reminded of the journey that’s brought me here so far.
“My name is Riley Oh, and it’s nice to meet you,” I say. “What’s your name?”
A sad chattering noise escapes from the inmyeonjo’s throat. “I do not have a name.”
“Would you like one?”
Her eyes widen. “Yes. I would like that very much.”
I ponder what a fitting name for this formidable bird-woman might be. She watches me expectantly. And suddenly, it comes to me.
“What about Areum?”
“Ah-rihm.” She tests out the new word in her avian mouth.
“It’s a Korean name that means beautiful—like you.”
She bows her head in gratitude. Then, to my surprise, she begins to shrink. She retains her bird body and her human-like face, but she becomes the size of a dove. She flies up and perches on my shoulder.
“Riley Oh, I yield to you.”
“Wait, what?” I blurt out. “What do you mean, yield to me?”
The crowd lets out a loud exhale. I’d almost forgotten they were there.
“You did it!” Sora announces, clasping her hands together. “You demonstrated bravery and commitment to the task and even taught us a lesson along the way. You tamed the inmyeonjo!”
Whoa. My mind reels. Did I just domesticate Areum?
Sora beams proudly. “I now invite you, Riley Oh, to pledge your allegiance to the Horangi clan. Do you accept?”
I think hard about what I’m about to do. I succeeded in my initiation, but I did it using what I’d learned from my Gom upbringing. The scholars, on the other hand, had been more than happy to use violence to try to control the inmyeonjo. Am I prepared to leave the healers? Do I want to give my loyalty to the Horangi clan for the rest of my life?
Areum looks at me with complete openness, and something broken inside me puts itself back together. It’s like I’d thought earlier. I won’t have to rely on someone else to write my story if I’m brave enough to take the pen into my own hands.
I turn to Sora. “Yes, I do,” I confirm. With over a third of my sister’s heart shriveled, and the survival of the world at stake, retreating is not an option. I will take the best of both clans and complete this job.
“Congratulations, Riley. Welcome to the clan!” Sora exclaims.
And just like that, the crowd goes wild. It’s not as regal as an initiation at the gifted temple with all the elders and the entire congregation watching. I didn’t even get to wear a cool bear crown or dress. But still, I did it.
“Welcome home, Riley!” I hear from somewhere in the crowd.
“You’re a hero!” someone else shouts.
It’s kind of ironic, to be honest. Because now that I�
�ve formally become a Horangi scholar, I feel more Gom than ever before. Go figure.
Suddenly, more than anything, I’m desperate to find Emmett. I haven’t seen him since before I got my biochip, and I want to share this moment of triumph with him. I search the crowd and, finally, I see his familiar face. I look at him with a bittersweet mix of emotions, trying to convey how I’m feeling. But he’s clutching Boris to his chest with fear in his eyes.
I frown, trying to understand why he’s scared.
Then I see.
Standing next to him in the crowd are none other than my parents.
And next to them is my auntie Okja.
WE ARE BRISKLY USHERED AWAY from the crowd and into a shed by the lake that’s full of kayaks and life jackets. Before Austin can even close the door, I jump into my eomma’s and appa’s arms and bury my head in their shoulders. Their eyes are bloodshot and they look terrible—like they haven’t slept since Hattie’s initiation ceremony. Their familiar scents remind me of home, and I sob inconsolably. I have missed them so much.
“I can’t believe you’re here. You’re really here,” I cry.
Appa kisses the top of my head. “Thank Mago you’re okay.”
“We were so worried about you…” Eomma whispers, stroking my back with trembling hands.
“I’m so sorry,” I splutter between snotty tears. “I made a huge mistake, and now, Hattie is…She is…She—”
“Shh, we know, sweetheart,” Appa says, stroking my hair. “Emmett filled us in on everything when we got here.”
I look at Emmett gratefully.
“How did you know where we were?” I ask my parents.
“We hired a Samjogo seer to locate you,” Eomma responds. “The Horangi firewall made it a challenge, but she managed to find you in the end.”
“How dare you come here?” Sora demands, interrupting our family reunion.
“You kidnap our child and then have the gall to ask why we’re here?” Eomma retorts. “You’re lucky we didn’t bring reinforcements.”