9. Iseul
For the following five days,I could scarcely rise from my bed, and I was doted on like a fallen empress. A skilled physician from the capital came with a nurse to treat me and left Madam Yul with instructions on how to tend to my wound. She cleaned it daily, wrapping me with fresh binding material, and I realized she had spoken the truth; she did treat her customers like family. Because of all the care, the pain in my shoulder improved significantly. Then on the sixth day, Madam Yul woke me up at the break of dawn, when the scent of nighttime dew still moistened the air and clung to leaves in sparkling drops.
“I let you rest long enough. Time to earn your keep,” she said cheerfully.
Bearing woven baskets and short-handled hoes, Yul and I climbed up a hilly forest, and I was heaving, trembling, while she marched up easily. She was singing a folk song that burst out from her chest. Once we were settled, she continued to sing as we scraped off tree bark and dug up mugwort roots.
“What is this for?” I asked.
Yul stopped singing to answer. “Chogeun mokpi. This will be our coarse and miserable food. It will barely keep us alive, but we have little barley left for everyone.”
The sharp hoe thwacked into the earth. Soil sprayed. Dirt filled my nails as I yanked out the tough roots.
“I usually make meals from what travelers trade in to earn their keep.” She half spoke to herself, wiping her sweaty brow and leaving behind streaks of dirt on her face. “But there are so few travelers these days, with the roads cut off by the king’s hunting grounds. And no one has anything to trade anyway. We are all taxed beyond our means; the king has turned rice paddies into his personal territory, and he has deprived the people of crops grown throughout the year. So we turned to foraging herbs. Then the king confiscated all that, hearing of how nutritious wild herbs were. Now we must survive on the bitter things of this earth until I can buy more barley.” She tossed a bundle of bright green mugworts into her basket. “It will upset our stomachs and give us constipation.”
“But at least we will not die,” I whispered.
The work was laborious; my shoulders throbbed in agony. I pushed on, never pausing for breath, preferring the physical agony over the memory of my sister’s empty gaze. But soon memories caught up, grabbing hold of my ankle and dragging me deep into the past.
I was four, breathing in the bright rays of sunshine, as Older Sister pushed me on the geunettuigi swing tied to a sturdy branch. Our laughter rippled through the summer air.
I was ten, the age when my sister and I began to drift apart, but she would always leave the last honey-fried biscuit for me.
I was fifteen, and my sister held me tight, pressing her hands over my ears so that I might not hear the screams of my parents.
A few months ago, I had turned seventeen. I had spent my days in Grandmother’s hut, embroidering and bemoaning the lack of suitable men in the village, fully convinced that the only means of escaping our plight was through marriage. I would waste away the hours adorning my nails with crushed bongsunghwa flower paste, stubbornly refusing to soil my hands, and shirking my duty to assist Older Sister in the monthly chore of washing our menstrual cloths. She would return, trembling and chilled, to hang the cloths, only to remove them before dawn’s first light…
The mere recollection made me want to peel my own skin off.
I glanced over at Madam Yul. Today, without the wig, the thick layer of face powder, and the red lip stain, she looked different. She appeared less like a liver-devouring gumiho and more like a girl my age, someone whom I might have called a friend.
“Do you have siblings?” I asked.
She continued to work as she answered, “I had a younger brother. Only a year younger than myself.”
Had.
“We used to live in the part of Gyeonggi Province that is now the king’s hunting grounds.”
“You were evicted, then…?”
“I took over my aunt’s inn, and I thought the worst was over. But the worst is never over, is it?” She spoke so brightly, it unnerved me. “My brother ran back home; our mother’s grave was there. He was determined to exhume her and rebury her elsewhere, but… he never made it out. Neither did my father, when he went searching for him. I think they were both caught and executed.” As she thwacked the earth, the hoe looked deadly in her grip. She laughed an empty laugh. “At least I have no one to nag at me anymore. My ears would hurt from them always telling me to get married.” She grinned, but her voice wavered. “Every morning they’d wag their chopsticks at me, telling me… telling me they never wanted to see me alone in this world. But I am not alone. I am never alone. I have my inn and Wonsik-samchon.”
We continued to fill our baskets, and I quietly observed Yul throughout. Her smiles no longer looked so bright, though they stretched across her teeth to the same degree.
“Yah.”She gently nudged my side, and I looked at her again. She held out a plucked flower. “It is a honeysuckle. You drink the nectar like this.”
I watched as she sucked the back of the yellow flower. Once, I would have smacked the flower away, disgusted. But I was famished, and I knew that the only meals awaiting me were bitter. I plucked off a honeysuckle and followed Yul’s example. My heart brightened as the nectar perfumed my mouth with a honey-floral flavor.
“I grew up with this,” Yul said. “Brother and I would spend the summer behind our hut sucking out the nectar every day because we were hungry.”
After a dozen honeysuckles lay at my feet, I licked my lips and reached for more.
“Sometimes,” Yul said, plucking a few and dropping them into my basket, “a little sweetness cheers the soul.”
I assisted Yul in preparing meals for the occupants of the Red Lantern Inn. There were ten guests in total, including a young mother of three; an old retired soldier who always carried around his game of janggi; and a poor, yet haughty scholar. They all conversed and bickered among themselves as though they were one large, disgruntled, meddling family. Watching them quietly, I ate the steamed herb roots and tree bark, but I tried to imagine I was eating something else. With each bitter and tough bite, I infused my tongue with the memory of soft clouds of white rice, flavored by spoonfuls of rich, milky bone broth, accentuated by the sharp crunch of spicy, pickled vegetables, or the jujube-sweet jeonyak, the jelly melting in my mouth. And when imagination failed, I preoccupied my mind by eavesdropping on the conversation humming from the corner of the yard.
“So this is what we know,” the old soldier said, waiting for Wonsik to make his move on the wooden janggi board. “The first victim was Government Official Im. He was found in an alley, his head caved in by a heavy object.”
A few onlookers had gathered around the game, and one spouted, “I’ll wager the killer is a blacksmith. Used his hammer to break the skull. Maybe it is Pongdol. I have seen the way he works like a beast.”
“Aigoo, aigoo, just because his son eloped with your daughter, you make him out to be a killer?” A second onlooker wagged his finger. “You be careful with your words, old man. We all want the reward, but we mustn’t endanger the lives of innocent men.”
“Who says Pongdol is innocent—?”
Grumbling and mockery followed.
The old soldier continued, “The government official was also found with a flower next to him. No message, only blood on his robe. It was from the second victim onward that Nameless Flower began leaving bloody messages, listing the king’s offenses.”
I scoffed quietly and took another bite of my meal, gnawing on the coarse bark. The killer would need to murder many more before he could finish writing out all the king’s offenses.
“The twelfth victim was Young Master Baek,” the old soldier murmured. “Son of the king’s close aide. He, too, had a flower in his hand. But instead of writing out the king’s offenses in blood, this time the killer wrote some kind of message. And Baek was starved until he looked like a dried fish, then murdered. I learned about this all during the public police interrogation—”
Wonsik nodded. “The next move is yours.”
The old soldier leaned forward, examining the game board, and the onlookers leaned into the puffs of tobacco smoke with their advice.
I returned to my meal, reviewing the information I’d gleaned. The first victim had died from the crushing of his skull. The twelfth, starved then slaughtered. I bowed my head into my hand. My brain ached from overuse.
“I hear you are off to question a woman from Jamsil Village,” the old soldier said. “Does it have to do with the investigation?”
Curious eyes turned to Wonsik, including mine. Jamsil… The name circled my thoughts. I had heard of this village before.
“You mean, Odeok? I heard her husband died while escorting the young master—”
“Will you be going with that royal guard? Min Hyukjin?” an onlooker chimed in. “Everyone is talking about that handsome young man. He was praised by the king for his good shot during the hunt, or so my daughter told me. All my daughters are talking about him. Always looking out for him, they are, when he rides by during the king’s hunting parties. They say the king will promote him to his own personal guard one day.”
Wonsik let out a weary sigh. “I doubt that day will come.”
“Samchon!” Madam Yul called out. “Could you help me move a few clay pots?”
Wonsik stalked off, and an onlooker replaced him in the game. I stayed still. Thoughts flickered at the corner of my mind, but the lack of sleep made it difficult to think at all. I focused harder, and finally, the memories came together.
If you were stabbed, to where would you run?Wonsik had asked while we discussed the matter of the servant’s death—the one who had accompanied the twelfth victim and had managed to run as far as Jamsil.
I would run to someone I trusted, someone who would wish me no ill, I had answered.
The servant witness had run to his wife.
Surely she had answers.
I crossed Han River by sneaking onto a crowded vessel, and throughout the crossing the sunlit water sparkled so bright that I was left with a slight headache when I reached Jamsil. Along the riverside, where reeds billowed, laundresses squatted on stones, washing their soiled outfits. The villagers had directed me here when I had asked them about a woman named Odeok.
I could almost hear my sister’s voice scolding me: You ought to wait for Wonsik. You have absolutely no idea what you are doing.
I, indeed, had absolutely no idea, yet I could not trust Wonsik. He had known about Odeok, yet he had withheld the information from me, fully knowing that I, too, was searching for the killer. There was no guarantee he would share with me whatever intelligence he gathered from this woman.
“Excuse me, I am looking for a woman named Odeok.”
The laundresses gestured down the riverbank to where a woman washed her laundry alone, apart from the rest. As I approached, I was struck by a sense of familiarity. The long face, the high cheekbones, and the shape of her nose all reminded me of Suyeon. The resemblance lasted only at a distance, but the sensation remained. And as I crouched next to the woman, I felt as though I were sitting next to my sister.
“What,” she snapped.
Just as Older Sister would have. Are you here to merely watch? she would have added. Or to help?
Before, I would have sprung up to my feet, muttering unkind words before taking my leave. But I remained, feeling sad as I watched Odeok’s calloused hands plunge into the river, dragging me through a current of remorse. I wished, so wished, that I had followed my sister on the many nights she had lugged laundry out into the wild to wash them discreetly. I wished I could have returned home with her, both our hands shaking and red from the icy river water. At least then our suffering, when shared, might have turned into fond memories.
“Let me help you,” I said stiffly.
She eyed me. “What do you want?”
“You remind me of my sister.”
Her brows lowered with bewilderment, but she nevertheless pushed the basket of soiled garments my way. “I’ll gladly accept help. That is one less garment for me to break my back over.”
I took out a dress, dunked it into the water, and hesitantly began to rinse it.
“You do not know how to wash laundry, do you,” she observed, staring at me.
“I was pampered,” I explained.
“You were loved. Someone sacrificed their back and their hands for you—”
Unexpected tears gathered in the woman’s eyes. “Why did I sacrifice for him?” she whispered, voice strained. Then she shook her head, gesturing at me to leave, and moved to sit down on a log nearby. I took a seat next to her. We remained quiet for another long stretch of time.
“Both my parents are dead, so I know something of your pain,” I whispered, and when she frowned at me, I explained. “I heard what happened to him—your husband.”
She lowered her gaze again.
“They were killed, too,” I added. “But by a man who will never be caught. I hope, for you, though, they will find the killer and punish him.”
She scoffed. “All I want is to thank the killer.”
“Thank him?”
“He was a monster to me, my husband.” Her breathing quickened, and a distant look glazed her eyes, as though she were staring far off—or at a hazy memory. “A monster killed by another monster.”
I hated to pry, but I had no choice. “Did you see him, before his passing?”
“I did,” she said after a pause. “A passerby noticed my husband on the ground and informed me of it—why am I telling you this?”
“And what did he say in reply?” I asked gently.
She massaged her forehead, staring fixedly ahead. “It made no sense,” she mumbled to herself.
I waited, and as the moments passed, my back began to ache from sitting so stiffly. “Perhaps,” I offered carefully, “I can be of help? If you share with me what he said, that is. Surely you must want to understand. It was his last few words, after all…”
For a moment, I wondered if she had even heard me, then she whispered, “‘A tall shadow, half man, half wolf.’ That is what he said. Hallucinating, he was.”
The crunching of gravel alerted me, and I whirled around to look. Wonsik had arrived.
“Excuse me,” I whispered, and rushed over to the old man. “What are you doing here?” I demanded.
He stared at me, arms folded across his chest. “I came to continue my line of inquiry… Though, it seems, you are here for that same reason.” I waited for him to scold me, to declare that I was ruining his investigation, but instead, the corner of his lips twitched. Amusement. “And did you manage to learn anything?”
He was mocking me. He thought me incapable.
“Half man, half wolf,” I blurted.
“Begging your pardon?”
“That is what the woman told me.” I was divulging precious evidence, but such evidence was no use to me if I could not understand it. Perhaps Wonsik knew something. “Her husband, while dying, told her this. About the killer, I believe.”
He stood straighter, levity disappeared, and he seemed to be examining my words carefully.
“You think he was wearing furs?” I asked. “Or the mask of a wolf? Why else would a human being appear to be half wolf?”
“The wife told you this?”
“Yes. Did you know already?”
He cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable. “No, she would share nothing with me. What made her open up to you? What… what strategy did you use?”
“I know how to hold a conversation,” I said, glancing past the feathery reeds and across the Han River in the direction of the capital. There was one other task that required my effort today. “I will leave you to question her now. Perhaps you can find out what she meant by half wolf.”
“I have no need to question her further, for she would not know what her husband meant by that,” he said. He seemed content with the information I had given him. Perhaps it was significant.
Before I could pry further, he asked, “Are you returning to the inn? I will escort you—”
“I am going to the capital to visit a family member.” I was, in fact, going to try to find my uncle, in the hopes that he could become a resource to me. Relying on my own wits would take me years to find the killer, and years my sister did not have. “Do you know of Government Official Choi? Choi Ikjun?”
Wonsik’s heavy brows lowered. “You are looking for Official Choi? Why?”
“Do you or do you not know of such a man?” I asked pointedly.
“Of course I know of him. He oversees the government office in charge of military supplies, nearby in Yongsan. But he visits his home in the Northern District now and then, from what I know. His family lives in the capital.”
“In the Northern District… Where, specifically?”
His frown slammed even lower. “No.”
“No?”
“Stay away from the capital today. After what you did, there might be sketches of you plastered all over, and greedy eyes looking for a quick reward.” He did not stop there, as though sensing my stubbornness. “That officer you attacked will take justice into his own hands. I know his sort. Chehongsa officers are cutthroats, the lot of them. They will not let a slight go unpunished, let alone an attack on their person by a mere girl.”
Ignoring him, I stalked over to the boats lining the dock. “Could you take me to the other side of the river?” I asked one of the boatmen, who was languidly smoking his pipe. When he nodded, I stepped inside, my arms spread out on either side to keep my balance as the boat rocked under my feet.
Smoke curled from the boatman’s mouth. “And my payment?”
“I will pay once you take me to the other side—”
Wonsik stopped the boat, holding it by the rope. The boatman tried to row away, muttering, but Wonsik flicked his cloak aside, revealing his sword. “This girl is a cheat,” he said. My eyes widened. “She has not a single coin on her person. She will make you row her all the way there, then bolt.”
The boatman sucked on his pipe, then gestured with his chin for me to leave. “Before I push you out,” he added for good measure.
I cursed him, stormed out of the boat, and stalked past Wonsik. I would find someone else to take me to the other side, or perhaps find another crowded vessel to sneak onto.
Wonsik caught up to me in a few long strides. “You need to stop charging thoughtlessly through challenges. Sometimes you must learn to take your time and strategize. You are going to get yourself killed otherwise.”
“I don’t know how to do it any other way.”
“So you really are serious—about finding the killer?”
“Yes.”
“Are you serious enough that you would learn from me?”
My steps slowed. “What?”
“You will not repeat foolhardy decisions like infiltrating the Royal Academy?”
“I came out alive.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “It was sheer luck that you did.” Then wearily, he added, “And take nothing from crime scenes next time—”
I halted my steps to glare up at him. “I took nothing, ajusshi.”
He grunted. “I was observing you at the scene. You took one of the two beads. You, a girl who has no experience with investigations. Disturbing evidence only makes it even more difficult to find the killer. Which means he will kill more people.”
I shrugged. “He may do as he wishes and kill half the kingdom, and I will not feel the worse for it.” I meant it. All of Joseon could burn; my only desire was to be reunited with my sister. Then I paused, my thoughts narrowing around his remark. “Are the beads evidence?”
“In your brash haste to bring your sister home, do not bring harm to others. Do not trample and hide the truth. For I assure you, the killer will kill again, and one day it may be someone you wished you could have saved.”
“Are the beads evidence?” I repeated, enunciating each word. “Tell me what you know, ajusshi.”
He paused, casting one last look over me. I could imagine what he saw—a girl, as slight as a stray cat, standing so alone in a kingdom overrun by wolves. A heavy sigh escaped him.
“Ask yourself: How would it end up in the victim’s hand? Why would this man cling to a mere bead even in death? The answer is quite simple.”
Irritation flickered through me. “Tell me, ajusshi. Where is the bead from?”
“Make a deduction.”
I clamped my lips shut, outraged.
“Pause and look around you,” he pressed on. “Do not forget to notice the smaller things. Each day, try to notice if things have changed and remember how they were before. Doing this will improve your memory and your faculties of analysis.” He crouched, picked up a stone, and tossed it to me. I barely caught it. “Hold on to the bead later, and examine it. And ask yourself why anyone would cling to a bead when he is being killed and while bleeding out.”
He lowered the brim of his straw hat, but not before I caught a glimpse of his curiosity. “If you can figure out the answer to this, then you will know for yourself that you are observant enough to hunt a murderer.”