Chapter 3
The Five Willows secret book-lending shop had become a second home not only to Haewon, but to many others. After leaving Mistress Wol’s little workroom, she rejoined her sister and wandered the shelves, all the while observing the quiet hum around her.
Patrons of various ages flipped hungrily through pages of prohibited books by Joseon and Chinese writers, of Catholic literature and controversial history books.
Most of the customers were men, many of whom were husbands or brothers sent by their female relations to borrow a book for them.
But there were also a few bold girls, like the pair standing a few paces away, who came of their own accord, their maids wringing their skirts nervously, urging their mistresses to hurry.
“It isn’t proper, this place! And these books…” Maid Boram pulled one from a stack, and her eyes widened as she stared down at the title: The Tale of Lady Jeong and Her Forbidden Desires. She nearly dropped it. “Good heavens! Who would dare read such lewd tales?”
Haewon suppressed a laugh. “Boram-ah. More than one very proper noble lady has ended up in financial ruin from borrowing novels such as these.” Her smile dimmed as she glanced at Jade, whose eyes were pinned, unfocused, on the page of a book, as though her mind was somewhere adrift. Somewhere troubled.
“What is it?” Haewon asked, though she already suspected.
Her sister remained silent, gripping the book tight. She was not one to voice her troubles freely; she would rather bear them alone than burden others.
“Come.” Haewon guided her sister deeper into the aisle, away from Maid Boram, who had picked up The Tale of Lady Jeong and Her Forbidden Desires again and was sheepishly flipping through it. “Tell me.”
“It’s nothing.” Jade hesitated. “It’s … it’s silly.”
“You’re thinking about the marriage edict,” Haewon whispered.
Jade’s shoulders tensed. Of course, as Haewon had already guessed. It was why she had insisted on bringing her sister to the bookshop, to pry her away from their mother’s fussing.
For months now, government officials had been making their rounds, interrogating unmarried men and women, compiling names.
The decree had been announced last year: All unmarried men and women who had entered into spinsterhood—over twenty-nine years old for men, twenty-four for women—were required to wed.
The order stretched across all five districts of Hanseongbu, and Jade had been named among 281 spinsters in the capital.
An edict on marriage, so soon followed by a ban on all forms of fiction writing … it was all too much.
Jade attempted a smile, her doe-like eyes lifting to meet Haewon’s. “I oughtn’t to be so distressed, I suppose. I still have one month to become betrothed.” Her smile faltered. “And twenty days after that, I must marry, or Father will be punished.”
Haewon racked her mind, searching for a way to comfort her sister.
“Villagers say the drought will end when all the spinsters are married,” Jade went on softly.
“Even the shamans claim it, and the government must think so, too. It is my duty to marry … But you see, Haewon-ah, I believe I have read one too many novels. Marriage determines the course of a woman’s life, and I’ll have little say in it.
This is simply how it is and yet … I find myself terribly unhappy. ”
Helplessness sank into Haewon’s stomach.
Of the two of them, Jade was the romantic.
She was the one who had picked up novels first, who had introduced Haewon to Wol and this bookshop, to this world of fiction where she could go anywhere, be anyone she wished to be.
Jade was the one who had told her, in words that had left a deep impression: Follow your heart … without breaking too many rules.
She had no idea how to help her sister in this moment. She could not protest before the palace gates. She could not find for her sister a gentleman who might love and cherish her. She could do nothing … except one thing.
“Books are the best cure for a troubled heart,” Haewon declared as she continued to browse, then stopped at The Tale of Hong Gildong and pulled it carefully from under a stack of other books.
Like all volumes in circulation, the cover was wrapped in sambae, a sturdy hemp fabric.
She flipped through the pages, oiled with sesame extract to keep them from tearing so easily, and ran her finger over the paper.
“You should borrow this today. Everyone in Joseon has read it except you. Go bring it to Wol, and I’ll transcribe it as payment as usual. ”
Jade looked at it hesitantly.
“I’ve spoken with other readers,” Haewon said, pressing the book into her sister’s hands.
“They say this book makes them feel powerful no matter how hopeless their circumstances. Hong Gildong was an illegitimate child, forbidden even from calling his own father ‘Father,’ his fate determined before he had any say in it. It’s a book about defying the impossible, about overcoming, no matter the odds.
And there’s magic, too, so fantastical—”
She stopped mid-sentence.
A finely dressed woman had stepped into view, garbed in a short and fitted pink jacket glimmering with flower prints, and a voluminous skirt of multilayered sheer red fabric.
She was a gisaeng entertainer, recognizable by her large, conical bamboo jeonmo hat.
A veil flowed from the wide brim, like black smoke that offered only glimpses of her red lips and a pair of disapproving eyes.
“You are the Shin sisters,” she said, her diction sharp and crisp. “I saw you last time by the creek.”
Haewon blinked, then glanced uneasily at Jade.
“Yes, we were there,” Jade said. They had gone to where gisaeng entertainers were bathing to retrieve their sister, Yeonhee, who had befriended many of them.
The gisaeng’s red lips thinned. “I came to return a few books, and then I saw the pair of you. You are fortunate that I would even bother to stop and warn you. Yeonhee is at the gibang house. At the House of Bright Flowers.”
Slowly, Haewon shook her head. “You must be mistaken.”
“Wh-why”—Jade’s voice wobbled—“why would Yeonhee be there—”
“She is there,” the gisaeng said, voice clipped. “And you have to retrieve her before she ruins your family’s name.”
Haewon felt weak at the knees. A woman’s reputation was as brittle as ice. One false step, and she could be plunged into the frigid depths, swept away into endless ruin.
And her entire family would drown in it.