Chapter 12
Grace dropped her takeout to pull Hae away from the falling stones, dust billowing as they shattered against the pedestal. “What did you do?”
“You wanted to see my powers.” He turned back to the destroyed statue. “Be careful. He’ll be disoriented. You don’t want him to bite you.”
“Bite me?” As Grace wondered what in the world he was talking about, something burst out of the remains of the statue. Dust rained over them, powdering both their hair gray.
Grace coughed, trying to clear her throat. When something brushed against her leg, she let out a small scream, practically leaping into Hae’s arms.
“Calm down,” he said. “He’s mostly harmless.”
Mostly?
The dust had settled enough for Grace to see an odd creature jumping in delight.
At first glance, one would assume it was a giant dog.
But on closer examination, it had the face of a lion, with a lithe body completely covered in shimmering scales and feathers that gleamed under the fading shafts of sunlight.
It was giant, probably as tall as her if it lifted on its hind legs. But when Hae pointed a finger and said, “Behave,” the creature sat obediently.
“Holy crap. Holy crap. Holy crap.” Grace couldn’t stop repeating it over and over.
How did this creature just burst out of that statue? A tension headache started to form behind her eyes even as Grace tried furiously to find a reasonable explanation for this that actually made sense.
“Good boy.” Hae bent down to pet the scaly dog-lion thing.
“You did that?” Grace asked, still not sure what “that” really entailed. “How?”
“A simple task of transformation. I told you I’d show you my powers.” Hae grinned with satisfaction at his creation.
“No.” Grace squeezed her eyes shut, battling away the headache and warped reality in front of her.
“No, no, no. This can’t be happening. You’re not a…
” Grace couldn’t say the word god. It was just too much.
But she also couldn’t ignore that this boy who looked exactly like the sun god in her webtoon had used some kind of magic right before her eyes.
Maybe she was having a mental breakdown.
Maybe her anxiety had finally made her crack, and this was a long and elaborate stress dream.
Something wet pushed against her hand, and Grace jumped back with a yelp. The dog-lion thing nosed at her hand again, staring up at her with its big brown eyes.
“Um, g-good magical statue creature thing.” Grace gave him a cautious pat on the head and hoped he didn’t decide she looked like dinner. His fangs were long and sharp. But he just rolled onto the ground to present his belly.
“This is good.” Hae nodded with satisfaction. “It means he does not believe you to be evil.”
“Oh great, I’m so glad.” Grace’s voice was high and reedy with distress. She forced herself to pull in deep breaths before she started to hyperventilate. “Um, what is he?”
“Haechi.” Hae reached down to rub the creature’s belly, earning eager tail wags.
“What?” It was taking her a bit longer to process things right now. An overload of information was making her brain short-circuit.
“Haechi. Some people call him Haetae. A creature who can tell the innocent from the guilty.”
It rang a faint bell. “Ooh, you mean that mascot thing I saw on signs in Seoul?”
Hae pursed his lips in clear disapproval. “Mascot? He’s a guardian. He keeps Korea safe.”
“So what’s he doing in Florida?”
“Oh, this guy is just a replica.” Hae leaned against the pedestal where the statue used to sit. Grace noticed his collar was damp with sweat despite the cool evening air. Grace guessed magically bringing a statue to life took a lot out of him.
Weird, Grace wouldn’t think gods got tired.
Great, now she was just accepting that he was a god. But what else was she supposed to do? She’d asked for proof, and he gave it to her.
“All natural materials have a spirit in them,” Hae explained. “I awakened his when I transformed him from stone.”
“Transformed?” This was all too much. Grace rubbed a hand against her temples, trying to think.
“It’s one of my most basic powers,” Hae explained. “Or…it was.”
Grace saw now that he was breathing a bit heavily, like he’d just run a race.
“Well, turn him back,” Grace said urgently. “Before someone notices what you did.”
“Why?” Hae asked. “I like him better this way.”
“He’s a mythical creature. People will freak out if they see him.” Grace pointed at his lionlike face and scaly skin.
“People are so closed-minded these days.” Hae sighed, but he reached down and ran his hand over Haechi’s neck, and as he did, the scales shook and blurred, until they became fur.
His mane shortened, his snout pushed in.
He resembled a regular dog now. Almost like a chow chow, those big dogs with fluffy fur that looked like a mane.
It fit him somehow. Just as Hae finished running his hand along the length of the dog, he sagged forward, Haechi moving in to catch him.
“Stop messing around and turn him back into a statue,” Grace insisted.
“I don’t think I have the energy for that right now,” Hae gasped out, still leaning into the newly made dog.
And Grace realized that Hae’s eyes looked shadowed. The brightness of his irises dulled with exhaustion.
“Why did you do all that when it tires you out like this?” If he passed out, Grace had no idea what she’d do with him. Could gods go to the hospital?
“Because I had to make you believe me.”
Great, now she felt guilty. She walked over to collect her dropped takeout. Something had dripped, pooling at the bottom of the plastic bag. She sighed, hoping the food wasn’t ruined. “Come on.”
“Huh?” Hae looked up with unfocused eyes.
“Let’s go. Get in my car before you pass out. Because if I have to carry you, then I’m dragging you across the asphalt. I don’t care if you’re a god.”
“Oh yes, sure.” Hae pushed up to follow her. But when Grace opened her passenger door, Haechi jumped onto the seat, his paws tracking dirt all over the upholstery.
“Hey!” Grace set the takeout on the roof so she could pull the dog back out, but he refused to budge.
Hae solved the problem by leaning in and pushing the dog into the back seat instead.
Grace weakly protested, watching in horror as the dog spun around on the seat, creating a pattern of dirty paw prints. “He can’t come with us. My dad will freak.”
“Do you want to leave him here?” Hae asked.
Realizing that wasn’t an option, Grace gave in. “Fine, just get in before I change my mind.”
As she pulled out of the parking lot, she wondered how she was going to tell her dad about bringing home a god and his pet Haechi along with dinner.
Grace focused on the road so she wouldn’t have to look at Hae. She had no idea what to say to him. Did gods like small talk? Other than Haechi’s periodic barks from the back seat, silence reigned in the car. She even thought Hae might have fallen asleep until he suddenly sat up. “There.”
He was pointing at the large sod fields across from the Publix.
“What?” Grace didn’t dare take her eyes off the road. Besides, she saw those fields every day and there was nothing unique about them.
“That’s where I came back.” Hae pointed to the mist-covered grass.
“You did? Do you remember how you got there?”
Hae shook his head and leaned back in his seat again. “I just woke up there. No memories of how it happened.”
That sounded too familiar. A god awaking in an open field at the edge of town.
No memories of how or why. It was exactly the same as the first panel of her webtoon.
And, though no one knew, she’d based the rice paddies in that panel off the sod fields in her own town, having never been to a farm or field of that type before in her life.
She wondered if she should tell Hae. But he’d already closed his eyes. She figured it was better to keep unproven theories to herself for now.