Chapter 39
The next day, it was pouring rain, an ominous sign now that she knew of Habaek’s powers. She’d stayed up way too late last night, trying to find any clue about sending the sonnimne away or stopping the water god.
But she’d found nothing. The problem was that so many legends and myths had been passed down by oral tradition, which meant many of them had been lost to time. Just like the gods once were.
Grace clicked on the small television in her room, white noise she liked to have on when she was home alone. It was early enough that the local news was on. And she wondered if they’d comment on the unseasonable rain.
“And now to our top story: An outbreak of smallpox in Seminole County has drawn national attention. Here’s Carrie on site with the latest.”
“Thanks, John. I’m standing in front of Winter Lake High School, the suspected ground zero for the first patient who presented with smallpox, a disease considered eradicated worldwide since 1980.
Two students arrived at the hospital last week with symptoms and tested positive for this highly contagious disease… ”
Grace rushed out of her room to find Hae when her phone buzzed a notification.
She stopped at the top of the stairs to check. It was an email from the school with the subject line: School Closed—Wednesday
She scanned it quickly, spotting the words “public health concern” and “outbreak.”
This was bad. Grace dialed her father’s number as she made her way down the stairs, but got his voicemail.
She started for the back door when she saw the heavy rainfall.
Making a beeline to the coat closet, she grabbed an umbrella just as the back door opened.
Haechi trotted inside past Hae, who wiped damp shoes on the small mat Grace had put by the doorway.
The dog gave Grace a happy greeting bark before shaking the rain off.
Grace didn’t have time to complain about the muddy splatters that got all over the kitchen.
“It’s spreading.” Grace rushed over to Hae, holding out her phone.
“What?” He frowned at the screen in confusion as he pushed the door closed behind him.
“The smallpox. The sonnimne must be attacking more people! I have to talk to my dad—I’m going to the hospital.”
“Okay, wait, slow down.”
“No, I need to see how bad it is.” Grace could feel the tension in her chest growing, pressing on her ribs. She couldn’t pull in full breaths. Her head was spinning.
“Hey, hey, take a beat.” Hae ran steady hands up and down her arms, eyes pulling her gaze to him. “Just focus on breathing in.”
Grace did as he instructed, focusing on the gold patterns in his irises. Hae slowly counted to five as she pulled in air, letting it expand her lungs, letting it settle her heart.
“You okay?” he asked as his hands traveled down to link with hers. “You feel like passing out or anything?”
“No.” Grace bit her lip, a war between embarrassment and annoyance taking place inside of her.
“Okay, then let’s go to the hospital. Together.”
The waiting room at the ED was packed fuller than Grace had ever seen it. Dozens of people wearing face masks in various stages of panic. Two women were arguing at check-in, demanding that they be seen immediately, insisting that they’d noticed strange rashes.
Grace hurried toward the back and came upon a notice on the door saying that only approved personnel were allowed back there.
She turned back to the front desk just as the receptionist convinced the two women to wait their turn.
“Is Dr. Bak here? Can I see him?”
“I’m sorry, you’re going to have to wait until your name is called.” The woman looked annoyed and harried.
“No, I’m sorry.” Grace shook her head, racking her brain for the woman’s name. “Stephanie, right? I’m not a patient. He’s my dad.”
The woman finally looked up and seemed to recognize Grace. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. Yes, your father is here. But I’m not allowed to let anyone go back unescorted.”
“What about Anna? Is she here?” Grace tried.
“I’ll call back. Just take a seat. And here.” Stephanie passed two face masks past the glass barrier. “Just in case.”
Grace thanked her and donned her mask. When she turned she almost smacked right into Hae. She’d forgotten he’d come here with her.
“Here.” She handed him a mask.
“What do I do with this?” Hae stared at it, perplexed, so Grace took the mask back to hook the straps around his ears herself.
“This looks bad.” His eyes scanned the room as Grace shaped the mask to conform to the bridge of his nose. “If even a fraction of these people are infected, then that means the disease has moved beyond those who’ve been attacked.”
“This is really bad, Hae. This is getting out of hand.” Grace could feel the buzz of anxiety filling her. “I did this. I brought Habaek back—”
“No.” Hae squeezed her hands, pulling her out of her spiral. “You are not responsible for what he’s done. This is not your fault.”
Grace nodded, but she still felt sickly tendrils of guilt weaving through her.
“You look pale—did you have anything to eat yet?”
“Um, no, I’m not really a breakfast person.”
“I saw one of those food machines by the front.”
“Vending machines,” Grace automatically filled in.
“Yes, I’ll get you something from there.” He took off before Grace could call after to tell him he needed money. But Hae was right. She was feeling lightheaded. So, she sank into a seat, letting her head fall into her hands so she wouldn’t have to see the panic of the others in the waiting room.
“Mooommy!” A small girl’s wail pierced through the chatter of the waiting room.
Grace looked up just as a man raced in carrying a limp woman in his arms. A girl, probably no older than seven, trailed behind.
Immediately two nurses emerged from the back, the crowd in the waiting room parting for them.
“Please, my wife! Something attacked her in the backyard.”
One of the nurses gestured for a wheelchair and an orderly pushed one over. They helped the man set his unconscious wife down. When her head lolled back, Grace saw a bloody bite on her shoulder, and she knew what had attacked. The sonnimne.
Grace started forward but stopped herself as they rushed the woman to the back. What could she do? Tell them a mythical monster had attacked her? No one would believe her.
When she turned back to her seat, she spotted the little girl, still standing in the middle of the waiting room, forgotten by her father in his frenzy.
“Hey, sweetie,” Grace said, going to the child. She was still in her pajamas, hair unbrushed, eyes puffy with tears.
“I want my mommy.” She sniffled.
“I know.” Grace looked around, unsure of herself. Stephanie was dealing with two more upset patients and the doors to the back had already shut and locked. “Do you want to wait out here with me?”
The little girl nodded, wrapping her arms around Grace’s neck.
She carried her back to her seat. “Your mommy’s just a little hurt. But she’ll be okay.”
She heard the doubt in her voice but hoped the little girl couldn’t.
The doors to the back opened and Anna rushed out, a mask covering half her face, her hair falling free from its elastic. Her tired eyes searched the room, landing on Grace and the girl.
Walking over, she knelt beside the chair. “Sweetie, is your name Lizzie?”
The little girl sniffled and nodded, her face still pressed into Grace’s shoulder.
“Okay, hon, I’m going to take you back. We want to see if you’re okay too.”
But when Anna reached for Lizzie, the little girl clung to Grace, burrowing closer to her.
“I can take her,” Grace volunteered.
Anna looked hesitant. Then nodded. “All right. Come on back.”
The ED was bustling. Every bed was occupied, with some patients being assessed in wheelchairs along the hallway. Grace saw that every patient wore a face mask. And every nurse and doctor wore an N95 and other PPE.
Anna led them to the small lab room in the back.
“Lizzie, honey, we’re going to take some of your blood, okay?”
The girl cringed but nodded.
“Don’t worry. Anna is the best at taking blood. It’ll be just a small prick,” Grace reassured her.
But Lizzie didn’t even whimper as Anna drew the blood. Just sniffled quietly and nodded to each of Anna’s questions.
When the nurse finished labeling the tubes, she picked up the tray to carry back outside.
“Anna?” Grace asked. “Is it smallpox?”
Anna just shook her head, clearly unwilling to discuss another patient’s health information. And Grace let it go. She knew already that it was. It had to be.
Lizzie sniffled in Grace’s arms, running small fingers over the Bluey Band-Aid Anna had given her. “What if my mommy dies?”
The words wrapped around Grace’s heart, squeezed like a twisting python.
“She won’t,” Grace said and could hear an echo of the same promise, one said with her halmeoni’s voice.
She could see a ghost of herself, the same age as Lizzie, sitting at the nurses’ station with Anna after her mother had collapsed.
She’d heard her father and halmeoni’s muffled voices. Arguing about whether she should be here. Whether she should see her mother like this.
And how she’d cried knowing what that meant, even at that age.
“Lizzie!”
The little girl jumped up, running into her father’s arms as he strode into the blood draw room. “Where’s Mommy?”
Grace turned away as the question, asked in such a small voice, echoed painful memories. She stood. She had to get out of here. It had been a mistake to come. Seeing all of these panicked people. Knowing that there was nothing she could do to help them.
Her vision wavered with unshed tears as she slipped past the large nurses’ station.
It made the room merge with memories she’d worked so hard to bury.
The beep of machines after they’d rushed her mother here.
The whispered updates from doctors. Her father’s muffled sobs when he thought she was sleeping.
And her mother. So frail. So sick. Arms that had once carried her now brittle thin. Face once full, sunken and chapped.
That wasn’t the image Grace wanted in her memories. That wasn’t the image she’d worked so hard to remember. But it was breaking free and with it came the grief she’d thought long buried as well.
It wasn’t fair. A child losing her mother like this. It wasn’t fair to have her torn away.
Her head was spinning. Her chest buzzing. She had to sit down. She had to get out of here. She slapped her hand against the button that would unlock the ED doors for her. And when she stumbled through them, she had to grab hold of the wall to keep upright.
“Grace.”
She looked up at Hae’s face, blurred by her tears.
“Hae.” His name came out a whimper as she practically collapsed into his arms.
He silently led her outside. Away from the crowds. Away from the eyes.
Outside, Grace turned to one of the low benches. She didn’t think she’d make it all the way to the car. She needed to sit.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know why I’m like this.”
Hae sat beside her. “Your emotions are nothing to apologize for.”
The words were blunt enough to break through her muddled embarrassment. Enough to shock a bark of laughter out of her. It dislodged whatever had been lodged in her throat. Let her breathe a little easier. “That’s actually weirdly comforting.”
“Are you upset because of the sonnimne?”
Grace shook her head, pulling at her sleeve to wipe at her cheeks. “It was my mother.”
“Your mother?”
“Seeing this little girl and her mother made me remember things about the last time we brought my mom here. The night that she…”
“The night you lost her,” Hae quietly finished for her.
Grace nodded. “I lied about not having my own memories of my mother. I do have them, but in so many of them she’s sick. She’s dying. So, I buried them. Tried to replace them with the ones my halmeoni gave me. I didn’t want to remember her like that.”
Hae took her hands. “You don’t have to justify anything to me. I understand the power of how we remember others.”
Grace let her fingers twine with his. “I know this might sound selfish. But I’m really glad you haven’t gone home yet.”
Hae smiled gently back at her. “It’s not selfish. Because I’m glad I haven’t either.”