Page 125 of Perfect Happiness

Yuna brought the knife down on the box.Again and again, until the box was reduced to slivers.Tumbling out of the box was a set of finger puppets and toy tables and chairs.

Jane looked down at the rolling bits of yellow fur that were among the things that had fallen out.According to her memory, this was what remained of the duck Yuna had stabbed to oblivion thirty years ago.Yuna used the edge of her blade to collect the tuffs of fur and bring them to Jane’s feet, as though she were presenting Joon-young’s corpse to her.

“Does that answer your question?”Yuna asked.

Jane was speechless.Even if she asked Yuna to clarify what she meant, she wasn’t prepared for Yuna’s answer.Did you really do it, Yuna?

“You seem surprised,” Yuna said.

Jane clenched her jaw.She felt something working its way up her throat.Her needlessly wild imagination had already brought her to that place.It showed her the scene of Joon-young dying, drugged with sleeping pills and in a trance.Did it happen in the first-floor bathroom?Was the wail of the loons actually Joon-young screaming as he drowned in a pool of his own blood?

And about Eun-ho ...

This time it was Jinu Kim’s voice that Jane heard.

The night before it happened, he drank Yuna’s quince tea.He fell into a deep sleep, unaware that his child was dying.

It appeared as though Yuna had done one for the ages.She had murdered a girl’s father right next to her, and she had murdered a father’s son right next to him.

“Open your mouth,” Yuna said as she pointed the cleaver at Jane’s lips.

Jane didn’t need any time to think about this.Not only was someone holding her at knife point, but that someone had also lost their mind.

Yuna stuffed the head of the duck in Jane’s mouth.She couldn’t breathe and her jaw felt like it was going to break.The duck’s head pressed against the back of her throat, making Jane gag.

Yuna went out of the room and came back with duct tape.She wrapped the tape around Jane’s head, like tying a bandage, then lowered her hands.The uncut roll of tape was dangling by Jane’s ear.

“What did you say you were going to do earlier?”

Yuna sawed off the dangling roll of tape with the cleaver.

“Didn’t you say you were getting married to that son of a bitch?Didn’t you say you were going to steal my daughter?”

Jane craned her neck like a lollipop and sat still.She was afraid.Yuna’s hands were shaking with anger and looked like they might accidentally cut off Jane’s head.

“You’ve grown a lot since we were kids, Jane.I bet that’s why you thought you could take me.”

Yuna put her hand in Jane’s jacket pocket and, after a few moments, pulled out a ballpoint pen, a cellphone, and car keys.She turned the pen and inspected it from several angles, as though she had never seen one before.

“You’re a real romantic.”

A grin returned to Yuna’s lips as she muttered to herself.A good idea seemed to have just come to her.Jane felt even more uneasy.What was a good idea for Yuna would be a very bad idea for her.

“Jane.”

Yuna’s voice was once again chirpy like a hummingbird.Jane felt like she was listening to a soprano jump back and forth between octaves.She had seen her sister’s extreme shifts in mood countless times before.But, listening to her sister call her name with a grin on her face as she held the cleaver in her hand, she had never been as intimidated as she was now.

“If you want to marry that son of a bitch, be my guest,” Yuna said as she put the pen back in Jane’s pocket.“We’ll have the wedding tomorrow.At the Half Moon Marsh.”

Jane wasn’t sure if she had heard Jane correctly.As she blinked one eye, she went over her sister’s words, one syllable at a time.Tomorrow, at the Half Moon Marsh ...

“I’ll keep these with me.”

Yuna showed Jane the cellphone and car keys.

“Sleep tight.And sweet dreams.”

The lights in the room went out.Yuna closed the door and disappeared.Jane could hear the click of the door being locked and the sound of Yuna walking down the stairs.After that, she heard something clattering.This continued for a while until she heard Yuna drive off in her car.