Page 29

Chapter Twenty-Nine

K i s a

H er spine stiffens. As it begins, Kisa sucks in a shallow breath, tasting something bittersweet at the back of her throat. It reminds her of her stepmother’s fixation with anti-aging creams. She stares down at the city below, heart thumping. It all happens so fast. Kisa doesn’t even have time to open her mouth, to scream a plea to her goddess.

For in an instant, her body is sliding off the roof and she is for a perfect, brilliant moment, weightless and hovering over Seoul. But then gravity grabs her by the ankle and tugs her down, yanking her past rows and rows of gleaming glass windows all stacked upon one another, laughing as it hauls her toward the ground in a perfect swan dive.

Kisa closes her eyes.

It’s over soon enough.

But the dream isn’t. As Kisa lies broken on the pavement, feet clad in glossy red pumps approach her. Kisa groans in pain as two slim fingers tilt up her chin. “You’re missing something,” a woman with ridiculously voluminous brown hair and glittering wine-brown eyes tells her, just as beautiful as she was in Seokga’s illusion as she arches a slender brow. Hani. “Go back.”

“Wait,” gurgles Kisa through a smashed face, but she’s back on the roof, the dark night of Seoul swimming below her.

Her spine stiffens. As it begins, Kisa sucks in a shallow breath, tasting something bittersweet at the back of her throat. It reminds her of her stepmother’s fixation with anti-aging creams. She stares down at the city below, heart thumping. It all happens so fast. Kisa doesn’t even have time to open her mouth, to scream a plea to her goddess.

Again, she falls.

Again, Hani appears over her, looking annoyed.

“You figured it out before,” the gumiho says then sighs, shaking her head. Her voluminous brown hair shines underneath the lights of the city, in the incoming red and blue flashes of the ambulance. “But you dismissed it, and now you’ve done the puzzle all wrong. Try again.”

Her spine stiffens. As it begins, Kisa sucks in a shallow breath, tasting something bittersweet at the back of her throat. It reminds her of her stepmother’s fixation with anti-aging creams.

Reminds her of her stepmother’s fixation with anti-aging creams.

This time, when Kisa falls to the ground, her body doesn’t shatter into hundreds of pieces. She lands on her feet in front of Hani, who cocks her head. “See? You’ve cast aside a very large clue, darling. And I’m wondering if you need your eyes checked if you can look at this mystery and consider it correctly solved.”

“ No, ” Kisa says at the other woman’s meaningful look. “It was Hwanung and Soo-min. The two murders are unconnected. They have to be.”

Hani rolls her eyes. As the sirens begin to wail in the distance, her pink-polished fingers close around Kisa’s nail-bitten ones. “Come with me,” she says, tone brooking no room for any argument. Kisa has no choice but to run after Hani into the dark city, racing through the streets that become less and less familiar—the infrastructure transforming from glittering skyscrapers and sleek roads to grungy sidewalks and significantly smaller buildings. They’re no longer in Seoul. A cherry blossom floats by the two women as they run, somehow keeping pace with them before veering off toward a shop with a sign reading Weapons, War Armor, and Other Wants where a blurry, dark-haired man seems focused on breaking the doorknob to allow himself entry.

“Where are we?” Kisa asks, not recognizing the new city.

“New Sinsi.”

That can’t be true. This looks nothing like New Sinsi, nothing at all. “Are you sure? I—”

Hani grins over her shoulder at her. “This is my New Sinsi. Welcome to the nineties, Kisa.”

“How—what— how is this possible?” Kisa splutters as Hani drags her down a seedy alleyway toward a dilapidated apartment complex. “It shouldn’t be—I shouldn’t be able to remember what New Sinsi looked like in the nineties. My mind shouldn’t be able to—to generate such sharp images, not like this. Everything about this…is defying the laws of dreams.” For instance, the world remains the same even when Kisa looks away for ten seconds. It’s completely fascinating from a scientific standpoint, the suggestion being that past lives might resurface through unconscious dreaming, but utterly baffling from Kisa’s personal perspective.

“Right,” Hani snorts as she pushes open a battered-looking door and ushers Kisa inside. “But what you seem to be forgetting is that my mind is your mind, and your mind is my mind…regardless of whatever ‘Ship of Theseus’ bullshit you tote around. You’re me. I’m you…But with much better taste in clothing.”

“Are you really here? Or are you just my…my unconscious?”

“Why can’t I be both?” Hani ushers Kisa into the apartment, which looks as if a small hurricane has blown through it. Mass-market romance books are strewn all over a lumpy-looking couch, and the kitchen is stuffed to the brim with bags of junk food. “Make yourself at home,” the gumiho offers, clearing off the couch with one dramatic sweep of her arm. “It’s ours anyhow.”

Kisa slowly sits next to Hani on the couch. Something has wedged itself in between the couch’s back and its cushion—she rummages behind her to pull out the same yellow, dog-eared copy of Kidnapped by the Time-Traveling Highland Pirate-King that Somi gave to her.

“You really should have taken better care of your books,” Kisa can’t help but tell Hani, who shrugs.

“It’s my favorite,” Hani replies and grins. “I took it everywhere, hence the questionable state.”

“?‘Questionable’? It’s falling apart—”

“Chapter fourteen is especially good. But you know that already.” She grabs the book from her, flips open to a random page, and begins to read…Or pretends to read, as Kisa realizes a moment later. There’s no hint of Elsie and Finlay’s scandalously delicious scene. Instead, there’s: “?‘And so Kisa and Seokga unwittingly convicted their story’s two scapegoats…while the true murderer’s plans remained fully intact, and their nefarious goal came closer and closer to fruition…What a couple of morons…’?” Hani shuts the book with gusto. “Do you think it ends on a cliff-hanger? I hate cliff-hangers.”

Her head is pounding. “There was evidence,” Kisa says, although she’s not sure if she’s trying to convince herself or Hani. “The loudspeakers on the cruise, they broadcast everything.”

“Kisa,” Hani says, pinching the bridge of her nose, “at twenty-two, you’re far more intelligent than I ever became even with hundreds of years underneath my belt…And yet you’re so dumb sometimes that it physically pains me. Think, Kisa. Claws. Voices. Sneezing. The bittersweet and the fall. You have something you haven’t read yet. I’d suggest you give it a peek soon.” Hani leans forward, grabbing her hands in hers. “I know you’ve already figured it out. I can see it in your eyes. And you’re right to be terrified. Something huge is at play here. Something bigger than even Eodum.”

“We were wrong,” Kisa whispers. “We were wrong.” It’s always been a terribly devastating feeling for her—being wrong. Never has Kisa encountered a more soul-crushing experience than confidently raising her hand in class only to be at once corrected, or receiving an exam back to see she had completely botched a question she’d felt certain about. Worse still was making a mistake in the hospital. Yet in comparison to this, all her past mistakes dim to nothing. The shame is hard to breathe past, and Hani is silent as Kisa buries her face in her hands.

“It’s not too late,” Hani finally says. “When you wake up in a few minutes, you’ll know what to do.”

“I need to wake up now, ” gasps Kisa, and concentrates extremely hard, as if it will force her sleeping self to consciousness. The result, she fears, is that she looks very constipated.

“It doesn’t work like that, darling.” Hani sighs, scooting closer to the panicking Kisa. “You don’t remember it, but you’ve— we’ve —faced the impossible before. And what’s the worst that can happen to you? Death? Please. Been there, done that. The stakes are high, but we can overcome them. We have to—for Seokga.”

A strained laugh escapes her lips and Kisa turns to look, really look, at Hani. “He loves you,” Kisa whispers before she can stop herself.

Hani’s expression hardens. “He loves us. And we love him.”

“I just met him,” Kisa rasps, although something about the statement feels like a lie, an excuse to hide behind. Hani stares at her, and Kisa almost recoils at the fury in the gumiho’s eyes. She’s reminded, suddenly, of Hani’s notoriety and flinches in surprise as Hani launches herself upward from the couch.

“You’re not going to ruin this for us,” Hani snaps. “I’m not even going to waste my breath explaining to you that we knew him long before he came onto the ship. I died for him, Kisa. You died for him. But in this life, what have you done besides lead him along on a literal string?” She snatches the book from the couch and flips it back open. “?‘Kisa steadfastly denies her true feelings to herself, and is somehow fine with breaking the heart of the god who loves her, leading him on and on and on…’ It’s preposterous. I could slap you. If you go into that reincarnation queue, I will slap you. ‘Squashing,’ my ass.”

“I don’t expect you to understand,” Kisa snarls, suddenly venomous. “What it’s like on that ship—I’m exhausted. I’ve been exhausted for years.”

“Right,” the gumiho snaps back. “You’re tired. Tired of working yourself to exhaustion in school, in the hospital, and now on this ship. But you aren’t tired of being you. Reincarnation can be a pain in the ass, Kisa, trust me on that. You lose so much to gain so little.” She gives her a rather pointed look. It stings. “I’m sure you can think of something that doesn’t involve leaving Seokga with a broken heart. You do it a lot, after all. Thinking, I mean. Besides, what if you reincarnate as a slug that somebody sprinkles salt on? So far, you’ve had all of my karmic punishment. Sorry about that, by the way.”

“No, you’re not.” Kisa’s voice is bitter. Hani has, unfortunately, made a rather valid point about the slug thing. And, possibly, about some other things. Truths that she’s not ready to face.

“No, I’m not. I had loads of fun being a terrible person.” Hani flops back down onto the couch. “Look, Kisa. I understand that you’re frightened to fall. What you need to understand, though, is that you already have—in more ways than one. That ache, the longing you’ve felt…Is it a coincidence that it lodged itself in your chest the day that the Red Thread of Fate appeared? Don’t tell me that you believe in coincidences, Kisa.”

“There is no coincidence,” she says automatically. “Only correlation. Sometimes causation.”

“Exactly,” says Hani with a smug glimmer in her eyes as Kisa’s mind whirls, cabinets trembling as neatly filed emotions threaten to spill out. For something deep within her has known, for a while, that Hani is right.

That ache feels like the pull of a magnet toward Seokga. It is relieved only when he is near.

When they are together.

Kisa swallows hard, hand fluttering to her chest.

“And, darling, just because you’re falling again doesn’t mean it will end like last time, with a painful impact. There’s something you’re forgetting…And what Seokga, bless him, is somehow forgetting in the afterglow…is that he’s the interim heavenly emperor.” Hani smirks as Kisa freezes, heart stopping mid-pound in her chest. “Or he will be, once he returns to Okhwang and sits on the throne for the first time. You can ask him for anything then, within the confines of his power. Living again isn’t an option, but there are other things to ask for…As soon as you admit to yourself what you want.”

More time.

“You know exactly what you would ask for, don’t you?” Hani blinks guilelessly at her.

“You’d still be dead, of course, but you’ll hardly be able to tell. And there can be so much more to life than, well, living.”

“I…” It’s as if her throat is attempting to force down a giant pill dry. Kisa digs her fingers into the couch, afraid that she’s choking on some enormous truth, some desire that she’s not allowed herself to want in full until now. There’s a certain air of smug satisfaction radiating from Hani as Kisa curls over herself from the want of it.

“Promise me you’ll ask, Kisa,” Hani urges, suddenly desperate. When she looks up at the gumiho, Kisa sees that there are tears shining in her eyes. Their eyes. “Some stories deserve a happy ending.”

It’s all she can do to nod. She’ll ask. Of course she’ll ask.

“Thank you,” her past-self whispers. “Thank you.” She hesitates. “It’s almost time for you to wake up…but I would hate myself if I didn’t ask about her. About Somi.” Guilt shines on Hani’s face. “How is she?”

Kisa smiles slightly, thinking of the other gumiho’s flirtation with Hajun, boba teas and laughter. “She’s found friends. I’m one of them.”

“She told you what happened?” Hani looks nervous.

“I forgave her,” Kisa replies honestly. “I mean, well, to me—it didn’t seem like there was anything to forgive. I don’t remember her, or her betrayal…It’s like it never even happened. I forgave her before she even apologized.”

“Because you’re right. There’s nothing to forgive. Deep down, you’ve known it. Because it’s true.” Hani grimaces, fiddling with the corner of the book. “It was our fault from the beginning. She was so young, so innocent. We weren’t there for her when she needed us, but Eodum—that fucking demon—was.” Her eyes are bright. “I’m glad you forgave her. I’m glad that she’s doing well…”

“Her claws, though,” Kisa cuts in. “They’ve been—broken.”

Hani stiffens. “Broken?”

“She was murdered. I don’t know who did it. She doesn’t want to talk about it.” And she can’t blame her for it.

Rage dances across Hani’s face like a tumultuous storm, yet she looks as if she might be sick at the same time. “No. Not Somi. Not her claws.” Hani stands again, shakily this time. “Somi-ah…” she whispers, stumbling to the kitchen counter, where a Polaroid stands in a frame. In the photo, Hani is grinning in a light brown apron next to a younger Somi, whose face is flushed pink with pleasure as their cheeks press together. Kisa watches as Hani’s fingertips brush over the photographed Somi. “Find out who,” Hani whispers. “Find out who, and then hurt them. Just as they hurt her.” The apartment begins to blur. Kisa blinks in panic as Hani whirls back around. “You’re waking up. Remember what I told you. You need to read it when you wake. The answers are there.”

Kisa suddenly feels very light, very insubstantial. “Wait,” she cries as she begins to fade. “Will I see you again?” There’s so much she wants to ask her, so much she could learn about the phenomenon of past lives, how they might possibly linger in the depths of the unconscious. She can barely see Hani now, but she knows, somehow, that the gumiho is smiling.

“I’m always here, Kisa,” Hani shouts back, laughter in her voice. “We share the same soul! Fuck your Ship of Thes—”

She wakes with a gasp, the sheets sticky with her sweat. The bed is empty next to her, and a sliver of light from the bathroom seeps into the dark bedroom, followed by the low murmur of Seokga’s voice. He must be calling another irate god, who’s demanding to know what exactly happened on the SRC Flatliner.

Remember what I told you.

Kisa’s body is pleasantly sore with new aches as she hurries out of bed and slips on her underwear, then Seokga’s sweater, swiping it from where it lies in a puddle of soft fabric on the floor. It’s huge on her, practically a dress. Breathing hard, Kisa rushes into the sitting room, where she’s stashed the stolen journal underneath the settee’s thick cushion. Grabbing it, Kisa returns to the bedroom where she flicks on the lights and—not bothering to sit back down—opens the journal and begins to read.

The first entry is dated in 2018. The handwriting is the long, elegant script of an older woman, but Kisa has always been a fast and adept reader. As she skims, her stomach drops as if she’s on a roller coaster, flying down from the highest peak. Clenching the sides of the journal, her hands begin to shake and Kisa leans against a bedpost for support. For a moment she can barely make out the next sentence, the journal quivering underneath her unstable grip. It’s only with an excruciating effort that she stills them enough to continue unraveling the horrible, damning truth.

Faster and faster she skims, the pages fluttering rapidly as she makes her way through the contents, barely aware of how her skin has turned clammy, sweat pooling at the base of her back. Kisa’s eyes have begun to burn and strain as she reads and reads, puzzle pieces falling into place with horrible, nauseating thuds and clicks.

When Kisa reaches the end of the journal, she has to force down a surge of bile. Everything is here. Everything. All of her suspicions and all of her questions answered in that innocuous, looping font. “Seokga,” Kisa rasps, but she doesn’t stumble toward the bathroom, where the god’s voice is rising in agitation. She knows what he will do, overcome with rage, and they mustn’t yet show their hand. Instead, she’s lurching to the door and into the hallway.

Somi. She needs to find Somi.

The ship is silent and dark as Kisa races down into the bowels of the ship, skidding to a halt outside of the room she shares with Hajun. Frantically, she pounds on the door, ignoring the muffled groans of Hajun and the angry wails of Hwanin. She knocks until a bleary-eyed Somi yanks it open, looking peeved. Her annoyance falters as she takes in Kisa.

Somi smirks through slightly bee-stung lips that are sure to mirror Kisa’s own, and brushes her short, mussed hair behind her ear. “Is that Seokga’s sweater?”

“Somi,” Kisa pants, thrusting the journal into her hands. “Your killer. It was a jangsan beom.”

The gumiho flinches, eyes widening. “How do you—”

“It surprised you with its attack,” she presses on. “But you fought back so viciously that it had no choice but to break your claws. It hadn’t meant to do that. You were supposed to be this mystery’s scapegoat, Somi— you. She knew you’d bribe that jeoseung saja and get on this ship. But things didn’t go according to plan. You lost your claws. You couldn’t take the blame.”

Somi suddenly looks much younger than her years, and very scared. Behind her, a groggy Hajun, shirtless and mussed, looking as if he’s survived a tornado yet loved it, comes to the door. “What are you talking about?” Somi demands, but there’s a slight waver to her voice.

“Kisa?” Hajun asks in concern, voice thick with sleep and confusion. “What’s happening?”

“It was never Soo-min or Hwanung,” she rasps. “All along, it was—” Kisa cries out as the ship lurches beneath her feet, a terrible, sudden motion that sends her flying to her knees. Somi hits the ground next to her, and Hajun shouts in alarm as Hwanin begins to wail even louder somewhere in the room.

“What was that ?” Somi gasps, struggling to her feet—only to be thrown down once more as the ship bucks again.

Hajun staggers out into the corridor, protectively holding Hwanin to his bare chest. Somehow the idol manages to remain upright even as the floor rocks with sharp motions. “We need to get to the upper decks!” he shouts, grabbing Kisa by the arm and hauling her up. “Go!”

She falls over and over as they hurry down the corridor, scraping her knees, bruising her arms. Somi catches her, saving her from a nasty fall down the stairs. The two women hold on to each other for support as they climb higher and higher, finally emerging onto the tenth deck, the normally peaceful sundeck. Kisa and Somi rush to the edge, staring down at the waters below…Where ineo have swarmed the boat, webbed hands pressed against the sides, fanged mouths stretched in wide, wicked smiles.

When the ship gives another lurch, this one hard enough that the lounge chairs rise in the air before slamming back down onto their sides, Somi yanks Kisa away from the edge. Kisa staggers right back to the rail, desperate to understand what the ineo are doing…

“The anchor!” Kisa cries. “They’ve broken the anchor!” Suddenly the ship is moving, pushed through the waters of the Seocheongang by the swarm of mermaids.

“ What the fuck is happening? ” Hajun shouts, narrowly avoiding tripping over one of the sliding plastic lounge chairs. “What are they doing ?”

“The prison,” Kisa gasps, holding on to Somi to steady herself. “They’re going to push the ship toward Mireuk’s prison—”

A bestial roar shakes the walls of the ship.

“ What was that? ” cries Hajun.

“ That, ” whispers Somi, fear scraping in her voice like sandpaper, a wind whipping through her hair, “was a jangsan beom.”