“Time flies and flies away, only here feels like a continuous yesterday,” she muttered a shushed lullaby while carefully embroidering another’s wedding dress.

“You’ll ruin your eyes if you keep doing this,” Sunji’s nana tried to snatch away the needle from her.

“It’s alright. Someone depends on me,” she just smiled, dodging away the woman’s hand. “I really want her to be happy and feel the prettiest even through the weather is like this,” Sunji stopped for a second to admire her yellow thread contrasting with the rich red of the dress. “Days like this feel like dreams, do they not?” The thought escaped her lips before she could stop it.

“The war won’t last forever and young master – I mean, your father will come back safe and sound,” the nana shook her head vigorously, refusing to let her mistress to fall deeper into the melancholy that had taken over her with each day that passed without news. “Remember? No news is good news! Now please give me the needle and rest for the night,” she tried to pursue her gently with all her care for Sunji’s well-being. But her eyes kept looking at the candle – one of the lasts. Without candles there would be no light and no light draws in thieves. Not that there were much left to be stolen around the house. Mr. Hwang had left them only paper and books and Sunji’s jewelry were all gone already, apart from a jade hair pin the old woman refused to sell and secretly hid it in her chamber. No candle meant that Sunji would be left alone in darkness with her thoughts for too long.

“I know, nana, please understand that I know. The food is scarce and there’s no more wood to warm up your room. But this dress will bring us some money and maybe even some attention. The court is always in need of extra hands,” Sunji took the old woman’s hands into hers, heating them up for a second.

“The court?! Not even over my dead body! What are you thinking, young lady?! The palace is no place for you! Ha! No one from there is worthy of even seeing your face and you’re talking about attending them?!”

“But nana, think: the court is the only place where money never runs low. We are starving. Father was good with words but never thought of making a will, so we’re left with only the house after his brothers considered deemed to take his belongings,” Sunji frowned, revealing a different side of her that rarely came to surface. “I have to do something!”

“No, you don’t,” the woman shook her head stubbornly. “And that’s final! I don’t want to hear anything else about the court. We’ll do just fine here. Now be a good girl and sleep a bit,” she quickly blew out the candle and slipped out of the room with her heart trembling inside her chest.

The palace – the debauchery of that place never ceased to amaze her and yet she knew that she had to keep Sunji safe and sound away from the luxury of power struggles. She wasn’t going to fail in her task, so that very night she slipped out of the house and into the darkness of the silent village. Walking on hidden forest paths and following only the map in her head, she reached a hidden cabin. After three slowly paced knocks, the door cracked just so the person inside could see her face.

“It’s time,” she whispered to the person inside before spinning on her heels and taking the road back home.

››۝‹‹

“News from the front, my lady,” the old servant almost whispered behind the door. “My lady?”

He dared cracking open the door to look inside. Sunji was there, sitting as if of stone, looking out through the open window at the heavy snow falling outside. The cold inside send shivers down the old man’s spine, but the look in her eyes when she finally acknowledged him petrified him, making his knees shake.

“Father is dead.” It wasn’t a questions, but as if she knew she spoke flatly. “Prepare for the service. And leave the letter at the door, please,” she drew out the tasks in the same manner. It wasn’t before the man retreated shaking that she stood up from her place with a sigh and went to pick up the white letter. She was prepared. She knew ever since she saw her father’s back her that such a letter would one cold day reach her. She knew and yet…

“Young lady?” The nana came running when a howling-like sound was heard from the inner chambers of the house.

The red skirt spread around her looked like a fresh wound opened on the wooden floor, Sunji’s ghostly hands lying lifeless around her as her eyes wept bitter, regretful tears while staring at the ceiling above. And thousands of papers were flying around from all the books she had ripped apart in her grief. To the core of her being, she was a wound that kept on bleeding and overflowing with emotions she could no longer keep in check. She wanted to scream, hit someone, cry, howl like a wolf at the moon, run around, laugh and just vanish altogether. It was a whirlpool inside her and it felt like it was out her soul…

“Don’t cry for the dead, my lady,” the nana pulled her in her arms just like she used to do when Sunji was but a little girl taunted by the kids in the village. “Don’t feel sorry for them either. Feel sorry for the living, because the living have to carry on with the memories and all the grief,” the old woman tried to offer some comfort while wiping away the tears that seemed to never run dry the past days.

“That man,” Sunji mumbled, curling into a ball on the arms of her nana, “that man left me waiting and now I’m left waiting forever even though I know there’s no ending. That man too tied me up to this life! Damn them, damn them all!”

“Shush, child, you musn’t talk like that about the man who gave you life.”

“Father? What about him?”

“Didn’t you get a letter from the battlefront?”

“Commander Nam died. The letter is from his mother. She undoes the betrothal,” Sunji’s harsh laughter scared the woman who was still holding her in her arms. “She undoes everything so that her son and I won’t have to meet in the next life too. She says I must carry on with my life and forget ever meeting him. She says I’m young. How can I still be young, nana, when my soul has been ripped out and sent to war? How can I still look to my own life when all I knew before has changed just like the shifting of seasons? How? For if there is a way I’m more than willing to take it, to take it and forget any of these happened and live in blissful ignorance till the day I die!”

“If you wish, there’s always a way. One must only look at the door in front and wait, for if the door behind closed another one will open ahead,” the woman caressed her hair gently, ignoring the fear that struck her heart like lightning. There was something in Sunji’s eyes, something she hadn’t seen in a long, long time… “Everything will be alright, you’ll see,” she chanted more for herself, for the young wounded bird in her arms wasn’t hearing any of it.

A fire, bigger than the sun, hotter than a summer day – that’s what she needed. To burn every little thing she had gotten from him, every single piece of fabric that was passed from his hands into hers, to turn her memories into ashes and scatter them into the four winds so she could forget of the dead man too.

“Stop, young lady! Before you hurt yourself,” the maids tried stopping her but she brushed them all off and continued to throw the colourful fabrics into the fire. There went the kite he personally built for her birthday and the wooden ducks she received after he proposed.

“You