TW: self-harm, suicide

Before I could even open my eyes, I could feel my neck and shoulders aching.  As I turned my head to the side, besides realizing I didn’t have a pillow beneath my head, my neck felt like it was turning against a jagged rock.  My right arm was half asleep, and the hardwood floor against my back felt like a bed of ice.

            “Jiu?” 

            I heard Siyeon’s voice, and as I opened my eyes I saw her peering over me from on top of her bed.  Her eyes were red and puffy, but she looked wide awake as she stared at me.

            I let out a loud, whiny sigh and attempted to push myself up with my good arm.  “Why am I on your floor?”

            “Did you fall asleep while you sat with me last night?” she asked quietly as Gahyeon began to grumble and stir in her bed.

            “I think I fell asleep in my own room,” I explained slowly as the memories from last night returned to me.  “Yeah, Sua tucked me in my bed.”

            “Are you sure?”

            “…Maybe I was sleep walking,” I assumed, remembering Sua’s warning.  “Ah…Everything hurts.”

            “Maybe you should take a break from classes today and get some rest,” Siyeon suggested. 

            After a small struggle, I climbed up onto Siyeon’s bed and began to massage my sleeping arm.  “I need to know what Professor Jeon found out about my spider.  The whole thing is bugging me.”

            “…Bugging you,” Siyeon laughed to herself, rubbing my sleeping arm gently.  “Well…don’t wear yourself out.”

            “I’m more worried about you,” I sighed, staring at her red eyes.  “How are you feeling.”

            “I had a dream…”  She appeared generally cheerful, but she couldn’t meet my gaze.  “I think I figured out some things.  Don’t worry too much about me.”

            “A dream?” I chuckled.  “You figured everything out from a dream?”

            She finally looked up at me with apologetic eyes, as if she were the one consoling me.  “I know it’s strange…But it’s true.  I think I understand everything now.”

            “Understand…what?” I asked curiously. 

            “Why are you so loud…” Gahyeon groaned with her face pressed into her pillow. 

            “Ah…Gahyeon must be talking in her sleep,” I snapped playfully, painfully making my way over to Gahyeon’s bed and laying down right beside her.  “Gahyeon, did you know you talk in your sleep?”

            “Did you know you’re annoying?” she replied with an ever escalating tone of resentment. 

            I wrapped my arms around Gahyeon and felt myself falling victim to the comfort of her soft bed.  “Fine, let’s just sleep.”

            “Okay,” Gahyeon yawned, stretching slightly before returning to her fetal position to sleep.

            “No, I was just kidding,” I sighed, barely able to keep my own eyes open.

            “Jiu, sleep a little longer and I’ll wake you up when breakfast is ready,” Siyeon insisted.  I felt her pull the blanket over me before patting Gahyeon on her shoulder.  “I guess you can sleep a little longer too, Gahyeon.”

            But Gahyeon was already asleep, and I must have fallen asleep not long after.  When I awoke, Gahyeon was awake and all ready for her classes, and the temperature had risen quite a bit.  My body still ached slightly, but I forced myself out of bed and walked over to the window.  There was still a rather thick layer of fog, but the sun was shining brightly, giving the yard and the top of the forest a mystical, gleaming essence. 

            I arrived so late to film class that I expected Sua to already be there, but she wasn’t, and she never arrived.  But I was so tired, I didn’t even think to scold her later.  Despite my pain and tiredness, I almost leapt out of my chair at the end of class.  Minjun looked like he wanted to talk to me, but I rushed out of class so quickly, I nearly left my notebook on my desk.

            I was exhausted; the kind of exhausted where the sun is always too bright no matter how much you squint your eyes.  There was an hour left until my etymology class, and I decided to lie face first in the grass for the duration of my wait.  On the verge of a nap, I heard footsteps draw closer and closer.

            “Jiu,” Sua called gently, her hand running slowly across the back of my head.  “It’s like walking through a door.”

            “…Hmm?”  I could barely open my mouth against the grass, and I felt too weak too turn onto my back and face her. 

            “Not even walking through a door…It’s like putting on glasses and seeing things through a different light.”

            “Sua, what…”

            Energy suddenly flowed through me like a bolt of lightning, and I spun onto my back as quickly as I could.  But Sua wasn’t there, and the only people I could spot nearby were my etymology class gathering on the edge of the forest a few yards away.  The hour passed by so quickly.  Had I been sleeping?  Were Sua’s strange words just a dream?

            Professor Jeon began class as usual, and everyone gave small presentations about their insects, except me, since my deadline had been extended.  The other students seemed irritated by the fact I didn’t present, but they didn’t know about my mysterious, haunting spider, and I’m sure they wouldn’t want to.

            “So what’s up with this spider, Professor?” I asked after everyone had dispersed at the end of class.  “Did you find its name?”

            “Actually…I didn’t find anything about it,” he replied shamefully.  “I checked every book I have and even searched online, but I couldn’t find anything out.  I’m actually wondering if you’ve discovered a new species or something.”

            A chill shot down my spine.  I would have been amazed, even thrilled by the professor’s news, but after hearing Dami’s story last night, I couldn’t escape a cold fear that possessed my entire body.  My heart gave a few deep, paralyzing pounds before I could muster a stiff laugh to set my professor at ease.

            “Oh, really?” I exclaimed as he took the jar from his suitcase and handed it to me.  I stared down at that troubling spider and its menacing skull.  “That’s…That’s amazing.”

            “I know you need it to complete your report, but I hope you could hand it over to me after you’re done,” I explained, looking at the spider with curious eyes.  “I’ll be able to do more thorough research back in Korea, and I’ll make sure you’re credited if it actually ends up being a new species.”        

            “That sounds…fine,” I assured, quickly stowing the jar away in my bag so I wouldn’t have to see it anymore.  “I’ll give it to you after the weekend on Monday.”

            “Oh, but you have until Tuesday to complete your report.”

            “I’m sure I’ll be done by then.”  I gave a quick bow as I began walking away.  “Have a nice weekend, Professor.”

            As I walked back to the mansion, I desperately wanted to throw the spider away.  Even as I thought about it, my whole body tingled as if it was crawling up my spine and all across my skin.  I took a deep breath, the cooling air paralyzing my lungs.  I felt trapped in my own mind as my thoughts swirled around me.  When I saw the male students leaving through the front door with our professors, I quickly turned around and hurried around the house to the back door.

            “Jiu, are you okay?” Dami asked as soon as I entered, taking a bag of chips from the kitchen pantry.  “You look like something was chasing you.”

            “Chasing…No.”  I took a few seconds to catch my breath before giving a weak smile.  “It’s just getting cold out there; I didn’t want to be caught out in that fog.  Hey, do you know if they left the doors to the west wing unlocked again?”

            She gave a smirk as she popped a chip in .  “Don’t get mad at me, but I jammed the lock, so even when they remember to lock them, they’ll will stay open.”

            “That’s…”  My basic instinct to scold her was overwhelmed by my urge to examine the witch’s journal again.  “Skillful.  Make sure to unjam it before we all go home.”

            “Sure,” she promised, stepping out into the entrance hall.

            I followed her slowly, remaining quietly in the kitchen doorway until she headed up the main stairs and into her room.  Standing alone in that big, empty hall and looking out the window at the cold, foggy twilight, I could finally feel the warmth of the house creep into my clothes.  My worries seemed to slowly lift away from me, and I leaned against the doorway and gave a long sigh.

            “Why do you scare me so much?” I whispered, holding the spider up to the fading light of the window.  I noticed the part of its body where Yoohyeon’s foot had done the most damage; two legs were broken and bent the wrong way, but otherwise, it seemed untouched.  It was a wonder it even died.

            I finally scraped my eyes away from it and walked cautiously to the doors of the west wing.  I don’t know why I expected bleak darkness to greet me on the other side of them, but the warm light of the early sunset through the windows kept the forbidden wing alit.  The small library was only a few feet away, but the floor creaked loudly with every step I took.  It was pretty dark inside, but the small window above the desk gave enough light for me to see the witch’s journal on a stack of books on the floor.  It stood out right away with its aging leather binding.  I had failed to notice the damage on the front of the book before, if it was damage at all.  There were little spots spread out across the leather.  Their arrangement was angled like a butterfly’s wing, and the spots had a green tint that glistened in the sunlight.

            I took the journal and the spider and placed them on the desk.  As I sat down, I noticed a few candlesticks and matches sprawled across the wood, obviously part of Dami’s secret supply.  I carefully used a match to light one of the candlesticks before reluctantly opening the journal.  Though the messy English words scrawled all across the pages were daunting, I was pleasantly surprised to see some pages littered with post-it notes explaining the story, all in Yoohyeon’s handwriting.

            I started from the very beginning.  The journal seemed to start off as a recipe book  The ingredients that Yoohyeon was able to translate seemed unlike anything edible, and I could only conclude that it was a recipe for potions or spells.  As I read through the odd instructions, I couldn’t believe it was real, yet at the same time it felt real enough to consume every thought I had.

            Dates weren’t given in any entries, though the witch mentioned the season at the top of every page.  After a sudden change from spring to winter, I noticed the recipe pages began to contain little sketches of a baby.  The sketches became better and better and the baby grew older and older over the seasons, and I turned the pages more and more quickly until whole years had passed.

            The recipes became short notes about sickness and death, and Yoohyeon’s post-its gave a sense of fear that made me wonder if the witch was writing from the time of the Black Death.  Drawings of the little girl remained in the notes for a few more pages, until they disappeared along with the author’s sense of neatness and organization.  I recognized the pages from what Dami showed me now.  The notes were sloppy and urgent, and Yoohyeon obviously had a difficult time in deciphering her writing.  When the drawing of the spider appeared, I meant to study it for a while and try to understand if it had anything to do with the dead spider nearby on the desk, but something in me made me turn the page as soon as I saw it.

            After a few more pages, noticed that the witch had stopped writing for a whole season.  Two words were written, and Yoohyeon didn’t bother translating them.  I could understand them perfectly: “she died.”  I read them over and over, and my heart beat so hard I began to feel lightheaded.  I couldn’t understand why I was so shaken, even as tears filled my eyes.  The image of a grieving woman holding the lifeless body of her beloved child was so vivid in my mind, the words, the book, and the library seemed to disappear.

            “I’m sorry,” I heard myself say as I wiped a tear from my cheek.  “I’m sorry.”

            I closed my eyes tightly and shook my head, attempting to return my heart back to the 21^st century continue with the journal.  After a few more pages, the sketches of the child returned, and the witch described her daughter’s visits in her dreams.  Yoohyeon’s translations were unrefined and straight to the point, but I could sense the witch’s powerful emotions as her sketches became more details and elaborate.  She drew herself and her daughter in forests, meadows, and palaces.  They appeared on top of mountains and even throughout space among the stars. 

            I finally reached the end of her entries where I closed the book on Dami yesterday.  I flipped slowly and absentmindedly through the blank pages, trying to digest everything that had been written and drawn.  The story was eerie, like seeing a horror movie that convinced you that a ghost would kill you that very night.  As I blankly stared at the empty pages, my heart nearly stopped when a drawing appeared. 

It was at least twenty pages in from the witch’s last entry, and the art style was noticeably different.  There was a girl with medium-length hair in a dark room.  The girl was surrounded with ropes and nets, and all around her were people in fear, tied up in her rope.  The girl stared at them blankly while they appeared to agonize in pain.  Certain details in their expressions, their bound bodies, their captor’s apathy, it all made me feel sick.  I quickly turned the page, but was surprised by an even more disturbing image.

A girl stood by a cage.  Her eyes were blank and lifeless as people within the cage cried and begged to be let out.  Even without a description, I knew that’s what they were doing.  The distress and grief in their faces were haunting.  My eyes moved to the girl again, and I stared into her apathetic face.  Her eyes were dead, yet somehow piercing.  I noticed a small smirk upon her face that made my heart skip a beat.  She stared at me like a wolf, yet her soft face gave off an eerie innocence.  I stared and stared, and she stared back.  The ink seemed to raise off the page towards me.  She stared and stared and seemed more and more familiar with each passing second.  Her piercing gaze.  She looked like Siyeon.

“Siyeon.”  Her name slipped through my lips as a sharp sigh as I slammed the book shut.  I felt like I was on the verge of a panic attack, and I realized sweat was dripping down my forehead.  Jumping up from my chair, I tried to blow out the candle.  After two failed attempts, I finally put the candle out and rushed out of the library, gladly leaving the journal and spider on the desk.

As I stepped out into the hallway, I looked to my right at the dining room where I saw Siyeon last night.  The light from the sunset was deep and red, just as it was when I saw her, and I was surprised she wasn’t there yet again.  Taking a few deep breaths, I wandered to the dining room to regain my sanity.  That spider, that journal, those drawings, they were like ghosts floating throughout my mind.

I pressed my hands against the big window and looked out into the foggy red night.  The fog looked like dust, and it was so thick I could barely see the forest behind it.  I was shocked a deer in the field happened to catch my eye through the fog.

But it wasn’t a deer.  I pressed closer to the glass of the window until my breath began to fog it up.  My heat pounded as I quickly moved to another window and held my breath.  The figure in the field had long dark hair and seemed to glide like a ghost through the fog.  I could make out the dark grey nightgown wrapped around its thin body.

“Siyeon!” I screamed as my vision turned to white.  I shook my head urgently, successfully evading the fainting spell I could feel upon my body.  Stumbling back towards the entrance hall, I could barely breathe.

I cried her name again as I rushed to the front door.  Yoohyeon and Sua stood in the entrance hall in confusion.

“Jiu, what’s wrong?” Yoohyeon asked, attempting to hold me up as my legs buckled beneath me.

“Siyeon is out there!” I told desperately, gripping Yoohyeon’s arm as hard as I could.  “She’s just wandering out in the cold and fog.  I’m afraid of what she’s going to do!”

They stared at me with wide, terrified eyes.  Sua stepped toward the front door and opened it immediately.  “I’ll bring her back.”

“I’ll go with you,” I insisted, finally gaining enough strength to hold myself up.

“No.”  She stepped through the door as I reached for her and looked back at us.  “Don’t worry, I’m sure she’s fine.  I’ll bring her back quickly.  You guys just wait here.  Don’t come out here.  It won’t be any good if all of us end up lost in the fog.”

“Sua!”

Yoohyeon and I stood helplessly in the doorway as she stepped out into the night.  Freezing air blew violently into the house, and Yoohyeon eventually used all her force to shut the door.  She leaned against it and gazed at me in horror.

“Why are you scared of what she’ll do?” she questioned with a shaky voice.  “Maybe she’s just taking a walk, right?”

“Yoohyeon…”  I shook my head helplessly and looked down at the floor.  “Siyeon isn’t feeling well right now.  She’s…really sad.”

She looked back at me with full understanding, as if the words had pierced straight to her heart.  A quiet whimper escaped her lips as she turned back to the door and opened it. 

“We have to find her,” she insisted feebly, stepping out the door.

As much as I wanted to follow her, something made me snatch her arm and pull her back inside instead.  Before she could realize what was happening, I shut the door and wrapped my arms around her from behind.

“We have to find her!” she cried as she tried to wriggle out of my arms.

“Sua is right,” I admitted reluctantly, constraining her with all my force.  “It won’t help anyone if we all get lost in the fog.”

Yoohyeon broke down into tears as she continued to struggle from my grasp.  “I knew something was wrong.  Why didn’t I do anything?”

“Yoohyeon, please stop,” I begged, turning her around and pulling her into my arms.  “I know I panicked, but we shouldn’t jump to conclusions.  She’s probably fine.”

“Even if she’s fine…I should have never left her lonely,” Yoohyeon sobbed, suddenly squeezing me tighter than she ever had and burying her face into my shoulder.  “I shouldn’t have left her.”

Eventually the rest of the girls came to the entrance hall, and I tried to explain the situation as calmly as possible.  We all stood at the front door and stared out the windows, looking for any sign of Sua or Siyeon.  The minutes seemed like hours.  Yoohyeon sat down at the bottom of the main staircase, weeping as she stared at the floor.  Dami eventually sat beside her and held her tightly to calm her down.

We all jumped at the sound of the back door opening.  I stood paralyzed as Sua and Siyeon entered the hall from the kitchen.  Sua was holding onto Siyeon’s arm tightly and leading her.  Siyeon, wearing only her grey nightgown, only looked down at the floor with a panicked expression.

“Siyeon!” Gahyeon cried, taking quick steps towards Sua and Siyeon.

“Wait.”  Sua took a step back from Gahyeon, pulling Siyeon along with her.  Gahyeon halted in her tracks and stared at Sua in confusion.  “Hold on a minute.”

“Are you guys okay?” Dami asked, rising up from the stair with Yoohyeon. 

“We’re fine,” Sua assured with a weak smile.  “Siyeon is just very cold and a little shaken.  I’m going to let her lay down in my bed to get warm.  As soon as she’s feeling better, we’ll come visit you guys.”

“Are you sure you’re both okay?” I asked in amazement, looking at Siyeon’s pained expression.  “Should I get you anything?”

“Don’t worry, Jiu.”  Sua looked at me with a tired grin.  “I’ll take care of her.  Just take care of everyone else and make sure they get to bed soon.  I know it’s early, but I feel like we’ve all had quite a night.  Excuse us.”

Everyone stepped out of the way as Sua led Siyeon up the stairs to her bedroom.  As glad as I was to see that Siyeon was safe, I couldn’t help but be haunted by the panic in her eyes.  Everything that I’d seen in the past hour felt like an endless nightmare from which I couldn’t escape.  But I felt a sudden touch of comfort when Handong gently grasped my arm.

“I think it’s going to be okay,” she whispered to me, looking at me with a serene expression.  “Siyeon is safe now.”

“Yeah…”  My thoughts swirled around me again, and I needed to rest.  I gave each of the kids a hug before heading upstairs to lay down.  I couldn’t stand one more moment of this worry.