Kim Kyunghee was the most beautiful maiden in the kingdom, everyone said so. She was kind and considerate and cared for others in a mother-hen sort of way, though she remained demure and respectful in all things, even when being rather bossy. In short, Kim Kyunghee was the sort of woman that any person in any province--nay, any kingdom--should be proud to call their own.

Kyunghee hailed from a proud but poor family on the far north border of the kingdom; and her parents were, indeed, proud to have such a prized jewel of a daughter.

“Be more like Kyunghee,” they were always telling Minseok, their younger child, a boy some four years younger than Kyunghee. “Your sister was so polite at your age; why do you persist in this poor behavior?”

Minseok had every right to grow up despising his sister for being so perfect. Naturally, the fact that she was so perfect meant he couldn’t hate her at all.

Just as naturally, when Kyunghee had an untimely encounter with a cursed spindle and was left in an endless sleep, her brother, her parents, and basically everyone else were absolutely devastated.

“What shall we do?” asked the people.

“Even the sky is in mourning,” said the milkman as he ducked from house to house to deliver his wares in the pouring rain.

“There is no beauty left in the world,” cried the Mayor’s gardener as he pruned the rose bushes.

“Whatever shall we do?” asked the people once more. This time they took their questions to Kyunghee’s family, who then went to the Mayor, who promised to tell the King that something must be done.

“There is nothing to be done,” the Mayor told Kyunghee’s parents and brother despondently some days later after a letter had been sent to and answered by the King. “A matter of magic is of no concern to the royal family.”

And that was that. The King, and the Mayor, had abandoned Kim Kyunghee to be a sleeping beauty for the rest of her life, and there wasn’t anything anyone could do about it.

Still, Minseok felt he had to try.

“What about the Witch of the Wood?” he asked his parents one night. As far as he knew, the Witch was just a story told to scare children away from the dangers of the forest, but they’d exhausted all other options, and all stories have to come from somewhere, do they not? “Surely she can help us bring Kyunghee back.”

“The Witch?” Minseok’s mother laughed bitterly. “The Witch has not been seen or heard from in 50 years, Minseok. How can someone who is probably dead help us?”

“But she was real once, wasn’t she?” Minseok persisted, though he knew his parents grew tired of his questions. “We don’t know for sure that she’s no longer alive.”

“Common sense, son,” was all his father would say on the matter. “The Witch is better off left as a bedtime story.”

Be that as it may, Minseok wasn’t convinced. He just knew, somehow, that the Witch of the Wood would have the answers he sought, and so he resolved to leave the following morning in search of her.