CHAPTER VI
The Crying in the Corridor.

Kyungsoo thought the weather in the Yorkshire countryside was very different to London, there was no telling what the next day may bring. A few weeks after his sleepover with Jongin, he was awakened one night by the sound of rain beating with heavy drops against his window. It was pouring down in torrents and the wind was withering around the corners and in the chimneys of the huge old house. Kyungsoo sat up in bed and had a sour taste in his mouth from the melancholy that the weather caused.

“This rain came because it knew I did not want it.”

He threw himself back on his pillow and buried his face. He did not cry, but he lay and hated the sound of the heavily beating rain and the wind. He could not go to sleep again, and the mournful sound kept him awake, because he felt mournful himself. If he had felt happy it would probably have lulled him to sleep.

“It sounds just like a person lost on the moor and wandering on and on crying,” he said.

He had been lying awake, turning from side to side for about an hour, when suddenly something made him sit up in bed and turn his head towards the door listening. He listened and he listened.

“It isn’t the wind now,” he said in a loud whisper. “That isn’t the wind. It is different. It is that crying I heard before.”

The door of his room was ajar and the sound came down the corridor, a far-off faint sound of fretful crying. He listened for a few minutes and each minute he became more and more sure. Something in his tiny little body made him intrigued, perhaps the fact that he was in a rebellious mood made him bold. He put his foot out of bed and stood on the floor.

“I am going to find out what it is,” he said. “Everybody is in bed and I don’t care about Anne‒I don’t care!”

There was a chamberstick by his bedside and he took it up and went softly out of the room. The corridor looked very long and dark, but he was too anxious to mind that. He thought he remembered the corners he must turn to find the short corridor with the door covered with tapestry⸺the one Anne had come through the day he lost himself.

The sound had come up that passage. So he went on with his dim light, almost feeling his way, his heart beating so loud that he fancied he could hear it. The far-off, faint crying went on and led him. Sometimes it stopped for a moment or so and then began again. Was this the right corner to turn?

He stopped and thought.

Yes, it was.

Down this passage and then to the left, and then up two broad steps, and then to the right again.

Yes, there was the tapestry door.

He pushed it open very gently and closed it behind him, and he stood in the corridor and could hear the crying quite plainly, though it was not loud.

It was on the other side of the wall at his left and a few yards farther on there was a door. He opened the door and found himself in a big room with ancient, handsome furniture in it.

Something caught the corner of his eye and made his heart beat fast and his stomach flutter. He walked towards the oak vanity and placed the chamberstick down, there was a collection of photographs in frames that had gathered enough dust from many years. He stared at one particular picture, it stood out to him like a sore thumb. He recognised the person like he had seen them in his dreams, the lady in white was sitting in a flowerbed, her long hair flowed down to her waist and she was smiling. She had the same heart-shaped lips as Kyungsoo and traced her face with his finger.

“Mother,” he whispered out loud.

He knew in his heart that the woman in the photograph was his mother. He had never seen pictures of his parents, but Kyungsoo had seen two people in his dreams so many times he was certain that they were them. He unfastened the frame and took the picture out, placing it in the pocket of his dressing gown. He admired the rest of the vanity, there were other pictures with people that he didn’t recognise and a wooden music box, he opened it to find strings of pearls and gold rings.

There was a tiny drawer on the music box and he unfastened it, there was a rusty old key. He looked at it for quite a long time. He turned it over and over, examining every tiny detail. He wondered if this key would open the door to the garden. He pocketed it, deciding that he would find out later.

Kyungsoo looked around the room, he wondered who slept there. He reached out to open the wardrobe when a cry ran through the walls. It was so clear, it must have come from next door. Kyungsoo made his way out of the bedroom and closed the door behind him, he carried on down the hallway until he found another door a few yards down. He could see a glimmer of light coming from beneath it. The Someone was crying in that room, and it was quite a young Someone.

So he walked to the door and pushed it open, the room was just as big as his own. There was a low fire glowing faintly on the hearth and a night-light burning by the side of a carved, four-poster bed hung with brocade, and on the bed was lying a boy, crying pitifully.

Kyungsoo wondered if he was in a real place of if he had fallen asleep again and was dreaming without knowing it.

The boy had a sharp, delicate face, the colour of ivory, and eyes the shape of almonds. He also had a lot of hair which tumbled over his forehead in heavy locks and made his thin face seem smaller. He looked like a boy who had been ill, but he was crying more as if he were tired and cross than as if he were in pain.

Kyungsoo stood near the door with his chamberstick in his hand, holding his breath. Then he crept across the room, and as he drew nearer the light attracted the boy’s attention and he turned his head on his pillow and stared at him, his chocolate eyes opening so wide that they seemed immense.

“Who are you?” he said at last in a half-frightened whisper. “Are you a ghost?”

“No, I am not.” Kyungsoo answered, his own whisper sounding half-frightened. “Are you one?”

He stared and stared. Kyungsoo could not help noticing what strange eyes he had.

“No,” the boy replied, after waiting a moment or so. “I am Minseok.”

“Who is Minseok?” Kyungsoo faltered.

“I am Kim Minseok. Who are you?”

“I am Doh Kyungsoo. Mr. Kim is my uncle.”

“He is my father,” said Minseok. “Come here.” still keeping his strange eyes fixed on him with an anxious expression. Kyungsoo came close to the bed and stood beside him.

“You are real, aren’t you?” the boy said. “I have such real dreams very often. You might be one of them.”

“I am real. For a minute I thought you might be a dream, too.”

“Where did you come from?” The pale boy asked.

“From my own room. The wind was howling so loud I couldn’t sleep and I heard someone crying and wanted to find out who it was. What were you crying for?”

“Because I couldn’t go to sleep either, and my head ached,” Minseok replied.

“What is my uncle like?” Kyungsoo asked. A sort of angry shadow passed over the boy’s face.

“He almost hates me,” he said. “My mother died when I was born and it makes him wretched to look at me. He thinks I don’t know, but I’ve heard people talking.”

Kyungsoo hummed in response, “I know what that feels like.”

The fragile boy frowned and waited for the other to continue.

“I used to live in an orphanage before your father adopted me. The maids, though they helped us and cared for us, they always looked at us pitifully and talked about us behind our backs thinking we couldn’t hear,” Kyungsoo stopped to huff and ponder more about what was happening.

Minseok had an undetectable look in his eyes before replying, “The servants talk about me behind their backs too. They think I can’t hear them, they say horrible things about me.”

Kyungsoo sat down on a cushioned stool, he did not want to go away at all. He wanted to stay in the mysterious, hidden-away room and talk to the mysterious boy.

“I want to hear all about you,” Minseok said.

“What do you want me to tell you?” Kyungsoo replied.

Minseok wanted to know how long Kyungsoo had been at Misselthwaite; he wanted to know which corridor his room was on; if he disliked the moor as much as Minseok did. Kyungsoo answered all these questions and many more, the younger boy lay back on his pillow and listened. Kyungsoo was just as curious about his cousin, but the younger boy didn’t stop asking questions. Eventually, Minseok stopped and the next moment he gave Kyungsoo a surprise.

“I am going to let you look at something,” he said. “Do you see that rose-coloured silk curtain hanging on the wall over the mantelpiece?”

Kyungsoo had not noticed it before, but he looked up and saw it. It was a curtain of soft silk hanging over what seemed to be some picture.

“Yes,” he answered.

“There is a cord hanging from it,” said Minseok. “Go and pull it.”

Kyungsoo got up, much mystified, and found the cord. When he pulled it the silk curtain ran back on rings and when it ran back it uncovered a picture. It was the picture of a girl with a laughing face. She had her hair tied up with a blue ribbon and her happy, lovely eyes were exactly like Minseok’s unhappy ones.

“She is my mother,” said Minseok complainingly. “I don’t see why she died. Sometimes I hate her for doing it. If she had lived I believe I should have not have been ill and my father would not have hated to look at me.”

“What do you mean you are ill?” Kyungsoo questioned.

“They say I will become mad like my father,” Minseok grumbled. “He slipped into a darkness a long time ago. They say he talks to himself and paces his room.”

“Is that why you never leave the room?” he asked again.

“Yes. I feel safe here. The darkness can’t touch me here.”

Kyungsoo thought a lot. He found his cousin to be rather odd and he didn’t understand why Minseok should stay in his room without sunlight. Keeping him in his room is making him sick. He looked around the room and it wasn’t any different to his room, except Minseok had toys and games scattered across his nursery. There was books stacked up like towers and a small wooden rocking horse by the window. Kyungsoo noticed that the windows were boarded up, letting in not a single spec of sunlight.

There were a few moments of silence and then Kyungsoo spoke.

“What would Anne do if she found out that I had been here?” he inquired.

“She would do as I told her to do,” Minseok answered. “They have to do everything I tell them to do. I should tell her that I wanted you to come here and talk to me every day. I am glad you came. We will keep this a little secret, just between us.”

“I would like that” said Kyungsoo. “I will come as often as I can. I have been here a long time, I should go back to my room.”

“I wish I could go to sleep before you leave me,” Minseok said rather shyly.

“Shut your eyes,” said Kyungsoo, drawing his footstool closer, “and I will pat your hand and it and sing something quite low.”

“I should like that perhaps,” he said drowsily.

Somehow he was sorry for Minseok and did not want him to lie awake, so he leaned against the bed and began to and pat his hand and sing a very low song. When he looked at his cousin, his lashes were lying close against his cheeks, for his eyes were shut and he was fast asleep. He got up softly, took his candle, and crept away without making a sound.

The moor was hidden in mist when the morning came, and the rain had not stopped pouring down. There could be no going out of doors. Jina was so busy that Kyungsoo had no opportunity of talking to her, he wanted to tell her all about the key and his long lost cousin. In the afternoon he asked her to come sit with him in his chamber. She came, bringing the stocking she was always knitting when she had nothing else to do.

“What’s the matter with you?” she asked as soon as they sat down. “You look as if you have something to say.”

“I have. I have found out what the crying was,” Kyungsoo said excitedly.

Jina let her knitting drop on her knee and gazed at the boy with startled eyes.

“You haven’t!” she exclaimed. “Never!”

“I heard it in the night, I got up and went to see where it came from. It was Minseok. I found him. My cousin.”

Jina’s face became red with fright.

“Eh! Master Kyungsoo!” she said, half crying, “You shouldn’t have done it—you shouldn’t! That’ll get me in trouble. I never told anyone about himーbut that’ll get me in trouble. I shall lose my place and what’ll Mother do!”

“You won’t lose your place.” said Kyungsoo. “He was glad I came.”

“Was he?” cried Jina. “Are you sure? You don’t know what he’s like when anything vexes him. He’s a big lad to cry like a baby, but when he’s in a passion of rage he’ll fair scream just to frighten us.”

“He wasn’t vexed,” Kyungsoo said. “I asked him if I should go away and he made me stay. He asked me questions and I sat and talked to him about where I came from and he showed me a picture of his Mother. He wouldn’t let me go.”

Jina fairly gasped with amazement. “If Anne finds out, she’ll think I broke orders and told you. I don’t know what to do!”

“Please don’t tell Anne!” Kyungsoo cried. He did not want to get into any kind of trouble and he certainly didn’t want Jina to lose her job. He was starting to like her a lot. “He said he’s not going to tell anyone, it’s going to be a sort of secret.”

“What will happen if she catches you?”

Kyungsoo’s bottom lip began to wobble with worry. He didn’t understand what was so wrong with meeting his cousin.

“You don’t know what Anne could do! She might ban Jongin from ever coming over, or stop  you from playing on the moors.” Jina scolded as Kyungsoo began to cry. He was flushed red while thick tears fell down his cheeks. He was starting to wish he never told her.

“I-I’m sorry.” He managed to mumble after calming down for a little bit.

“Master Kyungsoo, you need to be careful. You can’t go poking around, especially at night! If your uncle finds out about this, he might send you away!” The elder explained, she noticed Kyungsoo was fidgeting with his hair like he always did and gently took his hand away and carressed it. She whispered soft apologies for yelling at the boy and let him sit in her lap for awhile, rubbing his back until he had calmed down and his tears had dried.

“Promise me you won’t go poking around again, I don’t want to lose you.” Jina sighed, she kissed the top of his head and combed his hair out of his eyes with her fingers.

“What is the matter with Minseok? He told me he is sick.” asked Kyungsoo.

“Nobody knows for sure and certain, his father went off his head when Minseok was born. He left him in the middle of the night and didn’t return for years.”

“Why did he leave?” Kyungsoo’s curiosity rose.

“No one really knows why. He couldn’t bare to look at his son.” Jina sighed sadly. They sat in silence for a while, until a bell rang and she rolled up her knitting and left the room.

Kyungsoo threw himself on his bed with boredom and deep thought. Everything about his new house was a mystery. The strangest house he ever lived in!

Just then, he stretched his arms over his head and felt a hard object under his pillow. He sat up and pulled it away, the mysterious key he found last night was laying there, just how he left it.

He picked it up and examined it closer. “How curious.” he thought to himself. “I wonder if this is the key to the mysterious door.”

The boy looked up to see that the weather had not made any better changes, the wind was so strong it was pushing the rain into tornados in the sky. It was too awful to go outside, it wouldn’t be too long until the sky eats away the sun and he would be in darkness. Tomorrow, he thought.

Tomorrow will be the day.

not a very long chapter, but the next one will be longer and much more interesting! did you guess what the crying was? 
thank you to alexis for beta'ing this chapter for me.

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