When she woke up, the girl with the missing memories recognized her surroundings. It was the cottage she first woke up to long ago. Which meant…

“Seulhee!”

Seulhee grumbled incoherently and flipped over on her bed. “What is it, Mother?” she asked, barely loud enough to be heard in the next room.

“There’s a letter for you.” Hearing this, she immediately bolted up into a sitting position. Who else would send her a letter but…?

“It’s from Sungyeol,” her mother added, confirming it for her.

Without further hesitation Seulhee hopped out of bed and entered the main room of the house. Her mother handed over the letter into her hands, and she walked out into the open, over by the creek that ran by their home, to sit down.

At first she didn’t open the letter but merely stared at it.

There were a lot of feelings swirling around inside her. One of them was excitement. Another was bitterness. For several months now she hadn’t heard a single word from Sungyeol, ever since he had written that other letter saying that they should break off their friendship and everything. And now here he was writing to her again.

Did he want her back as a friend? More importantly, if he did, how was she supposed react? Was she supposed to feel happy that she was getting him back? Grateful that he still remembered her existence while living a better life than her? Angry that he was so changeable and so disloyal and now he had the audacity to ask her for forgiveness?

After a while, she stopped asking herself these questions and simply opened the letter to see what he had to say.

Dear Seulhee,

I am very sorry that our friendship ended the way it did. I guess I was a bit too harsh, but I didn’t think you would like the person that I had become, so I felt it was better to end things than to hurt you with a changed me. I know you probably hate me now, or at least feel some sort of hurt and anger at me for this, and I don’t blame you at all. But if you can find it in you to forgive me, perhaps someday we will be friends once again.

It was as she expected. But there was more, so she read on.

But that’s not the important thing. I’ve found an opportunity for you to come to the city, like you wanted to. To the capital. You will be paid very well because this position will be one inside the palace itself. If your parents are willing to let you, you could come here. Please let me know about your answer as soon as possible. If you accept the offer, then I will be sending someone to accompany you on your journey to the capital.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Best wishes,

Sungyeollie

After she finished the letter, Seulhee simply sat and stared out into space, thinking. What was she supposed to say to that? Once upon a time she had wanted desperately to escape the life of a village girl, but she hadn’t imagined that this sort of chance would ever come. Seeing the way her friend had changed , she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to go to the city any longer. If it invariably twisted people’s personalities, then it wasn’t a place she wanted to be.

But deep down, she knew she wanted to see her friend again, and her parents needed whatever income she could bring them before she got married off. The combination of increased taxes and a comparatively poor crop yield had sent the village economy into a slump, and the recent months had been hard ones for her family.

Standing back up and brushing off her clothes, Seulhee headed back inside to tell her parents the news.

They were as surprised as she was about it all, especially the fact that Sungyeol had managed to get connections that would allow him to do this for her. However, as expected, they agreed to let her go.

The message she wrote to him was very short, saying only what needed to be said, her reply to his offer, nothing more. Her letters were a bit awkward-looking, but there was little she could do about it. While she had learned to read and write, she hadn’t made much practice of it. Her parents didn’t own much paper, only enough to use for inventories, which they mostly just memorized anyway. They had little use for account books since they were hardly high-class merchants. Most of what they did was bartering, anyway.

The letter got sent off about two days later. Seulhee had to travel to the nearest town to find someone to deliver it for her, and it cost some money. Hopefully it would reach the palace speedily. She had no way of knowing that the letter had arrived safely in her friend’s hands until the person Sungyeol said he would send came.

***

A little over a week later, the promised messenger appeared on Seulhee’s doorstep. She was sitting by the fire with her mother after lunch, concentrating on knitting, when she heard the knock. Her father was out working in the fields, so she laid the half-finished scarf aside and got up to answer the door.

The stranger greeted her quite amiably with a infectious smile and a polite bow, and she judged by his clothes that he was someone from the merchant class. On the left side of his head there was a small braid in his pale hair, which fell almost to his shoulders. Seulhee had only ever seen this fashion worn in town.

“Sungyeol sent me to take you to the capital,” the stranger said, straight to the point. “He figured you shouldn’t travel alone and that we shouldn’t bother anyone from your village to accompany you. I’m Dongwoo, by the way.”