How much is enough?

Every time she thought of her parents, it never fails to make her heart felt like smashed and twisted around. She hated them. She loathed them. She wished they were dead. She cursed them every night between her prayers.

Wendy wished her parents were dead so she could run away to somewhere dark and vast, so that she could cry her heart out and dried her tears. After years of abuse and black days and shut in the isolation room, she didn’t need light anymore. Bright places were not for her, because she knew she would be burnt by the brightness like a fire was set on her.

Enough of this. She didn’t want this, she didn’t need this. Born to a family who treated her as a demon child, why was she even born into this world in the first place? The treatment between her and her sisters was like south and north. How did she end up like this? What has gone wrong?

Her voice. It was her voice.

Wendy’s voice bewitched people, they said. To those who listened to her singing voice, misfortunes befell upon them.

At first, they told her to stop singing and she obeyed them. But then they believed that it’s not only her singing, but her voice was the source. So they shut her in the bedroom and prohibited her from speaking to anyone. After three months she tried to talk to the family’s dog, however, it died not long after. Her family was frightened more than ever, resulting in i the beginning of her total isolation.

Wendy was patient throughout her first year. She believed someday the curse will be lifted up and she could be free from that cramped room. She dreamed of the day that she could sing all she wants but sadly that promised day never came.

Her hopes shattered into pieces when two years passed without any significant change. Then the third year came and she gave up completely. It’s not worth the wait, her prayers were unheard and her mind had gotten darker.

So she talked to her.

“Can you tell me about her?”

Wendy began to write down her memory about her, sometimes she also tried to mouth her story and support it with body language.  

The first time Wendy talked to her, it was a humid day in summer. The ceiling fan whirled lazily up above and the air was the smell of sweat mixed with spoiled foods. She sat in the corner, looking outside from bars of a tiny square of the so-called-window. She wore a bright yellow blouse with ruffles adorned the cuffs and pale green chiffon skirt which swept the floor beneath her. Her hair was cut short, black as night, with a streak of green on one side.

When she turned around and their eyes met, Wendy felt her blood rushed through all of her body and there was something about her that made Wendy’s vision blur.

“Oh, hello there!”

Her voice was clear and crisp, it sounded like a tune of the wedding bell Wendy heard in her aunt’s wedding long, long ago.

“Who are you?”

Wendy thought her eyes tricked her. It couldn’t be. There’s no anyone in that place aside from her. How did this girl with eccentric hair get in here?

“I’m Joy. Like my name, I’m supposed to bring joy to whoever I meet.” The short-haired replied, her face beaming with a bright radiance.

“Wait this can’t be true I was alone a moment ago why did you appear now?”

Joy clicked her tongue, tilted her head to one side and examined Wendy with her eyes. “Wendy, do you want to be happy?”

Being asked like that so suddenly, Wendy couldn’t answer her question. She still couldn’t believe her eyes. This isn’t real, she thought. Maybe I’m crazy already.

The other girl got up from her sitting and walked towards Wendy. She reached her hand out to Wendy, one of her eyebrows rose.

“Umm… what?” Wendy asked, confused.

“Shake hands. Let’s be friends,” she said dryly, stated it as it’s the most usual thing when you’re confined in your room and another existence appeared before your eyes.

Wendy wasn’t sure of anything at that time. In her head, she denied Joy’s existence. But she shook her hand, and like that suddenly they’re friends.

In an instant speed, the room was no longer silent. There’s always chatter and song inside. Joy talked, Wendy sang. Somehow their existence complemented each other. Somehow, Wendy enjoyed her days with Joy.

They talked. They talked all night long, from small matters to their nonexistent dreams. When the sun rays started to fill the room through the small window, they would sing. There’s no time to sleep, they didn’t want to sleep. But they would fall asleep leaned on each other when it’s time for them to explore the dreamland.

She was the light in her.

The mist of darkness had already shifted. When Joy started to sing accompanying her, Wendy saw the world in a whole new perspective. There’s no need to be afraid of darkness. Joy was here, Wendy was here. Those times, Wendy thought that she had found the place she was meant to be, to be with Joy and received her light forever.

“Let’s run away,” one day Joy said.

Wendy was sitting on the floor and let Joy braided her long, wavy hair. She turned her head back and caught a glimpse of Joy’s smiling face. 

“What do you mean with run away. How will we do that?”

“Burn down the house,” Joy replied. Wendy shook her head and snickered.

“We’ll be dead before we could go out from there.”

“Aww, Wen, don’t be so pessimistic,” Joy tapped Wendy’s head lightly as she said that.

She sat beside Wendy and put her head on Wendy’s shoulder, her fingers found the other girl’s fingers and intertwined them into hers.

“Imagine a vast, green field. There’s a huge cherry tree in the middle of it. Now it’s summer so we won’t see the flowers. But the tree is green, and it’s leafy. Imagine we lay our bodies beneath its shade. And we will taste the summer scent; the fragrance of roses and lavenders, our sweat, the salty air from the ocean. We will lay down there for a long time, until we caught the last rays of the day. Imagine a big, reddish ball of sun sinking slowly into the horizon. We’ll watch that, and when the night comes, we’ll do the stargazing. We’re free, and you’re free, Wen.”

“Such an impossible dream,” Wendy giggled.

“That’s why I asked you to imagine it.”

Wendy studied Joy’s sulking face, her hand reached out to touch the green streak of Joy’shair.

“I’m fine as long as you’re here. I don’t need my freedom.”

Juhyun put her hands under her chin and examined the girl in front of her. Wendy didn’t cry anymore. It’s a good improvement. Before, Wendy would cry every time she talked about Joy. After, three sessions, she stopped crying and started to write about her memories with Joy.

“Do you want to be free, Wendy?”

Wendy lifted her gaze from the paper she wrote on. Her eyes looked at Juhyun with sheer fright and then shook her head.

--I want her to come back—

“Say truthfully, Wendy. Say whatever you want,” Juhyun tried to give her a little push.

--she’s all I want—

“Not freedom? Not your voice? Not your ability to sing?”

--I can sing if she’s here—

“You sure? If she comes back, you can speak again? Will your voice be back again? What if it won’t come back?” Juhyun didn’t want to pressure Wendy this much, but somehow she’s interested in this girl named Joy.

-- It don’t matter—

Juhyun closed her notebook. She sighed ever so quietly so Wendy wouldn’t notice. “

I understand.”

They found the girl after her three and half years of imprisonment. At first, there’s a suspicion that the parents killed their daughter. But according to the neighbors, they heard singing voice from the attic. So they decided to take a look. The parents --who're turned to be members of a cult-- were opposing but with so many people demanded, they finally let her go.

The room in the attic was filled with a smell that would make your head dizzy. It was incredibly stinky and stuffy. The girl was sleeping when they found her. The clothes she wore were shabby, and her whole body was covered in dirt. It would be easy to think that she’s dead. But her chest was moving up and down in a steady rhythm of the breath.

It was a miracle that she was alive.

They took her to the social facility to be treated there. But she shocked them all. She wouldn’t speak a word. She couldn’t speak anymore. Her voice was gone.

--where is she?—

Juhyun didn’t know the answer to Wendy’s question. “Tell me more about her, so I can predict where she’s now.”

Wendy loved her.

She could easily find Joy’s smiling face every time she woke up from her sleep. She loved when that girl playing with her long hair and put it in various do. She loved Joy’s touch, her long fingers, solid and soft. Her warmth, so real and radiating when she held her. She loved when they’re singing together, tune the harmony between their voices.

And the talks. Wendy loved her talks. They sounded like bedtime stories to Wendy’s ears. They kept her from the loneliness of the day. Joy’s talks kept her walking in the shower of the lights even if the evilness of the night had fallen upon them.

“She is in your heart and mind, because you love her so much.”

 --That’s a lie—

They called a doctor to talk to her. She still couldn’t voice a word, but she was willing to communicate in some way. But all she talked was about the other girl. Her Joy. She’s always searching for Joy and asking them where’s the other girl.

They never found any other girl in that room.

She wouldn’t believe it.

The doctor tried her best to make the girl understand that there’s never someone named Joy in the first place. But she wouldn’t understand. She refused to understand anything. She just wanted Joy to come back to her.

“We believe that her incapability of speaking is caused by her own unwillingness. In Wendy’s case, it’s because she doesn’t believe anyone apart from Joy. She doesn’t trust her voice to any other people but Joy. Deep in her unconsciousness, it’s like programmed there that she wouldn’t speak to anybody. “

So they tried to make her forget about Joy.

A/N: sorry for the long delay, I hope you enjoy this. I planned an epilog for this story, maybe I'll post later when I finished it.

Thank you for all who subscribed :)

xoxo,

ra/crest