Chapter 8

TW: suicide, self-harm

            The rest of the weekend was everything I could have hoped for.  The seven of us took a walk through the forest and even played in the river that Yoohyeon and Dami had found.  There was a sense of peace and a new era, and I welcomed it gratefully.

            By the time Monday arrived, Siyeon was feeling well enough to go to classes.  She stayed close to Sua during the week, and the two of them spent most of their time off for a walk, but looked happier than ever when I saw them, and that was all that mattered.  With my mind clear of worry, I was even able to write up my report on the mysterious spider.  But I didn’t want to look at it again.  I wrote it all from memory and left it in the west wing library, which I planned to never visit again.

            On Friday morning, just before I left for my film class, Handong was lying on her bed as I collected my notebooks. 

            “Jiu…I’m not feeling very well,” she said with a sigh.

            “You’re feeling sick?”  I stepped over immediately and felt her forehead with the back of my hand.  “You don’t have a fever.  Does your stomach hurt?”

            “A little.”  She took my hand and tapped my palm rhythmically.  “I think I’ll skip my classes today and take a bath.  Rest a little.”

            “Well…If you’re feeling that bad…”  I put my hand on her cheek and smiled down at her big eyes.  “Relax a little.  I’ll stop by your French literature class and pick up any homework assignments for you.”

            “Siyeon is in the class with me,” she informed, looking away from me at the window.  “I’m sure she can tell me anything I missed.”

            “Hmm, you’re right.  But I don’t know if I’ll see her again to ask her to do that, plus I feel responsible.  You’re my kid, Dongie.”

            She smirked like a spoiled child.  “Jiu, didn’t you say you had a surprise for me?  On the plane?  You said Yoohyeon was helping you with it.”

            “Ah…I don’t know if I’m ready to show it to you,” I chuckled shyly, covering my mouth.

            “What is it?”  She took my hand again and shook it gently.  “I want to see it.”

            “Hmm…I’ll try.”

            I took a deep breath and cleared my throat.  “Bu..Bu…”  I couldn’t hold in a bashful laugh.  “You won’t laugh at me, right?”

            She looked at me adoringly and grinned.  “I won’t.”

            “Ah, okay…”  When I realized I was actually going to do it, a whirlwind of butterflies fluttered in my stomach.  I cleared my throat again and struggled to look at Handong.  “Bu…Bulun fashengle…shenme shi…wo…wo hui…yongyuan ai ni.”

            “No matter what happens, I will always love you,” she translated, looking at me in awe.

            “Did I say it right?” I asked, feeling my cheeks burning up.  “I practiced really hard, but my pronunciation just won’t get better.”

            “It was perfect.”  She sat up and wrapped her arms around me.  “Bulun fashengle shenme shi, wo hui yongyuan ai ni.”

            “Well, you said it better than I did,” I laughed quietly, patting the back of her head.

            She pressed her nose against my ear and held me tight.  “I’ll do the same.  No matter what happens.”

            Her voice sent chills down my spine, and I suddenly felt afraid.  Pulling away, I rubbed my hand across her cheek one last time and grinned.  “Just get some rest.  Let’s all play a board game tonight or something.  I’m sure you’ll feel better in no time.”

            “Okay.”

            She looked so happy as she sat there, but her smile gave me an uneasy feeling.  I picked up my notebooks and reluctantly left her, hoping my classes would clear my mind.

            The fog had become more and more dense over the week though, and the sun struggled to provide brightness even at the top of the day.  There were grey clouds with thin silver linings all across the sky, and they kept the west wing dining room darker than usual.  When Sua never came to class, I began to ignore the film that was being shown and opted to stare out at the gloomy weather instead.

            “Jiu.”  Minjun looked back from his seat and smirked at me.  “Hey, Jiu.”

            I looked at him in awe; he had never tried to talk to me during class before.  Stealing a quick glance at the front of the room, I realized our professor was asleep at his desk.

            “What…What is it, Minjun?” I whispered, attempting not to draw attention to myself.

            “You look sort of sad,” he mentioned, brazenly unconcerned with staying inconspicuous.  He spoke quietly, but didn’t care to whisper.  “Is something bothering you?”

            “I…”  His unabashed attitude made me smile, and I looked down at my desk coyly.  “It’s just, Handong wasn’t feeling well this morning.  I guess I’m a little worried about her.”

            “You guess?”  He stared at me curiously before giving a sly grin.  “Hey, Jiu, we’re both seniors.  I bet they professors would let us visit the city for the evening.  Escape all our worries for the night.”

            My heart beat a little faster, and I wasn’t sure if it was for embarrassment or excitement.  I covered my face with my hands and snickered quietly.  “Minjun, are you crazy?”

            “It’s the most romantic city in the world,” he reminded cheerfully.  “You don’t want to miss this chance, do you?”

            I knew any other boy in the school would be joking about such a thing, but Minjun was surprisingly audacious, and I never assume he was joking about anything.  We looked at each other with shy smiles on our faces as if the rest of the classroom had disappeared.  Paris seemed to make both of us willing to take risks we would have never taken at home. 

            “Could you…give me the weekend to think it over?”

            He looked at me in disbelief before chuckling like the shy schoolboy he was.  “Really?”

            I could barely believe my own words, but something within me was begging for excitement, for a risk.  “I mean, I don’t know about sneaking off into the city for a date, but…Maybe we could get ice cream on the night we go to the Eiffel Tower.”

            The change in plans didn’t take even an ounce of wonder from his expression.  “That sounds just as lovely.”

            “I have to see if Sua will be available to watch the kids,” I joked quietly.

            “Of course, you have to ask your wife if she can babysit the kids while you’re out with your husband.”  His voice was cool and calm, but I saw his bright red cheeks, and a giggled escaped my lips.

            As soon as the movie was over, Minjin picked up my notebooks from my desk.  “I made kimbap last night.  Do you want to have lunch with me?”

            “Ah…”  I had opened up a door for us to get closer, but I didn’t mind it.  “Sure.”

            We walked out to the middle of the meadow.  The sky was still cloudy and the air was a bit chilly.  As soon as I sat down, he draped his coat around my shoulders and I suddenly remembered that the last one he lent me was still in my room.

            “Minjun, I’m so sorry, I need to return your other coat to you!” I exclaimed.

            “No, keep it,” he grinned.  “I still need an excuse to visit you some time.”

            “Hmm.”

            He reached into this book bag and took out a black lunchbox with a red lid.  As he carefully took off the lid, I saw the neatly wrapped kimbap inside.  It was barely enough for two people, but I knew he’d insist he wasn’t hungry enough to eat much of it.

            “You really bought all these Korean ingredients at the market?” I asked in amazement.  “None of us really had the energy to make anything proper like this.”

            “Well, the rice is instant, but, yeah, everything is fresh,” he informed proudly.  He took a pair of chopsticks from inside the box, picked up a roll, and held it up to my mouth.

            “Um…”  I stared blankly at the roll, then at his nervous face.  It had been years since we had last spent any time alone together, and now that we were older, it felt noticeably different.  The innocent puppy love we had in grade school was coated with something new that made my heart beat uneasily when we were alone together like this. 

            I finally took the roll with my fingers and put it in my mouth.  He only laughed a nodded.  “That was weird, huh?  I’m sorry.”

            I covered my mouth as I chewed.  For some reason I couldn’t explain, I just couldn’t bear to look at him as I ate.  “No, I’m sorry…Wow, this is really good!”

            He sighed in relief and handed me the chopsticks.  “I’m glad.  Eat as much as you’d like.”

            I took another roll and held it anxiously until he leaned back on the grass and looked up at the sky.  A cold breeze blew by, and I shivered as I ate.  I saw Minjun’s teeth chatter, and I wanted to return his jacket so badly.

            “So, Minjun…Is there any reason why you suddenly wanted to run off to the city?” I asked, the pure thought making me laugh again.

            “Well, actually…”  He stared down at the grass and sighed.  “I felt weird because…I had a dream about Sua.”

            “A dream about my best friend?” I laughed shakily.  The thought was amusing, but I also felt my shoulders tense automatically.  I tried to think of something funny to say, anything to say to quickly distract both of us from the discomfort.  “That…That sounds like a deal breaker for this relationship, huh?”

            “That’s why I felt weird,” he grimaced, studying my expression.  I attempted to smile, but it probably ended up looking like scowl, because he looked away immediately.  “It’s weird enough to have a dream about your girlfriend’s…I mean…you know, your best friend.  But that’s not the weirdest thing about it.”

            “What…happened?” I asked reluctantly, suddenly regretting ever agreeing to this lunch date.

            “Well…We were standing outside your mansion, and she just stared at me and said, ‘Don’t worry about her, Minjun.  I’ll take care of her.  Don’t worry about her.’  It was strange.”

            I let out a sigh of relief and eventually laughed.  Once I started laughing, I couldn’t stop, and I held my sides as I cackled.  Minjun looked at me in confusion at first, but eventually let out a few chuckles.

            “What?” he asked bashfully.

            “I just…”  I finally finished laughing and took a deep breath.  I forced my smile away and looked at him with a serious expression.  “I mean, that sounds sort of scary.”

            “Yeah…But why did you laugh?”

            “I thought…you’d say something else.”  I quickly picked up another roll and stuffed it in his mouth before he could ask another question.  He struggled to chew as he began laughing, and I knew he had caught on to what I was worried about.

            “That would be quite a love triangle,” he snickered after swallowing the roll.

            “What are you talking about?” I questioned mockingly as my cheeks burned.

            He looked at me suddenly with a soft grin on his face.  His eyes moved across my face like he was studying everything about me, and I struggled to meet his gaze.  I pushed my hair behind my ear and finally looked back at him.

            “What is it?” I asked quietly.

            “The dream told me not to worry about you, but I think it made me worry about you even more,” he admitted, not scraping his stare away from me for a moment.  “I woke up in the middle of the night and I was more scared than I had ever been in my whole life.  Maybe it’s silly…”

            I wanted to laugh and tell him how ridiculous he sounded.  But I knew that kind of fear.  My experiences from the past few weeks, the dreams I dreamt, they were like ghosts I couldn’t shake from my mind.  “I understand.  Sometimes dreams have that power over you.”

            “It made me realize one of my biggest fears is losing you,” he said suddenly, looking out at the meadow. 

            His words felt like a heavy blanket being draped over my whole body.  I suddenly felt bad that I had thought of him only fleetingly ever since we started high school.  I wasn’t sure that I could say I had the same fear, though I realized it may have been because I assumed he’d always be there.  He would always give me a look in the halls or the classroom that told me he’d be there forever, and I trusted him too well.

            “You’ve always been too good to me,” I sighed, twirling my finger through the long grass beneath us.  “I think I let these years fly by and took them for granted.”

            “I didn’t mean…to make you feel that way,” he insisted said quietly.  “I’m just saying how I feel.  It is what it is, now matter how you feel in return…Have you thought of where you want to go to school of we graduate?”

            His sudden change of topic was surprising, but it made me appreciate him even more.  “Um…I don’t know.  I think I’ll stay local for a while.  What about you?”

            “My parents want me to study in the States.”  He gave a shrug and sighed.  “Maybe California or Massachusetts.”

            What he said didn’t seem real.  “America?  That’s pretty far…”

            “But, somehow…”  He looked at me with his devilish smirk that seemed to make every bad thing go away.  “I feel like wherever we go, we’ll end up meeting again.”

            “Let’s plan on it,” I grinned. 

I looked at him against the green forest and the silver-lined clouds, and I felt a sense of longing, as if one of us would disappear suddenly.  I placed my hand in the grass next to his, and my heart beat quickly as I moved closer and closer to his.  I didn’t know what else to do but begin to tap the back of his hand with my fingers.  Before I knew it, he grabbed my hand and held it gently.

            “Does this mean we’ll definitely have our date in the city?”  He was back to his playful self, and I felt perfectly comfortable.

            “Let me talk it over with my wife over the weekend,” I proposed as he rubbed his thumb back and forth over the back of my hand.  “I’m sure it will be fine.”

            He stared at me with his adoring eyes again, but I wasn’t so nervous anymore.  His smile seemed so bright under the cloudy sky.  His gaze seemed everlasting, just until he looked behind me with a surprised expression and started packing up his lunch box.

            “It looks like classes are starting.”

            I looked behind me and saw my entomology class already gathered at the edge of the forest.  When I looked back at Minjun, he was standing and holding out his hand to me.

            “Thank you,” I said confidently as he helped me up from the grass.

            “I guess I’ll see you on Monday then,” he suggested gleefully.  “Let me know what your wife says.”

            “Let me know if she comes to haunt your dreams again,” I requested, raising my eyebrow curiously.  I squeezed his hand one last time and smiled.  “Goodbye, Minjun.”

            I couldn’t think of anything but Minjun during my class.  I felt like I had never been so distracted in my entire life.  My mind wandered into the future, imagining spending our senior year together, finally deciding to date officially.  I even imagined life much further into the future when we were older, wiser, and maybe even married.  My cheeks were burning throughout the lecture, and I could sense Professor Jeon’s eyes watching me curiously.

            After class, I hurried to the west wing of the mansion to catch Professor Oh before he left to the boy’s boarding house.  He was not only the French film teacher, but he also taught French literature and the French language class.  When I arrived in the west wind dining room, he was just packing up his suitcase.

            “Professor Oh,” I called quietly, walking over to him.  “I’m here to let you know that Handong was sick today.  I’m here to pick up any assignments you may have for her.”

            “Ah, I was wondering why she was missing,” he replied to me, furrowing his eyebrows and looking down at his desk.  “What about Siyeon?  Has she been sick this entire week?”

            I tilted my head and stared at him in confusion.  “Siyeon?  She was sick over the weekend but she told me she was going to attend her classes this week…She didn’t make it to any of them?”

            “None of the literature classes,” he informed, checking a piece of paper in one of his folders.  “Listen, Jiu, if there’s a bug going around your house, you should let us know.  We can’t have everyone getting sick.  Does Siyeon need to go to the hospital?”

            “I…I think she’s fine,” I insisted, wondering why she would lie to me about her classes.  “I’ll check on her right now, but she’s probably with Sua.”

            “Sua?”  Professor Oh looked at me with wide eyes and gave a long sigh.  “Jiu…I can only imagine how hard this past year has been for you.  Are you okay?”

            “Of course.”  The frustration I had with his questions and Siyeon’s behavior was making my head hurt.  “What do you mean?”

            “I mean…How could you mean she’s with Sua?”  He spoke in a low, reluctant voice.  “Are you saying it as a figure of speech?”

            “Figure of speech?”  Something outside the window caught my eye, and I noticed Sua and Siyeon walking in the meadow.  “I mean, Sua has been taking care of Siyeon this week.”  I threw my hand up toward the window.  “They’re right out there.”

            Professor Oh looked out the window with worried eyes, then back at me.  “Jiu…If you need counseling, I’d be willing to talk with you.”

            I was running out of patience for Professor Oh’s games, and I just needed to talk to Sua.  “I…I need to go, Professor.”

            “Be sure to let me know if you need anything, Jiu,” he called as I rushed out of the room.

            I burst through the front doors of the mansion and looked to the meadow.  Sua and Siyeon were barely visible through the fog, but I rushed toward them at full speed.       

            “Sua!” I cried, barely keeping myself from tripping in the tall grass.  “Siyeon!”

            When I finally reached them, they stood a few feet apart from each other and stared at me with eyes full of remorse.  I looked at them helplessly, trying to catch my breath, trying to understand Professor Oh’s words.

            “Sua, what is going on?” I asked breathlessly.  “I just talked with Professor Oh…And I don’t know what he was even talking about.  He was acting like you didn’t exist.”

            “Jiu, this is going to be hard for you,” she responded solemnly, taking a slow step towards me.  “I don’t think you’ll understand it right away.”

            “Understand what?”  I felt like every lingering fear in my mind was consuming me, and I couldn’t even tell what each of them were.  “What are you talking about?  What’s going on?”

            Siyeon suddenly let out a whimper, and I saw her wolf-like eyes glimmering with tears.  She turned around and began walking away from us into the fog.

            “Siyeon!” I called, watching her helplessly.  “Where are you going?  Are you okay?  What’s going on?  Sua, tell me!”

            Sua only stared at me in agonizing silence.  I finally dashed past her and followed Siyeon into the fog.  She was running now, and I was just a few feet behind her, almost close enough to grab her.

            “Siyeon!  Stop!  Tell me what’s going on!  Siyeon!”

            I reached my hand out and finally grasped her arm, but my hand faded right through her.  When I stumbled onto the ground, I thought my shock was paralyzing my body.  I was on my hands and knees, barely keeping my upper body from collapsing on the ground.  My arms were trembling and their strength was disappearing faster than I could imagine.  I whimpered in fear and pain, wondering why my body was failing me.

            My whole body felt heavy, and my eyelids even heavier.  As my arms finally collapsed under my upper body, my vision turned to white and my head rested on the grass as if it were a pillow.  I couldn’t open my eyes.  I couldn’t move my body.

            “Jiu.”

            When I heard Sua’s voice, I could finally feel my strength returning to me.  I opened my eyes slowly and noticed I was still lying facedown on the grassy meadow.  As I slowly pushed myself up from the ground, I saw a hand reach down towards me.

            “Let me help you,” Sua said gently, taking my hand.

            Finally on my feet again, I looked around at the meadow.  The fog had disappeared.  The sky was bright blue, and not a cloud was in the sky.  I felt the comforting warmth of the sun on my skin and remembered that the weather was darker and colder than any other day just a few seconds ago.

            I looked at Sua’s face.  It was brighter and more colorful than I had remembered it just a moment ago.  She gave me a feeble smile and pushed my hair out of my face.

            “How are you feeling?”

            “I’m…sleepy,” I admitted, rubbing my eyes.  “What just happened?  Did I faint?”

          “You fell asleep,” she explained with a sigh.  “It’s what happen when people touch us outside of dreams.”

          I looked around for Siyeon and spotted her far away across the meadow.  “Sua, what are you even saying?  I don’t understand.”

            “What did Professor Oh tell you?” Sua asked.  “You said he was acting like I didn’t exist.”

            “He said it wasn’t possible for Siyeon to be with you,” I told anxiously, taking her hand.  “He asked me if I needed counseling.  What was he talking about?”

            “Jiu…”  She held me hand tighter than ever.  “Do you remember when I went to Paris last year?”

            “With your family?  Of course.”

            “I…I never came back from Paris.”

            My heart beat faster and I thought my head was going to explode.  “What do you mean?  That makes no sense!  You’ve been with us during the whole school year!”

            “Jiu…I died in Paris.”

            I grabbed her shoulders and shook her harder than I meant to.  “Sua, what are you even talking about?  You’re right in front of me!”

            “Because this is a dream!” she cried desperately, shaking herself from my grasp.  Before I could reply, she grabbed my own shoulders and looked around at the meadow.  “You fell asleep when you touched Siyeon.  Don’t you remember the meadow was foggy just a minute ago?  This is a dream, and I’ve made the weather warm for you.”

            “I must be going crazy,” I said through gritted teeth, my whole body shaking.  “How can this be a dream?  I am awake, and I feel your hands squeezing my shoulders.  This is ridiculous!”

            “Alright.” 

            Suddenly her grip tightened even more on me, and everything in my vision disappeared.  I could see nothing, yet I felt Sua holding me, and I felt the warm sun fading from my skin.  My felt my heart beating hard, and a panic swept over me.  I stood frozen as Sua slowly reappeared in front me, but we were no longer in the meadow.  We were on the street in our hometown at night.  I recognized the street vendor that we often went to for roasted sweet potatoes, and all the familiar shops lines up and down the road.  I even recognized the broken streetlight that always flickered outside the 24 hours laundromat.

            I ripped myself from Sua’s grasp and stumbled backwards.  “What…What just happened?”

            “This is a dream,” she repeated as tears formed in her eyes.  “I’ve only been able to visit you this way in a dream.  Every time you’ve been able to touch me, it was a dream.  I just never told you.”

            “But…”  I grabbed her arm and held it tightly, making sure she really existed.  “This whole school year, you’ve been there.  Are you telling me this whole year has been a dream?”

            “I…I can appear to you while you’re awake.”  Her eyes begged me to believe her.  “But when I do, I’m like…a ghost.”

            “Because you’re dead, right?” I mocked furiously.  I threw her arm away and stepped back.  “Why are you telling me these lies?  Why are you trying to scare me?”

            “It’s the truth!”

            “Stop it!” I screamed.  “If this is a dream, wake me up now.  Wake me up!”

            “Jiu-”

            “I said wake me up!”

            Darkness fell over me, and I couldn’t feel a thing.  In the blackness and silence, my body was numb.  Gradually I could feel the cold dampness on my skin.  I could feel the soft grass beneath me, and I could hear the wind whistling through the trees.  When I could finally open my eyes, I could see the dark, cloudy sky above me.  I lay there in stillness, realizing this is the last thing I saw before Sua told me I had fallen asleep.  Her words were beginning to piece together into something that made sense, but I could barely understand. 

            After a few moments, when my body began to shiver, I lifted myself and stood silently in the middle of the meadow.  I noticed Sua through the fog, standing far off near the mansion.  Even from far away, I could sense the same despair on her face.  I reluctantly began to walk towards the mansion.

            It felt like the longest walk in the world.  When I reached Sua, she began to lead me into the mansion and into the west wing.  She beckoned me into the small library with the journal and the spider, and I had the aching fear that they were all connected.  I leaned against a bookcase and looked down at the old floorboards.           

            “Will you let me explain everything to you?” she asked quietly.

            “You can tell me whatever you want,” I whispered, watching her angrily. “I won’t believe any of it.  I’m sure I’m going crazy.”

            “Fine.”  She walked over to the desk and picked up the jar that contained the spider.

            “If you’re a ghost, how are you holding that jar?” I questioned quickly, eager to catch her in her lie and prove my sanity.

            “I can touch inanimate objects and move them however I’d like.”  She stared at the spider with disdain.  “But if I touch humans, it makes them fall asleep.”

            “How…How have you been going to school all…all this year?”  My voice was shaking so bad, I could barely speak. 

            “I never shared any classes with any of you guys,” she reminded, looking up from the spider.  “I appeared to you guys before and after school, and sometimes in the halls, but I avoided you because I knew I couldn’t touch you.”

            I started to remember how strange I found Sua’s sudden evasion of touching us.  All throughout high school, she had gladly hugged us whenever was physically possible, but after last summer she would always stand a few feet away from us at school.  The memories were like a fire in my mind, and I tried to extinguish them quickly, wondering if I wasn’t just misremembering everything.

            “Don’t you think that if you had died, we would have heard about it?” I cried, folding my arms.  “No one announced it at school.  I never heard anything from your family or the police.”

            “Let me explain from the beginning,” she pleaded, putting the jar back on the desk.  “When I went to Paris with my parents, we stayed at a house on the edge of the city.  I found this very same spider there.  It climbed on my bed one night, and I threw it off and killed it with a book.”

            “Professor Jeon told me that this spider has never been documented by any scientists,” I interrupted.  “How could there be an identical one in your summer house last year?”

            “It wasn’t an identical spider,” she argued, looking back at the jar.  “It was the same spider.  After I killed it, I began to lose my will to live.  I didn’t even feel sad or angry.  I couldn’t feel anything.  And one day I just…jumped off the third story balcony.”

            “God, Sua!”  I threw my shaking hands over my face and closed my eyes.  “Why are you telling me something like this?”

            “Because it’s true,” she growled, stomping up to me and stopping inches in front of my face.  I stared at her with scared, wide eyes and felt my heart drop into my stomach.  “It’s a curse that makes people die, no matter the method.  Soon after you kill that spider, you die.”  She rushed back over to the desk and picked up the journal.  “You read about it in this journal.  Do you understand now?”

            “That journal…is real?” 

            She held it out to me and I hesitantly took it from her.  “It’s real.  The witch is real.  Her daughter is real.  And that spider…It’s not just a spider.”

            I opened the journal to the page containing the spider sketch.  There were notes all around the sketch that Yoohyeon never translated.  I ran my trembling fingers over them and looked up at Sua.

            “What do you mean?”

            “The witch didn’t enchant a spider.”  Sua spoke heatedly and quick enough to make her words stumble over each other.  I saw tears of rage fill her eyes as she looked at the journal in my hands.  “She summoned a spirit.  It was the Spirit of Fear.  It promised to protect her daughter from death as long as it lived.  But it intended to die.  When the witch killed it accidentally, the deal was broken, and her daughter was taken to be its servant in the world where it resides.  It’s a World of Dreams.”

            Sua’s story seemed so fantastic and unreal that I had no trouble not believing it.  But the passion and frustration in her voice filled my heart with fear, and I began to quickly turn the pages of the journal.

            “What you’re saying…is hard to believe.”

            “Once you kill the spider, you eventually die, and The Spirit claims you.  It’s always looking for new servants, and he found me last summer,” she whimpered, looking down at her hands.  “My parents saw me jump from that balcony, and they couldn’t bear what had happened.  They moved to Jeju Island to live with my grandmother as soon as they returned to Korea.  They told the school to never mention anything to anyone.  My death was a curse and a shame to them, and I don’t even blame them for their reaction.”

            “But…”  Whether she was telling the truth or not, I was overwhelmed.  My voice broke down into a whimper, and hot tears filled my eyes.  “You’re standing right in front of me, Sua.”

            She let out a quiet cry as tears streamed down her own cheeks.  “I tried to visit my parents first.  My mom reached out to touch me and fell asleep like you did.  The whole thing almost made her go crazy.  I don’t visit them anymore…I just try to make sure they don’t have nightmares about me.”

            “You’re not dead, Sua!” I wept, slamming the journal closed.

            “The Spirit has claimed me!  Look!”  She ripped the journal from my hands and opened it to the drawing of the girl with the people tied up around her.  She shoved the journal back into my hands and pointed at the drawing.  “This is my nightmare.  When you become the Spirit’s servant, your darkest fear enters the journal.  Mine is to be helplessly tied up and have no control.  It’s right here!”

            “No!” I cried, quickly turning the page.

            “And this…”  She moved her finger delicately over the drawing of the girl next to the cage.  “This is…Siyeon’s nightmare.”

            “Si…Siyeon’s?”  I looked up at Sua shaking with rage.  “What…are you…talking about?  Siyeon isn’t dead.”

            “That night she went out into the fog…”  She began to sob as she looked up at me.  “I told you I was going out to bring her back safe and sound, but I couldn’t.  Jiu, she went into the forest…and…she’s dead, Jiu.  That’s why you all had nightmares about her.  She was having trouble adjusting.”

            “Siyeon…isn’t…dead!”  Before Sua could say anything else, I began to tear the journal apart.  I threw the pages onto the floor and stomped over to the desk.  My heart felt like it was going to explode as I picked up the jar.  I screamed as loud as I could as I threw it across the room and watched it shatter against the wall. 

            “Jiu!” Sua yelled, reaching down and picking up the ripped journal pages.

            “Stop telling me these lies!  No one is dead!”

            “Jiu!”  She held one of the pages up to my face.  It contained a drawing I didn’t remember seeing before.  There was a mirror on a vanity set, and a girl’s face looked out from inside the mirror.  The girl was crying as people walked by obliviously.

            “What is this?” I asked, taking the page from her.

            “Dongie…”  Her voice cracked as she said her name.  “Handong’s biggest fear is to never be seen by anyone.”

            My body shook more and more, and I could feel myself crumpling the paper in hand, but I felt out of control.  “What…the hell…are you saying?”

            “…She was next, Jiu,” Sua whispered, more tears falling down her face.  “One by one, we’ll all end up in the World of Dreams.”

            “Dongie!”  I threw the paper onto the floor and rushed out of the library.  As I exited the west wing, I could hear Sua calling for me, but I ignored her.  I ran up the stairs towards our bedroom and bust through the door

            “Dongie, where are you?” I exclaimed, pulling her bed apart as if she might be hiding under the covers.  I ran out of the room and down the hall to check in each bathroom.  When I entered the second one, Sua was standing by the door.

            “She’s not here,” she told hesitantly.  “She’s…in a bathroom in the west wing.”

            “The west wing?  What is she doing there?”

            I nearly tripped as I ran back down the stairs, but I couldn’t make myself slow down.  Sua’s story had been unbelievable in every word she said, but the thought that even an ounce of it could be truth made my stomach twist into a knot.

            I dashed down the hall of the west wing, through the dining hall, opening each door I passed by.  As I ran into a hall with a dead end, I called her name frantically and knocked down every door.  Just before I could open the last door, I heard Sua give a desperate cry from behind me.

            “Jiu!”  Her painful sobs made my whole body tense up.  “Jiu…please don’t…”

            The door was open just a crack and my hand hovered just beside it.  I didn’t want to believe Sua, but the agony in her voice warned me that whatever was on the other side of the door would destroy me.  I looked back at her and a defeated cry left my lungs as I was convinced of what she told me.  Closing my eyes, I finally pushed the door open.

            I stood there for a moment, unable to breath.  When I opened my eyes, my knees buckled beneath me, and I stumbled forward onto the floor beside the bathtub.  Her cold, pale skin was almost as white as the porcelain.  I reached into the lukewarm water and wrapped my arms around her body.

            “No, no, no, Dongie,” I repeated over and over.  “No, no…Why, Dongie?  Why did you do this?”

            I pulled her out of the tub and sat down on the floor with my arms wrapped around her waist.  Pressing my ear to her head, I tried to listen for a sign of life.

            “Help me.”  My voice was broken; I could barely utter the words.  “Someone, please help me.”

            I rocked her body back and forth and whispered her name until my voice was hoarse.  My body was numb.  My heart was pounding.  The light coming from the small bathroom window faded to nothing, and I sat there with her in the dark.  I stared at the wall until my eyes burned.

            A creaking outside the door finally made me look up.  The flickering light of a candle could be seen reflecting from the glossy wallpaper, and it moved closer and closer.  My tired eyes could barely focus as a figure finally appeared in the doorway.

            “Jiu?”

            My heart gave an electrifying pound and I couldn’t believe my ears.  The figure moved the candle up to her face.  It was Handong.