I am in a limbo, bound to the earth but not of it. The fact that I can be anywhere I want at will is little consolation. I have no physical body. I’m like a wisp of smoke that can never die, drifting from one place to another by the sheer force of my will. One minute I am in Seoul, the next in Boseong. How easy it would have been to have traveled like this in body and yet the years have made me lonely. I have denied myself heaven but play no earthly part. I can only observe the lives of those I love as if in a dream. I have no need for sleep and I am never hungry. I don’t feel the cold or the rain upon my skin, and yet I experience deep and lasting pleasure in the beautiful countryside, just as I always did; perhaps even more so now, because it is all I have.

I never liked Seoul. I hated the noise and the concrete when I was alive and I still hate it now that I am dead. Yet I suffer it gladly to be near my lovely Jiminie. I enjoy his good health, his happiness, and his little achievements. My precious child had buried his desolation and dig it up once again and cry all over again for his loss because that is the way grief works. It isn’t so easy to erase such deep pain. A person can only cover it up and hope in time to forget. But inevitably, sooner or later, you’ll have to face it and overcome it because, just as the earth throws up its buried bones in the end, so the human heart throws up its pain. I might not be able to wrap my arms around my Jiminie when he needs his mother’s comfort, but I am right beside him and my husband like a shadow they cannot see, and I will be there when their loss rises up to challenge them.

― ❈ ―

Jeon Jeongguk has not buried his pain like his son. He carries it around like a burning coal in the heart of his heart. After the death of his wife, He now spends most of his time in Seoul, and yet the enthusiasm he had when working in his company have dried up like thirsty hydrangeas. He’s drinking too much, in the hope that the alcohol would numb the pain in his heart and the nagging of his conscience. When he takes his son to Boseong he stays away from the mansion. He rides out over the beach with his horse or takes a walk around the green tea fields. He doesn’t venture into town either for it is full of gossip and he cannot bear the condemning glances and the whispering. They were suspicious of him right at the start when he bought the land where the mansion stands all those years ago. His father was the owner of the biggest entertainment agency in South Korea and been to Seoul as his life.

When Jeongguk married his wife, she was a dreamy girl with aspirations to being an actress. They met on the set of a film he was producing in Busan. The woman had a small part and everyone said she caught his eye because she wanted to better her career. But the truth is both fell in love. Both appealed to their romantic and creative nature. Jeongguk was everything she wanted and she knew that as long as they are together, she would never desire anything more.

Sometimes, however much love a person gets, it is somehow never enough.

The sky is as blue as the sea with foamy white clouds floating across it like boats. The sun is shining brightly and every now and then, when a cloud passes over it, the valley is plunged into shadow and the air turns damp and cold. Then the cloud sails on and light races down the hills like a bright wave, swallowing up the shade and breaking onto the mansion in a dazzling burst of radiance. It is as if the gods had opened their treasure chest full of gold and it is that which lights up the sky. The whole scene brought amazement in Taehyung’s eyes as he takes in the breath-taking form of the mansion right in front of him.

 “So, what was the wife like?” Taehyung asks.

“She was off her nut,” Namjoon replies. “Away with the fairies.”

“What, really mad?”

“No, not really mad, just eccentric, I suppose.”

“She was a stunner!” Hoseok rejoins and there is admiration in his tone. “There was something wild about her. She was an actress once, you know, she was born to be one, but she gave it up when she married Guk. I’d say that was a shame because she would have made a good actress, I think.”

Namjoon laughs at Hoseok and jokingly shoved the latter’s shoulders. “Hoseok had a bit of a thing for her,” Namjoon says, grinning. “Didn’t you hoseokie?”

Hoseok shrugs nonchalantly. He is used to Namjoon’s teasing. “Sure, I felt sorry for her, rattling around in this big house on her own while her husband was away all the time. She was a woman who needed a lot of looking after.”

“And you know all about that, do you?” Namjoon smirks.

“You have a lot to learn about women and men, Namu” Hoseok retorts.

“Did she mix with the locals?” Taehyung asks

“When her husband was away, she was singing in the pub just a few minutes’ walk from our house,” Says Yoongi. “She had a good, strong voice altogether.”

“Do you sing, Taehyung-ah?” Namjoon asks but before Taehyung can answer, Hoseok interrupts and his voice is heavy with wistfulness. “She was mesmerizing. You couldn’t take your eyes off her,” he says

“Please stop fangirling like a schoolgirl,” Yoongi scoffs from beside him and crosses his arms over his chest which made Namjoon stifle his laugh behind his hands.

“In what way was she mesmerizing?” Taehyung probes.

“Well, she had these hazel brown eyes, and when they looked at you, they looked right through you and you were a fish caught on the end of a hook, trapped there in her gaze. She was a beauty, all right. Golden brown hair and pale white skin. She was like a painting.”

“And she was painted,” Namjoon interrupts. “There’s a massive portrait of her hanging in the hall up to the mansion. Mr. Jeon told us to leave it where it is. He was very specific about it. We took out everything of value after she died, but not that painting.” He s his hands into his pockets and breaths in the air. “Mr. Jeon then moved down by the river and the mansion was boarded up. It’s like he’s locked her up in there as well.”

“You mean, he couldn’t bear to live there without her?”

“Not after what happened at the lighthouse.”

“What happened?” Taehyung asks and the air stills around him.

Hoseok takes up the story. “The night she died she was at the lighthouse with her husband. Apparently, they had a row and she ran up to the top of the lighthouse. Somehow it caught fire and she had to jump to save herself. But her body was found at the foot, broken on the rocks. That was about midnight, right? Well, Donghyun ahjussi was on the beach walking his dog about half an hour before that and he swears he saw a man rowing away.”

“Who was the man?” Taehyung asks, intrigued.

“No one knows.” Namjoon shrugs

“or no one’s telling,” Yoongi adds. “Mr. Jeon insisted that he and his wife were the only people there that night.”

“Do you have a theory as to who that mystery person might have been?”

Namjoon ruffles his brown hair lightly, “Donghyun ahjussi had been down the boozer and was probably well-imagining things.”

“So, how did the lighthouse catch fire? I thought it wasn’t in use.”

“The police found loads of candles all the way up the stairs,” says Hoseok

“Mr. Jeon’s wife was a woman who liked a bit of drama,” Namjoon adds. “She would often row out to the lighthouse, but only when her husband was away. He knew it was dangerous and forbade her to row out even in the daytime. Of course, she rebelled. That was her nature. She was a wild one. Many a time I’d be leaving our house late at night and see candlelight twinkling in the lighthouse windows. You wouldn’t know what she was up to, but it was well known that it was her and no one thought anything of until the fire.”

“I wonder what she did in the lighthouse all night?” Taehyung muses. “it must have been frightfully cold. Didn’t anyone ever ask her what she did?”

Namjoon and Hoseok laugh together, sharing a private joke. “The woman wasn’t the sort person you asked things,” says Hoseok. “and if you did, she’d answer in riddles. There was no getting anything out of her that she didn’t want to be known.”

“I think she was afraid of Mr. Jeon,” Yoongi pipes in, nodding to himself. “halmeoni keeps on saying that whenever her husband was down, she was never around. She wouldn’t come to the pub anymore and she wouldn’t be seen in town either.”

“Those who saw her in the town said she became nervous and withdrawn when he was home. Nothing like the carefree girl she was when he was away.” Hoseok said.

“I wonder why that was?” Taehyung murmurs.

“Ah, he’s a demanding man,” Hoseok explains. “Everyone knows that her heart belongs here in Boseong. She hated the city. She’d come and help with the gardening and grumble about having to go to Seoul when she’d rather be down here. They had some big fights. I think her husband wanted their son educated up there, but she insisted they live down here. She won that battle. I think she won most of the battles in the end. Guk gave in, probably for an easy life, and disappeared up to Seoul as often as he could. The marriage stank like sour milk.”

“Halmeoni says as soon as she died, Mr. Jeon took their son in Seoul,” says Yoongi, in a tone that suggests this is of great significance. “They don’t come down much and when they do, Mr. Jeon looks miserable.”

“He does indeed,” Namjoon agrees. “like the life has been knocked out of him.”

“But he can’t stay away, can he?” says Yoongi. “I mean, he could sell the place, couldn’t he? But he doesn’t. Why’s that, then?”

Hoseok and Namjoon shrug and shake their heads.

They reach the front of the mansion. Taehyung takes in the towers and turrets and his face is full of wonder. The magnificence of the place takes his breath away, even in the weather like right now.

Namjoon pulls the key out of his pocket and pushes it into the lock. Taehyung wished there was a fire in the hall grate and furniture and rugs so that he could know how lovely this place used to be. It is almost colder inside than out and the air has the stale, musty quality of a cathedral. Taehyung feels the sorrow there and puts his hands in his pockets and barely speaks. He then wanders over the portrait of a woman, a splash of color on the colorless walls, and gazes up. His jaw slackens and he lets out a slow gasp.

Taehyung fixed his eyes on the painting’s eyes, seeing her as if she was living. He feels like he’s a fish hold on a hook, and there is no getting away. Namjoon, Hoseok, and Yoongi stand quietly beside him and look up at the same portrait as they have done so many times over the last years, trying to make sense of her death. They all admire her in silence. A collective shiver ripple over them.

At last, the silence is broken. “In that green dress, she looks like an old-fashioned movie star.” Taehyung whispers.

‘She was an old-fashioned girl,” Namjoon agrees sadly. “She wasn’t made for the modern world.”

“Her skin looks translucent, doesn’t it? I mean, it’s flawless. How old was she when she died?”

“Thirty,” Hoseok says flatly. “She was but a girl. Left her small child who’ll grow up with barely a memory of his beautiful mother.”

“Don’t you think it looks like she’s staring back at us?” Yoongi says nervously.

“Yes, it does,” Taehyung agrees. “It looks like she’s real.”

“It creeps me out altogether,” says Yoongi, moving away. “I think this place is really haunted. I’ll see you guys outside.” And he leaves.

Taehyung gazes at the portrait for a long, long time, questions tottering his mind as clearly as if he were speaking it out loud.

Why did you die? Who was the person rowing away in the middle of the night? Why was he there? And what did you really do on the lighthouse? Tell me.

“Where is she now, hyung?” Taehyung asks softly

“What do you mean?” Both men answered as they look at him

“I mean, where is she? Do you think she’s here?”

Namjoon is a man who believes in life and death as two distinct states, as separate as night and day. But just shrugs off his shoulder at the question.

“I don’t believe in ghosts if that’s what you mean,” Hoseok answered.

Taehyung stares boldly into the eyes of the portrait and feels the presence of the deceased woman beyond the oils and canvas. I’m not so sure, he thinks.