Mortals had pride. Chae Young learnt that early on. While she wanted to lavish him with riches and exotic presents, she always had to trick him into taking them. She would give him two apples that would multiply into ten by the time he reached home, a bamboo comb that turned golden overnight and such. Jung Kook told Soo Bin and his mother that they were given to him by the Forest, and they never questioned him. But soon, the riches began to catch the eye of his peers. Jung Kook would rather die than divulge the secrets of his fox-girl, but the world was cruel and crueler still if you were poor.

***

Chae Young traced the muscles on his back as they lied on the soft, green moss, shielded from the prying eyes of the mortal world. His skin was sun-tanned and hardened beneath her soft fingers. She wondered how she had not melted yet when she lied beneath him. The sun was almost setting in the horizon. She dreaded when the time came for him to leave. Regretfully, she watched him stand up and put his clothes on. As he was about to exit her protective shield, he turned around and like always asked, “Tomorrow?”

She nodded. “Tomorrow.”

There would not be a day when either would say, “No, tomorrow, I can’t,” but it was their way of saying I still feel the same about you today as I did yesterday, and it will not change tomorrow.

As Jung Kook went to gather his cows and walk back home with rubies in his pockets that Chae Young had slipped in, beady eyes watched him from behind bushes and trees.

Trouping out from their hiding places, they rushed to where he had emerged from, determined to discover his secrets. But Chae Young had long slipped away into the heart of the forest and all they found was an ordinary lake.

“Not for long,” they muttered. “Not for long.”

***

Every year, the king’s tax collectors came snatching grains from their kitchens and kicking at pleading mothers at their feet.

Their cold hearts and greedy hands were exactly just what the people who had been secretly watching Jung Kook needed.

As usual, Jung Kook and his mother had been able to produce exactly what the tax collectors demanded and still had more stowed away in their granaries. But this time, they burst into his home and overturned jars and pots.

“Where have you been stealing your riches from?” they demanded.

Jung Kook’s mother cried and pleaded. They kicked at her mercilessly.

Soo Bin screamed with fear and terror.

Jung Kook tried to talk to them, tried to explain to them that he was not a thief. But they pushed him aside and continued overturning their boxes and trunks, revealing all of Chae Young’s heart-felt presents.

“What have you been hiding from your King?” they demanded.

But Jung Kook would rather die than betray the secret of his fox-girl.

They tore down the walls of the house and dug up the floors. When they had taken all that they could find, they decided to punish the family.

As he knelt on the ground with bounded hands, his mother’s cry and Soo Bin’s scream filled his head.

Chaengie, he thought. I’m sorry I cannot keep my promise of returning tomorrow.

The silver blade of the tax-collector’s man swished down upon his neck and the world went black.

From the heart of the forest, a keening cry of a fox-girl was heard across the trees and the lakes.

***

The jealous hearts finally rubbed their hands in glee and cackled among themselves.

The tax-collector and his henchmen also smiled smugly in satisfaction as they journeyed back with bags of emeralds, rubies and expensive silk.

But mortals are no match for the fury of a heartbroken fox-girl.

The tax-collector and his men had barely entered the forest when the sky darkened, and a raging wind began to howl through the trees. Their horses neighed and refused to go further despite much kicking and whipping. And then, up-ahead on the path, they caught sight of a woman with long, red tresses flaming behind her like a cloud of fire.

The tax-collector’s party never made it out of there. A week later, the king’s men collected their body parts scattered across the forest. Their limbs had been torn apart and their heads decapitated. But the most haunting part was how their mouths were frozen in a scream and their eyes wide open in fear and horror even in death.

As for those who had whispered treason in the ears of the tax-collectors, their lives became a nightmare. They could neither eat nor sleep. They were haunted day in and day-out until they disappeared into the forest in the hope of escaping the ghost who visited both in dreams and in their wake. But even in the forest, they found no reprieve. Boys from the village who went hunting and to graze their cows sometimes caught sight of them stumbling through the trees, filthy and half-, raving mad about a beast with ember eyes. The village eventually decided to trap them like wild-animals and put an end to their misery out of pity.

Meanwhile, Jung Kook’s mother had managed to hide a few precious jewels from the tax collectors. With it, she built a tombstone for her son at the edge of the forest. She bowed to thank the spirits who had taken care of them and prayed that they would continue to take care of her son in the afterlife.

Unable to bear the loss of the son who had been a source of strength for her, she took her younger son and left for her mother’s home in another village.

For years to come, boys who went hunting in the night and farmers returning after the sun had set would swear that they sometimes saw the shadow of a girl weeping and sometimes the shadow of a fox mourning at Jung Kook’s tomb.