Chae Young remembers in snatches of when they came for her. It was the summer she turned seven. Or at least her papers said she was. The children’s age was often made out to be as young as they could pass as. The reason being that younger kids were more appealing for adoption. The matron had walked up to her during breakfast in the dining hall. With her fat fingers, she cupped Chae Young’s face and turned it this way and that.

“Clean her up,” she barked to the ahjumma following closely behind her.

Chae Young had barely finished her breakfast when the ahjumma came and whisked her away. Scared and curious glances alike followed them as they walked out of the hall.

“Am I going somewhere?” she asked the ahjumma who took her to the bathroom to scrub her down.

“Yes, you’re going to a new home. With a new Eomma and Appa.”

Chae Young’s eyes widened. They were always told that getting adopted was the best thing to happen to you, and that was the carrot hung in front of all the children to get them to behave.

“It’s because I have been a good girl, haven’t I?”

The ahjumma chuckled. “Yes.”

Chae Young’s head reeled with how her new life would be. How would her new parents be? How big was her new home? Would she have any siblings?

“Do you think I’ll like it?” she thought out aloud.

The ahjumma poured a bowl of water over her, wiped down her face with a callused hand and said, “Why, you’ll love it.”

The ahjumma had been right about one thing. Chae Young did love her new home. But she had gotten a crucial part wrong. There were no new Eomma or Appa. Just the YG hamlet.

 The hamlet was not really a hamlet. It was a cluster of people- not exactly families, nor exactly a community- nestled at the foot of a mountain beside a lake. Also, less than a hamlet, it resembled a big farm. They grew their own vegetables and flowers, reared their own chickens and pigs, tended to well and springs and most importantly, grew and brewed their own medicines. But again, it was not a farm. It was like a school. There were adults who were teachers and children like Chae Young who had been picked up from orphanages. The teachers were also once children who had been picked up from orphanages. Once the children completed all that the hamlet could teach them, they could leave if they wanted to, but that rarely happened. It was not because the hamlet was beautiful. In fact, the place was too cold in the winter and too arid in the summer; it was one of the main reasons why the place had enjoyed solitude from settlers for years and years. The secret to loving the hamlet was because of what was taught there.

It is often believed that magic belongs to a different world or that it is a gift one is born with. But Chae Young would learn that like the alphabets and ballet, magic could be taught.  They learnt ancient mantras and incantations, learnt the secrets of herbs and flowers, studied the moon and stars, and poured tirelessly over runes and tarots. On some days, there were lessons in singing and dancing. No, not Ballet or hip hop. They learnt songs to celebrate the full moon and danced to the rhythm of tidal waves. Their teacher, whom the girls secretly called Potato Teacher, told them that while magic was dying out fast all over the world, it was their responsibility to keep it alive.

“We keep the balance of the world,” she would say.   

It was what Yang Hyun Suk often said too. He had established the YG hamlet with his wife but now spent most days tending to the herb patches. During the rare moments when he would come to see the progress of the new kids, he would tell them, “Each of you will balance out the non-believers of the world: the non-believers who have forgotten that they share the planet with spirits unseen by human eyes and that all of us are indebted to the Mother Earth.”

It was not magic in the way she had known before- the card tricks or the rabbits in hats. It was a kind of magic that nurtured flowers and healed wounds. In the distant villages, people called them witches and warlocks. From the time their lessons began, the children were warned of the non-believers; non-believers who considered witches and warlocks to be dangerous. That was another reason why few people dared to leave the hamlet. They did not feel safe elsewhere.

Here, Chae Young blossomed into a young lady. She excelled at singing, and from as young as the age of eleven, Yang Hyung Suk made her lead the full-moon exhortations and prayer songs for the sick.

Besides singing, Chae Young liked to read. The hamlet had a library where the books were mostly on plants, animals and ancient philosophies. But there were a few handful novels that had somehow managed to sneak in. While the other girls her age took to sewing, embroidery, and grinding balsam flowers to paint their nails, Chae Young took to reading. Some of the novels were about men and women falling in love. However, they seemed a thing of another world to her. Like the pirates and princesses, romance belonged to the world of non-believers. There were a few boys of her age in the hamlet, but she considered them her brothers. Never once did she consider falling in love like in the novels.