The sun streaming through the threadbare curtains hanging over the window pulled Hwayoung from her sleep. Blearily, the girl blinked her eyes against the light and sat up slowly. She breathed out a long sigh and scratched her scalp. Her scrapes and ribs had for the most part healed, but she was still tender in the torso.

              Wincing as she stood, Hwayoung gingerly pulled on a dress, tying the front and making her way towards the center room. Her mother knelt in front of the hearth, tending beginnings of a fire. The morning air was chilly, and Hwayoung pulled her furs from by the door and around her body.

              “You are up,” her mother remarked, pointing towards a roughly hewn clay mug sitting by her feet. “Just in time. It’s a gathering day.”

              Hwayoung sipped at the cup’s warm contents, wincing at the bitter taste. She had always hated barley tea, but, unfortunately, that was customary during the cold months.

Her mother clucked her tongue in disapproval at Hwayoung’s expression. “Get yourself ready to leave. We are meeting the other women soon.”

Nodding, Hwayoung distastefully drank the rest of her tea, knowing she would need her strength for the day. As the girl stood to go wash her face and braid her hair, a sense of dread filled her; it had been almost half a moon since she had last left the village barrier, and Hwayoung was perfectly happy never to have to do so again.

Since her encounter with the boys who lived in the strange house in the trees, Hwayoung had done little besides her chores, choosing to spend her extra time simply sitting in her room. Jinki had been bedridden from a wound he had received in the woods that same night, and Hwayoung had managed to avoid Taemin altogether.

Her life seemed empty.

Numbly combing her long hair into a long braid that wrapped around the crown of her head with well-practiced fingers, Hwayoung finished quickly and wordlessly fell into step beside her mother. The only sound was the thin crunch of their feet as two women trudged through the thin layer of frost on the well-trodden dirt road. Twelve or so other women were waiting by the foreboding gates, and they nodded in acknowledgement at the new arrivals.

“Good to see you, Hwayoung,” Mrs. Gu fixed a pin holding her hair up, her face a friendly sort of neutral. She was a tired looking mother of three young boys. Her husband was a harvester.

              “Yes,” Hwayoung looked down at her toes, ending any sort of conversation. She was not in the mood for people’s sympathy.

              Mrs. Gu pursed her lips at Hwayoung’s clear rejection, wiping her calloused hands against her apron and straightening her posture. “Well, I suppose it is time for us to get going.”

              Without any further delay, the gate was heaved open. Hwayoung held back behind the other women for a moment, her eyes unreadable as she stared into the darkness of the trees. Internally, she felt herself swirling with too many emotions to digest, and a sick bile stuck in .

              One foot in front of the other, Hwayoung carefully took in measured breaths until, before she realized, she stood squarely outside the gate of her village. It was as though the trees pulled at her with a magnetic force, but Hwayoung held back, forcing her legs to carry her eastward, towards the grain fields.

              It was there that the women broke into trios and began their work; Hwayoung remained with her mother and Mrs. Gu, who now treated her with a pointed and offended silence. Her mother, however, made small talk as they cut and twisted and packed the long, honey stalks. The work was pa