“Don’t worry,” I say. “I won’t make any rash decisions. I will either choose to marry the emperor, or I won’t. Nothing or no one can force me.”
He shakes his head. “No, it’s not that…” He looks at the ducks on the pond. “I guess most brothers would be happy to have an empress for a sister. And I am happy for you. Or at least, I would be if…” He turns from the pond to look at me, his eyes searching.
“What are you saying, Joon?”
“This past year, ever since…”
I look away, and he doesn’t finish the sentence.
“You try to hide it,” he says softly, “but it’s as if you’re drifting away from us. Mina, I just … I want you to be happy. Will he make you happy?”
“You make me happy. The ducks in the pond make me happy. The clear skies, the calm sea, the lasting peace. All of this makes me happy.”
“If you’re happy, then why are you crying?”
I press my hands to my eyes, and they come away wet. “I don’t know. I cry a lot, I think. I have weak eyes.”
My brother wraps his arms around me. “Or a strong heart.”
I bury my face against his shoulder, the tears endless, the pain unbearable.
* * *
Late at night, I make my way to the beach. There are dark clouds over the water. A storm far out at sea. In the past year, there have been numerous storms, each as harmless as the last. They bring rainfall for the crops and keep our rivers and streambeds filled. And the gods are thanked and loved by the people, the Sea God most of all.
Wait for me, he said, where the land meets the sea.
But I have waited for you, every day for a year, and you haven’t come. What am I to do? How can I go on, waiting like this, when I know you will never come?
We are separated by distance, by worlds. By memory.
“Shin.” His name is a prayer, a plea.
I turn from the sea and retrace the steps back home, where I lie on my pallet with tears in my eyes, only to wake hours later to the clanking of drums and the whistling of a bamboo flute. The Sea God’s festival has begun.
36
In the morning, the children rush to the village stream, placing their boats upon the water. Then comes a full day of festival games, music, food, and laughter. Cheong and I stop to watch a talented performer sing the story of “The Sea God’s Bride” to a rapt audience, accompanied by a skilled drummer. I’m surprised to find that the story she tells shares many similarities to the one I told the Sea God in the hall, which makes me wonder how much of storytelling is embedded in the land and its people, a consciousness that we all believe in and share.
Cheong and I explore the merchant stalls, where she purchases a block of honey on a stick for Mirae and roasted chestnuts to split between us. After some time, however, I start to notice something peculiar. For once the people we pass on the streets, even the elegant and aloof nobles, seem to overlook Shim Cheong entirely. Instead, they all seem to be staring—quite openly—at me.
Cheong stops one of the village children. Immediately I recognize her as Nari’s young cousin, Mari.
“What’s going on?” she demands. “Why is everyone staring at Mina? Tell us quick!”
Mari grins conspiratorially, looking so much like her older cousin in that moment that my heart lurches. “They say the emperor asked for Mina’s hand in marriage. Yesterday, when he paid a visit to your house. Well, is it true?”
“Even if it were true, it’s not respectable to spread rumors. Here, buy yourself a treat.” Cheong flips her a coin.
“It’s not a rumor if it’s the truth,” Mari says cheekily, pocketing the coin, though she doesn’t forget to bow to both of us before rushing off to join her friends.
Cheong watches me carefully. None of my family members have asked me what my response to the emperor’s proposal will be, though Grandmother claims I would never accept such an unequal match: He is but an emperor; Mina has been bound to a god. And Soojin quietly says in her kind, unobtrusive way, But wouldn’t it be nice for Mina to have a family of her own? And maybe he might help her move on …
In the late morning, the festivalgoers return to their homes to prepare for the ceremony that will culminate the festival, when the whole of the village, including the visiting nobles and the emperor, will make their slow way up to the cliffs that overlook the sea. There the emperor will pay obeisance to the Sea God, asking him to protect his land and people for another year.
I’m already wearing the dress my grandmother and sisters have sewn for me, the skirt a bright yellow and the jacket pink like the petals of a lotus. Strapping my last gift—my dagger—to my waist, I wander out to the garden to wait. In the shallow waters of the pond, little tadpoles linger over the pebbles.