When Joon and I were children, we used to catch tadpoles in the stream beside our house with a small wooden bucket. We would catch them and put our fingers in the water to feel their smooth, slippery bodies. We’d release them shortly after catching them. Joon—always gentle, always kind—never could keep them for long.
There’s a soft tread of footsteps. My brother, coming to fetch me.
“Joon,” I say, turning, “is it time…？” I trail off.
Standing before me is the Goddess of Moon and Memory.
I gape. “What are you doing here?”
She’s dressed in white robes and a loose red jacket, her hair in a simple knot at the nape of her neck. She watches me with her candlelit eyes that before used to fill me with such terror. Now I feel only a steady warmth.
“Shin came to see me,” she says.
I jerk back. “Wh-what?”
“It’s strange,” the goddess continues, either unaware or unmerciful of my wildly beating heart. “He should have no memories of you, and yet, he walks his palace in silence. He finds happiness in nothing, and his soul weeps. He’s worse than when the emperor was the Sea God. Nothing can console him.”
My heart is breaking. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because, as you suggested, I’ve taken on the role of the Goddess of Women and Children. Do you know what that means?”
I shake my head.
“It means that everyone who once feared me now loves me. Even Shin, my greatest enemy, loves me. He knows me now as a goddess of motherhood and children. He knows me as a goddess who is loving and kind and giving. Tell me, Mina, how could I be cruel to someone who loves me?”
“I don’t know. Can you?”
“It’s … strange. When I was feared, I hated everything and everyone. But now that I’m loved, I can’t stand to see those who love me suffer one moment of pain. I blame you, Mina. You’ve turned me into a kindhearted goddess.”
I look at her, my heart in my throat. “What did you do?”
“Have you forgotten? I may be the Goddess of Women and Children, but I am also the Goddess of Moon and Memory.”
A gust of wind picks up the petals of the pear tree that have fallen on the ground. They begin to swirl around the goddess.
I stumble forward. “Wait!”
In a moment, she’s gone.
“Mina?” Cheong comes out from the house, peering around the garden. “Are you all right? I heard voices.”
“Cheong, I—”
Behind her, Sung and Soojin rush into the garden.
“Mina, Cheong!” he calls, breathless. “The emperor has already arrived at the top of the cliffs. We must hurry or we’ll be late!”
Cheong looks as if she wishes to speak with me more, but Mirae, strapped to Soojin’s back, begins to cry, and Cheong hurries over to soothe the child, presenting to her with a flourish the honey block she purchased at the market.
My family hurries to join the last group of villagers, Sung and Soojin with Mirae, Grandmother, Cheong and Joon, making their way up to the cliffs.
At first I keep up with them, but after a while my steps grow slow, my thoughts distracted by the breeze sweeping through the trees, and soon I’m alone on the path.
It’s a familiar climb, one I used to make often when I was younger. I remember racing up to the top, breathless with both exertion and anticipation. There’s a point where the path grows steep, and it’s a bit of a struggle to take the last few steps, but it’s worth it, because once I come up over the rise, it’s there, waiting for me.
The sea. The water stretches out to the horizon, its beauty unparalleled, filling my heart with a joy that is boundless, that both grounds me to this moment and spirits me away, to a world far beyond this one, to the place where I long to be.
I’m so wrapped up in the spell of it that I almost miss the watchful faces of the people lining the path, nobles and villagers alike. They stand on either side of a grassy carpet, at the end of which waits the emperor.
I’m reminded of my first night in the Spirit Realm, when the Red String of Fate led me to the Sea God. And I realize, like then, I’m meant to walk down the path to him.
The villagers look at me curiously, the nobles with expressions of confusion. They must think the emperor has made a mistake, asking some girl from a backwater village by the sea to marry him.
In the last story I told the Sea God, what did Shim Cheong think when she came up in the lotus blossom and married the emperor? She went from peasant girl to ruler of the land.