The Forest of Stolen Girls by June Hur

Author:June Hur
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends

* * *

Rain drummed on the rooftop of the palanquin.

I sat cross-legged, staring at a pair of eyes that held all the annoyance of a guardian who’d had to cross a thousand li of seawater to track down her foolish niece. For the longest moment, Aunt Min said nothing, and I could no longer tell whether I was sweating from the purple substance or from the sheer distress of seeing her again. Then, to my horror, I felt the vehicle lift into the air. We were moving.

Aunt. I can’t leave now! I wanted to scream those words at my aunt, but I couldn’t. I turned at my waist, shoving my elbow desperately at the door. But it wouldn’t budge. It was locked from the outside.

“The trouble you have caused me,” Aunt Min whispered, her voice thin and cold. “We will be returning to the peninsula first thing tomorrow. And I’ll make it impossible for you to run away again.”

I shook my head and stared wide-eyed at my aunt. No, no, no, no. Aunt, please! My sister was dying. Father had been poisoned. I was also poisoned and on the brink of finding the truth. I needed to stay on Jeju Island. She couldn’t take me back to the mainland now.

“I’m going to do what your father ought to have done long ago.” Aunt Min raised her jade-ringed fingers and massaged her temple. “As soon as the princess selection ends and the ban against marriage lifts, I will see you find a husband.”

My gaze darted around the palanquin, and never had I felt so trapped. The walls seemed to be closing in around me. Then I felt it, a disturbing crawling sensation—like an ant scuttling across my skin. I couldn’t see a single one, but I could feel them, thousands of ants, their tiny legs moving across my bare legs, my bare arms.

“The young gentleman who asked for your hand has retracted; he learned that you’d run away. Everyone will see you as a loose woman when you return to Mokpo. Still, you are fortunate. Another gentleman has approached me. He is an old lecher, but who else will have you?” She arched a fine, dark brow as she glanced condescendingly my way. “You will marry him, Min Hwani. I promised your father that if anything happened to him, I would see to it that you married—”

I slapped a hand over the back of my neck, then looked at my palm. No ant. Nothing.

Aunt Min’s sharp brows drew together; her eyes gleamed like ice crystals. “What”—her voice dropped into a quiet, frosty tone—“is the matter with you?”

The palanquin swayed from side to side as the servants carried us down the rough road, up and down the rolling hills, and I rocked back and forth with all the movement, the repetitive motion burying me deeper and deeper in nausea. I wanted to claw my skin off; I wanted to vomit.

“Ants,” I finally managed to say, as I pushed myself as far into the corner as I could.

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