Young-hee and the Pullocho Page 2

  The son ran to the window, crying out to wake the whole house. The roused inhabitants found the servant dead, but no sign of any fox. When the son explained what he saw, his father grew enraged. “How dare you slander your sister?” yelled his father. “You are an ungrateful and jealous son, and I will not tolerate such evil scheming. Leave this farm.”

  The following night, the next-eldest son kept watch. Hidden in the tallest tree in the middle of the farm’s central courtyard, he saw his sister emerge from the darkness, transform into a fox, steal into a servant’s room, and kill him. When he, like his elder brother, sounded the alarm and tried to capture the fox, she was nowhere to be found. Asked what he had seen, he told his father the truth. Again the father was furious. “Another dishonest, scheming son!” he cried. “What did I do to deserve such an unfaithful family? Leave this house.”

  The next night, the youngest son hid in the darkness and witnessed his sister turn into a fox and kill yet again. But frightened of his father’s wrath, he blamed a mountain tiger. “Ah, at last, the truth,” said the anguished father. “Your older brothers really were wicked.” But try as they might, no one could catch the tiger—because, of course, there was none. And each morning, another servant was dead.

  Meanwhile, the two exiled brothers wandered the mountains together for many months, sad and alone. Until one day they met a venerable Taoist monk, begging for alms. The brothers gave the monk the little money they had, and shared the little food they carried. Seeing their sadness, the monk asked if he could help and listened as they told of their fox sister. The monk said, “Your family has been cursed by Gumiho, a truly evil and strong spirit. Do not underestimate her power or her need for blood. I fear it is too late for your family, but you must return and try to help.” The monk wrote some holy verses for the brothers, and gave them three small vials: one white, one blue, and one red.

  By the time they returned home, their youngest brother and mother had both been killed, and the servants had either been killed or ran off. Only their father remained, living in the run-down house, surviving on scraps. The father wept when he saw his exiled sons, and begged forgiveness.

  As they cried together, the sun set, and the fox walked into the room, looking at the three of them, hungrily. “Sister! We know you are the Gumiho. Why are you doing this?” cried the eldest brother. “How could you hurt your father so, after he took you in and raised you as his own daughter?” asked the second brother. “Stop now, and leave our ruined family in peace.”

  The Gumiho, her eyes blood-red, her nine tails waving menacingly, grinned, and spoke with their sister’s voice—but layered with ancient power. “Brothers, how good of you to return,” she said. “But I have no interest in peace. I have already eaten the hearts of ninety-seven people from this farm, and with three more, I will be made a Queen of Heaven and rule all these wretched lands. Three more and I shall have the power over life and death, on earth and in the sky, from the furthest realms and across creation. How lucky for me that there are three of you.”

  As the fox crept forward the eldest son read the incantation the monk had provided. Just as the fox lunged, she heard the magic words and fell writhing to the floor. Howling, she covered her ears. Then the younger brother released a drop from white vial and, instantly, a vast thorny hedge sprang from the floor, and trapped her. The brothers took their father and started to run, but the fox pulled off the pricking thorns and ran after them. So the younger brother released a drop from the red vial. Instantly, a huge fire engulfed the fox, and she howled in agony. But she was strong with magic, and fought through the flames. So the elder son took out the last, blue vial, and let a drop fall. Instantly, a huge lake opened under the fox, swallowing her up in deep, cold water.

  Free from the fox spirit, the sons and the father traveled far from their home and the sad memories it held. All three turned away from worldly things to study the scriptures and warn the world of the fox’s evil.

  As for Gumiho, she eventually swam to the shore of the lake to lick her wounds. She vowed to never forget how close she had come to getting what she wanted…

  The metal crane zoomed high and clattery into the sky, jutting between the dingy concrete walls and dirty glass of the surrounding apartment buildings. On it, a platform stuffed with boxes and mismatched furniture rose noisily to an open window nine floors up.

  It was moving day, about four months before the dokkaebi would take Bum. Before she discovered the existence of such fantastic and terrifying places as the goblin market, Young-hee’s life had been mostly dull, unremarkable, and endlessly annoying.

  The day she returned to Seoul with her mom and Bum after nearly five years abroad was one of the most annoying of all. They had lived in the ático of a beautiful old apartment in Buenos Aires for two years, then a nice home in Toronto for three years. She could even remember way back to their big, old house, high in the hills in Seoul.

  Her new home was an apartment complex—sprawling, ugly, even by Seoul’s standards. Twenty-story buildings, built quickly and badly before she was born, surrounded her like a concrete forest. Peeling paint, faded to rotten-egg yellow, was streaked with rust trails dripping from old window frames. What a dump, she thought.

  On the ground, chaos reigned as scurrying movers carried boxes, furniture, and the bric-a-brac of their lives. Young-hee dodged one mover only to find herself in the path of another.

  “Sorry,” she said, and then, twisting away, arms flailing, knocked over a wooden coat rack. “Sorry,” she repeated to no one in particular, and righted the rack.

  “Young-hee!” said her mother, watching the slapstick awkwardness. The sharpness of her voice was tinged with exhaustion. “Try to stay out of the way. Please.”

  “Sorry,” Young-hee said, dodged more movers and retreated to a tree-lined wall as her mother reappeared. She was walking at a fast clip, holding the hand of Young-hee’s irritating, perpetually dirty younger brother, Bum.

  “Young-hee, I need you to get Young-beom’s Gangjee,” she said—“Gangjee” being Bum’s childish mispronunciation of “gangaji,” or “puppy,” what he called his favorite stuffed toy. As usual, Bum was completely clueless—distracted in this charming instance by some snot on his finger.

  “I don’t know where it is.”

  “It’s in the car,” mom said, barely containing her stress and digging into a pocket for the keys.

  “I don’t see the car,” Young-hee said.

  “It’s down in the parking garage near the stairwell door.”

  Before Young-hee could think of an excuse, in one motion her mother had put the keys and Bum’s dirty hand into Young-hee’s, and returned to the chaos of the move.

  As Bum giggled, a greenish snot bubble popped from his nose with a sickly splash. He may have been clueless but he was happy. “Aish, jigyeowo,” said Young-hee, grossed out. “So annoying.”

  Bum was bored and tired, and finding the Gangjee was their best bet if they didn’t want him turning into a raging monster of sleep-deprivation. Maybe then he’d nap and she’d dig up a book to read. Or maybe a friend would send her an email. Letting Bum hold her little finger, she led him to the elevator, trying to remember the electronic lock’s secret number. She found it horribly elusive, as if forgetting the number made the move less real—but, fortunately, someone had propped the door ajar with a cloth. Immediately inside, the smells of cooking and living drifted into the hallway.

  A light indicated that someone, probably the movers, had locked the elevator on the ninth floor. Her floor. “Come on, Bum,” she sighed. “Let’s walk down to the garage.”

  Bum must have gone with her mom when she parked the car, because he rocketed down the stairs, spewing goofy four-year-old noises. Young-hee let out another annoyed sigh as she slowly followed down the poorly lit stairs, toward a spooky and foreboding darkness. If Bum isn’t scared, why should I be? she told herself. The garage was deeper than she expected, and the stairs reversed four times before ending. At t
he bottom was a big, dark blue steel door, with her apartment building number written on it: 206.

  Wow! she thought. Despite the gloom the garage seemed huge. Gray concrete and unremarkable cars stretched out impossibly far. One parking garage must connect all the apartment buildings in the complex. How many levels did the thing have? she wondered. Three or four, at least.

  She located Bum by his bloop and bleep noises. He was playing with the car door handle, his face pressed against the glass. “Gangjee,” he said, pointing inside. Young-hee opened the door and reached in for the puppy doll. With his dirty fur and a single, dangling button eye, Gangjee had definitely seen better days, but he made Bum happy and manageable. Snatching Gangjee, Bum whooshed the toy in Superman-like flying motions. Young-hee rolled her eyes, locked the car, and led her brother back. But as she walked through the dark blue door she found herself looking back into the garage, with a feeling she couldn’t put into words.

  Emerging into the lobby, Young-hee noticed the elevator was un-stuck, quickly hit the button and heard a whir of response. She felt an irrational rush of joy at this tiny victory over the movers and the forces making her day so miserable.

  She rode to the ninth floor, to door 901, her home—no, her apartment, she corrected herself. This is definitely not home. Inside, things were as chaotic as outside—and ugly, with that gray, poorly-fitted linoleum floor and mismatching, vaguely pastel molding and doorframes. Everything felt grimy, scratched and rundown, the depressing leftovers of years of other people’s lives.

  Young-hee helped Bum maneuver through moving mess to a bedroom piled high with boxes. Gangjee had been transformed from Superman to a pirate, slashing at invisible marauders; but Young-hee could tell he was mostly just fighting off sleep. Recognizing a box swollen with bedding, Young-hee found a big, soft comforter and laid it on the floor. Before Bum finished protesting her order to sleep, he had drifted off, mouth agape, holding Gangjee.

  Deciding he was safe, Young-hee decided to explore, figuring her mom would prefer it if she weren’t in the way. Outside in the sunlight, she passed some dubious-looking playground equipment, and near a side entrance to the apartment complex, found a waist-high gate bracketed by two totem poles adorned with strange, toothy faces and googly eyes. Their paint was flaked and faded, and the bearded figure on the right was missing half of its black hat. They were meant to evoke the traditional guardians that protected villages in old Korea, but Young-hee thought they just looked cheap.

  Outside the gate was an unremarkable road lined with unremarkable buildings, four-storied and gray. It could have been anywhere in the city. Or nowhere. Restaurants and convenience stores filled the first floors, while basements were bloated with PC Bang Internet cafes and the occasional virtual golf driving range. The upper levels featured “health” clinics (for reshaping faces and sucking out fat) and hagwon, cram schools (for reshaping brains and sucking out joy), where desperate parents sent desperate kids to study math, science, and English. Aside from weekend Korean classes, Young-hee’s life abroad had been wonderfully hagwon-less, but she dreaded that, soon, her days would be stuffed with extra classes.

  Across the street was a small supermarket, and down the road a farmer’s market, where old people gathered, buying and selling homegrown vegetables. Down the other way, the far side of a three-way intersection ended abruptly in recycling yards. There, all day long, poor people hauled in carts overflowing with cardboard and metal, and yard workers noisily loaded the scraps of other people’s lives onto beaten-up trucks. But what drew Young-hee was the lonely, grassy hill behind the chaos. Overlooked by developers, it had turned half-feral.

  Curious, Young-hee followed a steep path at the top of the hill and found a half-finished park with benches, a wooden gazebo, and some rusty exercise equipment.

  It was a warm spring day, not deadly hot yet, and the air was surprisingly clear for the time of year, so Young-hee enjoyed the view. Geez’, Seoul is massive, she thought, and hideously drab. Everywhere she looked was just more of the same. Concrete apartment complexes like hers and commercial buildings stretched in all directions, each more boastfully and strangely named than the last: Luxville, Besttown, Brownstone, Emerald. Her apartment complex was just as bad—Hanbit Mansion. She tried to remember what “hanbit” meant: Light? Sun? Aish, my Korean’s gotten terrible. And with cracks and rust streaking the buildings, “mansion” was a joke.

  It wasn’t like this before, she thought. I used to live in a house with a yard, trees, a beautiful view. She remembered her grandfather proudly telling them that their house, with a mountain to the north and a river to the south, had great pungsu—a a kind of magical geography that was just right. She missed him, even though she barely remembered what he looked like. But she knew he wouldn’t have approved of the pungsu here. “Has everything changed while I was gone,” she wondered, “or just me?”

  She fished her cell phone from her pocket and checked for messages. Still none. Impulsively following a path that snaked down the hill, Young-hee lost sight of her apartment. The path passed a massive construction project, with high, corrugated steel walling off giant holes from which would likely grow another complex, just like hers. Leaving the construction trucks, dirt, and noise, she reached the main road, and momentarily panicked—until she spied the name of her apartment complex on the high walls of a building a block away.

  At the old guard booth was, fittingly, an old guard—a gyeongbi—chatting with another guard inside the booth. All apartments in Korea hired old guys to act as security and keep an eye on things. The muffled sound of a television came from booth. He eyed her suspiciously. “Hey, girl. Are you looking for someone?” he asked in a thick rural accent.

  She eyed the gyeongbi back, examining his blue, police-like uniform and deeply wrinkled face. Some gyeongbi could be nosy, others grouchy, and some, even scary. But all could be huge pains if you got off on the wrong foot. This one seemed gruff, rather than mean. “Um, I live here. Building 206,” she said.

  “Ah, you’re the ones moving in today,” he said, looking relieved. “The manager talked about you this morning. The Jo’s, right?”

  “Yes. Nice to meet you. I got a little lost, walking around the neighborhood.”

  “It’s a pretty big complex, easy to get lost, at first.” he said. Then angling his head curiously, he asked, “You’re not from around here?”

  “We just moved back. We’ve been abroad for a few years.” Young-hee squirmed, embarrassed by her own accent.

  “Well, welcome back. I’m Gyeongbi Shin.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Shin,” she said with a light bow.

  Young-hee figured she should head home. As in most Korean apartment complexes, the towers were separated by parking lots and small playgrounds, full of busy, gossiping housewives and bored, gossiping men. Young-hee walked quickly with her head down. She passed a fountain quietly gushing and surrounded by puddles—evidence that local kids had ignored the “Keep out of fountain” sign.

  She said “Hi,” to three pretty girls about her age, wearing a peculiar mix of fancy and garish clothes. They kept walking, mimicking her “Hi,” and giggled—evidently finding something about her greeting or appearance just hilarious.

  “Jigyeowo,” she said again, feeling her face flush with anger. “So annoying.” A couple of buildings later, embarrassment replaced anger. Maybe she shouldn’t have talked to strange girls. Or maybe it wasn’t a big deal. Maybe the stress of moving made everything seem worse.

  As Youngee approached her building, her mom came running up, frantic. “Where’s Young-beom?” she asked, grabbing Young-hee’s arm in panic.

  “Wha?” said Young-hee, confused.

  “Your brother, have you seen him?”

  “No. I was walking around. I left him sleeping in your bedroom.”

  “He’s not there now. He must have woken up and wandered off.”

  “He always wanders off.”

  Immediately Young-hee realized she had sai
d the wrong thing. “Young-hee! I don’t need your attitude, not now. He’s your little brother. You should have been watching him.” Young-hee frequently got lectured about her “attitude,” although she often didn’t know why. “The movers didn’t notice him walk out,” her mom went on. “He doesn’t know this place at all. He’s just a little boy. He’s probably scared…”

  Young-hee hated seeing her usually strong mother so fragile. “It’s okay, mom. I’m sure he hasn’t gone far. We’ll find him.”

  They split up, with Young-hee’s mom turning right and heading down the street. Young-hee zipped across to the supermarket, to see if he was lured by the treats, but nothing. Walking quickly, she saw no renegade four-year-old walking alone or checking out the cranes and machinery in the recycling yards. She frantically looped around the complex until she found herself by the gatehouse again.

  The setting sun threw shadows up and down the apartment, giving everything a warmer glow. Remembering the fountain and her brother’s unrelenting need to make messes, she took off, half-running.

  Then Young-hee heard a familiar laugh from around the corner. And, sure enough, there was the fountain and there was Bum, giggling with a security guard. Bum’s eyes were red from crying, but now he was laughing and happy. As she approached, she saw it was Mr. Shin. “They were all running away, but to Tiger, it looked like they were running from Rabbit,” he said, making funny Tiger faces. “So Tiger says, ‘I had no idea Rabbit was so strong,’ and he ran away as fast as he could.”

  “Bum! There you are,” said Young-hee.

  Bum looked up and shouted “Nuna!”—“big sister.” He jumped off the chair and ran to her.

  “You know you shouldn’t run off like that. Mom was so worried.”

  “Sorry,” Bum said.

  “I found him wandering by the side gate, crying,” said the guard. “I could see he was lost, but he couldn’t remember where he lived.”