Chapter 29

“Do you miss your mother?”

“…Ugh… shut up.”

Clenching his teeth, the child glared fiercely toward where Hisa’s voice came from with bloodshot eyes. Even as he panted from the fever, he didn’t cry.

Hisa recalled the funeral from a few days ago. People had been saying how hard it was to dig into the frozen ground to bury the wife of General Hong.

The child’s clothes, his pretty face, and then the face of the dead lady overlapped in her mind.

“So the general’s wife was your mother.”

“You… know my mother?”

Still breathing hotly, the child asked.

She couldn’t forget the woman who used to offer devotional rites toward the mountain whenever she was well. The offerings people made reached everything in the mountain. That woman had sometimes noticed Hisa on the sacred tree and bowed deeply.

“Then, then do you know where she’s buried? Where her grave is?”

The child, who had just been glaring, staggered closer and asked desperately.

“…I do.”

“Take me there!”

“You can go after you get better.”

“I only just found out my mother died. No one told me… I couldn’t even be there for her last moments.”

Because his fever wouldn’t go down, and fearing more deaths in the family, they had rushed the funeral without telling him. The child, barely conscious, overheard servants talking and ran out immediately.

And that was when he saw Hisa.

The child groped forward and grabbed her desperately. He clutched her worn clothes so tightly they nearly tore.

“Why are you so angry?”

“…Because I failed as her son.”

Since he had come closer, Hisa sat him down and let him hold the ribbon of her clothes. Then she took his frozen feet into her hands and warmed them with her breath.

“Take me to her grave.”

The child, calmer now, said that. He held onto her clothes like a lifeline.

“If you weren’t here, you would’ve frozen to death wandering around.”

“My mother wouldn’t want that either.”

“Hey!”

The child shouted again.

The cave echoed, making Hisa’s ears ring, and she squinted slightly. The stubborn child, whose frozen feet she was warming, started kicking her now. He even tried to stand, insisting he would walk there himself.

“You don’t even know where it is. You’ll just wander around here and die without ever reaching it.”

Hisa spoke plainly.

The child bit his lip until it split. He tried to suppress the emotions rising inside him.

He was so young, yet even after losing his mother, he spoke of duty and refused to cry. Even if he was ready to die, he wouldn’t shed tears.

“You speak so cruelly. What are you?”

With bloodshot eyes, the child glared at Hisa.

“Fine, try it. Then I’ll take you.”

“Shi…”

“If you curse, I won’t take you.”

Having already been cursed at once, Hisa cut him off smoothly.

The child only breathed heavily, his feverish breaths uneven.

The shaman should be back by now after finishing the ritual.

At last, the child opened his mouth quietly. Hisa quickly slipped the pill inside and grinned. Then she wrapped him tightly in animal fur like a rolled mat.

“What is this!”

“I said I’d take you to the grave.”

Now that he had taken the medicine, his fever would soon go down.

Hisa carried him on her back again and stepped lightly onto the mountain path, where the snowstorm had eased.

“You really… really know where it is?”

“Yeah.”

All graves were more or less the same.

Hisa ran through the mountain with the child on her back. Fortunately, the place was within her reach. A sunny grave on a slope. There was no headstone yet, so it was hard to tell whose it was, but it had to be here.

She set the child down and unwrapped the fur. He almost rolled down the slope, so she quickly grabbed the back of his neck.

“Huff… huff.”

Startled, the child breathed heavily.

“It’s here.”

“…I can’t see anything.”

“That’s because your fever hasn’t gone down. You can’t even see my face.”

His bare feet, the skin cracked and red, bothered her, so she placed him on the fur again, facing the grave.

“You can bow here.”

She expected him to question her, but unexpectedly, the child said nothing. He simply stared ahead as if looking at the grave, unmoving despite the cold.

Hisa asked impulsively.

“What’s your name?”

“…Hong Yeom-rang.”

“Rang.”

So you’re the Rang your mother used to talk about.

Hisa held back a smile. Not long ago, a young shaman in training had come crying after being beaten by Hong Yeom-rang.

“My mother was the only one who called me that.”

No longer angry, the boy spoke quietly.

Since he didn’t tell her not to call him that, Hisa stayed silent. Soon, Hong Yeom-rang bowed twice toward the small grave.

He didn’t cry to the end.

His face was even redder than when he had a fever, yet he held back his anger, his tears, everything.

At that moment, Hisa forgot her loneliness. Her own loneliness felt like nothing in front of this child. Even someone so small endured so much.

What had made her feel lonely in the first place slipped from her mind.

“Thank you.”

After bowing, Hong Yeom-rang said that to her.

His fever was dropping, and his sleepy eyes fluttered. When he woke, he might think it had all been a dream.

Hisa wrapped him in the fur again and carried him down quickly. By the time she reached the sacred tree, even the light snowfall had stopped. She placed him, still wrapped, on the lowest branch.

Then she brushed aside the snow, picked up a stone, and threw it with all her strength toward the shaman’s house.

Crash!

The sound of a jar breaking rang out, followed by a loud cry. It was surely the young shaman. Lights turned on brightly. The shaman, who had already lost several jars to Hisa, would come out and find the child.

Hisa turned away, relieved.

Her earlier thought that she wished the shaman were there because she felt lonely had already vanished. She had even forgotten why she had stood there alone in the snow.

She always forgot unpleasant things quickly.

It was better to forget things that would drive her mad if she dwelled on them.

But somehow, she felt like she wouldn’t forget this day.

“Hong Yeom-rang, Hong Yeom-rang, Rang, Rang.”

She repeated his name.

This was a good memory, so she wanted to remember it.

The crushing loneliness disappeared in an instant because of him. If such a day came again, she would think of him. Standing alone in the forest, she would remember the child who had walked toward her.

“Good boy.”

That pretty face.

She remembered the young shaman who had confessed to him just because of that face.

Even without being able to see, he had kicked her, so the shaman must have been beaten badly. The shaman called him a bad child, but Hisa said he was a good one.

“The lady raised her son well.”

– That’s not true.

– Not at all.

The goblins chattered beside Hisa as she brightened. They welcomed her warmly as she quickly shook off her loneliness. Her footsteps pressed into the snow as she walked back into the mountain, the goblins sweeping behind her.

After that, Hisa sometimes showed interest in the boy.

Through the shaman, she heard stories about him, and later learned he had angered his father and was sent to the capital. No matter how high she climbed, she couldn’t see even the edge of the capital.

He never looked toward the sacred tree again, so she never saw him after that.

Not until he passed his coming of age, passed the military exam, and returned to the village.