The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea(39)

I don’t realize I’m staring at the Red String of Fate until I look up to find Shin’s eyes upon it as well, then he lifts his gaze.

“Kirin was frustrated with me while we were in the mountains. We were supposed to be tracking the thieves, but I was distracted. Every now and then the Red String of Fate would ripple or glimmer, and I thought to myself, What is she doing? Probably up to all kinds of mischief.”

He shakes his head with a half-smile. “I was surprised when I returned only to discover you hadn’t left the house at all.”

My first instinct is to deny his words, the feeling of embarrassment acute, but I surprise myself by speaking truthfully. “After the encounter with the Goddess of Women and Children, I felt discouraged. My faith was badly wounded. It was hard for me to accept that a goddess wouldn’t care about a prayer that was given with so much love.”

An echo of that awful feeling returns, and I bring my hand to my neck. When I look up, I find Shin watching me, and I feel suddenly vulnerable.

I drop my hand. “Well, I am glad you’re back,” I say, throwing a bit of levity into my voice. “At least with you around, there’s more for my heart to do than mope.” Shin goes still. I realize, belatedly, how this might sound. “That is, I don’t have time to stew on melancholy thoughts. I’m too busy trying to get the best of you. It’s easier to be brave when you’re boiling mad.”

He raises a brow. “Only you could change your mind from a compliment to an insult halfway through.”

We step onto the docks and walk across the thick boards until we reach the very end, where a boat is moored to a post. I recognize it as the one we took to Fox House. As Shin leans down to untie the rope, I feel a strange pain in my chest. “Where are you going? You just returned.”

And maybe it’s the raw feelings from earlier, but I don’t want him to leave. And the realization of this makes me feel confused and upset. My cheeks grow hot, and I’m glad that he’s occupied with the boat.

“Outside Moon House,” Shin says, the boat rocking gently beneath him, “you claimed that I hated the Sea God. The truth is, I don’t. Resent him, yes. Pity and doubt him, every day. But never hate him. I don’t know if I believe he’s … cursed, or that the curse isn’t one he inflicted upon himself. But maybe my own feelings have gotten in the way of seeing things clearly.”

He turns back, holding his hand out to me. “For years, Lotus House has protected the Sea God by severing the tie that makes him mortal through his connection with a human bride, and for a time, blocking a wound from bleeding out. But a wound, not tended properly, will reopen; it must be healed.”

I take his hand and step into the boat, settling on one of the seats. He sits opposite me, reaching for the oars.

“But the Sea God wasn’t in the throne room or the garden,” I say.

“He has to be somewhere. We’ll go every day if we must.”

Hope is a heady feeling. I sense it billowing up inside me, as if the magpie were unfurling its wings. In this moment with Shin, the Red String of Fate bright like a flame between us, anything feels possible.





17


We leave the boat in the canal outside the palace and enter the Sea God’s garden through the door in the painting.

Even abandoned as it is, the garden is beautiful. Flower petals flitter across the pebbled pathway, catching in the billowy pleats of my skirt. A slight drizzle permeates the air, and I wonder if a storm might be brewing somewhere to the east.

At the pond a small wind has blown all the paper boats to the far shore, leaving the waters closest noticeably bare. While Shin inspects the pavilion, I wander down to the bank and bend to pick up a stone.

My grandfather used to skip pebbles across the surface of the pond in our garden. When we were younger, Joon and I would count the times the pebbles would hit the water before they disappeared.

Turning my hand just so, I fling the stone across the water. There’s a loud plopping sound as it sinks. I glance over my shoulder to see Shin come around the side of the pavilion. He looks unimpressed.

As I reach down to pick up another pebble, my fingers brush against something rough. This one is different from the rest, etched with a drawing of a lotus flower. The lines are too neat for the carving to have been a natural occurrence. Someone must have painstakingly taken a knife and chiseled the eight oval-shaped petals and the star-colored heart. It reminds me of the lotus Shin left beside the paper boat, still floating in its shallow bowl. I pocket the pebble.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Shin take up position beneath a tree at the far side of the pavilion, keeping a watchful lookout. We agreed that no amount of searching would result in us finding the god, that our best course of action was to wait.

For the next half hour, I sink rocks up and down the shoreline, giving up when the clouds fill the sky. I plop down beside the pond. My grandfather always said the times he felt most at peace were while sitting by the pond in our garden, watching the ducks as they swam leisurely by. Except there are no ducks in this pond. Just paper boats. Like a school of unruly minnows, they crowd the northern shore.

One boat has escaped the cluster, drifting toward the center of the pond.

As it comes closer, I see that it’s not like the other boats. It’s lopsided with clumsy, uneven folds, half submerged in the water. A rough red thread runs down the center of the boat, as if it was ripped in half and then stitched back together again.