Princess Bari Read Online Free
Author: Sok-yong Hwang
the typhoid ghost. Nothing will happen to you. My guardian spirit is keeping watch.â
I donât know how long I was sick. I kept slipping in and out of sleep both day and night. I can still remember the dream I had:
I enter the grounds of what looks like an old temple. A stone wall has collapsed, and tiles from the half-caved-in roof lie scattered about in the reedy, weed-filled courtyard. I donât go into the darkened temple, but instead stand nervously next to a slanting pillar and peer inside. Something moves. A dark red ribbon comes slithering out of the shadows. I turn and start to run. The ribbon stands on end and springs after me. I run through a forest, wade across a stream and cut through rice paddies, clambering over the high ridges between them, and make it back to the entrance of our village. The whole time, that red ribbon is dancing after me. Just then, Grandmother appears. She looks different â sheâs wearing a white hanbok and has her hair up in a chignon with a long hairpin holding it in place. She pushes me behind her and lets out a loud yell:
âHex, be gone!â
The ribbon slithers to the ground and vanishes.
I woke up in a panic. My body and face were drenched in sweat as if Iâd been caught in a rainstorm. Grandmother sat up and wiped my face and neck with a cotton cloth. âHold on just a little longer, and itâll pass,â she said.
Though I was awake, my body kept growing and shrinking over and over as the fever rose and fell. My arms and legs grew longer and longer until they were pressed up against the floor and the walls. Then they shrivelled and shrank up smaller than beans, like rolled up balls of snot dug from both nostrils, and got softer and softer until the skin burst. The warm floor against my back dropped and carried me down, down, down, into the earth below. Faces appeared in the wallpaper. Their mouths opened, and they laughed and chattered noisily at me.
I made it through the typhoid fever, but for several years, right up until I started school, I remained frail. I started hearing things I hadnât heard before and seeing things that werenât there before. That was also when I started communicating with our mute sister, Sook. Jung, the fourth-oldest, and Sook, the fifth, were only a year apart and were always at each otherâs throats. It was the same with Hyun and me â as she was the second-youngest after me, I never bothered treating her like an older sister and she was always irritated with me because of it. Jin, Sun and Mi were much older than the rest of us, and they were bigger too. After all, a good three years separated Mi and the next one down, Jung. Anyway, Hyun and I were both treated like babies by everyone else, but Jung and Sook were awkwardly positioned in the family. Whenever an errand had to be run, it always fell to them. Between the two of them, Jung was the easier mark. Since Sook couldnât talk, there was a limit to what she could be ordered to do. For instance, if you told them to run down to the greengrocer at the bottom of the hill and bring back some tofu and green onions, Jung would push her bottom lip out and glare menacingly at Sook.
âI get stuck having to do everything because of her .â
Because she couldnât communicate through words, Sook was short-tempered. She would get along with everyone fine for a while, doing what she was told, but the moment she lost her temper she was ripping out clumps of hair and kicking in stomachs â big sister, little sister, none of that mattered when she was on the attack. For that reason, our parents did their best to treat Jung and Sook equally. When they bought us clothes, Jung and Sook were given identical styles and patterns, and even pencils were doled out in identical sets of three.
One morning, my sisters were running around getting ready for school, taking turns going to the toilet, washing their faces and combing their hair when
I donât know how long I was sick. I kept slipping in and out of sleep both day and night. I can still remember the dream I had:
I enter the grounds of what looks like an old temple. A stone wall has collapsed, and tiles from the half-caved-in roof lie scattered about in the reedy, weed-filled courtyard. I donât go into the darkened temple, but instead stand nervously next to a slanting pillar and peer inside. Something moves. A dark red ribbon comes slithering out of the shadows. I turn and start to run. The ribbon stands on end and springs after me. I run through a forest, wade across a stream and cut through rice paddies, clambering over the high ridges between them, and make it back to the entrance of our village. The whole time, that red ribbon is dancing after me. Just then, Grandmother appears. She looks different â sheâs wearing a white hanbok and has her hair up in a chignon with a long hairpin holding it in place. She pushes me behind her and lets out a loud yell:
âHex, be gone!â
The ribbon slithers to the ground and vanishes.
I woke up in a panic. My body and face were drenched in sweat as if Iâd been caught in a rainstorm. Grandmother sat up and wiped my face and neck with a cotton cloth. âHold on just a little longer, and itâll pass,â she said.
Though I was awake, my body kept growing and shrinking over and over as the fever rose and fell. My arms and legs grew longer and longer until they were pressed up against the floor and the walls. Then they shrivelled and shrank up smaller than beans, like rolled up balls of snot dug from both nostrils, and got softer and softer until the skin burst. The warm floor against my back dropped and carried me down, down, down, into the earth below. Faces appeared in the wallpaper. Their mouths opened, and they laughed and chattered noisily at me.
I made it through the typhoid fever, but for several years, right up until I started school, I remained frail. I started hearing things I hadnât heard before and seeing things that werenât there before. That was also when I started communicating with our mute sister, Sook. Jung, the fourth-oldest, and Sook, the fifth, were only a year apart and were always at each otherâs throats. It was the same with Hyun and me â as she was the second-youngest after me, I never bothered treating her like an older sister and she was always irritated with me because of it. Jin, Sun and Mi were much older than the rest of us, and they were bigger too. After all, a good three years separated Mi and the next one down, Jung. Anyway, Hyun and I were both treated like babies by everyone else, but Jung and Sook were awkwardly positioned in the family. Whenever an errand had to be run, it always fell to them. Between the two of them, Jung was the easier mark. Since Sook couldnât talk, there was a limit to what she could be ordered to do. For instance, if you told them to run down to the greengrocer at the bottom of the hill and bring back some tofu and green onions, Jung would push her bottom lip out and glare menacingly at Sook.
âI get stuck having to do everything because of her .â
Because she couldnât communicate through words, Sook was short-tempered. She would get along with everyone fine for a while, doing what she was told, but the moment she lost her temper she was ripping out clumps of hair and kicking in stomachs â big sister, little sister, none of that mattered when she was on the attack. For that reason, our parents did their best to treat Jung and Sook equally. When they bought us clothes, Jung and Sook were given identical styles and patterns, and even pencils were doled out in identical sets of three.
One morning, my sisters were running around getting ready for school, taking turns going to the toilet, washing their faces and combing their hair when
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