Young-hee and the Pullocho (17 page)

Another round of rattling sounded behind her. The ghosts were still after her. She looked for somewhere to hide, but the shore was too exposed, the lake too big to swim across. Young-hee was running out of options. She ran along the shore of the lake until she was ready to burst, but the ghosts bore down. When she looked right at them they scarcely seemed to move, just hovered and stared with empty, terrible eyes. The black horse and its rider, her dark, curly hair and long veil flying behind, had emerging onto the shore.

Finally, at the edge of the immense lake, Young-hee stopped running and faced her pursuers. “What do you want!?” she shouted in a hoarse scream. “What did I do?”

But the ghosts kept coming. The rider pulled up, perhaps a dozen meters away, straight-backed, her face empty save for distain. “We want to be free,” she croaked flatly. “We've been promised peace in exchange for you, bear-child.” The horse snorted heavily through its immense nostrils, as if it, too, was proclaiming victory. Young-hee backed toward the water and, out of room, tripped over a rock and fell, one hand splashing as she instinctively tried to break her fall.

“Leave me alone!” she shouted in one last protest.

Young-hee heard rushing water and felt a cold spray on her head.
Someone's dripping water on me
, she thought as a huge gush of water surrounded her. She realized that something very, very large was surging out of the lake. An immense, scaly shape. There was a roar, not from churning water, but from a huge animal that suddenly loomed over her, all teeth and claws and scales—a dragon. A blue dragon, its eyes sparkling cold like black ice, its mouth bigger than Young-hee, and its great, serpentine body coiling out of the lake, right behind her. It opened its huge mouth, brandishing its great teeth, and roared once more.

Young-hee lay in the wet rocks and sand, feeling very, very small. The blue dragon, rumbling ferociously, was the biggest and scariest thing she had ever seen. It was so overwhelming that it took Young-hee several seconds to realize that the ghosts had all fled. Smart ghosts, she thought. Alone against a dragon, she knew there were no strategies or tricks to try.

The serpentine beast coiled and twisted, bringing his huge mouth right up the Young-hee. Two long, whisker-like tendrils hung menacingly from either side of its gaping, snorting snout. With a mouth full of razor-like teeth including fangs the size of her forearm, the monster could have easily swallowed her whole. It opened its mouth full and roared.

But as she felt its breath sweep her body, the dragon's eyes snapped to her hand, and shutting its mouth made a rumbling that sounded a lot like a deep “
Huh?
”

Then it spoke. “That ring, it summoned me, and I came. But where did a small bear daughter find a ring like that?”

“Er, a friend of mine gave it to me.”

The dragon snorted, not liking her answer. “The bear daughter is a liar. I know that ring, and its owner is a good friend. You and I, however, have never met.”

The monster's breath smelled like the spiced cider her mom gave to warm her up during winter in Canada. “Mansoo?”

The dragon looked surprised. “That is my true name, but it has been an age since I heard anyone use it. How did you know?”

“Bae gave me the ring and said I should look for you.”

The dragon's fierce expression quickly turned soft and almost comical, the two tendrils along his nose bouncing lightly. “You know Bae? He has been a great friend for a long time.”

“Yes, well, we met yesterday in the woods,” said Young-hee, tactfully avoiding the part about Bae being a skeleton and dead. “I helped him, and in exchange he gave me this ring and said I should ask your help.”

“Why, of course,” said the gigantic serpent, its long neck and body coiling about her effortlessly, despite its bulk. One clawed foot slipped from the water, slicing the shore. “I owe him much. I would be happy to help a friend of his.” His head bowed respectfully, so Young-hee bowed back, feeling somewhat ridiculous.

“I'm Young-hee. Would you happen to know of a cave around here called Darang?”

“Hello, Young-hee. Of course I do, on Mey's far side, between those mountains,” he said, raising a giant claw from the water and casually pointing.

Young-hee scanned the faraway coasts. “And you wouldn't happen to know how far it is?” Shivering in her wet clothes, Young-hee blasted two sharp sneezes.

The dragon eyed her small, human legs and wet frame. “For you, quite far, I suspect,” he said. “A thousand
li
if it's a
po
. But I could take you.”

“Truly?” asked Young-hee, feeling torn. On one hand she really could use help, not to mention someone to talk to. On the other hand she also remembered the famous story of the Water Dragon King who tried to eat Rabbit's liver. He sounded so proud and dangerous in that tale—and he might even be the same dragon. But on the third hand (if she had more hands), the ghosts might re-appear if she tried walking around the immense lake. She'd take a chance. “A ride would be wonderful. Thank you, sir.”

“Hop on,” he said, pointing to the back of his head as he bent his long neck to the ground. “And ‘Mansoo' is fine, please. Any friend of Bae is my friend too.”

“Then, thank you, Mansoo,” she said with a slight giggle. Climbing on as best she could, she happily discovered that the giant scales made excellent hand- and footholds. His neck was about the size of a large horse, and with a bit of stretching Young-hee straddled it. “Okay, I think I'm on,” she said.

“Then let's go,” Mansoo said cheerfully.

The blue dragon's five-clawed feet dragged its bulk into the lake, but as the water grew deeper, Young-hee felt him grow lighter and more graceful, until he was sliding through the dark blue-green water. The dragon's neck was comfortable and secure, and Young-hee settled in. For a scaly creature that Young-hee just assumed was some kind of reptile or dinosaur, the dragon was surprisingly warm. His heat radiated through her cold skin, helping dry her clothes. As the shore drifted away, Young-hee relaxed and barely needed to hold on.

After a moment's silence, Mansoo cleared his huge, dragon throat. “
Ahem
,” he rumbled. “So, how is Bae these days?”

Uh-oh
, Young-hee thought. She had tried to finesse Bae's skeletal condition, but sensed that lying would not be a good idea. “Uh, dead,” she said, more bluntly than she intended.

“Yes, of course. I mean besides that.”

“Besides being dead, he seemed pretty well.” Young-hee was relieved. He wasn't like the angry folktale king at all. The trees and hills whizzed by. “Very chatty and upbeat, especially for a spirit stuck in the ground. I put him up in the nook of a tree, with a good view of the valley.”

“I bet he liked that,” said Mansoo.

Beneath her body, she could feel the powerful surge of the dragon's muscles, cutting effortlessly through the lake, and a gentle pulse of speed with each flick of its mighty tail just below the surface. She felt safe for the first time in she couldn't remember when. It was a warm but distant memory she couldn't quite place, then,
“Oh,”
she recalled,
“when I was little girl, and my dad carried me on his strong shoulders.

“You're crying,” said the dragon.

Young-hee wasn't sure how he could see her face. “I'm okay,” she said. “Just the wind in my eyes.”

“I can slow down.”

“No, I'm all right,” she said, trying surreptitiously to squeeze her eyes dry with the back of a hand. Nonetheless, Mansoo slowed slightly.

After a few minutes, Mansoo spoke again. “So, why would three ghosts and the Ghost Queen be chasing a bear daughter along Lake Mey?”

“Ghost Queen? You mean the curly-haired woman on the horse? With the long veil? She was a queen?”

“Yes, with the
mongsu
veil, that was Mara, the queen of the ghosts—quite an enemy to have.”

Fear and stress swamped Young-hee's short-lived calm. “
Aish
, no …”

“It's okay,” said the dragon, trying to calm his rattled passenger. “Even the Queen of Mara is not likely to confront a blue dragon.”

“But soon I'll be continuing on my journey, and you won't be around. And I'll have someone else chasing after me and not know why. It's so …
jigyeowo
.”

“You have other things chasing you?”

“Maybe. I'm not sure. But ever since I came to Strange Land, it's been really tough and scary.” And so Young-hee told the dragon about the dokkaebi, her brother's kidnapping, and the rest of her adventures. Mansoo listened more patiently and deeply than anyone had in a long time, she thought. And when she finished, she watched him carefully weigh the details and import.

“You are right to be confused,” he said at last. “As others have told you, the dokkaebi you met was most unusually cruel. But these are unusual and cruel times. Divisions among the creatures of this land are long-standing and growing worse. The younger spirits are tired of the arrogance their elders, and the elders are angry at the impudence of the young.”

“Young spirits? Everything seemed so old here to me.”

“You bear children do not live long enough to understand. But even for long-lived creatures, there are ages and eras. Stories change. Gods and spirits have come at different times. And many of the first spirits resent the younger ones.”

Young-hee thought about the old stories. “You mean since the bear became human and gave birth to Dangun?”

“That's only one story, Young-hee. There are many others. Some believe the world was born from an egg, sent from another world; others that the great spirit Mireuk separated Heaven from Earth and created the copper pillars that support your world.”

“Wait, I've heard of Mireuk. My aunt said it's is another name for the Buddha.”

“Only in some stories is Mireuk the Maitreya. Older than the spirits of Buddha are those of the Tao. Older still are the first spirits, of the earth and hills and waters, stranger and angrier than the new gods. Before becoming the Maitreya, Mireuk was one of the oldest gods, and in one old version created two suns and two moons, then broke one moon into the fourteen great stars. After he created the world, he went to the grasshopper, mouse, and frog, and asked them all the meaning of justice, fire, and water. Then he decided to create humanity, holding a golden tray in one hand and a silver tray in the other. He prayed, and insects fell from the sky onto the trays, and became man and woman.”

“That's deeply weird. Strange Land is so confusing.”

“Strange land?” he asked.

“Yes, that's what I'm calling this world because it's so different than mine.”

“Not an incorrect name” said Mansoo. “From ‘stranger,' like foreigner.”

“Huh? You mean in English or in Korean?”

“Yes.”

“Yes which?”

“You don't know?”

“I don't even know what language I'm speaking,” said Young-hee with puzzlement.

“No?”

“I mean, I assumed it was Korean, since this is all Korean magic and stories. But sometimes I'm more comfortable in English. Or … well, they're different, anyhow.”

“I see.”

“So what are you speaking?”

“Why my own tongue, of course,” said the dragon laughing, sending a deep rumble through his long neck.

Just then, a big splash jolted Young-hee. And another, and then another. Keeping up with Mansoo's swift pace, one- and two-meter-long shapes shimmered, all fleshy pinkish-gold. “There are fish swimming with us,” she said worriedly as the splashing grew. “Big fish.”

“Hrm, yes. Lake Mey's many carp like swimming with the dragon.”

“Isn't it good to dream of carp?” she said, remembering reading about
ingeo
—carp.

“I wouldn't know the dreams of bear children,” said Mansoo. “But if dreaming of them is good, surely seeing them for real must be better.”