Young-hee and the Pullocho (6 page)

From high above, Hongjo watched their merrymaking and eating and drinking, and he grew very hungry. Suddenly, a huge kko-reu-reuk noise rumbled loudly from his hungry belly.

“What's that?” asked the drunken goblins, all confused. “It sounds like thunder. Rain will probably leak into this old house, and we hate rain.”

Hongjo worried that any more stomach noises would reveal him to the dokkaebi, so he decided he had to eat something. But the only things in his pockets were the walnuts. Desperate to quiet his belly, he tried to open one quietly with his mouth, but it was no use. Ttak! The walnut made a huge noise as it cracked open.

“Oh no!” said the foolish dokkaebi again. “The roof is caving in. We're in danger! Run!” The goblins all ran away. But, in their haste, they forgot the wooden hammer.

Hongjo dropped down from the rafters and ate his full of the dokkaebi's delicious food. But as he was eating, he saw the hammer and picked it up. “Tukdak tukdak,” he said, “Bring me gold!” And—poof!—huge bags of gold appeared. From that day forward, Hongjo and his family were the richest people in the province, and they were very happy … at least until his younger brother found out where Hongjo got the magic hammer. But that is a story for another day.

Young-hee looked up, down and all around, confused and overwhelmed. She was surrounded by trees and a pine forest, but not like any she had seen before. The trees loomed huge, each the size of an apartment building, with thick gnarled branches like arthritic pretzels. The bark cracked with ridges as thick as her thigh and pine cones as big as watermelons. The trees were unreal, their greens and browns too vivid to take in.

Everything else was like those mammoth trees, bigger-than-life. And unreal.
No, super-real
. She was standing in a field of grass, but the blades ruffling against her legs felt soft as silk, and the wind blowing through them sounded like a gentle, faraway song.

Trying to take it all in, Young-hee stepped back and bumped into a door—wooden, like the one in the apartment basement. Set into a tree's giant root, it swung open easily, revealing ugly concrete stairs—the way back to the parking garage. Her first impulse was to run back down, to escape the scary strangeness. But, aside from the shock of wandering into a new world, she felt surprisingly little fear as she moved away from the door. It wasn't even like making a decision.

The sun was directly overhead, and yet the light was soft, bathing everything in a warm glow that felt more like evening. She was standing in a clearing. In the center, the branches of a big hedge twisted like playground equipment. To one side was a large and incredibly ornate fountain with multiple levels of water cascading from pool to pool. As she got closer, she realized that the water was flowing with gravity in some places, but against it in others. She carefully slid her fingers into a stream that poured upward, blithely disregarding physics. At least, any physics Young-hee had ever studied.

In the churning water she could see myriad fish in explosive colors and impossible shapes. She tried to try to touch one, but as soon as her hand broke the surface, the fish swam up the fountain, out of reach. She thought the laughing, gurgling of the fountain sounded a little like crying.

At first, this place almost hurt to look at, but increasingly Young-hee found it beautiful. Through a break in the woods, she made out a big, grassy hill and, further away, the purple points of mountains. It was hard to explain or understand—leaves looked like leaves, sky like sky, but everything familiar was also strange.

Reflexively she reached into her pocket for her cell phone to photograph the huge trees, but they were too big for the frame. She tried a selfie with a giant pine cone. But when she checked, the images were jumbles of unintelligible pixels. She checked for messages or emails. Nothing.

With soft, deep buzzing a dragonfly rose from behind a tree. Brightly colored as a peacock's tail, it was a bigger than real-world dragonflies and had more wings. Young-hee held out her hand, palm up, inviting it to land. After hesitating, it settled on her hand. Maybe she should try to pet it?

“What do you think you're doing?” came an angry voice behind her. Startled, she turned, but saw only forest. And two jangseung
totem poles, like the ones at her apartment complex. “Don't pretend you didn't hear me,” said the voice, coming from the jangseung.

“Er,” said Young-hee, tongue-tied. “I was playing with the dragonfly.”

“Do you want to lose a finger?” asked the second jangseung. “Or,
heavens forbid
, your whole hand?”

Young-hee was perplexed. It was just a cute little dragonfly. But as she turned to point at it, she saw its impossibly large mouth, open very wide and filled with long, sharp teeth.

Before it could chomp, a branch from a nearby tree swung down and gently bonked the toothy not-so-dragonfly in the head with a giant pine cone. Young-hee jerked her hand away. “
Tsk
! None of that,” said the first jangseung. “You are free to eat what you will in the Jade Swamps and the Empty Forest, but not here. You know that.” Young-hee could have sworn she saw the creature nod. “Now, be gone.” The creature got back up on its six legs and took to the air.

“Thanks for your help,” said Young-hee, feeling terribly dumb. “That was really…” Young-hee trailed off as she realized she was talking to two totem poles “… nice.”

She checked out the defenders of her fingers. They were definitely jangseung—wooden carvings about two meters tall, stuck in the ground. Unlike the ones by her apartment building, these were real wood, wonderfully intricate, their paint fresh and bright, and most lively. The first jangseung had black hair and a big red mouth, with almost fleshy lips—Young-hee guessed it was female. The second had a black hat and a scruffy beard, clearly male. But they were alive.

“Tell us,” said the female totem pole, “what manner of creature are you?”

“Creature?” repeated Young-hee, taken aback. “Excuse me?”

“No, you
may not
be excused,” answered the male jangseung. “We are the guardians here and require an answer. What manner of creature are you?”

“You are not a fairy, obviously,” said the female. “Or a witch or an imp. And I'm fairly certain you are not a fox.”

Fairies?
, Young-hee wondered.
Does Korea even have fairies? I thought they were a European thing.
“You're jangseung,” she said, stating the obvious and feeling dumb for it.

“Of course we're jangseung,” said the male. “What else would we be?”

“Maybe she's a golem,” said the female. “They're not too bright.”

“Are you a golem? The penalties for a golem crossing a jangseung's territory unbidden are most severe. How did you get here?”

“I'm not sure,” said Young-hee, truthfully. “I just got lost, walked up some stairs and came out over there.” She pointed across the clearing to the brown door in the tree root.

“Huh, I never noticed that door before,” said the female.

“Me neither. Very
peculiar
. All the more reason to know what she is.”

“I… I don't know what you mean,” said Young-hee.

“She doesn't know very much.”

“Definitely a golem.”

“No, I mean, I'm nothing special. Just a girl.”

“‘Nothing special',” echoed the female jangseung. “Just a …
waita-minute
… a
girl
?”

“From the mud world?” said the male totem pole. “A bear daughter?”

“A human girl?”

“Er, yeah,” said Young-hee. “I mean, yes, to the human part. Not the bear part or the mud.”

There was a brief pause, then both jangseung started talking rapidly at the same time.

“Could she be a true girl?”

“It's been an age since I saw a human. What could it mean?”

“Why now? We shouldn't be hasty.”

“Do you think she's here to fight?”

“Could she tip the balance?”

“She doesn't look like much of a fighter.”

Young-hee didn't understand. Fighting? Balance? This was way out of her league. “Uh, excuse me?” she ventured. “I never meant to make trouble or offend anyone.”

“Oh, I'm sorry, dearie,” said the female jangseung, her scowl softening. “We're being terribly rude. These are difficult times and sometimes Cheonha and I forget our manners.”

“So … am I allowed to pass?”

“Oh, yes. A bear daughter? Of course.”

It was a promising response, and Young-hee relaxed a bit. “You're the first real jangseung I've ever met, but you both look very beautiful and elegant. And you saved me from that nasty dragonfly thing, so I really owe you. Thank you so much.” Young-hee bowed politely as she finished speaking.

“You are very gracious girl, and grace is always appreciated,” said the male, bowing his wooden body politely. “I am General Cheonha, and my bride is General Jiha. We are the guardians of the
jureum
forest and surrounding lands, from the Crying Stream to the Swollen Pond, and from the Lonely Wastes, past the goblin market, to Haechi's Horn.”

“Haechi's Horn?”

Jiha gave a flick of her head toward the steep grassy hill beyond the forest. “Haechi's Horn. Because the hill is so steep, like the horn of a haechi.”

“Ah,” said Young-hee, looking at the hill towering over them. “Well, it is wonderful to meet you both. I'm Young-hee. I'm nothing special like a general or a guardian, just a normal girl. I'm certainly not a bear.”

“A bear
daughter
,” corrected Jiha. “You are a human, descended from Ungnyeo the bear and the first son of heaven.”

“Wait, are you talking about that Dangun story?” she asked, remembering the old Korean tale. Young-hee wasn't up on mythology, but had read the tale in a comic book. “Is that where I am? In the world of Dangun and stories like that, not the real world.”

“Well, that depends,” said Cheonha. “Our realm is as real as any other. But it hasn't been the first world in a long, long time. Not since your mud world took our place.”

“Took your place …?”

“Yes, long ago, before the Second Great Giants' War,” said Cheonha. “Before the nine-headed ogre Agwi Kwisin stole the daughter of the vice regent, when the river fairies still ran wild, and the evil yellow dragon came down from …”

“I'm sure the girl doesn't want to hear the convoluted history,” interrupted Jiha. “Besides, as long as we are here, no one has to fear ogres or tigers or the like.”

Cheonha seemed ready to argue with his wife, but a shadow passed across the sun, covering Young-hee and the forest in darkness. Young-hee looked up, expecting a cloud, but was surprised by the silhouette of a bird so immense that its shadow lingered for seconds. It had wings the length of a soccer field, and a body the size of a whale, but its glide was light and graceful as a helium balloon. One beat of its wings sped it out of sight behind Haechi's Horn, and a few seconds later, Young-hee was almost knocked off her feet by a gust of wind that whipped the trees and grass.

“Wow,” she said again.

“Ah, a crane!” said Jiha. “One of the ten symbols of life. Very good luck.”

“
That
was a crane?”

“A
great crane
. It's been a long time since I saw one.”

Young-hee decided that, strange and overwhelming as it was, this world was
amazing
. Certainly more than school or her ugly apartment or the muggy Seoul summer. “Could I look around? You mentioned a goblin market?,” she babbled with gleeful excitement. “Or maybe I should climb Haechi Horn.”

“Hmm,” said Jiha, thinking. “You are free to go where you will, of course. But care is always needed, especially for a bear-child.”

“Oh, right,” said Young-hee, remembering the toothy dragonfly. “But you said you were guardians of this forest and around here.”