I make a left onto Geom-eun Sae Lane, dreading the idea of going home. It's Friday night, and the only thing waiting for me is a ghost who hates me. And Sehun . . . I can't even think about him without getting sick with embarrassment. The only thing I have to look forward to is finally visiting my dad on Sunday, when they transfer him to Suwoon.
I stare at my door without opening it. "Screw this," I say to the house.
I drop my shoulder bag by the side door and turn toward town. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm sick of feeling like someone's going to attack me all the time. I need some space.
I travel down the sidewalk, looking at the pretty hanoks and quaint shops. People have already started to put out Halloween decorations even though it's mid-September. Coffee sounds perfect, I think as I stop in front of a little café named The Brew.
I open the door and a bell chimes. Freshly ground beans and holiday spices fill the honey-colored shop. No one is in line.
"Pumpkin latte," I say to a girl with a high ponytail behind the counter.
"Yup," says the girl, and grabs a cup. "Last name?" she asks with a marker in hand.
You've got to be kidding me. I go into the one freaking coffee shop that writes your last name on the cup instead of your first? This is just not my day.
"Bae," I say quickly, and hand her my credit card.
The recognition clicks. Great. Usually when I have a bad day like this, I put on my jams, get in bed with some mint chocolate chip ice cream, and watch funny movies until I feel better. But the last place I want to be is in my room.
"Iced Americano for Bae!" announces the girl.
Really? You need to yell that? I snatch my americano and give her the stink eye. The cup holder has a coffee stain on it that looks remarkably like a noose. I glance around the shop suspiciously. A few of the customers eye me with thinly veiled judgment. Is it gonna be like this every time I leave the house?
"Why, yes," I say to the judgy starers with a dramatic accent. "I'm one of those Baes." The few people not watching now turn toward me. "We do eat babies, but only on Fridays. Oh, wait. It is Friday." One woman grabs her boyfriend's hand and walks out.
"Afraid my curse is going to rub off on you? Oooh!" I wave my hands, americano included, in the air. Then I stick my tongue out at the lot of them and stamp out. I know there was nothing mature about it, but it did make me feel a little better.
I zigzag through the streets until the sun goes down, counting hanoks and houses and how many shop names allude to witches or witchcraft. By one of the antique iron lampposts on the edge of town rest a bouquet of roses and an unlit black candle. Someone must have died here. Probably a car accident. For a moment, I think the roses are black, too, but when I get closer, I realize they're dark purple.
A few kids from my school walk past me on the sidewalk headed for the lit-up shops. They point and whisper. I pull up my hood, hoping to disappear in its shadow, and keep walking. This sucks.
I cut through an alley and wind up at the entrance of Old Burying Point. It's surrounded by trees and the backs of old wooden buildings, oddly tucked away in the center of town.
It's cold, now that I'm not speed-walking. Also, it's way darker. Where did the lampposts go? Large gray stones line the ground before the cemetery. I step onto them, leaving the brick of the sidewalk behind, and realize there are words engraved under my feet. I bend down.
"I am wholly innocent of such wickedness," I read out loud.
"Baek Meiwoo said that at her trial," says a girl's voice. I turn to find Seulgi standing behind me, wearing a black ballerina dress. How did she know it was me with my hood up? Was she following me?
"Oh" is all I say, expecting to see the other Lineages pop up at any moment.
"This is the Witch Trials Memorial." She inspects me for a reaction. "Each of those stone benches has the name of someone who hanged. My ancestor Kang Seulgi is over there." She points into the darkness.
"You were named after her?" That's super creepy.
"We all were. It's tradition. Our families have done it for generations."
Her casual conversation sets me on edge. What does she want? "I'm glad my parents didn't name me Changbin. I don't think it would suit me."
She laughs, and the wind blows a few pieces of her hair around her face. "No, probably not."
"Why are you talking to me?"
She ignores my question. "There's a Bae gravestone in here. Want to see it?"
Now I feel like I'm being set up. I look around, but there's no one in sight. "I guess."
"You don't have to."
"I know I don't have to."
At that, she walks toward a small iron gate. I follow but continue to look over my shoulder. She points to the shadowed stone slab benches in the Witch Trials Memorial as we pass. "Lee Wendy and Lee Hyeri. Not blood related. Just a lot of Lees in old Manyeo."
There is something heavy and dark about her pointing out the hanged relatives who share names with her best friends. I zip up my hoodie the last inch. "Might as well be family, the way you all stick together."
"We've always been that way."
Does she mean her and her friends or all their ancestors for the past three hundred years? We make our way through the first few gravestones. They're discolored, the letters worn with age.
I wonder why she only mentions Hyeri and Wendy. "What about Soojung and Kai?"
Seulgi opens her mouth but closes it again. After a few seconds, she asks, "Why did you fall into those lockers?"
"I just did."
"It wasn't Soojung," she says, as though it's a fact.
"There, we agree." Although, I never did figure out that thing in the public library.
"I was there. You yelled 'And you!' to someone, but there was no one there." She twists a black beaded bracelet on her wrist, the kind elementary school kids make for friendship.
We walked toward the far right corner of the graveyard. I try to avoid the headstones in the dark. Even so, I worry that I'm standing on someone's face. Seulgi, on the other hand, glides gracefully along.
"I don't know," I say.
"I think you do."
"It's hard to explain." What is it about this girl? I shouldn't tell her things. Her friends hate me. Until ten minutes ago, I thought she hated me. Maybe she does.
"Here." She points at a small old gravestone.
I shine my cell phone on it. It reads: MR BAE HANEUL - DIED OCTOBER I7, I688. AN AGED PERSON THAT HAD SEEN BUT NINETEEN WINTERS IN THE WORLD.
"Did you see someone in the hallway?" she asks.
I hesitate.
"You did, didn't you?"
"Yes."
She furrows her brow. "I thought so," she says, and after a pause, "I have to go."
She got what she wanted, and now she's leaving. I shouldn't have told her. She heads for the graveyard exit at a much faster pace than we came in.
I struggle to keep up. "Wait, that's it?"
"Yes."
"Why do you care that I saw something in the hallway, anyway? And what was that you were saying about Kai's great-grandfather dying the other day?"
She stops abruptly on the brick sidewalk by the entrance to the graveyard. Oops. I just openly admitted to eavesdropping. Maybe I need to work on this filter thing a little more.
She turns toward me. "Be careful, Suzy."
Is that a warning or a threat? "What do I need to be careful of?"
She looks over her shoulder and back at me. "Manyeo isn't like other places."
"Well, I know that." I hate this. I can't continue to live with horrible anxiety that some dark-haired lunatic will pop in or goth nutjobs will terrorize me at school.
"No, you don't know," she says, and turns toward town without another word.