Bedevilled 2016 -

Hae-won stepped back. Her hand reached for the phone.

A corruption scandal at her bank had made her a pariah. She wasn't guilty, but guilt was a currency the mainland spent freely. The island’s elder, Grandfather Kim, had given her his dead wife’s cottage. “Two months,” he’d grunted, toothless gums brown from tobacco. “Then you go back to your noise.” bedevilled 2016

Hae-won’s blood turned to ice. The little girl, Mi-hee. The silent child with the hollow eyes. They’d said she drowned in the tide pool. But Hae-won remembered Mi-hee’s arm. The spiral fracture. Old bone, healed badly. Hae-won stepped back

Hae-won didn’t finish the thought. She watched Bok-nam’s silhouette disappear into the screaming rain. Then she looked at the phone again. She wasn't guilty, but guilt was a currency

She heard footsteps on her stairs. Slow. Heavy. The door didn’t open. A hand—thin, knuckles split—pushed a piece of paper under the crack.