Chapter 25 – Dreadful News (1)
It was morning when she opened her eyes. She drew the curtains aside, letting the sunlight stream in and fill the room.
It was the first time in a while that she had had a dream involving anyone other than ‘him’. The dream was about Hye-yeon. She had tried to reach Hye-yeon when she was in the US, but both her cell phone and home numbers had been disconnected. Hye-yeon’s social media accounts, which she had often used to upload pictures, were inactive. Yuri was curious to know how she was doing.
Noting the time, Yuri called her uncle in New York. By now he would have closed the restaurant for the night.
“Uncle, it’s me, Yuri. Are you busy?”
“No, we’re just winding down now. Are you okay? What’s going on?”
Her uncle was, in addition to being her mother’s brother, her father’s best friend. Her father had fallen in love with his friend’s younger sister at first sight, and started visiting his shop every single day. For that reason her uncle was particularly devoted to his orphaned niece. Without his material and emotional support, it would have been impossible for Yuri to survive.
“Of course I’m doing well. It’s nothing special, but I wanted to ask where my dad’s ashes are kept. I’d like to visit while I’m in Korea. It’s somewhere in Jinseong, right?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he responded with firmness in his voice. Early in her treatment, when Davis had suggested that she visit the places associated with her past, her uncle had fiercely opposed it. He had not wanted Yuri to take this trip to Korea, either.
Yuri did not understand. “Why? Why shouldn’t I…”
Her uncle emitted a long sigh. After a moment of silence, he began with a low voice, “There’s something that I haven’t been able to tell you, considering how sick you were feeling… Actually, last time you were there you went missing for ten days.”
“Went…missing?”
“I don’t know the details, either, since you had already disappeared when I heard about your dad’s accident and managed to get to Korea. I searched all over for you while I arranged the funeral, and some strange men came looking for you. They threatened me not to do anything stupid. Some of them were police officers.”
Her head began to spin. She gripped her phone tight. Her uncle continued the story.
“I couldn’t bear to stay there, so I went to Seoul as soon as the funeral was done. Just in case, I gave my contact information and the name of my hotel to your friend. I think her name was Hye-yeon Jin? And a week later, very late at night, you showed up looking like a mess, and fainted right away. When you came to, you had already forgotten all about what had happened.”
A long silence lingered. She had never heard this before.
“Anyway you shouldn’t go to Jinseong. Please don’t go there, Yuri,” her uncle repeated his plea as if casting a spell. Yuri’s mind felt like a tangled mess.
Getting off the phone, she stared into her reflection in the vanity mirror. What on earth has happened to me?
Apparently it all began with those ‘missing ten days’.
She remembered calling her uncle about her father’s accident, but recalling what happened next was the problem. As she closed her eyes and tried to drag out the memory in any way possible, she began hearing a ringing in her ears. It was a warning siren that appeared every time she attempted to break the seal of her memory. She ignored the warning, which made it only louder and imposed intolerable pain in her head. She stumbled and steadied herself against a wall.
It’s no use. She had to find a better way of going about this. She searched through her uncle’s account for clues. The person to whom he had given his contact information. The person whom she must have met at the end of her ‘missing ten days’.
I need to find Hye-yeon.
She might know what had happened during these ten days. Determined, Yuri went to the bus terminal and bought a ticket to Jinseong. Her uncle’s warning lingered in her ears and made her heart sink.
The situation felt similar to the beginning of a horror film that she had seen. The heroine had gone to the village that she wasn’t supposed to visit. What happened to her? Did she die, or escape?
Yuri sat in the bus to Jinseong and looked out the window. She remembered the day she had returned to the city after dropping out of university. She had sat alone in a corner seat of the bus and cried, as scathing sunshine streamed through the window and the bus rattled along.
Memories are strange. How could she remember small things like that, but forget all about the important ones?
Yuri hailed a cab at the bus terminal in Jinseong.
“Jinseong Hotel, please.”
The gray-haired driver glanced at Yuri through the rearview mirror. “You mean, the hotel that used be Jinseong Hotel?”
“Sorry?”
“That place is called ‘Seo-in Hotel’ now.”
Surprise spread across her face. The city’s landmark hotel had closed down? What happened Mr. Jin? And to Hye-yeon?
She turned her eyes to the view outside the cab window, trying to contain the chaos brewing in her chest. The city had changed vastly in five short years. Large new buildings had replaced the old ones, and the run-down market had been transformed into a clean shopping center.
Stopped at the red light for a moment, the driver asked Yuri, “When’s the last time you were here?”
Yuri counted the number of years since the last visit that she could remember. “About five years, I think.”
“Ah, of course you’re surprised, then. It’s really changed since, right?”
“Yes. It really has changed a lot.”
“I think it was three or four years ago? Things started developing after Seo-in Hotel opened. More shops came in, and young people started moving here. We get a lot of foreigners here, too. And there’s a rumor that they’re opening a casino here soon.”
Yuri nodded and listened to his story.
The cab soon arrived at the hotel. She was amazed by its exterior. The hotel that she remembered was nowhere to be seen. Its façade, decorated with black marble, was impressive to the intimidating degree.
She approached the front desk, but Hye-yeon was not there. Only employees dressed in fancy uniforms greeted her.