Chapter 16: Amid the Owl Light
Arc 3: The Hunted and the Hunters
Chapter 16: Amid the Owl Light
“SHE’S a beautiful woman”—those were the first words everyone uttered whenever they spoke of Unen’s mother. Without exception.
Then, in ten out of ten cases, they would qualify it with a contradictory conjunction in their next breath. “But you know, even the prettiest person in the world is wasted if they’re like that.”
Unen never knew where she procured the expensive liquor from, but her mother drank often. And whenever she became drunk she would verbally assault Unen.
“I would’a never had’ta go through aaall thiz MISERY if I knew you’d turn out’ta be a girl. At least it would’a been a lil’ more useful t’have gone on duh run if ye were a boy. ’S all your fault tha’ I’m SOOO miserable, Unen.”
Then she’d rant in a drunken slur, “D’ya know ‘ow much I’ve sacrificed fer ya, Unen? D’ya know ‘ow insanely diffi-culd it is t’care for ya, Unen? I would’a lived uh life o’ff luxury if it hadn’ been fer ya, Unen.”
Unen wordlessly sat on the ground, her arms wrapped around her knees, and her face buried in them while her mother sliced her open over and over again with her sharpest dagger—her words. The wounds had already gone so deep that each thrust would sink in until the entire edge of the blade was lodged in her heart so all that remained outside was the hilt. But strangely enough, the intense pain that had driven her to tears at first gradually stopped mattering as time passed.
Her mother’s liquor would run out around then, and she would fly over to embrace her daughter while bawling. “I’m s’rry fer takin’ it out on ya. ’S’not tha’ I hate you. Y’think I’d raise sucha worth-l’ss child until now if I didn’ like th’m? Aaah, my adooorable chhhild. Don’ya go anee-where on me. Don’t leave me all alone.”
It was always very warm within her mother’s arms. Feeling the heat steadily return to her ice-cold hands and feet, Unen closed her eyes in a trance. All the while seeping blood from the deep lashes inflicted upon her heart by her very own mother.
From what she gathered, her mother had escaped from somewhere.
She once told Unen that someone had ordered her to kill the child inside her if it turned out to be a boy. A girl, they had said, could still serve some use in the future, but boys were bad. That they didn’t have the surplus for feeding ravenous boys who wouldn’t pull their own weight. Unen’s mother fled in desperation to save her child because of what they had said. Yet, what had that given her? The child she had birthed turned out to be a girl who only brought hair-pulling, finger-biting work and misery. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” Her mother would grimace, twisting her perfectly shaped lips.
“Sure, my work there wasn’t easy, but I never had a hard time getting by. I got to wear pretty clothes, put on makeup, and have lots of people fawn over me and pamper me. I must’ve been completely mad to have thrown all that away.”
“Then you should go back there right now,” Unen had spat once, unable to take it anymore.
It earned her a bloodcurdling expression and a slap so hard that it slammed her into the wall of their hut where she slid to the ground. Unen learned never to say that again.
By the time Unen had become self-aware, her father was already long gone. Her mother went around telling others her husband was a peddler, but everyone knew that it was merely a lie to keep up appearances in her husband’s perpetual absence.
Unen had once asked her mother, “What kind of man is my father?”
Her mother had answered with only two words, “Beats me.”
It wasn’t until Unen had been much older that she realized her mother hadn’t said that to avoid the question. It was then Unen came to fully understand why unfamiliar men started to take turns coming and leaving the small, rundown hut she shared with her mother; why her mother would always send her away, saying, “Play outside until I tell you to come back inside,” every time a man came by. Bleakly, Unen understood that poverty had dragged her mother back into the world she had barely escaped from alive.
***
THE middle-aged woman from across the field beckoned to Unen in the early afternoon at the beginning of summer, right after she had passed her fifth birthday.
“Hey, you.”
Unen had been sent outside the hut before noon that day by her mother who had said as always, “Don’t come back home till I call for you,” so Unen was sitting on the riverbank, making boats out of tree leaves and floating them down the river.
“You’ve got too much time on your hands, don’t ya? Won’t’cha help an old lady draw water from the river?”
Unen timidly accepted the bucket the old woman held out to her.
“You see, my youngest child is on an errand to the next town, so I’m short a helper right now. Come on then, carry it.”
Unen did as she was told and carried the water-filled bucket with both hands. “This way,” the woman directed, walking in front of her while carrying another water bucket in both hands. Unen felt like her bucket held considerably less water than the woman’s, but said nothing as she followed her.
Unen was completely exhausted by the time they finished hiking up the hill and arrived at the woman’s house. She weakly sunk to the ground as soon as she handed the bucket over.
The woman looked down at Unen with a complicated expression that seemed to mix anger and sadness.
“…Good job. Here’s a little something to thank you.”
Unen stared absently at the tiny roll offered to her. Some time passed before she came to her senses with a start and shook her head back and forth in a panic.
“It’s fine. You can eat it. You must be hungry.”
Mommy will get mad again if I accept food from anyone else. Unen scooted her butt backward away from the roll like her life depended on it.
The woman sighed. “You threw out the dried potato I gave you last time, too.”
Remembering how ungratefully she had tossed the dried potato the woman had given her onto the side of the road when her mother had gotten angry, Unen threw herself down on the ground to apologize.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I won’t do it again…!”
Protecting her head with her arms, Unen curled into the tightest ball possible to prepare for the incoming impact. But nothing happened. Finding it strange, she apprehensively lifted her head from its safe position.
The woman stood there, carefully watching Unen with the same mix of anger and sadness on her face.
“I’ll forgive you if you promise you’ll no longer throw away good food ever again.” She forced Unen’s hand open and placed the bread in it. “You helped me fetch water from the river. This is payment for that. You must accept it.”
“But—”
“Your ma won’t know if you eat it right here and now.”
This auntie here will be the one to yell at me if I don’t listen to her. Unen quickly chomped on the bread, for she had no other choice.
Her first bite of bread in a long while tasted surprisingly sweet. With each bite, the savory scent filled her mouth and nose, and before she knew it, she was eating with abandon. Her mouth was watering so much that even wiping it with her hand several times wasn’t enough. Not having had anything to eat since the wild-oat rice gruel that morning, Unen devoured the bread in no time.
She licked the bread crumbs off her fingers with rapt attention, but the moment she finished, chills ran down her spine. Her eyes bulged as she realized the crime she had committed.
Mommy must be starving too, but I went and ate all the bread myself without telling her.
Feeling crushed under her guilty conscience, Unen staggered to her feet. The woman seemed to be saying something to her, but she couldn’t hear her over what felt like wind roaring in her ears.
“I’m sorry…” she somehow managed to squeeze out in a thin voice, and turned her back to the woman. Then she ran down the hill as if a wild dog was nipping at her heels.
Unen instinctively stopped just as her hut came into view past the brush. Unsure of how to proceed, she froze in place.
Eventually, the door creaked open, and a man exited the hut. With a dirty smile on his lips, he hollered back inside the hut, “Until next time!”
Unen timorously left the cover of the brush once she had confirmed that he’d disappeared, in the direction of the town.
Her mother had yet to call for her. But wanting to apologize to her mother as soon as possible, she approached the hut.
Her mother would be furious to learn Unen ate a roll of bread without her permission. But she would fare better telling her mother herself rather than have her find out later. Most of all, Unen couldn’t handle the burden of her heavy feelings of regret and guilt by herself anymore.
She nervously circled around to the door and slowly took several deep breaths to calm her nerves. Just as Unen reached for the door, she heard slight slurping noises from inside.
The dilapidated door had never hung in place correctly, and it couldn’t close all the way even if you kicked it. Unen cautiously brought her eyes to the crack between the door and wall.
She saw her mother’s back alone inside the dimly lit hut. Her mother was stooped over, single-mindedly moving her hands and head.
Drafts blowing through the cracks in the walls and the door brought the smell of something deliciously sweet and sour to where Unen hid. It was the scent of the juicy red fruits she had smelled from the fenced-off field across the river she was forbidden to even go near.
Smacking her lips noisily, her mother plopped red fruit after red fruit into her mouth.
“Ahhh, it’s sooo sweet. So yummy,” she moaned happily to herself.
Unen inched away from the door, careful not to make the floorboards creak below her. Realizing she had just seen something she shouldn’t have, fear slammed down on her.
Mommy can never know I peeked.
After retreating far enough from the hut so as not to be heard, Unen took off in a mad dash for the river.
The glossy, shiny red fruits looked as if they had captured the sun inside them. Such delectable, beautiful food hadn’t existed in the hut before Unen had left. The only two foods there that morning had been spoiled wild oats left on the bottom of a used-up bag and a shriveled turnip.
Unen collapsed on the grassy riverbank, having used up all her energy. Blades of grass and twigs stabbed her in the arms and cheeks, but she curled into a ball among the shadows of the tall grass without minding the pain.
How much time had passed before she heard her mother’s voice calling her name in the distance?
Unen sluggishly pushed off the bed of grass. Her mother walked over to her, the setting sun at her back.
“Oh, so this is where you were. Playing hide-and-seek? Kids get to have so much fun.”
Her mother was acting no different from usual.
“…I’m hungry.”
“I know. I’m starving since I haven’t had anything to eat since morning either.”
Unen vacantly looked up at her mother.
“What are you lazing around for?” her mother snapped, “Get to your feet. Hop to it. Guess what? I got my hands on some buckwheat flour today, so let’s have buckwheat gruel for dinner. We can splurge and plop in a turnip or two.”
Dinner that night consisted of buckwheat gruel with minced turnips and some wild grass they had picked on the way home, just as her mother said it would be. The same exact thin, diluted gruel as always.
“Thank you for the food,” Unen mumbled.
Her mother flashed her a big smile. “I promise I’ll fill your belly with a feast to die for, someday.”
***
THE woman brought the water bucket over to Unen the next day too.
She told Unen to help her draw water from the river the next day also, and the day after that and the day after that, and gave Unen a single small roll each time upon carrying the bucket to her house.
Unen no longer turned down the bread.
Before she knew it, secretly helping out in the woman’s field when her mother kicked her out of the house had become a daily routine for Unen.
The woman had two big sons at her house. They barely spoke to Unen, but they never made any faces as they watched their mother give Unen jobs left and right.
Once, when her eldest daughter who was married to someone the next town over, visited with her young children and a baby, they entrusted Unen with babysitting them. Unen had her hands full dealing with a little rascal, who was only three but a lot larger than her, but it all worked out when she was paid with baked sweets that melted in her mouth.
***
A month passed with this new routine until a certain summer day rolled in, and everything changed.
Unen had been walking behind the woman carrying a bucket full of water as usual. The water that swayed with her every step sparkled wherever it caught the sunlight. Unen squinted her eyes against the ticklish splashes of water that landed on her nose every now and then when the water hit the rim of the bucket and fell back in a big wave.
Wind blowing through the forest brushed against her cheeks. Unen stopped, suddenly feeling like someone had called her name. Frightened to death that her mother had come for her early, she trembled as she turned around. There was an adult man carrying a huge pack on his back down the road.
Long hay-colored hair hung in a loose braid behind his back, and he was glancing around as if in search of something.
Wind murmured in Unen’s ears again.
A voiceless voice permeated her body. It was like a drop of water falling onto the ground, moistening the surface for but a second before soaking in faster than it had come.
Without realizing, Unen’s lips moved as if they were tracing the disappearing murmur, “Unen Ende Baina…”
The man spun toward Unen as if he had been drawn to her. Surprise plain on his face, he slowly walked over to Unen and crouched down in front of her.
His augite-blue eyes peered straight into hers as he asked in a gravelly voice, “What…did you just say?”
“Eh…?”
Had she said something bad? Just as Unen was about to apologize, a loud shout from the woman rained down on her from behind. “Hey, you there! What do you want with that child?!”
“Eh? You’re mistaken, um…” The man stood up, looking cornered. “It’s not that I want anything, um…well, I’m not a suspicious person.”
“Anyone can say whatever they want about themselves. Get away from that child this instant, or I’ll call for someone. You kidnapper!” The woman put her water bucket down and jogged over. Pushing past Unen, she positioned herself in front of the man.
“Kidnapper? I would never! I’m a doctor. I’ve only just arrived in this area, but I was staying in the neighboring town until yesterday. If you think I am lying, I humbly implore you to confirm with them—”
“Neighboring town? Are you possibly Doctor Hereh?” the woman exclaimed in surprise, before the man could finish speaking.
“Ah, yes.”
The man leaned back as far as the woman leaned forward. “Yup, you have the trademark hay-colored braid. My daughter lives in that town, you know, and mentioned that a reliable doctor had arrived. So what’s going on? You aren’t going to settle down in that town?”
“Yes, I’m afraid not. I’m in the middle of a journey.”
“So? What business do you have here, doctor? Hm?”
“No business, really. How do I explain? I thought I heard someone call my name as I was walking…and then that child…” The man looked down at Unen again and fumbled for words.
Then something caught his eye and he studied her carefully from head to toe, like he was taking her apart. Crouching down in front of Unen a second time, he lifted the water bucket out of her hands and placed it on the ground beside her. As he took her arm in his hand, something scary flashed across his face.
Unable to pull away from his grip, Unen felt her entire body tense.
The man rubbed and pressed her arms for some reason before lightly pressing around her eyes. Then he peered inside of her eyes, told her to show him the inside of her mouth and her tongue, and finally, slowly examined the tips of Unen’s fingers—her discolored nails.
“Is this child yours?” he asked the woman in a low growl.
The woman sucked in her breath and quietly responded, “No.”
***
A short while later, the man exited the woman’s house. Holding a single tiny bag in place of the huge pack he had earlier, he left alone in the same slight fury from when he had questioned the woman.
The woman watched him go and told Unen that it was time to weed the field. Relieved from the bottom of her heart that the woman wasn’t behaving any differently, Unen happily nodded.
***
THE sun sunk below the horizon, bringing it close to the time Unen’s mother would come to fetch her.
Unen was about to tell the old woman she was going home when she spotted someone coming up the road. It was the man from earlier in the day, and one other person. Walking a few paces behind him was…Unen’s mother.
Unen felt as if someone had strung her up by the neck and punched her in the gut. Whatever bread, gruel, and water was in her stomach immediately washed up to her chest.
Mommy found out. She saw me with auntie. She saw me in auntie’s field.
“What? Are you saying some strange old lady matters more to you than your mother?” The acrid voice distinctly replayed in Unen’s ears.
Mommy’s gonna abandon me now. I’m gonna be abandoned—
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Wrapping her arms around her head, Unen squatted on the ground, trying to make herself as small as possible. She didn’t know any other way to weather the coming storm.
“It’s okay,” a kind voice said above her head. Unen apprehensively lifted her face to find augite eyes right before her. “There’s absolutely nothing you have to apologize for. Nothing,” he reassured.
Unen saw her mother huff with exasperation behind his hay-colored hair.
“Unen, you’re going away with this person now,” her mother declared.
“HUUUH?” squeaked the woman behind Unen.
“Good riddance,” her mother said, rolling her eyes as she turned her back on Unen. As she did so, sunlight caught on something attached to the side of her head, sending sparkles into the air. It was a very beautiful hair ornament decorated with red, rose pink, and other sparkling gems—of colors Unen had never seen before.