from the other dokkaebi’s hand, holding out the envelope with a genteel grin. The small revenge he’d already enacted would have to be enough. And he watched the hulking goblin exit his house, giving a silent prayer to whatever god that was listening that the talisman would carry this dokkaebi far, far away from Junu’s doorstep.
As the door closed, Junu thought of the dokkaebi’s words. Hyuk had sent him. Which meant Hyuk was in the mortal realm. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to talk to a dokkaebi. Junu almost took out his phone, but he didn’t. Whatever the reaper was doing in the mortal realm, Junu wanted nothing to do with it.
THERE ONCE LIVED a boy from a poor family who went into the woods every day to chop firewood to sell in the village and help feed his family. One afternoon as he was out gathering wood, he came upon a walnut tree. He climbed it and gathered walnuts for his family and then sat among the branches eating his fill. However, he stayed too long, and soon it became dark. Knowing he could not find his way home through the forest in the dark, he remembered a small abandoned cottage a few kilometers back. He did not want to sleep on the floor for fear rodents would find him, so he climbed into the rafters and quickly fell asleep.
At midnight a cacophony of sound woke him. Below he saw a group of dokkaebi gathered. They were bragging about the mischief they’d spread that day. One had hung on the tail of an ox all day. Another had teased a naughty boy. Another had danced loudly under a floor, scaring the occupants of the house. Finally, another dokkaebi said it was time to stop chattering and feast.
The boy watched as the dokkaebi pulled out a staff and yelled, “Tudurak tak tak, come out, food, come out, drink!” as he banged his club on the ground.
No sooner had he finished banging his staff than food and drink appeared out of nowhere. The staff was a bangmangi, a magical summoning club. The dokkaebi danced and ate their fill. And all the while the boy watched. Seeing the feast, the boy began to hunger. So he took out some walnuts and began cracking them with his teeth. The dokkaebi heard the cracking and started to shout, “The roof is breaking! It’s going to collapse!” Then they all went running from the shack.
The boy climbed down, ate his fill of the feast, then retrieved the bangmangi from where the dokkaebi had dropped it.
The next morning, the boy made it home. His parents had been quite worried, afraid he was eaten by a tiger, but the boy told them his story and demonstrated the magic of the staff. They were elated; now they would never have to worry about how to feed their family.
But news traveled of the boy’s adventure and his new treasure. The son of a rich merchant, who had never worked a day in his life, decided he wanted his own bangmangi, though his family had never been hungry or wanted for anything. He persuaded the poor boy to tell him the details of his adventure. Then he ran off into the forest. First, he found a walnut tree and ate his fill and stuffed his pockets with walnuts. Next, he ran to the shack, climbed into the rafters, and waited for midnight.
The dokkaebi arrived like clockwork and summoned their feast. The rich boy, seeing his prize, did not let the dokkaebi even begin to eat before he cracked a walnut in his teeth. But this time, the dokkaebi were not fooled. They looked straight up and saw the rich boy.
“You again!” they shouted, and pulled the rich boy from the rafters. They punished the boy by making his tongue grow a hundred meters long. And when he tried to stumble home, he fell in the river. He would have drowned except the poor boy heard his screams and rescued him. From that day forward, the poor boy was no longer hungry and the rich boy never did anything selfish again.
3
SOMIN HATED SUMMER. And in this first week of August, it was at its worst—sticky and humid and the air felt too thick. Plus, her shoulder-length hair, fried from too many at-home dye jobs, was not in the best shape, and the humidity of summer made it frizz in unflattering ways.
Sometimes she dreamed of leaving Seoul, just packing a duffel