All through the day, Abrial and Finley rode side by side through the hills. In her flowing black and scarlet robes, her outer robe woven with silver and scarlet threads and a roaring dragon, Abrial looked fierce and imposing atop Dal’s back. His black fur shimmered beneath her, graceful legs galloping even faster than the wind.

Finley rode a white horse with a delicate look to it. Though its legs were rather knobbly, it surprisingly kept good pace with Dal, swift and steady. Finley’s white robes billowed with the rushing air, and her honey braids flicked about wildly.

As the sun began to reach the west, Abrial shouted to Finley:

“We should be there soon! It’s a big, round white cottage!”

They rode on for another half hour.

Abrial’s brow furrowed deeply with confusion. After another scan around, she yanked on Dal’s reins, and he skidded to a stop almost immediately. Finley’s horse, Lan, took a longer distance to stop. Finley had to lead him gently back around to where Abrial and Dal were spinning in frantic circles, Abrial craning her neck and squinting panickedly in every direction.

“I don’t understand!” she muttered. “We should have passed it by now — it should be right in this area, I’m sure of it!”

“Why don’t we check a radius around these hills?” Finley suggested. “Perhaps it was a few hills over.”

Abrial agreed. That sounded like reasonable! She could’ve just forgotten the location, right? So theys et off and spent another two hours just circling and circling, traveling further east, then south, then west, then north, spotting not a single cottage in sight — only grassy hills and greeting pines as far as the eye could see.

What. The. Hell.

Where was Shin Minyeo’s cottage?!

Going to the wrong hill was one thing. But there’s no way the cottage grew legs and migrated, right?!

Abrial and Finley met up at the top of a particularly tall hill by a greeting pine after fruitless searching. By now, the sky was pink and scarlet, and the sun was sinking in the west, casting long shadows from the pines. It created strange silhouettes over the hillsides.

“This makes no freaking sense!” Abrial was muttering to herself again. She gripped Dal’s reins so tightly that her fists had turned white. “I swear her cottage was here! We should have passed it a billion times by now! It was definitely here…”

“I believe you,” nodded Finley. Her expression was unreadable. “Perhaps her cottage no longer exists.”

Abrial’s eyes bulged. “Wh-What? What d’you mean? Like, there was a fire that burned it down or something? No way! And—and, even if that happened, there would still be ashes, right?”

The expression on Finley’s face was odd.

“I do not mean that it was destroyed. Perhaps it no longer exists at all.”

“...What?!”

“I have suspected Shin Minyeo was maintaining a heavy secret from your stories of her. I suspect it is possible she was not human.”

Abrial’s head shot up. She stared at Finley, utterly lost. Beneath her, Dal snorted, tapping his hooves.

“What d’you mean?! You think she’s a bear, or something? I’m telling you, she was definitely human! I would’ve been able to tell if she was a bird or something!”

Finley pursed her lips, looking down. “I do not mean to criticize your observational skills. And I do not mean to suggest that she was a beast. I have studied spiritual forms before, and I suspect that Shin Minyeo may be a spirit…A ghost, in other words.”

“Huh?” Abrial spluttered immediately, even more lost than before. “But—she was, you know, solid! I mean, she knocked me out and stuff! She healed me, and made me food every day, and — and sewed me this robe, and stuff!”

Finley pursed her lips again grimly. The air seemed to have cooled slightly with the gradual setting of the sun, sending a small shiver down Abrial’s spine.

“All of these things are possible to perform as a ghost,” Finley explained. “When a person dies with great resentment or regret, they can leave a spiritual imprint that haunts places they used to frequent. Depending on their remaining spiritual energy, they may seem solid and alive, and yet are only a remaining imprint of the soul they once belonged to. You are skilled at navigation, so if you believe Shin Minyeo’s cottage was here, it should be here. And yet, there is no sign of it. Is it possible for her to have torn down her cottage, blasted the pieces away, and erased all traces of it? Does it make sense for a young woman to be living by herself out in these hills?”

“No…” Abrial breathed, dark eyes sharpening in thought. Neither of those things made sense. “This place is so far away from everything, isn’t it? Shit…” How had she never thought it was weird before? A young, ill woman living all alone, days away from the nearest town? With only a garden of vegetables to survive on?

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Finley nodded. “Indeed. Is it possible you observed anything strange to her during your stay? For example…did you see Shin Minyeo during the day?”

Abrial’s brow furrowed. She swam back through her memories, grabbing at the foggy golden images in her mind.

“I…” she murmured to herself, brain spinning. “Not often. I did see her in the day, though.”

“Did you see her in the sunlight?” Finley clarified.

Abrial scrunched up her nose, struggling to recall.

“I don’t remember…I can’t remember ever seeing her in the sunlight. I think…that’s right. She disappeared during the day, but she was there sometimes, when…when it was rainy, or cloudy.”

Finley nodded again, her expression serious. “This is a characteristic of ghosts and departed spirits: avoiding the sunlight, as it is difficult for them to maintain a physical form under its heat. She desired to hide her secret from you, and so she only appeared to you in the absence of sunlight. Would you like to hear the other reasons why I suspected this?”

Abrial swallowed slowly. Why was her head feeling so light, like it would pop off and float away any second? And her throat was sour.

“I…I guess?”

“There were a good few. The style of her cottage which you described is indeed an ancient style, from the same time period of Gongkuan history as your dreams originate from. In addition, she appeared in your ancient dreams. If she is not a ghost, what can she be? An immortal? From your description of her, she does not seem the type to use shadow magic to extend the length of her life, as it is considered a malevolent practice. And I find it unlikely she is a goddess, if you believe those to exist. If these things are not the case, she must have died long ago with great regrets, leaving an imprint of her spirit behind to see to her unfulfilled wishes. This ghost was the person you interacted with, and the one who marked you with a Tattoo of Remembrance.”

Abrial’s mind was reeling, like a spinning top inside a bowl. It wouldn’t stop. She felt nauseous. Various images of Shin Minyeo’s playful face flashed before her eyes: her slim, pale and pretty face, those dark, angular eyes sparkling with mischief, her flowing, dark hair had been loosely tied into a bun. That knowing, crooked smile.

Shin Minyeo, a ghost.

The one who had cared for her for two weeks, and felt, being painfully honest, like an older sister to her, or even a mother…

Wasn’t even alive?

She was…an imprint of a soul?

Could this really be?

It seemed to be dawning on Abrial, finally. There was no other explanation. Not a good one, at least. How could Shin Minyeo have lived hundreds of years ago with Shao Cheng, but be standing in these hills to tend to Abrial’s wounds just months ago, looking like a twenty-something year-old young woman?

Only if she’d died at twenty-something!

“But,” she burst suddenly, the desperate urge to protest still bubbling up from somewhere deep inside herself, “If she couldn’t go in the sunlight, why didn’t she just stay inside? Why would she just leave the cottage all together? Isn’t that a little too suspicious? Even if I wasn’t paying attention, isn’t that too obvious? And if she was a ghost, why would I be able to see her then, and not now? Did she just decide not to show herself anymore? But we’re friends! And — and what about her cottage, and her garden? A spirit disappearing I can understand, but there was a whole cottage, filled with pots and pans and plants and cabinets! Where did it all go?”

She turned to Finley, her eyes so urgent it hurt to look at them. Abrial hardly ever cried. She usually just gritted her teeth, punched a wall, and ran away. Or screamed. But right now, her eyes were shining with tears, and she didn’t even feel them.

“Finley, are ghosts — always cold?”

Finley’s eyebrows arched slightly into a frown, though the rest of her face revealed no change.

“That is not a ghostly characteristic I have read about. Why is it you ask?”

“Shin Minyeo always wore a lot of shawls, like she very freezing all the time, even though it was a hot summer.” Abrial trailed off, eyes faraway. The panicked shadows within her eyes seemed to swirl against one another in conflicted thought. “Nevermind…If ghosts aren’t cold, it doesn’t matter anyways. What about the cottage? It couldn’t have just disappeared!”

Finley answered right away. Clearly, she’d deeply considered this question already.

“Often, when a spiritual imprint is left in the living world, it becomes linked to a location in order to avoid dissipating. Particularly, locations that a person frequented and enjoyed while they were alive. Her cottage in life was most likely destroyed or reduced to dust by now, so it only exists with her as an imprinted spiritual structure.”

Abrial didn’t respond. Her eyes had a strange glaze to them. For some reason, her heart seemed to drop an impossible distance within her chest, sinking into a shadowed lake. Why did she feel…so empty? And so heavy, at the same time?

She looked around the clearing again. Only hills and pines in sight as far as the eyes could see, to the north, east, south, and west. Only grass, swaying in some sort of rhythmic dance in the summer breeze.

She sucked in a deep breath.

Lifting her hands to her mouth, she bellowed so loudly the ground almost shook:

“SHIN MINYEO! IF YOU’RE THERE, COME OUT! I’M HERE TO SEE YOU!”

Her scream echoed over the hills, blowing out to the four corners of the earth.

No reply came.

The stupid grass continued to sway.

The stupid pines continued to stand, dark and unforgiving as stone.

Abrial sucked in another breath. Feeling both dazed and panicked at the same time, she shrieked:

“SHIN MINYEO! IF YOU COME BACK, I PROMISE TO CALL YOU EONNIE FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE! WELL, MAYBE NOT THE REST, BUT FOR A WHILE! OKAY? LET’S MAKE A DEAL! EONNIE, I’M HERE TO SEE YOU! EONNIE?”

EONNIE,

eonnie,

eonnie.

The word echoed over the hills, rising and falling, fading away into the breeze, never to be heard.