Lady of Dreams

by W. R. Gingell

  I sighed. People in love were still as incomprehensible to me as they’d ever been. I could understand wanting to avoid the sight of Ae-jung; if she’d already chosen Hyun-jun it would only hurt for Yong-hwa to keep seeing her and longing for her to return his love instead. It was easier to learn to forget. But why the need to escape from the manor?

  “You’re too confusing, Oppa,” I said, watching his emotionless face with an unfamiliar tingle of anxiety. “You can’t go back like that. Oh! There’s that same ball! Why is it here?”

  It was sailing high in the air again, disconcertingly reminiscent of the day that Ae-jung had rejected Jessamy, and I gazed at it for a long time, caught in the memory. Then I spluttered a tiny laugh into the Dream that made Yong-hwa look around enquiringly, and slapped at the ball for a second time. It flew high and fast, then descended, missing Yong-hwa’s shoulder by inches, to bounce against the far bank.

  Yong-hwa, who had instinctively ducked, watched it bounce in ever-smaller hops until it came to rest against the base of the bank. “Mwohya?” he said, staring at it.

  There was a thrashing of foliage on the other bank, and the boy from next door to the cottage struggled through the branches at the bottom of the hedge. “Aish! This ball! How is it flying away like that again? Hyungnim, did I hit you?”

  A faint touch of curiosity broke through the set façade of Yong-hwa’s face. “Ani. Do you usually kick your ball over hedges?”

  “Not usually,” said the boy, rubbing his hand vigorously through his hair to dislodge the leaves and twigs that had caught there. “Only lately I seem to be losing it a bit. I’m usually very good with it, you know.”

  “I see,” said Yong-hwa, smiling faintly. He picked up the ball and tossed it to the boy, who gaped as Yong-hwa turned to face him fully.

  “Ooah!” he said, his eyes wide. “Ya, you’re Ma Yong-hwa-ssi, aren’t you?”

  “Dae.”

  “Seonbaenim,” breathed the boy, his face glowing with adoration. “I was hoping I’d get a chance to meet you! You have to teach me!”

  Yong-hwa gave a sudden, surprised hiss of laughter. “Were you lying in wait for me? Is that why your ball flew over the hedge?”

  “Aniyo, Seonbaenim!” the child protested. “It really was an accident! But now that I’ve met you—”

  “I don’t take on students,” said Yong-hwa. He said over his shoulder as he turned to go, “You’ll have to find someone else.”

  The boy trotted after him. “Seonbaenim took on Jessamy hyungnim, though.”

  Yong-hwa didn’t stop walking, but he looked down at the boy, and there was a shade of amusement to his eyes again. “Who told you that?”

  “I hit Hyungnim with my ball before,” the boy said guiltily.

  “Ah, so it’s a habit of yours, is it? Did Jessamy-a tell you that?”

  “Aniyo. But I heard you talking at the cottage, and—”

  “Jessamy-a,” said Yong-hwa, “is a good friend of mine. He’s helping me arrange a few of my compositions for publication.”

  The boy’s face fell. “Ah. Ye. But Seonbaenim, couldn’t I help, too, though? I have a very fair copy hand.”

  Yong-hwa laughed again. “You’re a determined little thing. Shouldn’t you be at school?”

  “Aniyo. It’s break. I don’t go back to Silver Heart for another three weeks.”

  Yong-hwa didn’t quite stop, but there was a slight hesitation to his stride between one step and the next. “You study at Silver Heart?”

  “Ye, Seonbaenim,” said the boy proudly. “I passed my entrance exam two years ago. I’m going to be a famous composer, like you.”

  “I see,” Yong-hwa said. He said beneath his breath, “I wonder if this is more tea?”

  “Ye, Seonbaenim?”

  “Never mind. What name will the world know you by when you’re famous?”

  “Jeong Hwan-chul.”

  “Ah. I think I knew your father.”

  “Ye, Seonbaenim. Abeoji told me about you: you were seonbae hubae at Silver Heart.”

  “That’s right,” said Yong-hwa, smiling a little into the afternoon sky. “I was sorry to hear about his death.”

  Hwan-chul’s face took on the peculiar blankness of sorrow habitually suppressed. He said, “Thank you, Seonbaenim.”

  Yong-hwa glanced down at him. “What do you study at Silver Heart, Hwan-chul-a?”

  “Composition, mostly,” said Hwan-chul. He was bouncing his ball again, alternating between his feet as he walked. “Violin and cello, too.”

  “That’s not very traditional of you,” Yong-hwa murmured.

  “Ye, well, Abeoji wasn’t very traditional, either,” Hwan-chul said. And then, “Ya! Seonbaenim plays the violin, too!”

  “Yes, but I play it very well,” said Yong-hwa, with a matter-of-factness that was fully as unconsciously arrogant as Hyun-jun’s certainty of his own merits. “If I didn’t, I’d just be another modern composer leaving his roots behind.”

  “That’s why I want Seonbaenim to teach me,” persisted Hwan-chul. His voice had taken on something of an urgent tone; he and Yong-hwa had reached the gate of Eun-hee’s manor.

  Yong-hwa, passing through the pedestrian gate, hesitated for a moment, then swung it open a little wider and beckoned Hwan-chul through. To Hwan-chul’s suddenly bright eyes, he warned, “I won’t take you on. But if you can copy with a fair hand, I’ll pay you for it.”

  “Ye, Seonbaenim!”

  “Don’t be too excited,” Yong-hwa said, strolling toward the manor. “I wouldn’t do even so much if I didn’t think you’re the equivalent of Chajin tea. I want to see where this game will go.”

  “It was an accident, Oppa,” I said, watching Hwan-chul kick his ball after Yong-hwa. Still, it was a good accident, and one I could use. I withdrew from the Dream, satisfied with my day’s work, and found that Carlin was watching me narrowly from the seat opposite.

  I yawned at him. “Is it teatime, Carlin?”

  “Since when do you call anyone Oppa?” asked Carlin. He rose to fetch the tea tray off the side table, still watching me narrowly, and put it down in front of me. “Aren’t you getting a bit close this time, miss?”

  “I call Dong-wook Oppa,” I reminded him.

  “Yes, but you don’t Dream about him.”

  I received a teacup from him. “I don’t think I understand the question, Carlin.”

  “I thought we were matching Ae-jung-ssi with that Yong-hwa,” complained Carlin. “But she’s chosen Hyun-jun-ssi.”

  “That’s right,” I said, sipping my tea. “What’s your point, Carlin?”

  “Well,” said Carlin again, “then why are you still Dreaming about them?”

  “Who knows?” I said. Usually I had only residual Dreams once I had matched a good couple. I wasn’t sure if there was more to the Dreams that I had yet to discover, or if, in deciding to chivvy Yong-hwa out of his quiet heartbreak, I had actually prompted a series of Dreams that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise. If so, it would be the first time I had actively gone after a Dream. Unlike the Spy and the Fat Man, who actively sought Dreams, I had spent most of my life quietly wafting aimlessly between Dreams, following them when they were too strong to be resisted and breaking from them when they let me go.

  “And why,” said Carlin, attending to the teapot, “why him? What is it about him that makes you see him so much? Even the young master couldn’t help yesterday.”

  “I don’t know that, either,” I said, sipping my tea. “I suppose it’s for the same reason that Yong-hwa oppa’s touch does the same thing that Jessamy’s does.”

  The teapot clattered down on the serving tray with a metallic clang. Carlin said, “It does what? Why is Ma Yong-hwa touching you?”

  “He carried me into the cottage, remember?” I said, surprised.

  “I remember.”

  “And that reminds me. Yong-hwa oppa is too clever; if you see him with me, you’re to stay away.”

  “But miss—!”

 
“I don’t want him connecting you with me. And if he asks you anything—”

  “I deny everything,” nodded Carlin. “Business as usual, then, miss?”

  “I don’t know,” I said thoughtfully. “Nothing feels quite like usual any more, Carlin.”

  Things felt a little more usual the next day, however. Eun-hee sent Dong-wook to ask if I’d like to feed the fish in the pond after breakfast, interrupting a Dream of the breakfast table that held an irrepressibly merry Jessamy squabbling amicably with an untidy Hwan-chul (who had managed to wriggle his way in), both offset by an impatient Hyun-jun and a decidedly abstract Yong-hwa. I agreed to the outing, though it was an effort to break out of the Dream enough just to speak with Dong-wook. After I had eaten, I started slowly and waveringly down the hall toward Eun-hee’s rooms. Carlin would have taken me there, but I saw Yong-hwa getting up from the breakfast table in my Dream, and I didn’t like to risk being seen with Carlin. I would have to warn Eun-hee about being too open about Carlin and me, if Yong-hwa should be inclined to pump her for information.

  I wandered the hall by feel rather than sight, caught up more insistently in my Dream than was convenient, and at length found myself by the couch opposite Eun-hee’s door. I sat in it instead of knocking at the door, smiling at the faint but unmistakeable scent of Dong-wook that it carried. If I went in right now, Eun-hee would only ask me about her clothes, and since I couldn’t see well enough to answer her sensibly, and she would never agree with my assessment if I could answer sensibly, I was unwilling to use the necessary energy. I could walk today, but I didn’t think it would last long if Jessamy didn’t come to see me later. I’d been too caught up in Dreams of Yong-hwa, and for too long. Even now I could see him exiting the breakfast room, while at the other end of the main hall, Ae-jung was admitted to the manor. Yong-hwa saw her at once, his eyes still instinctively drawn to her, and after a brief moment of hesitation, swiftly crossed the hall to the stairs.

  “Not that way, Oppa,” I murmured. Those were the stairs that led to the household rooms: Eun-hee’s and Dong-wook’s, and mine. The guest rooms were all in the other wing, and though they could be reached by a connecting hall, it was a longer journey. But Yong-hwa, unmindful of anything but avoiding Ae-jung, was quickly climbing the stairs despite that. If I sat very still, hopefully he wouldn’t notice me.

  There was a flutter of yellow behind Yong-hwa as my Dream sight of him entering the hall clashed with my physical sight of him at the top of the stairs, just a few yards away. The flutter caught up with him at the top of the stairs, and then the Dream vanished in a sudden jolt, dropping me firmly into Reality just in time to see Ae-jung’s smiling face glowing up at Yong-hwa.

  “Yong-hwa-ssi!” she said. “I’ve been looking for you!”

  Yong-hwa, his face almost as dazed as mine must have looked under a similarly powerful jolt, said, “Ae-jung-ssi. Good morning.”

  “Mianeyo, Yong-hwa-ssi!” she said. “I didn’t meet you that day because something important came up, and I haven’t had a chance to apologise. Every time I see you, you’re gone before I can speak to you.”

  “Ah, keurae?” murmured Yong-hwa. He had frozen over again, and if I had been safely in a Dream, I would have spoken a few wrathful words at the oblivious Ae-jung.

  “But did you get to confess to the girl you love?” she asked. “It went well, didn’t it? It must have!”

  Yong-hwa’s smile had a slight edge of bitterness to it. “That,” he said, looking down at his cane. “That . . . is something that wasn’t meant to be. She won’t accept me, I think.”

  “Oh, but she’d have to!” said Ae-jung, in completely unsimulated certainty. “She couldn’t help it if you played and sang to her. If you were as nice to her as you were to me I know she couldn’t help loving you anyway.”

  “Ah, keurae?” said Yong-hwa again, and his smile was certainly bitter. “Thank you, Ae-jung-ssi. I think Hyun-jun-ssi is waiting for you in the breakfast room.”

  “Oh!” Ae-jung said immediately. “Oh! I’d better go, then! Thank you, Yong-hwa-ssi!”

  She nearly tripped over her own feet in turning and waving at once, and when Yong-hwa caught her arm instinctively to steady her, sent another gladsome “Thank you!” up at him. He watched her as she walked back down the stairs, still and silent, then turned back into the hall with a laugh that was oddly humourless.

  He saw me straightaway. He stopped, the glazed blankness of his face giving way to confusion, then recognition. “Clovis-a,” he said, bowing slightly and approaching my seat. His voice was light, devoid of emotion, and I had the distinct feeling that as discomfited as I was to be seen by him, Yong-hwa was similarly discomfited to have been seen by me. That raw expression on his face wasn’t meant for other people’s eyes, nor had his laugh been meant for other people’s ears.

  “Good afternoon, Oppa,” I said, nodding a bow back at him. “Is it pleasant outside?”

  “Very,” said Yong-hwa, his forehead slightly creased in puzzlement. “Clovis-a, I meant to visit you. It seems that I forgot. Shall I walk with you in the garden instead? Are you too tired today?”

  “Actually, I’m waiting for Eun-hee unni,” I said. “We’re going to feed the fish in the pond.”

  Eun-hee’s voice, bright with innocence, said suddenly from the doorway, “Oh, but if you’re walking out yourself, Yong-hwa-ssi, perhaps I’ll ask you to take Clovis-a instead of me. I’m a little tired myself, today.”

  “There’s no need for us to go out at all, Unni,” I said, mistrusting that innocence. How long had Eun-hee been in the doorway? She couldn’t be trying to set me up with Yong-hwa, could she? She should know better than that. “You should have told me you weren’t feeling well.”

  “I was going to walk out anyway,” said Yong-hwa, offering me his hand.

  “It’s all right, Oppa,” I said, avoiding both the hand and the arm that was offered as soon as I was on my feet. “I can walk by myself today. There’s no need for you to take me along with you.”

  “Don’t you want to walk with me, Clovis-a?”

  “Of course she does!” said Eun-hee. “Clovis-a, don’t be so difficult. Do as your unni tells you to do!”

  “Ani, it’s not that—”

  “The manor is slightly stifling today,” Yong-hwa said, looking around at the soft edges of carpet and curved hall furniture. “Won’t you come out with me?”

  I meant to say no, but the slightly glazed look was back in his brown eyes, and suddenly all I could remember was his look of weariness from the day before. I said, “All right. I’ll show you a nice place.”

  This time I took the arm he offered, careful to pinch only fabric between my fingers, and felt the warning warmth of his arm beneath that, weighty and dangerous. I didn’t want to succumb again to that kind of heaviness; even Jessamy had never made me feel so very solidly in my body.

  “Have fun, children,” Eun-hee cooed, and vanished once more into her room. I gazed at the closed door thoughtfully until the tug of Yong-hwa’s arm beneath my fingers drew me forward again. I found that he was looking down at me curiously.

  “Are you sure you can walk comfortably, Clovis-a?” he asked. “I can carry you.”

  “Ani,” I said. I would have demonstrated my ability by marching down the stairs with a firm tread, but I was still lighter than I would have liked to be, and stairs are always a difficulty for me. I get so used to floating down them in my Dreams that sometimes I forget that I need to move my feet when I walk in Reality. Instead, I pinched the sleeve of Yong-hwa’s coat a little more firmly and took the steps carefully, one at a time. There was a tiny Dream-bubble of Eun-hee that told me she was watching us mischievously from her doorway, but I could have squashed it if I’d wanted to do so. I let it bounce in the back of my mind instead, because I could see Dong-wook approaching from the other direction, his face fully as mischievous as Eun-hee’s. He stole up to the open doorway and pushed his face through the gap so quietly and innocently that he was no
se to nose with Eun-hee before she realised it.

  “Annyeong, Nuna!”

  I smiled and left Eun-hee to protest, “Ya, mwohya?” at him with a distinctly startled look, pushing the Dream further back until I could concentrate on Yong-hwa again.

  I took him to the little wild stream, where I could sit comfortably on my usual tree root and he could throw pieces of bark into the water. It would give him something to look at if his face became inconveniently transparent again.

  He did throw bark at the water for a little while, but then he seemed content to sit beside me on the tree root, watching the water flow past in silence. It was only when we heard the distant shouts of Jessamy and Hwan-chul, and the sound of a ball being kicked, that Yong-hwa said, “I thought Jessamy-a told me you couldn’t walk. I was surprised to meet you the first time.”

  “Ah, that,” I nodded. “There are some good days when I can walk, but not many. Abeoji thinks there must be something to the summer countryside air; I’m always better in the summer if I’m at Eun-hee’s estate.” The truth, if not all of the truth.

  “Curious,” Yong-hwa said. “What do you do with the rest of your year, then?”

  I leaned forward to trail my fingers in the rippling water. “Feed seagulls. Look at the ceiling.”

  Yong-hwa, a faint furrow to his brow, said, “Aren’t you ever bored?”

  “Always,” I said. “Boredom is an old friend of mine.”

  “Mine, too,” said Yong-hwa. His lips curved just slightly. “I didn’t think I’d miss it. Clovis-a, we should walk out more often. You’re looking better for the fresh air.”

  “Keurae?” I said, with the softest sniff of laughter. Yong-hwa’s presence, so like Jessamy’s, was still helping to ground me. “I don’t go out very often, Oppa. There’s sometimes a difficulty in getting back.”

  “I’ll make sure you get back,” Yong-hwa said. “We’ll be very useful to each other, Clovis-a.”

  “Will we?”

  Yong-hwa turned his head to look down at me, sunlight glittering across his earrings. As mesmerising as that glitter was the gleam of his teeth. “Of course!” he said. “I’m a very good excuse for you to get out of the manor, and you—well, you’re a very good excuse for me to get out of the manor. Besides, I can’t help feeling that you’re a particularly nice blend of tea.”