Chapter – 01
The Secret Garden
I was completely, utterly sick of it.
“I’m going to stay at Grandma’s house.”
The sound of the rain was freezing. Standing alone in the downpour under an umbrella, my mother just stared at me. If your daughter is getting soaked in the rain, shouldn’t you at least share your umbrella? The thought crossed my mind reflexively, and I let out a hollow, bitter laugh at myself. Since when had my mother ever held an umbrella over me?
“What are you going to do all by yourself in a house that looks like it’s haunted?”
Behind her glasses, my mother’s eyes were cold.
A house that looks like it’s haunted?
At that exact moment, I was glad my hands were empty. If I had been holding my phone, I undoubtedly would have hurled it at her.
“A haunted house?! Do you even know where you are right now to say something like that, Mom?!”
I screamed like an immature, throwing-a-tantrum child. I could feel passersby staring at us, but neither my mother nor I broke eye contact, stubbornly refusing to look away. I shouted louder, wanting everyone around us to hear.
“Is that something you should say at Grandma’s columbarium?! It hasn’t even been an hour since she was laid to rest in there, and you can call her home a haunted house?! Are you seriously her daughter? Are you even human?!”
She was a woman who had never once brought me an umbrella at school on a rainy day my entire life. But that was fine. She was busy. My mother was none other than the famous, elite star tutor, Oh Soo-hee. From my elementary school graduation to my university entrance ceremony, she hadn’t shown up a single time. Back then, I thought that even for a star tutor, it was a bit much. But I was used to it, so it was bearable. And above all else, I had my maternal grandmother. Whenever my mother abandoned me to polish and perfect her precious career, it was Grandma who would hold me and comfort me. Grandma always used to say:
“Your mother only acts that way because her heart is too weak. But she really is a good person. And she loves you very much.”
I had believed those words. Mom loves me, she’s just a little busy. The reason she never apologizes to me is because her heart is so fragile that showing weakness in front of me would make her break down. That was what I had kept telling myself. But after watching my mother briefly drop by during the three days of the funeral just to handle paperwork, pay the bills, and vanish, I finally understood. Grandma had told me a sweet lie. Mom didn’t love me. She didn’t love Grandma either. My mother didn’t know the first thing about love. Our mother is a person who keeps the umbrella entirely to herself, even while her devastated daughter stands weeping in the pouring rain.
“I’d prefer it if we didn’t stay in touch for the time being.” “Why? Are you worried about how you’ll survive if we cut ties for good?”
I was dumbfounded by my mother’s scoff. I looked her straight in the eyes. Tears were streaming down my face, but she apparently couldn’t see them. Was it because of the rain? No, even if I were crying under the bright, blazing sun, my mother would have worn that exact same expression. A harsh, unyielding face that wouldn’t shed a single drop of blood even if pricked with a needle.
“Forget it. Let’s just make it so we never see each other again for the rest of our lives.”
I didn’t even want to call her “Mom” anymore. I turned my back on her and trudged away. I was told that if I took the bus from here, it would take me back to the funeral home. What a relief. Just as she had driven here separately, she would leave in her own car, meaning I wouldn’t have to see her anymore. Grandma was the one who passed away, but it felt like I was saying a permanent goodbye to my mother.
Getting to Grandma’s house proved to be quite an ordeal.
To make matters worse, I was completely drenched, so I caught an earful when boarding the bus to the funeral home, and people on the subway gave me incredibly cold, judging looks. Ah, I know acting entirely on impulse always comes with a heavy price, yet I still lose control like this sometimes. Cursing myself inwardly, I dragged my feet all the way to Grandma’s house. By the time I arrived, the world had already plunged into darkness. Walking down a pitch-black road without a single streetlight on a rainy day to get to her house was genuinely terrifying. Images of serial killers randomly popped into my head, making me constantly glance back over my shoulder.
Grandma’s house is located in the countryside of Gyeonggi Province. It’s a quiet, secluded area, but it’s relatively close to a subway station. I suspect she bought a house in this location specifically with me in mind, knowing I visited often. Even though it was “close,” it still required a solid thirty-minute walk from the station. Still, I was grateful enough just to be able to take the subway.
As soon as I walked through the door, I opened my backpack and checked the envelopes of cash. They were the condolence money envelopes. Between being completely out of it at the funeral home and being entirely on my own, I hadn’t had the chance to check them. Fortunately, my friends took turns sitting at the reception desk across all three days to greet the mourners for me. But that was all they could do; since I was the sole chief mourner, I couldn’t leave the altar unattended. Still, the person who covered the funeral expenses was my mother. Before leaving for the burial site, I had tried to hand all the condolence money over to her.
“Keep it. Do whatever you want with it,” she had said, refusing to even lay a finger on it. Then, unlike me, who was boarding the funeral bus, she climbed into her own car alone. From the driver’s seat, her manager offered me a sympathetic glance and nodded in greeting. I barely managed to bow my head in return. I was so furious with my mother for dragging things to this point that it wasn’t even easy to greet her acquaintances.
“Where is your mother?” “She’s not here.” “Oh dear… Teacher Oh is doing this again… You’re Teacher Oh’s daughter, right? Take this and buy yourself something delicious, okay?”
My mother’s acquaintances weren’t surprised by her absence at the funeral home. They simply felt sorry for me. There were many people who handed me pocket money. Rather than the cash, I was more curious about how they knew my mother. But the mother who could have given me those answers was nowhere to be found at the funeral.
I stopped counting the money halfway through because it started to get a bit frightening. It was already exceeding 50 million won. Was it really okay for me to keep all of this? I turned on my phone to ask my mother one more time, but then switched it right back off. I hated the thought of contacting her over something like this. Maybe I hated it even more because money was the last thing she had brought up.
Ultimately, without turning the phone back on, I silently finished counting all the cash. It was a night I realized that money carries a much heavier, distinct smell than one would think.
The total amount of the condolence money came out to 86.75 million won. I deposited the entire sum into a bank located downtown. The walk to deposit that money was the most terrifying walk of my life. Nobody knew I had 86.75 million won in my possession, yet my hands trembled uncontrollably anyway. Because of that, after finishing the deposit, I couldn’t bring myself to leave immediately; I had to sit inside the bank for a while to calm my racing heart.
And the moment I stepped outside, a much bigger problem was waiting for me.
I hadn’t realized it on the way there because of the sheer tension, but the August sun was absolutely scorching. Grandma’s place was a full thirty-minute walk from downtown. I’m dead, a sigh escaped my lips automatically.
After buying an ice cream bar from a small supermarket to munch on while walking, I finally managed to arrive at Grandma’s house. Thanks to the ice cream, my mouth was sticky and sweet, and my body was damp with sweat. After taking a shower and changing into pajamas, I poured myself a glass of cold water from the refrigerator. Through the kitchen window, Grandma’s garden came into view. Should I call it a garden, or perhaps a yard? It wasn’t remarkably large, but it was incredibly charming and beautifully tended to.
No matter where she lived, Grandma always poured her heart into cultivating a garden. And when I was young, she and I would enjoy tea times together out there. When the weather was nice, sitting out there just the two of us, drinking tea and gazing at the garden, made the entire world feel just as warm and safe as that very spot.
The garden remained exactly as it had been back then.
Strangely enough, it still didn’t feel real that Grandma was gone. It felt as though if I went out and stood in the garden, Grandma would walk out carrying a tray of tea. It felt like she would hand me a cup, calling it the cocoa her favorite puppy loved so much. I couldn’t bring myself to believe that such days would never come again.
During the hot summer months, she used to make me a lot of lemonade. Sure enough, looking inside Grandma’s refrigerator, both the lemon syrup and the carbonated water were right there. I quickly mixed a glass together and headed toward the back door. Right in front of the door, my dedicated pair of slippers sat neatly side-by-side.
Slipping them on, I walked out and sat down on a wrought-iron chair, waiting for Grandma. It felt like she would appear if I just sat there, but she didn’t come.
“Grandma.”
It felt like she would answer if I called out to her like that, but no response came back. Tears began to fall. I knew I was being overly dramatic, but I honestly didn’t know what else to do. This was the first time someone I knew had died. To make it harder, that person happened to be the one who loved me more than anyone else in the entire world. Perhaps she was the only person who ever did. What on earth are you supposed to do at a time like this?
With my mind in complete disarray, I wandered around the garden until I let out a sudden chuckle in front of Grandma’s vegetable patch. Grandma’s vegetable patch was enclosed by a small wooden fence about 15 centimeters high, but the hilarious part was that a tiny gate was attached to one side of it. Who would ever need to open a gate on a 15-centimeter fence? I had never once opened it before. Just one time, I had asked, “Why did you install something like this, Grandma?” and tried to open it, only for Grandma to slap the back of my hand away. “It’s there for style! If you handle it carelessly, it’ll break!” she had scolded, preventing me from opening it. My grandma really did have a hidden streak of prioritizing aesthetics. Crouching down in front of that very fence, thinking back to that memory, I reached out and opened the gate. There was no Grandma left to stop me from opening it now.
Opening the gate, I stepped through it into the vegetable patch. Ta-da! And in that split second…
A flash of light blinded my eyes, and suddenly, the entire world transformed into an endlessly sprawling expanse of green land. A powerful wind whipped through the air, pressing the wild grass low across the vast plains. Looking up, the sky was unbelievably high, completely different from the sky I was used to seeing. And when I turned around, a massive forest loomed before me. Dense with towering, ancient trees, the interior of the forest was so profoundly dark that I couldn’t see inside, despite it being broad daylight.
Grandma’s house was nowhere to be seen.
Where on earth am I? My mind went entirely blank.
