The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea

by Axie Oh

“Tell me, and I will go and hunt them down, tear them limb from limb. Destroy their homes, their sons, their goats, if they have them—”

My grandmother often said that the most dangerous of gods are the ones who are forgotten.

“She is not the Sea God’s bride,” Shin says. Ryugi growls. “Playing games, Lord Shin? I’m running out of patience. If you won’t give me the bride, then I’ll—” “She is my bride.”

“Tell your goddess that I have taken a bride. If she wishes to meet Lady Mina, she may visit, or wait until the wedding. As it is, my bride stays with me, where she is safest. She is human, after all.”

hall. “Humans are fickle, violent creatures. Because they fear their own deaths, they are driven to war, scouring from the earth in seconds that which takes years to grow.”

“That’s just like a human to think the world revolves around you, to think the rivers are for you, the sky, the sea is for you. You

“So you do protect the gods,” I say. “From humans.”

“I don’t know.” Namgi scratches his cheek. “It seems unwise to give fire to a clumsy person in a forest.” “Please.”

“You claim the gods should love and care for humans. I disagree. I don’t think love can be bought or earned or even prayed for. It must be freely given.”

For some reason I’m surprised to hear this explanation from the goddess, though this is how humans tell the myth, when the destinies of two people collide in life-altering ways. It explains the undeniable connection between lovers—like Cheong and Joon, who loved each other from the beginning.

“Mina, you don’t understand.” “Then tell me. What is it I don’t understand?” “We can’t be soul mates…,” Shin says. His dark eyes lift, holding mine. “Because I don’t have a soul.”

“She’s so young to be a bride, barely sixteen!” “How romantic, don’t you think? That Lord Shin should fall for her in one night.” “What do you think captivated him so?” “Her bright face!” “Her nimble body.” “Her thick hair. It really is lovely.”

“Two of them were my brothers,” Namgi says after a beat of silence. “Hongi, the one in back, is more like an inbred cousin.”

shiver,

“I love them.” It sounds like a confession, and I realize—haltingly—that it is. Whenever I ran through the rice fields, the long-necked cranes billowing their great wings as if in greeting; whenever I climbed the cliffs, the breeze urging me onward; whenever I looked out to sea, the sunlight on the water like laughter, I felt love. I felt loved. How could the gods abandon those who love them?

stares at my hand, a crease forming between his brows. “Why did you put your hand in the fire? You already knew it was too late to answer the wish. It was just paper.” “I know, but…” I hesitate, trying to explain to him something that even I don’t quite understand. “In that moment, doing nothing hurt

Mask leans forward. “What if someone told you your fate was to climb up the highest waterfall and jump off? Or to hurt the person you love most in the world? Or worse, to hurt the person who loves you most in the world? Fate is a tricky thing. It’s not for you, or me, or even the gods, to question what it is … or is not.”

I know that he only takes precautions for the Sea God’s sake first, and now himself. But still, I have a fleeting, reckless thought: What if he should wish to protect me for no one’s sake but my own? “Of

“That there is no place you can go so far away from forgiveness. Not from someone who loves you.”

“Do you know how much I love Miki?” he continues. “When she gurgles, like she does when she’s happy, I feel like my heart grows to ten times its normal size. When she is sad, I feel like my heart is breaking. I would give my life a hundred times for Miki.”

“Do you know how much I love you, Miki?” Dai whispers softly. “Even I don’t know. My love for you is endless. Deep and endless, like the sea.”

I think I understand finally what it means to be the Sea God’s bride. It’s not a burden or an honor. To be the Sea God’s bride is not to be the most beautiful girl in the village, nor is it to be the one to break the curse. To be the Sea God’s bride, she must do one thing: She must love him. I am not the Sea God’s bride. I’ve failed my people. I’ve failed my family. My grandmother. My brothers. My sister-in-law. Cheong. I’ve failed them all. And there is no hope, because love can’t be bought or earned or even prayed for. It must be freely given. And I have given my heart to someone, but he is not the Sea God.

All my life, I’ve believed in the myth of the Sea God’s bride, passed down from grandmother to grandmother since the storms first appeared, when the kingdom was destroyed by conquerors from the West and the emperor thrown from the cliffs into the sea. The Sea God, who loved the emperor like a brother, sent the storms to punish the usurpers—the lashing rains were said to be his tears, the thunder his cries. The droughts were those years he’d felt the emptiness in his heart. But how much of myth is truth? And what do you do when your belief in it is breaking?

Namgi says. “And then you filled it with all these things. Is that a good metaphor for how you’ve filled all our lives?” Slowly, he moves across the room. “If you were awake, you would tease me. Namgi, you would say, how clever you are.” He pauses at my bedside, peering at my still face. “I really thought you’d wake for that one.”

His eyes find mine. “I was angry, but not at you. I was angry at the fate I’d been given. Because I realized that in order for you to have what you want, I’d have to lose the only thing I’ve ever wanted.”

It’s true that people do the most desperate things for those they love. Some might even call it a sacrifice—maybe that’s what people believed when I jumped into the sea in place of Shim Cheong. But I think it might be the other way around. I think it would be a terrible sacrifice to do nothing.

I couldn’t endure in a world where I did nothing, where I let those I love suffer and be hurt.

As I finish the story, a spell of sleep falls over me. I wake to a strange tugging at my wrist. I look down only to sit up abruptly. The Red String of Fate. Shin. I scramble to my feet. The ribbon leads me out the hall into the courtyard, where a figure stands alone, looking up at the starless sky. The Red String of Fate falters in the windless air. At the end of it is … The Sea God.

“He and the rest of your spirit friends left the house this morning after I deemed him fully recovered. Unlike Namgi, who is still too weak to be moving about.” Namgi grins. “I’m fine. Nothing could stop me from seeing Mina.” “You should be more careful,” Kirin insists. “Not long ago, you were soulless.” “Not anymore, thanks to you!” Namgi attacks Kirin in a hug. They go off into the flowers, arguing like they did when I first met them in the Sea God’s hall—though I can see now how much they love and care for each other, their bickering turning soon to laughter.

Don’t chase fate, Mina. Let fate chase you.

“I may be soulless and haven’t a Red String of Fate, but I don’t need either to tell me that I love you.”

“You are afraid.” The boy opens his eyes, a furious, fierce expression taking over his features. But then he groans, the pain rising. His eyes cloud over. “I’m less afraid of dying than I am of leaving them all alone.”

I love you. Wait for me, where the land meets the sea.

Wait for me, he said, where the land meets the sea. But I have waited for you, every day for a year, and you haven’t come. What am I to do? How can I go on, waiting like this, when I know you will never come?

Nothing extraordinary is ever done out of reason or logic, but because it’s the only way for your soul to breathe.