Bedevilled 2016 Online

She looked at the phone. 12%. She could call. She could run to the dock, take the fishing boat, and be on the mainland by dawn.

She opened the door.

The first week, Hae-won pretended not to see. She had her own wounds to lick. She stayed inside with her books and her cheap wine. bedevilled 2016

Bok-nam was no longer the bright-eyed girl who’d shown her how to crack sea urchins with a rock. Now, at 38, she looked 60. Her face was a landscape of bruises—yellow, purple, fresh. She lived with her husband, Jong-sik, and his three unmarried brothers in a compound of grey concrete. They treated her like a pack animal. She hauled seaweed, gutted fish, carried water up the cliff stairs while the men drank soju and played go-stop .

“He killed my daughter. Three years ago. He said she fell. She didn’t fall. I buried her behind the pig shed. Tell the truth. For once in your life.” She looked at the phone

Hae-won looked at the phone on her table. The battery was dead. She’d been lying to herself, telling herself she’d recharge it tomorrow.

She turned and walked back to the compound, her spine crooked, her bare feet silent on the wet stones. That night, the wind changed. It brought the smell of iron and salt. Hae-won couldn’t sleep. She sat on her porch, listening. The men were drunk again. She heard Jong-sik’s laugh, then a sharp crack—a slap, or something worse. Then silence. She could run to the dock, take the

Then a sound Hae-won had never heard before. A low, guttural moan that rose into a wail, then cut off abruptly.