Chapter 10: The Loft Ladder

Dinner that night was the quietest meal I'd eaten in nine years.

Chan sat with his back to the wall and cut his chicken into very small pieces.

Hyunjin talked about the pool table and the three ball, and neither of us answered him.

"Good shot," Chan said at last, to his plate.

"Thank you, Hyung."

"Did Mara teach you?"

"She did."

"Good."

That was the whole conversation.

I washed the dishes, Hyunjin dried them, and Chan stoked the stove and went to bed on the daybed without a word.

I lay awake for a long time in my own bed, with the door open a hand's width.

I told myself I had done nothing wrong.

I told myself it again.

At ten past three, a sound came from the loft.

It was a harsh, broken shout, in Korean, and then a thump.

I was out of bed and across the cabin before I knew I had moved.

The ladder shook under my hands.

The loft was lit by a thin gray square of window.

Hyunjin was sitting up on the mattress with both fists in the blanket.

His chest was heaving.

His face was wet.

"Hey," I said. "Hey. It's Mara. It's only me."

He turned toward me with wide, blind eyes.

"Don't touch the door," he said in English. "Please don't. Chan, don't."

"Chan's downstairs. There's no door. It's the loft."

I sat on the top rung of the ladder, with my head tilted under the beam, so I wouldn't crowd him.

"Breathe," I said. "In through your nose."

He tried.

It came out in pieces.

"Count the beams," I said.

"What?"

"The beams. Count them. There are four."

His eyes went up, one, two, three, four, and he made a small noise like a laugh.

"It's four," he said.

"I told you."

"There was a man in the room. I saw his shoes."

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