Read Online Fox Girl by Nora Okja Keller - Free Book Online Page A

herbalist, who had a growth the size of my fist bubbling up from the side of his neck, pushed his fingers into my throat. After taking my pulse at points along the meridians of my body—throat, temple, elbow, wrist—to see where my energy faltered, he rendered his verdict. “An overdose of um, ” he announced. Too much wetness and darkness had seeped into my lungs. I was slowly drowning.
    â€œHow come you can’t cure your own self,” I gurgled, eyeing his neck.
    My mother flicked the back of my head with her fingers, and the herbalist clucked his tongue. “Very dark,” he said, and he and my mother nodded in agreement over my head.
    The hanyak-chesa then shuffled to the display in the window. He broke off a finger of the deer’s antler and threw it into a bowl where he ground it into powder. When my mother turned away, the herbalist narrowed his eyes at me and plucked one of the long hairs sprouting from his neck growth. He blew on it, then mashed it in with the deer horn.
    â€œHey,” I shouted. My mother flicked me again harder, and the herbalist continued to pound with his pestle. After adding pinches and spoonfuls of various black and brown powders from the jars behind the counter, he poured the mixture into a bag and handed it to my mother.
    â€œTwo things,” he instructed. “One, make tea for her before she sleeps each night. Second, make a paste and put it over her birthmark. Slowly, it will fight the darkness coming from within her.”
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    I presented Sookie with the bag of herb dust after a week of choking it down and rubbing it into my skin.
    â€œWhat’s this?” she asked, looking into the bag.
    Feeling mean with power, I shrugged. “Breakfast.”
    â€œNot funny,” she said flatly. “I’m hungry.”
    â€œSo eat it,” I teased. “It’s good for you.”
    â€œGive, Hyun Jin,” Sookie said. “I finished the map of the world for you.” She lifted a scroll from her book bag and carefully unrolled it. “See? I colored it in special.”
    Frowning at her, I didn’t bother to glance at the map. “I didn’t get a perfect score on the last assignment.”
    Sookie looked down, rubbing one foot over the other. “No?” she said.
    â€œNo. But I saw you did.”
    Sookie bit her lip. “It was a mistake. I didn’t mean to.”
    â€œHah, I’m on to your tricks,” I said. “I’m the one who taught them to you.” I grabbed the map from her and studied the mosaic of neatly labeled countries and continents vibrantly bordered by ocean blue. It was better than what I could have done, and this irritated me.
    Sookie’s stomach rumbled. “Didn’t you bring me real food?”
    Her whining made me feel meaner, because in truth I had forgotten about bringing her anything to eat. I had just wanted to show her what, in my mind, I had to endure for her. I wanted to tell her stories about Chinatown, about the herbalist who stored poison in his neck. But instead I told her: “Take it or leave it.”
    She weighed the bag in her palm for a moment, then threw it to the ground. “I’m not so desperate I would eat your dirt.”
    â€œFine,” I said, shrugging. “See you at school then.” I walked away from her. I thought she would catch up with me, give me a thump on the head for my crankiness. But when, without slowing, I glanced back, I saw her kneeling on the ground, sniffing the bag of herbs.
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    The next morning, I came to her front door bearing two boiled eggs. Feeling guilty, I had sacrificed my own breakfast as a peace offering. “No thanks,” Sookie said airily, waving away my offer. “I just drank my breakfast. The herbs filled me up quite nicely.”
    She marched down her steps, pushing me slightly as she went by. I held the eggs tighter in my fists. One of them cracked. I wrestled with my book bag,