"Where have you been, young lady? I have been looking for you for hours you prick! You almost gave me a heart attack!" She was about to hit Anatole but she was able to dodge it. She ran behind me to hide from her grandmother.
"Grandma! I'm sorry, I was here the whole time!" Anatole cried, still hiding behind my back.
Iseul's mom gritted her teeth. "Who the hell told you that you are allowed to go here without me?! And you even brought strangers! You son of a-"
"G-good day, Ma'am. We are just visitors and your granddaughter was kind enough to give us a... tour. My friend here was f-finding an inspiration for his work and uh- he... he... he needed to find..." Sai cut off Anatole's grandmother.
"Purple hyacinths. We needed to find them," I gulped.
The old lady glared at us, she does not seemed convinced. I was begging the heavens inside my head that she will believe what we were saying. But her face was telling us otherwise. Oh no, I have a bad feeling about this.
"What for?" She asked with her hawk eyes.
"Work... Ma'am," I said with my hands cold.
"And what do you do?" Her eyes remained on mine, not until I saw them look down on my chest. I closed my eyes, remembering how Sai and I have name tags from the art workshop.
"I... I work as a-"
"He's a great and kind painter, Grandma! He is also Mom's friend! So please don't get angry at them," Anatole said.
I pursed my lips. If I am going to die, I think this is it for me. I had a great time travelling Techne Island. My life is now in the hand of... Iseul's mom. I slowly looked at her.
Her eyebrows were even more scrunched together, flaring her nostrils. Her lips were tightened, as if she was about to burst like a bubble, but in anger! She somehow resembled Iseul who was always angry at me.
One word to describe our situation: Busted. She inhaled a huge amount of breath and was about to talk but Sai tried to calm her down.
"Ma'am, please, calm down. We have no bad intentions. Breathe, please," Sai begged.
There was a long silence. The four of us on top of the hill, with the upper limb of the sun slowly disappears below the horizon. All I could hear was my heavy breathing, and all I could feel was Anatole's tight grip on the hem of my shirt.
I wanted to protect Anatole, but I can't even defend myself now. All of my plans were on the verge of falling apart, right in front of Iseul's biological mother.
"What is it that you want from Iseul?" She asked straight away.
I should tell her the truth. No excuses, no more made up reasons. She now knows that we know her daughter. C'mon, get a grip, Yohan!
"She's my friend," I started.
"I remember all the people that she made friends with before her death and I never heard the name Yohan," she glared at me again. "You are definitely not her friend. Let her rest already, and leave. I will never allow anyone to use her again."
I blinked twice upon hearing what she said. She thinks I'm one of those people who are using her. Of course she will think about that! I'm just a mere stranger that she can't trust.
"I'm not going to do anything bad, I swear. My name is Yohan Chavez and I'm a painter. I arrived on this Island for about a month now, and I happened to paint on my first night. Iseul showed up to me, as an anima perduta," I couldn't control what I was saying. I was so desperate to convince her.
"An anima perduta?" She frowned.
"Yes, the reason why artists never painted or drew at night?"
I felt Anatole letting go of my shirt. I glanced at Sai, and she gave me a slight nod. She did not want Anatole to hear what I'm about to say so they walked away. Leaving me with Iseul's mom to talk.
"I accidently painted a woman with green eyes, pale skin, with a curly hair. She showed up to me on my first night. Then I was told she was also painted by a neighbor-"
"I know about the rumors that she became an anima perduta a decade ago. Look," she showed me her hand and held my arm. "Can you feel how cold my hands are, kid? I am so furious at you right now, I want to slap you, shout at you, and push you away." she glanced at the purple hyacinths. "You are the 140th person to go here because of Iseul."
"W-what?"
"For the one hundred fortieth time, I am tired of pushing people away. Most of them pretends to help my daughter, telling me absurd stories that she showed up to them. But they were all disgusting. They keep telling me things about my daughter, but none of them are true. I know Iseul her whole life, but people kept treating her like an object when she was alive, until the day she died." she let go of my arms and sighed heavily. "I'm telling you right now, stop it. I don't need help, I have already accepted the fact that my daughter had a terrible... terrible death. Leave us alone and let my daughter rest in peace," a tear fell down from her eye. Her voice was calmer now, but I could feel she's in pain.
I was able to gain the courage to speak and held her cold hand. I was looking down on the hyacinth flowers. She's misunderstanding me, but I can't blame her for that.
"I came here not to help you, but to help your daughter. I understand that you don't need any help, but your daughter was saying otherwise." I looked back at her. "Iseul never had peace even after her death. People kept summoning her and doing bad things even in her state as a lost soul."
She looked away and shook her head. "I don't want to hear more. You're making things up."
"To tell you the truth, I have been going through hundreds of art galleries just to find something associated with her so that I could break the curse and set the anima perdutas free. I also went to the South, searching for her." I told her.
"What do you want me to tell you? Thank you? Thank you for wasting your time? Or stop? Stop making up absurd stories. You're just one of those people who wants to use her for profit and worse, for a damn research." her voice started to raise.
I opened my sling bag and grabbed my journal. I kept Iseul's calligraphy here and I folded it just in case. "This is the calligraphy that Iseul made, and it says go 'go where is forbidden, burned into ash'. A friend told me about what happened to Iseul's house and body before, then I asked Iseul about it and she said it was true."
"Shut up, everyone knows about that!" she hissed.
"But something's hidden, to break the curse at last. There must be an important piece here that I can use to finally set her free," I sounded even more desperate to encourage her to listen to me.
"Stop this non-sense! Leave already!" She shook her head.
She pushed my journal away, and it fell from my hands. I kneeled to get it, but I forgot my sling bag was opened. All of my things fell to the ground and I let out a deep sigh.
One hundred and thirty-nine people went here before me. There's no way Iseul's mom would give a small amount of trust to anyone. I tried telling her the truth, but she went through so much that made her think that everything's a lie. I'm so sorry, Iseul.
"Where did you get that?"
I looked up her and then back to my hand.
"That knot and tassel."
I held the tassel gently and stood up. I smiled at her apologetically.
"I went to a Korean restaurant weeks ago and I met Nari. She's Iseul's chingu, I mean friend. I told her that I'm helping Iseul out, and she was kind enough to entrust me with this. It's Iseul's--"
"Norigae knots. Nari gave that to you?" she asked with bloodshot eyes.
"She did," I pursed my lips.
Her eyes were fixated on mine, and she wiped her tears away.
"It's getting darker. Let's talk in my house," she coughed. "Anatole, you little idiot! Let's go home."
"But how about them, Grandma?" Anatole asked.
She glared at me then turned away.
"They can come too."