As a Fixer, it's Jane's job to go back to the past and make sure certain events happen as they should. But when her unit breaks down one day, she finds herself stuck in 15th century Korea.
With blond hair and blue eyes she soon discovers life can be...
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"My father bought you? For me?" The restrained whisper is barely heard above my crying.
I wipe my eyes on my sleeve even though new ones keep coming. Chin-Hwa's hands are shaking until she balls them into fists. Louder then before she repeats: "He bought you? And you were stolen from the man you were going to marry?"
I don't know which thing upsets her more, but this seems to be the last straw. She gets up, almost falling over in her haste to stand and runs from the room. I hear her shrieking: "Father!" and pick myself up from the ground.
The sight that greets me when I shakily step outside, turns my blood to ice. Chin-Hwa is screaming at her father, but it's Gi-Kyong's appearance that elicits a scream from my lips. He's on his knees in front of the porch, stripped from his uniform. His hair hangs in disordered wisps around his face that is black and blue. His lip is bleeding and there's a cut in his arm. When he hears my cry he looks up in alarm.
Without thinking, I run to him and throw my arms around him. His hands are tied on his back and with a chocking voice he says: "Ji-Eun, no."
Sheltering his battered face against my shoulder, I close my eyes when I see Mr. Kim's guard walk up to us with drawn sword. But then Chin-Hwa shouts at him to stop and when my eyes fly open, I see how she jumps in front of us.
Mr. Kim orders his daughter to back away, but she yells at him: "Is it true? Did you buy her, as a slave? Were there not women enough in this town that you had to go and steal someone's bride?"
The expression on Mr. Kim's face changes from anger to shock as he cannot deny that he has done that. His daughter points at the miserable two people that we are and her voice breaks when she sobs: "They were going to get married and they kidnapped her and you ... you bought her. I was so happy, so happy that you had found me a friend and now it's all a lie."
"Chin-Hwa-"
"No!"
I have no idea where she finds the courage. All the servants are watching her in dread and the guard has no idea what to do as his master is torn in two. I can't see Beak-So anywhere, maybe he fled when his friend was taken, maybe he went to get help.
Chin-Hwa takes a deep breath, calms herself and stares her father down as she says: "You will let them go. You will let them go and leave them be. I will not allow you to destroy two lives of two people that have done nothing wrong. You made her my friend and I will not have you destroy her."
"Chin-Hwa-" Mr. Kim begins again and is again interrupted by his daughter who astonishes me.
"Say it! Say it, father, say you will release them. Both of them!"
My respect for the girl, whom I always secretly called naive, grows by the second and when I dare to look at her father, my heart begins to swell with hope. His grave expression moves from his daughter to us, to his guard, to finally come to rest on his daughter again. It astonishes me how far Chin-Hwa can go. Isn't this a society wherein woman are little more than servants? I guess I shouldn't be surprised, considering I've always been treated well by Mrs. and Mr. Ho, even when I was nothing more than a stowaway.
