Fox Girl Read Online Free

open wider.
    Duk Hee closed her eyes. “Always water. Rain. Rivers. Puddles, cloudy and full of tadpoles. Waterfalls. The hot springs at Tongnae-gu that bubble with the smells of yellow.” Her eyes snapped open and she grinned. “I wet my bed until I was almost your age! Drove my mother crazy until the dreams finally stopped.
    â€œThen when I became pregnant with Ho Sook, I started dreaming about water again. But this time, it was always the same body of water: Chonji.” She frowned at me. “You know Chonji? The Lake of Heaven at Paekdu-san?”
    I nodded, unsure. “The Paekdu Mountain in the north?” My father had told me that Paekdu Mountain was the place where the Prince of Heaven was lured to earth by the bear woman; they mated on the slopes overlooking the lake and their children became the people of Korea.
    Sookie’s mother picked up the soggy hot dog and tapped me on the hand like a good student. “Good!” she said. “When I first started dreaming my Chonji dreams, I had to hike the steep cliffs of Paekdu-san. I traveled paths where I had to hug the mountain’s white face, my feet shuffling bit by bit along icy narrow ledges. Only after falling to my death once, twice, three times was I able to look down and see—between the forest trees and mist—the Lake of Heaven below me.
    â€œEach dream brought me closer and closer to the lake, till finally one night I stood at the edge, its waves lapping at my toes. When I looked into the water, I saw, just under my own reflection, a flash—a small movement made by a water spirit. I jumped in after her and as soon as the water closed over my head, I awoke to my own rush of water: my water bag had burst.
    â€œFirst I thought I was a girl again, that I had once more messed my bed in the night. But before I could call out to my mother in shame, waves of pain hit and I knew I was giving birth to the water spirit in my dreams.”
    Sookie returned with a bowl full of peeled and sliced apples and pears, her face looking blank. I could tell she didn’t want to hear anything else from her mother, but her mother added: “That is why I named her Ho Sook, Clear Lake. When I held her in my arms, I could see my own reflection just under her skin.” Duk Hee grabbed at Sookie’s hands, jostling the fruit bowl, but Sookie snorted and dodged away.
    I cleared my throat and asked, “What’s going to happen to that last jajie dog?”
    â€œThis?” Duk Hee waved the hot dog at me. I tried not to drool. “I want to teach you something.” She waited until Sookie settled into her chair at the table, then held her empty hand to me. “Pass me the kondom, ” she said.
    Wrinkling my nose, I pinched the slimy ring and dropped it in her palm. The tips of my fingers felt greasy where I had touched the rubber so I rinsed my fingers in my beer as I had seen Sookie’s mother do.
    â€œI learned this at the clinic when I was about your age,” she said. She frowned, looking first at the hot dog, then at the kondom as if trying to puzzle out a knot. Then, drawing her knees to her chest, she gripped the jajie dog between her knees. With a grin, she flourished the rubber disk as if about to perform a magic trick and placed it on top of the hot dog. “Pinch the end,” she instructed. “And smooth it down.” The kondom slipped over the meat like the pantyhose she wore to the clubs. “There,” she said, dropping her knees and holding the covered hot dog vertically on the table. “Protection.”
    It looked like a small red soldier standing at attention in his coat and hat. I tried to hide a giggle behind my hand, but when Sookie raised her eyebrows at me, I laughed with mouth open wide. “It looks like it’s going to war,” I sputtered.
    Sookie’s mother chuckled. “It is a war,” she said, wiggling the tube of meat like a marching soldier.
    I