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I sighed, casting my gaze around my room despondently. It could wait.
As I cuddled up in bed, drowning in the misery Cole had caused, I grabbed the thickest book from my shelf:The Supernatural Town of Old Corvine, one written about my hometown. I’d read it so many times that now the pages were wrinkled, and the spine was cracked, but none of those stopped me from opening it again, hoping to take comfort from the familiar passages:
In the early 1700s, Sir Tobias Ramsbury founded Old Corvine, which was once a deserted island off the coast of Santa Barbara County. His wealth was unimaginable. While he neither hid nor flaunted it, many assumed he used his money to free the slaves he took home with him. As a result of his generosity, they praised him. That is, until people began to go missing.
And others became monsters.
Specifically, werewolves.
Ramsbury was blamed for the atrocity, but he didn’t care. He was a self-proclaimed god who went by several names: Freer of Slaves; Father of Werewolves; and King of the Supernatural. He’d slaughtered every slave owner he could find from around the world and hand-selected their serfs—those that would become part of his pack and those that would become dinner.
And those who dared retaliate? Their heads ended up on the road.
My mom grew up in Korea and thought the book and myths within it were a way to increase tourism and turn a profit. I, like most of the townspeople, believed in the supernatural. It didn’t matter if I’d seen a magical creature or not. I firmly believed in the origin story of the one and only Tobias Ramsbury, even though he supposedly disappeared without a trace and made the book feel like unfinished business.
A lot of things have changed since the twenty-first century rolled around. Lycanthropes, vampires, demons, witches, and other mysterious beingsmost likelystill lived among us in secret. But this century also brought with it hunters, tourists, and people like me who could only fantasize about meeting the supernatural.
The rest were like my mom.
“Not that nonsense again,”I could hear her voice echoing in my head. It was something she used to say so often as she’d ruffle her deep burgundy hair, grunting her disapproval and adding,“you better stop reading about those supernatural whatever creatures or else you’ll scare Cole away,”as ifto rub salt into my wounds.I was always so good at trying her patience, but she wasn’t wrong. I wanted so badly to snag my own supernatural man, like Chul-soo from the Korean movieA Werewolf Boy,that I ended up ignoring Cole’s broody attitude and emotional distance.
For the sake of my sanity, I put the book away and snuggled back into my pillows, getting just a bit too cozy before the life-changing realization hit me: I, Aera Song, a girl who simply wanted to fall in love and be loved … would, in all likelihood, end up forever alone. A tragedy, indeed.
With winter break coming to an end, so was my time as Rapunzel. I could no longer remain locked away in a room with my books and my rapidly growing armpit hair.
Despite my sore throat and weary heart, four days later, at approximately twelve midnight on the first day of January, I celebrated the New Year and my birthday in the dim light of our kitchen. The fireworks in the streets went off, and my mom puffed into her noisemaker as I blew out all seventeen candles on my Tres Leches cake.
The modest celebration didn’t hinder our fun. I refused to be brought low as I mentally prepared to go back to school in a few days with pride as high as the tide in the Bay of Fundy, unbothered by being single or the fact that Cole never texted to wish me a happy birthday. I had my mom’s support, my favorite cake, the free fireworks, and a few gifts from relatives I’d never met.
“Eomma, can we light our own fireworks in the backyard?” I asked.
“Of course, honey. But you have to finish your dessert first,” she said.
I grabbed a bite of the cake—
Ouch, my head!
The fork slipped from my hand as I grasped at my throbbing head. It felt as if my brain was being pulled apart. Each pulse of pain brought into focus the image of an old man in a jumper, standing by a hive as he swatted at his body. I could even smell the trees and feel the bees vibrating against my own skin as they stung him.
It happened so fast. But as soon as I felt my mom’s hand on my shoulder, I recovered and found myself back in the kitchen, skin still intact and flawless.
What the hell was that?
“Honey, are you okay?” she asked.
“Just a headache,” I replied.
Convinced it was a side effect of too many days alone in my room, I pretended like nothing happened. I slunk to my room instead, confused at the pain still ricocheting around my skull. For a few minutes before drifting off to sleep, I stared awake at the ceiling with blood rushing to my ears, afraid the visions would come back.
I woke up the next morning, still groggy as I grabbed my phone and scrolled through Instagram reels—when something caught my attention: a video of a woman talking about her uncle who was just found dead. After rambling about how much she regretted letting him go hunting in the woods surrounding her house, she picked up a photograph and showed it to her audience.
I gasped, jolting up with my heart pounding as the fear from last night resurfaced. I recognized that man in the picture—he got stung by bees in my vision! Now, he was dead, his body severely swollen like a pale red balloon filled with fluid waiting to pop out. God, that made me feel nauseous.
And it all started with the cake.
I panicked and leaped from the bed, almost tripping and kissing the ground. Assuming a witch had cursed the cake, I scraped it all into the garbage before taking the entire bag out to the dumpster.
Of course, nothing changed.
