Excerpt from Almond by Sohn Won-pyung, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I went back to the alley. It was still empty—only the red letters on the gray walls disturbed my eyes. After wandering for quite some time, I finally saw a small corner store. I slid open the door and stepped inside.

"Excuse me."

Family Game was on television. The shopkeeper was snickering so hard watching the show that he must not have heard me. The guests in the show were playing a game where one person wearing earplugs had to guess words by watching others mouth them. The word was "trepidation." I have no idea why I still remember the word. I didn't even know what it meant then. One lady kept making wrong guesses and drew laughs from the audience and the shopkeeper. Eventually, time ran out, and her team lost. The shopkeeper smacked his lips, maybe because he felt bad for her.

"Sir," I called to him again.

"Yes?" He finally turned.

"There's someone lying in the alley."

"Really?" he said indifferently and sat up.

On television, both teams were about to play another round of a high-points game that could turn the tide.

"He could die," I said, fiddling with one of the chewy caramel packs neatly lined up on the display stand.

"Is that so?"

"Yes, I'm sure." That was when he finally looked me in the eye.

"Where'd you learn to say such creepy things? Lying is bad, son."

I fell silent for a while, trying to find the words to convince him. But I was too young to have much vocabulary, and I couldn't think of anything else truer than what I had already said.

"He could die soon."

All I could do was repeat myself.

3

I waited for the show to finish while the shopkeeper called the police. When he saw me fiddling with the caramel again, he snapped at me to leave if I wasn't going to buy anything. The police took their time coming to the scene—but all I could think of was the boy lying on the cold ground. He was already dead.

The thing is, he was the shopkeeper's son.

* * *

I sat on a bench at the police station, swinging my legs hovering in the air. They went back and forth, working up a cool breeze. It was already dark, and I felt sleepy. Just as I was about to doze off, the police station door swung open to reveal Mom. She let out a cry when she saw me and stroked my head so hard it hurt. Before she could fully enjoy the moment of our reunion, the door swung wide open again and in came the shopkeeper, his body held up by policemen. He was wailing, his face covered in tears. His expression was quite different from when he had watched TV earlier. He slumped down on his knees, trembling, and punched the ground. Suddenly he got to his feet and yelled, pointing his finger at me. I couldn't exactly understand his rambling, but what I got was something like this:

"You should've said it seriously, now it's too late for my son!"

The policeman next to me shrugged. "What would a kindergartener know," he said, and managed to stop the shopkeeper from sinking to the floor. I couldn't agree with the shopkeeper though. I'd been perfectly serious all along. Never once did I smile or overreact. I couldn't understand why he was scolding me for that, but six-year-old me didn't know the words needed to form this question into a full sentence, so I just stayed silent. Instead, Mom raised her voice for me, turning the police station into a madhouse, with the clamoring of a parent who'd lost his child and a parent who'd found hers.

That night, I played with toy blocks as I always did. They were in the shape of a giraffe and could be changed into an elephant if I twisted down its long neck. I felt Mom staring at me, her eyes scanning every part of my body.

"Weren't you scared?" she asked.

"No," I said.

* * *

Rumors about that incident—specifically, how I didn't even blink at the sight of someone being beaten to death—spread quickly. From then on, Mom's fears became a reality one after another.

Excerpted from Almond by Sohn Won-pyung. Copyright © 2020 by Sohn Won-pyung. Excerpted by permission of Harper Via. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.