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Rumi didn't dream often. She never had. All her life, sleep, when it came, was just a vast nothingness.
But that all changed when she got pregnant.
Looking back it was one of the earliest signs. She woke with a start, three weeks after the midwife had administered the IUI in the bedroom she shared with Mira. From a dream.
It was something mundane. It slipped through the fingers of her memory as quickly as it had arrived. But the feeling didn't leave her. It lingered all day.
When the pregnancy test showed positive the following morning—and Mira almost fainted—Rumi began to suspect that it was the life growing inside her that had summoned the dreams. They became quite regular after that. It disturbed her sleep at first. When she mentioned it to her doctor, she said it was "not uncommon in the first trimester."
Mira just asked if there was anything she could do to help. She'd hold her and run her fingers through her hair when she would wake up in the middle of the night. Kiss away her tears when the images turned dark or frightening.
As her pregnancy progressed, she became better at remembering the dreams. They were often rich and complex, full of strange animals and plants. Things that felt oddly familiar when dreaming and profoundly unusual when awake. Jewels in river beds, purple tigers, and strange colourful fruit hanging from tall trees.
"Perhaps it's taemong," Celine said one day over tea. "It's an old wives tale, certainly, but things like that often have some kernel of truth."
A "birth dream." They were meant to tell you about the child you would soon meet. A boy or a girl, brash or gentle, clever or strong.
"It's gonna be a girl," Mira said, apropos of nothing one morning as she sliced fruit for Rumi's breakfast. "You keep dreaming about jewels. That's a classic sign."
Rumi couldn't help the smile that curled her lips. "You believe in taemong?"
Mira scoffed. "Is that so hard to imagine?"
"The woman who wouldn't believe demons existed until Celine summoned one in front of your face?"
Mira shook her head. "I was just a kid. I respect tradition now."
"Uh huh."
Mira standing in the kitchen with her hair up in a bun, a ratty old HUNTR/X shirt sliding down her shoulder, and a pair of boxer shorts around her hips was certainly the picture of tradition. Rumi stood and wrapped her arms around her from behind, kissing the back of her neck.
"My traditional wife," she whispered, making Mira shiver.
"Go sit down and wait for your traditional breakfast," Mira gently chided.
Rumi kissed her again and did as she asked, sitting at the table, reading about taemong symbolism on her phone. Maybe they were birth dreams. Who was she to argue with tradition?
But as her pregnancy progressed, the dreams changed. They became longer. They began to feel like a place that Rumi could control.
She began to hear a voice. It was difficult to understand at first, hard to discern, like an echo or a sound heard under water. She listened closely.
Over time she began to understand. It was a child's voice. Sometimes laughing, other times crying. It was weeks before she finally caught a glimpse of the child—a little girl.
Purple patterns on her skin.
The first time she saw her she woke up gasping for air, as if she'd been holding her breath. Mira thrashed awake as well, panicked. She made Rumi stay awake and drink tea and sit with her until she felt her "oxygenation levels had returned to normal."
Mira fancied herself nothing short of a medical professional in the latter half of Rumi's pregnancy.
But even she couldn't explain why, on the following evening, Rumi realized the girl she was seeing in her dreams was… Her. As a lonely child in Jeju, playing make believe on the farm. Pretending lots of things.
Pretending her mother was alive.
Pretending she had more friends that she could count.
Pretending that her patterns were special and beautiful and something that everyone would want.
At first, Rumi wasn't sure that the little girl could see her. But after a while, she realized she could. She was watching her, warily. The first time they spoke, the little girl asked:
"Are you a demon?"
Rumi thought for a moment. "No. My father was a demon. I don't think I am, though."
The girl stared at her. "Are you… Me?"
Rumi hesitated. "Um. Yes. I believe I am."
Putting down her stuffed toy, the little girl approached Rumi. "You're a grown up," she said.
"I am."
The little one took her arm and looked at it closely, grabbing her roughly. Rumi would've stopped her, but she supposed it was the little girl's body too. "You still have patterns," she said, her expression transforming into a frown.
"I do," Rumi admitted.
"You didn't… We never got rid of them?"
"No. We tried for a long time. But we never did."
The little girl's frown deepened. "Why not?"
"Hmm. I realized there was a better way to help myself."
The little girl's head cocked to the side. "Like what?"
"Like… Being honest. Accepting myself."
"What is… Accepting?"
Rumi smiled. She took the little girl's hands in her own. "It's like… Loving somebody without wanting to make them different."
"Oh." The little girl looked down at their joined hands. "You have somebody who does that?"
Taking a deep breath, Rumi gave the little one's hands a gentle squeeze. "I have a lot of people who do that."
"Even… Even with your, um." The girl's eyes fell to the purple marks on her arms.
"Yes. Even with the patterns. I have a lot of wonderful people in my life. I have a best friend. I have Celine. I have my wife."
Eyes wide, the little girl appeared startled. "You have a… Wife?"
Rumi nodded. "I do."
"I didn't know girls can have a wife."
"They can. And we do." Rumi drew her thumbs over the backs of the little girl's hands. "And soon I'll have a baby."
The girl's eyes grew wider still. "A baby?"
"Uh huh. You can feel, if you want."
Watching Rumi's face with uncertainty, the little girl put one hand on Rumi's stomach. As if sensing the young girl's presence, Rumi's baby stirred, moving beneath the surface of her skin. "I can feel it!" She cried, delighted.
Rumi and the little girl talked for what felt like hours. Eventually, the girl became distracted, glancing over her shoulder. Whatever was there, Rumi couldn't see. But it pulled the girl's attention away again and again.
"Do you need to go?" Rumi asked gently.
The girl hesitated, looking between Rumi and the spot in the distance. "Someone's calling me."
"That's alright. We can talk another time."
Bunching up the legs of her pants with her small hands, the little one looked conflicted. "Are you sure?"
"I'll be here," Rumi said, before pulling her into a hug. "Go on now. Go and play."
As she walked away, the little girl looked back several times, pausing and catching Rumi's eye. The final time she gave a wave before disappearing over the top of the hill.
When Rumi woke up in her own soft bed, Mira sleeping soundly beside her, she felt a rush of gratitude. Remembering the scared little girl who believed that everything about her would have to change for her to be loved made Rumi painfully aware of just how long of a journey she'd been forced to make. Snuggling close to Mira, looping an arm around her waist, she drifted off again.
Rumi never had another taemong after that night. When the baby arrived a few months later—a girl, much to Mira's delight—Rumi knew without a shadow of a doubt that she would always, always be loved.