The Beloved Daughter by Alana Terry

surprised when two prison officers came running down the hallway.
    “What is it?” the senior guard demanded.
    “She’s sick,” I replied. “She needs water.” The first guard nodded his head slightly, sending his younger comrade scurrying down the corridor.
    “How long has she been like this?” the guard demanded, clasping the bar to our cell door. His forearm muscles bulged underneath his uniform.
    “She said she was tired last night,” I related, “and she was like this when she woke up this morning.”
    The younger guard returned and unlocked the cell door to hand me a small tin cup full of water. I carried it over and sat down on the floor next to the Old Woman. I propped her head up on my lap and held the cup as she sipped at it. Water dribbled down her chin onto my leg.
    “Thank you.” The Old Woman sighed as I felt her moist forehead again.
    I looked toward the guards, who continued to hover by the door. “I think she went back to sleep,” I reported.
    “Then that is all we can do for now,” said the senior guard. “We will keep water here for you to give her. If she needs anything else, you must let us know.”
    An hour later, I was trying to pray when I heard the Old Woman. “My son,” she spoke. The words were slurred. Her eyes were still closed. “My son,” the Old Woman repeated, her body rocking slowly from side to side. “How does a good tree bear such fruit?”
    “Grandmother?” I whispered.
    “The sheep wears wolf clothes,” the Old Woman mumbled. Drool dripped from the corner of her mouth. “My son … a black sheep … not a wolf …”
    I forced myself to sit by her side, but it sent tremors through my backbone to see the Old Woman, who had been a constant pillar of strength and refuge, reduced to such a delirious state.
    The Old Woman muttered incoherently for several hours. Eventually, a third guard appeared and handed me an extra blanket and mug of hot tea. I took the gifts in terrified silence. My only friend was hovering at the threshold of death.
    There would be no miracle worker to save her.

 
     
     
    PART THREE
     
    North Hamyong Province
    North Korea
     

 
     
     
    Furnace
     
    “We went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance.” Psalm 66:12
     

     
    “Hurry up, filthy prisoners!” the guard shouted at us. The Old Woman had been dead for eight months. Two months after her death I was released unexpectedly from underground detainment, but my eyes still stung in bright lights. The agent’s whip flicked against the back of my prison uniform and grazed my skin. The young girl at my side grabbed my arm.
    “I can’t go in there!” She cried out as the flames lurched toward us. She was only a teenager, no older than I was when I first went to work in the garment factory. The guard’s whip snapped through the air a second time and landed on the girl’s back. She fell to her knees with a sob.
    “Stand up,” I urged, dragging the prisoner by her elbow. Together, we shielded our faces with our arms and entered the blazing building.
    “We’re going to die!” the girl yelled.
    “No,” I assured her, “we’ll be fine. That guard’s not coming in here. He won’t hurt you anymore.” As I stared at the leaping flames before us, I knew that it wasn’t the guard the girl was afraid of.
    “Hurry!” I called to her, shouting in order to be heard over the roaring blaze. Dozens of prisoners from the garment factory were dispatched with us to put out the flames in the train depot by Camp 22’s Chungbong mine. Eventually, the guards realized it was hopeless to save the building, so they ordered those of us still alive to enter the burning station to salvage the most important documents. I held the young girl’s arm and looked around for the metal file cabinets that contained the bills of sale, shipping orders, and production records that were more valuable to the National Security Agency than the lives of us prisoners.
    The smoke