A Spoonful of Spice

By Beka Gremikova

“I’m going to be eaten!”

A frenzied shoulder shake jolted me from sleep. I sat up suddenly, wincing as the baby in my belly gave a swift, protesting kick. My niece, Cha-mi, stared at me with wide eyes.

“Eaten?” I sputtered. “What are you talking about?”

Her eyes welled. “I put too much goijijang in the offering!”

I sucked in a deep breath. Steady. Lower your voice. “What were you doing making the offering?” As a priest’s wife, it was my duty to cook the daily shrine offerings. Gojijia, our house spirit, had enjoyed the same meal at the same time every day for centuries. “You were supposed to wake me as usual!”

Cha-mi stared at her feet. “You’re so tired all the time now. I thought I could make it for you…”

I rubbed my eyes. “Did you follow the recipe at least?”

Her voice wobbled. “I didn’t look at the recipe.”

I flopped backward onto my pillow. “Why not?” I moaned. Recipes were ancestral gifts meant to bestow wisdom upon naïve, bumbling descendants.

Cha-mi crawled onto the bed, snuggling into my side. “You never use a recipe.”

I caressed her head. “Oh, jok-sa, I’ve been cooking the shrine offerings for years. I know them all by heart.”

She burrowed her head against my shoulder. “Do you think he’ll use a spoon to eat me? Or—”

“He’s not going to eat you!”

“He tossed su-Seok into a well,” she pointed out.

“Your uncle Seok spat on a shrine. He deserved it.” I realized that didn’t sound comforting. “Besides, it might not be that bad. Bring me some of what you made.” Though I couldn’t eat from the portion intended for Gojijia, I could partake of what remained in the pot.

Cha-mi ran out of the room and returned carrying cups filled with a night-blue broth bobbing with vegetables, noodles, and beef, and a plate of dark bread spread with swirls of thick sour cream. If she had prepared it correctly, the goijijang would offer only a hint of spice after the swallow.

I dipped the proffered spoon into the soup. As I lifted it to my lips, Cha-mi touched my arm. “It’ll hurt,” she whispered.

I hummed noncommittally and took a sip.

Blazing phoenix flames of reincarnation! I clapped a hand over my mouth to keep from spewing broth everywhere. All I could taste was stinging heat. My tongue blistered, and the roof of my mouth seemed to shrivel. I burst out coughing, and Cha-mi hurried to fetch me a cup of milk. I chugged it down, the creamy sweetness soothing the blistering ache. I snatched the bread smeared with sour cream and gnawed on that, too. Its earthy tang smothered the rest of the spiciness, and I gave a relieved sigh.

“It’s awful!” Cha-mi wailed.

I patted her back as she sobbed.

What was I supposed to do? Offerings took hours to prepare—there was no time to cook another one. But how could we send this to Gojijia? Spirits were testy, emotional creatures, and our family history was rife with various conflicts. Food usually brought some semblance of peace, not disruption.

Then again, no eight-year old had ever gone freestyle with the shrine offerings.

My mind raced. Leaving Cha-mi weeping on my bed, I waddled out to the kitchens to consult with my husband, Ji-Su, as he prepared to take the offering to the temple. “Which is worse?” I asked him. “Spirit-scorching spice or sending nothing?”

Ji-Su groaned. “What happened, Min-Jee?”

“Cha-mi got inventive with the spices.”

“I told her abstract art doesn’t belong in the kitchen,” he muttered, shaking his head. “I must bring something.”

I handed him a cup of milk. “Good luck.”

“Don’t squeeze my hand so tight.” I tried to wriggle my fingers from Cha-mi’s grasp. She tightened her grip as we toured the shrine’s sprawling labyrinthine gardens in my daily attempt to coax my body into labor. Intent on meditation, spirits passed by in their flickering, incorporeal forms and let us be.

“Gojijia didn’t say anything to su-Ji-Su?” Cha-mi asked again for the fifteenth time.

“I’ve told you before, the priests don’t wait for the spirits to appear once they’ve offered the food.” Ji-Su certainly wouldn’t break that tradition now. Over a week had passed since the fateful offering, and we waited in dread for Gojijia’s well-planned revenge. He’d taken months before tossing Seok into the well.

A spirit approached, and Cha-mi kept me between her and its wavering form. “Go ahead, use me as a shield,” I grumbled. I nodded respectfully to the spirit, expecting it to ignore us.

But this one lingered, its form solidifying to reveal a hideous, goblin-like face.

I bit back a curse. Cha-mi squeaked and huddled against my side, clutching my robes.

Gojijia had found us.

“Cha-mi of Gojijia.” Our house spirit pressed a clawed hand against his robed chest in greeting.

“Don’t eat me!” Cha-mi wailed.

His thick, blood-red lips curled. “I haven’t eaten humans in millennia.”

Cha-mi gaped at his long, shining fangs.

“He’s only joking!” I whispered in her ear, though his raspy laugh wasn’t reassuring.

Gojijia knelt to look Cha-mi in the eye. She gulped. I resisted the dangerous urge to hurry her away from his sneering smile.

“Thank you,” Gojijia said.

“What?” I squawked, then gripped my stomach as Gojijia turned a bulging, spice-red eye on me.

“Why do you think I’ve been so grumpy all these years?” he grumbled. “I’ve had the same boring offerings for centuries.”

“But—you always ate them,” I stammered.

“I’m a foodie!” he hissed. “We eat anything! I couldn’t even complain because apparently it’s rude to insult an offering given with good intentions.” He rolled his eyes and turned to Cha-mi. “Thank you for bringing spice into my life.” As he continued his lumbering stroll, he called back, “Goijijang was named after me. Be generous with it.”

The next offering I prepared, I put in enough goijijang to make a dragon’s eyes water.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Beka Gremikova lives, writes, and dreams from the Ottawa Valley, Ontario, Canada. She loves travelling, wolves, folklore and myth, and both reading and writing fiction that matches her eclectic tastes. Her story “Nothing More Than Death” was published in the A Kind of Death anthology from Uncommon Universes Press, and she has multiple stories published with Havok. Currently, she is working on an anthology of fairy tale retellings that includes both poetry and short stories.

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