“Elena, I’m not going to marry you.”
Adrian’s voice was not loud, but every word reached Elena clearly.
She stood beside the stone wall at the edge of the village, still holding the red apple she had wanted to give him.
The smile slowly disappeared from her face.
For a moment, she did not seem to understand what he meant.
She simply stared at Adrian in confusion.
After a long while, she lowered her eyes to the apple in her hand, then looked up at him again.
“Why?”
Her voice was very quiet.
Adrian did not answer immediately.
Not far away, the young men returning from the fields had stopped laughing as well.
They often joked about the engagement between Adrian and Elena.
Elena rarely understood when people were making fun of her, so no one had ever thought much of it.
But they had not expected Adrian to reject her so directly in front of everyone.
Adrian noticed the sudden silence around them.
Still, now that he had finally said it, he had no intention of pretending everything was fine as he had done before.
“Because that engagement was arranged when we were children.”
He looked at Elena and tried to keep his voice calm.
“We didn’t understand anything back then.
No one ever asked whether I wanted it either.
We’re older now, and I don’t want to marry someone I don’t love.”
Elena listened quietly.
She might not have understood everything Adrian was trying to tell her, but she understood the simplest part.
He didn’t like her.
Elena lowered her head.
Her plump fingers rubbed absently against the smooth skin of the apple.
“But Mama said we’re going to get married…”
“That was before.”
Adrian interrupted her.
He was silent for a moment before continuing.
“I might go to the city to study someday.
I might not even stay in Oakridge forever.
There are things I want to do with my life, so I’m going to talk to my parents about ending the engagement.”
Elena said nothing.
Seeing her standing there with her head lowered made Adrian slightly uncomfortable.
He had not meant to hurt her.
But this engagement had followed him for years.
Whether he was in the village or happened to meet someone who knew about the arrangement between their families, there was always someone ready to joke about it.
When he was younger, he could pretend not to hear them.
But he was seventeen now.
Before long, he would have to make real decisions about his future.
He did not want an engagement he had never agreed to deciding the rest of his life for him.
The two stood in silence for a while.
Eventually, Adrian looked away first.
“Weren’t you taking lunch to your family?”
Elena blinked.
“Lunch…”
Only then did she remember why she had left home in the first place.
She quickly turned toward the wicker basket resting on top of the stone wall.
She had already been gone for quite some time.
If she waited much longer, her father and the others really would go hungry.
Elena hurriedly placed the apple back into the basket and picked it up again.
This time, however, she was no longer as cheerful as she had been when she first saw Adrian.
With her head lowered, she walked past him.
After taking a few steps, she suddenly stopped.
Adrian thought she still had something to say and turned toward her.
Instead, Elena stood there thinking seriously for a moment before asking,
“After the old oak tree…
do I turn right?”
Adrian stared at her.
“What?”
“Mama said I have to turn right after I see the old oak tree.” Elena frowned, troubled.
“But I forgot.”
Adrian looked at her in silence for a few seconds.
Then he raised his hand and pointed east.
“Right.
Follow that stone wall all the way to the end.
You’ll see the wheat fields from there.”
Elena looked in the direction he was pointing.
Once she was sure she remembered it, she nodded.
“Oh.”
Then she hugged the basket against herself and continued down the road.
Adrian remained where he was, watching her slowly follow the stone wall.
Her round figure soon disappeared around the bend.
Only then did he look away and continue toward the village with his schoolbag over his shoulder.
The young men nearby exchanged glances.
This time, no one made another joke about the engagement.
Adrian ignored them as well.
As far as he was concerned, he had simply said something that should have been made clear a long time ago.
At the time, he gave little thought to what might happen afterward.
…
Elena eventually found the Miller family’s wheat field.
By the time she arrived with the wicker basket in her arms, her family had already been waiting beneath the shade of a tree for a while.
Her father, Thomas, spotted her approaching from a distance.
The worry on his face immediately eased.
“What took you so long?
Did you get lost?”
Elena shook her head.
“No.”
She did not mention meeting Adrian at the edge of the village.
Instead, she handed the basket to her father and quietly sat down nearby.
She took the portion of bread her mother had packed for her and slowly began to eat.
Both apples were still inside the basket.
She never touched the redder one.
After lunch, Elena did not return home immediately.
She stayed in the field to help.
Given her condition, Thomas would never allow her to use a sickle, nor would he give her anything too heavy to carry.
Instead, he handed her a small basket and told her to follow behind the others, picking up any heads of wheat that had been left on the ground.
It was a simple task, and Elena took it seriously.
She slowly made her way across the harvested field, bending down whenever she spotted a fallen head of wheat and carefully placing it into her basket.
Whenever she noticed one farther away, she would even go out of her way to pick it up.
The hours passed quietly as everyone worked.
By afternoon, however, the weather began to change.
Large clouds had gathered across what had been a fairly clear sky, and the wind was growing stronger.
Waves rolled through the golden wheat fields as the stalks bent beneath the wind.
Before long, the air carried the damp smell of approaching rain.
Someone in the field looked up at the sky.
His expression changed immediately.
“It’s going to rain!”
The moment the warning was shouted, everyone began working faster.
Heavy rain during harvest was something every farmer feared.
Once the cut wheat became soaked, it was difficult to store.
If it stayed damp for too long, it could even begin to rot.
No one had time to rest.
People hurried to load the tied bundles of wheat onto the wagons.
The Miller family was no exception.
Thomas lifted a bundle onto the wagon.
When he turned around, he noticed Elena still standing near the edge of the field.
Knowing that she walked more slowly than everyone else, he waved her over.
“Elena, you should go home first.”
Elena looked up from the small basket filled with loose wheat.
“Go home?”
“Yes.
We’ll come back once we’ve finished loading everything.
Follow the same road you took earlier and go straight home.
Don’t wander anywhere else.”
Thomas paused, still not entirely reassured.
“Take your time on the road, and go directly home.
Understand?”
Elena nodded.
“I understand.”
She left the basket of wheat at the field and picked up the now-empty lunch basket before starting back toward the village.
The wind had grown even stronger.
She had barely left the wheat fields when large drops of rain began to fall.
One landed directly on her cheek.
Elena wiped it away and looked up at the darkening sky.
Her steps became a little faster.
She remembered the way home.
Follow the stone wall.
Pass the old mill.
Then continue toward the village.
This time, she did not get lost.
But when she reached the area near the old mill, the sound of frantic hoofbeats suddenly came from behind her.
At first, they were still some distance away.
Then they grew louder.
Fast.
Too fast.
A panicked shout cut through the wind and rain.
“Move!
Get out of the way!”
Elena turned around instinctively.
A brown draft horse was charging down the road, pulling a wagon piled high with bundles of wheat.
Something had clearly frightened the animal.
It was completely out of control.
The driver pulled desperately on the reins, his body jerking with every violent movement of the wagon, but he could not stop the horse.
“Get out of the way!”
The man shouted again.
Elena finally reacted.
She hurried toward the side of the road.
In her panic, she failed to notice that the rain had already turned the ground beside the road slick with mud.
Her first step was steady.
Her second slipped slightly.
When she tried to take another hurried step backward, there was suddenly nothing beneath her foot.
Elena lost her balance.
She instinctively reached for the stone wall, but her fingers only scraped across its wet surface.
Then her round body tumbled down the slope beside the road.
The wicker basket flew from her hands and landed in the grass.
Elena rolled over stones and low bushes until the side of her head struck a protruding rock.
A sharp crack sounded.
Pain exploded through her head.
She did not even have time to cry out.
Her vision went black.
Just before she lost consciousness, she vaguely heard the driver’s panicked voice from above.
“Someone fell down the slope!”
“Help!
Someone come help!”
The rain grew heavier.
The voices seemed to drift farther and farther away.
Then there was nothing.
…
At almost the exact same moment, another world was caught in a violent storm.
A helicopter struggled through thick black clouds, shaking violently in the turbulent air.
Warning alarms screamed throughout the cabin.
Elena sat inside, one hand gripping the support beside her seat.
This was supposed to be the final mission of her career as an agent.
The mission itself was already complete.
All she had to do was return to base, finish the final handover, and walk away from the dangerous life she had lived for years.
No one had expected the weather to turn this bad on the return flight.
“We’re still losing altitude!”
A shout came from the cockpit.
The helicopter suddenly tilted hard to one side.
A metal case slammed into the cabin wall with a deafening crash.
Elena raised an arm to shield herself from the loose objects flying through the cabin.
Then, from the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of green.
She froze.
The light was coming from the protective case nearby.
Inside it was the ancient painting they had been assigned to transport during this mission.
The painting, which had remained completely still throughout the journey, was glowing.
A strange green light slowly emerged from somewhere deep within the image.
“What the…”
Elena never finished the sentence.
The green light suddenly burst through the protective case and shot straight toward her.
There was no time to dodge.
It entered her body in an instant.
At the same moment, the helicopter completely lost control.
A violent impact followed.
Elena’s vision went black.
Every sound disappeared at once.
…
She had no idea how much time had passed.
Pain slowly pulled Elena out of the darkness.
Her hearing returned first.
Leaves rustled somewhere outside the window.
A few chickens could be heard in the distance.
There were no waves.
No alarms.
No voices from a rescue team.
Elena frowned as her thoughts gradually cleared.
A dull, throbbing pain came from the side of her head.
The rest of her body felt as though she had been thrown down a flight of stairs.
Her shoulders, arms, and waist all ached.
Slowly, she opened her eyes.
Her blurred vision gradually came into focus.
The first thing she saw was not the white ceiling of a hospital.
Nor was it the twisted wreckage of the helicopter.
Several thick, dark wooden beams stretched across the ceiling above her.
Sunlight entered through a small window on the right and fell across a gray-brown stone wall.
Elena stared at the ceiling for several seconds.
Where was she?
She did not try to sit up immediately.
Ignoring the pain in her head, she slowly looked around the room.
It was small.
The walls were built from uneven stones, with yellowed mortar filling the gaps between them.
Several thick wooden beams supported the roof, and bundles of dried herbs hung from one of them.
An old wooden cabinet stood against the wall.
Near the window was a small table holding an earthenware jug, a cup, and half a bowl of cold medicine.
Beside them sat an unlit oil lamp.
Elena’s eyes remained on the lamp.
Something was wrong.
She had visited remote places during her years in the field, including villages far poorer than this one.
But this was different.
There were no electric lights.
No outlets.
No modern equipment of any kind.
Even the glass in the window was uneven, clearly handmade.
If the helicopter had crashed and someone had somehow rescued her, why would she have been brought to a place like this?
The questions only grew.
Elena placed one hand against the bed and tried to sit up.
A sharp pain immediately stabbed through her temple.
“Hiss…”
She instinctively reached toward the injury.
Her fingertips touched a strip of cloth wrapped around her head.
Then she stopped.
Elena slowly lowered her eyes.
She stared at her hand.
Her expression changed.
No.
This wasn’t her hand.
The palm was much fuller than her own had been.
The back of the hand was soft and fleshy, and the fingers were round.
She turned it over.
The thin calluses she had developed from years of training and handling weapons were gone.
A ridiculous thought entered her mind.
Elena immediately pulled back the blanket.
The body beneath it was completely unfamiliar.
Even through the loose white linen nightgown, it was obvious that this body was much heavier than the one she remembered.
She sat there silently for a moment.
Then she slowly raised both hands to her face.
Her brow felt different.
Her nose was different.
Even her cheeks were far rounder than they should have been.
This was not her body.
Elena sat completely still.
Her mind, however, was already racing through every possible explanation.
If only the room had been unfamiliar, she could have assumed that someone had rescued her and taken her somewhere remote.
But there was no reasonable explanation for waking up in someone else’s body.
Before she could think any further, a violent pain suddenly tore through her head.
Elena let out a muffled groan and pressed a hand to her forehead.
Then images that did not belong to her flooded into her mind.
A gray stone house.
Golden wheat fields.
A woman patiently brushing her hair.
Fresh bread cooling in the kitchen.
A huge old oak tree at the edge of the village.
And a boy carrying a blue-green schoolbag.
Then one sentence rose clearly from the flood of memories.
Elena, I’m not going to marry you.
More memories followed.
Elena Miller.
Sixteen years old.
Oakridge Village.
The Miller family.
And Adrian Carter, the boy who had been promised to her since childhood.
She saw everything that had happened the previous day.
She saw the original owner of this body standing at the edge of the village with a lunch basket, offering Adrian the apple she had liked too much to eat herself.
She saw Adrian refuse it.
Then she heard him tell her, clearly and directly, that he would never marry her.
Afterward, she had gone to the eastern wheat fields.
On the way home that afternoon, a frightened horse had come charging down the road with a wagon behind it.
She had tried to get out of the way, slipped, and fallen down the rocky slope beside the old mill.
After that, the memories ended.
Elena closed her eyes and endured the waves of pain inside her head.
Only when the flood of unfamiliar memories finally began to settle did she open them again.
This time, she understood.
One Elena had died in a helicopter crash.
The other had fallen down a rocky slope and lost consciousness.
And somehow, when she opened her eyes again, the lives of those two people had become connected in a way she could not explain.
Elena lowered her gaze to her soft, plump hands.
She remained silent for a long time.
It was absurd.
Impossible, even.
But everything around her pointed to the same conclusion.
She was no longer in her own world.
Before she could fully process that fact, hurried footsteps sounded outside the room.
They quickly approached the door.
A moment later, it was pushed open.
A middle-aged woman in a dark dress and worn apron hurried inside.
“Elena!”
The woman’s face had been filled with worry, but the moment she saw Elena awake on the bed, relief and joy appeared in her eyes.
“You’re finally awake!”
Elena looked at her.
Almost immediately, the memories she had just received supplied a name.
Martha Miller.
The mother of this body’s original owner.
And now, in a strange way, her mother as well.
Martha noticed nothing unusual about her daughter’s expression.
She hurried to the bedside and took Elena’s hand.
With her other hand, she pressed her palm against Elena’s forehead.
When she realized the frightening fever from the previous night had finally gone down, she let out a long breath of relief.
“Thank God.
Your fever’s finally gone.”
Then she seemed to remember something and quickly turned toward the stairs.
“Someone go tell Thomas!
Elena’s awake!”
A voice answered from downstairs.
Elena barely noticed.
She looked down at Martha’s hand wrapped tightly around hers, then raised her eyes to the exhausted face of a woman who had clearly spent the entire night worrying about her.
The warmth of her hand was real.
The pain in Elena’s head was real.
So was the breeze coming through the window and the sound of footsteps downstairs.
Only then did Elena finally accept what had happened.
This was not a dream.
No one had rescued her from the Pacific.
From the moment she opened her eyes again, she had another identity.
Elena Miller.
A sixteen-year-old girl from Oakridge Village.
Slow to understand things since childhood.
Overweight.
And engaged to a boy who had absolutely no intention of marrying her.