As if she had never existed.

Chapter 1

The water was warm, but not from the sun.

The sun never warmed the waters of the West Korean Bay. Summer or winter, it was always the same. Cold. Like the emptiest heart or the farthest point in the bleak night sky.

But that one spot, way out in the middle of the bay-only as wide across as a man's arms could stretch-was warm. And though cold waves lapped all around, it remained warm within. No one knew why.

It was a new occurrence. Everyone was certain of that. The village of Sinanju had been founded on that barren shore more than five thousand years before. In all that time there was no record, written or oral, to indicate that the warm spot in the water had been there at any time in history.

It was dark, too. Like blood.

The spot had been warm for more than a year. Even though Sinanju would have been dismissed by most as a typical rural Korean fishing village, few fishermen actually lived there. Those who fished were mostly old men who kept up the tradition, coming to it later in life.

The healthy young men who should have been fishermen-would have been if Sinanju were like any other poverty-stricken village on the inhospitable coast of North Korea-did not toil in boats with nets until their hands became tired knots of arthritic bone. They sat in the village, fat and lazy, living off the sweat of another man's brow. Some day, when they grew old, some of them would take to fishing out of boredom, out of some need to connect to their past.

But for now, the young were young, the old were old and it was the old who fished. Sometimes. When the men who fished first found the warm spot in the water, they tried to cast their nets in it. Maybe it was a gift from the gods. Maybe that warm spot was put there to draw in the fish, for in truth the fishing in the bay was generally poor and the catch was always meager.

The nets came up empty.