Renovating the Abandoned House - 1
The White Porcelain Grandmother had once told me.
"Don't you dare let the word 'shaman' so much as cross your lips, my boy. What are shamans, if not folk who divine fortunes through lowly lesser spirits? They'll even use ghosts to work their petty schemes."
No one on this earth understood those words better than I did.
"...I once went through hell because of a wicked shaman, you see."
Blinding headaches. Strange sounds burrowing deep inside my eardrums. I got a full workup at a major hospital, took psychiatric medication—nothing helped.
It was an illness modern medicine couldn't even diagnose. And so, it was one it couldn't cure.
My mother, grasping at superstition in her desperation, went to see a shaman.
"There's a stray spirit attached to him. A woman."
"A virgin ghost is trying to drag your son down to the underworld with her!"
I called it nonsense, but my mother couldn't very well dismiss the shaman's words outright.
The shaman exploited my mother's desperation to the fullest. She held ritual after ritual.
A cleansing rite to comfort and purify the souls of those who had died unjustly, or carrying grudges, and guide them to the afterlife.
A bridal-match rite, because it was a virgin ghost, you see.
Even a binding rite to keep any other spirit from latching on.
Claiming every last one of these rituals was necessary, she fleeced my mother dry.
'And did I get better?'
My dreams only grew more restless.
I was tormented by nightmares of faceless people, their features smeared away like an egg ghost, crowding around me and shrieking something I couldn't make out.
'The rituals themselves invited those stray spirits into my body.'
My spiritual vision hadn't opened back then, so I had no way of knowing that. I simply thought I was going to die from the suffering.
And then, with the money she'd wrung out of my mother, the shaman bought herself a foreign car.
'Even thinking about it now makes my blood boil.'
I took a deep breath and said, "Wicked shamans use stray spirits to wreak all sorts of havoc. If you can't tell a good shaman from a bad one, it's best not to touch that side of things at all. One wrong step, and a stray spirit could latch onto you."
"You're the one who sounds like a shaman, son."
"I'm sorry?"
"Wa-wasn't there just a flash of fire in your eyes?"
The Village Head and Carpenter Jang shuffled back a step or two, mustering exaggeratedly frightened expressions.
"You must be drunk, sir. Then let's call it a night."
I loaded the eel sizzling golden on the wire grill onto a plate.
"Oh, what's this now? I've barely had a few pieces and you're clearing up already?"
"Charcoal this fine, you've got to use it while it's hot!"
I snorted a laugh, looking back and forth between the two old men. "If fire's flashing in my eyes, do you really think I could stomach any eel out of fear?"
"That's that, and this is this."
"Right, right."
Eel really was delicious, in the end.
Spirits, mediums—whatever all that was supposed to mean. The Village Head and Carpenter Jang kept popping oil-dripping, charcoal-grilled eel into their mouths as fast as it browned.
"Ahh, that's the first time in ages my belly's had real grease on it. Haha."
"Your belly's been swimming in grease since long before tonight, hyung-nim."
"Why, you rascal!"
Thrusting light jabs at each other, the Village Head and Carpenter Jang got to clearing up without being asked. Something about earning their supper, apparently.
Carpenter Jang's hands were quick and precise, and the Village Head had a knack for knowing where to put things. Between them, the area in front of the tent was spotless in no time.
The Village Head dusted off his hands and said, "Bring the dishes over to my place tomorrow morning. I'll scrub the grill and the frying pan spotless with steel wool for you."
"Yes, I'll do that."
"You didn't even argue. Haha. That's why I like you, Yoonho, my boy."
Then why is one corner of your mouth twitching, sir?
Still, the Village Head was a man who kept his word once he'd given it. I'd bring all the dirty dishes over tomorrow and ask him to make them shine.
Carpenter Jang, too, seemed satisfied, curling the corners of his mouth upward as he spoke. "My favorite pine nut makgeolli, and a belly stuffed full of eel to boot. Was today my birthday or what? Haha. Yoonho, my boy, I just renovate according to those blueprints your friend drew up, right?"
"Yes. And there's another house that needs to be renovated alongside it."
"Alongside it? Whose house?"
"Grandma Park Mak-soon's."
I gave them a brief account of my meeting with Kim Chang-soo in Seoul—leaving out the part about ordering the cat evil spirit to torment him—and brought the explanation swiftly to its conclusion.
"The court will be appointing me as the grandmother's legal guardian soon."
When I finished, the Village Head could only stand there with his mouth hanging open, words having abandoned him entirely.
A long while later—
"Ar-are you serious?"
Carpenter Jang, suddenly stone-cold sober, strode up to me with a grave face. "Yoonho, my boy. A young, handsome fellow like you ought to be living his own life. Why on earth would you trouble yourself over an old demented grandmother? Don't you have a mother of your own?"
"My mother is alive and well, thank you."
"Then why... why put yourself through all that trouble?"
I mulled it over for a moment before answering. "Because it doesn't feel like trouble."
"Huh? What's that?"
"I don't feel burdened by it, or annoyed, not even a little. I'm going to be living in this village anyway, and Grandma Mak-soon's house isn't far from mine, so I could stop by often, you know?"
"That may be so, but before long she won't be able to control her own—well, her bodily functions."
"That's why I plan to hire someone who can care for her at her side. Any recommendations would be appreciated."
Realizing I had no intention of budging, the two old men couldn't readily open their mouths.
Silence fell once more.
Feeling awkward, I scratched the back of my head. "It's so I can have peace of mind. When I see Grandma Mak-soon living in a clean house, well cared for, I think it will make me happy."
"He's an angel, an angel, I tell you. Village Head, shouldn't we give him some kind of Filial Piety Award or something?"
At Carpenter Jang's question, the Village Head tilted his head. "Er, isn't the Filial Piety Award for daughters-in-law who serve their in-laws well?"
"Oh! Right you are. But we can't exactly give him a Filial Son Award, either..."
"Ah, forget the awards, please. I'm not doing this for a trophy. Just bring plenty of workers tomorrow—we'll be renovating two houses at the same time, after all."
The Village Head and Carpenter Jang exchanged thoughtful looks, then spoke in turn.
"Don't you worry about Grandma Mak-soon—we'll set her up in the community hall during the day, and she'll spend the whole day playing Go-Stop to her heart's content. You can take your time finding a caretaker."
"Just tell me where that grandmother's house is. I'll fix it up so the old woman can live alone in comfort despite her condition."
"Thank you both."
It really was true—in the countryside, knowing people was worth everything.
Without my lifting a finger, everything was falling neatly into place.
"Brrr, the night sure turns biting fast."
I'd gone down to the stream to brush my teeth and wash up, then hurried back at a brisk pace and ducked into the tent.
Shivering, I shed my clothes in a heap.
The goose-down sleeping bag I'd just bought was so well insulated that wearing thick clothes inside it would leave me sweating, they said.
So even in the dead of winter, I was supposed to wear something light and climb into the bag.
Partly to test whether that was true—and partly to feel the softness and fluffiness against my skin—I slipped on a thin tracksuit and burrowed into the sleeping bag.
"Ahh, this is the stuff."
Wasn't the true joy of camping in the wild precisely this—crawling into a sleeping bag and stretching out flat after a full day's labor?
I could feel the earth and my body communing with each other.
It was nothing like lying in an apartment bed.
As I breathed in deep, the scent of pine mixed with fallen leaves in the cold air, filling me all the way down to the bottom of my lungs.
"Good. This is really, really good."
Once the renovations were done per Go Min-seok's blueprints, I'd sit up on the wooden floor watching the sun rise and set.
Watching the moon rise, and the stars set, too.
I was lost in these happy imaginings when my eyelids slid gently shut.
Just as I was drifting into the sweet embrace of sleep—
Woof! Woofwoofwoof!
A dog was barking somewhere.
"Ghost of Hwanggu, did you get drunk on that makgeolli I left in the kitchen for you? Go to sleep. I've got a mountain of work tomorrow."
Woofwoofwoof!
This was a first—hearing dogs barking from the abandoned house at night.
"Hyaaaaahowww!!"
The piercing yowl of a cat rang out too.
Was that the cat that had stowed away in my car earlier and then bolted?
"Play nice, you two. Or the ghost will come get you. Oh, wait. Hwanggu already is a ghost, isn't he?"
I muttered as I tucked my head down into the sleeping bag. "Whatever. I'm only looking after humans for the time being. So you two work it out yourselves."
Woof!
Yowwwl!
Utter chaos out there. A turf war, maybe?
Fight it out or don't—I gurgled softly into sleep.
Zzzt. Zzzt.
Dawn was just beginning to seep a bluish light through the tent walls when my phone buzzed.
"Are they insane? Who calls at this hour?"
I poked my face out of the sleeping bag and checked the screen. An unknown number was calling.
I let it ring for a while. It went quiet, then started up again. Apparently it wouldn't give up until I answered.
"Hello?"
"Is this Mr. Kim Yunho?"
There was a stiff, brusque edge to the voice—bordering on outright rudeness.
"Who's this?"
"My name is Jung Young-young. I received your contact information through the commander who leads the Ministry of National Defense's remains excavation and identification team."
"Ah, I see."
"I've just arrived at the Ugok 1-ri community hall. Would you guide me to the site where the military artifacts were discovered?"
At this hour of dawn?
Which meant the bereaved family had driven through the night without a wink of sleep.
'Well, I can't exactly tell them to wait, can I.'
Setting out in search of family members who hadn't come home in seventy-five years—how many times must they have cursed the heavens on the way?
"Stand facing the community hall and take the road on the left. It leads to a dead end. I'll be waiting there, so come on up."
The moment the call ended, I hurriedly changed into thick clothes. The family would surely want to go up the mountain right away.
'Ah, my lot in life. How is an unemployed man this busy?'
When I stepped outside the tent, I could see the sun cresting the mountain ridge.
7:10 in the morning.
The diligent village elders were already cooking breakfast—the smell of bean rice hung in the air.
"Well, good, this works out. I'll go up the mountain and come back down before Carpenter Jang arrives."
The frost hadn't settled yet, but the morning air was biting enough that every breath rang clear and cold through my skull.
"Aaargh."
I stretched long and hard, then loosened up with a set of jumping jacks.
Far off in the distance, a black Starex van was winding its way up the village road.
A short while later, people climbed out of the van as it stopped in front of me.
'What the—?'
They were not the bereaved family I'd been expecting.
I'd assumed they'd be kin in the same boat—children or grandchildren desperate to recover the remains of a father, an uncle, or a grandfather who'd gone missing in the Korean War, having driven through the night for that one purpose.
'Shamans.'
I couldn't say how I knew, but it felt like coming face to face with a rat drenched head to tail in the stench of sewer filth.
'That man's aura is the most repulsive of the lot.'
My eyes narrowed as I studied the man in a white jacket over a yellow shirt.
He appeared to be the leader of the group—the mansin herself, the head shaman.
Behind her trailed what looked like a full troupe: a janggu drummer, a flute player, and a gong bearer, all hauling backpacks.
A smell of greasy meat and jeon—offerings for a ritual—wafted over from them.
"Good grief, what a ferociously strong patch of earth! My eardrums are ringing. Unbelievable. Ptui! There sure are a LOT of ghosts living here. You're okay, are you? This place kills people off, and yet you managed to pitch a tent and live here anyway? Impressive."
"The commander gave you my number. Is that true?"
I stared at the mansin, my expression frozen hard.
"Well, how else would I have gotten your contact information, Mr. Kim Yunho?"
"And yet you're not the bereaved family."
"Among the artifacts you sent to the Ministry of National Defense, a name was inscribed on a fountain pen. The family was identified through it. They asked us to come perform a ritual at the site right away, so here we are. Whew, but looks like we'll need to charge extra. We have to capture and send off every single ghost here before we can pick out the remains and take them."
What kind of insane nonsense was that?
If that were really the case, why bother taking the remains at all? What worth could a pile of bones possibly hold to them?