First Snow, and the Wood-Burning Stove – Part 1
"Where are you headed?"
It was just as Han Mija was walking toward Grandma Mak-sun's house. The young man from the house up the hill, Kim Yunho, came strolling over with a smile.
"I'm taking Grandma Mak-sun her lunch, then walking her over to the community hall."
"She's not giving you any trouble, is she?"
"Not at all. If anything, she's been teaching me all about country living. You see, I left for Seoul when I was twenty and worked there for years, so I married late."
"Oh, I see. No wonder your kids seemed so young."
I listened quietly to Han Mija's story, nodding along at the right moments. After a bit of small talk, I eased into the real reason I'd stopped her.
"Seongeun... didn't something terrible happen when she was in elementary school? I've been worried something might be wrong with her."
"Why do you ask?"
Guardedness crept across Han Mija's face, and I swallowed dryly. One wrong move and she might shut down completely.
"Seonghyun mentioned it yesterday, in passing."
He had said it offhand, so it wasn't exactly a lie.
"He said Seongeun's been too unwell to attend school. Apparently after the accident she sometimes suffers aftereffects no one can explain... I thought if I knew what she was afraid of, it might help somehow."
She told me she'd once gone on a teaching practicum at a partner school back in her university days, and that she'd spent a lot of time talking with the counselor there who handled the students' psychological care.
Only then did Han Mija trust me enough to speak.
"Seongeun doesn't remember what happened."
"So there was an accident, then."
"Yes."
Han Mija's answer was brief, but her face said everything the words didn't. Pain, terror, grief, regret — and a crushing sense of guilt.
I asked carefully.
"Would it be too much to tell me what happened? If it's for Seongeun's sake — so she can get healthy and go back to school — I'd like to help however I can. Even if it's just to listen."
To help.
That one word opened the door to a heart Han Mija had sealed shut.
"Thank you for caring. Really — I've been so suffocated by it, with no one to unburden myself to."
"Then unburden yourself to me."
"Thank you. Truly, thank you so much."
Han Mija opened up about the past, plainly and without resistance.
**
"I married late, had two children, and I was truly happy."
Bang Jeongsoo had been running a chain of cleaning franchises when a stationery shop went up for sale cheap right beside one of his locations, and he'd bought it. Because the couple ran the business together without hiring anyone, they'd done well enough to live in a three-bedroom villa in the capital region.
It had been a dreamlike time. The harder they worked, the more they earned, and by living frugally they'd even managed to save.
But with the couple working late into the night every day, Bang Seongeun had spent her hours trailing after her mother around the shop.
"It happened during winter break of Seongeun's fourth-grade year."
Bang Seonghyun had already gone off to athletic training and rarely came home, which left Seongeun bored and restless.
Watching her getting shuffled about this way and that, her mother's heart ached for her — and that was when she heard the neighborhood mothers chattering about sending their kids to a ski camp.
Two nights and three days of learning to ski, building snowmen, and cultivating sensitivity, or so the brochure said. Seongeun's best friend was going too, so in the end she steeled herself and sent her daughter off.
"I was in the middle of a long shift when a call came from a number I didn't know. A drunk driver had crossed the center line and slammed into an oil tanker, and it burst into flames — and the vehicle in front of the tanker was a bus carrying children on their way to ski camp."
"Good heavens."
An oil tanker, loaded to the brim with fuel.
My eyes squeezed shut before I could stop them. It had happened exactly as I'd feared — a catastrophic pileup.
By terrible luck, a flurry of ice pellets had been falling, leaving the road glazed with black ice, and the chain-reaction collisions turned the highway into chaos.
"Twenty-one vehicles in the pileup, and over sixty casualties. The reason so many died was that the tanker's fire spread to the ski camp bus."
Only two people survived the bus.
Bang Seongeun, and the teacher chaperoning them.
"Seongeun gets terrible motion sickness, so she'd moved up to the front seats, and the crash happened not long after. The burning tanker struck them from behind — she only escaped because she took the teacher's hand and climbed out through the shattered windshield."
Emotion surged up in Han Mija without warning, and she struck her own chest, sobbing out her words.
"And then the victims' parents came to our shop. They ganged up on us — said the accident happened because of Seongeun."
"I'm sorry — because of Seongeun? How?"
"Seongeun said she felt like she was going to throw up, so the bus had pulled over onto the shoulder for a moment. They claimed that if it hadn't, the accident never would have happened."
Maybe so, maybe not. An accident can strike at any time, in any way — no one can say where or when.
And at bottom, this whole thing had happened because some drunk lunatic got behind a wheel. Every one of them knew that.
They just needed someone to take their rage out on.
The drunk driver, the tanker driver, even the bus driver — all of them were dead.
And unleashing that rage on the two survivors wouldn't bring a single one of the dead back.
When it came down to it, Seongeun was a victim too.
The neighborhood friends, the kids from the same academy. The deskmates who'd been chattering away on that bus were gone in an instant.
Han Mija wiped the tears streaming down her face.
"After that, we shut the business down. The stationery shop especially — I couldn't bear to set foot in it. We moved, and started a restaurant in a different neighborhood."
"That must have been so hard on you."
"But our Seongeun lived, didn't she? And that made me so sorry, and at the same time... so relieved..."
Anyone in her position would have felt the same. And it wasn't something Han Mija needed to apologize for.
"Hnngh..."
Han Mija buried her face in her hands and wept. She'd clearly been gnawing on this alone for years, unable to confess it to a soul.
What words could possibly comfort someone in this moment?
I sat in silence for a while, until her breathing steadied, then asked carefully.
"Um — about Seongeun not remembering. What does that mean, exactly? You said a moment ago that she has no memory of the accident."
"That's... she remembers getting on the bus, excited to go to ski camp. But she doesn't know that the accident happened, or that her friends died."
How enormous must the shock have been.
According to No. 1, the parasitic spirit clinging to Bang Seongeun had been born from countless souls tangling together, breaking apart, and shattering.
Even a parasitic spirit must have been precious to someone who loved it, once, while it lived.
They're pitiful victims, all of them.
For Seongeun's sake — and for the sake of the parasitic spirit bound to that child's body.
What they need now is to be sent on to the afterlife, once and for all.
Steadying my emotions, I turned to Han Mija.
"You've never been to the accident site, have you?"
"No. We rushed straight to the hospital they took Seongeun to — I couldn't bring myself to go anywhere near it."
But that was the only place I could tear the parasitic spirit from Seongeun's body.
If I asked Han Mija to visit the crash site with me, would she go along with it?
No — persuading her now would be next to impossible.
I needed to find another way.
I nodded slowly.
"I know that was hard to talk about. Thank you for telling me all of it. And Seongeun deserves credit too — living through something like that and standing so strong. Seonghyun's grown up bright and kind as well."
"They're good children."
"They are!"
I changed the subject and we discussed Grandma Mak-sun's hospital appointment. Slowing the advance of her dementia would require medication, but she'd never received a proper diagnosis. Even with a referral from the local clinic and a reservation at one of Seoul's big-five hospitals, the wait to see a specialist was a minimum of three months.
For a renowned specialist, six months at the least.
With no other option, I'd booked her at a university hospital in Gangwon Province — and the earliest opening was a month away.
"That's the earliest date available, so I think it's best we get her a full evaluation then."
"I'll remember that."
Having finished talking with Han Mija, I went to find Bang Seongeun. When I asked if I could drop by and play with her for a bit since she was home alone, Han Mija gladly agreed.
Ugh! What is that thing?
No. 1, who had been padding along quietly beside me, flapped up in alarm and shot up a tree in a single bound. Goosebumps raced over my own skin as I ran a hand down my arm and narrowed my eyes.
That's the parasitic spirit?
[Told ya. I said it was scary, didn't I?]
No. 1 had driven its claws so deep into the tree trunk they'd sunk clean in. No amount of scolding from me was going to pry it back down.
So that's what it looked like — the girl in the pink T-shirt and navy pants.
Seen up close, the parasitic spirit was a thing stitched together from fragments: upper body and lower, arms and legs, head and hair, every piece joined from someonewho-knows-whom.
The upper half stared straight ahead — while the lower half faced backward.
So that's why I could never sense traces of an evil spirit.
In its ordinary state, it was scattered into fragments so small and insignificant that it simply clung to Seongeun's body and fed. But now, wearing a completed form, it stood in the gap of the closet door, gazing down at Seongeun — then lifted its head, and its eyes met mine.
Just as No. 1 had said, the face was identical to Seongeun's.
Had it clung to her so long that it had come to believe it was Seongeun?
"Seongeun, hello there!"
Ignoring the parasitic spirit entirely, I greeted the girl.
"Oh, Uncle! Hi!"
Bang Seongeun shot upright where she'd been sitting, spotted the open closet door, and shut it with a solid thunk.
"Did you come to see Mom? She went to take care of Grandma Mak-sun's lunch."
"Ah, did she? So you're playing by yourself right now?"
"Yes."
"Then how about you come to town with me?"
I was testing the waters — trying to see how the parasitic spirit would react.
"I'll buy you pizza in town. What do you say?"
"Yay! Pizza!"
But a moment later, Seongeun glanced at the closet and slowly shook her head.
"Actually... I'd rather stay home."
I tilted my head. It didn't look like the parasitic spirit was trying to cling to Seongeun — if anything, it seemed to be the other way around.
No. 1, you said the girl would die if we tore that thing off her, right?
[Yeah. That's what makes parasitic spirits so nasty. It has to leave on its own. It has to let go without damaging any part of the kid's body.]
And what if the child clings to the spirit instead — fights to keep it?
[Then Bang Seongeun dies. Simple as that.]
A deep sigh escaped me, my thoughts a tangled mess.
**
"Ugok 2-ri gets to go to Seoraksan, and Ugok 3-ri gets Jeju Island — and what do we get? Nothing, that's what!"
That evening, I headed to the village head's house at Han Su-ja's invitation for dinner. Word had apparently reached her that I'd been buying Seonghyun this and that, and had even paid off his dojo fees so he could return to taekwondo.
Why couldn't anyone believe me when I said the money hadn't come from me — that it was a man named Lee Ho-young who'd paid?
The village head insisted the whole thing had happened because I'd taken the lead, and declared he wanted to treat me properly. Tonight's menu was kimchi-jjim — aged kimchi braised slowly with pork belly.
A light drizzle of their homemade perilla oil made it nutty and tangy, sweet and savory all at once. But my appetite had abandoned me, and I forced down each mouthful of kimchi-jjim.
I had to persuade Han Mija to take Seongeun to the crash site, and it was weighing on me, because it wouldn't be easy.
Besides, the atmosphere at the village head's house tonight was nothing short of volcanic.
Word had just reached Han Su-ja that Ugok 2-ri and 3-ri were organizing group sightseeing trips for the slow farming season.
The person who'd phoned to deliver the news was Gil Sang-hui, the Women's Association President of Ugok 2-ri. She and Han Su-ja had never gotten along, and yet she'd gone out of her way to call and announce her village's trip.
Let's see you blow your top over this one. That was the message, loud and clear.
"I've never been anywhere my whole life. I'll turn into an earthbound spirit of this village while I'm still breathing, that's what'll happen."
"Fine, let's say we go. How are you supposed to fill a 45-seat tour bus? We don't have forty-five people in this whole village who want to go sightseeing!"
The village head thumped his chest, as if to say someone please put an end to this maddening conversation.
But Han Su-ja had no intention of backing down either.
"Then don't rent a 45-seater! Rent a 25-seater!"
"And what's easy about filling that? Do we even have twenty-five people who want to go?!"
A thought struck me like lightning, and I raised both hands — the ones that had been tearing apart kimchi-jjim — straight up.
"What do you mean, no one wants to go! There's me, Seonghyun, Seongeun, Grandma Mak-sun, Han Mija, Bang Jeongsoo, Grandpa Hosik, our cat, and the chickens—"
"The— the chickens?"
The village head set down his spoon, utterly dumbfounded. Sensing the murderous mood, I hastily backpedaled.
"No, I mean — that's the point! Let's go too. Sightseeing!"
"Chickens and all?"
"No! The chickens stay home!"
I turned to Han Su-ja, appealing for backup.
"Madam President! If the others won't go, then the ones of us who want to will just go on our own. Let's take your sister and the kids and have ourselves a proper trip!"