What Waited in the Mountain
Seoryeong knitted her brow for a moment.
"Plenty of people have called me plenty of things over the years. Which is exactly why I have no name — everyone just called me whatever suited them."
The eyes she turned on Myeong-do carried the wariness of a wounded beast. For an instant, a sliver of the past flickered across her face.
"Hey. What are you going to call me? Hmm?"
Young Seoryeong's voice, slathered thick with hope. She had craned her head all the way up to look at the woman beside her.
The woman's face blurred in the sunlight, impossible to make out. It was too bright to see.
"Well now… what does a name matter, really? When someone is always at your side, you needn't call them anything at all."
The woman in the black skirt spoke as she walked, holding Seoryeong by the hand. Seoryeong had never been given any name to speak of. And yet she smiled, cheeks lifting toward her eyes.
Because refusing to give her a name sounded like a promise to keep her close anyway, name or no name. Because it felt as though she would be treasured for no use or purpose whatsoever….
They walked the road together in silence.
"So stop digging at it. You're about to put me in a very foul mood."
Snapping out of the brief flashback, Seoryeong shoved both palms hard against Myeong-do's shoulders as he brushed off her clothes. This time, Myeong-do let himself be pushed back without protest.
Then, catching the nape of her neck as she scrambled up with a whine, he hauled her to her feet in one motion and confiscated her pack with practiced ease.
"Why, you—!"
"Carry this instead. It will put my mind somewhat at ease."
Myeong-do handed her the small ornament dangling from the end of his black sword.
"What's this? A piece of cheap junk. It's worth a few hundred — no, a few thousand times less than the treasure in my pack! What do you mean, 'ease'?"
"It was a gift from my late mother. If only to one day return it to her, I swear I will do nothing reckless."
Myeong-do lifted her heavy burden with one easy motion and set off down the road again. Left standing alone, Seoryeong hurried after him with quick little steps, chattering the whole way.
"Hey! Don't flatter yourself into thinking I'll look after you to the end just because you pull stunts like this. The moment you become a burden, I'm leaving you behind."
"Yes. Understood."
"Even if Jeong-an sent you, it means nothing to me. Got it? Carve it into that skull of yours!"
"Yes, I shall carve it well."
"And quit scheming! I can see right through you!"
"If that is how it appears to you, I have nothing to say in reply."
Myeong-do gradually slowed his stride. Matching his pace to whatever was comfortable for Seoryeong, he added quietly,
"It is only natural for a hale man to aid the weak."
Hwiii—.
A mountain breeze drifted between the two of them. Myeong-do met Seoryeong's eyes, gave a short nod, and walked on.
"By the way — toward where are we traveling?"
"…Toward where the energy calls to me."
Seoryeong gazed into the distance. With those unreadably clear eyes, she seemed to sense something.
"I feel a foul energy. A very strong one, at that…."
The wind struck the restraint on Seoryeong's arm with a soft clatter. Along with the wooden bracelet, the end of a white cord embroidered with lotus flowers — tied at her wrist — fluttered and swayed.
"We're headed for Cheonmaekji."
The sound of their footsteps mingled on the road.
A waterwheel turned with a clear, refreshing clatter. In an atmosphere-rich room with its wide windows thrown open, the magistrate looked over his documents and let out a hearty chuckle.
"A 'virtuous widow subsidy,' you say… ahem."
It was relief money the state had granted on the strength of Janghwa and Hongryeon's heartrending tale. Since he intended to use it to repair the run-down government office, it was effectively a renovation fund.
"With this, I'll throw up one splendid—very splendid pavilion, and with what's left over… hmmm."
For the magistrate, filling his own pockets with the subsidy came first.
"As it happens, the village of Chimmyeongji nearby poured a fortune into a bridge project before it was halted by an accident, you see…."
What if this Cheonmaekji took over that bridge construction?
It was only natural to want to grant another chance to a village attempting the task anew, rather than one that had already failed.
"Now then—. Is anyone out there?"
"Yes, Your Honor."
The magistrate cleared his throat a couple of times, then passed word to the man outside.
"Tell Soyeong's mother-in-law that I have urgent business with her."
The magistrate's eyes gleamed greasily with greed.
Seoryeong, walking ahead, stopped dead mid-stride. Standing rooted to the spot, her jaw trembled.
"What is the matter?"
Myeong-do bent down to study her face. Seoryeong had gone pale, her eyes fixed on something far beyond.
"In the mountain…."
Uneasily, she fingered the restraint bracelet at her wrist. Tak-tak— tak-tak— the small wooden beads knocked together painfully.
"There's… something there."
She did not say what.
Without another word, Seoryeong bolted like a madwoman. Dust swirled up in a haze. Turning her head this way and that without pause, she searched for the 'something.'
Whatever that 'something' was, finding it in a sprawling mountain looked close to impossible.
"What on earth could be there? If you would only tell me, I will search for it myself."
Myeong-do moved to place a steadying hand on her shoulder.
"Not you!"
Seoryeong batted his huge hand away irritably, breathing hard.
Then she collapsed to the ground as though her legs had given out, whimpering as she chanted a spell.
"Heaven and earth alike bear witness… Wind, rise and carry me… Grant me the hour of seeing truth…"
Her small body shook. Seoryeong gritted her teeth as though in terrible pain. The ground rumbled faintly.
Tiny pebbles skittered and hopped upward, harbingers of an earthquake.
"…Over there."
Hwiii—. Hwiiii—.
A chill wind blew. Seoryeong stared blankly with bloodshot eyes, the corners of them wet.
A small cave, hidden behind tree leaves and a spider's web — and inside it was the 'something' Seoryeong had spoken of.
"Dangerous!"
The path directly below the cave was treacherous in the extreme. Catching Seoryeong's arm as she nearly fell, Myeong-do said calmly,
"I will — I will check it myself."
Nimbling his way up the steep slope, Myeong-do pushed through the web and stepped into the cave. In the dim gloom, an old wooden box sat abandoned all alone.
"…."
Lifting the dust-covered box, Myeong-do drew in a breath. A damp, musty stench pricked at the tip of his nose. Something inside was rotting.
Clunk.
With a small clatter, the box finally opened.
"…This is…."
Myeong-do doubted his own eyes. Inside lay a 'something' shaped almost like a human being.
Skin of a greenish brown, ten fingers and ten toes, fingernails worn down to nothing and caked in dried blood, clothes hanging in tatters….
"A hu—man… it is… a person…."
Uncharacteristically, his words stumbled — and into his view came the delicate nape of a human child. It was faintly breathing.
"Move…."
Seoryeong had crept up beside him without his noticing, quietly lifting a water bottle.
Tilting the bottle from her hip into the box, she let the water trickle out slowly.
The water soaking into parched, cracked lips looked exactly like a stream of tears.
"Hkk…."
The trembling lips barely parted. Even that small movement seemed to cost it everything; gasping faintly, the thing moistened its mouth with the few drops that entered.
"…."
Then it did not move again. As though it had never once been alive.
"…Is it human?"
At Myeong-do's question, Seoryeong nodded readily. It was a sight that would make anyone flinch, yet somehow Seoryeong looked almost familiar with it.
"This is what we call a Taejagwi."
Seoryeong's calm explanation rang coldly through the cave.
"A child's ghost. A child dies, its soul scatters, its million strands still tangled — and in that state it latches onto a person. A wondrous… spirit that divines fortune and misfortune and carries word of happenings a hundred li away. Yes. And with one of these, you can even lay curses."
Seoryeong crouched down and stroked the hand of what had once been a person. Pouring water over the tips of the shriveled, desiccated fingers, she washed away the bloodstains.
Chul-chuk…. A lonely sound of water touched its fingertips.
"Something about it… almost clicks. Ah. There's definitely something here."
Ae-ta-mi stared quietly at her screen. For some reason, this felt like foreshadowing. It was as if the director were dangling a hint at them — 'You sharp ones out there, you'll catch it, right? Take a guess.'
And no wonder. Seoryeong's eyes were not merely the eyes of someone looking at a child offered up as a sacrifice. The breath that quickened in intermittent gasps seemed to be summoning something to memory.
"…This is impossible."
Myeong-do gasped so roughly his iron jaw trembled.
"How can anyone wear the mask of a human being and do such a thing — how, in God's name…!"
The water in the bottle ran dry. As though nothing at all were amiss, Seoryeong drew a talisman from inside her robes. She pressed it to the child's forehead and chanted a spell.
"How can one wear the mask of a human and commit such deeds."
Drawing a blade from inside her robes, she answered flatly and slit open the thing's desiccated flesh. Blood, thin and sticky from long starvation, drained into the gourd bottle.
"It's precisely because we're human that we do this."
Sealing the gourd, Seoryeong chanted once more. Flames leapt up — flicker… flicker… — and the wooden box holding the thing went up in fire.
The smoke of the cremation stung sharply, wetting the corners of both their eyes.
The smell of the small box burning was peculiarly acrid. Smoke filled the narrow cave in a pale haze.
Beyond the cave where Seoryeong and Myeong-do stood, the billowing smoke rose thick and dark toward the sky.
Saaaah—. Saaaah—.
A fierce wind blew. Ahead stood a bamboo jangseung shrine, red cords knotted every which way around it. Bamboo leaves swept by the wind let out an eerie hiss.
Before it, Yeomga was dancing, slow and languid. Only her back was visible, but she was unmistakably in a marvelous mood.
"Hmhmhm—. Hmhm—."
Yeomga dancing to her own humming looked uncannily like Jeong-an in her final moment.
The way she spread her wide sleeves and drew her body slowly upward from below, as though sweeping the air into her palms, was the very image of Jeong-an turning Yeomga's flung flesh back into nothingness.
"Hmmm—. Mm…."
Ripples spread across the water bowl set out before her. Yeomga kept humming her song on and on.
"The gate of heaven opens, and the gate of men opens as well—."
Something was wrong with the low, murmuring drone — the gate of heaven opens, and the gate of men opens too.
It was nothing like the lilting tune she'd hummed moments ago. Every note now sat on the same flat pitch.
Hwiii— the wind tearing through the bamboo leaves grew fiercer still.
"At last, I have arrived."
Whip— as she turned, Yeomga's face was hidden behind a Hahoe mask.
Beneath that expression of boundless, gleeful delight, there was no telling what she concealed.
Inside the magistrate's office, Soyeong's mother-in-law was a completely different creature from the tyrant who had raised hell at home. Her shifty, rolling eyes brimmed with anxiety. The magistrate, who had been doling out comfort in moderation, asked in a slick, unhurried voice,
"That said — your son gone and all, and nowhere much for money to come from…. It must be terribly hard on you."
"Oh no, not at all, sir. Our Soyeong, the sly little thing, she scrapes and scrambles this way and that — enough to put food on the table, at least. Sewing for hire, washing clothes, a grind fit to break your back. Yes, indeed!"
"Heheheh. My, what an honest soul you are."
Shaking his head, the magistrate slyly leaned his upper body forward. Then he whispered in a low voice.
"And do you suppose that girl will keep feeding you till your dying day?"
"…Eh…?"
"Young thing like her, running all over creation chasing coin — who's to say some man won't catch her eye and she won't up and bolt, mother-in-law and all!"
At the magistrate's words, the mother-in-law's face flushed crimson with fury.
"Why, that Soyeong, how dare—"
"Well… you're aware, of course, of the virtuous widow subsidy."
"Am I, sir?"
"A reward granted to a virtuous woman who, having lost her husband in a single morning, resolves to keep her chastity for the rest of her days…."
The magistrate smiled a wide, slick smile. Grease glistened beneath the smile that spread across his face.
"Your remaining years would be pocket change, would they not?"