When the Tide Gives Up Its Dead
“So that local broker bastard must have tipped them off. He kept whining that his cut of the commission was too small, and in the end...”
“Vice President, the boat’s coming in to dock.”
“Move.”
At the other employee’s words, the vice president did not even look back.
“Hey. Have you already signed the contract for the shrine and lighthouse land?”
Choi Ijang, who had been trying to persuade an old woman under the village zelkova tree, shouted at the vice president.
“Out of the way.”
The employee in front shoved him aside. The sedan shot toward the pier the moment the vice president got in.
“Hey, this old man here says he’s willing to sell...”
Choi Ijang waved after the car, but it did not even slow down.
“What’s going on?”
Choi Ijang asked Kang-to.
“I told him he had Jae-sal on him and that he’d be going to prison soon, and that’s what he does?”
“Jae-sal?”
“Yes.”
“Are you kidding me now? This is a world where drones make deliveries. What kind of... Hey, Vice President!”
After snapping at Kang-to, Choi Ijang’s motorcycle tore toward the pier.
His sneer died there. The boat that had just come in happened to be carrying the arrest team of detectives. Along with the passenger manifest came a luxury sedan that could not possibly be hidden. It stood out on its own, and there was no dodging the handcuffs.
“Police.”
Clack.
With a crisp metallic snap, handcuffs closed around Vice President Lee’s wrist.
His shaman’s message.
Utter nonsense.
The vice president had never believed in fortune-telling or omens. But this was something he could not deny. It was, quite simply, a 100 percent pure oracle with no room for argument.
Dammit. Once I wrapped up this deal, I was planning to run to the Philippines...
The tropical resorts of the Philippines, the bikinis on the long-legged beauties, had been almost within reach. What he touched instead was cold steel.
Toot.
With the ship’s horn, the passenger ferry pulled away. Even then, Vice President Lee’s eyes never left Kang-to, standing by the lighthouse in the distance.
“What happened?”
The islanders gathered around.
“Now that I look at him, wasn’t he just a swindler? That’s why the police are taking him away, right?”
“Good heavens, I signed a preliminary contract with that man...”
The pier grew noisy.
“Lee Kang-to?”
Manager Kim, who had moved to the parasol at the snack stand by the pier and was drinking makgeolli, jerked upright. Choi Ijang was pouring him a glass.
“I’m telling you.”
“So Kang-to predicted that Vice President Lee would get arrested?”
“That’s right.”
“That’s ridiculous...”
“That renowned shaman who came in from the mainland the other day did some kind of gangshinmu at Chiluijae, didn’t he? Looks like he inherited his mother’s line and became a shaman too.”
“Choi Ijang.”
Manager Kim’s voice rose.
“I’m telling you, he said the same thing to me. That man said there was Jae-sal on him and that he’d be going to prison soon.”
“Then someone must have framed him. Development is a game of money in, money out. You know how people get tangled up in each other, don’t you? Weren’t the first group of contractors handled off by Vice President Lee, too?”
“Well, yes, but...”
“Enough nonsense. Let’s just secure the properties. There are other landowners calling besides Vice President Lee. No doubt somebody at the mainland dock overheard the police talking and tipped Kang-to off. Ghosts and shamans in this day and age? Come on, right?”
“Well...”
As Manager Kim pressed him, Choi Ijang, too, began to waver.
He finished the remaining liquor and got to his feet. On the road home, he glanced toward the lighthouse.
“Huh?”
Beside Kang-to, who stood next to the lighthouse, a woman in white seemed to shimmer in and out of view.
What the hell?
He rubbed his eyes and looked again. Now there was only the lighthouse.
“Damn it, I thought I was finally going to make some money...”
Choi Ijang kicked a stray rock for no reason at all.
In the afternoon, Sol-bi called.
“Daddy?”
“Oh? Sol-bi, did kindergarten end already?”
“Mm-hm. I just got home.”
“And you’re studying hard?”
“Of course. I learned English too. ‘Who are you?’ That means, ‘Who are you?’”
“I am Sol-bi’s daddy.”
“See? I’m good at English, right? My teacher says my pronunciation is good too.”
“You are. Thanks for working hard.”
“Auntie Sangju came by earlier. You said I’m going to the island now, right?”
“Do you want to come?”
“Of course.”
“On the island, there’s only the sea, the lighthouse, and boats.”
“But you’re there, Daddy.”
“......”
It had been a pointless question. Kang-to felt the bridge of his nose sting.
“Still, you’ll have to wait a few days. Auntie Sangju needs a little time.”
“That’s okay. I’ve been waiting until now, haven’t I?”
Goodness.
Sometimes Sol-bi sounded more like a father than he did. Was it because she had grown up with her great-uncle and great-aunt that her heart had become so mature?
“Tell Yuri noona, Tae-hee noona, and Hong-seo oppa that they’re all doing well, and tell them I’ll be there soon.”
“Got it. I’ll come out with a banner that says, ‘Welcome, Sol-bi’s daddy!’”
“Thanks.”
Sol-bi was kind. At the same time, she was fearless. That made him all the more grateful.
“Is Kang-to in there?”
Just as the call ended, he heard a voice. When he opened the door, it was Hong-seo’s mother, who lived at the far end of Outer Village.
“You came by.”
“I came to ask you something... You didn’t close the shrine, did you?”
Hong-seo’s mother’s gaze drifted past Kang-to’s shoulder.
It was his mother’s shrine. The atmosphere that had once been so vivid and ornate, full of spirit generals and sacred banners, was now gone without a trace. That was why Hong-seo’s mother looked so puzzled.
“I did open it, but I’m planning to move it toward the lighthouse.”
“Then when are you going to start telling fortunes?”
“Why? Are you here for a reading?”
“Sangju-daek told me. She said Kang-to’s gift is as strong as a female shaman’s, so I should come ask whenever I had time.”
“I may be your son, but I’m not about to hit my mother’s cheek, am I?”
“That was my mistake in wording...”
“Has your husband’s body still not been recovered?”
“No... My mother-in-law is over there making offerings every single day. At this rate, the old woman may end up being buried before we do, and even the police say there’s nothing more they can do...”
Hong-seo’s mother’s eyes filled with tears.
Her worry was Hong-seo’s father. He had taken out a loan to buy the fish farm, with a relative standing as guarantor. The first year had gone fairly well, but the next had been the problem. After a historically brutal summer heat wave came a typhoon, and the fish farm was smashed to pieces as if it had been blown away.
The government compensation barely amounted to a drop in the bucket. Driven into a corner, Hong-seo’s father left a note and jumped into the fish-farm water. The island was turned upside down. The fishing cooperative and the captains’ boats were mobilized, and even police boats with divers searched, but the body never came up. That had been a month ago.
The search ended about a week later. The sea was wide and deep. More than anything, everyone still had to make a living, so they could not cling to the effort forever. In the end, there had not even been a funeral.
“Show me a recent photo of him, please.”
A true disciple of a deity does not discriminate by shrine. A descent of the divine likewise does not care about time. That belonged solely to the sincerity of the disciple and the power of the medium serving the spirit.
“This was taken at the social gathering the month before last...”
Hong-seo’s mother opened the photo file and showed it to him.
Tangwhasal...
He could see the fatal energy clinging to the picture. It was a calamity connected to water or fire. If it deepened any further, it would lead to death, and it seemed it had already gone that far. The reading did not need to be spoken.
He doesn’t have good water luck.
There was no point saying it. The conclusion had already been reached.
“Do you know the place where he fell in?”
“Roughly... the note and his shoes were there...”
“Then let’s go there.”
Kang-to set out.
“Oh, Lord, Buddha, mountain spirit, Dragon King, please, just return our son’s body to us. This is all my fault for not sending him to school properly, so take this old woman instead...”
As they came out toward the fish farm, Hong-seo’s grandmother appeared. She stood over the ruined farm. A fish farm with no one to tend it was no different from a haunted house.
“Mother, please stop now. You’ll make yourself sick if you go on like this.”
When Hong-seo’s mother tried to stop her,
“Leave me be. I’ve lived long enough already... Even if I die, I have to bury my son before I go.”
“Kang-to’s going to look. So...”
“Kang-to?”
Hong-seo’s grandmother lifted her head.
“That’s right, he received the call of a shaman, didn’t he?”
“......”
“I know your mother. For about three years after she became a shaman, her powers were beyond anything people could describe. So help me. Please help me find even my son’s body.”
Hong-seo’s grandmother took Kang-to’s hand and would not let go. The head of the fishing cooperative, who happened to be passing by, saw it. Manager Kim was a distant relative of Hong-seo’s family.
“Good grief, if you’ve got someone to complain to, complain there. Why not have a shamanic rite while you’re at it?”
“Manager Kim.”
Hong-seo’s mother shot him a warning look. It meant not to provoke the mother-in-law.
“Use your head. Even after combing the area with a dragnet, nothing turned up. That means he drifted out to sea. Honestly, what are you people always thinking?”
Manager Kim’s motorcycle rattled away with the broken shriek of a damaged muffler.
“That man...”
The grandmother’s curse flew after him, “What if it had been your child who went missing? Would you still say something like that?”
But there was no chance Manager Kim heard it.
“This is the place?”
Kang-to stood where the suicide was presumed to have happened.
“Yes, the note was there. And the boots...”
The photo appeared again. The note had been pinned down by boots so it would not blow away in the wind. Kang-to gathered his spiritual sense toward the place.
Kreeeeeh.
The shudder of stray spirits came riding in on the sea breeze. More than one person had died here. Why would that be strange? The sea did not only give up fish. Sometimes it took human lives too.
“Go home and bring back a bowl of white rice in the clothes your husband used to wear.”
“White rice?”
“Yes.”
“No herbs needed?”
“No.”
Kang-to’s request was simple.
“I’ll go. You stay here, mother.”
The grandmother rolled up her sleeves and set off. She had to find her son’s body. So even if it was only a straw, she wanted to grab it herself.
“Here it is.”
The grandmother came back in one breathless dash. She seemed not to have rested at all. The clothes were laid on the spot where the note had been. Rice was sprinkled over them. Then, with a small stick, she wrote Hong-seo’s father’s name.
In that instant, Hong-seo’s father’s spirit entered Kang-to’s inner vision. Among countless water-bound dead, this one spirit was a little brighter, a little more intact...
“Take the rice and go to the far end of the fish farm.”
Kang-to’s voice sharpened. It was resonance with the dead. The vibration of the spirits moved quickly. A shaman’s body was born to follow that current instinctively.
Clang, clank.
Just in time, the rusted wind chime hanging from the fish farm feed shed rang out. There was not even a breeze over the still farm, and yet the chime swung wildly, shrieking as if it might break.
“Oh my goodness, looks like our Hong-seo’s father has come.”
The grandmother clutched Hong-seo’s mother’s sleeve and would not let go.
“What is that?”
At the racket of the wind chime, people came crowding over. Kang-to did not care. He focused on the trace of the spirit with a single-minded concentration. His intent followed the ripple of the spirit world. Though he looked like a rock on the outside, from head to toe his body had long since been seized by violent vibrations.
“Is Kang-to calling the soul right now?”
“Looks like it.”
“What, without even setting out an offering table?”
Whispers from the islanders did not reach Kang-to’s ears.
There. Over there.
A little farther to the side.
Down beneath that.
Yes, there.
Following the pulse of the spirit world, Kang-to finally met the vibration of the soul he had been seeking.
“Now. Take handfuls of the rice and scatter it in three rounds.”
“Now?”
“Hurry.”
“All right.”
Hong-seo’s mother followed Kang-to’s instructions.
“Good grief, Kang-to’s gone off his rocker too. Completely off his rocker.”
“Exactly. If he’d at least finished college, he could have taken the civil service exam or something.”
The villagers clicked their tongues. A young shaman and the family of the drowned man following his words. To anyone looking on, it had to seem absurd.
“Quit your nonsense. You have to water even a dry field before you know anything.”
Hong-seo’s mother shouted, but their sneers did not stop. And then...
The ridicule did not last long. Among the rice scattered in several places, one patch did not sink. Anyone who has ever cooked rice knows this: unless it is chaff, rice sinks. It had defied that truth.
“Call your husband’s name. Three times, in short bursts.”
“Yu Jae-il, Yu Jae-il...”
Hong-seo’s mother’s plea flew out on the wind. Hong-seo’s grandmother’s plea was in it too. It was not as if mother and daughter-in-law completely believed Kang-to’s message. But they had to do something. Family could not endure this any other way.
“Yu-jae-il.”
The final call flew out.
Whoooosh.
The only answer was the indifferent sea wind, but that was only the state above the water. Beneath the surface, things were different. One by one, the water spirits gripping Hong-seo’s father’s body began to let go.
I knew this would happen.
“Aigoo, stop believing in those useless superstitions and get yourself together already.”
“Kang-to’s doing it too. What a thing to do after going to college...”
The villagers were still clicking their tongues when...
Dang-gang, dang-dang, da-da-dang.
The wind chime burst into another thunderous peal. Right after that, the grandmother spasmed violently, her gaze fixed on the opposite cliffside shore where her son was believed to have thrown himself. Something pale had risen to the surface.
“Whoa, is that a body?”
“Looks like it. Must be Hong-seo’s father.”
While the villagers buzzed in astonishment, Hong-seo’s mother took out a small net boat and rowed out.
“Mother, I think it really is Hong-seo’s father.”
After confirming the body, Hong-seo’s mother seemed to go limp.
“Oh my God. I can’t believe this.”
Most of the villagers’ legs went weak too.
Bang.
At the same time, the wind chime that had been ringing as if it would split apart fell silent as though none of it had ever happened.