The Sutra for the Departed
A mudang bang-ul — the sacred cluster of brass bells — is no ordinary object. It is a ritual implement strung between gods and humankind, a thing most ordinary people never so much as lay eyes on in their lives.
Wararang! Warararang!
Each ripple of sound cleansed the air around him and drew him nearer to the gods, and in that nearness Kang Hyeong-seok gave off a presence that pressed down on everything around him.
Shin Jeong-ah, thrown off balance by this unfamiliar side of him, nonetheless kept her eyes fixed on him; the landlord and the realtor bit their lips shut and looked away.
Wararararang!
The fierce ring of the bells stabbed mercilessly at their ears — all the more frightening because each of them knew what Kang Hyeong-seok was about to do.
THWACK!
The crowbar in his fist slammed into the doorframe, and the two men flinched so violently it was as if a nail had been driven straight into their hearts.
Screeeech!
A nail, stained black as soot, slid out of the frame.
Wararang! Warararang!
Shaking the bells harder, fiercer, Kang Hyeong-seok went on drawing out the nails that sealed the door.
By the time more than twenty of them lay scattered across the floor—
Reciting the Sutra for the Departed, Kang Hyeong-seok swung the crowbar in a wide arc.
Thwack! Screeeech!
Thwack! Screeeech!
Thwack! Screeeech!
A sutra to comfort the soul of the dead. A prayer to soothe the spirit of the woman murdered in this very room — and to untie the grudge of a soul whose passage to the beyond the landlord had barred outright, so terrified was he that she might become the very ghost that preyed upon his tenants.
Thwack! Screeeech!
The screech of each nail tearing free was as sharp as the dead woman's own scream.
The landlord heaved a deep sigh and sank to the floor, and the realtor sat down beside him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders.
THWACK! Screeeech!
The last nail came free.
With one great shake of the shaman's bells, Kang Hyeong-seok slipped his hand through the gap in the door — and slowly pushed it open.
Creeeeeak.
Light from a sun barely past its noon height streamed in through the window and spread across the pitch-dark room. All that lay on the yellowed linoleum floor was a fine, pale dust.
But Kang Hyeong-seok, having already grasped exactly how the spirit had been sealed in, was not looking at the floor. He was looking up.
Wararararang!
An empty ritual altar-table was embedded in the ceiling.
"Th-they told us to furnish the ceiling like a floor…"
Beside the landlord, who was gulping down great, rapid breaths, the realtor let the words spill out in a trembling voice.
"They said that was the only way the spirit couldn't harm anyone… so we put that up there, just like they told us…"
Kang Hyeong-seok stared at the ceiling and its buried altar without a word. He already knew they had done precisely as the mudang had instructed. What he was seeing now was something else — images flowing into his mind. The things that had happened in this room.
"It was a mother and son, wasn't it."
"Aaahhhhh!"
The realtor jerked as if scalded at the low voice and clapped both hands over his face.
"Gambling and drink had warped the son, and still the mother kept nursing him along, year after year."
His eyes could see it — everything that had happened in this room, so very long ago. The spirit before him was showing him.
"Monstrous. To do that to her — all because she wouldn't hand over money for drink."
"Hnnngh! Hoo-hhh-hh!"
He had spoken as though murmuring to himself, and now the realtor was weeping, his whole body shuddering, while the landlord stared up at Kang Hyeong-seok with eyes hollowed out by fear.
In their eyes, Kang Hyeong-seok was a mudang — a greater one than the shaman who had taught them the secret seal for caging a ghost. A truly potent one, who could see straight through to the things a man hides, the things he would never breathe to another living soul.
Warararang!
When Kang Hyeong-seok shook the bells again, this time even the landlord screwed both eyes shut. But closing one's eyes does not unmake what has happened.
"…How can a human being be so cruel."
To the landlord and the realtor — and to the son who had murdered his own mother.
'M-Mom… Mom?'
The son, who had committed the deed in a flash of rage, regretted it — far too late. But what he did next was no act of repentance.
'F-fuck… FUCK! Wh-why the hell not! Agh, shit!'
The son was terrified. More than the mother he had killed, he feared the punishment that would fall upon him.
And so he did the thing that must never be done.
Shk. Shk-shk-shk! Shk.
It can't look like I did it.
Tsk. Shk! Shk.
Never. It must not look like I did it.
Shk! Shk.
Eyes gleaming with madness, the son hacked his mother apart.
He desecrated the body as savagely as he could, even shattering the windowpane. With the house staged to look as though a robber had broken in, he fled.
But he never knew: his mother was not yet dead.
Both eyes gouged, her face carved to ribbons — and still the mother lived, crawling slowly toward the door her son had left open. Just as she would one day crawl across the ceiling.
Scritch. Scritch.
She dragged herself along on her two arms until, at last, her breath gave out.
"I-I'm sorry, Master Exorcist."
The landlord, his face gone a sickly blue, squeezed the words out through trembling lips.
"I was frightened. Terrified, I tell you. Someone died in this room in the most horrific way, and then every single tenant started saying they'd seen a ghost. What was I supposed to do about that?"
"She was no vengeful ghost."
At Kang Hyeong-seok's words, some of the strain drained from the landlord's face.
"…I beg your pardon?"
"She carried no grudge. She was a soul who wanted nothing more than to be guided on to the beyond."
The spirit did not resent the son who had killed her.
"I suppose that is how vast a mother's heart can be. She blamed no one — it was you, misled by your own imaginings, who shut her away."
The faces of the landlord and the realtor alike showed the blow had landed. The son was not the only one who had done something unforgivable. These two, too, had committed a sin against the dead that should never have been committed.
"Ah… aah, aigoo…"
The realtor went limp and crumpled in place, and the landlord pressed his lips into a hard line and bowed his head.
Kang Hyeong-seok, who had already turned his eyes from them as though he could no longer stomach the sight, took hold of the shaman's bells. With the whole story now laid bare, only one thing remained: to comfort this soul.
Warararararang!
The bells pealed like thunder, and the lips the landlord and realtor had pressed shut began to tremble. Kang Hyeong-seok opened his mouth.
Kang Hyeong-seok looked at the spirit still huddled against the ceiling. In shape, she was every bit as chilling as the ghosts that had hounded him before. Yet what rose in his chest was something else entirely.
Wararang! Warararang!
He knew her story now. And so pity reached his heart before fear could.
And so, yearning with all his might for this soul to pass on in peace, Kang Hyeong-seok recited the sutra.
It was the first time he had ever done such a thing. And yet it felt calm — somehow, strangely familiar. As if this were my destiny.
Scritch. Scritch.
As though drawn by the bells and the chanting, the spirit slid down the wall to the floor — then drifted past Kang Hyeong-seok, out into the room awash with light.
She looked like someone who had longed for the sunlight for a very, very long time.
Then, as though melting into the light, the spirit's form began slowly to fade.
Wararang! Warararang!
Certain now that the soul long bound to this house was free, he brought the sutra to its close in a low voice.
Silence settled over the room. Shin Jeong-ah stood watching him, lips slightly parted, while the landlord and the realtor hung their heads like men awaiting sentence.
What was it they were feeling — guilt? Or the fear of the karma they would yet have to pay?
Kang Hyeong-seok gathered up the shaman's bells as he looked at them.
"The spirit has departed."
The landlord swallowed hard, and the realtor pressed his palms together.
"M-Master Exorcist, we're sorry. We only ever did exactly as the mudang told us."
"Th-that's right, we did. And besides, I mean — aren't we victims here too, when you think about it?"
Perhaps because the spirit was gone: the landlord, though terror still clung to him, pressed on, flustered and shameless all at once.
"Someone died violently in that room. We were only trying to protect our tenants — that's hardly a crime, is it?"
"Oh, for— are you hearing yourself?"
Shin Jeong-ah raised her voice, eyes narrowing to slits. Even he seemed to know his words rang hollow; he could not hold her gaze.
"Hey! I looked past a lot of it earlier, but did you forget you never so much as mentioned what kind of house this was?"
"…"
"Why else would he be here? Because I kept seeing the ghost, that's why!"
"…That's…"
"Then say something! You do have a mouth!"
Only after Shin Jeong-ah had shouted herself hoarse, as though speaking in his place, did Kang Hyeong-seok push a sigh out between his lips, shake his head, and meet the landlord's eyes.
"You have punishment coming to you."
The landlord's face went rigid, and terror welled up in his eyes all over again.
"…Wh-what?"
"To protect your tenants, you say? No. You sealed that spirit away because you were afraid the house price would fall. Because you were afraid of the rumors that would spread."
"…"
"You should have asked the mudang for a proper Cheondo-gut — the rite that guides the dead to peace. You could not bring yourselves to do even that."
Just make sure the ghost never shows itself again. That was all the landlord had ever begged of the mudang.
"Then accept that karma gladly — and pay it in full."
At those words, the landlord's ashen face hardened — and then his shoulders sagged. He could not even summon the words to ask for a way to dodge the misfortune to come.
"I'm… sorry."
That was all he could bring himself to say.
"I am truly sorry."
Kang Hyeong-seok looked at him, lips pressed flat for a long moment — then shouldered his backpack.
"It isn't me you owe that apology to."
He took one last look at the landlord, head still bowed, and at the realtor still holding his shoulders — then walked to the front door.
Shin Jeong-ah hurried after him at once.
"H-Hyeong-seok-ssi—"
"Take your time talking things over with them."
Kang Hyeong-seok opened the driver's-side door and turned to face her.
"Whether you move out or stay on in that house, I couldn't say — but those two will give you whatever you want, Section Chief."
That was the only way the karma they would have to pay might grow even a little lighter.
Shin Jeong-ah's lips parted and closed, parted and closed, and at last she gave a small nod. There was so much she wanted to say — so much that none of it would come out.
She asked her mountain of questions with her eyes alone. Watching her, Kang Hyeong-seok shook his head.
"I'll see you at the office, Section Chief."
So please — treat me the way you always have. Don't look at me like I'm someone strange, not like you're doing right now. Treat me as just another teammate, and it's easier on me, too.
That was the meaning driven deep into the words.
"…Yeah. Got it."
Shin Jeong-ah said it with a face that understood everything. Thanking her with his eyes, Kang Hyeong-seok settled into the car, dropped his backpack on the passenger seat, and turned the ignition.
Vroooooom.
As he pulled out of the alley, he caught her in the rearview mirror — still standing on the exact spot where she'd been, not one step moved, watching him go.
"Hoo."
He breathed out as though pushing the sigh from his body and turned the wheel, his face crowded with thought. This was the first exorcism he had performed since the Chang-gwi. It was only natural that his mind ran deep.
But he soon shook his head and shook the tangle of thoughts loose. That seemed the only way he could breathe a little easier.
The gut was over.
The two musicians were packing up their things, and Cheong-geum, who had assisted at the rite, was neatly rolling up the five-colored ritual banners.
A sour smell hung in the air — the smell of blood mixed with vomit, spattered across the floor.
"Thank you. Thank you so much, Teacher."
The middle-aged woman pressing her palms together before Lee Geum-kyeong was the one who had requested the ritual.
"The ancestral spirit is gone now; everything will be well. You have suffered a long ordeal of the heart as well."
The woman bowed her head deep before Lee Geum-kyeong, who was gently soothing her. Her son had been possessed by an ancestral spirit — and a foul one at that. For three years now, her bright, gentle boy had been half a madman.
"If it hadn't been for you, Teacher, I… we would have—"
Gripping Lee Geum-kyeong's hand, the woman shook like an aspen leaf.
Her gratitude was enormous — there was nothing she had not tried for her son. She had held gut after gut, burned talisman after talisman; once, on a moonless night, she had gone out to the ancestral grave with a knife clenched in her teeth, beating her head against the ground until it bled as she prayed. But the reason her body trembled so was that she now had to force out words too heavy to carry.
"I'm so sorry to have to say this, but the money…"
She had come to Lee Geum-kyeong down a very long and winding road. So much money had already slipped through her hands that she simply could not pay for the gut — not now. The shame of it was like a kitchen knife lodged in her throat.
Tak.
As if she understood everything, Lee Geum-kyeong closed her rough, warm hand over the woman's.
"Say no more. The Grandmother has bade me wipe those tears of yours."
"…I'm sorry?"
"Forget the fee. Once your boy finds his strength again, see that he eats well. He has been dealt with harshly all this while — he will need to eat a good deal to make up for it."
The woman stared at her, eyes gone wide — and then her face crumpled into weeping. She sank down where she stood and clasped Lee Geum-kyeong's hand tight.
"Thank you. And I'm so, so sorry."
"That you found your way to me — that, too, is fate's doing, is it not."
Lee Geum-kyeong spoke warmly as she soothed the woman.
"Up you get, now. What use is a mother showing weakness in front of her own child?"
She comforted the woman for a long, long while.
That was what it meant to be a mudang: a person who lives on the boundary between gods and humankind. She followed the will of the gods, yes — but her eyes had always to be turned toward people. She could not simply abandon someone in despair; and if she ever did, her Momjusin — the god dwelling within her — would hardly stand by in silence.
"Teacher! All cleaned up over here!"
At Cheong-geum's call, Lee Geum-kyeong drew the woman into one last embrace and patted her back.
"I must be going, then. You live well, now."
"Hhk— huuh…!"
Wiping the tears of the woman now weeping in earnest, Lee Geum-kyeong climbed into the van with Cheong-geum.
One of the musicians took the wheel; in the back sat boxes of ritual implements, packed with care.
"Will you be all right with it, ma'am?"
"You mean about the fee I didn't collect?"
Seeing straight through to what Cheong-geum worried over, Lee Geum-kyeong shook her head with a faint smile.
"Karma travels a long circle before it comes home. One day it will return as something good — so what is there to worry over?"
Money was never the whole of a reward. Good fortune, good people, a mended relationship — repayment often arrives in things no money can buy.
And sometimes that repayment goes not to oneself, but to those standing near. Kang Hyeong-seok — the boy she loved as a son — receiving his god, and gaining the shaman's bells that sat so perfectly in his grip: Lee Geum-kyeong counted that, too, among the blessings returned to her.
Cheong-geum smiled with the corners of her mouth and spoke up.
"Do you think the Young Master will come to live the way you do, ma'am?"
"He will do better than I have. That boy will dry the tears of a thousand souls and earn the reverence of ten thousand."
Weariness was pressing in on her; Lee Geum-kyeong folded her arms and closed her eyes.
"But should he ever ask to borrow a hand, yours is the strength he will lean on. See that you give it freely."
"Understood, ma'am."
"And you rest as well, child. You must be worn through."
Before long, her breathing thinned into sleep.
Cheong-geum reached back, drew a blanket over, and tucked it gently around her teacher's shoulders.