The Heart That Reaches the Gods
The dog ghost came for Lee Jin-pyeong.
Through the pitch-black room it came, without a sound, without the faintest stirring of presence — and there, at his head, it moved its lips with a face half melted away.
Yellow teeth slid into view. Crushed lips split and spilled blood. From skin seared by terrible burns, pus welled in beads and dripped.
Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf!
The Spitz's spirit barked itself raw, but the dog ghost did not spare it so much as a glance. One was a departed soul, the other a ghost of grudge — and between the two lay a gulf not easily bridged.
Its jaws parted with a wet, sucking smack, and Lee Jin-pyeong's brow knotted.
"Mmm... uhhhhh..."
Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf!
Every hair along its back standing on end, the Spitz turned to look at Lee Jin-pyeong's face. Then, with its small head, it thought deep, deep thoughts—
YAAAP!
It hurled itself at the dog ghost. At a dog ghost far, far bigger than itself.
So that it would not meet Lee Jin-pyeong again in a shape too sorrowful to bear, the Spitz lunged — flinging itself, whole, at the thing.
"Ulp! Uuurrrgh!"
Sour-smelling vomit poured from Kim Yeong-jun's mouth. The classic presentation of a possessed patient — and the process of the thing that had nested in his body being forced out.
"Is he— is he really going to be all right?!"
Kim Yeong-chan threw the question like a man lunging, but there was no room to spare for an answer.
Wararararang!
Pinioning Kim Yeong-jun's body with all his strength, ringing the sacred shaman bells, Kang Hyeong-seok flung a fierce glance toward the balcony.
There, the dog ghosts boiled alive in a cauldron stood weeping.
A grudge is pain. The same pain for the living as for the dead — and the same for a human as for a beast.
"On your way, rest not upon the famed mountains — meet the mountain god's wardens, and you shall never be guided into rebirth. On your way: the Chokseokru Pavilion above Jinju's Nam River, where Uiam once played — is that not a place of matchless renown?"
But that did not make it right for them to harm others.
"Play there, then go on your way. On your way, if the day should darken and you cannot go farther — Munjangdae on Mount Songni in Boeun is where Great King Sejo once played. Play there, then go on your way."
What was it that had made you suffer so much?
"On your way, if the day should darken and you cannot go farther — the Yeonggwang Pavilion on Pyongyang's Daedong River, where Wolcheon once played. Play there, then go on your way."
Hoping for an answer, Kang Hyeong-seok chanted the scripture on, his eyes on the dog ghosts that had set their sights on Kim Yeong-jun's body.
Then it happened.
Warararang!
Kang Hyeong-seok — who had been swinging the shaman bells and the Sinjangkal, the Divine General Blade, at full force — went utterly still in an instant. Kim Yeong-jun's convulsing body fell silent as well, and Kim Yeong-chan, thrown by the abrupt hush, could only roll his eyes about in confusion.
He did not know.
"…Tell me, please," Kang Hyeong-seok murmured in a voice scraped raw — and what he was gazing at, Kim Yeong-chan could not see.
Hyeong-seok had looked upon the dog ghosts not merely as quarry to be cast out, but with a longing to understand — and that heart had reached even the god. The god who received the heart of Kang Hyeong-seok the mudang was his Momjusin, the Body-Governing Patron Deity that dwelt within him.
"Their han runs too deep. What is it I must do?"
At the murmur, so close to prayer, voices and figures came swiftly to him.
"Our Bokgu, eat up plenty. That's how you'll have milk enough for your pups."
"Bori, aigoo, you little rascal. Do you love me that much?"
"Come here, then — let's have a hold of you!"
"Hey! How many times have I told you — no crapping wherever you please!"
"Honey, pick up some pufferfish on your way home. Baduk-i hasn't been eating well lately; I think we ought to feed her something good."
"A dog living better than its owners, eh. ...All right, I will."
"Baekgu!"
"Baduk-i, here! Over here!"
In life, every one of the dog ghosts had had an owner. Those same dogs had been stuffed into a dog trader's sack, kept locked away in iron cages, dragged before Kim Yeong-chan's father. Sold off for little more than pocket change, shoved into the cauldron — never again to meet the ones who had loved them.
That feeling reached Kang Hyeong-seok with a clarity cruel to bear.
Wara-rang.
Kang Hyeong-seok lowered the hand that held the shaman bells and gazed out at the dog ghosts beyond the window, his face perfectly still.
"I know your pain."
Between a person and a dog, words do not pass. That was why animal spirits were the hardest of all to contend with — and yet, through the strength of his possession, Kang Hyeong-seok had joined his heart to theirs.
Arf-arf-arf-arf!Woof! Woof-woof-woof-woof!Bark! Bark-bark!
The baying of the dog ghosts rang in his ears until it hurt. Even so, without so much as a flicker of a frown, Kang Hyeong-seok bent his ear and listened, silent and unwavering.
Pour it all out. Loosen it. Unravel every last knot of it. I am listening. Spew up every festering han and every buried sorrow, and shake off every lingering attachment — all of it, all of it.
For a long while he listened to the dog ghosts' baying; then, his gaze still fixed, Kang Hyeong-seok spoke.
"Sir."
"…Y-yes?"
"There is something they want."
Kim Yeong-chan's lips darted nervously; he stole a brief glance at Kim Yeong-jun, who lay without so much as a twitch. Kang Hyeong-seok went on.
"So promise me just one thing."
Kim Yeong-chan swallowed drily and forced a nod.
Then it came.
"Build a memorial pavilion where the gaesoju house once stood."
"A memorial... pavilion?"
"Size and shape do not matter. But the memorial tablets that go inside — every single one must be carved by your own hands, sir."
They had to be made with a heart set on consoling souls. Only then would the han of these dogs, robbed of their owners, come loose at last.
Still watching the dog ghosts at the window, Kang Hyeong-seok spoke on.
"The heart reaches even the gods."
A heart that reaches the gods gives birth to miracles. The miracle Kang Hyeong-seok sought was the forgiveness of the dog ghosts — vengeful spirits though they were. And the one who could help bring that miracle about was Kim Yeong-chan, through his resolve.
"Comfort the souls of the dog ghosts with those tablets, so that the god will not turn His face from them."
Kim Yeong-chan's lips worked soundlessly. Words he could never have imagined, in a moment he could never have foreseen, had stabbed straight into the pit of his chest. They were not words a man could take to heart lightly — and yet he opened his mouth.
"Ah... all right. I'll do it."
His son lay collapsed before him. His son — who, like his late mother, had taken to mimicking a dog — lay unconscious.
"Th-that thing! I'll do it, no matter what... even if it takes the rest of my life... so please... please, do something for my son."
Kim Yeong-chan sank to his knees, pressed his palms together toward the window where Kang Hyeong-seok's gaze was fixed, and then rubbed those hands together, spilling tears and snot and spittle all at once.
"I've spent my whole life making furniture. You think I can't carve memorial tablets? You think I can't raise a memorial pavilion? I'll do it for as long as I live — so please, please, save my family."
Kim Yeong-chan, who had inherited his father's karma, was praying now for the generations to come.
Kang Hyeong-seok turned his eyes to the dog ghosts and spoke.
"From this moment, I open the road to heaven."
By any ordinary measure, it might have been impossible. But with the two sacred relics and the power of his Momjusin, Kang Hyeong-seok was certain he could perform the ascension rites himself — guide those dog ghosts to heaven.
"When you raise the pavilion, if you can, find their bones and bury them with care. Set out food the dogs loved, and hold rites for them as well."
"I'll do it — all of it! Every single thing!"
Before Kim Yeong-chan, humbly rubbing his hands together, Kang Hyeong-seok bowed his head, heavy and slow.
Then he lifted the shaman bells and shook them, lightly.
Wa—rang.
A clear chime rang out — a sound that wished for the heart to reach heaven, and to reach the god. That the heart might carry through into miracle.
Yearning for it with everything in him, Kang Hyeong-seok began to chant the scripture.
One eye was gone, and a paw had been torn away. Its body was covered in wounds, and from the eye that remained, tears poured without pause.
But the Spitz could not fall back. Lee Jin-pyeong lay right behind it.
Grrrrr!
Knowing full well that it was no threat at all, the Spitz let its throat rumble and hurled itself at the dog ghost again. It was bitten, shaken, flung through the air.
Yeep! Yeep!
Tumbling across the floor, the Spitz dragged itself upright on trembling legs. At a glance it looked like sacrifice for nothing — and yet the dog ghost's attention had shifted, away from Lee Jin-pyeong and onto the Spitz.
That was enough.
Yip! YAAAP!
Charging in once more, the Spitz clamped its teeth onto the back of the dog ghost's neck and held on. It could not deal the ghost so much as a scratch, but it clung for its life.
Only the wish to protect Lee Jin-pyeong. That one desperate heart was all it had.
"Mmm... nnngh..."
Lee Jin-pyeong moaned and turned over, damp tears leaking from between his tightly shut lids. And from his mouth slipped a small voice, threaded with breath.
"...Baekseol."
The heart reaches the god.
Whiiiine...
The Spitz raised its quivering body yet again. Its eyes, black as polished Go stones, held a gleam of light, and its small teeth shone sharp.
Then it flung itself at the dog ghost and fastened onto the corner of its eye, worrying it without letup.
Grrrr-owl!
The dog ghost wrenched its head about to tear the Spitz loose — the little dog was clinging more ferociously than before — but it only hung on all the more stubbornly.
The wish to protect Lee Jin-pyeong was so vast, and so desperate, that it reached the god. And a heart that reaches the god works miracles.
Grrrrrr!
The Spitz bit down on the dog ghost's eye and tore it free. Then it seized the nape of the neck, pinned the throat beneath its forepaws, and twisted its head.
Yeooowl!
The dog ghost thrashed in a savage frenzy; Lee Jin-pyeong's brow twitched in his sleep. And with its full strength, the ghost tore the Spitz away.
Grrrrr!
On its feet on the floor, the Spitz barked at the dog ghost — and the leg and the eye it had lost had, somewhere in the fray, returned to their original shape.
The standoff between them ended when the dog ghost turned its head away. For three reasons. The scent of Kim Yeong-jun was fading from Lee Jin-pyeong's body. The Spitz's resistance had been too fierce. And far away, someone was praying — for the dog ghosts. It was Kang Hyeong-seok's scripture.
Tap. Tap.
As the dog ghost withdrew the way it had come, a deep stillness settled over the dark room.
Whiiiine...
Only then did the Spitz's strength give out, and it clambered, weak and spent, onto Lee Jin-pyeong's chest.
And then—
Wara-rang.
Even the Spitz's ears caught the ring of Kang Hyeong-seok's shaman bells, and the scripture carried beneath them.
"The original mind is still and quiet, they say, without past and without present. What, then, is birth — and what is the going home?"
The Spitz lifted its head and looked toward the direction the scripture came from.
"The Buddha showed both His feet beyond the coffin's rim, and Great Master Bodhidharma went his way, a single straw sandal tucked within his sleeve. If you, O spirit, awaken to such lofty truth, you have crossed already beyond life and death."
This was scripture for the ascension of the dead — a scripture that opened the road to heaven, binding this world and the world beyond.
"What is there to grieve? As drifting clouds gather only to scatter, so is karmic bond; the births and deaths of all beings, too, appear according to their bonds. Cherish the good bonds and cast off the bad, and when you are born once more, good bonds shall await you."
The scripture to guide the dog ghosts to heaven went on and on. And then—
"Mmm... nngh..."
Lee Jin-pyeong's eyes flickered open. The Spitz looked down at him as it always had — but Jin-pyeong's gaze was not lost in the dark. It was fixed on a single point.
On the Spitz.
"...Baekseol?"
"Lay down your bitterness, abandon even your own convictions, and with a mind made clean, be gathered into the Buddha's embrace — be reborn, we pray, in the Land of Perfect Bliss."
It was a miracle woven of coincidence tangled upon coincidence. The Spitz's wish to save Lee Jin-pyeong had reached heaven — and the gates of heaven had opened.
Yip! Yip-yip-yip!
At Lee Jin-pyeong recognizing it, every hair on the Spitz's back stood on end. It barked like mad, spinning in circles on his chest. Its tail wagged as though it would fly off, and its eyes went damp.
Jin-pyeong's hand reached out to it.
"...Baekseol."
There was no touch. No warmth. And still, Lee Jin-pyeong pulled the Spitz to him and held it with all his strength — his dog, seen again after so long, if only for the space of a breath.
"Baekseol, Baekseol... Baekseol."
Curled into the hollow of Lee Jin-pyeong's chest, the Spitz wagged its tail, slow and soft. It could not feel the arms that held it, and it knew this was not forever. Come morning, Lee Jin-pyeong might call it nothing more than a dream.
And still. Even so—
Yip-yip-yip-yip!
Thankful beyond words and joyful past bearing that Lee Jin-pyeong was holding it, the Spitz went on wagging its tail and licking its master's face.