What the Dream Asked
Shaaaaaa—!
The bamboo tube shuddered as something surged up out of it. The tremor traveled through his hand — and yet there was nothing to be seen. Kang Hyeong-seok watched the tube pour out what no eye could see, barely daring to breathe.
It is being freed. The Taejagwi trapped within this tube — the girl's soul, the spirit of a child murdered by her own mother.
Wararararang! Shaking the sacred shaman bells, Hyeong-seok opened his mouth wide.
"With a sincere heart I bow in refuge — to the Three Treasures ever-abiding in the Dharma realms of the ten directions. Namu Jijang Wang Bosal, Mahasal."
It is said that Jijang Bosal — Ksitigarbha, Bodhisattva of the Great Vow — is the one who guides the child spirits freed from the Yeommae.
"Great compassion and great vows, great wisdom and great kindness — the Bodhisattva arrayed in every wondrous merit, the wellspring of the great treasure of liberation, the clear and radiant eye of all bodhisattvas, the guide who leads all souls into nirvana."
Reciting the scripture in praise of the Bodhisattva, Hyeong-seok prayed that the girl's soul, tangled in the Yeommae's bonds, would be set wholly free.
A soul murdered by her own mother.
Gather her into the hem of your robe.
Wipe the tears from the girl's eyes.
Warararang! Ringing the shaman bells, he carried the sutra on and on until the bamboo tube finally grew still.
He kept it up for a long while. At last, emptied of everything it had held, the tube fell silent.
Hyeong-seok looked inside, then let the tube slip limply from his hand.
Clonk.
The bamboo tube struck the ground with a clear, hollow ring. There was nothing inside. Not the girl's severed arm, not her spirit, not her soul — not one thing remained.
Zzzzing! Sunlight poured through the motel window and stabbed at the corners of his eyes.
"Ughhh."
Groaning, Kang Hyeong-seok hauled himself upright, dragged over the phone still tethered to its charger, and checked the caller ID.
Ha Jang-seo.
The drowsiness gone from his face in an instant, he sat up on the bed and pressed the call button.
"Yes, sir! Is something the matter?"
"H-hey there, Assistant Manager Kang."
"Go ahead, sir."
No greeting, and only the first words heard — yet even so, Hyeong-seok could tell that nothing he'd feared had come to pass. Ha Jang-seo's voice was urgent, but there was no darkness in it.
"You know how we were fixing to go up the mountain today? Let's put that off!"
An abrupt cancellation — and yet Hyeong-seok felt the corners of his mouth curl up all the same. He had a fair idea of what had happened.
"Did something happen, sir?"
Still, he asked with a perfectly straight face.
"I-I think I'd better get to a hospital. I woke up this morning, and every last spot on my body is gone!"
Just as he'd thought. Hyeong-seok had foreseen all of this, and he kept the smile on his face.
The Yeommae was gone. I erased it. A curse that sickened anyone who drew near simply by existing could hardly remain — and with it, Ha Jang-seo's inexplicable illness had vanished as well.
"Really? That's wonderful news. Truly wonderful."
"This is... no, I just can't make sense of it, I tell you."
Like a man welcoming a miracle he had begged for with his whole heart, Ha Jang-seo's voice was thick with tears.
"My wife's in an uproar over it. Scared her half to death, I tell you. The missus never so much as blinked at a wild boar, and now she's startled clean off her feet — huhuhuhu."
"You've carried a heavy heart through all these months, sir."
"Aigoo, honestly. Ha."
The worry that had weighed on him so long left Ha Jang-seo unable to go on.
"Get to the hospital first, sir, and quickly. And when the results come back, be sure to let me know."
"Yes, yes. That I will. I've a good feeling about it. My body feels light as a feather."
"That's a relief. Truly. Make sure you get it in writing that you're fully cured!"
"Wouldn't that be something! Even if they don't call it a full cure, feeling like this, the farm work'll be a breeze!"
"Really, now?"
"'Course. And say they do call me cured — I'm taking back every word about quitting the farm, and I'll be planting garlic for the next thousand years, so you'd best come down and see us again next year!"
His face full of relief, Hyeong-seok let out a soundless sigh. Then, hearing Ha Jang-seo's wife hollering somewhere far off — "Hurry up and get ready!" — he opened his mouth.
"Sounds good! Then hurry off to that hospital first, sir!"
"Yes, yes!"
When the call ended, Hyeong-seok laid the hand holding the phone on his knee.
The smile was still there, but his face was crowded with thought. There was, admittedly, a great deal to think about.
When he called to mind the woman who had murdered the girl — the Yeommae itself — the corners of his mouth dropped. Yet he soon thought instead of Ha Jang-seo's health, and of the girl freed from the curse, and breathed out a long, slow sigh.
"Think only the good things."
Rising from the bed as lightly as his heart felt unburdened, he made ready to leave the motel. He washed in hot water, changed into the clothes he had brought, and sent Namgoong Min-ah a text.
Zzzing!
The phone rang back at once. Startled, Hyeong-seok pressed the call button.
"You're up?"
"Yes, Assistant Manager."
Namgoong Min-ah's voice lay flat and low.
Hyeong-seok had no way of knowing that the girl claimed by the Yeommae had been her friend. Feeling only a faint puzzlement, he pressed on.
"Come out when you're ready. The hike's canceled — we're heading back to the office."
"Understood. I'll be right out."
With a look that said something was off, Hyeong-seok stared at the phone, then hung up.
Afterward, he and Namgoong Min-ah made short work of breakfast — gukbap, hot soup ladled over rice — at a restaurant nearby, then climbed into the car.
Min-ah stayed quiet until he had set the destination into the navigation, and only spoke up as they were leaving Danyang behind.
"I had a dream last night."
"You've had that look since this morning. Nightmare?"
"No."
Min-ah smiled bleakly and shook her head.
"You remember the friend I told you about yesterday?"
"Ah, right — the one you used to play bunshinsaba with, that paper spirit-board game."
"She came to me in the dream."
"Did she, now."
"Mm."
The thread of conversation snapped, and for a moment an awkward silence filled the car.
Then Min-ah drew a deep breath, as though she had finally put her thoughts and her heart in order.
"It's just so like her — even in the dream, she asked me to play bunshinsaba with her again."
"Haha."
It sounded like such an odd dream that Hyeong-seok burst out laughing without meaning to.
"She must miss you terribly. Look her up next time you're on vacation."
"No. I can't ever see her again."
"These days you can find anyone on social media, can't you?"
Min-ah shook her head, wearing that same bitter smile.
"I'd rather just be content with meeting her in my dreams."
That one look said more than words could, so Hyeong-seok held his tongue. Then he drew a long breath in through his nose and opened his mouth.
"What was your friend's name again?"
"Yoon Bo-mi."
Eyes clouded with tangled feeling, Hyeong-seok drove on, watching the road ahead.
So that was it. The reason her face had been so dark all morning. The girl taken by the Yeommae — she and Namgoong Min-ah had been friends.
Was this your will as well? He found himself wondering whether his Momjusin, the Body-Governing Patron Deity that dwelt within him, had sent him and Min-ah to this place to finish what needed finishing.
"Are you all right?"
Min-ah sent him a startled glance, as though he had looked straight into her heart. Then, heavy as her eyes were, she lifted the corners of her mouth all the same.
"What could I possibly not be all right about?"
Watching Danyang dwindle in the rearview mirror, Hyeong-seok spoke in a calm, level voice.
"Leave them as memories."
"I think you're right."
"You said you played bunshinsaba in the dream. What did you ask it?"
Min-ah blinked a few times, then turned her head toward the window as she answered.
"She asked on my behalf whether I'd be happy."
"Did the answer come out well?"
Perhaps Min-ah had meant to hide her expression. But her face was mirrored in the car window, plain for him to see.
"Yes. My friend says it's a gift."
Pretending he had seen nothing, Hyeong-seok turned his gaze back to the road ahead.
It had not been only the girl's soul and Ha Jang-seo who had been brought to a close. Namgoong Min-ah's memories had found their ending, too.
"You must be tired — close your eyes a while. I'll wake you when we arrive."
"I'm sorry, Assistant Manager."
Min-ah leaned her head against the window. But sleep would not come, and she gazed out instead at the view sliding past, streaming away toward Danyang.
Hyeong-seok knew perfectly well that she wasn't asleep. Yet he let no word pass his lips, and drove on in silence. For now, he felt, this was better.
Plop. Plop. Plop.
Murky water dripped from the ceiling at steady intervals, like sand through an hourglass. The hour was midday, yet all around was dark. Deep as the cave was, there was no help for that.
Tssk — fwoosh! Striking a match to make light, the man set flame to a candle fouled with grotesque, melted globs of hardened wax. With a practiced yet careful hand, he went from candle to candle, lighting each in turn.
As the lit flames multiplied, a red glow spread through the space around him. A shrine chamber. Ritual implements. Banners. Bowls filled with blood.
Before them, the man in black lifted his head toward the wall, long hair hanging loose. A single crow hung there like a piece of taxidermy, rotting away as it hung.
"Miyuldu agade, Miyuldu agasa, Miyuldu parani."
Chanting the incantation, the man fixed the crow — seething with maggots — with eyes strained to bursting.
"Miyuldu sarana, Miyuldu jutana, Miyuldu witari."
At the spell that bars wicked things from drawing near, the maggots that had been devouring the crow rained loose in a pattering shower and wriggled away beyond the altar as if fleeing for their lives.
"Haaah..." Letting out a sigh that rose from somewhere deep in him, the man silently moved his white, parched lips.
Unjeon Taeheo, Hogeom Jicho.
Saha Sai, Heukchim Heukbu.
Obang Paehoe, Iljang Jiyeo.
Cheonji Hwangin, Anpil Naeseo.
The man was a mudang. However many spells of Daoism and esoteric Buddhism he mouthed, he was a mudang who shook the sacred shaman bells and carried the Sinjangkal, the Divine General Blade.
Wararararang! As though to prove himself a mudang, he shook out the bell-string wound coil upon coil between his fingers, and it rang.
"The one who carries what must never be carried swaggers about at large — and the one who made the wrong choice now stands guarding it."
Gazing up at the crow on the wall, the man murmured on in a voice low as the cave around him.
"Set the crooked right, and a life is spent and withers — even so, that is the proper way."
Wararang! Warararang! As the shaman bells rang out, black-red blood welled from the crow's beak and eyes and crawled down the wall.
The spreading stain grew like a shadow until it reached the altar below — and the flames leapt higher in answer, blazing harder, hammering light into the dark.
"This is the decree of Heaven and the law of Earth. Affirm the crooked and own the affirmation, and the affirmation is Heaven's mandate — and Heaven's mandate, the affirmation."
The voice that rolled through the cave was calm and even. Yet the flames danced as though a typhoon were tearing past, and with them the shadows flapped without a sound.
Rustle. From his breast the man drew a slip of paper and carried it to the flame — the thin paper used for talismans, inscribed in hanja with a name and the eight characters of someone's fate.
Fwoosh!
Burning it upon the fire as though offering it to the spirits, the man opened his mouth.
"Mantanina, damani, samanima hanira, mogani-orani, motatata jaechapidumail."
From his breast he took pieces of beasts: a crow's feather, a rat's tail, a snake's head. One by one he laid the parched things over the flame, and the melted wax crumbled away as fire leapt to take them.
Performing the rite with a devout heart, the man pressed his palms together and bowed his head three times. Then, last of all, he drew a small bottle from his breast and opened it — and from within pulled a cord twisted from human hair and tiger's fur, burning even that in the candle flame.
Wararang! Shaking the shaman bells, he bowed his head low, palms still joined.
At that very instant a wind swept in and snuffed the candles one by one. The man's silhouette seemed to melt into the darkness swallowing everything, and a vile reek of blood spread through the air.
Pfff. The last flame died, and the cave was bound in perfect darkness.
Then — the low roar of a tiger rang briefly through the cave, and was gone.