The Scissors in the Ceiling
Wararararararararang!
The sacred shaman bells rang out. The spirit flinched and huddled in on itself, and Lee Ha-yoon's hand found Shin Jeong-ah's without her even knowing it.
And then it came.
"Who might you be?"
Hoping his words could reach it, Hyeong-seok kept shaking the sacred bells.
"Speak, please. Who are you, that you remain bound to this place?"
Hyeong-seok was drawing closer to the gods. The particular aura that hung about him in such moments bore down on spirit and living alike. Ha-yoon clutched Jeong-ah's hand harder, her face saying she could hardly breathe, while Jeong-ah stroked the back of her friend's hand and murmured for her to hold on.
And the spirit — a dry rustle — came skittering forward like a spider, thrusting the head it carried in its hand toward Hyeong-seok.
Warang, warang, warang, warang.
"You cannot speak?"
The spirit gave no response.
"Then give me a sign some other way, please."
Washak! The spirit shook the head in its grasp, and the long hair fanned out like a curtain. In the same instant, the jaw of that blackened, rotting head fell open — a sight no eyes should have to see.
Warararang!
"It does not appear that you are bound here of your own will." Hyeong-seok went on, looking up at the spirit. "Were you murdered?"
Ha-yoon looked ready to weep by now, and the spirit shook the head again. With that hair swaying right before his eyes, Hyeong-seok stilled his breath, then spoke.
"Are you bound to this place by a grudge?"
Silence. Hyeong-seok's brow drew tight.
Those who are murdered leave grudges behind. Even a single slap across the face is enough to breed resentment — how deep, then, must the wound run when a life is taken? And yet this spirit carried no grudge at all.
"What are you — the thing that killed you?"
It came at that very moment. Around the spirit clinging to the ceiling, something else began to appear.
"What is that?" Jeong-ah must have sensed something, because she jerked back with a startled echo, and Ha-yoon pressed herself close against her.
THUD! Without a word of answer, Hyeong-seok stepped into the room and shut the door behind him.
"S-Section Chief Kang!"
Jeong-ah's voice came muffled through the door, but Hyeong-seok's eyes stayed fixed on the ceiling.
Something was spreading across it like a stain. He could not have said what it was — only that those two must not lay eyes on it. Such was the wrongness of the presence it exuded.
Little by little, the stain was taking on a shape.
"…Is that it?" Hyeong-seok murmured, the words leaving him like a breath. "The thing that killed you?"
Something religious. A symbol of such simple form that no other word came to mind. And a black human figure, seated cross-legged. He could not tell what the thing truly was — but as when one stands before a religious painting, an immense, crushing weight of presence rolled in and sealed his throat.
Shake. The hair stirred once more.
Hyeong-seok swallowed dryly, tipped his head back toward the ceiling, and drew out the broken Sinjangkal. Its power had long since run dry, but he needed it in hand all the same.
Warararararang!
Shaking the sacred bells, he leveled the Sinjangkal before him and opened his mouth.
"Gods and spirits of Heaven and Earth, O Divine General — this summons is raised for the banishment of every impurity. The disciple of this summons is Lee Ha-yoon, who dwells in this place. Her devotions have been kept for Your coming this day; descend in haste, I beseech You, and banish every impurity."
Perhaps because Ha-yoon's name had been woven into the summons. Bam-bam-bam-bam!
"Section Chief Kang! What is wrong with you? What's happening in there?"
Jeong-ah began hammering on the door, but he poured everything he had into the recitation.
"Impurities of the heavens above, impurities of the earth below,
impurities of the far house, impurities of the near house,
impurities of the great gate, impurities of the middle gate, impurities that slip through the open door,
impurities of ox and horse, impurities of metal and stone, impurities of water and fire, impurities of timber and earth, impurities of people and things —"
Warararang!
That thing came first. It had to be dealt with before all else. That spirit had been murdered, and yet it could not so much as hold a grudge. Not out of love for its killer, nor for any reason that might excuse it — it had been slain by a being it did not even dare to resent.
"By year, by month, by day, by hour — let every impurity of the four watches be dispelled.
In the first and seventh months, the tiger and the monkey; in the second and eighth, the Yellow Springs;
in the third and ninth, the net of Heaven; in the fourth and tenth, the net of Earth;
in the fifth and eleventh, the depths of the waters; in the sixth and the month of La, the Ten Kings —
all impurity, be dispelled."
With every cry of the sacred bells and every sweep of the Sinjangkal, the air grew a little lighter — and the spirit and the stain on the ceiling faded a little further.
"Impurities of iron and frozen ground, evil spirits and base spirits, vengeful dead and corpse-spirits — every impurity besides —
submit before the Divine General. Depart in swift flight, a thousand li hence; retreat ten thousand li to lands far beyond. Begone!"
Warararararararang!
Every last impurity had been driven out. The presence that had poured from the spirit and the stain was gone as well.
Only then did Hyeong-seok breathe out easy and call through the door. "It's all right now."
"C-can I open the door?"
The door flew open — and Jeong-ah, standing right behind it, jumped out of her skin.
"Hey — you okay?"
"Please bring me a chair."
The request was meant for Ha-yoon, but she had frozen solid where she stood, so Jeong-ah fetched one in her stead.
Clunk. Hyeong-seok set the chair directly beneath the spot where the spirit had crouched, slipped off his shoes, and stepped up onto it.
"Wh-what are you doing?" Ha-yoon's voice was steeped in fear — badly rattled, clearly — and this time he answered her kindly.
"There is a spirit bound to this place. I am setting it free."
"Isn't that dangerous?"
Seen like this, there was something in her that quietly resembled Jeong-ah. And the truly dangerous part was already behind them. Hyeong-seok arranged his face into a smile.
"For one thing, you shouldn't be seeing ghosts. And if you have a screwdriver, I could use it."
"Ah — yes! One moment!"
With the screwdriver Ha-yoon handed over, Hyeong-seok rapped along the ceiling panel until he found a seam, seated the tip in it, and turned. The panel gave way, and he plunged his hand into the pitch-black gap and churned it around.
Then a pair of scissors, rusted a deep blackish red, dropped to the floor.
"WAAAAAH!"
Ha-yoon shrieked and stumbled back, barreling straight into Jeong-ah. For a heartbeat she was relieved — just an ordinary pair of scissors — and then she actually took in its condition, and her face went stiff.
"Th-th-that! Those scissors! I've seen them in my dreams!"
She would have, of course. Face full of understanding, Hyeong-seok bent and picked them up. Ha-yoon retreated in a shuffle until Jeong-ah's back stopped her, and he pulled a sheet of A4 from the printer and wrapped the blades in it.
"I'll take this and see to it myself."
"Y-you mean it?"
Not the sort of thing one leaves behind. When Hyeong-seok nodded, Ha-yoon seized Jeong-ah's shoulders and sank down as though her strings had been cut.
"Aaaaahh…"
There was something uncannily familiar in the way she let that groan pour out of her — something very like Jeong-ah — and Hyeong-seok smirked. Then he met Jeong-ah's eyes and gathered up the sacred bells and the Sinjangkal.
"You did well to tell me about the hidden chamber."
"R-right?"
He glanced at Ha-yoon, still slumped where she'd fallen, and gave a wry smile. If Jeong-ah had not tipped him off about that hidden chamber, this might have been a good deal harder.
It wouldn't have gone so far as possession — but the influence on her would have been heavy.
Every so often there are people with stray spirits tangled onto them, and their lives are an unrelenting slog. Nothing they set their hand to goes right, the whole world seems to hold a grudge against them, and despair comes knocking at all hours. For a woman who had only just opened her own practice, nothing could be more ruinous.
"Section Chief Kang — seriously… thank you. For all of this."
"Oh."
Ha-yoon's eyes flew wide, and she looked up at him. "It's — it's all really over, isn't it?"
"Yes. No more sleep paralysis for you — no more scissors pinning you down in the night."
Gulp. Ha-yoon swallowed dryly, the last of the dread not yet gone from her face, and Hyeong-seok soothed her with a smile.
"You can simply live your life now. The impurity has been washed clean — work hard, and this office will flourish."
The words plainly took her aback; Ha-yoon's eyes went round.
"And there's no need to say a word about it to your landlord, either."
Ha-yoon stared blankly for a moment, caught the meaning a beat late, and her eyes and mouth both fell open. "Oh! Th-thank you!"
She was sharp, this one — undeniably so. Her situation was remarkably close to Jeong-ah's: both had signed leases on haunted property. But the difference was stark. Whether the landlord had disclosed the haunting — or kept silent.
"Live there a while, and your landlord may ask whether the ghost still shows itself. Just tell him you've put up a talisman and keep milking your complaints, and you can go on renting this place for next to nothing."
Ha-yoon had been told up front that the place came with a ghost — hence the bargain lease. But should the landlord hear that the cause itself had been resolved, his mind might well change.
"Is — is that really all right?"
"You understand the legal side better than I ever could."
As matters of conscience went, it was much like paying out of his own pocket to renovate a derelict house. Nobody owes extra rent because a place has finally become livable.
"And if it still weighs on you — then someday, when you've moved on to somewhere bigger, just tell him the place seems fine now. That will be more than enough."
"Th-thank you."
Rustle. When Hyeong-seok lifted the paper-wrapped scissors, Ha-yoon flinched hard enough to see.
"And with this gone, no pair of scissors will ever pin you down in your sleep again."
Ha-yoon looked ready to cry now. Truth be told, the mere sight of those scissors had always left her feeling as though she were cursed.
"I'm sorry. Truly…"
Ha-yoon — who for one brief moment there had doubted him — bowed her head low as she said it, and Jeong-ah drove an elbow into her ribs, an odd little smile playing on her lips.
"Oh, get lost. Seriously."
Ha-yoon muttered it under her breath, then seemed abruptly to remember something and pulled out her wallet — to pay him for his trouble. But Hyeong-seok shook his head.
"You can keep your money."
"Absolutely not! You came all this way because of me!"
"Then instead of money, I'd like one of your business cards."
Disappointment was written all over Ha-yoon's face. But she understood what he was after, and without another word she drew a single card from her wallet.
"If ever you need my help — anything, at any hour — just say the word."
"Yes. Thank you."
Hyeong-seok produced his own card, and the two traded them like a formal exchange. Kang Hyeong-seok, Section Chief of Daejeong Mulsan.
Reading the name, the title, the company stamped on it, Ha-yoon looked like a woman who had seen something beyond believing.
"Wait — how does an office worker end up doing this kind of work?"
"The Momjusin I serve wills it so."
"Ah…"
Ha-yoon took so little interest in Korean shamanism that she didn't believe in ghosts at all. But even she understood that a person chosen by a god was no ordinary man. Looking at Hyeong-seok with eyes that saw him differently now, she tucked his card into her wallet as carefully as if it were something precious.
And then—
"Right! Now that that's done, let's all go get something to eat."
"What?"
"You're buying."
Ha-yoon shot Jeong-ah a look of utter grievance. "I was going to offer anyway, for your information?"
"Unnie, can I order something expensive?"
"Ew, you greedy little thief! …Oh — um, right. Is there anything in particular you'd like to eat?"
The gulf between how Ha-yoon treated Jeong-ah and how she treated Hyeong-seok was as wide as fire and ice.