The Bell's Answer
A wind began to blow.
It came without a sound, soft and utterly silent, and settled over the courtyard along with the moonlight. It brushed across Park Sang-cheol's tear-soaked face and stirred the hair of the two people the Dokkaebi had possessed. The air that had hung so heavy with dread sank with the wind and was washed clean beneath the moon.
A god was here. In that courtyard, where the presence pressed unmistakably close, Kang Hyeong-seok could see everything.
“GRAAAAGH! GRAAAAGH-AAAH!”
The Dokkaebi with its carved Hahoe-mask face was being wrenched out, merciless, against its will—
Fwoosh! Fwa-ruh-ruhng!
—and, attended by its small train of spirit flames, the colossal Dokkaebi was slipping free of Shin Jeong-ah's body.
Stagger.
Freed from the Dokkaebi at last, Park Sang-cheol's daughter swayed on the verge of collapse. Kang Hyeong-seok rushed over at once and caught her, steadying Shin Jeong-ah as well. He laid the two unconscious women on the ground where no harm could reach them, then lifted his eyes to the night sky.
There seemed to be nothing there but the moon, and clouds torn ragged by the wind. But to him, with his Yeongan wide open, there was something else.
“No! No! Why—why in the world—?! Why are YOU here?!”
The evil Dokkaebi was caught in the grip of a Dokkaebi ten times its own size. The great one had its back turned, its face hidden. Yet he felt no regret at that.
So it really is the Great Elder.
The Dokkaebi he had brought along was so vast that this one thought was all that came to him. The mountain of a spirit took the evil one's upper body and lower half in its two hands, and began to twist.
Krritch! Krrk-kriiitch!
The hideous sound rang across the heavens, and the evil Dokkaebi's shriek shook the air.
“GRAAAAGH! You bas! You bas-taaard! You! It was you! You did this!”
Krrk!
“GRAAAAAAGH!”
The voice seethed with malice, but Kang Hyeong-seok watched the Dokkaebi in perfect stillness. It was over. There was nothing left for that creature to do. And so, with quiet eyes fixed on the Dokkaebi's last moments, he opened his mouth.
“All things between heaven and earth hold to their appointed law: the great shall attain their fortune, and the humble shall drink deep of joy.”
His level voice ran together with the sound of the great Dokkaebi wrenching the evil one's body apart.
Krruk-krukk-kruuuk!
“KIIYAAAAAAAGH!”
As if every evil deed of its long career were being repaid in a single breath, the Dokkaebi's scream was pitiful and terrible. It was like thunder breaking overhead, like the sky itself caving in. Through it all, Kang Hyeong-seok carried on in a low voice.
“When flying misfortune will not depart, the house is thrown into unrest — so let the five calamities and ten thousand sorrows, every sickness within these walls, be blotted out; let the hundred curses and thousand disasters be uprooted and washed anew; where the auspicious star surely arrives, let every wish be granted — thus, choosing this day of all days, I offer up this prayer of blessing.”
The Dokkaebi that had tormented this family was being unmade. Soon the evil would perish utterly, and peace would come home again.
“Deities of the four quarters and the eight ways, Great Guardian Deity of this household — hear, answer, and be moved, we beseech you.”
O gods.
“Let the Eight Great General Deities descend in glory: the General of Thunderbolts into the courtyard, the Deity of the Chimney into the hearth-flue, the Lady of the Hearth Grass upon the rooftop, the Great Deity of the Six Livestock into the stable, the Lady of Silkworms across spring and autumn, the Divine General of the Privy into the latrine.”
Please — keep this woman safe.
“Gods of prosperity and guardianship, tutelary deities of every place, all attendant spirits and household gods, spirits of the four quarters and the eight ways, and the bright spirits of this hallowed ground — descend now from your far places, descend, we pray.”
Let this house know peace, always. Forever, and forevermore.
Shrrrarararang!
It was the instant Kang Hyeong-seok shook the sacred bells with all his strength.
“GRA! GRAAAGH! KIIYAAAAAAAGH!”
Krrk-krik-krik-krik-KRIIITCH!
A sound like cloth tearing in two split the sky. Then the Dokkaebi's form — upper body and lower half sundered from each other — crumbled away, as if broken apart by the night wind. And down from the heavens, scraps of blackish-red, rot-eaten cloth came drifting down like cherry blossoms.
It was the true body of the Dokkaebi that had tormented the young shaman for so long.
“…Master Exorcist.”
Park Sang-cheol's voice pulled Kang Hyeong-seok's gaze toward him.
“Is it— is it all over?”
His voice was damp and pitched low. So low it sounded as if he already knew the answer.
“Our daughter… she's… she'll be all right now, won't she?”
To the question Park Sang-cheol asked through his heavy tears, Kang Hyeong-seok gave a solemn nod.
“…Yes.”
Three years. Every single night. For Park Sang-cheol, who had had to drown out his daughter's tortured sobbing with drink, it was the answer he had longed for more than anything on earth.
“And so, this matter came to an end.”
Vrrrrmmm.
Inside the car rolling back toward Seoul, Kang Hyeong-seok spoke. Shin Jeong-ah sat in the passenger seat and Yoon-sang lay sprawled across the back, both fast asleep. It didn't matter.
“You have been through a great deal.”
The one talking with him was Lee Geum-kyeong. At the voice flowing from the car's Bluetooth-linked speakers, a faint smile touched his lips.
“It was nothing. And I didn't do it alone.”
“And was it not you who stood between god and man, and joined the two?”
Kang Hyeong-seok squinted against the sunlight pouring in through the windshield. Perhaps it was the sleepless night, but the light seemed unusually bright.
“…I learned something from all this.”
“And what was that?”
“That there are things more important than a Sinmul — the vessel that carries a god.”
The Uncheol, the meteoric iron, had been handed over to Park Sang-cheol. The man, wheeled into the emergency room alongside his daughter, had asked for it before anything else.
“I will repay in full the debt I owe the Master Exorcist who saved our daughter. Thank you. Truly, truly — you have given us a kindness I could never repay in my whole lifetime, Master Exorcist.”
That was what Park Sang-cheol had said, tears streaming down his face. The moment he was discharged and back on his feet, he would take up his hammer again. He would stoke the forge and beat the anvil — all to forge Kang Hyeong-seok's second Sinmul.
“A Sinmul is, in the end, only a tool. What matters more is the heart and the will of the one who wields it.”
A mighty Sinmul would be born, and in time it would be passed to Kang Hyeong-seok. But he must never be ruled by it. He would have to become its master in the truest sense, and decide for himself how it would be used.
“My, my. Listen to the wisdom in you now.”
“I learned it just now, that's all.”
“It may well have been a trial your Momjusin laid before you.”
“I thought the same thing.”
Kang Hyeong-seok lifted the corner of his mouth and glanced at Shin Jeong-ah, breathing softly in her sleep. Then he checked on Yoon-sang in the rearview mirror, pressed his lips together, and spoke.
“Next time I come up, I'll visit and pay my respects properly.”
“Yes, do that. You come back safe, now.”
“Yes, Master.”
He ended the call and, merging onto the highway, leaned the back of his head against the headrest. It was a slack hour, and there were hardly any cars on the road. With the few vehicles strung out across the broad asphalt, Kang Hyeong-seok spoke.
“Can you hear me.”
Vrrrrmmm.
“Are you listening.”
His eyes stayed fixed dead ahead as his low voice went on.
“If this truly was your trial — did I do well? Did I pass?”
No answer came back. As it always did. As it always had — for his Momjusin never spoke to him directly.
And still, Kang Hyeong-seok did not stop talking to him.
“The innocent suffered. A father was ready to die for his daughter. If it was you who sent me to them — if I was the one who saved them —”
Kang Hyeong-seok closed his mouth. The hum of the engine drifted up, soft as a lullaby. In that gentle vibration, in that quiet and peaceful space, he ended the silence at last and spoke the rest.
And then—
Ting.
From the bag stowed on the back seat, the sacred shaman bells rang out. As if to answer him.
Kang Hyeong-seok threw a startled glance behind him, then gathered his eyes back to the road, the faintest of smiles on his lips.
I will wait, my Momjusin.
That your vessel may hold you, whole and entire — so that we may draw a little closer to one another. Until then, watch over me, and keep me safe from all things evil. And I, in turn, will hold you dear.
Vrrrrmmm. With a heart that was quiet, and at peace, Kang Hyeong-seok drove on.
Hssssssss.
The humidifier in the hospital room breathed out white mist. The room was so clean, so dazzlingly white, that everything from the night before felt like a dream, or an apparition.
Rrrrk.
Park Sang-cheol, freshly out of knee surgery, had been moved to the bed beside his daughter's.
“You mustn't push yourself, sir. If anything's uncomfortable, just press the button here.”
“W-wait, hold on!”
Impossibly quick for a man just out of surgery, Park Sang-cheol made a grab for the nurse's arm.
“M-my daughter — is my daughter all right? Nurse, my daughter, is she okay?”
The nurse gave the man, frantic beyond all measure, a look laced with pity.
“Your daughter is fine. She's in far better shape than you are yourself, Father.”
“B-but still—”
Park Sang-cheol shot an uneasy look at his daughter in the next bed. Freshly washed and dressed in a patient's gown, an IV line dangling from her arm — but her eyes were still closed, and that alone filled him with such dread and such fear that his heart felt ready to burst from his chest.
“It's the malnutrition and exhaustion. Her eyes will open soon enough — please don't worry yourself sick.”
Then it happened. His daughter's eyelids twitched. A moment later her fingers stirred, slow and faint, and Park Sang-cheol shot up out of his own bed in alarm.
“S-sir — you're a patient—!”
Park Sang-cheol stood at her bedside, watching his daughter surface from sleep, and the nurse, catching the desperation carved into his face, gave a wry little smile. When she had first seen the state of Park Sang-cheol and his daughter, she had suspected abuse in the home. But the look on his face now left no room for a single doubt.
“Take it easy, now. Enjoy saying hello to your daughter.”
The nurse stepped out of the room. Moments later, his daughter's eyes slowly opened.
“M-Mi-ryeong. Can you see Daddy? Do you know who Daddy is?”
“Aa… unh.”
A cold wave of dread broke over Park Sang-cheol all at once. What if the Dokkaebi is still in her? What if my daughter isn't free yet…?
“Da… ddy?”
But, belying his fear, his daughter knew her father.
“Mi-ryeong!”
Dragging his bad leg, Park Sang-cheol closed the distance and swept her into his arms.
“M-Mi-ryeong. Mi-ryeong. Mi-ryeong. Mi-ryeong.”
His daughter — snatched away by the Dokkaebi, and now given back to him. As if he would never let her go again, Park Sang-cheol crushed her slender body to his chest with all his strength.
“O-ow — Dad, that hurts.”
“Miii-ryeoooong!”
Holding her, Park Sang-cheol wept without end.
“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so, so much.”
As he choked the words out to Kang Hyeong-seok, his daughter's soft voice rose to meet him.
“I had… a dream.”
“It's okay. All of that is over now. It's all over. It's okay.”
“The Dokkaebi used to hurt me. But the great Dokkaebi says it's all right now.”
Park Sang-cheol nodded, his face drenched in tears — and then—
“The great Dokkaebi says it's going to protect me from now on.”
“Hhk! Hnnk—hhk!”
His daughter's hand traveled up Park Sang-cheol's back. And then she squeezed — hugged him tight with all the strength she had. It was the warm touch of his daughter, the one he had yearned for through three long years.
“…So don't you cry anymore either, Dad.”
Park Sang-cheol broke into great, heaving sobs and pulled her deeper into his embrace.