Page 79 of Wicked Fox

Miyoung almost backed away. This hadn’t been the deal and the stories about Shaman Kim echoed in the back of her head. They mixed with Yena’s warnings. Maybe she shouldn’t be trusting these shamans. Maybe she should just go home, find Yena, and beg her forgiveness.

“This is her?” Nara’s halmeoni asked, and her gaze seemed to trap Miyoung in place.

“This is her,” Nara replied. “Gu Miyoung.”

“Gu. Mi. Young.” Nara’s halmeoni repeated each character of Miyoung’s name like she was dissecting it. “I’m Shaman Kim.”

Miyoung gave a bow, her manners taking over because her mind was too busy debating her decision to come here. She didn’t know anything about Shaman Kim except that she had exorcised more dark spirits and creatures than anyone could count and she hated anything she deemed evil. Miyoung knew that her kind fit that category. She was like a deer trusting a hunter to pull an arrow from her side.

Shaman Kim turned to her granddaughter. “Where is it?”

Nara looked at Miyoung expectantly.

She couldn’t pull her hand out of her pocket where it clutched her bead.

“If you don’t want my help, then I’m wasting my time.”

“I just... I need reassurances,” Miyoung stuttered out, her voice weak.

“There are no guarantees when it comes to this kind of practice. But I can get rid of your ghosts,” Shaman Kim said. “I assume you’d like that.”

Miyoung nodded.

“And if you’d like me to reunite you with your yeowu guseul, we’d need that, too.”

Miyoung nodded again. Then with a deep breath she held out her bead and dropped it in Shaman Kim’s waiting hand.

She shivered. Suddenly ice cold.

Miyoung glanced at Nara, seeking some sort of comfort, but she watched Miyoung coldly, as if she were a stranger. Was it because of Shaman Kim’s presence? Did Nara so fear her halmeoni that she’d pretend she and Miyoung weren’t close? It hurt even as Miyoung recognized this was what she’d always done, kept space between her and Nara.

“Sit,” Nara’s halmeoni commanded, and Miyoung obeyed.

Shaman Kim pulled out a bujeok and wrapped it around Miyoung’s yeowu guseul. The old shaman’s eyes captured Miyoung’s. The look was not particularly kind, and Miyoung wondered again whether she was a fool to trust this old woman.

It was too late. Nara pulled a janggu onto her lap, the hourglass-shaped drum decorated in bright reds and blues that matched the girl’s hanbok. She struck the instrument, a heavy beat that reverberated through the forest.

Despite her age, Shaman Kim moved gracefully in long, reaching movements. Her feet took slow, measured steps. Her arms folded and twisted into a kut, a shaman dance. Her long sleeves shot out, an extension of her body.

As the kut progressed, the moon rose.

The air became heavy. The smell of incense thickened.

Miyoung coughed to clear her throat, but it didn’t quite work.

Nara caught her eyes and mouthed,Open yourself.

Miyoung stilled and tried to release the tension in her shoulders. She didn’t know how to open herself, but she figured part of it was to relax.

The smoke of the incense wove in the wind. Wisps breaking off to become ghostly shapes. It coalesced, becoming the face of one of Miyoung’s past victims. A man she’d caught killing dogs in an alley on a full moon. His gi had tasted heavy and salty.

Then another, the face of a man who’d used his money to buy his freedom after driving drunk and plowing into a family of four; the whole family had died. And Miyoung sent the man to meet them in the afterlife.

More faces formed in the smoke, breaking free to swim around her. A macabre montage of her victims. Vengeful eyes of the dead spinning and spinning around her in a crowd of accusation.

Miyoung yanked at her collar, trying to pull in air. Shaman Kim’s eyes found her. Held her as the woman twisted and spun. Her graceful dance becoming sharp, jerking motions.

The beat of the janggu reached a frenzied crescendo, and Miyoung’s heart matched it beat for beat.

---