Drrrk, creeak. Drrrrrk!

No matter how many times the wipers swept, the rain showed no mercy, pouring down in sheets that blurred everything beyond the glass. The wipers moved without rest, but they were no match for the raging torrent.

Just a little while ago, the sky had been so brilliantly blue it almost stung the eyes. How could it have been swallowed by storm clouds in an instant?

It was a good thing she had bought an umbrella before getting on the bus. The sky had looked ominous, as though the heavens had been punctured and were emptying out.

Yeon-ah peered through the window from inside the bus as it splashed through muddy puddles. The rain hammering against the glass obscured her view, but the road had just narrowed to a single lane, which told her the destination was not far off.

“Of all the days to pick…”

Why did it have to be a day like this? A brief wave of regret washed over her, but there was no one to blame, so she quietly let it go.

Because the young shaman she had met not long ago might have been telling the truth about everything. Because if she didn’t move now, she might miss the most important opportunity of her life.

She hadn’t chosen to come out to the countryside willingly, but she wished it could have at least been a brighter day.

Even in broad daylight, the desolate country road was so gloomy it wouldn’t have felt out of place if a ghost appeared right then and there.

Dring dring, dring dring! Dring dring, dring dring!

The sound of rain battering the empty bus was cut through by a loud ringtone.

Yeon-ah felt the woman sitting in the seat behind the driver turn to look at her, and she offered an apologetic nod.

“Hello.”

— Officer Baek! Have you arrived at your destination?

It was her friend Sora. The unexpected voice helped Yeon-ah slowly release the tension she hadn’t realized she’d been holding in her body.

“Oh, yeah. Almost. Is it raining there too? It’s coming down pretty hard here.”

— Rain? No? It’s raining that much? That’s why I told you we should go together next time. What was so urgent that you just took off like that? You said you’ve been seeing things, aren’t you scared?

“Yeah, during the day they at least look somewhat normal so I can manage. Once night falls it’s a different story though…”

It had all started when a ghost in a black funeral dress appeared in her dreams.

A pallid face drained of all color. Lips as red as if smeared with blood. The woman wore an expression full of sorrow and came every single night, pressing down on her body.

The first few times, Yeon-ah had been too terrified to even scream. But the spirit’s downward gaze was so full of anguish that eventually curiosity overtook fear.

How had she died, and why had she come to her. Maybe she had something she needed to say. If so, Yeon-ah felt a sense of mission stir within her, a desire to resolve whatever it was and help the spirit pass on.

That was why she had gone to see the shaman that day.

‘Something wicked has latched onto you!’

Those were the words that greeted her the moment she crossed the threshold of the shrine. The eyes that met hers were unfocused and half-lidded, unsettling enough to make her want to turn around and walk straight back out.

‘I can smell the stench of rot all the way from here, can’t I?’

She had heard beforehand that this was a child shaman who served a foul-mouthed old god, but it was still hard to get used to hearing curses pour out of a small, cherubic face.

‘Your ancestor was meant to receive the divine inheritance, but she refused it and took up a different god instead. So who do you think all that karmic debt fell on? You wretched thing!’

That was the gist of it. Her maternal grandmother, who should have received the descent of the ancestral spirit, had refused and instead served a different god, and the ancestors had grown furious.

The reason her mother had recently died, and the reason she could see ghosts, were all because of her grandmother, the shaman said.

So if she didn’t appease her ancestors and make offerings right away, she would end up the same way as her mother, the shaman had scolded.

But wasn’t there a contradiction in blaming a grandmother who had passed away twenty years ago. They say even mountains and rivers change in ten years. She couldn’t bring herself to believe that the divine line had only now descended to her.

— Hey! You don’t actually believe what that shaman said, do you? You just got your probationary badge not that long ago… What are you going to do about work?

“It’s fine. The director said he’d process it as sick leave until the results of the leave of absence review come in. So I have to try whatever that kid said.”

— Wow, Baek Yeon-ah! You’ve become a full-on shaman believer, haven’t you?

She had no choice.

It started with one, then two, three, sometimes four. The spirits that appeared just as she struggled to fall asleep were the more tolerable ones.

On top of that, ever since she had nearly hit someone with her car because of a ghost she encountered on patrol, she had found it difficult to even hold a steering wheel.

So it made sense to take a break from the police work that had been her lifelong dream.

“Hey, Jin Sora. You know everything I’m going through and you’re still saying that? How cold. I’m hurt, really hurt.”

It was then. The bus, which had been crawling along, began to slow down even further. Regardless, Sora’s agitated voice rose another notch.

— I say this because I care about you so much, and you know that! So wrap it up and come back. Don’t take what that shaman said to heart either! Why is she dragging up a grandmother who died decades ago? I bet she didn’t tell you to hold a gut, did she? That’s all just a scheme to squeeze money out of you……!

“Hold on, I think I’m here now. I’ll hang up for now. Let’s talk later.”

— Huh? Hey! Hey, Baek Yeon-ah!

The shout that burst through the receiver echoed through the bus.

Yeon-ah had been gazing out the window and suddenly remembered the woman in the seat behind the driver. She turned her head. But only an empty seat remained, with nothing but a cold chill hanging in the air.

‘You think you can hold out for now, do you? Just you wait. Every manner of thing is going to latch onto you trying to take over your wretched body! You’d better burn this into your memory, you hear?’

Had those words become a curse after all.

The words the young shaman had hurled at her just as she tried to storm out of the shrine had become a curse gnawing away at her life.

Yeon-ah took a deep breath and stood at the rear door of the bus. The door slid open with a beep, and just as she was about to step straight off, she changed her mind and raised her voice toward the bus driver.

“Thank you, driver! Please drive safely in the rain!”

She forced her racing heart to calm and stepped off the bus. Surely nothing bad would happen to the driver.

The spirit hadn’t seemed particularly malevolent, but the brief moment their eyes had met left a heaviness in one corner of her heart.

“Huu…”

With a short sigh she took a heavy step forward, and a worn old sign came into view.

〈Welcome to Songhak Village!〉

“So I’m finally here.”

Not long ago she had dismissed the shaman as a fraud and ignored everything she said. But after finding her grandmother’s letter, she couldn’t just sit still.

Even if everything the shaman said was a lie, there were still layers upon layers of unanswered questions.

“No matter how I look at it, it should be that way…”

Yeon-ah stopped in front of a stone bridge that led into the village. The river below surged and swelled as though on the verge of flooding, threatening enough that one wrong step felt like it could sweep her away.

If the bridge went under in this downpour, she would be trapped inside that village. But she couldn’t turn back now that she had come this far.

She crossed the bridge slowly, and a few homes with warm light spilling out came into view. Yeon-ah passed them one by one, checking the street address written in her grandmother’s letter.

She walked on for a while, following a path that gradually narrowed as it led inward, until at the far end of a dim road she spotted a single house.

It was a hanok situated on higher ground than the homes before it. Perhaps because it sat at the top of the village, the footpath that continued behind the house looked just like a private walking trail.

So her grandmother lived in a place like this. It was too dark to see clearly, but in the bright light of day it would surely be a beautiful sight.

Yeon-ah pushed through the rain and came to stand before the large tiled-roof house. The first thing she did was check the address number.

This is it. Her grandmother’s house.

The wall surrounding it was low enough that standing on tiptoe gave her a clear view of the front yard. It was like a hanok straight out of a historical drama had been lifted and set down here. Neat and tranquil, a solitary home with not a trace of human warmth.

Thud thud thud!

Yeon-ah knocked on the large front gate without hesitation.

“Is anyone there?”

The hanok showed no sign of a doorbell and gave no sign of life, but she called out once more just in case.

“There’s really no one here, right? Then I’m coming in.”

She slid the key she had brought into the lock. The worry that it might not fit was put to rest immediately as it turned without resistance.

Should she count this as a stroke of luck?

After the accident where she had nearly hit someone with her car, she had gone to the hospital, and when she told them she was seeing ghosts, they diagnosed her with post-traumatic stress disorder and recommended rest. The doctor suggested that a brief hospitalization might also be a good option, and she had been on the verge of checking into a police hospital.

She didn’t particularly think it was PTSD, but she had hoped that if she were hospitalized, the ghosts might at least keep their distance for a while. All she wanted was to escape from those things somehow and live a normal life.

But then she had stumbled upon a box of her mother’s belongings, and her plans had completely unraveled.

Inside the box was a letter dated six months ago, and the sender was, astonishingly, her maternal grandmother.

Her grandmother, who was said to have died in a sudden accident twenty years ago, had sent a letter six months ago.

She had quickly torn it open to check the contents. Inside were a house key and a copy of a property sale contract, among other things. It seemed her grandmother had wanted to transfer this house to her mother.

But given that the envelope had remained unsealed until now, the transfer had apparently never gone through, and the property had likely passed down through inheritance instead.

“Huu…”

Yeon-ah kept moving her reluctant feet forward. She had already come through the gate, so there was no retreating now. She needed to at least find a light switch before she could do anything.

Surely the electricity hadn’t been cut off. She was looking around and stepping onto the stepping stones across the lawn when it happened.

Rumble! Bang!

“Eeek!”

No sooner had her vision flooded with a wash of pink than lightning struck in rapid succession.

Bang! Bang! Crack!

The deafening boom nearly brought her to her knees, but Yeon-ah steadied her breathing and closed her eyes. And she recited her mantra.

Just get through tonight. As soon as the sun rises tomorrow, find the sacred tree and carry on grandmother’s prayers.

Until then, just pretend not to see anything, pretend not to hear anything. Then the ghosts will lose interest and go away.

With that firm resolve, she opened her eyes.

And then she spotted it. A soft glow cast over what had been nothing but darkness and silence, and Yeon-ah’s body went rigid.