Sob, sob. Sob, sob, sob....
While the bewildered children looked around, Wonhyeok quickly raised his eyes to the sky.
The sun had already vanished beyond the horizon.
Night was coming.
Even though Ghost Jade taken from Ghost Gates could be used to light the night and drive back the darkness, that was something one saw only in prosperous places.
In a small village like this, once the sun set, the wisest course was to keep the oil lamps lit or hurry indoors and avoid needless misfortune.
Wonhyeok hurriedly told the children.
“Get inside. Quickly!”
As he spoke, Wonhyeok pulled the nearby girl into his arms.
Just as he was about to grab the boy, the child spoke.
“Ah, wait! I left my pouch behind.”
“Now is not the time....”
Before Wonhyeok could tell him that was not important and pull him back, the boy darted swiftly toward the jars.
The moment Wonhyeok awkwardly stepped down from the porch to follow him—
CREEEAK.
The empty gate opened on its own.
Wonhyeok felt his shoulders stiffen.
He shouted quickly.
“Hide!”
Then, holding the girl close to him, he pushed himself beneath the porch.
As he urgently peered out from beneath it, he saw that the boy who had gone to retrieve his pouch had been startled by Wonhyeok’s shout and hidden his small body among the earthenware jars.
Sob, sob. Sob, sob....
The sound of weeping grew steadily louder.
The girl burrowed into Wonhyeok’s arms in fear.
Wonhyeok pressed down on the girl’s head to hide her, then sent a tense look toward the boy among the jars.
Soon, a white foot appeared at the edge of his vision.
The feet, floating gently in the air without even flailing, moved peacefully as though gliding across water.
【Where are you... Where are you....】
The ghost murmured through its sobbing.
Wonhyeok stared at its feet with a pale face.
It was surely the maiden ghost said to kill the village men!
Why did it have to target the guesthouse where Wonhyeok was staying?
【Will you leave me to spend this night alone...? Where are you.... I came to see you, and yet....】
Holding his breath beneath the porch, Wonhyeok felt as though he might cry.
He endured for the child in his arms, but he could not stop himself from thinking.
‘Where in the world has that man Haje gone, staying away until nightfall?!’
Leaving his accompanying inspector in a crisis like this was truly lamentable. If he survived, Wonhyeok would record this matter in full detail in the inspection record.
Then the ghost’s feet slowly moved away from the porch.
Wonhyeok felt the girl in his arms loosen her hold around him.
But he could not relax.
The ghost was heading toward the earthenware jars.
The boy visible between them looked at Wonhyeok with tears welling in his eyes.
As the ghost moved away from the porch, Wonhyeok could see its appearance.
Long, trailing hair. White hands and feet. White....
‘...Mourning clothes?’
The ghost’s attire was strange. Usually, a sonmalmyeong—a maiden ghost—was known for wearing a simple white mourning robe.
But the ghost Wonhyeok was looking at wore a jeogori with sleeves and hems as long as a hwalot, a wedding robe.
Moreover, a mourning hood rested atop her damp hair.
While Wonhyeok continued examining the ghost despite the tension, it began circling the jars, as though it had noticed the child hiding there.
Wonhyeok raised a trembling hand and gestured for the boy, whose eyes had met his, to remain quiet.
The boy barely nodded and covered his mouth with his hand.
Yet there was no sign that the terror had faded from his face.
‘Please, please... Pass by....’
Inwardly, Wonhyeok begged heaven, earth, and every god he could think of.
【If you leave me alone....】
Sobbing, the ghost circled the jars once again. A strange frost formed everywhere it passed.
The boy clung to one of the jars as though he would embrace it, gripping his pouch as tears rolled down his cheeks.
Then, in one instant, the boy gasped.
“Hic.”
Wonhyeok stopped breathing.
The ghost’s feet, moving through the air, also stopped.
In that brief moment, silence densely filled the yard and settled heavily over it.
The boy, clutching the jar, froze with a bloodless face.
The ghost stood tall, looking down at him.
Then Wonhyeok saw it clearly.
Amid the ghost’s pitch-black hair, she smiled.
【...I will tuck you beneath a spring-breeze quilt and take you away.】
“No!”
Leaving the girl in his arms beneath the porch, Wonhyeok rolled out into the yard.
It happened in the blink of an eye.
The ghost’s long sleeve fluttered, seeming to cover the boy. The next moment, both the child and the ghost had vanished from the yard.
Wonhyeok, who had rushed to the jars, stared blankly at the empty space.
The girl crawled out from beneath the porch and asked Wonhyeok in a nasal voice.
“Messenger....”
Where did my brother go?
At the child’s tearful question, Wonhyeok could not say anything.
About eight minutes after Wonhyeok began consoling the sobbing girl, Haje returned.
Haje looked at the child sniffling in Wonhyeok’s arms with a puzzled expression.
“What is all this?”
“What have you been doing to return only now?”
At Wonhyeok’s sharply edged words, Haje tilted his head.
“I was searching the reservoir.”
“Why did you go to the reservoir in the first place? Even after night fell, you were still away....”
Wonhyeok, who had been speaking forcefully in an angry tone, closed his mouth. What could he say?
‘A child was taken by a ghost because Haje was absent’? ‘Why was a Ghost Gate Messenger flashing east and west instead of protecting helpless me and the children’?
It was all pointless blame.
‘If I had kept better watch over the children from the beginning....’
Watching Wonhyeok restrain himself with a resentful expression, Haje spoke.
“Did a ghost come and go?”
At the infuriating question, Wonhyeok shouted irritably.
“Yes, it did!”
“Hmm.”
Haje reacted as though it were no great matter and slipped a hand beneath his veil. He seemed to be rubbing his chin.
Then he gestured toward the sniffling girl.
“We should find that child’s family and take her home.”
“At this hour?”
“Yes.”
Leaving Wonhyeok to rise awkwardly from the porch, Haje pointed toward the gate.
“Her mother is already here.”
As he said, though it was deep in the night, a woman stood outside the gate with a lamp, peering inside.
Wonhyeok was inwardly taken aback, but also relieved. He led the child to her.
The girl immediately returned home in her mother’s arms.
Watching the two from behind, Wonhyeok could not shake his uneasy feeling and spoke to Haje.
“This village is truly strange.”
“Did you only realize that now? Look, those two are strange as well. There is a perfectly capable Messenger here, yet that woman and child insist on walking alone through the night in a village where ghosts appear.”
“Yes, and even after I told them what happened to the boy, she did not react much....”
Wonhyeok frowned, then followed Haje’s gesture into the room.
There, Wonhyeok noticed that his gat had somehow come off. It was not damaged, but seeing it made his chest ache for some reason.
Had he acted decisively and rescued the boy, even if his gat had been ruined, he would not feel this way.
Wonhyeok put down his gat and spoke to Haje.
“I learned some things while I was looking around the village.”
Wonhyeok told Haje what he had experienced in the village during the day, along with the maiden ghost’s appearance.
Haje merely lay there with an expression Wonhyeok could not understand, still wearing his black veil and propping his head up with one arm.
How is even that man’s sleeping robe black? No, wait. When did he change clothes?
Wonhyeok looked at Haje, who appeared almost like a black earthworm, and asked.
“Why did you go to the reservoir during the day?”
“Did you not notice that there was no cemetery in the village?”
“Would they not have buried their dead somewhere on a sunny mountainside? What does that have to do with the reservoir?”
At Wonhyeok’s puzzled question, Haje rolled about on the bedding as he spoke.
“They submitted a petition because they were afraid people had died, ghosts would appear, and Ghost Gates would open. Do you think only one or two people died? Yet there were fewer people in mourning than I expected.”
“Come to think of it....”
“And they say children are being abducted, but the only people who state with certainty that ‘the ghost kills’ are the men. Then where have all those children gone? Did they enter a Ghost Gate?”
“That cannot be.”
“Right. There is no Ghost Gate here, and if children were taken by a ghost into one, it would be no different from death.”
Ghost Gates spat out those who died within them.
If the children had died because of a Ghost Gate, traces of that would be found somewhere.
Until their bodies were discovered, the children had truly “disappeared.” They were not “dead.”
Wonhyeok looked at Haje with a grave expression.
“So that is why you inspected the reservoir. You suspected there were bodies in it. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
At Haje’s simple affirmation, Wonhyeok asked again.
“So were there men or... children inside?”
At Wonhyeok’s tense question, Haje was silent for a moment.
Then he snorted.
“No. There were no children. Only women’s bodies.”
“Ah, that is a relief.... Pardon?”
Wonhyeok doubted his own ears. Women’s bodies? Not men’s bodies, but women’s?
Suddenly, Wonhyeok recalled that the maiden ghost’s hair had been wet earlier.
But a water ghost could not wander about outside the water in that manner.
“According to the village head, they were women who died in the past.”
“In the past... Ah, she did say that there had been women who died unjustly before. Could the maiden ghost be one of them?”
With a confused heart, Wonhyeok frowned and asked, but Haje only shrugged.
“What in the world... Then where have the bodies of the men who died gone?”
“I do not know. In any case, our goal is to exterminate the ghost, is it not? It is somewhat troublesome that she has taken children hostage, but once she shows herself, tracking and catching her will not be difficult.”
“Ah, you think the ghost has taken the children hostage?”
“That, too, we do not know. Even if their past and outward appearance are those of people, uncanny powers and wicked spirits do not think or act like the living.”
Haje snapped his fingers, which were covered in black silk.
“So if you meet a ghost that thinks like a living person, be careful. Those are the old, dangerous bastards.”
“Th-then the children....”
“Stop worrying and get some sleep. I am concerned that the children may be hungry, but since no bodies have been found, they are probably not dead.”
‘...That does not mean I can feel reassured!’
Though his stomach churned, Wonhyeok could not bring himself to question the Ghost Gate Messenger with the longest career in all eight provinces of Joseon. He lay down instead.
When he had only barely fallen asleep and then opened his eyes at the crow of a rooster, what Wonhyeok heard was news of a death.
A man had died the night before.