Chapter 2: The Ghosts of Childhood

A hand as large as a lid swung toward his face. He flinched instinctively, but the other hand had already seized his upper body. He nearly spilled his coffee.

“Stay still.”

Jeong Eun-gyu froze, unable to breathe. A cool breeze brushed past his ear. He flinched again and stepped aside. This time, the man didn’t grab him.

“Your shoulder must have been sore the whole way here.”

Right. That was why he had been on his way to get some pain patches. But strangely, after the man’s gesture, his once-heavy shoulder felt lighter than before. More importantly, who was this person to grab a stranger and speak so rudely?

But the moment Jeong Eun-gyu saw the ghost dangling by the neck in the man’s hand, unable to make a sound, he nearly dropped his coffee for real. The ghost had no eyes—just hollow black holes.

Was that thing on my body? Hanging off me like that patient? Well, how many ghosts had he seen clinging to people on his way here? He doubted they would leave his body alone just because it was his.

But the man’s gaze was sharp. He looked back and forth between the whimpering ghost in his grip and Jeong Eun-gyu, who had frozen like a statue. His eyebrow twitched as if to say, ‘You can see this?’ Jeong Eun-gyu belatedly wiped the expression off his face.

“I was looking because your hands are big. Sorry.”

“Get a grip, Doctor.”

A sound like crushing crackers came from the giant hand, and the ghost vanished without a trace. As if that was all he needed, the man turned and strode out of the lobby without a backward glance. Jeong Eun-gyu stood there like a stone statue until his page went off.

How could that man grab and crush a ghost with his bare hands?

Before he turned six or seven, young Jeong Eun-gyu lived alone with his mother in a small house deep in the mountains. The electricity would come and go, easily cut off by the wind. Naturally, there was no one to befriend in those remote mountains. (He believed his current indifferent and taciturn personality had persisted since childhood.)

Moreover, unlike city kids his age, Eun-gyu had never undergone any ‘learning’—not even picking up Hangul from the time he started talking, let alone memorizing multiplication tables early on.

His mother raised him like a free-range child. At the gate of their roughly built house, a Cheonwangdae made of bamboo fluttered in the wind. He never knew how they found such a remote place, but occasionally, neatly dressed people would come to visit his mother.

When guests arrived, Jeong Eun-gyu would naturally go outside. His mother had instructed him to slip out the back door without a sound whenever someone came.

Little Eun-gyu’s friends were the mountain itself: flowers, tall trees, and wary little animals. When autumn came, the leaves, dyed in vivid colors, rustled and spoke to him.

「You must be lonely.」

He was too young to understand the concept of ‘lonely.’ Having learned language late, he merely thought it was a whisper from somewhere.

Even on the day when two visitors in dark suits came, Jeong Eun-gyu was squatting on a low path at the mountain entrance, watching dandelions. They were plump and pretty yellow.

‘What are you doing?’

It was a voice he had never heard before. Very thin, with a weak trailing end.

He snapped his head up. A girl who looked about his age was standing next to him. The toes of her red shoes were badly scuffed, and browned pine needles were stuck all over her white stockings. Her hair was thick and tied in two pigtails.

Jeong Eun-gyu just stared at her. She was something completely new. His mother had strictly warned him: if anyone ever spoke to him, he must ignore them. Absolutely.

‘Can’t you speak?’

She tilted her head. The hand she reached out was covered in wounds. Little Jeong Eun-gyu, who had been squatting for a long time, asked very quietly.

‘Does it hurt?’

‘No. It doesn’t hurt.’

The answer came right away. When Jeong Eun-gyu slowly nodded and stood up, there were four more besides the girl. All were kids he had never seen before, and all were covered in wounds. One of them even had a leg completely rotted.

‘Hi?’

‘Hi?’

‘We’ve been watching you every time you come here.’

‘Right. We wanted to be friends. We hid for a long time.’

They approached Eun-gyu kindly and brightly. He dusted off the wet dirt clinging to his hands and moved his lips, not knowing what to say.

‘Your name is Eun-gyu, right? We heard your mother call you.’

He just nodded again.

‘We’ve been here so long that we forgot our names.’

The girl with pigtails grinned. Then came echoes: Me too, me too, me too….

Those who had spoken to Jeong Eun-gyu were ghosts who had been unjustly killed and then abandoned in the mountains, unable to dissipate. Mountain ghosts had high spiritual power, so even with a rotten core, they could maintain a decent appearance for a long time. That made them the most dangerous evil spirits to avoid.

But Jeong Eun-gyu had no way of knowing that. He only thought to himself that he hoped those kids weren’t in pain.

‘Eun-gyu!’

A shrill cry from his mother rang out in the distance. As Jeong Eun-gyu slowly turned, the faces of the ghosts standing before him instantly contorted. The children’s faces took on their true demonic forms.

If their eyes had met at that moment, Jeong Eun-gyu would have run away without looking back. Unfortunately, he was too focused on his mother panting as she ran up, so he didn’t notice. The ghosts, transformed into demons, let out a silent, cackling laugh.

Jeong Eun-gyu’s mother, Yeonhwa, was a spirit-possessed shaman. Unlike hereditary shamans who inherited the family business, she had suffered a divine illness and become a servant to a god.

The god she served was greater than the mountain itself, so lesser spirits dared not challenge Yeonhwa. Instead, they plotted to snatch away her only blood relative, Jeong Eun-gyu, whenever they had a chance. Even now, she had been reading a client’s fortune when she heard the god’s voice and rushed over.

Around Eun-gyu, who had already made contact with the ghosts, black wisps floated and wandered like air. If she had been a moment later, it could have been dire. Yeonhwa exploded in anger.

‘Who spoke to you! Who!’

‘They were here….’

When he pointed to where the mountain ghosts had been, they vanished without a trace, leaving only the dandelions.

‘What did they say? What did they say?’

‘They… called my name….’

‘Let’s go down. Don’t even think about going up the mountain again.’

‘They said they wanted to be friends with me… I… I…’

Slowly, before he could even form a sentence, his arm was roughly grabbed and he was dragged away without resistance. As he was forcibly taken down the mountain, Jeong Eun-gyu kept looking back. He felt sure the kids would be smiling prettily, wanting to be friends.

In winter, withered rambler roses clung to the church walls. In late spring and summer, they bloomed brightly, drawing admiration from the parishioners, but even plants seemed to find winter harsh.

He passed the unsightly rose vines and a statue of the infant Jesus. At the entrance to the inner sanctuary stood a statue of the Virgin Mary. The sanctuary doors were wide open.

The sound of Jeong Eun-gyu’s shoes echoed through the quiet church. The stained-glass ceiling was so high he had to crane his neck all the way back to just barely see the edge. A few people sat here and there in the aligned pews, attending mass. He carefully took a seat in the last row. The wooden kneeler near his shins felt awkward.

How long had he sat there? In that sacred, silent space that seemed to allow no noise except the wind outside, footsteps sounded. Jeong Eun-gyu, who had been dozing off without realizing it, forced his eyes open.

“You’re early.”

A thick hand patted his shoulder. The eerie memory from yesterday flashed in his mind, making Jeong Eun-gyu flinch, but Father Peter, seeming unbothered, gestured with his chin to go outside and talk. Their footsteps fell slightly out of sync.

“Did you pack everything?”

The priest’s office was behind the underground church. Even in broad daylight, the midwinter wind was biting. Father Peter smiled at Jeong Eun-gyu, who was lightly dressed.

“I have a suitcase in the car. I only packed a change of clothes since I plan to return after my birthday. But why did you tell me to pack?”

“Where’s your padding? That place is countryside—it’s cold. The wind feels different from the city.”

“Huh? Countryside?”

When he asked back as if he had misheard, Father Peter brushed back his stiff hair.

“An old acquaintance of mine lives there. He’ll help you sleep soundly and comfortably.”

“I don’t mind the countryside, but this is too sudden.”

“Life is meant to be lived spontaneously, without plans.”

“I hate being spontaneous.”

“Aren’t you about to go crazy? Even a normal person would become someone else after seeing ghosts with so little sleep. You need to survive first.”

“Can’t you… perform an exorcism for me?”

Father Peter’s relaxed lips curled into a smile.

“As you know, Eun-gyu, I exorcise demons that possess people. I can’t directly exorcise spirits without a physical form.”

“I know, but I asked just in case.”

“You must really dislike it.”

“I can put up with other things, but the countryside is… My leave request was rejected, so I have to go to work every day starting three days from now.”

“I know… I understand how you feel. But this is the only solution I have right now. I’m sorry.”

“Well. You don’t have to apologize.”

In the office, a small mahogany desk and a wall painting of Michelangelo’s ‘The Last Judgment’ caught his eye first. He sat on a neutral leather sofa and pressed his tired eyes. Beyond his fish-like gaze, they felt as hard as ping-pong balls.

“Want some coffee? No, you must be sick of it. I’ll make you some tea instead.”

“It’s fine. I’m sick of any liquid.”

Father Peter, who had made his own coffee, set down a note scribbled with a fountain pen in front of Jeong Eun-gyu. It was a single line of an address.

[Seonil Administrative Office, 1-24 Mugwang-ri, Hwapyeong-gun, Uiyang-si, Gyeonggi-do]