Ballad of the Mountain Fox

제 30 장: The Next Stanza

After I had left Young Min at the marketplace, I had set off to find the shaman named Han Yuri. In the twisting, narrow streets of the poorer side of town, I finally managed to catch a whiff of something other than the stench of rotten food and refuse that permeated the air. It was the slight tang of old parchment and dried herbs. The hovel itself, when I finally traced the scent to its source, had an aroma similar to the kind of sandy, loose dirt that always washes away in a storm.

The shaman was not there.

I slipped inside and sniffed around. There was an old black dolsot pot that reeked of spells, stacks of books on the floor against one wall, and a wooden table that smelled of rot, have-buried under bundles of herbs gathered from outside the village.

Shuffling footsteps sounded outside. I turned just as the door creaked open, a shaft of sunlight temporarily blinding me as the shaman stepped inside.

She was silent for a moment, taking in the sight of me standing amongst her books and spell ingredients.

"You came to visit," the woman finally said. "Welcome to my home."

"Han Yuri," I said. "You're the one who cursed me?"

"Oh no," she said. "The only one cursed is the one who is trapped in the memories of the past. Unless, of course, that is you?"

I snarled. "You know nothing of my past."

"Oh, I think I know enough," she said. "After all, it's part of who you are."

"Get rid of the curse," I snapped.

"It's just a spell."

"It isn't to me!" I growled. "And if you knew as much as you claimed, you would know that."

"Why? Because it reminds you of just how human you are? How human you could be?"

"That's enough!" I had told the mountain shaman I wouldn't kill this woman, but I was coming dangerously close to breaking that promise.

"You think you're the only one? That this sort of thing hasn't happened before?"

"Of course not," I snapped. "Gumiho lore existed long before I became what I am. I know what others have chosen to do. But I will not abandon my mountain. I cannot. And I don't need you shoving that young noble in my face to taunt me."

"It was not meant as an insult, but an opportunity." The shaman stepped closer. "It is curious you were not so easily persuaded."

"Like I said, you know nothing about me." I took a step back and bared my teeth.

"Yet you followed him down from the mountain," the shaman said. "You're weaker here, and you know it. Why did you do it?"

"A promise made in an act of desperation, no more," I snarled.

The old woman actually had the gall to smirk. "I think you like him."

"It wasn't a promise to him," I shot back. "It was to a woman."

The shaman's smile dropped into a frown. "Ah. A complication," she said.

I tilted my head curiously. "A complication?"

"Her presence must have weakened the spell," the woman muttered.

Good, I thought. I would have to remember that bit of information.

"Why?" I asked.

The shaman looked up at me. "You truly are not jealous?"

"Jealous? I have no reason to be."