Ballad of the Mountain Fox

제 17 장: Mysterious Undertones

The day had started with rain, and now it was ending with rain, too.  Sujin scurried through the market streets with her jacket held over her head, glaring at every puddle blocking her way.  Most people had retreated indoors due to the weather, but those who remained outside quickly stepped out of the servant’s way, sometimes with a curious backward glance, but Sujin paid them no mind.  She ducked down a narrow alleyway, turned the corner at the end, and finally reached her destination.

Remember: be polite, or she may turn you into a lizard.

Sujin knocked on the old wooden door before her.  A heartbeat passed before it creaked open ominously.

“Yes?” the old crone said from within.

“Uh, may I come in?” Sujin asked, simultaneously trying to shift her jacket so that the rain running off the eaves didn’t hit her in the face.

The door opened a fraction wider, and Sujin hesitantly took it as her cue to enter.

“You have a matter to discuss with me?” the woman rasped as soon as Sujin stepped over the threshold, dripping water onto the dirty floor.  The servant couldn’t help but notice the books stacked along the far wall of the house, and felt a light sweat break out across her brow.  Hopefully, they were just ordinary books, and didn’t contain any supernatural knowledge about turning people into reptiles.

“What’s with the stone you gave my lady?” Sujin blurted.  Beady black eyes regarded her with a slightly gleeful twinkle.

“Ah, is it heavy?  What a shame.”  A fleeting grin passed over the shaman’s worn face.  “She bears the burden of her decisions.”  The woman shuffled around her guest to close the door, then turned to a patched cushion next to the columns of books, where she had apparently been sitting before her visitor arrived.

“She can’t get rid of it!” Sujin exclaimed, following the woman across the room.  “We’ve tried giving it away, burying it, throwing it in the pond…”

“As the crucial hour of her ill-fated lover draws near, she will continue to feel its weight.  Only until the curse is completed will the stone no longer hold any effect.”

“What do you mean?”

The woman pointed a bony finger to the sky.  “The mountains—high up in the mountains!  That is the crucible of the curse.”

“I don’t understand!  Why?”  Sujin crossed her arms and fought the childish urge to stomp her foot, frustrated with the lack of a straightforward answer.

This time, the woman’s grin stayed on her face.  “I was asked a favor.”

“But my lady said—”

“This has nothing to do with that…your lady,” the shaman sneered, waving a dismissive hand.  “I was asked to rid the mountains of a pest.”

The woman was clearly insane, Sujin decided with a frown.

“That day we met you, on that path—you were coming from the mountains?” Sujin asked.

“What else lies that way—a tropical island?’ the woman shot back.  “Of course I was!  It was just luck that I happened across you and your little self-absorbed noblewoman.”

Sujin gaped in surprise.  “But—but you said the spirits talked to you…I thought they had led you to—hey!”  The last words of the shaman’s statement had finally sunk in.  “Miss Oh Jimin is not self-centered!”

“One would wonder if you have anything in that head of yours,” the shaman scowled.  “I needn’t ask the spirits to tell me anything with all the wailing and moaning—anyone passing within a five ri radius would have easily heard that girl complaining about her hard lot in life.  All it took was a little catering to her emotions before the whole story spilled out.  It was then I realized I could use it to my advantage.”