Wandering Through

Author: Nikss

Looking down at the woman on the ground, Yiseo bit her lip.

Clutching onto her bulging belly, the woman’s face flickered like a corpse.

A wanderer outside, a woman in full term, a concubine, a ghost…

Everything in her senses spun, and she didn’t believe in ghosts.

If there really was a ghost, she would have seen one, or at least gotten better, after all the good she’d done to get out of her crippling condition.

‘Whatever. I was so stupid to pay for a proper walk.’

Figured the world hated me because I had a lame leg.

Even if I could get over my condition, I’d still be a cripple, but I was foolish enough to think that.

Little did I know that even if my leg healed, the world would never look back at me.

‘It’s a good thing I know that now.’

Yiseo pursed her lips as she mulled over the words in a dizzying mind.

“So now you know whether what was in that stomach was a ghost or a human.”

“Yes. What’s in there is a ghost.”

There was no guilt in the answer, no remorse for baiting her.

‘What could I possibly say to him?’

“…Then, if you have ascertained what you wish to know, I shall be excused.”

She glanced down at her nearly naked body, which was barely covered by the cloth, revealing her skinny frame.

My skirt had fallen to my waist, and the collar was damp with sweat.

She was ashamed. To be out here, exposed, no matter how dark it was around her.

Closing her eyes, she wanted to run away from it all.

“She’s a…, no, it’s not, my Lord.”

Whether the woman’s body on the cold yard floor should be brought into the room, I wondered, but that was none of my business.

All she wanted to do now was get back to her room, the same room she’d been given.

In the corner of the room he’d given me, I wanted to just stay there and fester and die, the way I always had.

Without a thought.

“Don’t you wonder who that thing is, what it has in its belly, and why I’m checking what it has in its belly?”

“If I say I’m curious, are you even going to answer that?”

The question spat out sharply, startling herself, but Lee took her question in stride.

“Why do you assume I won’t answer?”

“Some fishermen tell their bait what’s going on.”

“Bait, you’re talking too much.”

“Or what was I?”

He was the only one who had ever heard of living in a house where servants didn’t even roam. If she wasn’t his bait, who was she?

“Madam, you are my wife, so you can ask me anything.”

‘Madam. His wife.’

She bit her lip to keep from laughing, then shook her head as she straightened her clothes.

The nakedness of her body against his was unnerving, and she was tired of arguing with this man.

“No. I don’t… Just, please, get off. It’s late at night, and you should be resting, as well.”

He answered, “Because I prefer nights, during the day I’m sprawled out and busy.”

That was not true after ten years of marriage. We should have been together day and night.

A small chuckle escaped her lips, and she lowered her head.

Then a cold voice spoke, “I thought you were supposed to be looking at me.”

Yiseo raised her head again.

It was dark enough that I couldn’t make out his face above his chin, but I could vaguely sense that his shadowy eyes were looking at me.

His jaw seemed to tense as he stared down at me for a moment, and then his throat moved as if he were swallowing saliva.

After a precarious silence, he turns and walks to the floor, setting her down.

Seated, Yiseo quickly caught her flowing skirt, and then bowed deeply.

“Thank you. My Lord. I’ll leave you to it.”

As she crawled back into the room, barely able to stand, the man behind her reached out and grabbed her left ankle.

“Ugh!”

Her weak right leg gave out, and she fell to the floor, unable to support her body. He stared at her as she lay still on the floor, then let go of her hand.

A pair of resentful eyes looked back at him, as if to ask why.

“What did I do to you to make you run away?”

He hadn’t given her a fraction of the trouble he’d taken.

If she acted like that when I hadn’t done anything, I’d give her something worse.

His head was full of things that his wife, now a fine woman, would never have thought of doing.

As expected, he didn’t think he could stand it much longer.

The next day, after the strange night of the bizarre spirits, the servant brought news of her Nanny.

In the morning, Yiseo heard a message delivered by a servant. That Nanny Yeongseon would be staying at her daughter’s house.

Yiseo felt that this was not like her nanny.

Unlike the other servants, she was literate, so it was odd that she would send a short letter, as she usually did, when she could have used a servant.

But with her body screaming and her fever rising from last night’s mayhem, Yiseo’s thoughts could not extend beyond that.

Already, the events of yesterday were making her dizzy.

It was better to be sick and unable to think deeply.

All day, and only at night, when the fever broke, did she awaken to find a dark shadow looming over her.

“Are you awake?”

It was Lee’s voice, the one she heard more often yesterday and today than in the past decade.

Doubting whether it was a dream or reality, Yiseo tried to sit up, but the presence refused to disappear no matter how hard she blinked.

“Stay down. Your fever hasn’t gone down yet.”

A large hand pushed down on her shoulder. The touch was cold. Or her body was hot.

“You are too weak.”

The low, raspy voice sounded somehow affectionate.

Looking up at the man in the darkness, she spoke, “It’s a good thing for you, my lord, for I don’t have long to live, and soon you’ll need a replacement.”

“…How true do you think that is, Madam?”

“I don’t know, I grew up being told I wouldn’t live past twenty, but I’m already twenty years old, so I’ll be gone soon.”

There was silence. I was dazed by the fever.

Feeling somewhat calm, Yiseo suddenly asked impulsively, “Are there really such things as ghosts?”

“Yes.”

“How do you see them in the eyes of the Master?”

“If you mean how do I see them, I’d say I’ve seen them since birth, and if you mean what do they look like… They don’t look much different from the living, to my eyes.”

Even an old shaman with diminished powers could tell the difference between the living and the dead, but for over twenty years, Leegwang had been unable to distinguish between the living and the ghosts.

Even when he saw things that others did not. It was a matter of seeing too well.

“Anything else?”

Today, he was being generous.

Yiseo moistened her dry lips with her tongue as she thought about it.

At that moment, a faint blue light flashed in the corner of those dark, shadowy eyes.

Her feverish body felt strangely tense. A knot formed in the pit of her stomach and her shoulders slumped.

It was like falling in front of a gaping maw, ready to be swallowed whole at any moment.

Yiseo clasped both hands tightly together. Her fingertips were faintly trembling.

“…What, what kind of person becomes a ghost after death?”

“A person with a deep-seated soul becomes a ghost when they die, whether that person’s soul is filled with love, hate, or sorrow…”

“What kind of heart did yesterday’s ghost have to become a ghost?”

“It was deeply resentful of her husband for not looking out for her, so it became a ghost and lived in the womb of her daughter.”

The woman who had been accused of playing with another man, and who had been beaten to a pulp, became nearly insane when she realized that it was her own husband who had falsely accused her.

In revenge, she committed lascivious acts with the people of her husband and was executed, and thus became a ghost.

Leegwang thought that Yiseo would pity the ghost, whose plight was similar to her own.

But when Yiseo opened her mouth, she said something else.

“I pity the daughter. What sin has she done to deserve her mother’s wrath?”

In silence, she asked what had become of the child of yesterday.

Instead of answering the question, he asked Yiseo, “Doesn’t Madam feel sorry for the spirit?”

“If she were alive, I would pity her, but she is dead.”

A lingering cough erupted from her throat as she turned away and pressed her lips to her sleeve.

Turning away from the man who seemed to fill the room, she found it deserted.

The room was empty and dark, devoid of warmth.

“Isn’t it the ghost who blamed her death on her Husband? Why, she could have left everything behind and gone to the other side.”

Yiseo stared into the dark corner of the room and muttered to herself.