Wicked Fox (Gumiho #1)(58)

“Light an incense.” Nara held out a long stem.

Miyoung obeyed.

Nara picked up a bronze cup and held it out.

Miyoung glanced inside, half expecting the concoction of water and ash from before. It was wine.

“It’s to help cleanse you,” Nara explained. “We need to connect to the gods, and you need to purify before we can do that.”

“Nara, I want to believe this will work, it’s just that last time . . .” She trailed off, and the shaman nodded with understanding.

“You’re not sure if you can trust me after what happened last full moon.”

“This is my life we’re messing with,” Miyoung said.

“I can’t make promises, Seonbae. And I don’t think this will work if you don’t trust me.”

Miyoung hesitated. Considered turning around and walking away. But the hunger in her gut made her whole body ache. And she remembered the mistrust in her mother’s eyes. So she took a sip, letting the bitter alcohol sit on her tongue before swallowing.

“I need this to work, Nara,” Miyoung said, handing back the cup. “I’ve let my mother down. I can’t go back until this is fixed.”

“If your mother did something to you—”

“Let’s stop talking about my mother,” Miyoung insisted. “Can you do this or not?”

Nara’s face smoothed and she straightened her shoulders. “I can do this.”

Miyoung nodded, clutching the fox bead so tightly in her pocket she thought she’d crush it. “What’re you going to do now?”

“I’m not going to do anything,” Nara said. “My halmeoni is.”

An elderly woman walked into the small clearing. She wore a traditional hanbok cinched high over her ribs, the satin skirt a wide bell. Instead of the bright colors that usually made up a hanbok, hers was pure white.

Miyoung almost backed away. This hadn’t been the deal and the stories about Shaman Kim echoed in the back of her head. They mixed with Yena’s warnings. Maybe she shouldn’t be trusting these shamans. Maybe she should just go home, find Yena, and beg her forgiveness.

“This is her?” Nara’s halmeoni asked, and her gaze seemed to trap Miyoung in place.

“This is her,” Nara replied. “Gu Miyoung.”

“Gu. Mi. Young.” Nara’s halmeoni repeated each character of Miyoung’s name like she was dissecting it. “I’m Shaman Kim.”

Miyoung gave a bow, her manners taking over because her mind was too busy debating her decision to come here. She didn’t know anything about Shaman Kim except that she had exorcised more dark spirits and creatures than anyone could count and she hated anything she deemed evil. Miyoung knew that her kind fit that category. She was like a deer trusting a hunter to pull an arrow from her side.

Shaman Kim turned to her granddaughter. “Where is it?”

Nara looked at Miyoung expectantly.

She couldn’t pull her hand out of her pocket where it clutched her bead.

“If you don’t want my help, then I’m wasting my time.”

“I just . . . I need reassurances,” Miyoung stuttered out, her voice weak.

“There are no guarantees when it comes to this kind of practice. But I can get rid of your ghosts,” Shaman Kim said. “I assume you’d like that.”

Miyoung nodded.

“And if you’d like me to reunite you with your yeowu guseul, we’d need that, too.”

Miyoung nodded again. Then with a deep breath she held out her bead and dropped it in Shaman Kim’s waiting hand.

She shivered. Suddenly ice cold.

Miyoung glanced at Nara, seeking some sort of comfort, but she watched Miyoung coldly, as if she were a stranger. Was it because of Shaman Kim’s presence? Did Nara so fear her halmeoni that she’d pretend she and Miyoung weren’t close? It hurt even as Miyoung recognized this was what she’d always done, kept space between her and Nara.

“Sit,” Nara’s halmeoni commanded, and Miyoung obeyed.

Shaman Kim pulled out a bujeok and wrapped it around Miyoung’s yeowu guseul. The old shaman’s eyes captured Miyoung’s. The look was not particularly kind, and Miyoung wondered again whether she was a fool to trust this old woman.

It was too late. Nara pulled a janggu onto her lap, the hourglass-shaped drum decorated in bright reds and blues that matched the girl’s hanbok. She struck the instrument, a heavy beat that reverberated through the forest.

Despite her age, Shaman Kim moved gracefully in long, reaching movements. Her feet took slow, measured steps. Her arms folded and twisted into a kut, a shaman dance. Her long sleeves shot out, an extension of her body.

As the kut progressed, the moon rose.

The air became heavy. The smell of incense thickened.

Miyoung coughed to clear her throat, but it didn’t quite work.

Nara caught her eyes and mouthed, Open yourself.

Miyoung stilled and tried to release the tension in her shoulders. She didn’t know how to open herself, but she figured part of it was to relax.

The smoke of the incense wove in the wind. Wisps breaking off to become ghostly shapes. It coalesced, becoming the face of one of Miyoung’s past victims. A man she’d caught killing dogs in an alley on a full moon. His gi had tasted heavy and salty.