He's Bringing a Devil
“Aaaah! Sister! Sister!”
The child’s piercing screams tore through the mansion. Gaon broke into a run, breathless and frantic.
“Sister, come get me! Sister!”
She was halfway up the stairs to the second floor when she nearly collided with the two staff members repairing the railing—Kim Ju-yeon, who handled the kitchen, and Lee Yong-hoon, who tended the gardens.
“What’s going on?” Gaon asked quickly.
The two of them exchanged blank, bewildered looks. Gaon wiped the cold sweat from her brow. It had been a long time since the girl had had one of these fits. Why now, after weeks of quiet? Her heart lurched.
“It’s Gayoung. Can’t you hear her crying?”
Kim Ju-yeon’s face twisted with distaste. The look that said Is that all? stung Gaon more than she cared to admit.
Ju-yeon had worked at the mansion long enough that her careful mask had begun to slip. These days she made no effort to hide what she felt when she looked at Gaon: the revulsion reserved for someone not quite right in the head, the weary resignation, and underneath it all, fear.
“Leave her, Miss.” Ju-yeon sighed.
“No. I have to go.”
Gaon pushed past them. The old wooden house creaked faintly under her feet; a soft scent of timber brushed her nose. Curtains kept the second floor dim, and Ju-yeon had clearly turned the boiler down again to save on heating—the air was chill. That cold scraped at Gaon’s heart.
“Sister, Sister! Sister, where are you?”
Gayoung’s cries echoed alone down the desolate corridor. Gaon flew to the end room and flung the door open.
In the gloom, Gayoung sat alone on the bed, her pale face soaked with tears. The child alone seemed to glow with a milky light, as if she belonged to another world entirely.
Gaon rushed forward and pulled her into her arms. The small body burrowed fiercely against her chest.
“What’s wrong, Gayoung? Did you have a nightmare?”
“I hate you, Sister! Why didn’t you come sooner? I called and called!”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“I was scared! I was so scared.”
“Scared of what? Hmm?”
The girl only wept harder, offering no answer.
Thirteen years old—ten years younger than Gaon. Baek Gayoung. At some point Gaon could no longer pinpoint, the child had begun to fall ill. They had dragged her from hospital to hospital, yet no one could name the cause. She cried often, fell often, suffered seizures, feared people, and sometimes saw things that were not there.
“Why didn’t you tell me Uncle was coming today?”
Gayoung’s sobs cut off at once. Her voice turned ice-cold.
Gaon tried to pull back in surprise, but the girl clung on. The strength in those thin arms was nothing like a child’s. After a long struggle Gaon gave up first.
“I was going to tell you. I know you hate Uncle.”
“Yes! I hate him! When were you going to say it? He’s coming today! When were you going to tell me?!”
Gayoung’s shriek was high enough to make the skull ring.
Who told her Uncle was visiting?
Gaon’s eyes went cold. The girl especially loathed their uncle, Baek Jeong-hak; that was why Gaon had kept the visit secret. Kim Ju-yeon’s face flashed through her mind—the woman who had looked at her with such open disapproval and tried to stop her from going to Gayoung.
“Gayoung, calm down. Who told you Uncle was coming?”
“Does it matter? I know! I know everything! Tell him not to come! Don’t let him set foot near here!”
The child raged. People said Baek Gayoung was possessed.
Severe depression, social phobia, delusions—every diagnosis imaginable had been hung on this little girl. Everyone insisted she belonged in a psychiatric hospital, that a house doctor was nowhere near enough.
But Gaon could not abandon her. After their parents died, Gayoung was the only blood relative she had left—her one remaining sister.
“Uncle’s going to try to separate us again.” Gayoung trembled as she muttered.
“No, Gayoung. Uncle said we can keep living here on the island together. That’s why he sends support. He’s even bringing a doctor soon.”
“I don’t want to hear it! I don’t want to hear it!”
The girl thrashed so hard her body swayed. If Gaon had known the visit would trigger this, she would have delayed it. The last few months had been so quiet she had grown careless—and she could not leave the doctor’s absence unresolved forever.
“Sister.”
Gayoung suddenly grew calm and whispered into Gaon’s ear. Even Gaon, long used to these wild swings of temperature and mood, felt a prickle of gooseflesh.
“This time Uncle’s really bringing the……” The whisper was so soft Gaon couldn’t catch the last word. “What?” she asked.
The small body that had seemed welded to her suddenly dropped away. Tangled bobbed hair, tear-streaked little face gone cold. Round eyes with pupils blown wide—proof of extreme agitation.
Side effect of the medicine? Now that the seizures are back, we’ll have to change the prescription……
That was as far as the thought got.
“He’s bringing a devil.”
Gayoung whispered again. This time Gaon heard every syllable.
A devil?
Now and then Gayoung said and did things no one could understand. A devil—perhaps her newest nickname for Uncle.
Gaon was about to ask when a loud car exhaust shattered the air.
She screamed without meaning to. Gayoung burst into delighted giggles at the sight. The mischievous laughter filled the room and Gaon’s tension snapped all at once.
“You little brat, scaring your sister like that…… Why did you leave the window open?”
Gaon sighed and stood to close it.
It was a damp day of steady rain. Winter had finally loosened its grip; spring rain was falling on the threshold of the new season.
A black sedan sat in front of the mansion—the source of the exhaust.
A car she had never seen before. But at this hour, at this lonely house, only one person would ever visit.
He got here sooner than I expected.
Uncle Baek Jeong-hak.
Gaon did not exactly like him either. Standing in front of him always left her vaguely uneasy.
Yet while Gayoung’s illness kept them trapped on the island, Jeong-hak was their only link to the mainland. Family, after all—he had steadily helped the sisters.
Then the rear door opened and someone stepped out. Not the uncle she had expected.
The first thing she saw was hair black as a piece of night sky cut free. Even under the heavy, sunken weather the black was vivid. Black T-shirt, cotton trousers.
The man was very tall. Broad shoulders and long legs radiated an inexplicable pressure simply by existing.
The doctor……?
The new psychiatrist they had hired? He looked nothing like a doctor. The clothes especially felt wrong.
Just then the man lifted his gaze to the second-floor window where Gaon stood. Their eyes met.
The face behind the glasses was entirely cold. Every line of his features looked as if it had been whetted to a chill edge.
His irises were the same pure black as his hair.
“……”
She missed the moment to look away and froze.
Even across that distance it felt as though he stood right in front of her.
Time stopped. Even the falling rain seemed to hang suspended.
“Of all days for rain…… Doctor, this way.”
Uncle climbed out of the driver’s seat and the strange standoff broke. A smaller man followed from the passenger side. Baek Jeong-hak opened an umbrella and held it over the passenger while the man who had locked eyes with Gaon calmly surveyed the mansion and the landscape, as if he had never stared at her at all.
So the man from the passenger seat was the doctor Uncle had brought.
Then who is that other one?
Gaon watched the odd little group.
“It’s a wooden mansion. You’ll like the inside even better. Perfect for your niece’s convalescence.”
Uncle’s voice drifted up in fragments.
“……”
Only then did Gaon take a step back. She realized she had been holding her breath the whole time.
Remembering the expressionless man who had looked up at her window left a strange feeling in her chest.
Someone unusual had arrived with Uncle. An unwelcome guest, without a doubt.