He Has Come
Of the countless islands scattered along the west coast, only a handful were inhabited. Baekam Island held fewer than twenty souls, and even that meager number dwindled as the old died off one by one. On a hill set apart from the village stood the mansion where they lived.
“My sister and I have lived here for nine years now. I was fourteen, Gayoung four, when we arrived.”
Not long after their parents’ deaths they had come to Baekam Island, for Gayoung’s convalescence—she suffered from mental illness—and at the urging of their uncle, Baek Jeong-hak.
“The moment she turned four, Gayoung changed. At first she had nightmares constantly. She was terrified someone was going to kill her. She had fits often, and cried often.”
Gaon spoke calmly, fulfilling her duty as the one being consulted. It was a ritual she had performed every time a new doctor arrived.
This was the first session with the newly arrived physician. Ordinarily they allowed a week for the doctor to settle onto the island, but he had proposed beginning treatment at once. To Gaon, that was welcome news.
“Later she grew suspicious of everyone. Kim Ju-yeon and Lee Yong-hoon, who work in this house. Even Uncle. She says I’m the only one she can trust.”
The doctors had all declared Gayoung to be in the terminal stage of delusional disorder. The conviction that those around her meant her harm was the most fundamental symptom of schizophrenia and paranoid obsession.
“I see. The trauma of your parents’ deaths may well have been the trigger for the child’s condition.”
Cha Gil-ho murmured as he jotted notes with a fountain pen. Gaon nodded. Every physician had reached the same conclusion, naming their parents’ deaths as the decisive blow that had shattered a young mind. At some point Gaon herself had come to believe it. How hard it must have been. How lonely. How devastating.
“How did your parents pass?”
“It was a traffic accident.”
Cha Gil-ho muttered “Traffic accident” under his breath and scribbled something hastily. He wiped the sweat beading on his forehead with a black handkerchief. This spacious consultation room at the far end of the first-floor corridor had originally been a reception parlor for guests. They had renovated it into living quarters for the doctor, with an adjoining examination room. One entire wall was a great picture window that framed the garden at a glance.
Even though the wooden building stayed cool inside, Cha Gil-ho was sweating. It was early spring; mornings and evenings were still chilly. And yet, while pouring sweat, he kept his long-sleeved dress shirt buttoned to the throat and wore long trousers. Gaon remembered he had been dressed the same way the day before.
“Doctor, you sweat quite a lot.”
“Ah—yes. I have a touch of hyperhidrosis. Does it bother you?”
“No. I only wondered if you were hot. If you are, we can turn on the air conditioner.”
“It isn’t the heat.”
The curt dismissal closed Gaon’s mouth.
Did I offend him?
Doctors as a breed were proud. They especially disliked having personal details or weaknesses exposed. There were exceptions, of course, but the physicians who washed up on Baekam Island almost always carried some peculiar flaw. Perhaps they had failed to fit into the mainstream and been pushed out to the margins. Stingy Baek Jeong-hak would never offer a lavish salary, so the place attracted all sorts of misfits willing to scrape by on pocket change.
Having seen every variety of human specimen, Gaon decided that if this doctor’s only shortcoming was hyperhidrosis, it was no problem at all. So long as he faithfully played the role of medicine dispenser, she had no other complaints.
“When your parents died in that accident, how did you feel, Miss Gaon?”
The consultation resumed.
Even this was the usual sequence every previous doctor had followed. Unable to plumb Gayoung’s inner world, they tried to infer it through Gaon. She was just opening her mouth with an inward sigh when a stranger beyond the picture window behind the doctor caught her eye.
That man. Cha Taekyung.
He moved busily back and forth in front of the arborvitae that filled the garden. Black T-shirt and cotton trousers—the same casual, easy clothes as yesterday. With his towering height he carried something diligently. Looking closer, she saw they were small flowerpots. The shadows cast by the arborvitae painted restless patterns across his shirt.
“Ah. My nephew’s hobby is raising orchids.”
“…….”
Following Gaon’s gaze to the garden, the doctor spoke.
“He said he would ask the gardener, so it seems he’s been allotted that spot. Do you like orchids?”
Gaon shook her head. She had no talent for keeping anything alive. Plants especially withered and died the moment they passed through her hands.
Orchids, of all things.
It was a hobby that suited that strange man not at all. Against his broad shoulders the pots looked tiny. The arborvitae crowding the garden drooped their long branches toward the ground, casting shade into every corner. These massive trees that blocked the sea wind had grown thick across the surrounding land long before the mansion was built. Except at high noon, little sunlight reached the house. Gaon had no idea how much light orchids needed, but the place hardly seemed suited to raising any plants.
Sadly, they’ll all be dead before long.
Judging by how carefully he had brought them all this way, it was a hobby he cherished. She felt a twinge of pity.
“It’s a rather mismatched hobby.”
The words slipped out before she could stop them.
“I thought tending plants might ease his mysophobia a little.”
The doctor’s casual reply drew her gaze back. Cha Gil-ho looked flustered by his own remark; the topic had grown far too personal. He wiped his brow and tugged his notebook closer with hurried hands.
“Shall we return to the question, then? How you felt after your parents’ traffic accident……”
Gaon gladly followed his change of subject. She had no desire to pry into the private affairs of the doctor’s family—how severe the nephew’s illness was, or why they had been forced to drag him all the way to this island.
The rest of the session went smoothly.
By the time Gaon left the study, another half hour had passed. Aside from bringing along that baggage of a germophobic nephew, the man was an ordinary doctor with nothing particularly remarkable or irritating about him. She felt a weight lift.
Tomorrow I’ll suggest we try changing the medication.
That thought occupied her as she walked the long corridor alone and stepped into the hall.
“Unni—!”
A thunderous cry shook the mansion. Gaon whirled in panic and looked up toward the second floor. There, midway along the stair railing, stood Gayoung, utterly alone.
“Gayoung, you—how—”
Gaon was stunned.
The child in her white nightgown was as pale as the fabric itself.
Gaon raced up and seized her arm. Gayoung was terrified of leaving her room. Even on the island she locked herself inside the mansion’s narrow chamber and refused to move an inch. From first to last, every aspect of daily life required Gaon’s help.
“Why did you come out? How did you get out?”
She pulled the girl into a tight embrace and asked urgently. In one of Gayoung’s hands dangled the bisque doll she had played with since childhood, its brown hair hanging in a tangled mess.
“He came, didn’t he? He came. He came. He came.”
Gayoung muttered frantically. She did not look sane. That morning she had eaten well, read her books, and been excited about sewing clothes for the doll. Now the doll’s sky-blue dress was stained with thick red blotches.
What is this?
Before Gaon could examine it closely, Gayoung’s head began to thrash wildly. Her small body convulsed. A seizure.
“He came. He came. He came. He came. He came. He came.”
“Gayoung. Gayoung.”
Gaon held the child desperately. Whenever Gayoung’s condition grew this extreme, Gaon lost her way. No matter how many medicines they tried, no matter how fiercely she cared for her, the girl only worsened.
What’s wrong? What are you afraid of? What’s hurting you? Tell Unni.
She prayed with desperate intensity. She had been fine—why this sudden turn? What had gone wrong? Her mind spun in chaos.
Then the body that had been shaking and convulsing without mercy suddenly stopped. The child slipped, rustling, behind Gaon’s back.
“He really came.”
Gayoung whispered so softly it was barely audible.
Reflexively Gaon turned. There, standing motionless in the mansion entrance as if he had been waiting all along, was Cha Taekyung. His pitch-black gaze fixed on them.
Behind Gaon’s back, Gayoung—who moments before had been thrashing in a violent fit—now held her breath as if dead. Like a herbivore suddenly exposed before a carnivore.