Ever since Mistress Yuri mentioned the mandala, she acted as normal as ever. I was half-expecting her to transform into an ugly monster. Sometimes I was tempted to ask her the same question we usually posed in front of ghosts. She still didn’t like that word for them and still smacked me on the head the moment I dared start my sentence with G and not an S for spirit. I couldn’t help myself. 

It was a rather sunny day when she sent me to the market. We went pretty often there. It was the first time I walked alone in the sea of people. The cluster of color and noises made me dizzy. The scent of exotic spices that came all the way from the West made my mouth watery. The man behind the stand had a turban wrapped around his head. His skin was darker in comparison with the rest of the sellers and his eyes were as blue as the summer sky. I stared too much at him, but not because his appearance was out of the world. The barely sketched figure attached to him frightened me. I saw many ghosts in the last few months: distorted ghosts, plain ghosts and beautiful ladies that died in full bloom, but I could swear I had never seen that kind of spirit. Mistress Yuri didn’t teach me yet how to deal with them as she performed most rituals without me. It was because I fainted when she first tried to initiate me into what I was going to do for the rest of my life.

“Are you from here or from somewhere else?” I uttered and hoped the merchant didn’t hear me. He turned his cobalt orbs in my direction, amused. He gave me for free a dried reddish fruit and patted my head. The figure attached to him stared back at me. Its teeth were rowed perfectly in its wide mouth. The figure stretched its long limbs forward and whispered at my ear.

“I’m from somewhere else.”

I dropped the fruit and ran as fast as I could. I’m pretty sure I smashed a couple of baskets with goods and wasted some materials that were caught in my arms, but the last thing I could do was to stop.

It was a demon.

---

The room completely changed. I inhaled deeply and closed my eyes to fully vision the haven I was taken into. There was a strong hold on my wrist as my body floated inside the headless ghost’s memories. Why do they always have to grab my wrist? The marks left behind would be hard to mask with anything but a wide bracelet. I don’t like those. I’d rather keep something elegant on my hands, but it was useless. Worst case scenario, I’ll need bandages if the hold proved to have burnt my skin too deeply. It only happened once with a very angry woman who was killed by her husband out of unfounded jealousy.

Neon colors flashed before me. That ghost had a thing for disco, or else I didn’t understand their use. Or he fancied entering in style. Either way, it was becoming annoying. Unwillingly, I grabbed his arm and deepened my nails into his grey skin. Finally, I was free of his grasp, enough for me to land on my .

Really, landing flat on your hurts.

I was back in the room, but the walls were different. They had a dark burgundy color, and framed photos with a couple of paintings were cluttering them. I was lying in bed. In front of me was a woman dressed in a nightgown, holding a glass of wine.

Or cherry juice, who knows.

I would have left right away for the real world, to try and contact the ghost again, if he hadn’t joined the vision. He grabbed the woman by her waist and their lips locked in a tender kiss. I guessed the woman was his wife or something, judging from the ring on her finger. Until said lady pulled said ring off, threw it on the floor and both lovers jumped in bed.

I had to get out because there was no way I was going to partake in that kind of scene. I had to rush away on my all fours before I would turn into a pancake. Another man, one that looked very angry, burst into the room and at the speed he had, I could swear he flew towards the bed. He took the lady on top for a couple of punches. The ghost guy tried to stop him. He jumped on the guy’s back and started kicking and punching whatever he could reach.

I had to cover my ears. Their screams were one hundred times louder than what it would be in real life. It was, after all, just a memory warping in my head at full volume and full speed. Before I knew it, the ghost guy was pushed out the window.

At that moment, I opened my eyes.

“I get it now...” I breathed while I soaked my hand in the cinnamon flavored water to smudge some over my forehead. “Damn. What do you want me to do?”

I didn’t know at that point that Daesung watched everything from the door. He probably thought by then that I was one crazy woman if our initial meeting hadn’t completely sold him on my insanity.