Danhee

I rewrote the names for the ritual table three times. Not because my hand shook, but because the names to strike kept growing.

• Jo ManbokI've paid well for the ritual, haven't I. Just move the date up three days, and I'll cover every lantern myself.
  DanheeThe river sets the date. Not the trading house.
• MugyeongMaster, is my name on that list too?
  DanheeYour name was never in the reckoning to begin with.

From where the water rises to the waist, the weeping has gone on a thousand years. Whoever calls that grief still doesn't understand ritual.

• SohaWe hear the same sound every night in the tent. The patients say it's their own mother's voice.
  DanheeWhich is exactly why it must be sealed.
• OkryeThirty years I've rowed this river, and it ain't the gods weeping. It's the water.
  DanheeWater has no way of weeping.