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 handsomely for the rite, haven't I. Just move the date up three days and I'll see to 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.

Where the water rises to the waist, something has been weeping for a thousand years. Whoever calls that grief still knows nothing of ritual.

• SohaWe hear the same sound every night at the infirmary. The patients all swear it's their own mother's voice.
  DanheeWhich is exactly why it must be sealed.
• OkryeThirty years at the oar, and I'll tell you: what's crying isn't a god. It's the water.
  DanheeWater does not weep.