I completely forgot the laughing spirit and even my aunt, flinging myself at the door with every ounce of mental strength I possessed. I swung my amulet in a desperate arc of warding, of closing, in every pattern and configuration that I thought might help.

After what seemed like hours, but must have been mere moments, the door finally began to move, closing and leaving only a sparkling silver line shimmering in its place. The space around me shuddered with the impact, and the remaining fog broke up and separated into the distinct if ghostly shapes of spirits.

Hundreds, no, thousands, of spirits.

Oh Gods. Oh Ancestors.

What have I done?

I staggered back from the door, still holding my amulet and mirror out in a desperate attempt to keep the swirling souls away. Thwarted in their attempts at escape, they were streaming above me in shrieking misty clouds, their features warped and contorted in rage or agony. Or both.

Now that the ghost fog was gone, I could see that the ground, if you could call it that, was a velvet expanse of dark blues and violets pinpricked with the white sparkle of stars. It would have been far more beautiful if I wasn't overcome with the horror. 

Across from me, on a small rise of this "ground," stood a single tall spirit, glowing like a silver candle in the darkness. A still, dark form was crumpled in front of it.

I looked from the writhing souls above to the solo spirit watching me, and I knew instantly that this was the one who'd called me. And lying at his feet was a glowing shape with long black hair turning silver at the edges.

"Auntie!" I cried, scrambling forward despite the waiting spirit and the unbound and unsealed door behind me.

It was, indeed, Auntie Jinju's soul, or something that resembled her, pale and still and tangled in an inert, disheveled clump. I gathered her faint form in my arms and glared up at the spirit looming cold and glowing above us.

"What did you do to her?" I growled, but further words were stolen as I met the spirit's chilling gaze.

He didn't look anything like what I expected. He was beautiful, far too beautiful for a man, with shimmering hair that fell to his narrow hips in sheets as silky dark as a new moon night. His long, old-fashioned robes were white mist, wisps of faded blue cloud, swirling and dancing in some unseen breeze. His skin was the color of fresh milk, as flawless as a child's, and his finely angled bones were as delicate as a bird's, giving him an elegant, sharp beauty that didn't seem quite human. But above all this incredible beauty, which I registered as background information, were his eyes. They were fully black – no pupils, no irises, no whites – just spilled ink splashes on a face that would have been perfect otherwise.

"I have done nothing. Yet." His voice was deep and low, causing a reverberation in the air as he spoke.

"Let her go." I lifted my mirror and amulet, though I had a sinking feeling that this spirit was far more powerful than my simple Speaker's tools.

He laughed again, but his expression was cold and terrible. "Save your strength, little Speaker." He bent down toward me, his shifting hair brushing my cheek like the smooth, cool, coil of a snake. His icy spirit lips brushed my forehead, sending ripples of cold through me, and giving me an instant headache. "Send my regards to Death."

And then he was gone.

I whirled around to see the last threads of white slipping through the tiniest crack in the doorway.

"I swear I shut that!" I wailed, turning back to my aunt. I gathered her spirit in my arms, and it somehow felt like holding water. Strange. It was also heavier than I expected. Above us, the spirit clouds had stopped swirling, as if they'd sensed that the door wasn't properly shut.

I cursed my stupidity under my breath, using my growing rage to help me drag my aunt's spirit back to the door in one rough tug. I hooked an arm around her, and used my amulet-holding hand to pry the door back open along the crack of light. It was much easier than closing it. And in that moment, I also realized my second mistake.

I had shut it, but I hadn't reset the crucial locking wards, binding it shut against more powerful souls. Curses and damnation. I shoved my auntie's spirit through the widening crack, hoping that was enough, forming the glyphs for "return" and "restoration" even as I flung myself back against the door just in front of a host of souls headed straight for it.

The door shut, and I swung my amulet into the binding patterns. The silver threads formed and held, taking just as the first diving spirit slammed into the space where the door had been. The space that was just empty darkness like the rest of Sideways. Where I was now surrounded by thousands of angry spirits.

The spirit screeched, then rushed at me instead. I swung my amulet in desperation, and it caught the spirit, dissolving it, but also cracking in the process. The crack resounded like fireworks, and then all the remaining spirits started diving at me, screeching like a horde of shredded white crows.

I lifted my amulet, swinging it in a desperate arc of repulsion, my mirror lifted in my other hand. Spirits fell, split aside, even disappeared. But there were thousands of them. And only one of me. My amulet shattered. My mirror splintered. I scrambled back, and back again. But I knew that I was going to die, and I would never be able to explain why I'd opened the door in the first place. I would never know if my aunt even returned to her body.

You're a failure, Younha. You always were.

So it began. And so it ends.