What To Do When Meeting Your Princely Husband For The First Time:

1. Smile adorably, even if you’re being jerked out of a pit with coarse rope.

2. Don’t correct him, when he claims his chicken is a phoenix.

3. Don’t correct him about anything, really.

4. Smile adorably, even if he’s smiling at another princess.

Within the realm of Things That Could Be Wrong with your Princely Husband, Juan’s flaws were really quite minor. In fact, Leonora was even willing to call them Wholly Understandable, if not Entirely Overlookable or maybe even Completely Forgivable (terms she was well acquainted with, considering their flagrant use to describe her father’s peccadilloes). After all, Juan’s positive attributes more than outweighed his imperfections. For one thing, he wasn’t Majarlikan. For another, he only had one head, walked on two feet, and had nice, even teeth instead of poisonous fangs. Which was not to say that Lea had anything against her latest spurned suitor, who wasn’t Majarlikan, but had seven heads, no limbs and a rather dangerous smile. (Except that Lea did have a small issue with how inhuman her suitor looked, though she knew it wasn’t his fault he was born as a seven-headed snake.)

Despite the unassailable logic emblazoned in her mind, Lea still found herself uncomfortable with the given circumstance. It wasn’t because Diego, Juan’s older brother, was ignoring her (Lea had come to understand that a number of people were destined to have dubious taste if not imperfect eyesight). It wasn’t because Pedro, Juan’s oldest brother, was giving her some Flattering Attention (Lea couldn’t fault him for being appropriately dazzled by her beauty, charm and ample breasts). It wasn’t even because Juan was smiling at the Sampaguita-Smelling Princess in pretty much the same way he had smiled at her (because Juan was obviously just being polite).

The only flaw of Juan’s that bothered Lea, really, was the chicken.

When Juan had introduced the bird, he claimed it was the magical phoenix who had Turned Notable (Foolish) Personages to Stone, would Cure Kingly (Delusional) Fathers through Song and Provide Wise (Specific) Counsel when appropriate. It was a lot to expect from common poultry, but everyone else – from the Cloying Other Princess to Pedro and Diego – believed it to be the avian legend Juan claimed it to be.

Which she could learn to live with. Really. Except that the ‘phoenix’ kept looking at her in a dirty way, making Lea feel like she was a morsel it was considering devouring.

If Lea had not found Juan’s dimples so attractive, things would have been a lot simpler. She would have encouraged Pedro’s Flattering Attention. Pedro’s flaws would then be just limited to a brother who had dubious taste, and another brother who had an amusing predilection for domestic-fowl-in-the-guise-of-a-phoenix. Oh, and that Pedro was firstborn, because everyone knew that firstborn princes tended to become kings which meant their wives tended to become queens. Lea didn’t want to be a queen. She wanted to be a Proper Princess because Notable Queens were either stern, made of ice, feasted on hearts when forced to mother children they didn’t bear or died tragically young if they were perfectly nice while non-Notable Queens were just like her mother. Fearsome but ultimately, forgettable.

But Juan was truly the cutest of the three royals. And, despite everything, Lea still believed Juan was the better catch. After all, he was the youngest prince of three, and everyone knew fate and (heathen) gods favored and blessed Juan’s type.

Not that she believed that Majarlikan nonsense. But still.

It was while the royal menfolk were discussing their route back to the Kingdom of Berbania (a kingdom Lea had never heard of, but was assured was considered civilized according to the almanacs published by the Babaylan Hive Mind) when a disturbing notion occurred to Lea. What if Pedro’s Flattering Attention turned into an Awkward Display of Emotion? What if Juan, acting on kind-hearted brotherly instincts, did the honorable thing and backed out? What if the Saccharine Princess and Juan ended up together?

It was unacceptable. She could not, in good conscience, leave Juan to such a disastrous fate.

Without hesitation, Lea called up large tears in her eyes, and turned to give Pedro a pleading look she knew would get results.

“My ring!” she exclaimed. “I left it behind. Whatever shall I do without it?”

What to Do When Things Don’t Go Your Way:

1. Charm your companions to get things back on track.

2. If that doesn’t work, add tears.

3. Escalate into a Princessly Tantrum, if necessary.

4. Use Annoyed Silence and Chilly Gaze at your discretion.

How could Lea have known they would cut the rope and leave Juan behind (even if that was precisely what she had planned for Pedro)?

In fact, how could she have known that it would be Juan (curse his brave heart and excellent hearing) who would fall prey to her manipulative ploy? And how, in all of Berde, could she have known that Butterfly Breath Princess would not join her in her noble crusade to retrieve Juan?

The situation was particularly vexing not because Lea was afraid for Juan’s life (because that would be silly; the ring alone had enough magic in it to pull Juan out of harm’s way). And it wasn’t impossibly maddening because Lea had concerns for her own safety, after Pedro and Diego had displayed their fratricidal tendencies (there were protocols for dealing with Helpless Proper Princesses, after all, which every prince – even the murderously inclined ones – adhered to). And certainly, she wasn’t frustratingly exasperated that things did not go exactly as she had planned (except she was kind of sore that things didn’t go as she had intended, if she were to be completely honest with herself, which she rarely was).

In Lea’s mind, what annoyed her to the extreme was the inconvenience of it all.

With the unexpected (and unwanted!) development, Lea’s dream wedding would have to be delayed to allow for Juan’s return, and who knew when that would be? If he didn’t catch up with them before they arrived at the Kingdom of Berbania, it would certainly have to be at least an odd number of years before Lea would be able to lay eyes on him again. Things like these rarely resolved themselves within a year. If her One God was particularly benevolent, she might see Juan in three. Seven, if fate and pagan gods were to be accounted for. And, heaven forbid, nine, if Juan displeased even just one Powerful Being Disguised as a Hermit.

Lea didn’t want to wait. She had done enough waiting in her lifetime already. First, the wait until she was old enough to quest for her Princely Husband. Second, the wait for the perfect creature to entrap her (the creature needed to be fearsome enough to attract Princely Husband Potentials, but cultured enough to have a Palace with Several Towers, Adequate Plumbing and Comfortable Dungeons). Third, the wait for the actual ‘rescue’, which was only made tolerable by the rather witty conversations she had had with the seven-headed serpent who had the good manners to capture her, and the good taste to then court her.

But from the way things were going, it seemed as if waiting was exactly what she would be doing.

Once again, Lea examined her diminishing options. She had already expended charm (she had given some silly praises, batted her eyelashes and flashed an ankle once or twice) for which she had gotten her some Flattering Attention but not much more. She had tried crying, beautifully at first, then petulantly, but her companions merely ignored her. She had also given in to a Princessly Tantrum, by stomping her feet and refusing them access to her beautiful countenance, which, again, was just ignored.

The only things left in her Princess arsenal were Annoyed Silence and Chilly Gaze, skills Lea had only the most basic, rudimentary knowledge of, despite years of observing her mother wield such refined anger. The attacks were mostly directed at her father, who was in the habit of doing things that were Wholly Understandable or Entirely Overlookable and insisted that all of them were Completely Forgivable. The results were mildly devastating. Innocent bystanders caught in the soundless blasts temporarily lost their hearing; castle grounds (or gardens or town markets or undercity bordellos) turned to ice; dry, dreary winters extended for months at a time. But eventually, Lea’s father would capitulate and provide his queen with the Appropriate Expensive Gift of Reconciling. Things usually thawed, somewhat, then.

There were still others things that Lea could do, if she allowed herself to look outside of her Princess box. She could shout. She was quite adept at throwing things, preferably those with considerable weight. She had a fairly good handle on how to use her jeweled artifacts to create a bit of Relatively Massive Destruction. But she was, first and foremost, a Proper Princess. A Proper Princess in Love, second. Never barbaric enough to create a scandal. Never barbaric enough to be Majarlikan.

In a beautiful twist of irony, Lea found herself pinning her hopes on the chickenish bird that had disappeared, in the chaos of their leave-taking. With a little bit of luck, the creature would actually be what Juan claimed it to be, and would guide him with Wise (Specific) Counsel, as Juan had insisted it could do, to expedite his path to freedom.

“What did you just say?” Powder Puff Princess asked.

“Nothing,” Lea had replied. Then, under her breath, she repeated her entreaty. “Go, phoenix!”

What To Do While Waiting:

1. Sew.

2. Pray.

3. Sew while praying (or pray while sewing).

4. Reminisce in a prayerful way, while sewing.

The wedding took so much of her time that the first year was over before Lea even had time to agonize over it. The Sometimes Flower-Smelling Princess Turned Diego’s Wife was such a logistical nitwit that the princes’ formidable mother, the Queen, and Lea, had to organize an intervention, before the wedding became an Embarrassing Event That Nobody Talked About Without Laughing. The only valuable things that the Sometimes Honeycomb-Smelling Princess was able to bring to the table were the exotic scents that she had crafted by herself. Barring the fact that Lea and the Queen were mortified that she had a skill that was not part of the list of Proper Pursuits for Proper Princesses, the fragrances were really quite lovely. Despite the Queen’s efforts to keep the scents’ origins a secret, however, several rumors had spread in the Kingdom of Berbania about Diego’s Wife’s plebian hobby, which Lea may (or may not) have had a hand in. After all, though a Suitable Cooling Period had been observed (and Lea was magnanimous enough to regard the Leaving Juan Behind Debacle as Wholly Understandable), it was, still, not quite Completely Forgivable.

The second year was spent with Lea submerged in the castle tasks of royal female personages, while steadily avoiding Pedro. She prayed a lot, flirted whenever permissible, and sewed. And sewed. And sewed. She embroidered table runners and pillow slips; she started several ambitious tapestry projects; she sewed her name on the edges of curtains, when no one was looking (it was a silly joke at best, since only she was privy to the shallow implications of ownership).

Lea was cautiously optimistic during the third year. She brushed her hair every night with twisting strokes to retain their luster and their large curls; with wild abandon she scrubbed herself with the papaya soap she had finagled from her future mother-in-law; she coerced Diego’s Wife into sharing the secret of how to create her wonderful scents (which, later on, Lea would glean might have been Diego’s Wife’s secret weapon against Lea, had things progressed normally with Juan; Lea added ‘delusional’ to the list of the woman’s questionable attributes).

But Juan did not return.

In the fourth year, Lea decided to explore the palace environs, sometimes with Pedro (who turned out to be quite charming, when he wasn’t in his I-Will-Inherit-The-Kingdom mode), most of the time alone. She became well acquainted with the Garden of Santan Bushes, Some Orchids, and a Lot of Bougainvilleas, and its animal denizens, including a frog whom she could have sworn had once called out her name. She had rediscovered the Forgotten Attics with Percolating Dust and Other Allergens, where she had almost been tempted to play with a little-used weaving contraption. On a lark, during the relentless summer, she had gone walking in the Forest of Secrets, Good Lumber and Occasional Fire Hazard, and saw a cross-dressing wolf, which was odd considering wolves tended to be more careful about their look, but not as odd as exceptionally large chickens who pretend to be phoenixes.

All of these Little Adventures were, at their core, mediocre distractions, and by the end of the year, Lea was, again, mind-numbingly bored.

The fifth year was a year of limbo for Lea. Yes, it was an odd-numbered year, which meant there was a possibility that Juan would return, but no one really pays attention to the number five. For one thing, Notable Personages tended to have one or three or seven children. For another, there were seven days of the week. Which had nothing to do with when Juan was returning, as Pedro had pointed out, but she took this as an omen against five anyway.

A conservative at heart, Lea still went through her expanded ablutions. She could not deny that she felt a little bit vindicated when Juan, in fact, didn’t return, and she told Pedro so.

In the sixth year, Lea turned inward and nostalgic. She had begun to see the memories of her past in a different light. Certainly, her older sisters’ pranks were vicious and mean-spirited, but all the gowns that she had lost, all the grossly untrue rumors that had been spread about her and the beloved pet that she still mourned could not erase the fact that she had had a lot of fun with them, usually when they had another sibling as their favored victim. More than once during the sixth year Lea considered returning to her home, but True Love (and the prospect of admitting defeat to her parents) kept her rooted in the Kingdom of Berbania. Well, to be completely honest with herself, which foolish Pedro had said she ought to do now and then, another reason why she had stayed was that she had actually begun to like the Kingdom and its eccentricities. She had begun to find amusement with the neurotic king, the stern queen, the entrepreneurial Diego’s Wife (who continued to be fodder for the rumor mill, even without Lea’s help), the shortsighted Diego, and of course, the I-Will-Inherit-The-Kingdom prince himself, Pedro. But all of that would not have been enough to anchor her, had she really lost hope for Juan’s return.

As such, it was with a tinge of desperation flavored with fanatical optimism that Lea began the seventh year believing, without a shadow of a doubt, that Juan would finally come home that year.

It was time to move on to the next phase of her life. It was time for Something Good to finally happen. It was time for her Happy Ever After to come true.

“But what would you do after that?” Pedro asked. “What would you do after you married Juan?”

“Happy things, of course,” Lea replied. “Many, many happy things.”

What To Do When Your Princely Husband Returns:

1. Smile adorably.

2. Arrange a homecoming party.

3. Don’t mention the chicken.

4. Don’t ask him what took him so long.

The notion of a party was a stroke of genius.

That it had come from the exasperated Diego’s Wife (after Lea had repeatedly bemoaned the fact that there was absolutely no place in the Kingdom of Berbania that was dramatic enough for her long-awaited reunion with Juan) was purely incidental. Lea would have thought of it too, had she not been so distracted with orchestrating that Pivotal (Senses-Shattering) Moment, because any other moment simply would not do. Juan had been gone for seven years. To definitively claim her role as Juan’s Wife, she would have to ensure that their first meeting in seven years made a lasting impact.

All the other places she had previously scouted just weren’t good enough. The Garden of Santan Bushes, Some Orchids, and a Lot of Bougainvilleas had too many ants, too little shade, and a very outspoken frog. The Forest of Secrets, Good Lumber and Occasional Fire Hazard was humid and had bad lighting, while the Forgotten Attics with Percolating Dust and Other Allergens made Lea sneeze.

But a party – which was really Lea’s idea, had she put any effort into thinking about it –was absolutely perfect.

And so it was that it took another three weeks after Juan’s return, before Lea officially saw Juan again. But of course, she had her ways of finding out his whereabouts and activities. Those ways were known as Diego’s Wife and Pedro. And despite their initial resistance to her charming persistence, they eventually learned to provide detailed reports on Juan’s comings and goings. It was through these reports that Lea found out that the useless chicken (who, obviously, hadn’t been able to provide such wise counsel as to guide Juan back home sooner) was still Juan’s companion.

Which wasn’t too big an issue, really. Lea had grown since the last time she had seen that dirty-eyed bird. She was quite certain that she would be able to handle any situation with the so-called phoenix with princessly grace.

And, in the right outfit, with the right lighting, the right make-up (the right shoes, the right hair, the right angle, the right accessories), Lea might even be able to convince Juan to roast it.

On the night of the homecoming party, Lea arrived strategically late, to ensure that Everyone Who’s Anyone (which obviously included Juan) would be present when she made her entrance. Wearing a dress of shimmering sunshine that emphasized her ample bosom, accessorized by a smattering of precious stones that glittered like stars against her dark curly hair, Lea knew she was a Sight To Behold. This was her moment. This was her time to dazzle and shine and claim her right as Juan’s Wife. No more waiting. It was time for her big entrance.

With one small foot about to step into the crowded ballroom, Lea found herself stopped.

Pedro was holding on to her elbow. From the side, Diego’s Wife materialized in a fog of roses.

“There’s someone demanding to see Juan at the castle gates,” Pedro said.

“A Majarlikan woman,” Diego’s Wife said. “Smells as if she has been on the road for quite some time.”

Lea held on to her smile. Their concern was rather sweet, if rather uncalled-for.

“Let her come,” Lea said. “She’s Majarlikan. What do I have to be concerned about?”

What To Do When A Majarlikan Woman Ruins Your Moment:

1. Smile adorably.

2. Smile adorably.

3. Don’t let go of the smile.

4. Smile adorably.

The woman was glorious.

It was the first thought that came to Lea, when the Majarlikan appeared; a thought she hastily edited out of her mind, because Majarlikans shouldn’t be glorious. They were barbaric, dangerous, uncultured heathens. The opposite of anything glorious.

After the initial shock, Lea was able to more objectively assess her nemesis. She had long, black hair (almost shadow-like, really, only it was straight and shiny); she had brown skin the color of smoothened narra (though it was unblemished, it was too dark to be considered fashionable); she had eyes the color of wet earth (and really, who would want to have mud-colored eyes?).

Lea kept smiling.

She was somewhat aware that the Majarlikan Woman had caused a ruckus of some kind. There were some loud blasts, some fighting, a destroyed balcony in the west corner. Lea wasn’t really impressed. She was capable of similar Relatively Massive Destruction feats but had held herself back because Lea was a Proper Princess, while this woman obviously had no similar restraint.

The Majarlikan Woman was now articulating the wrongs that had been done to her, starting from how she had met Juan (a convoluted tale of lakes and sisters and clothes being stolen) to his profession of love (Seriously, how could it have been love, when he had no idea whose clothes he had stolen?) to the tests he had undertaken to win her hand (At this point, Lea blanked out, so uninterested was she in these so-called ‘impossible’ quests that Juan had undertaken), their perilous escape from a Suitor-Averse King (Please, almost anyone with a little bit of magic could escape a horse-riding king), how Juan had accidentally abandoned her to return to the Kingdom of Berbania (Well, perhaps it had been intentional on his part; after all, who would want to be married to a shrew?). Pausing, the Majarlikan Woman made a half-cough, half-rooster crow, and immediately, The Bird that Should Be Roasted appeared in a flurry of colorful feathers.

Lea kept smiling.

“If not for this chicken, I would never have known about his betrayal,” the Majarlikan Woman said, her voice loud. “I demand that the wrong done to me be made right.”

Silly Majarlikan Woman. Didn’t she know that the more she shouted, the less likely her wishes would come true? A Proper Princess does not demand. A Proper Princess does not shout. A Proper Princess waits, patiently, for her Princely Husband to return. A Proper Princess was so much better than any Majarlikan that it would be in this woman’s interest to read up on the Proper Pursuits for Proper Princesses.

Lea stopped smiling. It suddenly occurred to her that the ballroom was overflowing with Ominous Silence, which would have been fine, if Notable Personages weren’t all giving her a Look that Spoke Volumes, which also would have been fine because Lea was used to being looked at, and smiled at, which was what everyone was doing, quite adorably she would have added, if Juan hadn’t caught her attention and disrupted the troubling cascade of her thoughts.

Juan was flashing his dimples at her, the same set of dimples that had set her heart a-flutter all those years ago. And it occurred to her that Juan was probably following some Princely List of Protocols, which probably included smiling as a way to convey the refined but no less complicated emotions of the cultured: Love at First Sight; Self-Righteous Bravery; Humble Intelligence; Please Help Me, Power in Disguise and I-Will-Break-Your-Heart-but-Don’t-Cause-a-Scandal.

Lea forced a return smile.

And suddenly, the King and Queen were upon her, and so was Pedro, who looked like he intended to try and kill his brother all over again, and the rose mist that was Diego’s Wife, and, surprisingly enough, Diego himself, although he looked like he was just dragged into the crowd that surrounded her.

Their words tumbled into each other as all of them tried to speak to give their opinion. From what Lea understood, this was what they were saying:

She had to Set Juan Free. She didn’t have to do anything she didn’t want to. The Kingdom would be destroyed. The Kingdom would survive. They’d survive. She’d survive. He wasn’t all that, anyway. Let him go. Fight for him. Marry Pedro. Be a Queen. Leave her alone.

Lea closed her eyes. Of course she knew what a Proper Princess would do. A Proper Princess would be all Noble and Smiling Sunshine, despite the fact that the future wasn’t as clear anymore. A Proper Princess would save the Kingdom from unnecessary destruction by doing the Right Thing, even if that Right Thing involved becoming Queen.

For a moment, she considered what the world would be like, if that chicken were really a phoenix, if that woman hadn’t been Majarlikan, if she had stayed with her monstrous, witty suitor, if she had worshipped fate and pagan gods. And then the moment passed.

When Lea opened her eyes, she was smiling again. And then, she nodded.

Everyone around her understood. They parted to give her a straight path toward the Majarlikan Woman and Juan, who had found his way to the Majarlikan’s side. He was on bended knee, obviously apologizing, but without the Appropriate Expensive Gift of Reconciling, Lea knew it would take a long time before he was forgiven. She made a mental note to advise him on such matters after a Suitable Cooling Period was observed.

For now, she had a Dramatic Line or three to deliver. Lines that would best articulate her loss, her heartache, her nobility, her bravery. Lines that would describe how she was doing this for the Kingdom of Berbania.

At the last moment, she changed her mind. Slightly.

“You and Juan obviously have a lot to talk about. Perhaps a more private chamber would be more appropriate for you two to sort it out?” And then Lea instructed the guards to escort the two of them to the Forgotten Attics with Percolating Dust and Other Allergens.

She hoped they sneezed their way to their Happy Ever After.

—-

Kate Osias swears by the efficacy of cheap chocolate paired with carbonated drinks to solve stress-related problems. She is a two-time Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Literature winner, a GIG Book Contest winner, a Canvas Story Writing Contest winner, and has earned a citation in the international Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror.

Her work has been published in various volumes of the Philippine Speculative Fictionanthology series, Best of Philippine Speculative Fiction 2009, the Philippines Graphic, A Time for Dragons, Bewildering Stories, Philippine Genre Stories, and Serendipity. She co-edited the sixth volume of Philippine Speculative Fiction and is currently working as co-editor for the seventh installment of the series with her husband and co-writer, Alex Osias. Kate is a proud founding member of the LitCritters, a writing and literary discussion group.

Above image is from here. 

He worked at night, carving wood with his spotted hands by the feeble light of low and fat candles he favored from his youth, recalling how he watched his grandfather shape magic from wood and humming a song whose words he had long forgotten.  He worked from midnight until just before dawn for five weeks, struggling with the impatience that old men with erratic memory suffer, losing himself in the methodology of his craft, shaving wood to reveal the delicate limbs and the small torso of his waiting daughter.  Then at last he reached the part he liked best: shaping the girl’s face, determining the contour of her cheeks, the ridge of her brow, the curve of her chin, the hollow of her eyes.  For her hair he chose the color of burnished bronze, planting and pulling the strands in and out of her hard scalp.  For her eyes he selected the color of the bluest sky, fitting the glass spheres with a precision that only a master toymaker possessed.  Just before he finished, he covered her polished nakedness in muslin and lace, cutting and sewing the sleeves and the hems and the ruffs, just as the sun came up.

The toymaker straightened up and grimaced at the creak of his aching back and looked at his new daughter, reaching forward to gently put an errant lock back in place.

“Now we must be patient, you and I,” he told her.  “If my son could come to life, then certainly so can you.”

With all the gentleness his trembling hands could muster, he lifted her from his worktable and set her down on the low shelf where the boy came to life one memorable night many years ago.  He blinked once against the memory, then left to make four dainty pillows from the scraps of the materials of her dress, to arrange around her and arrest her fall should she awaken early.

He went through his day as if it were any other, busying himself with small toys that no one wanted to buy.  He had lost an entire generation of children who grew up without knowing him or his work, since he stopped working to raise the boy.  But he did not care about any of them.  He took pains not to look at the low shelf where his new daughter sat, half-convinced that he would confound the miracle of life.

He cooked some oatmeal late in the day when he realized that he was hungry.  He stood over the pot on the stove and stirred the thickening meal with little interest.  When the boy lived with him, oatmeal was not an option.  The toymaker’s larder had been stocked with hams suspended from the ceiling, as well as dried and preserved fruits in glass jars, honey in slender honeycomb sticks, and sacks and sacks of sugar, for the boy loved sweetness as much as the toymaker loved him. He hoped his new daughter wouldn’t miss sugar, as he had not bothered to replace the last empty sack.

He sat at the kitchen table and spooned hot oatmeal into his mouth, barely grimacing at the heat, listening to the relentless whirrs and ticks of the kitchen clock.  He put down the spoon and realized with a start that he was sitting in darkness.

With barely concealed excitement, he stood up, leaving the cold bowl on the table, and made his way to the room with the low shelf, stopping only to light a candle and pocket another one.  He did not want her to be afraid.  He wanted her to see him in light. When the boy came to life, the first thing he did was to scream.  That was the terrified wail that shook the toymaker from his sleep, and he remembered spending many hours comforting the boy.

He stopped at the door and craned his head toward it, trying to listen for the slightest whimper, the littlest cry.  Hearing none, he opened the door and rushed to the low shelf to comfort his new daughter, thinking that perhaps some children greeted evening with disregard, because they simply did not know yet how to be afraid.  She would need him, regardless, for he believed that every good father was a guardian against things unknown, though he knew there were things that no one could guard against.

The toymaker knelt by the low shelf and brought the candle close.

“Daughter,” he spoke the word as both question and affirmation.

The doll’s blue glass eyes caught the candlelight, and for a breathless moment he thought the miracle had come to pass.  But when she did not move, long after he had expelled the air he contained in his chest, he knew he had to wait a little while longer. The boy, after all, with his unforgettable terrified wail, came to life in the long hours of the night.

He sat on the floor and watched his new daughter by candlelight.  He thought about the best years with the boy and imagined all the possible mistakes he had made raising him, and all the possible solutions and corrections.

He thought about his propensity to praise the boy for every little thing – yet he could not completely blame himself for the daily amazements of his living, breathing miracle.  Certainly no one would begrudge him that.  But he knew deep within that too much kindness had the quality of watered-down sweetness.  He promised himself he would not be too kind to girl, that he would be firm and resolute against the decay of love and respect, that he would raise her to be obedient and respectful and gentle and loving.  But not too loving, for too much love only had the inevitable effect of diminishing itself over the course of the years, and he did not want that.  He planned to love her in precise measures, no more, no less.  That way, she would stay.

But part of him rebelled against the ghastly logic of withholding affection.  He believed he should be able to create for her the most wondrous toys. In his mind was the plan for a dollhouse unlike any that any child had seen, the size of half a real house with miniature furniture and running water.  And that would be only the first thing he’d build for her.  He would plant a diminutive garden for her, populated by the smallest flowers he could find.  Then a working carriage with clockwork horses, then a model of the world circling around the sun, then he’d figure out a way to make the distant stars twinkle for her even in daytime.  And he would talk to her about anything that interested her, and he’d listen gravely to her every word, for it was important that she felt important.  He’d guide her and protect her and give her everything that was love’s due, everything that was love’s right.

The toymaker woke up with start, for a moment disoriented by his abrupt transit from dreaming of laughter to the feel of cold hard floor on his cheek.  In the dark of the room, he thought he heard someone draw in a breath.  Realizing that it was the sound of his own inhalation, he reached for the extra candle in his pocket and forced his trembling hands to light it, replacing the exhausted one in the candleholder.

He drew closer to the low shelf, his lips in a helpless smile of anticipation, but saw nothing different in his daughter’s glass eyes.  He bit back his disappointment and rose to his feet to check the time.

He stared at the clock on the wall.  It was well past midnight.  Anger at his ineptitude washed away the displeasure, and he hurried out of the room, banging his leg against a chair as he reached for the door.  Only when he was out of the room, with the door securely closed, did he give in to the beginning of tears, distressed by the terrible possibility that his very presence near the low shelf had deprived whatever agency of the privacy it needed to work the miracle.

Sickened by his suspicion, he leaned against the door and closed his eyes.  He banged his head backward once, twice, before releasing a low moan.  Regret provoked thoughts of the boy – of how, in the end, the boy screamed that the toymaker’s relentless attention was the precise reason that he was leaving, that, and nothing else, because everything horrible thing emanated from that single quality; of how, in the end, the boy accused the toymaker of treating him like a toy that could not be free, could never truly be alive; of how, in the end, the boy did not, could not, would never love him; of how, in the end, everything ended.

It was an hour past dawn when the toymaker entered the room again.  He had spent the small hours of the incipient day in darkness, ignoring the gloom that conquered the solitary candle he’d lit past midnight.

On the low shelf, nestled against four small pillows, was his new daughter, her blue glass eyes unblinking.

The toymaker reached down and took her in his arms, opened the door to the hallway and climbed the stairs to the attic.  Crouching low, he walked past boxes of old toys he’d all but forgotten about but did not possess the heart to simply discard.

He made his way to a hardwood chest, one of several, and opened it.  He placed the new daughter in his hands among the other new daughters, closed the lid without a word, and went back downstairs, stopping only once to rub at his painful knee.

—-

Dean Francis Alfar is a playwright, novelist and writer of speculative fiction. His plays have been performed in venues across the country, while his articles and fiction have been published both in his native Philippines and abroad, such as in Strange Horizons, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror and the Exotic Gothic series.

His literary awards include ten Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature — including the Grand Prize for Novel for Salamanca (Ateneo Press, 2006) — as well as the Manila Critics’ Circle National Book Awards for the graphic novels Siglo: Freedom and Siglo: Passion, and the Philippines Free Press Literary Award.

He is an advocate of the literature of the fantastic, publishing the annual Philippine Speculative Fiction anthology.

The above image is from here.

“I’ll cook dinner tonight. You don’t have to bring home fast food or pancit.” Mai smiled. Jun almost missed it on his way out. He looked back at her through the aluminum screen door, anxious to be gone.

“Ano? Ano?”

“Magluluto ako ng ulam pang hapunan.” Mai winced as the door shut. After that, she phoned Manang Yna.

The retired nurse was gifted with the ability to reform her clients’ appearance and reinvigorate their bodies. Over the phone, Mai explained: last night, she found her husband’s collection of naughty videos on their computer. She must have sounded defensive, she apologized, she was looking for recipes for sinigang na sirena.

The older woman was completely sympathetic. Masahe lang iyan, iha, stressed ka lang. Mai refused to regret poisoning her husband, setting a trap for him, and preparing, even now, to seduce him as revenge. Hindi ka naman papatay, diba?

If Mai described girls in her husband’s favorite videos, could Manang Yna mold her face into a passable replica, for a fee? Mas mahal yun than the regular massages she enjoyed to maintain her figure and, sometimes, to enhance her breasts. Pero oo, syempre, para sa’yo. Anong oras ka pupunta rito?

So, tonight, her husband would come home to a woman he enjoyed and the women he loved could finally, finally enjoy him. But she needed him to come home.

The bellyache should begin an hour or two after ingestion and increase in intensity as the day wears on. A large, proud man, her husband will finish his eight-hour shift despite the stone grinding in his stomach and the large weight in his gut crushing the breath out of him. At the end of ten hours, the pain will subside and he will feel nothing below his waist. Except for the throbbing. Mai giggled at the thought of Jun, her husband, in some public bathroom, sitting on the toilet, toying with his flaccid manhood. He will feel it in his hand, like a slick, nameless eel. He will feel it only in his hand.

With this image to fortify her, Mai cleaned the house and afterwards sat with a plate of boiled plantains and a round, handheld mirror. Today, she was wearing her favorite floral house dress. The dark leaves of giant gumamela splayed across her chest and abdomen, heedless of her white arms, legs and the streaking thin, green veins prominent against her skin. The thick, dark red petals on yellow fabric made her feel large, empowered. She had taken to wearing bold, floral prints – the same ones her own mother favored – to hide the dark brown oil stains on her arms and to distract from her own wilting…

Looking at herself – a peeled saging na saba in her hand – she imitated the women’s expression: neck stretched taut, her hard face angled, mouth agape, and eyes half-closed. She will tell the Manang: ganito ‘ho. Pero mas maganda pa. It surprised her that her husband preferred amateur pornography: most were low resolution videos with titles akin to “ex-girlfriend’s last morning”, “between breakfast and lunch with Nina”, and “Sam’s early Saturday”. Was he ashamed of it? The images were pixelated, the videos often blurred, and the audio cracked. Bakit siya mahihiya?

It was a different shame Mai felt, being here every morning, ragged from Monday through Friday, her body growing heavy and slow, eventually unraveling as the years wore on. Smothered by the fumes of cooking oil, her skin had begun to sag. Everyday her flesh tugged heavier upon her bones. Bakit siya mahihiya?

At half-past one, Mai arrived at Manang Yna’s house. It was early afternoon and the Manang’s spacious living room was cluttered with magazines, dirty old pillows, picture frames.

“So, tell me about him.” Manang Yna said, by way of greeting.

The thick lens of her glasses hid deep set eyes. She was wearing a sleeveless shirt, collar curdling from too much washing. When she reached for Mai’s forearm, she gave a little reassuring squeeze and her hands were comfortably warm, like she had been holding a plate of newly cooked rice. She led Mai up a short flight of stairs to an unused bedroom. Mai was familiar with Manang’s procedure: she undressed and, naked, climbed onto the bed while the Manang arranged four or five bottles of fragrant oil on a little table.

The blessed oils helped, Manang Yna insisted, when she massaged her clients who wanted their skin to glow like candlelight. She stored the oil in several cheese-spread jars and she enjoyed holding them up against the light. She told Mai about coercing different priests – one was not enough, she insisted – to dip their fingers, sometimes their entire hands and wrists, into a small tub of cooking oil until it acquired the faint scent of flowers.

“So, anong nangyari kay mister?” Mai allowed Manang Yna to spread oil on her throat. A tingling heat spread to her chest as Manang Yna cupped a breast: tignan mo, she said, I told you, your breasts would never sag, and here they are. Mai giggled, her small breasts bouncing.

Manang Yna turned to Mai’s fleshy arms. The first few times Mai visited Manang Yna, she refused to allow her to spread the blessed oil over her extremities. She was fickle with oil, unable to put her skepticism aside.

Manang Yna reached up and drew her hands down over Mai’s face, a soft gesture to help her relax. Mai gratefully closed her eyes. Yna unfurled her fingers, easing the tension between each joint.

When Manang Yna rubbed oil over her neck and collar bones, she said, “Ang tanda ko na pala”. And Yna smoothed away the loose skin on Mai’s neck, the frown lines from her mouth, and the half moon circles darkening under her eyes. Mai felt herself grow warm and glow.

She missed the cruel, sharp lilt in the Manang’s voice when she said: “Mamaya, talagang aayusin ko pa yan.”

Mai related Jun’s disinterest, the way he seemed to escape from her every morning, when he left for work, and the way he slumped through the dinners she prepared. On more than one occasion, Mai noticed him slipping either rice or chicken back into their cooking pots.

He seemed to have lost half his appetite.

Ibang putahe ang ihain mo mamayang gabi, Manang Yna’s eyes grew hard as she smiled. To comfort Mai, she worked on her shoulders for fifteen minutes. She smoothed Mai’s thick arthritic fingers, raised the palms to her pockmarked cheeks to gauge the texture. Manang Yna, in all her wisdom, told Mai the only way to get Jun back was to become a different woman, if that’s who he wanted. Who was Mai, Manang Yna asked, but the wife he left at home to clean?

Mai reported: Jun had begun wearing his old button-down polos, the ones she had retired to the back of his closet when they first got married. He had stopped requesting for three servings of rice and he slept before midnight. Suddenly, he began combing his hair back and away from his face. He said he had been tired too long.

Manang Yna clucked, squeezing Mai’s arms. She massaged until the flesh was warm and tight, until Mai bit her lip in frustration and pain.

“Hindi pa tayo tapos,” Yna reminded her. Flies buzzed around them, attracted by the fragrant oil. The room was warm, dark, heavy curtains drawn over the windows. Now and then, Mai grunted under the Manang’s ministrations. Her skin had drawn tighter around the bone so her arms were stiff, her shoulders sore but she had no bruises to show for it. The Manang was a mountain, moving from one side of the bed to the other, now and again having her stretch her arms to gauge their size. One shouldn’t be smaller than the other. Once satisfied, Manang Yna moved to Mai’s misshapen legs. She tightened Mai’s thighs, removed the disfiguring lines that ran down her legs.

She twisted the flesh there, pulled it back and held on until Mai’s thighs shrank. Manang Yna took off two to three inches until the flesh seemed to glow, until they were pink and blushing, hot blood underneath skin worried thin.

“Sandali,” Mai sat up, examining the Manang’s work. Her stretch marks had disappeared. “Kulang pa” and she smiled.

“Sabi mo eh,” Yna laughed to hide her irritation. With her hands, she twisted and twisted until Mai’s legs were scrawny things.

“Anong bang gusto mo mangyari?” Yna squeezed her thighs, her fingers dark against the flesh.

“Iretoke niyo na ang itsura ko.” Yna grinned, already unscrewing one of the oil jars. A strong, musky scent filled the room. Manang Yna opened a window, swatting at the flies. She spread a thin layer over Mai’s cheeks and the oil burned. Manang pulled at her skin and in the obtrusive heat of the early afternoon, the oil seared the flesh over Mai’s bones. Ganito ho, gusto ko ng matangos na ilong. Manang, Mai implored, I want high cheekbones, large eyes, yung lips dapat kissable! Gusto ko yung mukhang model. Yung legs ko, puwede bang balikan? Puwede niyo ba akong patangkarin?

Manang Yna’s hands were strangely smooth. “Sa tagal ko na’ng ginagawa to, napudpud na yata ang mga daliri ko.” She said she no longer grew fingernails. She no longer had fingerprints. Her hands were entirely empty.

When Manang Yna finished, she told Mai to bathe in cold water and breathe in the steam that rises from her body.

“Lutuin mo muna yung katawan mo, bago ihain kay mister,” she warned, while Mai counted out the payment. One hundred and fifty for both arms and two hundred for her legs. Another three hundred for her new face.

Mai rushed back home, already anticipating Jun’s excitement. It was almost seven in the evening when she began cooking dinner: pan fried mermaid meat in breadcrumbs and gravy. The oil was too hot and she burned her new fingers. Boils erupted on her new, white skin. She prepared soy sauce and calamansi juice dip, just in case.

Unsteady on her new, spindly legs, Mai was clumsier than ever. She stained their tablecloth orange while stirring a tablespoon of mermaid saliva – the antidote for her domestic poison – in a pitcher of juice. She felt like a stranger but in this she rejoiced. Her husband, after all, seemed to dislike the familiarity of her former body. She came to think of herself that way: the wife muffled and trussed up in a newer body. A better model. Wife version two.

Standing still, Mai could almost feel the old bones rocking. She only frightened herself when her clothes wouldn’t fit. Dressed in a small shirt and an old pair of jeans, she settled down by the rough dining table piled with a platter of fried mermaid meat and miniature bowls of dipping sauce.

Pandan rice cooled in a pot on their tiled counter. She waited only half an hour, which she spent in the bathroom. A tin drum collected water from a gushing faucet and into this she climbed and squatted, her body shining and hot like candle wax ready to set. Calluses on her hands and feet shaved off so it hurt to stand or turn the rusty tap. The exultant wife filled her lungs with the steam that, sure enough, rose from her feverish, glowing skin. She inhaled grilled mermaid – salty and vicious, all muscle and no fat, easy to spoil over the flames – roasted onions and beneath, barely detectable, a sweet crisp smell like caramel.

Examining herself in the mirror, Mai discovered hollow cheeks to reveal naturally high cheekbones. Her eyes were so wide, she looked perpetually surprised. Her lips were red and plump but she could no longer smile without wincing in pain and risk tearing the stretched skin.

After her bath, Mai found a stranger leaning over Jun’s twisted body. The stranger’s shirt damp with sweat, neck and chest sodden with vomit, he approached Mai with a hand outstretched in appeal and supplication. Misis? Picked up somewhere in Ortigas – below a bridge, underneath a busted streetlamp – Jun swayed on unsteady legs and clutched his stomach before climbing into the taxi. He retched in his seat on his way home until, still heaving, the cabdriver peeled him off the wrecked upholstery and carried him inside.

The cabdriver surrendered the keys he found in one of Jun’s pockets. When she pressed an extra bill into his hands, Mai noticed they were cold but soft and he spared her no backward glance or judgment. In fact, Mai thought, the way he told the story had been well-rehearsed, his tone steady and practiced. He had met too many wives and, along the way to Mai’s door, finally given up trying to understand the way their face crumpled and fell or the anger that invaded their stare.

Jun on the couch: awake but incoherent. Jun, Jun. A glass of cold water, a warm damp towel, armed with a caressing voice and all the endearments Mai remembered, she approached and knelt to press her cheek against the nape of his neck. Jun? Jun? He responded only with a deep groan that began in his chest and picked its way out. Mai heard it clatter blindly with the junk in his lungs. Jun, jun. Carefully Mai arranged Jun’s body, straightened his legs, removed his shoes, and began to unbutton the ruined, stinking shirt. Her husband threw an arm across his eyes so she fumbled with the living room light and continued her task in the yellow glow from the kitchen reflected on glossy tiles. She felt him shift under her ministrations, shifted to unbuckle his belt, turned his head to sniff the breeze wafting in, and lifted his head onto her lap. Jun leaned into her touch as she combed back his hair, damp towel pressed to his lips. Hello. Both eyes slits through which he stared at her tumbled hair, his breathing even and quiet. He reached up to twirl a strand of hair around his thumb.

Kamusta? It was Jun who asked, smiled, and angled his head. He took the cloth from her hand and let it drop. Mai saw that he squinted to see her and concluded he must still be dazed. Sorry, nakatulog yata ako, soft and spoken with an appealing lilt. Her husband pressed a kiss to her wrist. Mai held the shiver in the pit of her stomach until it passed and her husband pulled her fast into a kiss. Deliberate and slow like a declarative sentence. Hello, she said back, hushed but vibrant. She must have blushed but it was dark so it did not matter. Jun? Jun. I’m glad you’re home, Mai said, but her husband heard wrong. Hindi, hindi ko pa kailangang umuwi. Jun sat up and pulled her toward him. Maybe he even purred when he discovered her body had become wholly strange. Maybe this excited him. Mai lifted herself onto his lap. When she looked in the mirror after her bath and barely recognized herself, it was a relief. Bakit siya mahihiya?

I can stay a little longer, Jun murmured with Mai’s hair in his mouth, dito muna ako, while his wife wondered, briefly, what could happen once she turned on the light.

She decided, only, to kiss him back.

—-

For her family. 

Kyra is currently pursuing an MA for Creative Writing at UP Diliman. She promises to write better stories (sugatangpusa.blogspot.com)

The above image is from here.

“It’s ‘valet’, not ‘varlet’, Great and Glorious One.” Lee completes her exterior vehicle check, eyes flicking across the underground parking lot, as she re-folds the extensible mirror she used to scan the undercarriage. Of course, since she waited a reasonable several minutes a respectable several meters away before even approaching, any little surprises would more than likely have triggered already—and poor Carlos would have been a victim of, probably, automotive immolation rather than godly wrath. Still, it’s always better to be sure. “Can we please get in the car?”

The god climbs in, obligingly enough; luckily, he believes in graciousness—at least toward his ‘right and worshipful devotees’—and is preoccupied with what he considers to be the more important matter at hand, in any case. “Thou’lt smite him for such impertinence, naturally,” he says, settling into the shotgun seat.

“Naturally.” Lee is already inside, has checked the back seat, and is running her hands over and under the dashboard, across the ceiling, beneath the seats, and along the steering column. “Seatbelt, please.”

He grimaces. He doesn’t like seatbelts; they muss his clothes—and he’s particular about his appearance, which he says any self-respecting god should be, in the most elementary practice of noblesse oblige—and what’s more, he’s convinced that no ‘mishap of mortal origin’ could possibly cause sufficient damage to harm his divine presence.

She’s less sure—but would, of course, never actually say so out loud. Instead, she’s concocted the reasoning that her ‘womanish concern’ over his well-being is, in fact, a facet of her reverence toward him, and that indulging her in it therefore constitutes another instance of the noblesse oblige befitting a superior being.

This is a perfect example of the kind of handling that has gotten her praised by her superiors, promoted well beyond her years of experience—and stuck with babysitting duty.

He fastens his seatbelt.

She starts the car.

***

“In what manner shalt thou chastise him?” he wants to know, as Lee knifes the car among the rows of parking slots; the speed and ‘peculiarity’ of her driving—she’s an extremely offensive driver, and not in any womanish way—used to unnerve him, months ago, but now he barely notices.

“I’ll pluck his nose hairs out one by one, how’s that?” she asks, shoulders flat against the seat, elbows crooked, and hands at nine and three o’clock.

“That doth strike me as both apposite and pleasing, faithful handmaiden,” he says, smiling benevolently at her.

They make it out of the parking lot unmolested.

Again luckily, part of his being a god is that he never actually checks whether she’s meted out the punishments she promises on valets, bellhops, chambermaids, wait staff, and sundry. It’s not exactly that he assumes his orders will be obeyed; it’s that he honestly seems to believe that, since he said it, it’s so or will soon be made so.

All she has to do is come up with creative forms of impermanent torture to tell him about, and request the ‘offending’ party—who may have done anything from patting him on the back to calling him ‘sir’ instead of ‘milord’ or something more grandiloquent—to look appropriately meek at their next encounter, and he’s satisfied.

“Hold!” he cries, actually holding one finger up and leaning forward with dramatic emphasis.

Lee is busily checking her rearview mirror, scanning both sides of the street, and planning ahead in case of trouble at the first intersection; she can’t believe she could possibly have missed anything.

“Was not same chastisement visited upon yon varlet but a fortnight hence?” He’s frowning; this is the kind of thing that troubles him immensely, as it would not do for his subjects to think him uncreative.

“No, Great and Glorious One, that was Brian,” she says, extending her right arm, soccer-mom-style, to ease him properly back against his seat. “This one is Carlos, with the mustache. And it’s ‘valet’.” She would prefer to have him riding in the back, where it’s safer; but he’s proved obstinate on that point, demanding proximity to the windshield view if he’s to subject himself to the close confines of a car.

***

When they reach the intersection, two cars careen out of the opposite perpendicular streets, to form a barricade across the road.

“Fie!” cries the god. “What fresh impudence be this!?”

But Lee was already half-expecting it, and had been warned—sort of—to boot. She flicks the steering wheel a hair to the right before wrenching it left in a perfect smuggler’s turn, fish-tailing the car about-face into the adjacent lane.

Horns blare. Curses resound.

“I did mention, Great and Glorious One—” she uses this honorific when she’s contradicting, instructing, scolding, or otherwise addressing him in any matter that might be construed as disrespectful— “having gotten a warning that those heathens who want to use your awesome power for clandestine purposes may be after us again, which is why we needed to leave the hotel.”

“Spake thou such?” He’s frowning again; Lee would be impressed that he’s handsome even when he does this, except that she’s seen him practicing his expressions in various mirrors—the least a god owes his followers is a majestic visage, he says. “Mine attention, whilst puissant, didst focus mightily elsewhere for a time.”

And this, too, might be interpreted as a sort of warning; she does focus her attention, so that when she catches sight of the two more cars already parked across the road ahead—its presumable passengers braced in textbook shooting positions behind and beside it—she’s more than ready.

“Flat against the seat-back, feet on the floor, please, G.A.G.O.,” she reminds him.

She’s not only ready, in fact, but a little insulted—doesn’t she rate a bit more than amateur hour at the intel club? Any half-trained idiot knows that parking the cars nose-to-nose is practically an invitation for a static pit maneuver, a precision strike on the rear bumper that will make the car so struck pivot on its front wheel, negating the erstwhile ‘roadblock’. It’s such a basic move that she almost doesn’t do it, suspecting a trap-within-a-trap.

“Smite them!” cheers the god. “Visit mine wrath upon yon infidels!”

She does; at least three of the gunmen are ‘smote’, as her car, front end crumpled but still running, plows through.

***

For a god, there’s a startling number of things he doesn’t know: that ‘Lee’, for instance, is only a convenient pan-ethnic name she favors, since her mongrel Filipino heritage allows her to approximate a wide variety of ethnicities, as needed; that the acronym ‘G.A.G.O.’—which she calls him in times of heightened stress or heightened familiarity—spells, in her native language, a term that is not in the least respectful; that she, in fact, represents an organization of heathens—by his lights, anyway—who want to use his awesome power for clandestine purposes.

On the other hand, to be fair, she is an intelligence operative who has, so far, still failed to confirm arguably the most critical piece of intelligence in this scenario: whether or not he is, in fact, a god. True, that isn’t really her assignment; as a matter of fact, her actual assignment, after only a little more than two years in the field, had essentially been just to hold his hand for a day or two, until his scheduled handler—the latest in a series of agents who quit or were rejected, in disgust either way—arrived to take over the post.

But he’d taken a shine to her, and thereafter refused to have anyone else as his ‘companion’—and he’d gotten his way, which he often does, because no one, still, is quite sure if he is or isn’t the god he claims to be.

These are the things Lee knows or has heard:

He has some form of precognition or prescience. Personally, she’s only seen it manifested in very vague ways that might easily have been coincidence, but she’s been told—by quite unreliable sources, unfortunately, given her now-elevated-but-still-far-from-stratospheric security clearance—that the agency has pulled back on fundraising, having gleaned winning lottery ticket numbers from chance utterances of his on the surveillance recordings not once, not twice, but three times. Of course, according to those same sources, this system has failed about ten times as often, but even assuming the analysts are reading his offhand comments right, statistically, that’s still pretty impressive.

He can eat and drink things of scalding temperature without even noticing. She knows this because he once wolfed down a piece of chicken ala kiev before she could warn him that the room service waiter had warned her that the melted butter inside was still piping hot. Since then, she has served his morning coffee hotter and hotter every day, to the point where it’s practically still boiling as she pours it in the cup; he’s only complained that the taste was bitter once, and ordered her to chastise herself, albeit gently.

His speech is semi-archaic—he refers to ‘Iran’ as ‘Persia’, among various foibles, which include refusing to reveal his name to anyone until they ‘doth prove themselves worthy’—but erratically so, such that the specialists are unable to pin down what era or even what nation he hails or purportedly hails from. That he might be some kind of Saxon or Briton god seems a safe guess, except that some of the linguists have pointed out that he may simply be adapting to the surroundings in which he has found himself, hence his jumbled syntax.

Either that, or, of course, he’s just a charlatan.

But if he isn’t, then they can’t afford to lose him to some other agency or country. And while there’s even the slightest doubt that he isn’t—even if his actual, practical worth has yet to be determined—then they need to keep him safe, happy, and on their side.

Which is why she’s stuck watching his back, making his coffee, indulging his whims—and buying his cupcakes.

***

“Great and Glorious One,” she says, smiling brightly as she makes sure her blazer is still draped discreetly over the Glock 26 tucked into the small of her back—the 23 is in her shoulder holster, of course; there’s a reason operatives like wearing jackets, and it isn’t to present a majestic visage. “I hate to rush you, but there are people after us, and—”

“Thou wert the one, handmaiden, who didst suggest abandoning yon self-propelling chariot,” he says, not even gazing up from the pastry display to look at her.

Then again, no one is looking at her; the salesgirl is all but draped over the glass counter to drool at him, which is what happens to salespeople everywhere. Lee’s decided that this is evidence of divinity, only to the extent that anyone who looks like the lovechild of Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise would be likely to elicit this effect.

“That was because a car which looks like an accordion isn’t much use in evading pursuit.” She’s keeping her voice down; she figures one of them ought to, and it’s never going to be him. “And I know I said we needed to lie low for a while and just wait to be picked up, but it’s been over an hour, G.A.G.O., and this is hardly an ideal place. We need to keep moving.”

“How canst thou say such locale be less than idyllic?” he booms. “Only feast thine eyes upon the beauty contained herein, beloved Lee!”

The salesgirl, who was beaming at the ‘beauty herein’ bit, is now glaring daggers at her over the ‘beloved Lee’ part.

“He means ‘beloved’ like people love their dogs.” She doesn’t know why she feels the need to explain these things.

“Ah, the simple yet elegant lusciousness that doth be vanilla!” he continues. “The velvety excess that maketh chocolate decadence! And, oh—What doth be piña colada again, handmaiden?”

“Pineapple—a tart and sweet, but not citrusy tropical fruit—coconut, and alcohol, Great and Glorious One.” She’s annoyed, naturally, at having to define the flavor profile of a cocktail-inspired cupcake for him, while they are technically, if hardly literally, on the run, but she learned quickly that pressuring him accomplishes absolutely nothing positive. Even so, she’s severely tempted—as she often is but never does—to hit him.

Judging from the red dot dancing around his pristinely-un-mussed locks—despite their having come from a car wreck, previously—so does someone else.

***

“Everybody down!” She hollers, slamming bodily into the god and bearing him along with her onto the pastel-tiled floor—he’s nearly a foot taller and correspondingly heavier than her, but she knows what she’s doing; it’s all a matter of balance and leverage.

She hits the ground and keeps rolling, as bullets strafe the small store. The storefront window is the first to go, followed by the display case; glass goes flying, as do icing, bits of cake, and absurdly gaily-colored cupcake wrappers. There’s blood, too, as someone who can’t follow damned instructions gets hit; she hopes it wasn’t the salesgirl, but as long as it wasn’t herself or her asset, she’ll take it.

The god is saying something, but she can’t make out what. She’s been in situations like this only a few times before, but enough to know how everything goes strange in the clutch; it’s like she has all the time in the world to draw her guns, to find a corner where she can brace herself in front of him—the ruined counter in front of her—but no time at all to make sense of who she’s barreling past or stepping over, or what anyone is trying to say.

All she can hear is gunfire and glass.

When the men come charging in, after the initial salvo, it’s almost like a video game—it’s that distant, and she’s that calm. As much as she and her charge can’t get out, their attackers can only get in through a very limited entry space, and she’s prepared and situated, so she has the advantage in the short term.

An even more distant part of her has the luxury of wondering why they—if there’s even one single ‘they’—have switched from trying to capture him to trying to kill him, but again, figuring that out isn’t her job. This is.

There are ten men, and she only has a total of twenty-three rounds, so she has to make them count. It doesn’t matter, though, that she gets a few of them only in the kevlar, and one or two not at all; it’s enough to make some fall and some back off, to reconsider their strategy—they really are amateurs, she thinks, not to have known she wouldn’t make it easy for them—enough time for her to hustle herself and the god out through the back door.

Which is when she discovers her own critical damned rookie mistake, because the stupid cupcake shop has no back door.

***

Around four rounds left, by her estimation, and they can’t get out.

Their opponents can’t get in without losing more guys, of course, but that doesn’t really mean anything, because there’s still at least one sniper out there, and the minute they get up—

The god gets up.

He says something—the gunfire’s stopped, for now, but she still can’t make herself understand his words. He stretches one hand out—in grandiose fashion, naturally, clearly with every expectation that something astounding will result.

But nothing happens—and then, not one, not two, but three red dots are chasing their way across his clothes and skin.

In that same continuing strangeness of time, Lee has long enough to try and tell herself that, when she signed up to serve God and country, this was hardly the god she was pledging herself to. But her legs aren’t listening to her brain, apparently—maybe they can’t hear anything, either—because she’s standing up too, even though her own stupid kevlar isn’t going to be worth a thing, not with her unprotected head conveniently served on a proverbial platter to even the most pathetically-trained sniper.

But it’s her job.

All she can do is block his body with hers, and throw her arms up in front of her face, palms outward.

***

And a brilliant, blazing radiance erupts from her hands, outward, past the quivering salesgirl; out the ruined storefront and, impossibly, around its corner; across the street and over buildings, to three distinct rooftops.

***

By the time she manages to lower her arms, the light is gone, even the little dancing red ones. She’s able to hear again, as well, though there’s nothing much to listen to, beyond the still-distant sound of sirens and several of the customers whimpering.

No one is hurt any worse than they were from the shootings—she’s pretty sure they’re all going to live, though she only has the most basic, patch-up sort of medical training—but every bit of glass in the entire shop is completely melted and fused. She can only imagine what must have happened to people; obviously, she should go outside and find out, but she can’t quite bring herself to move that much, just yet.

The god is fastidiously wiping icing off his Armani shirt—his skin and hair are miraculously, in evidently the literal sense, untouched—and then he licks it off his fingers, with apparent utter delight.

“What—happened?” is all she’s able to say.

“Most beloved of wenches,” he says, beaming smugly, “thou smote them.”

Lee has no idea how she’s going to explain this in her report, but no one can say she hasn’t been doing her job.

—-

Nikki Alfar can barely sustain coherent thought—much less write—without nicotine. Despite this handicap, she has managed to earn three Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature, a Manila Critics’ Circle National Book Award, a Mariner Award from the US-based Bewildering Stories, and selection as one of twelve ‘Filipina writers of note’ by the Ateneo Library of Women’s Writings. She’s been a judge for the Philippines Free Press literary awards and, for many years, co-edited the groundbreaking, critically-acclaimed annual anthology series Philippine Speculative Fiction.

Her first short story collection—Now, Then, and Elsewhen—is forthcoming. Otherwise, her fiction has been published nationally and internationally, online and in print, including the magazines Fantasy, Bewildering Stories, and Our Own Voice; the anthologies A Time for Dragons, Night Monkeys, Ruin and Resolve, Sawi, Tales of Fantasy & Enchantment, and The Farthest Shore; as well as the podcast sites Pakinggan Pilipinas and—soon—Drabblecast. Her short story, ‘Bearing Fruit’, was named one of the world’s best short speculative fiction pieces of the year in Lois Tilton’s 2010 roundup for Locus magazine, while ‘Emberwild’ received an honorable mention in the international Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror in 2008.

For all this and more, she thanks her husband and fellow writer Dean, their daughters Rowan and Sage, and the good people at the Marlboro company.

The above image is from here.

Aubrey shoots up, her body ramrod straight as she sheds her discomfort. He gets up more slowly, training the scanner at the center of the tunnel. The shadows shift like storm clouds breaking and then re-forming. Above them, the sky releases a fresh batch of rain. They steadily inch forward, away from their makeshift lean-to, the rain obscuring their vision as they moved away from the shelter and out in the open. Troy walks in front, one hand holding the scanner steady, the other hand tucked at his hip, fingers tracing the familiar holster of his gun. Behind him, slightly to one side, Aubrey already has her palms open, fingers spread out, eyes blinking back the rain.

The shadow in the tunnel seems to retreat slightly, gathering itself. Troy remembers snorkeling somewhere off Palawan, one summer day, a lifetime ago, and saw a school of fish moving through the ocean waters. The tides pushed them this way and that, and yet they seemed to instinctively follow a pattern, become a whole being that surrounded him, that swam around him like a multicolored whirlwind. He thinks the shadow is like that: made up of miniscule pieces that swam together, forming and re-forming into this vast, cloud-like shape that filled the entire tunnel entrance.

The scanner squawks as they approach, a high-pitched whine replacing the low hum. Troy switches it off, shoves it in his pocket, and instead spreads his palm out in a gesture of peace. Blue-white lines flare up across the skin of his open palm, fine lace-like traceries that form a familiar symbol — familiar, at least, if you were of non-human origins. The mark of A.G.I.M.A.T. “My name is Agent Montero,” he says calmly, reciting each word in a low, non-threatening tone. “This is my partner, Agent Miles.”

“Stupid codename,” mutters Aubrey behind him. He ignores her.

“We don’t want to hurt you. We are seeking an artifact that may be with you. This is a dangerous item. Please, we are asking you to give it up so that we can take it to a safe place.” The shadow croons, its sound like a hundred thousand nails scraping across a chalkboard. Aubrey flinches, but Troy keeps on speaking, his voice rising above the din of the rain. “Can you understand me? We don’t want to harm you. Once you give us the item, you’re free to go.”

The cloud — there really is no other word to describe it — visibly trembles, as though it is trying to hang on to its shape. There is no mouth, but they can hear the words coming from the creature. It sounds like rusty car wheels turning on an equally rusty axel. Hello, nameless ones.

“What is that thing?” whispers Aubrey. “I don’t remember seeing it in the manual.”

“No clue, but intel said that it has the weapon.”

Aubrey moves past him, her arms stretched out. Jets of orange flame leap out from her palms, directed towards the black cloud. Troy grabs his gun, cocks off the safety, and aims it at the cloud. He’s got six silver bullets loaded. The cloud dissipates beneath the onslaught of Aubrey’s fire. Her face has lost its softness — her brows are furrowed, her mouth set, and heat in her gaze. She refuses to give up her position; inch by inch she moves towards the cloud, her fire stopping it from forming back into its original shape and size. Steam rises around them, as the drops of water sizzles at first contact with her flames. Troy wishes he’d brought his goggles; his eyes are starting to sting, and he can barely see Aubrey’s small form in front of him. He keeps his grip on the gun tight, holds the muzzle above Aubrey’s shoulders so that he has a clean line of fire, his fingers firmly on the trigger.

You have spunk, little one. Apolaki would be proud of you, were he able to escape his bonds. The creature hisses, as though Aubrey’s fire was able to brand it. And then it begins to expand, taking in the flames as though it was nothing more than air. It rises, filling up the tunnel entrance, hovering above them like a harbinger of doom. He sees Aubrey falter, the flames stopping from her gauntlets, as she takes a step back. Troy could feel the ground tremble as the creature grew, expanding and spreading like storm clouds across the horizon. Still frightened of using your birth names, I see. Your ancestors were the same way. Names have power.

He fires a bullet into the darkness, watched the bright silver cleave through the rain and steam and pierce through the cloud. The creature’s body splits apart as the bullet cuts through, but comes back together just as quickly around the hole. He hears the bullet clatter harmlessly on the damp cement floor behind the creature, an impossibly long time after it was fired.

“Got any more ideas?” asks Aubrey, her bangs plastered across her forehead in a mix of rain and sweat.

“Can you do an incant?”

“Not magical enough. Trust me, they tried.”

He steadies his firing hand, gripping the barrel of the gun tightly to stop his wrist from trembling. He could already feel the pain coursing from his damn wrist and radiating outwards, making his arm feel as though it was wrapped in live wire. “Stand behind me while you recharge,” he says, keeping an eye on the creature as it pulses angrily. It is now starting to seethe, like water boiling for too long, and becoming less amorphous and more like a shadow-creature. It begins to grow appendages, shadow-tentacles that whip back and forth as it attempts to reach them. It smacks against the concrete side of the tunnel with a loud crack and Troy can see chunks of concrete fly away.

“What can make you cold?” he asks Aubrey quietly. Without the rain, the sooty orange sky hangs heavy with scuttling clouds. A hush falls over the construction site, and for once, Troy could see clearly where they were. Debris from the torrential rain was swept down, to the basin of the construction site. Stacks of bricks and concrete blocks were covered by black tarp. Piles of water pipes lay horizontally beside the tunnel, and just beyond, he could see the burbling overfill of an exposed water pipe, swollen with rainwater.

“Um. Airconditioning turned down way, way low. Ice cream. Ice.” She blinks. “It’s in all the movies. Liquid nitrogen.”

“Yup.”

“Where the heck are we going to get liquid nitrogen, Troy? We can’t just call for delivery.”

“This is a construction site, there’s got to be some cans lying around. They have an exposed water pipe at the foundation. Liquid nitro is used for that sometimes, to seal it. Go look for a dewar or something like that. They look like shiny silver LPG tanks. It should be near the construction office, or even inside. They’ve got to keep it under lock and key, anyway.” Out of the corner of his eye, Troy sees the monster gathering itself, its appendages now capable of stretching out and actually grabbing them. It whips its cloud-tentacles back and forth, sending a spray of shattered concrete in their direction. Aubrey ducks, and Troy closes his eyes and turns his face. It isn’t painful, but he can feel the rain of debris pummel his arms and chest, momentarily moving his gun off-target.

“What about you?” she asks.

“I’ll keep it occupied. Hurry up.” Aubrey slips away, narrowly avoiding a tendril of darkness as it tried to sweep her off her feet; she jumps over it, knees tucked together, and lands on her feet and at a run. Troy looks back at the creature. It’s now inches away from his face, rising like a wave of blackness, hovering over him. He can hear the voice in his head: I knew your mother, nameless one. I took her soul. She tasted beautiful. And now I will take yours, too.

Terror engulfs him. Troy drops his raised arms, feels the gun slip out from fear-frozen fingers, and stares upwards, eyes wide in horror. Time crawls to a stop. He thinks for a moment that it’s simply another storm coming, and then darkness crashes over him.

“Anak, wake up.” A cool hand touched his brow.

Troy resurfaces, blinking his eyes at the bright sunlight. He knows this place — his childhood bedroom in his small room, the sunshine soaking his sheets with light. He can smell tobacco and leather, and the echo of his mother’s song. Beside him is a middle-aged lady, her hair tucked in a bun, her face warm and her smile bright. She wears a pair of dark purple plastic spectacles, and there are crow’s feet around her eyes and laugh lines decorating the corners of her lips.

She gently smooths away his hair away from his forehead and cups his cheek. “I’m sorry, anak.”

“Where are we?” Troy sits up, and his head spins.

“Inside the kulam. It’s been trying to destroy my little place for years now, but I’ve kept it at bay. Think of it as the eye of the storm.” She gives him a small smile. “It’s good that you didn’t give up your name to the kulam. That’s why you’re here, instead of being absorbed into its darkness.”

He nods. “And who are you?”

“Oh, don’t you remember me?” she asks. “Though it’s been twenty years since you saw me, so I suppose that it’s difficult to make the connection.” She shimmers and her form is replaced by a slender woman in a white cotton shift, her long braided black hair falling to her waist. He could smell roses and sampaguitas. “There. Is this better?”

“Inay?” he asks, incredulous.

She nods. He leans into her touch. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve been here all this time.”

He thinks back to the procession of distant relatives, of being passed on from family to family like an unwanted piece of luggage, of moving away from Manila, moving back to Manila, of acquiring the ability to put together his entire life into one bag. He feels his tears, bottled up tight for years, spilling from his eyes and coursing down his cheeks. “No you weren’t,” he manages to say from between clenched teeth.

“Oh, don’t say that.” His mother sits closer to him. He wants to hug her, to sink into her warmth, to pretend that everything that had happened in the last twenty years was nothing more than a bad dream. He tightens his hands into fists, feeling his nails dig into his palms. “I know you think we’ve abandoned you, but the truth is, we’ve been here all along.”

“Where?”

She touches him, sweeps his forehead with her thumb. “Right here. We’ve been right here all this time.”

“I saw you die.”

“You saw our bodies die. But we never really disappear from this world. We’re tied to the land, us creatures of the earth, and we can’t die. Not unless the great Lakapati herself undoes our spirit, thread by thread, unspooling the life that she wove.” She pats his cheek. “I’m sorry, anak. I wish there was a better way to save you, but your father and I knew that you’d find a way.”

“Save me from what?”

Her face becomes serious, her soft dark eyes turning to steel. “You must know about the weapon. A.G.I.M.A.T. sent you to find it, right? It must not fall into their hands. We’ve been keeping it safe all this time, waiting for you to find us and claim it as your birth right.”

“You’ve been keeping it safe here?”

“Where else to hide a weapon but in plain sight?” His mother smiles impishly. “The kulam is a powerful creature, but it’s not very bright. Or introspective. It just wants to destroy, anak.” She gives him a secret smile and reaches into the pocket of her dress. She draws out a small item, no larger than her hand. It is triangular, and gleams dully in the sunlight. Intricate carvings cover both sides of the pendant. It hangs on a rawhide string looped through the top of the pendant. A single, unblinking eye carved on the surface of the pendant stares back at him. “This is where all the anting-anting comes from,” she says, placing the amulet in his hands. “The ones you see in Quiapo. I’m sure some two-bit magician saw this and tried making his own, and it’s been passed down. None of those have any kind of power. But this — ” and she curves Troy’s fingers around the pendant, “ — is the real one, the only one that can protect you.

“It’s called the Infinito Dios. Bathala Himself was the one who forged it, in the mountains, a very long time ago. The Council thought it was lost. Nobody had ever seen it. But we were tasked with its safekeeping, until the portents were correct — when you were born, anak.” She smiles proudly at him. “It’s a small machine, and you wear it as you would a pendant. It exudes an impermeable force field around the wearer. Nothing can penetrate it, because it’s tied to your thoughts. As long as your mind is strong and capable, neither physical nor magical means can break the shield.”

“So it’s not a weapon,” says Troy. “At least, not an offensive weapon.”

“No, it’s not. And there are a lot of people and creatures who would want to get hold of that. It’s your birth right,” she says, giving him a mysterious smile. “Or rather, you are the pendant’s birth right.”

“What?”

“Go on,” she says. “Wear it.”

He slips the cord over his neck. The pendant is cool against his chest. He can feel the tendrils of power searching for his core, and he lets it. It’s like finding the perfect key to open a particularly difficult lock. He can feel the difference: he can breathe easier, like a weight he’d didn’t even know existed was finally lifted off his chest. His mother looks at him with patient eyes, and he returns her gaze. “We’re very proud of you, anak.”

He can feel rain lashing his back, and knows that this isn’t real, that this is just a dream, and that soon he’ll feel the suffocating strength of the kulam surround him once more. But he can’t help but ask: “Will I see you again?”

His vision blurs, as though water had been poured over glass. His mother’s form shimmers, moves out of focus. “We’re always here, anak.”

And then he feels the weight of the black cloud crash against his shoulders as the bedroom, the sunlight, his mother disappears and he returns to the reality of the storm.

But the pendant seems to know what to do. He feels a burst of energy from his chest, expanding upwards and around him like a bubble, pushing away the creature that was attempting to smother him. He can feel the cold slowly ebbing away, the rain nothing more than mist as the bubble extends upwards, forcing the creature to back away. He bends down to scrabble for his gun, which had fallen at his feet.

At the corner of his eye, he can see Aubrey running towards him with a slim silver canister in her arms. “Troy!” she yells. “I’ve found it!” The monster lets out a frustrated roar as its appendages attempt to grasp the protective bubble that arcs over his head, attempts to wrap around the dome. He can see the darkness obscuring the sky above him, the rain splattering across the surface of the bubble. Aubrey is coming closer, her fingers already grappling with the canister’s lever. Her eyes are wide as she notices that the monster seems to be unable to touch him.

He knows it before it actually happens: Aubrey’s fingers are cold and tired and it slips from the canister. He can see the fuck-it-all look in her eyes as she slips on a particualrly muddy patch of ground and lets go of the canister. It rolls away from her as she falls to the ground. He is running before he can even think, the bubble following his every movement as he sprints towards the canister.

The kulam follows him, the black cloud grasping hungrily at the bubble. He reaches the canister at his feet, and realizes that, for the first time that night, the surroundings are clear. He turns around, his protective dome repelling the rain. He sees the darkness rushing towards Aubrey, and he sprints after it, fumbling for the canister’s lever. His wrist is hurting again, and he’s trying to hold on to both his gun and the canister. The pendant is white-hot against his chest, and he’s sure he can feel it burning a hole through his shirt.

“Troy!” she screams as the darkness engulfs her. He sees her hand flicker ineffectually, attempting to produce a flame from her gauntlets. Sparks dance on her palm, then fizzle out. The kulam crows in triumph as it covers Aubrey’s body. Troy does not hear himself shout; he does not realize that he has aimed his gun at the shadow and shoots once, twice, trying to distract the creature from Aubrey.

It works. The shadow visibly flinches as silver cuts through its form. I will take you both, it says, slithering over the words as though it had snakes for tongues. I will make you a part of me, where you will scream in agony forever. It twists towards him, but now he’s ready. He fires the nozzle at the kulam. A thick, white gas sprays out of the canister and hits the shadow. It contracts violently, curling over the gas as it tries to contain it. It contorts around the area, the transformation from gas to solid quicker than it realized. The cloud rapidly turns to a ball of solid black that hangs suspended in the air like a solid ball of jet for a moment before crashing to the ground and shattering into a million sharp pieces. The shards shiver, attempting to return to its form. Troy blasts the pieces with the spray until the canister is empty and the shards stop trembling.

There is a weak groan from Aubrey. He shuts down the shield with a thought, and shudders as the rain quickly drenches him to the bone once more. He throws the empty canister aside and kneels beside Aubrey. She has scratches on her face and arms, but her eyes are wide open and she gives him a weak smile. “Did you get him?” she asks as he supports her head on his lap and brushes her bangs away from her forehead.

He nods, not trusting himself to form words yet.

“Weapon?”

“Wasn’t on the monster,” he says. The amulet is warm against his chest, a pleasant weight.

“It’s okay,” she says. “Did I do good?”

“Yes. You did great, partner.” He smiles at her; she’s going to fit in just right. He shifts a bit to take his phone from his pocket and sends a message back to HQ to get them out of there, stat. He receives an affirmative ten seconds later. “They’re coming,” he tells Aubrey. “How are you feeling?”

“Like someone tried sucking the soul out of me,” she says weakly.

He laughs. “You’ll be all right.”

She tries to smile. “Hey, your phone is ringing again.”

Troy glances back at the small machine in his hand. It’s Elsa. She’s probably going to yell at him again for not calling her, for not communicating. He glances at the digital time readout on the phone screen. It’s 4:55. Almost dawn. The rain stops, as abruptly as it began. Above them, the storm clouds concede to the impending sunrise.

He can feel the weight of the Infinito Dios around his neck, can feel the weight of the story that he’s formulating in his head in order to explain the events of the night, to explain why they were unable to retrieve the weapon. He wonders how long he can keep this secret from the agency. Surely the magical scans in place will be able to detect it? The pendant pulses against his chest, as if assuring him that it can protect itself. He thinks about his mother, the scent of sampaguita and roses faint in the rain-washed air, and wonders if she survived. He wonders who sent the kulam in the first place, who orchestrated the whole thing. He wonders if Elsa will ever understand his life.

The weight of Aubrey’s head on his lap is comfortable, and he can feel the steady rise and fall of her breathing as she falls into an exhausted sleep. In the distance, he can hear the steady snap-snap-snap of helicopter blades. “It’s okay,” he says, even though he knows that Aubrey can’t hear him anymore. “I don’t need to answer it.”

—-

Gabriela Lee is an experienced writer, editor, and content creator of both print and web publications. She has been published for both poetry and fiction in the Philippines and abroad. She holds a Master’s degree in literary studies. 

The above image is from here.

Troy leans against a makeshift shelter, cobbled together from pieces of damp plywood and sheets of corrugated metal. He wraps a thin jacket around his thin shoulders, shivering at the inadequate heat it provides. The shelter faces one side, against the stronger winds, and the slanted roof is supported by twin beams of wood. Another flash of lightning illuminates the face of his partner, Aubrey. She is curled up on the ground, her dark hair twisted in an untidy bun at the nape of her neck, her grimy cheek pillowed on her equally grimy hands. She is also bundled up in a flak jacket and a bulletproof vest, hanging over her thin frame like a turtle shell, and wrapped altogether in a silver blanket that makes her resemble a giant burrito. They’ve both been awake for sixteen hours, and this is the first time they’re getting a reprieve. He’s volunteered to take first watch.

He is almost tempted to call HQ, to abort the mission. He thinks about other rainy nights, about other places where he thinks could double for this godforsaken hole. He flexes his fingers, curses the ache in his wrists. Carpal tunnel. He attempts to catalogue his emotions in an effort to stave off sleep. He’s tired, that’s for sure — he’d barely recovered from the last mission before he was asked to take this one as well. An easy one, said Agent Jimenez. Just a routine pick-up.

He’s also hungry. Their last meal before heading out was lukewarm lugaw and something that resembled fried tokwa but he was quite sure was just another science experiment from R&D. That was yesterday. Sure, they were able to get a plastic cup of taho sometime in the morning, but that was it. His stomach rumbled desperately. What he wouldn’t give for a styrofoam cup of instant noodles and the strongest black coffee on the planet.

He’s also cold. Water is trickling down the back of his neck, soaking his shirt and dripping down his shoulders and back. The jacket isn’t helping, and their umbrella has been discarded long ago, a victim of a particularly strong gust of wind. It wasn’t raining when they left yesterday, and he thought the wind-resistant outfit that Support had provided them was just an affectation, and decided to head out in his usual jeans-shirt-jacket outfit. Now he wished he listened to them. (He keeps on forgetting that there are weather-watchers in Support, and that they were probably sniggering at him now for being too stubborn.)

He feels his phone vibrate against his leg, and fishes it out. The plastic casing is slick with water, but thanks to certain enhancements, the machine is pretty much indestructible. He punches in the code and slides the screen lock. He grimaces as he looks at the message. It’s his girlfriend, Elsa.

Wru n?

He scrolls back to the previous messages: 34 in total, not to mention 17 phone calls, none of which he ever answered. The boss was pretty clear about separating work and personal life, and Elsa was most definitely part of his personal life.

Me bnababae k noh?

He sighs. Her jealous streak was showing up again. He didn’t mind it so much; sometimes, he enjoyed being the object of her undivided attention. But he’d told her once (twice, too many times) that sometimes he had to work late hours, and perhaps she’d be better off knowing that he was safe (not likely) and sound (again, chances were slim) and that he’d call her when he got home. Unfortunately, Elsa was not the type to listen.

He stares at the glowing screen of his phone and instead pulls up the alternative account with a few flicks of his thumb across the glass. He types out a short stat report and sent it off to his boss, hoping that they’d get the implied message that he and his partner were stranded somewhere in the city, cold and tired and hungry, and could they please abort the mission now? It’s not like they could find the damn weapon in the dark anyway.

His phone chirps. He opens the new message. It’s terse and to the point: Situation crit at base. Deploying a team to Banahaw immediately. Isolated cause of rain. Continue w/ mission.

“Troy?” Aubrey’s voice is soft in the almost-darkness, swallowed up by the dull roar of the rain.

He turns to stare at his partner. She is struggling out of the silver-foil blanket, the crackle and crunch of the material almost inaudible. He’s tired of listening to the rain. Whoever said that it was relaxing should be made to stand in the middle of a typhoon in Manila. See if that was relaxing. “I’m okay,” he says.

He folds his lanky frame inwards and sits down on the ground, feeling the uneven soil and pebbles dig into the already damp and uncomfortable seat of his jeans. Still, this is better than standing up. He sits with his knees tucked against his chest and his forearms balanced on top, wrists dangling loosely. The shelter leans back and forth, threatening to fall against the onslaught of the rain. Aubrey sighs, and sits beside him. She is drier, thanks to her gear and the blanket. There are streaks of dirt against the moon-pale curve of her cheek. Her eyes are dark and luminous as she stares fiercely ahead.

In her hands is a small black device, like a supermarket price scanner, save that it glowed green instead of red, and instead of reading price tags and bar codes, it scanned for signs of otherwordly energy signatures. Troy is hesitant to call it magic, the word itself conjuring up images of wizards and wand-waving and bubbling cauldrons. But he knows that there are things that do not belong to this world — that there are beings out there who could manipulate the world to their own image and liking — and creatures that should be hidden or given sanctuary at all costs. He breathes out, his heartbeat still steady. The rain pounds relentlessly against their tissue-thin shelter. His phone pulses in his pocket, a phone call that he refuses to answer.

Aubrey sweeps the area in front of them: an open sewage tunnel somewhere in one of the myriad construction areas that sprouted up around the edges of Balintawak, more wilderness than city. The hole gapes like the maw of some ancient bayawak, the giant crocodile that swallowed the moon and attempted to eat the sun. Abandoned by the construction workers when the rain started, the area in front of the sewage tunnel is littered with shovels and yellow construction hats, bright plastic beacons in the shadows. Shallow pools of brackish water surrounded them. Littered remains of shattered concrete bricks were piled in front of the tunnel. Rising around them were hastily-dug slopes of rust-red soil, ringed with shoddy wood-and-steel structures meant for raising and lowering workers into the pit. Troy silently identifies each possible cause of trouble: that upended trowel in the corner; that pile of glass swept aside, the shards pointing upwards; the bag of debris stacked carelessly just beside the tunnel entrance, the slippery ground. He is not looking forward to entering the tunnel. (He hopes they do not have to enter the damn tunnel.)

Lightning tears across the sky, and Aubrey’s eyes glitter in surprise. Troy feels the earth rumble beneath them, can feel the old things stirring in their sleep. He knows this is no ordinary storm.

Aubrey’s sweep turns up nothing, the light at the end of the machine glowing a steady green. She leans against him, shoulder to shoulder. She’s his fifth partner in seven years. They’ve only been in the field for three days, but he’s got a good feeling about her. She’s certainly better than his previous partner-in-training, Colby. One glance at their manananggal surveillance team had him racing towards the toilet with his hands over his mouth; the thirteenth floor had to do a complete mind-wipe on the boy.

“So why did you sign up for the agency?” he asks her. There’s only so much the agent profile can tell you; he prefers knowing his partner in their own words. The way they tell their story tells so much about them, anyway. Reticent and shy or talkative and overbearing? He listens to the little nuances and picks them apart in his mind, attempts to piece together an idea on whether or not he’d want to have these people watching his back. He’s had a good read on Aubrey, so far. He hopes that he’s not wrong. This is the first mission they’ve gone on without a supervising agent or available backup. Not totally off the radar, no, but the agency will definitely have a difficult time providing help if they ever find themselves in a sticky situation.

“Pyrokinetics,” she says quietly. She raises a black-gloved hand, the kind with the fingers cut off. He notices dirt beneath her cuticles. There is a small whoomp! as fire emerges from a hole in her gauntlets. She takes it in her palm, scoops it up the way that one would scoop up water from a pool, and curls her fingers protectively around it, as though it was a newborn chick. “Apparently, I’m a danger to the community. My parents tried to commit me to the mental hospital. I escaped. The agency found me, took me in, and enrolled me into the open university.”

He nods, only half-listening. He tries to remember his own parents, and fails. There are only echoes in his memory. He remembers the boom of his father’s voice, the smoke that curled around his beard and the smell of tobacco clinging to his clothes and to the walls of the house. He remembers his mother and the way she sings him to sleep, her voice weaving words and melody together to form something magical. He remembers the way sunlight slanted across his narrow bed, spilling from the windowsill and drenching his blankets with light. But he doesn’t tell Aubrey any of this. All he says is: “That’s pretty rare.”

“So they said.” Aubrey shrugs. “Can’t do the big stuff though. Can’t summon the santelmo, for one. Can’t call on any kind of fire creatures. As far as the agency’s concerned, I’m literally just for firepower.”

“Better than nothing.” He flips open his soaked jacket to reveal his holster. “All I’ve got is a gun and some silver bullets.”

She laughs. “Don’t worry. I’ve got you covered, partner.” He raises any eyebrow, and she backpedals quickly. “Not that way!”

“What about you?” she asks, her voice taking on an excited tone. “I’ve heard about you, back in training. They said that you fought with a higante bare-handed. That you managed to outwit the Talakong Twins. They said that you’re the best field agent in A.G.I.M.A.T.”

He gives her a wan smile. Huh. So that’s what they say nowadays. Better than when he first started, at any rate: the whispers behind his back, the shaky smiles, the rumor mill grinding out story after story about him — that he was descended from Bathala’s line, that he could manipulate minds, that he was a spy from Sitan’s camp. None of them were able to figure out the truth. It was too common, anyway: the last survivor of a village-wide massacre. The nightmares filter through sometimes, the smell of blood magic and smoke and burning flesh. He watched his father fall; his mother dismembered and her pieces scattered around the village as a warning. No witches allowed.

He pulls himself back from the memories and turns to Aubrey. “No powers, for one,” he says, staring straight ahead. The continuing storm and absence of electric lights made everything around them stand out starkly. He tried to focus his eyes on the gloom in front of them, waiting for a sign — any sign — that they should start moving forward. Aubrey’s scanner was held loosely in her other hand.

“I saw a manannaggal once. It was on an aerial recon mission in our village — you remember Cathy, right? She retired from active service already. Anyway, I was young and I didn’t know what was happening, but I wasn’t scared. I followed her, found some members of the agency, and the rest is history.” He gives her a wan smile, wipes the rainwater off his forehead and eyes. It’s a good story, and most of it is true, anyway. “Poe saw my potential, I guess, and trained me from a very young age. The agency funded almost everything in my life — found me a place in Manila, sent me to school, taught me everything I know. And I’m grateful for that.”

Aubrey nods at all the appropriate points to show that she was listening. “Wow. I’m amazed you’ve lasted this long.”

“Lucky, I guess.”

“And your girlfriend? Does she know?”

Troy laughs at that. “I love Elsa, but sometimes she’s… not the most observant person in the world. She can be quite a handful.”

Aubrey gives him a mischeivous grin. “That’s why we call her ‘Above All Elsa’,” she says. “You know, ‘cause you put her above everything else.”

“That she is,” he says fondly. He feels his phone vibrate again. “Wait, I need to get that.”

As predicted, it’s Elsa. He slides the phone shut without bothering to look at the message. Aubrey looks at him with a quirked eyebrow. He shrugs, not saying anything. Why bother? It’s just the same thing all over again.

The rain crashes around them, lightning arcing across the sky in crooked calligraphy. The wind picks up and Aubrey curls up further into herself, trying to avoid the sharp, stinging droplets. Troy now understands what it means when people say they are soaked to the bone — he can feel the rain being absorbed through his skin, through the already-drenched cotton of his clothes, clinging to his body as though they refused to relinquish his warmth. Beside him, his partner shivers, a black ball of damp girl. He reaches over and draws her towards his side, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. Their shared warmth helps dispel the cold. Aubrey sniffles.

“Here,” he says, plucking the scanner from her damp fingers. “I’ll do this for awhile.”

“Too bad we can’t light a fire.”

“Not a good idea.”

“Admittedly, not one of my best.”

He sweeps the scanner across the entrance of the cave, the steady hum of the machine soothing his nerves. The small black instrument warms his fingers, makes the pain in his wrist dissipate momentarily. He moves it up and down the opening of the cave, the green glow pulsing steadily at the mouth of the machine.

Then, the light turns red. 

—-

Gabriela Lee is an experienced writer, editor, and content creator of both print and web publications. She has been published for both poetry and fiction in the Philippines and abroad. She holds a Master’s degree in literary studies.

The above image is from here. 

Every morning, there are another ten or so in line, each carrying their own piglet. Someone takes down their details, takes their piglet from their greasy hands, and compensates them appropriately, anywhere between one-five to three-thousand depending on the size of it. We take the piglets inside, together with all the other piglets. Sunlight doesn’t make its way inside the building. We find it best not to expose them to anything from the outside world.

I’d like to personally welcome you to San Pedro Piggery Incorporated. Formerly government-owned, it was sold to the company a few years ago. Admittedly, it’s getting too crowded in here. We didn’t expect so many families to be so eager to sell us their piglets for such low prices, but I guess they don’t have much of a choice. And ever since the company bought the piggery, we’ve been subject to less and less regulations.

As we enter the main structure, you’ll be amazed at how efficiently we’ve packed all the swine in order to make them fit. Each row filled to double the intended capacity. All the pigs squeezed tightly, given just enough space to breathe, covered in mud and dirt. Of course, these are the older ones—about five or six years old—that are within a month of being slaughtered. The piglets that you saw come in this morning wouldn’t survive half an hour in these conditions. Ideally, we should be building a second facility in order to better accommodate the animals, but that would hurt profits.

It’s protocol for me to tell you how the programs came to be in the first place so bear with me. To put it plainly, it was a solution to the food shortages that were plaguing the growing population. Studies revealed that it was impoverished families in both the urban and rural sector whose piglets were draining the state’s resources. Government then decided to provide an avenue for the poor to voluntarily sell their piglets in exchange for money. That way, they can have some income and we can use the pigs to feed the growing population. Because why should these pigs remain with the poor where they would inevitably just die of some avoidable illness before they can be of any use to the state?

You’ll be quite busy working in this particular piggery, as it is one of the most successful in the Philippines. This is a result of being the closest piggery to Metro Manila. Naturally, the government doesn’t allow the existence of these piggeries there as part of the Metro Gwapo program. The urban poor commute great distances to bring us their piglets, as we’re the closest to them. Basically, if you see a man carrying a piglet about a week old as he commutes south of the Metro, chances are he’s bringing it to us. We never seem to run out of people desperate for quick money, and our research shows that this won’t be slowing down any time soon.

There are a few things you will have to get used to. Just some minor things that used to bother me, too, but I and the others you’ll be working with are a testament to how little effort there is in getting used to it. You’ll notice that each pig is practically sodomizing the one in front of it. They try to make themselves as comfortable as an animal could possibly be covered in its own excrement. There is a constant high-pitched whining that all the pigs produce in unison. This problem shows every sign of getting worse, as recent reports have shown that some families have sold more than one pig in a year. Getting used to it is easy, I assure you. Now, I can ignore the sights and sounds to the point that I can quietly read a book while inside the facility.

And yes, I do eat the meat that comes from here. We all have. The company requires everyone who works in the piggery to eat the meat we produce. This is part of our policies, to prevent members of our staff getting attached. Moreover, we take comfort in knowing that every single person that works here believes that meat should be eaten. The meat is entirely safe for consumption. We clean each one of them before they are slaughtered. And we’ve had more than enough campaigns that issue clear instructions on how to cook the pigs that come from this piggery and others like it. It is entirely possible to kill all bacteria that they acquire in this pen though a combination of high temperatures and some artificial additives. After all, one can’t be too cautious when the pigs originated from the homes of the impoverished masses.

There are a few safety regulations you will have to abide by. We have procedures that differ slightly from the traditional piggery, which includes a strict code of conduct for those that will be exposed to our pigs. Like I said, we don’t tolerate sympathy. You’re expected to have as little contact with the animals as possible. It is encouraged that you deal with the pigs in groups of at least three, as this has shown to come in handy in case of accidents. Lastly, you are not allowed to say anything around the animals. Whether it is the day’s agenda or the contents of a novel, we cannot risk these pigs picking anything up.

About two weeks before each slaughter, we have special inspectors come in. You see, in recent years, we’ve learned that the pigs have uses other than being food. Some have skin that is ideal for making clothes. Others are more fat than meat, making them better material for soap or wax. A rare few, only those who are especially handsome despite years of being kept in these conditions, are sold as specialty pets for eccentric billionaires. Yes, we recognize the irony that they were once pets. But it’s better that someone rich pays us a large sum of money—plus a sizable tax to the government—for one of these pigs than for someone poor to keep it as a pet, when they can’t even feed themselves without asking for welfare.

Admittedly, it is in that part of the program that you will sometimes run into some problems. Once in a while, a group of activists for the so-called rights of these animals pose as inspectors in order to free some of the pigs. They try to take as many as they can, which is usually their downfall. One can always tell when an inspector is liberating an unreasonable quantity of swine. Once you realize what is going on, you will have to apprehend the culprits and fill out the necessary reports. I always wondered what these groups would do were they to succeed. Obviously, we would never let them because, aside from the material losses, it would make us look bad. But if we did just let them load the pigs into the truck and drive away, what would they do next? I don’t think you can liberate pigs that don’t know anything other than captivity.

Our facility for slaughtering pigs can never be cleaned well enough as to eliminate the smell that comes from the previous slaughter. As the doors to the said facility are opened right before a slaughter, the air is filled with a stench that drives the pigs wild. It is almost as if they know what’s coming next. In order to keep them calm, we pump in a supply of laughing gas, which puts them into some sort of euphoria. Then, our staff enters, equipped with gas masks and protective suits that help them transfer each pig into the slaughterhouse. They also carry a loaded gun with them in case a pig that isn’t getting enough laughing gas decides to get violent. This one time, one of the pigs grabbed one of our workers and held onto him tight, with the pig’s fingers tightly gripping his back, its thumbs pressing into his spine. The pig then proceeded to bite the worker’s ear. Luckily, someone shot the pig before any irreversible damage was done to the man. Such instances are rare, of course, and you’ll probably never have to deal with the pigs that directly, but please be careful.

You might be surprised to see a priest enter with the staff. He blesses all the pigs, claiming that this will grant their souls eternal rest. I never saw the point of caring about the souls of pigs, but the Church seems to value supporting anti-poverty measures that are a lesser evil to contraception. We don’t really see the harm in it, so we let them have their way to reduce protests. Even if he does chant something audible in front of the pigs, there’s not much of a risk at this point.

After being brought in, each pig is dragged into a narrow passage in the slaughterhouse, made even narrower because each pig has experienced years worth of fattening. The space is so small that they can barely move sideways. It’s so low that they have to crawl on their elbows and knees in order to get through, with their bellies dragging on the floor. Since more and more pigs are being loaded into the passage, they cannot turn back. Some pigs decide to stay in place, which isn’t a problem. We have workers stationed at various sections of the line to poke them from behind with steel rods to keep them moving. At the end of the passage is a hole where the pigs are dropped one by one. Once they reach the bottom, the partly automated process begins with each one of them hanging from the ceiling by one of their feet, from a chain that moves them forward. The clamp that attaches their foot to the chain is serrated in order to get a better hold of them, so don’t be surprised if you hear them squeal much louder. Somewhere along the way, a worker slits their throats. After all the blood is drained, all the hairs are removed from the pig, usually peeling off the entire scalp of the animal in the process. It is then chopped up, and its parts are arranged together with the parts of its fellow swine.

Like I said, new workers, such as yourself, usually cannot stand the sounds the pigs make, especially during the slaughter. It’s a phase. Once you realize these are the same pigs you’ve been eating for some time now, it won’t make much of a difference knowing how it is prepared.

While this is the process done to most of the pigs, there are some pigs that we select specifically for celebrations like Christmas and the governor’s birthday. For such occasions, we usually get from the much younger stock, usually those that are just two or three years old. We then go with a much more traditional approach. We take the pig outside, giving it a taste of sunlight. First, we tie up its arms and legs and shut its mouth tight. Then, we pour cold water on it to wash off the dirt and feces. Later, it will be impaled from anus to mouth, but the pig is still struggling way too much at this point. So we set it on a table with three, four, sometimes five men holding it down. Someone then grabs a sharpened knife and brings it close to the pig. An expert marks which spot of the neck to make the incision and holds a bucket to catch the blood. The man holding the knife tightens his grip on the instrument and cuts the throat. The men holding the pig usually have to deal with six or seven shakes, as the pig makes a futile attempt at freedom while its throat is already slit. All the while, you can hear it squeal like a baby.

Of course it’s best to learn hands on. I’ll turn you over to your trainers in a few minutes. Remember to change into something you’re willing to get dirty. A lot of new employees have lost some of their best clothes because they forgot to change before handling the pigs. You’d be surprised how hard it is to remove the stains from the blood of these animals. And don’t think you can avoid it either. They spatter.

We look forward to working with you. We hope you fit right in the San Pedro Piggery Incorporated family.

—-

Francis Ang is currently a junior of UP Diliman’s Creative Writing program. He is an active member of UP Writers Club and UP Asterisk. He lives in the newly christened sixth district of Quezon City. This is his first time to be published outside a school or org publication. He enjoys overanalysing situations and works of art.

The above image is from here.

I still visit them, our trees. I would sit underneath them for hours on end to bask in their presence, to accept the quiet understanding and comfort they offer when I need it, or to listen for the secrets that only they can smile about.

The trees always welcome me back.

* * *

“You’re looking a fine green today, hija,” he said as he dragged himself out of the front door and onto the porch.

“You should sun yourself here, Lolo.”

“Thank you, hija, but I’ve already had my share of the sun earlier,” he replied as he sat in his big chair.

Things remained normal in our part of town that day. A friend, fresh from a trip outside the country, was back to selling his trinkets right outside his house. Another neighbor, a very interesting old pair and among our very good friends, had just gotten themselves a cute little pup that they showed me a day earlier when my grandpa and I went to visit. They waved as they passed. The street was littered with people who were out for a walk on that lazy Saturday afternoon.

Most summer days were spent this way in my grandparents’ house. I liked visiting, and their house was near enough that I could do it often. It felt like a trip out of town, what with it being so spacious. They had a beautiful bow window; and with four acacias and a gmelina standing behind the old house, one can only imagine how wide the place looked to a girl of thirteen years. My cousins, friends, and I often played out back – it was the largest place on the street, after all; add to that the two acacias that had been kind enough to grow a low branch for us kids to climb and sit on, and grace us with a rain of leaves when they were in agreement with whatever serious plans children came up with.

If I wasn’t running around and reading my written stories to the trees, I would sit with my grandfather on the porch and listen to his. I have read many books in my brief lifetime, and heard many stories, but my grandfather remains to be, in my opinion, among the best tale spinners I have ever heard. He was tall and formidable-looking, but also a chatty old one, my grandpa. He would pluck some stories from memory, or effortlessly conjure one out of thin air. Sometimes, he would relate to me the wildest adventures he had had when he was younger, but would not reveal to me which ones were true. Because of him, my family had taken on the habit of gathering in the early evening to share our stories because I was always eager to retell what stories I’d heard from my grandpa. In these sessions, my mother would tell me which were true accounts and which were fiction, and the next day, I would barge in on grandpa to tell him that I knew he made up which particular bit. Afterwards, he would let out a hearty and contagious laugh. Then we would sun ourselves out on the porch as we normally did, and fill the day with even more talk.

“Do you recall the story of my father’s great-great grandfather?” he asked me.

“The house, yes.” I remembered this one well. He’d told me a hundred times, but I didn’t mind his repeating it in the least.

“That’s right. His son Ambungan…” he began. I knew the story very well. Ambungan was among the most well known of the young men of his time (and one of Lolo’s claims to fame was that he got his good looks from him). He was exceptional at making houses for other people, and the time came when he had to make one for him and his wife Mayang. So one day, Ambungan went to approach his father who was standing beside his wife in their then unused plot of land to ask permission to use his wood. It had been a few years since his father’s turning; if his father agreed to help Ambungan build the house, this was to be his last visit.

A moment later, Ambungan was given a rain of leaves in reply. Gratefully, Ambungan stood and waited, but after a few minutes, he wondered why this dry rain hadn’t stopped; he looked up and saw that his father was already shedding his leaves; so was his mother.

“And that is what our big old house is made of – the wood of our ancestors,” I finished.

Then Lolo fell silent. He tilted his head, and craned his neck a bit as if listening to a whispering in the wind. “Yes, yes, I know,” I heard him whisper back.

I could not catch what he seemed to be hearing. Whatever these inaudible whisperings were, I knew that it was very much a part of who I was, but one that I was years away from confronting.

My grandfather always said that when one is called back to the earth, one hears the earth singing. And it never calls anyone who is alone.

“I wish to stand beside your grandmother for a few years at least before anyone does anything. Tell your father that, you hear?” he said as he stood up to walk.

“Where are you going, Lolo?” This was a stupid and hopeless question, I realized. I knew. At the same time, I was surprised at his nonchalant, almost eager tone. I did not like what was happening, but at this point I realized I had no choice.

“Follow me, hija, I’ll show you my last story.” His left leg dragged heavily behind him as he struggled his way across the porch, down the steps, and around the corner of the house. In the past months, Lolo could hardly bend his joints without effort. If he was in pain, he tried his best to conceal it. We’d been telling him to use the cane, but he adamantly refused. “What for?” he’d say. “I can walk fine. Besides, I’d want to move around as much as I can, while I can, in any way I want.”

He lumbered towards where my grandmother had been standing for about two years now. “Hello there, langga,” he greeted the gmelina tree.

Then my grandfather began to take his clothes off; his skin was a very pale green freckled with brown all over, and his joints had turned to bark.

I knew that nothing else was required of me but to watch all of it until it was finished. Through it, I had to endure his grunts, sharp intakes of breath, his limited mobility; being a first time witness, I stood to help.

“No, hija, you sit there and wait,” he said, with a firmness and resolve that he rarely showed. It was a stark contrast to the ragged figure that was in front of me.

He then handed me all his clothes, which I could not fold as I should as I looked up intermittently to watch him walk very slowly towards a spot beside Lola. I had to sit still with Lolo’s clothes beside me until it was all over.

I looked up. Then, as if just having come from a random afternoon at the porch, he said, “It’s your turn to tell the stories. Your friend who sells trinkets, what’s his name? He’s a good fellow; you can start telling your stories to him. Now, don’t cry, I’ll grow a sturdy branch for you to sit on like some of the others did.”

The sky had begun to bleed pink and indigo up east that faded into a dark blue towards the west. There was a soft breeze blowing around us that afternoon. The trees swayed quietly. They looked as if they were dipping their branches lower, reaching out to me and speaking through their rustling. I stopped crying. I was not alone, after all, so why should I cry?

My grandfather smiled, closed his eyes, and began to take root.

—-

Chai graduated with a degree in Mass Communication at the University of the Philippines – Cebu, learning a little too late that she actually wanted to make music instead. She is primarily a songwriter who has yet to put out her material, and dabbles a bit in other forms including short stories and annoyingly chatty emails. She is a member of a local open group called The Really Bad Poets, and an improvisational theatre group called Performing Arts Kolektib. Currently she is Cebu-based and works as an online copywriter. The Turning is officially her first short story. 

She pulled her thumb away from the offending spindle and, without thinking, sucked on the wound.

“Tsk! Tsk!” said a voice that came from somewhere near her knee. “Haven’t you outgrown that habit yet? It looked cute when you were a toddler, but it looks pathetic now that you’re an eighteen-year-old Princess.”

She looked down, surprised that someone was speaking to her. She had made sure that she had stolen away to her secret hideout unnoticed. It had become necessary to be wary since her father had gotten it into his head to ban throughout the kingdom ownership of all spinning wheels, under pain of death. That had happened a long time ago, when she was only a year old. Since then, the kingdom had needed to buy its cloth from other kingdoms, depleting the royal treasury significantly. Yet, after she had acquired a spinning wheel and learned its secrets—thanks to a kindly old woman whom she had met by chance—she realized that the kingdom could save a fortune in gold by spinning its own thread and weaving its own cloth. So, breaking her father’s ridiculous law, she had hidden the spinning wheel in her secret hiding place and had made sure that no one was with her whenever she practiced her weaving. Well, she always made sure to bring her cat, Tybalt, for company but…

She blinked.

There was no one else with her except the cat, which meant…

“Yes, yes! The cat can talk!” The voice at her knee piped up again, carrying with it an odd mix of impatience and smugness.

She leaned over and took a long, deliberate look.

There he was, her cat, Tybalt. Large enough to use as a muffler on cold days, but strong and mean enough to put real fear into a kennel full of wolf hounds. He was a black cat, all muscle and bone, yet lean and sleek. He looked at her with his golden eyes in the same way he always did, except that now he was doing so standing on his hind legs with his forelimbs akimbo.

“Talk, and read minds too,” she said. “Tybalt, dear, I do believe I’m dreaming!”

“I always knew you had a keen mind!” he said. “Look behind you.”

She turned and saw herself lying prone on the floor. Beside her, curled up into a ball of black, was Tybalt.

“Tybalt, I don’t understand. What’s happening?” she said, fighting to keep the panic in her stomach from erupting into a scream.

“What needs to happen, Princess.”

The cat walked up to her and made an elegant and graceful bow.

“But first, the formalities,” the cat said. “I, Tybalt the Eternal, Prince of All Cats, do hereby pledge my life to your protection and well-being for the duration of your education, and ever after.”

Her panic subsided, transformed into effervescent curiosity.

“Education? I thought I was already getting an education from old Master LeWaine.”

“I think you’d better sit down,” the cat replied, indicating the stool by the spinning wheel. “Don’t worry, the dream of the stool will hold you up just as well as the real one can.”

“The dream of the stool?” she repeated as she sat down, but not before prodding the stool with an uninjured finger. The stool seemed solid enough.

“We are all dreaming,” the cat began simply. “Everyone and everything in the kingdom is dreaming—and I do mean everything, non-living things included. Such is the magnitude of the spell cast upon us.”

Her incredulity increased as Tybalt recounted how her parents had offended the Black Fairy by not inviting her to be one of the godmothers at her christening when she was a baby. She had been incensed, and paid back the insult by prophesying the baby’s death on the day she would prick her finger on a spinning-wheel spindle just after her eighteenth birthday.

“Well, I did prick myself, but…I’m not dead. At least I don’t think so,” she interrupted. “You said I was dreaming.”

“I’m coming to that,” the cat replied. “Fortunately for you, the Blue Fairy had not yet given you her gift, so with her magic she commuted the Black Fairy’s prophecy, turning your impending death into a deep enchanted sleep, which the entire kingdom now shares with you.

“All it takes to break the spell is True Love’s kiss,” the cat concluded.

“And when is that supposed happen?” she asked, one eyebrow raised. There seemed to be no hint of True Love from any of the young princes who had attended her debutante’s ball the night before. She had seen plenty of Naked Greed and Raw Lust, though.

The cat seemed to be steeling himself.

“Not any time soon,” he finally let himself say. “In fact, give yourself a hundred years or so.”

“A hundred years!” She raised her voice in spite of herself. “My body will have turned to dust in a hundred years! And if I’m really dreaming right now, I’d go mad from boredom before the time is up! Oh, Tybalt, this is awful! Better that I should have died!”

The cat leapt onto her lap and allowed her to take comfort in hugging him. He purred back to console her.

“Take comfort princess,” he said between purrs. “The Blue Fairy’s enchanted sleep ensures that no one is ravaged by time. And there is more to know. Listen to the story behind the story.”

She wiped away her tears. Tybalt noted with approval that she didn’t sob or go into hysterics—much.

“This had better be good,” she said grimly.

The cat told her of an ancient Prophecy that foretold the rise of a great Queen, one who would rule her land with grace, wisdom, justice, compassion, and all the other virtues that royal subjects don’t really care for themselves personally but would really, really like to see in their rulers. What was more, this Queen would be the mother and teacher of all the succeeding great rulers of all the lands, ushering in a golden age where the leaders were wise and just, knights were strong and virtuous, and the common folk productive and content.

“It just so happens that this Prophecy is all about you,” the cat said.

“So much for the Prophecy,” she countered. “There’s no way I’m going to be a mother, not hidden away in my secret place.”

“I’m afraid there’s more to it than that,” the cat said. “Look out the window.”

Her secret hideaway happened to be one of the upper rooms of the highest tower in the castle. Looking out afforded her a view of the entire palace and large swaths of the kingdom.

“Everything is overgrown with brambles!” she said in wonder and exasperation.

“It’s part of the enchantment,” the cat said. ”Those magical brambles are impenetrable.”

“And how is that a good thing?”

“The brambles prevent the minions of the Black Fairy from waltzing back in here to search for you. No one can cut through them before the Proper Time.”

“And what does ‘before the Proper Time’ mean, exactly?” she asked.

“The Proper Time will have come,” the cat replied, “when you become that wise and wonderful Queen of the Prophecy.”

“How will that happen?”

“That’s where I come in. I will see to your education. And that you don’t get too bored.”

She tried to keep from laughing out loud.

“Tybalt, you are sweet and adorable, but I can’t bring myself to take seriously the idea of a cat giving me lectures.”

“Ah, that’s the beauty of this enchantment, princess,” the cat replied, unperturbed. “I won’t need to lecture you. I’ll be able to ‘show you’ instead of ‘tell you’. Together, we will visit the dreams of your kingdom.”

“And that will make me wise, just, and all that?”

“You already possess the raw materials, Princess. All you need is shaping and polishing. The wise rule of a kingdom is a dream shared by all, except that each person cherishes a different version of that dream. Understand the dream each of your subjects values and they will follow you. Belittle those dreams and you make yourself their enemy. Do you understand?”

Surprised at the gravity of Tybalt’s tone, she could only nod.

“Good. Let’s begin then,” the cat said, and led the way out of the tower. She hesitated, then followed.

It was amazing how quickly the years passed. She and Tybalt visited each dream in the kingdom and she learned a bit here and a bit there and all those little bits added up to Deep Knowledge. Because she carefully considered and examined each dream and sought how everything fit together, she also gained Profound Wisdom. With that came the discovery that she could now read hearts and minds.

Then, one day, there was nothing more for her to learn. The Proper Time had come.

She and Tybalt oohed and aahed as the young Prince Dashing battled and killed the dragon that guarded the Bramblewood and which was, in truth, the Black Fairy transformed. They cheered as he soaked his blade in the creature’s blood, making it sharper than ever.

“Nice form,” commented Tybalt as they watched him hack a path through the brambles.

“And he handles his sword pretty well too,” she added.

“Get ready, Princess. True Love approaches.”

“You really think so, Tybalt?”

“You’ve learned to read hearts and minds. You’ll know. But remember, he’s still a man, so expect True Love to be mixed with liberal doses of Raw Lust as well. Can’t be helped.”

“Could be fun,” she said, but bit her lower lip, unsure. One hundred years of living in a dream was a long time to be separated from the sensations of the body…

…so unfortunately, Tybalt’s warning didn’t prevent her from slapping Prince Dashing after he kissed her. But that didn’t stop the two of them from breaking the spell, getting married, and making the ancient Prophecy come true. She became a great Queen who ruled the land with grace, wisdom, justice, and compassion. She spun a mighty loom too, and made weaving required instruction for all her subjects. Her country became rich exporting thread and cloth far and wide.

True to his promise, Tybalt the Eternal, Prince of All Cats, watched over her ever after. He never spoke again except maybe in her dreams, but no one knew for certain if he truly did, and the Queen never told.

—-

Adrian took up Philosophy at the Ateneo de Manila with the express purpose of learning how to write stuff that is worth reading again and again. He hopes to do that someday when he grows up. He currently spends his time teaching Europeans how to speak English. He spends a lot of time taking notes and building rule systems for table top pen and paper role playing games.

The above illustration is from here.

One day, though, the baroness arrived bringing along with her one of the nephews who were dependent on her for their allowance.

“My nephew, Pig, your highness,” the baroness told the prince.

“P-pig?” The prince asked.

“Yes. We call him that because he eats like one. For a living, he uh… plays with rocks.”

“I am a sculptor, Aunt,” Pig corrected the baroness. “I do not play with rocks, I make art.”

“How do you do?” The prince greeted the newcomer unenthusiastically.

“Very well, your highness. Thank you,” the sculptor replied with so much flair that the prince couldn’t help but roll his eyes.

“Pig, this is the prince’s mute, um… friend,” the baroness told her nephew, leading him to our mermaid.

“Pleased to meet you, my lady,” the rakish nephew said as he took our mermaid’s hand and kissed it. “May I know your name?”

“She’s mute, you idiot!” The baroness barked. “She can’t tell you her name.”

Pig looked reproachfully at the baroness. “She’s not deaf, Aunt. Do watch your language.” Then he turned back to the girl. “You look so beautiful, like one of the marble statues in the opera house. And almost as white, too. Though, not quite snow-white. Not marble white, either. I’d say your skin is more of pale ivory.”

Unsure of what to do, our mermaid gave an awkward little curtsy. And the sculptor returned it with a theatrical sweeping bow.

“Milk White,” Pig said. “I shall call you that. I plan to name one of my ivory statues that. Isn’t that a nice name?”

The mermaid, who only had eyes for our prince, just shrugged.

“Why don’t you take the mute— I mean, Milk White, for a ride in town?” The baroness suggested. “I’m sure she would love to see the sights.”

Our mermaid loved the idea. She looked happily at the prince.

The prince groaned inwardly but smiled. “Of course. I shall accompany—”

“That’s a wonderful idea, your highness!” The baroness exclaimed. “I’m sure my daughter would love to go on a seaside walk with you on this fine day.”

“But—”

“I’m sure Pig can handle the mute,” the baroness said.

Milk White turned questioning eyes at the prince.

True, the baroness’ nephew was a bit of an idiot. But he was a nice idiot. Apparently, the prince knew this for he nodded to our mermaid to go on without him. And that was how the baroness effectively got rid of the mermaid for the day, and cornered the prince into spending time with her daughter.

***

As one would expect, though, when he took Leila on the walk, the prince’s mind was elsewhere. His eyes scanned the sea while his companion rattled on about how fine the weather was.

“It was so dreadful the last time I went for a walk with one of the counts,” the baroness’ daughter said. “It was very cloudy, and it even rained a little.”

“Mmm,” was the prince’s reply.

“Are you even listening, your highness?”

“Mmm,”

“Your highness, aren’t you even going to—”

“What’s that?” The prince pointed towards the sea.

There was a figure in the waves. As it approached the shore, they could see that it was a woman, but she swam funny. When she reached shallow water, instead of standing up and walking to the shore, she dragged her lower body and used her arms to get to the shore. And her lower body was glimmering sea green in the sun.

“A mermaid!” The prince exclaimed and he ran towards the woman, Leila and her concern for the weather forgotten.

When he reached the woman, however, she turned out not to be a mermaid, but someone he was pleased to see nonetheless.

“Ella!” The prince exclaimed.

“Your highness?” Ella looked up in surprise.

The prince laughed, took her up in his arms and spun her around in delight, much to the alarm and annoyance of Ella’s stepsister. “I’ve found you at last!” The prince stopped spinning and looked at her.

“How did you know it was me?” She asked.

“I’d know that… unusual…fashion sense anywhere.” He motioned to the long sea green skirt she paired with a hideous peach blouse. He noticed her legs… or rather, the lack of them. “What happened to your legs?”

“I, uh… had to give them up.” She said sadly.

The prince looked sympathetically at her. “If you had told me, if I was there when you needed the money, you wouldn’t have needed to sell your legs.”

“What?”

“I didn’t know one could sell legs now. But I can imagine why someone would want yours. I mean… yours must have fetched quite a decent price.”

“What are you babbling about?” Ella couldn’t help but smile.

“I’m sorry! I should have been there for you!”

Ella laughed. “I’m fine. You can put me down now.”

The prince obliged and saw her walk on her leg stumps towards a chair with wheels not far from the shore.

She turned her smiling face towards the prince. “I don’t normally go swimming fully clothed like this. But my hat flew into the sea and I had to go after it.”

The prince laughed. “Was that where you had been hiding when I set the entire palace looking for you?”

“No, but close. I live in a cottage nearby.”

Leila approached the prince’s side just as Ella was lifting herself onto the chair. “Who’s your crippled friend?” She asked haughtily.

The prince, too excited with finally finding his Ella, failed to, or chose not to, notice her hostility. “Oh, this is—”

Leila gasped. “You!”

Ella looked up at her. “Ah,” she said pleasantly. “Hello, Leila.”

“What are you doing here?” Leila asked angrily.

“Taking a swim.”

“You know each other?” The prince asked.

“Yes, she’s my stepsister.” Turning to Leila, Ella asked, “Did my shoe fit?”

“You stole it from me!” Leila insisted.

“You sold her your glass slipper?” The prince asked Ella.

Ella shrugged. “I needed the money at that time.”

“To move out of your stepmother’s house?”

“Among other things.”

“The legs were not enough?”

Ella laughed again. “Please, your highness, enough with the legs already.”

“It was my glass slipper!” Leila interrupted.

“And how are you now?” The prince asked Ella as if Leila had not spoken.

“I’m great!” Ella spread out her arms. “I’m loaded and I’m free now. I can do whatever I like and go wherever I want.”

“That money was extorted!” Leila screamed.

“Come with…” The prince began, but hesitated. “At least come to the palace once in a while. I miss our conversations.”

“No, she can’t!” Leila shouted.

Ella smiled. “I will.”

“Why don’t you come for dinner? There’s someone I’d like you to meet. She’s a very shy girl. She can’t talk. Maybe she would open up to you.”

“She’s mute! She can’t open up to anyone!” Leila screamed.

“All right.”

“It’s just great to see you again, Ella.”

“AAARGH!”

“Same here, your highness.”

***

Jabiri threw down a card. “Ace of Coins.”

“King of Coins,” Mortimer countered.

“Five of Wands,” came Brey’s card.

Viggo threw down his card triumphantly. “Two of Vands. I vin!”

Everyone else groaned and threw down their remaining cards.

Jabiri took all the cards on the table and shuffled them.

***

“What was the mermaid’s reaction to seeing Ella?” Mortimer asked. “Did they get into a cat fight or something?”

“No, Ella was a nice girl. In fact, they became good friends,” Brey said. “Actually, now that I think about it, I don’t think our mermaid suspected Ella and the prince were in love with each other at that time.”

Viggo snorted. “Now she is stupid and dense.”

“No, not dense,” Brey corrected. “Just self-centered.”

“Self-centered?” Jabiri asked. “I thought our mermaid was a good girl.”

“Being self-centered doesn’t always make one nasty. Sometimes, it just makes one blind. All she saw was that the prince was polite to her, that he took her sailing, and that she was in the same room with him. She didn’t see that the reason why the prince and Ella were not too polite with each other was because they were closer; or that when they were sailing, Ella was there, too; or that even though she and the prince were in the same room, his eyes only looked for Ella.”

“So the prince married Ella?” Mortimer asked.

“I assume they would. Last I heard they were engaged.”

“And ze mermaid?”

“And Leila?” Jabiri added.

“And the king?” Mortimer also added.

“The king was angry at first, of course,” Brey recounted. “But he gave in, in the end. He grew to like Ella after a while. Besides, it was the only way he could get grandchildren. Leila stopped visiting the palace about a week or two into Ella and the prince’s engagement. She was no match for Ella. Ella had the support of the palace staff, and had no qualms about fighting back. As for our mermaid…”

***

The announcement of the prince’s engagement came as a huge shock for our mermaid. I remember seeing her at night walking by the sea alone. But as Mortimer said, we only grant what they wish. And notice how I still call her a mermaid, even though she has legs now? Well, she still was a mermaid. She just had legs. She wished for legs, not humanity. And when a mermaid dies, she turns to sea foam. And she was dying. Her heart was breaking.

Now, our mermaid had sisters. And, no matter how annoying their little sister was, they were still family, and there still existed a bond between them. Her six sisters felt her pain. They knew she was dying. They saw her. Every night, they watched her walk like a ghost by the shore and on the deck of the prince’s ship.

Then they saw me.

“We want our sister back,” the eldest told me. “We don’t want her to die. She’s still too young!”

“She made her wish,” I said. “She can’t un-wish it.”

“Then we wish it to be undone,” the second sister said. “We wish her back!”

“What would you give for that wish?” I asked.

The sisters looked at each other. “What do want for it?” The eldest asked me.

“Hair. From all six of you.”

“How much hair?”

“All of it.”

Murmurs erupted from the sisters. Now, a mermaid’s voice may be her most precious possession, but a mermaid’s hair is almost as valuable. Mermaids are vain creatures. Having no hair would almost kill them. I mean, who’s heard of a bald mermaid?

“Don’t worry,” I said. “It’ll grow back.”

“In a hundred years!” The eldest gave an irritated huff. Oh, yes, she was annoyed with her little sister. And I had a feeling our little mermaid would be in a lot of trouble once she went back to the sea.

“All right,” the eldest said. “Take our hair. But give us our sister back.”

“You talk like I was the one who took her away. She was the one who thought she was in love. Here.” I produced a knife and tossed it to the mermaid.

She looked at the knife, then back at me.

“Give it to your sister. She’s dying because her heart is breaking,” I explained. “If you don’t want her to die, she must destroy what’s breaking her heart.”

“She must stab the prince?”

I shrugged. “It’s a lot quicker than drowning him. Tell her I’ll give her back her fins once she’s stopped what’s killing her.”

And with that, I left with almost fifty feet of mermaid hair.

***

“So, did the mermaid kill the prince?” Jabiri asked.

“I don’t know,” Brey admitted. “Anyway, I gave her more than one opportunity to be happy. That’s the last I’m giving her.”

“But zis last one is at ze expense of Ella and ze prince’s happiness!” Viggo protested.

“Personally, I’d like to see Ella and the prince happily ever after. But our mermaid’s sisters are my clients now. I have to give them what they wished for.”

“Some people have to suffer for other people’s comfort,” Mortimer said. “It’s one of the rules of life.” He put down two cards. “Jack of Swords, and the Lovers’ Card. Now, the only time you can go higher than me would be if you had the—”

“King and Queen of Swords, of Coins, of Cups and of Wands. Ha!” Brey put down all the cards she had mentioned. Then, with a broad smile, she said, “I win.”

The other three grumbled and muttered oaths under their breaths as Brey took her prizes.

“Aren’t you going to play another round with us?” Jabiri asked when Brey stood up.

“Maybe next week,” the young merchant answered. “But now, I’m late for a client call.” And she turned to leave.

“Um, Brey,” Viggo called her back.

Brey turned to the three, who were still sitting.

Viggo pointed to the curious black ball of fur on the edge of the table. “Ze kitten?”

With a sigh, Brey picked up the tiny kitten and stuffed it in her pocket.

***

The little mermaid was standing on the deck of the prince’s ship, staring out at the sea.

“Aren’t you cold?”

The mermaid looked around for the source of the voice. What she found was a small black kitten playing at her feet. She picked it up and found a tall woman with long curly hair standing beside her. The woman wore boots that went up to her thighs, and a cloak that fluttered and moved though no wind blew. Her wide-brimmed hat covered half of her face, but the mermaid knew who she was.

“Did your sisters give you the knife?” The woman asked her gravely.

She nodded.

“You weren’t going to kill him, were you?”

She shook her head.

“Why not?”

The mermaid remained silent.

Brey sighed. She opened her palm to reveal the glass sphere containing the mermaid’s voice. “Just for now,” she said.

The glowing voice left the sphere and entered the mermaid’s mouth.

“Why won’t you kill him?”

“…Because… Because I—”

“Oh, don’t give me that nonsense about him being your true love. He didn’t return your affections.”

“Just because he doesn’t love me back doesn’t make him unworthy of my love.”

“And just because you’re stupid doesn’t mean I have to keep helping you.”

The mermaid was taken aback. “I… I didn’t ask for your help.”

“I know, I know,” Brey said impatiently. “But like I told my friends, I don’t like seeing things I work hard to acquire go to waste.”

The mermaid looked at her legs. Tears were forming in her eyes. “What did she wish for?” She asked. “The one who owned these legs.”

“For a night at the ball,” the merchant replied in an irritated tone.

The mermaid gave a small humorless laugh. “She would give her legs for that?”

“You gave me your voice for something as valuable.”

“But her wish was more… petty. Why aren’t you scolding her?”

“Because with her wish, she went and got herself a fortune, freedom, and a prince who adores her and is marrying her tacky little self instead of the mute but gorgeous mermaid whose heart he is currently breaking.” Brey turned away and paced the deck.

The mermaid turned wide eyes at her. “These were Ella’s legs?”

“Ironic, isn’t it?” Brey said vindictively. “You go and ask for legs so you could be with your prince, and he goes and marries a girl with no legs.”

The mermaid turned back to face the sea. Tears fell from her eyes. “So, you’re concerned because… they’re Ella’s legs.”

“Of course not!” She went back to the railings.

“It’s all about Ella to you, too!” The mermaid sobbed.

“No, it’s all about my product! I’ll scold whoever buys your voice, too, if that creature didn’t make any use of it. Fine. I like Ella. She’s legless, tacky, and has no family who loves her. She made what seemed to be a stupid wish, but is the one who is about to have a happy ending because she knows how to take advantage of opportunities. Unlike you, who wasted the countless chances I have given to win the prince. Your sisters have given up their hair to have you back, but it seems like you’re going to waste that, too!”

“You want me to kill the prince?”

“I didn’t say that! I just want to understand how you could waste opportunities and other people’s sacrifices just so you could keep up this image of a tragic love.”

“I am not doing this because I want my life to be a tragedy!” The mermaid shouted angrily.

“It certainly seems that way.”

The mermaid was red with rage. She thrust the sheathed knife into Brey’s hand. “There!” She said. “Take back your knife. I am not killing the prince!”

“Idiot!” Brey opened her other hand, the one with the sphere, and the mermaid’s voice flew from her throat back to the sphere. She forced the knife back into the mermaid’s hand. “If you don’t do this, you will be nothing but sea foam! And what could you say about the life you’ve led? Nothing! You wasted your chances and you gained nothing!”

“Milk White?”

Brey and the mermaid looked around and saw the prince coming out of his chambers. He stopped when he saw the knife in the mermaid’s hand.

“Milk White, what are you doing?” He asked.

With tears flowing hard, she looked defiantly at the Wish Merchant. She unsheathed the knife and thrust it into her heart.

“MILK WHITE! NO!” The prince tried to run to her, but the mermaid let herself fall overboard.

Brey quickly took out the String of Fate from her coat pocket and whispered a spell. The little black kitten at her feet was hard at work with the same spell. Then, the edges of the string attached itself to translucent silvery threads in a web-like structure, then disappeared.

When the prince arrived at the railings, the mermaid was nowhere to be seen.

“What did you do?!” He demanded of Brey.

“I changed her destiny a little.” Brey turned to leave.

“You made her kill herself!”

“Don’t worry. She’ll live.” Brey looked at the prince over her shoulder. “Oh, if you see her, tell her not to waste the last opportunity I’m giving her pining for you.” And she and the kitten disappeared.

***

Pig, or Pygmalion as he was born as, watched impatiently as the sailors hauled in a piece of ivory from the sea. The ship transporting his precious cargo had encountered problems and had sunk some five hundred meters away from the port. It had cost Pig his entire allowance to get the sailors to salvage his precious order.

Now, well into the night, Pig stepped back to admire the beautiful ivory he had spent so much on. Others may have seen it as nothing but a wet old tusk, shrouded in seaweeds, and still covered with sea foam. But to the sculptor, it was a thing of beauty waiting to be released by skilled hands. He brushed the seaweeds off the smooth milky surface and sighed, satisfied with what he saw.

“Galatea,” he said to his potential sculpture. “That’s milk-white in the old language. I shall call you that.”

—-

Ria Lu is the CEO of Komikasi, a game development company in Makati. She graduated Computer Science from De La Salle University, and CG for Games from Tokyo Technical College. Talecraft, a set of cards for story-creation, was a game she created in 2007. Her influences include Diana Wynne Jones, Jonathan Stroud, and Megan Whalen Turner. She is also an accomplished artist, and is the one who created the above illustration of her character, Brey.