Everlasting Nora

by Marie Miranda Cruz

  A cat leaped out from behind a pile of discarded human bones, making me jump. A sigh escaped from my trembling lips. Tiger had probably given up the chase by now. At least, I hoped so. I had to get to somewhere safe, just in case.

  I limped along as fast as my burning feet would allow me, picking my way through a trash heap between an empty crypt and a crumbling wall of apartment tombs. It made me sad to see the bones of people long forgotten, mixed in with the trash.

  I heard a snap behind me. It must be the cat. I turned to shoo it away and froze. My breath caught in my throat. Tiger’s blood-streaked face loomed over me. I screamed, took a step backward and fell, the back of my head hitting something hard. For a moment, the world was filled with pain.

  Then darkness.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Had I died? I saw nothing but black. No, I wasn’t dead, but I almost wished I was.

  The bump on my head throbbed. I wanted to scream for help, but who would hear me? My eyes felt gritty, my scratched cheeks stung. Probably from being shoved head-first into this suffocating box.

  I was inside an empty tomb. My hands were tied behind me and my legs were bound together at the ankles. Pinpricks of light came through gaps between the rocks Tiger had used to seal up the opening below my feet. I knew he’d pushed me far into the crypt because I couldn’t touch the pile of stones, even when I stretched my toes.

  How was I going to get out of here? A scream tore through my throat. This was not the end for me; it couldn’t be. Tiger hadn’t given up. It was stupid of me to think he would. I should’ve kept running. Tears seeped from my eyes and ran over my cheeks, which were already tight with dried mucus and dirt. Stupid, stupid girl!

  And what had Jojo been thinking? He could’ve gone with me so that we could protect each other, but no, he had to be a hero. I’d told him that the passing funeral procession would be the best time to get into Tiger’s grave house, but he hadn’t listened. I should’ve known he’d try a stunt like that.

  I remembered the day he’d showed me his balisong. I’m not losing another friend to that dog. If only I’d paid more attention to what he was hinting at, to what he was planning to do, then I could’ve have stopped him from trying to steal Papa’s watch back. I deserved to die for being so selfish. But wasn’t it more selfish to just lie here and give up?

  My hand brushed something round, papery. I grasped it between my fingers, feeling the points of dry flower petals prick my skin. Everlasting. Even in this dark hole, it was still intact, still whole.

  A sudden calm came over me. It was as if a string tied around my heart was suddenly cut away. I was not going to give up. I would find a way to get out of this tomb. I ignored the twinge of panic still threatening to overtake me. It was time to get my bearings. The tomb had a sweet, sickly odor that made me want to gag, but I had to breathe. I rolled onto my stomach with my cheek resting on the dirt-covered stone. By shifting my arms back and forth, I tried to pull my hands out of their bindings. But they were tied too tight. I couldn’t reach into my pocket for my balisong. A tingling began at the tips of my fingers and spread through my hands.

  An insect crawled up my leg. I kicked and thrashed until I couldn’t feel it anymore. Blood pounded in my ears as my breath steadied. I rocked my body until I was lying on my side. My hand brushed something hard. A stick. I let go of the daisy and picked it up. Maybe I could use it to cut the strips of cloth tied around my wrists. It was rounded and smooth like a tube, jagged at one end. Was it a piece of wood from an old coffin? I passed the object between my fingers. The other end of it had a wider, knobby shape, and it was hollow in the center.

  It was a human bone.

  My mind rebelled at the thought of using it as a tool but it was better than nothing. I felt for its rounded end and pushed it against the wall of the tomb behind me. With the jagged edge pointed toward me, I carefully placed the cloth binding on it and pushed down. The bone slipped off the wall. I repositioned it again and again but it would not stay in place. I began to cry.

  Don’t give up. Don’t stop.

  I needed to try something different. With the bone in my hand once again, I positioned the round end of it on the lower part of my back. Once in place, my arms stretched out over the jagged end until I felt the cloth catch onto the tip. Then I held my breath and pulled with the strength only desperation could give you. The sound of a satisfying rip bounced off the walls inside the tomb.

  I wriggled my hands out of the loosened strips of cloth. The space was narrow, but I folded my knees to my chest as high as I could and untied the cloth rope around my ankles.

  Like a worm, I wriggled down until my feet touched the rocks covering the opening of the tomb. A hard kick with my heel sent stones flying out. Puffs of dust wafted around me like clouds. I crawled out, feet first, into the blinding afternoon light. My wrists were sore and already bruised. Papa’s watch. It was gone. It wasn’t on the ground or inside the tomb I had been trapped in. Tiger must’ve taken it. My hand patted the pocket of my shorts. The money and balisong were still there. I sighed with relief. I adjusted the safety pin I kept on my shorts to keep my treasure from falling out.

  What time was it? It felt like I had been trapped in the tomb for hours, but the sun was still high. There might still be a chance to save Jojo.

  Ignoring my sore feet and an aching head, I raced home to find help. I prayed Mang Rudy was home. Please, please, please. I found little Ernie playing in the street with a hacky sack he had made with an old rag and pebbles. He ran up to me, his eyes wide with shock. “Nora, what happened to you? You’re covered with cobwebs and mud. There’s blood on your face too.”

  My hand went up automatically to touch my cheek. It burned as I brushed at it. There was no time to think about my cuts and scratches.

  “Is Mang Rudy home, Ernie? I need to talk to him.”

  “Yeah, come on!” He grabbed my hand and pulled me along toward Mang Rudy’s grave house.

  He was sitting at his work table with pieces of an electric fan he was trying to fix. He turned as we entered and stood, his stool clattering to the floor behind him.

  “Susmaryosep! You’re bleeding! What happened to you, Nora?” He peered at the scrapes on my face, the dust and dirt that covered every inch of me.

  “It’s Jojo! He needs help! Tiger and his gang tied him up and took him away!”

  Mang Rudy held up his hand. “Slow down. Start from the beginning. Leave nothing out.”

  I told him about sneaking into Tiger’s place, Jojo’s kidnapping, and being thrown inside an empty tomb.

  He listened while he located where his wife kept their box of medicines and bandages. He had me sit on top of his worktable and cleaned the dirt off my face, hands, and feet with a basin of clean water. He rubbed a little ointment on my scratches. When I complained about the lump on my head, he asked if I was dizzy or sleepy.

  When I finished my story, he scowled and slapped a hand on his knee. “I told you to stay away from that cockroach. Well, I guess there’s no point in scolding you now. We have to do something about Jojo.”

  I sipped water from a cup he handed to me. It hurt to swallow. I rubbed my wrist, my heart aching from losing Papa’s watch. Again.

  Mang Rudy stood, plopped his baseball hat onto his head, and headed down the alley. Ernie and I were right on his heels when he turned and grabbed us both by the shoulders. “Now where do you think you’re going?”

  “I’m going with you,” I said, surprised by the question.

  He shook his head. “You’ve done enough. You go home and stay with your mother. I’m going to the police. Tiger’s been in trouble before, so it shouldn’t be hard to convince them to send some officers to Santiago’s.”

  “But I can help. Please…”

  “Nora, I mean it. Go home and stay with your mother. I’ll send Virgil with a message as soon as I can.”

  Mang Rudy’s son. He had been there that awful day when Tiger and his crew ransacked my grave house an
d stole Papa’s watch. Ernie tugged at my hand as I stood there, my eyes fixed on Mang Rudy’s rapidly retreating figure.

  With heavy, painful steps, I turned and walked home. I wanted to help find Jojo. I needed to help find him. He wouldn’t sit back and wait for someone else to find me if I were in his place. But I did need to check on Mama.

  The singsong rhythm of Lola Mercy’s voice drifted to me the closer I got to my grave house. I peered in and saw Lola sitting beside Mama, feeding her lagundi tea. Neither of them noticed me. I watched Lola, how her eyes crinkled when she smiled. I didn’t take another step. I wouldn’t, couldn’t tell her that her one and only grandson was missing. I backed away and bumped into Ernie, almost knocking him down.

  I had to find him myself. It was my fault he had gone to Tiger’s in the first place. Mang Rudy was going to the police for help, but how long would it take them to get to Santiago’s and save Jojo? It could take hours, and someone had to go there now, or it might be too late for Jojo. I could probably get there faster.

  “Ernie, can I borrow your slippers?”

  Without hesitating, he slipped them off his feet and handed them to me. “Can I help too, Nora?”

  “You are going to help. Someone has to keep an eye on my mother and Jojo’s lola, and you are the only one who can do it, okay?” With a quick kiss on his forehead, I ran to the cemetery gate with Ernie’s too-small slippers on my sore feet.

  Just then a motorcycle with a sidecar pulled up beside me. It was Virgil. He took a long look at my dirty clothes and bloody face. “Hey, I just dropped my father off at the police station. What’s going on?”

  Mang Rudy hadn’t told him what happened. I climbed into the sidecar. “Do you know where Santiago’s grocery store is?”

  “Sure, but my father wanted me to tell you to stay home and wait for him to come back.” He eyed the scratches on my face.

  “Uh, yeah. But I need to buy some medicine for my mother.” The half truth came out before I could stop myself.

  “Yeah, I heard she wasn’t well. Come on, then. I need to head out that way anyway to pick up my mother from the market.” He would’ve probably refused to take me if he knew my real reason for going there.

  The engine roared as we sped down the street, through the gate and into the stream of vehicles on Bonifacio Avenue. I chanted Please hurry, please hurry in my head, as if my will alone could make the motorcycle fly through the traffic.

  I prayed I wasn’t too late.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  “If you like, I can come back for you after I pick up my mother.”

  Virgil pulled up in front of Santiago’s Grocery. He stopped by the entrance to let me out.

  “Thank you. I’ll wait for you on the sidewalk, by the street.” If I could manage to find Jojo and sneak him out without getting caught, that is. Virgil waved goodbye and took off.

  I got out of the way of customers coming in and out of the store and looked around. There seemed to be no unusual activity. It meant that Mang Rudy and the police weren’t here yet.

  I walked around the side of the building. The car I had seen in front of Tiger’s grave house was now parked in a space, right next to the back door. My heart thumped just a little harder as I walked up to the car and peeked in. There was no one inside. The door to the building was ajar. It creaked a little when I opened it.

  The narrow hallway beyond was empty except for a pay phone set into a white-painted wall. I walked down the passage a few steps to the end, where there stood a stack of crates containing soda bottles. I peered around them and saw a large room with chairs set up in neat little rows. There were small tables topped with ashtrays and magazines at the end of each one. At the far end was a door with a sign that said Ruel Santiago, President. In front of it was a desk, where a woman was sitting with her back to me. There was a staircase on one side with a solid wooden rail that led to the second floor of the building.

  Maybe I could sneak up the stairs without the secretary noticing. I took off Ernie’s slippers. The cold floor felt good on my sore, scratched feet. I held my breath while I padded through the room, hoping no one noticed any bloody tracks I left behind. The woman at the desk was absorbed in something she was typing. I was halfway across when the door to Mr. Santiago’s office swung open. I ducked behind a chair as the man with the pockmarked face and bulbous nose lumbered out.

  “Chona, when you see Tiger, please tell him I have a meeting at City Hall and that I will deal with him and the boy when I get back.” He closed his office door and locked it.

  “Yes, sir. Before you leave, there is a contract you need to sign.” The woman never looked up from her typing.

  Mr. Santiago waved dismissively, golden rings gleaming on his hands, and left through another door. A machine on the woman’s desk whirred. Sheets of paper rolled out of an opening and fell into a tray. She gathered the papers, grabbed a pen, and followed her boss out through the same door.

  After making sure there was no one else around, I dashed for the stairs and climbed up. The second-floor hallway was empty and quiet except for some low voices coming from the end of the corridor. I ducked into a nearby doorway when Tiger and one of his friends stepped out of a room down the hall.

  “Will it be okay to leave this guy here by himself? I thought the boss said to watch him.” It was the skinny one. He was like a mosquito that kept turning up to bite you in the leg again and again.

  Tiger shook his head and touched his nose gingerly. “He’ll be fine. He’s tied up and gagged, where is he going to go? I’m going to the restroom to clean up what that other brat did to my nose.” They walked down the hall, past my hiding place, to the stairs.

  When I was sure they were gone, I ran to the room they’d come out of. It was some kind of storage space, just like the one I had hidden in. There were shelves with boxes that had PURE FOODS and SILVER SWAN stamped on them. Crates were also stacked on the floor next to a table that had a clipboard and rolls of tape piled on top. There seemed to be no one in the room. Maybe Jojo was somewhere else.

  As I turned to leave, I heard a muffled cry from behind a stack of flattened cardboard boxes. Jojo was lying on the floor. My knees went weak and I collapsed next to him. I pulled the gag out of his mouth.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Jojo asked in a hoarse whisper. “Do you realize what danger you’re putting yourself in?” His eyes were wide, shifting between the open door and me. His lips compressed into a thin line. “Help me out of these ropes. They’ll be back soon.”

  I pulled the balisong out of my pocket. It cut easily through the ropes tied around his wrists and ankles. “Thanks,” he said, examining the marks they left on his skin. His spiky hair was matted on one side and his right eye and cheek were bruised and puffy. He looked me over. “What in the world happened to you?”

  “I’ll tell you later. We have to get out of here first. Virgil is going to pick us up, so we have to hurry.” I gestured toward the door. Jojo came up behind me and we both listened for returning footsteps.

  It was quiet. Maybe Tiger and his gang had left. We came out into the hallway. My legs shook as we walked down the staircase. My breath caught in my throat when I heard Tiger and Chona talking from an open door across the way. Tiger stood with his back facing us while Chona pointed to a memo tacked to the wall.

  Jojo and I sat on the stairs behind the rail. With a hand cupped over Jojo’s ear, I whispered, “We’ll have to leave through the back door, which is around that corner over there.” The bend in the hall was right in front of us.

  “I remember. That was the door they carried me through earlier,” Jojo whispered back with a grimace. “We better move fast.”

  Together, Jojo and I tiptoed into the hallway. I kept looking back to watch for Tiger, ready to make a break for it, when I bumped into the stack of crates. The sound of rattling bottles echoed down the corridor. I pushed on the stack to steady them just as one of Tiger’s henchmen walked in through the back door.

>   “Hoy!” He lunged after us. We turned and ran the other way. Tiger ran out of the room across the stairs and blocked our escape.

  I grabbed an ashtray from a nearby table and threw it at him. When he ducked to avoid it, Jojo and I dodged past him. We ran up the stairs. Tiger and his friend pounded up the steps behind us.

  “We can escape through there,” panted Jojo.

  He ran to a window at the end of the hallway that I hadn’t noticed before. It was large with two rectangular panes of glass. There were levers on one side of the window that could be turned so that it swung outward as it opened.

  “We’re going to have to jump. Give me the balisong. I’ll try to hold them off while you crank the window open,” commanded Jojo. With the balisong in his hand, I watched as he flicked it open and held it out. He was ready to fight.

  Tiger and his buddy stopped a few feet away from us. I froze. They stared at Jojo with new eyes as he pointed the balisong at them.

  “Open the window,” said Jojo through gritted teeth, not taking his eyes off the enemy in front of him. He slashed the knife through the air whenever they moved.

  My body finally unfroze and, with shaking hands, I grabbed hold of a metal lever. It wouldn’t turn. The window wouldn’t budge no matter how hard I pushed. A hiss escaped through my clenched teeth when I noticed a small latch at the bottom of the window. I lifted it and the lever turned with ease. The window swung open in front of me. Customers milled around in front of the entrance below. Virgil was already parked on the curb, talking to his mother.

  “Virgil!” I screamed his name. He turned his head toward the sound of my voice. Just then, there was a scuffle behind me and a sharp intake of breath. The skinny man held his hand over a cut on his cheek. It bled freely through his fingers. Jojo swung the knife at him again and then at Tiger. Sooner or later, they were going to figure out how to overpower Jojo. We had to get out. The only way was down. But how? Below the window was a folded metal ladder. With a hard pull, the fire escape unfolded and slid all the way to the concrete below.