Birthplace

by K. S. Villoso

  Enrique gave a quick sigh of relief. “We should be.”

  “You okay, man?”

  “Yeah.” He sat down close to me, and I dared look at him then. He had done a clean job, I’d give him that. I couldn’t see a stray feather in sight.

  “Good. I don’t want to wake up with you gnawing on my toes or something.”

  “I don’t—”

  “I’m joking.” I glanced at Rachel Ann. “You should sleep too,” I said.

  “Go. Both of you. I’ll keep first watch.” She drew her legs underneath her.

  With any other girl, I would have argued. But this was Rachel Ann. She actually found a live chicken, for God’s sake.

  I slept with my arms folded over me. I dreamt I was a princess in a swamp. Don’t ask me why.

  Enrique’s hand on my shoulder woke me up. His fingers weren’t cold, like Becca’s had been. That stood out for me now that I knew what he was. I looked at him and noticed that the sky was turning purple. “How long were we asleep?” I asked groggily.

  “Too long,” he said. “I changed places with Rachel but I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I think I smell Ciskong.”

  “Oh,” I said, trying to make sense of what he just said. I staggered up. “You smell things?”

  “I didn’t think he would track us. I thought he would just figure out we left early and...” His brow was furrowed. He ran his hands over it now. “But he tracked us. Straight into the wood. At daylight. This isn’t right.”

  “Do we meet him?” I asked. “Maybe Becca and her folks...”

  “He’s not... his mind doesn’t work like that, Pablo. I’ve known him too long.” He glanced at the sky. “I don’t trust him. I never have. He turned me. I never wanted to get turned.”

  I didn’t stand around listening to his melodrama. I tapped Rachel Ann’s leg to wake her up, drank the rest of the water from the canteen, and went to grab my bolo. He sauntered over to me. “He’s getting close,” he said. “I don’t like this. We’ll never outrun him.”

  “We can hide,” I suggested.

  He looked thoughtful for a moment. “Come with me.”

  We started down the neck of the woods, which didn’t look at all that different to me, but at some point it gave way to a clearing. A row of bamboo huts outlined the edges. “This is where I found the chicken,” Rachel Ann mumbled.

  “Under that one, quick,” Enrique urged, pointing at the nearest hut. “He’s close.”

  I opened my mouth. Rachel Ann grabbed my hand and yanked me under the stilts.

  I crouched there in the dark, peering through what little light shone through the dusty floorboards. I heard footsteps, followed by an irritatingly wheezy voice. “Riko.”

  “Lolo.” There was a pause. “I was out the whole night. Lola was starving me. She gave me fish and rice for dinner last night.”

  “Hmmm.” I heard a snuffling noise. “Have you seen your brother?”

  “No. Why?”

  “He left. With the girl. Grandmother is furious.”

  “He was out drinking with Berto and the others. I was angry at him for it. The last time I saw him he was stomping off to talk to his friend. I went out after that.”

  “Hmmm.” That snuffling noise came again. Ciskong started walking around—I could see his feet from where we sat. I felt Rachel Ann’s hand on my knee and fought the urge to slap it away. “I smell him.”

  “Of course. I shook him a little last night. He tried to fight back.”

  “Is that right?” The old man gave a heh noise. “Still, he couldn’t have gotten far. We need them. Go out and see if they got to the road somehow. I don’t want to go back without news. Lola Selda’s angry enough as it is, especially with the feast all ready for tomo—”

  Prr-prrt.

  I froze, and Rachel Ann’s grip turned to claws. Please God, I thought desperately. Let that be anything but what I think it is. Let Enrique have a cell phone. Please.

  Prr-prrt. The classic 50’s rock song that was my ringtone began to play, as irritating and poignant as a knife to my throat.

  I pulled the damnable phone out of my pocket, long enough to see my father’s long-distance number pop on the screen before it flickered with that unbelievably loud bleep! that marked a dead battery.

  I pushed Rachel Ann away from me just as Ciskong bent over the crack with a hiss. I grabbed his bony shoulders and fell forward. The man was surprisingly weaker than I expected for an aswang. “You’re not going to eat me,” I stated, my hands groping for that narrow neck. “Enrique, help me out!”

  I heard a thump, and then the last thing I remembered was feeling I had crashed backward and head-first into a building. The blackness came after, blessedly familiar. I almost welcomed it.

  Chapter Fourteen

  * * *

  * * *

  There’s some things that only make sense when you’re semi-conscious and in the kind of state of delirium I was in. I guess I’m just so damn stubborn when I’m fully awake that some memories recede to the furthest corners of my mind, and it takes being nearly hammered to death to jolt them out to the surface.

  Like, for example, that memory of me when I was nine. I’d gone out to play and stayed out too long. My father found me scraping at the dirt in the backyard, and he pulled me up to him with his hands over my head. I’d expected a lecture about why I shouldn’t piss off fairies, because I had a friend die that way apparently, but instead he just said, “Don’t do this again.” And now I know why he looked so scared saying that, and that he must have been looking for me for a while before he actually found me, and had feared the worst.

  I also started getting images of my grandmother who lives in Manila now, and how she would offer up a table of delicious food to be left out in the dark while we all waited outside for the spirits to have their fill. I once asked her how, exactly, were these spirits related to us, and she burst into tears. Now I know one of them must be her first child, who died. Or was killed.

  Anyway, I opened my eyes to chilly air and that kind of grey-darkness that made me wish I didn’t wake up at all. I could hear the crickets around me. I strained to move and felt two hands reach around to wipe the hair off my face.

  “Are you okay?” Rachel Ann whispered into my ear. “I thought they killed you. They smashed a concrete block over your head. Ciskong was pretty furious.”

  “They?” I blurted out. “Ah, shit. I thought Enrique did it.”

  “He didn’t do anything. I don’t think he could’ve done anything. There were plenty of others.” She pressed her fingers around my skull. “Does it hurt?”

  “I don’t feel a thing,” I lied.

  “They said something about a feast tomorrow.”

  “I know. I heard.” I glanced around. “Where are we?”

  “Inside the hut. Locked and bolted. I think... I think they’re out hunting right now. Saving us for tomorrow.”

  “Great,” I groaned. I pushed away from her. I couldn’t see much of anything, but I could make out her features in the dark. The moonlight was strong enough for that. “Hey,” I said, grinning.

  “Hey,” she said back, fighting a smile of her own. “Merry Christmas.”

  “Jesus! Is it? Already?”

  “Yeah. It’s the 24th.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t believe we lost track of time like that.”

  “Yeah. Sucks. We’re missing noche buena.”

  “If it’s any consolation,” I said. “My aunt can’t cook. She’ll burn rice. She even once burnt a pre-cooked ham.” But my words didn’t take the edge off our hunger. We had not eaten for a day; Aunt Sabelle’s burnt rice would’ve been welcome. “Look on the bright side,” I added. “At least I don’t have to get you a present.”

  “Really? That’s too bad, because I have one for you.”

  I thought she was joking until I saw her reach into her pocket and extract a crumpled little gift-wrapped—well, I think the polite word to say would be “ball.” It looked like some
thing she’d pulled out of a wastepaper bin. “Don’t open it yet,” she said. “Not until it’s past twelve. Then it really will be a Christmas present.”

  I frowned. I looked at her stupid gift in my hands and rubbed the corner of my eye. “I didn’t get you anything.” I glanced back at her. “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s all right. I’m sure you would’ve, if you had the time. I would’ve made you.”

  “No, I mean... all of this. You could be back in Manila, doing your stupid gift exchanges with your stupid relatives. And I was the one who said, oh, Rachel Ann! Spend Christmas with me! It’ll be fun!” I knocked a fist against the floor. “And now we’re going to be eaten tomorrow.” Words I never thought I would say my whole life.

  She glanced at the shuttered window. “We could try to escape.”

  I laughed. “They’ll be out there. Crawling and flying and God knows what else.”

  She shrugged. “You’re right. It’s probably safer inside here, for now.” She wrapped her arms around her knees. “Don’t feel bad. You had no way of knowing.”

  I didn’t reply, because no matter what she said, I did feel bad about it. Tremendously so. I got up and did a quick inspection around the hut, just to make sure we were as alone as we thought we were, and that everything really was as bolted down as it should be. I nearly turned over the metal pee-pot, too, although thankfully it was still empty. I returned to her, the floor creaking with my every step.

  “Hey Pablo,” she said, when I slumped down next to her. “Remember what Ciskong said earlier, to Riko?”

  “Not really.”

  “He said, ‘Have you seen your brother?’ He meant you.”

  I snorted. “I don’t have a brother. Or a sister. You know this.”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “His Tagalog is very bad. I’m sure he meant some other word, only he translated it wrong. Maybe he was being sarcastic. You know how they all think Enrique is some spoiled Manila boy.” I sighed. “I wonder where he is? He could at least try to help us.”

  “Don’t be mad at him, Pablo. He tried his best.”

  I glared at her. “Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot he was your boyfriend. Of course you’d defend him.”

  “Pablo, this isn’t the time to argue.”

  “I’m not arguing. I’m just stating my observations. I mean—jeesh. You could be less sensitive about it.”

  She flicked her wrist, meaning to slap me, but in the dark she caught my arm instead. I shook her off me. “You’ve got some nerve...” I began, but I never got to finish. Her watch started beeping.

  “It’s twelve o’clock,” she said. She drew in a deep breath and suddenly laughed. “Oh Pablo. Why do we fight so much? This could very well be our last night on earth. Open your present.”

  I suppose I really didn’t want to argue as much as I thought I did. I pulled out that crumple of gift wrap and unravelled it. There was a ring inside, threaded through a silver chain. I pulled it out and my pulse began to hammer against my ears. It was the ring I had given that girl in the playground a long time ago. I don’t know how I knew. It’s just one of those things.

  I realized I couldn’t look at her straight. “Huh,” I said, trying to keep my voice casual. “Didn’t I give this to you? Why are you giving it back?”

  “To remember me by.”

  “Why?” I asked. “Were you going somewhere?”

  She smiled sadly.

  “Look,” I said. “I know I act like an idiot like—fuck, every hour of my life, and I’m mean to you, but that’s no reason to leave. I mean, there’s plenty of nice colleges around. I’ll help you find one, if we ever get out of here alive.” She wouldn’t meet my eyes. That made me frantic, desperate. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand any of this. You...”

  “My best friend sold me out that day you gave me that ring. For a perfect test paper and a part in the school play.” She shrugged. “Kid stuff. Nothing big. But I realized how stupid all of it sounded. Our little pacts, the way we would giggle friends forever as if we knew what it meant, me pretending to be all tough and loyal for them. I got into so much trouble, you know. And then you came along. Well—I stumbled onto you, but it’s all the same. I wanted to be friends with you so badly, but I was afraid of what the others would say. I was so happy when those snivelling bitches finally gave up on me and I was free to laugh with someone whose company I could actually stand.”

  She paused, long enough for me to realize that even though she still wasn’t looking at me she had somehow managed to weave her fingers through mine. Her skin was sweaty and cold. She spoke again, straining not to stumble over her words. “I meant what I said, when I said we can’t be more than friends. That doesn’t mean I’m disgusted by you, Pablo, or that I wish you didn’t try to kiss me at all. But things are more complicated now than they ever were. Things are—”

  I pulled her close and kissed her. I meant it, this time. I felt her fingers leave mine and tangle into my hair, caressing my cheek, my jaw. I draped my hand over her neck and tasted tears. They weren’t mine.

  “Pablo,” she said, pulling away. “I love you.”

  But? my mind screamed. I groped for something funny to say, for those kinds of words that used to make everything better for us. “Enrique,” I said at last, willing for that wall to form around my heart again, although I knew it was too late. “Mark, Benedict, Paul Michael, etcetera.”

  “What the hell are you babbling about?”

  “I’m...”

  “I liked them,” she said. “I’ve always loved you.”

  “How?” I thought, not knowing I said it out loud.

  “I don’t know. Before First Year, though. Before you started going out with that transfer student. Face like a grape. God, I hated her.”

  “Wait. What?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” She gestured at the chain and ring still wrapped loosely around my wrist. “You see...”

  “Don’t talk. Please.” She would cry again if she talked, I could see that. I didn’t want her to cry. “Pretend none of this is happening.” I cupped her face in my hands. “Pretend it’s just us.”

  “Pablo...”

  “You said it could be our last night on earth, Rachel Ann,” I whispered. “Do you really want to waste it on words?”

  The truth is, you can only ignore time so much. Eventually, it passes, and you’re back where you started from, back facing that thing you tried to delay, because some problems don’t just go away just like that.

  A part of me had guessed what it was before she even told me. It was hard not to. That expression on her face after she’d returned that ring. The way she made it clear she had been planning to leave, or be sent away. More importantly, that incident last night, with the familiar—that tik-tik, which doesn’t just attack people randomly, if Lola Selda’s story about my grandmother was anything to go by.

  I lay quietly beside her, my face hidden from her so she wouldn’t see how much this hurt me. “Who’s the father?” I tried to fake a laugh. “Do you even know?”

  She slammed her elbow into my gut long enough to hear me groan. Afterwards, she turned around and placed her hand on the crook of my neck. “Mark,” she murmured. “I wanted to tell you. But I was afraid. Afraid you’d be disappointed in me. Ashamed.”

  “I am,” I whispered. “Rather disappointed.” I felt her chin on my shoulder. “So does Mark know?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I told him. On the way here. Said he wanted nothing to do with me.” She grunted. “Said it was yours, and I was just trying to pin it on someone well-off.”

  I could picture Mark saying that, too. I made a mental note to kill him if I ever got the chance. “You deserve better than that.”

  “I do,” she conceded. “He was a jerk. It wasn’t like this. I mean, he didn’t force me. I guess I sort of forced myself. It was... that time in the bar. About a week before you broke up with Joy. You were both making out in the corner and then you left without telling me and I f
igured... well.”

  “I didn’t.” I looked up earnestly into her eyes. “Jesus Christ, Rachel Ann, it should be obvious by now that I’ve never done this before.”

  She took my hand and placed it over her mouth. I wanted to shake her, and then again I wanted to hold her in my arms again. I shouldn’t have hated her too much for it. I mean, I might have done the same thing, given half the chance. Or maybe not. I’ll never know, now.

  “Explain Enrique,” I said at last.

  “What do you mean?”

  “All of that—with him. The past couple of days.”

  “He’s a gentleman,” she said. She narrowed her eyes. “Did you think we had something going on?”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Because we didn’t,” she snapped. “I puked my guts out while we were trying to find a tricycle. He asked—I told him. I suppose he was already aware of it, but was just trying to be polite. Seriously, Pablo, sometimes you just let your mind get carried away.”

  “I do,” I said. That surprised her. I pulled her close to me. “You kissed him, though.”

  “On the cheek. He was being sweet. About my condition.”

  “All right. You win.” I closed my eyes and wondered how the feel of someone else’s heartbeat could make you so ridiculously happy. Considering where we were, and what was about to be done to us.

  “I don’t win anything,” she said. “You’re just embarrassed to find out how big of a jerk you really were.”

  I nodded. “Well, this jerk wants you to know you don’t have to move away when we get back to Manila. I’m going to kill Mark, and then I’m going to take care of you.”

  “I don’t need taking care of.”

  “My bad. Someone has to make sure you don’t let your baby walk around in dirty diapers. Child neglect cases are embarrassing.”

  I guess I might have been trying to be funny, but that didn’t stop her from squeezing my arm tight. I realized how much she meant that part about fearing I would be disappointed in her. It was a strange feeling. Usually it was people who were disappointed in me.