The Girl Between Two Worlds

by Kristyn Maslog-Levis

  “What kind of stuff?”

  “I think it’s better if we show you after dinner. I packed them in my bag before coming here today. They’re in your room.”

  “It’s utter genius, absolutely,” Alyssa gushed, and I could see Mark blushing a bit. We finished our food quickly and placed everything in the dishwasher.

  Mark rushed to my room and we followed him. He unpacked a huge gym bag and set the gadgets on my bed. The contraptions looked primitive, like a science project from your garage, which was, I guessed, what they were. Mark held up one of them, a wristband of some sort.

  “After you told me about the origins of the manananggal, I thought about creating something that would deter them from attacking us. So I came up with this,” he said, attaching the wristband to my arm. He turned the bedroom light off and turned the wristband on. It spread a purple bluish light around the room in different angles, like a disco ball.

  “It’s a compact UV light emitter that I’ve rigged so that it’s portable and pushes the light in different angles. You mentioned that the manananggal couldn’t survive in the sun when they’re in monster mode. So a pocket UV light will come in handy,” he said, looking mighty pleased with his invention.

  “Look, he even made one for me as a necklace so it’s not too conspicuous,” Alyssa said, showing off a round flat metal necklace that would look at home in a rock concert.

  “This is amazing, Mark, you’ve outdone yourself!”

  “I know, right? Finally, something that actually has a good purpose,” Alyssa teased, referring to the dozens of times Mark had come up with a new gadget in his little workshop.

  “There’s more,” Mark said, ignoring Alyssa’s joke. “I’ve also designed a vest and a couple of mega torches. I thought it might be something you can wear, or carry around or something. Just in case, you never know.”

  I looked at the weapons Mark designed and felt a surge of happiness knowing that these people would always have my back no matter what. The way they had always been there for me in the past.

  “I can’t ask you both to give up your normal life to be part of mine. But know that I am eternally grateful for your support.”

  Alyssa hugged me while Mark awkwardly patted my back. He was never big with emotions. But his geeky face said it all.

  Now if I could only keep them alive.

  Chapter Twelve

  MAMA’S DIY

  ENGKANTASIA BOOK

  Engkanto

  The engkanto has many similarities to humans. An engkanto ages, although not as quickly. It can suffer from illness, and can die. Male and female engkanto are very beautiful, have intense eyes, fair complexion, and luxurious hair. They look very human that it is hard to distinguish them.

  The engkanto gets its source of mana (energy) from its surroundings. This, however, is not as abundant when it is in the human world.

  The dwellings of the engkanto appear as natural features, like large rocks or trees. Although to humans befriended by the engkanto, the houses can appear as grand palaces. These creatures prefer large trees such as the balete, which can also be an entrance to Engkantasia.

  S ince everything started, I had been updating my journal more. I took out the binder from under the bed, filled with memories. Good ones and bad. I started it when I was nine, scrapbooking photos and writing my deepest thoughts about my life. Well, as deep as a nine-year-old could be.

  After Mama disappeared, I compiled all the news articles I could find about her case, hoping that one of them would hold the answer. At the peak of it all, Mama’s disappearance became the face of various political agendas. They made special features about it on TV and interviewed some people who claimed to know her in the Philippines. Half of them were total unknowns. People we had never even met. That was when I realized you couldn’t rely on what you’d see in the media at all. If we ever had a chance of finding out what happened to Mama, we had to do it ourselves.

  As I prepared for my session with Lolo, I tried to gain the courage to ask him more about what he knew about Mama’s case. I felt like he had deliberately avoided having that conversation with me. I walked to the garage to find him sitting with Wilbur. It was a Saturday, and I decided to spend the whole day training. I wasn’t going to, but the last couple of nights had been distressing for me. I had been having constant nightmares, riddled with manananggal. In the center of the chaos was Mama, helpless and bloodied, lying on the ground. Every time I tried to reach her, a manananggal dragged me away. I always woke up unable to save her. I was tempted to shake it off as my subconscious’ way of sorting things out, but something clicked in my head. The place where my dream occurred was always the same. The same spot, the same surroundings, the same walls and floor. It was a place I had never been to before but I couldn’t help but think it was a real place. What if it was a vision and not a dream? For the first time, I felt hopeful about finding Mama.

  I stood there watching Lolo play with Wilbur, a smile spread across his face. His veil was down and I saw a boyish twinkle in his eyes as he let the little mouse skitter around him. I wondered if he used to smile like that as a child, or when he was training Mama. I touched my necklace, a habit I noticed I had been doing more frequently. As my hand felt the smoothness of the rock, I was transported to an unfamiliar environment. A beautiful place with trees of vivid colors—purple, red, yellow. Green clouds floated in the sky like fairy floss. Birds flew in a flock of multiple colors that changed as they moved.

  It was Engkantasia.

  There was laughter. A little girl playing with droplets of fire. They danced on her hands and she giggled as she made them explode above her head in a glittering display of fireworks. A man was standing beside her, applauding her efforts. The man turned. He was a younger version of Lolo. It must be when he was training Mama as a child. She was jumping around, whirling waterpools in the air above Lolo’s head, getting him wet. He ran as she chased him with it, splashing him with water.

  A tear ran down my cheek. I didn’t even realize I was crying. There was so much joy and love between them. They were close, like Dad and me. It broke my heart to know that this bond was broken.

  “Are you okay?” Lolo asked, putting Wilbur down. The vision dissipated, taking me back to the garage. I wiped away the tears and sat next to Lolo.

  “I’m fine, Lolo. It’s nothing.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No, I just want to train. Get my mind off it.”

  He squeezed my hand, letting the silence sit between us for a while.

  “Let’s begin then.”

  He moved toward the table. It had a bowl of water and a candle on it. Lolo lit the candle with his finger.

  “Today, I will teach you how to manipulate the elements. Fire, water, wind, lightning. Whatever is available to you. The concept is similar to what you did with the plants, but with these you have to be more confident. Natural elements are temperamental. A slight doubt can be devastating.”

  “Devastating?”

  “Trying to control fire, for instance, means you have to make sure you don’t get burned yourself. If you doubt that you can do it, the fire can engulf you instead of your enemy. The same with wind, lightning, water—they can all turn on you, injure you if you’re uncertain.”

  “Great,” I muttered. Already I was starting to doubt myself and we had not even started.

  “Let’s begin with water, something relatively harmless. The water in the bowl is clean. I want you to drink it.”

  “That’s simple enough,” I said, reaching for the bowl.

  “Drink it without lifting the bowl,” he said, stopping my hand. “Take the water out of the bowl and direct it to your mouth. See in your mind’s eye where you want it to go.”

  I remembered the vision from the necklace. Mama creating whirlpools in the air, chasing Lolo with it. I smiled and moved toward the bowl.

  “Focus,” Lolo said.

  I stared at the water for a couple of minutes but nothing
happened. I moved closer, dipping my finger and whirling the water around until it created a small whirlpool. The water was cool on my finger. The swirling was relaxing me and I started to loosen up. I lifted my finger out of the bowl, letting droplets fall into the little whirl I created. But instead of falling, the droplets floated in the air, suspended by whatever force was there. I lifted my finger higher and more droplets followed the direction of my finger. I walked away, slowly, opening my hand, drawing the rest of the water out of the bowl. It moved, like waves in the air, following my hand. I drew the water high above my head, letting the drops fall into my mouth. I heard a loud sound near the door and I lost my concentration. The water fell on me, drenching my head. I saw Dad with his mouth hanging open.

  “Hi Dad,” I smiled at him. I felt guilty, like he had seen me doing something I shouldn’t have. I realized Dad had never seen me in training before. Lolo had told me several times that he was welcome to watch, but he never wanted to. When he knew we were having a late session, Dad would always stay at work. He was still in denial. As long as he didn’t see what I was doing, then maybe he could think it didn’t exist. He picked up the phone he dropped on the ground and walked out the door.

  “Dad!” I ran after him but Lolo stopped me.

  “We have work to do, mija. Let him think things through. You can talk to him later.”

  I stood there, staring at the door, feeling sad and guilty. I didn’t know why I was feeling guilty about what I was doing. It was not like I had a choice. I was training to protect us from whatever it was that was out there trying to kill us. I half-heartedly tried the water trick again, and as expected, it didn’t work. It took me a while to get back into things, focusing on what Lolo wanted me to do. Finally, Lolo decided to raise the stakes.

  “I know you’re disappointed by your father’s reaction. But you have to realize that you don’t have the luxury of being distracted anymore. You need to learn this now, master it. Your family’s life depends on it.”

  His words made sense but I couldn’t help but be angry at him. I didn’t choose to be like this. I wanted my old life back, the one that had my parents eating pancakes together on a Sunday morning. The one that didn’t have monsters flying outside my bedroom. The one without nightmares haunting me each night.

  “My family is my dad. Mama is gone. I don’t know where she is and it looks like you don’t either. So yes, I am distracted because the only family I have left is feeling worse than he felt after Mama disappeared. What do you know about family? Your own daughter ran away and you just sat there and watched her go. That’s all you do. Your kind just sits and watches as the world gets eaten by your creatures. I don’t want to be like you. I care for the people I love and I will do everything in my power to help them.”

  Lolo looked at me, sadness flickered across his face. “You’re right, Karina,” he said, leaving me in the garage on my own. In a span of mere minutes, I managed to alienate my dad and offend my grandfather. Brilliant. There was still plenty of daylight. I cut our training short, very short.

  I decided to continue with the training on my own, starting with the water on me. I needed to do something productive. If I could drain it from the bowl, could I drain it from my body and clothes? Wasn’t it just the same principle but in smaller amounts?

  I began with the water on the floor, separating the drops from the concrete, molecule by molecule. I looked at my body, my clothes, my hair, careful not to lose my concentration. As a ball of water formed in front of me, I moved toward the candle, still burning low. I used my other hand to take the flame off the candle and float it beside the water, like bubbles in the air. I didn’t know what it was inside of me that was making me do these two new things at the same time. Maybe it was the anger or the confusion, or the pity I felt for my dad. Maybe it was my sudden resolve to find Mama no matter what. It didn’t matter really. It was time for me to stop sitting idly by while Mama was somewhere, probably suffering, being tortured by whoever took her.

  Unsatisfied with just water and fire, I created a small whirlwind on the ground, spinning like the red top I used to play with as a child. I sat on the floor, lining up the water, fire and whirlwind, now rotating in small circles. It was hypnotizing watching the spinning elements. It was relaxing me, clarifying my thoughts, taking me back to my dream. Then it hit me, so clear I wondered why I never thought of it before. The walls, the floor, Mama’s prison, it was enough of an image to send the animals to find.

  I threw the ball of fire hurling across the room, hitting the bin and setting it on fire. On instinct, I threw the ball of water in the bin. The fire fizzled out. I focused on the whirlwind, now the size of a plate, sucking bits and pieces from the garage into its center. It occurred to me, without a single doubt, that if I wanted to I could create a tornado. One that could decimate the whole neighborhood, even maybe the whole city.

  This utter clarity and confidence were liberating. For the first time since all of it happened, I knew I was strong. Stronger than my enemies probably gave me credit for. I split the whirlwind into two, then three, then four, until they all disappeared into the breeze.

  I sat on the floor and tucked my legs in, closed my eyes and hummed the song that calmed me the most. I reached out to any creature I could find around me—Tricky, the mice, the birds, my neighbors’s golden retriever, Zeus. I reached as far as I could and called out for help. I explained what I wanted them to see, the room, the floor, the walls, my mother lying there, still in the nightgown she was wearing the day she disappeared. I forced myself to remember more details, like the color of the bricks, the cracks on the wall, the lack of windows, a solitary lightbulb, a bucket in the corner, the grime on the walls, maybe some mold or a slimy green substance. I didn’t know how many animals I had reached. I kept my eyes closed and sent the image again, just for good measure.

  When I opened my eyes, I gasped at the sight in the garage. There were animals everywhere, filling every inch of space. They sat there silently, staring at me, letting me know they heard what I just sent them. Birds, cats, dogs, butterflies, squirrels, the ones I called creepy crawlies—spiders, worms, caterpillars, snails, and more. I stared back, smiled, and said thank you. They scampered out as quickly and as quietly as they came in.

  I walked to the house to talk to Dad. I found him in his office, hunched over paperwork but not really reading. I sat on the chair behind him, tucking my legs under me. Before I could decide what to say, I heard him say something, so gently I almost missed it.

  “She’s not dead, you know. I know it in my heart. Like I know the sun is going to come out tomorrow.”

  “I know what you mean,” I said.

  “I’m sorry. For not being there. For checking out, leaving you on your own.”

  “I understand. You don’t have to apologize.” He turned his chair to look at me, eyes full of pain, of things he’d left unsaid for so long.

  “I’m supposed to be the parent.”

  “I know, and you provided for me. We’re a team, right? That’s what Mama always used to say. I wanted to help out in any way I can. You didn’t abandon me, Dad. You were coping the way you knew how.”

  We fell silent, not knowing what else to say. There was something I had been meaning to ask him for a while but didn’t know how to start.

  “Dad, did you ever have any suspicions about Mama and her past?”

  He looked at his hands, hesitating. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked him. What good would it do? It would only hurt him more. Just when I thought he wasn’t going to answer, he started to talk.

  “I knew she wasn’t telling me the whole truth about her past. She was always vague about it when I asked her. But it didn’t matter to me. We all have our secrets. I just never realized her secret was this big.”

  “How did you guys meet?” I had never asked my parents about their love story. It wasn’t that I had never been curious, especially given how obviously in love they were. I always thought there would be a perfect time when
I could ask them. Then Mama disappeared and that changed it all. I guess it was as better time as any to know about their past.

  I could see a sad smile forming on Dad’s lips. Despite everything, the memory of their first meeting still brought him happiness.

  “We met while I was finishing my contract in Manila—a very populated and polluted city if I ever saw one. I said yes to that job mainly because of the money and the adventure. I’ve never been to Asia and was curious about the place and its people. I never had any intention to meet anyone and get into anything serious.”

  He raised his head and looked at me. “Your mother changed all that.”

  “I was invited to the wedding of one of my workmates. I chatted a lot with the bridesmaids and basically hung around with the ladies more than the men. Somehow I ended up in one of the hotel rooms where the bride’s entourage was getting ready. Your mom was the hairdresser for the event and although there were heaps of gorgeous women there, I couldn’t take my eyes off of her.”

  He ran his hand through his hair, clearing his throat and wiping his eyes.

  “She was quiet most of the time but there was just something about her that caught my attention. She was effortlessly beautiful even with her messy ponytail and makeup-free face. She wore a shirt and paired it with jeans and slippers. It was very simple but she carried it with an aura of grace. Now I know why. She was royalty.”

  Dad continued, “I didn’t know how to start a conversation with her because she never looked at my direction. So after the last of the bridesmaids’ hair was done, I took the seat in front of the mirror and asked her to fix my hair.”

  Dad let out a surprising laugh. “I was sporting longish hair back then, I thought it was cool. I sat there looking at her while she combed and cut my hair. I wasn’t paying much attention to what she was doing because I was trying to get some words out of her, which was quite difficult. It was like squeezing water from a stone.”