I moved away from the window. My whole body trembled. I looked down to see my arms bleeding. No, it wasn’t my blood but it was starting to burn. I ran to the bathroom, rubbing the substance off my arms under the faucet. It stunk of rotting meat. It was slimy and dark, like the color of dead blood. My skin was burning from where the blood hit me. It must be the manananggal’s blood. Had it been wounded? It couldn’t be human blood. No human blood smelled that horrible, nor does human blood burn skin. It was the manananggal’s and it landed on Jason’s house. I wiped my arms and ran back to the window, peeking outside for any sign of the creature.
There was nothing outside. I decided to wait until dawn to see if the manananggal left the house. Surely it couldn’t stay in there until daytime. It had to reunite with its lower body, wherever it was.
Unless, its lower body was already in the house. Unless, the manananggal lived in the house. What if it lived in there? What if it was someone Jason knew? What if it was … no. It couldn’t be Jason. It wasn’t him. It couldn’t be him.
I felt very alone. I gathered my belongings and waited for light. I wanted to get out of the place as fast as possible. It was a mistake running away. No matter how much I wanted to escape, there was no turning back. I had a decision to make. Others relied on this decision. I couldn’t turn my back on my responsibilities anymore. It was time to face it.
Huddled in the corner of the room, I drifted in and out of sleep, constantly waking up at the tiniest of sounds and checking outside for any signs of the manananggal. Being away from those I trusted most was not a good idea. I had to get back home fast.
Chapter Fourteen
MAMA’S DIY
ENGKANTASIA BOOK
Sirena
The sirena is an aquatic creature with the head and torso of human female and the tail of a fish. The sirena clan is the guardian of the bodies of water.
The sirena has a very beautiful and enchanting voice that can attract and hypnotise males, especially fishermen. It is an empath. It can read minds and is sensitive to the pain of the creatures it reads. Although it is more vulnerable out of water, do not underestimate the sirena’s ability to fight on land. In the water, however, it can be very deadly.
I didn’t sleep all night. I saw the orange streak of dawn in the horizon and immediately knew that I was right. The manananggal lived in Jason’s house. I wanted to scream, or cry, or punch something but I couldn’t move. I was frozen in my spot in the corner of the room, near the window. I took deep breaths, trying to find a way to get out before the whole house woke up.
I knew I could figure it out. I had to. I sent Dad a text message with Jason’s address on it, giving instructions not to sound the horn when he arrived. I took my things and crawled out of the room, staying in the shadows. The drops of manananggal blood were still on the ground, trailing all the way to the house. I ignored the stench of rotting meat and kept going until I was close enough to the gate.
The gate.
It was electronically locked. I had no choice but to go over it. I ran toward the trees near the fence and looked up to see which tree could give me the best footing. I was so tempted to use my powers but it might trigger the manananggal inside the house. I strapped the backpack behind me and started climbing. It wasn’t as easy as I thought it was going to be. The last time I climbed a tree was in the Philippines and I was seven years old. Still I kept going, pushing my skinny limbs to its limit until my arms started to shake. I turned to reach for the fence and pushed myself over. But instead of climbing down slowly, I lost my balance, flipping over the fence and dropping on my back on the other side. I let out a groan as I hit the ground, my back screaming in agony. I stayed there for a while to recover from the fall. I heard a car stopping and turned my head in time to see Dad rushing toward me.
“Karina, are you okay?”
I saw the wave of relief on his face and I felt a knot in my stomach—guilt. He picked me up, like he used to when I was a little girl, and put me in the car.
“Daddy, I’m so sorry I ran away.”
“It’s okay, hun, really. They’re all waiting for you, let’s get you home, okay? Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m okay Dad. Let’s go, hurry.”
We didn’t speak in the car. But I finally let the tears out. Dad stopped a block from our house and faced me.
“Talk to me, Karina. What happened?”
I took deep breaths as the sobbing continued, wave after wave of misery came crashing on me. Finally, I managed to calm myself down enough to tell Dad what I discovered.
“Someone in that house is a manananggal, Dad. I don’t know who but I saw it with my own eyes. It was wounded and its blood burned my arm. I’m so scared. I don’t know who it is. I don’t know if it’s his mom or if it’s …”
He hugged me tight, stroking my hair. I stayed like that for a while, crying in Dad’s arms, letting go of everything I had been afraid to admit. That I didn’t like how my life turned out, that I didn’t want to grow up too fast anymore, that I just wanted to be normal, that I wanted him to be the parent again. I cried until there were no more tears, and then I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
The sound of loud arguing downstairs woke me up. I recognized the voices—Lolo, Dad, the other clan leaders. It was starting to get dark outside. I must have slept all day.
I got out of bed slowly, trying to ease the pain on my back. I missed school but I didn’t really care.
I hesitated to put proper clothes on because it meant I would have to face the people downstairs. But I had no choice. I slowly peeled off my clothes and headed for the shower to clean myself up. I passed by the mirror and paused, waiting to see if I would see Mama again. There was nothing but my own reflection. She tried to warn me. I knew in my heart she was still alive. But in what condition, I didn’t know. She looked tired, bloodied, like she had been tortured.
It dawned on me that I knew very little about my own mother, that the childhood tales she shared with us were probably all made up. Were they tales of the life she saw while she was growing up as a princess? Whose childhood did I admire? Some random Filipino living somewhere in the Philippines?
I remembered the best stories that she told me. Like the one where she had to wade through the flood walking back home from school because they didn’t own a car or didn’t have a phone, and the public transport was on strike. She said she walked miles and miles in her raincoat because the school didn’t close for the day even if there was a storm coming. By the time she got home, part of their roof was leaking profusely that she ended up having a shower in the rain inside their house. Still it was all worth it after having a bowl of warm stew to eat afterward. I thought how brave she must have been as a child to go through that on her own.
They were all just lies. Maybe a figment of her imagination, or an experience she saw in the human world that she decided to use as her own. I put on some clothes and walked near the stairs, trying to catch bits and pieces of the argument.
“It was Maita’s descendant, I am telling you it was her. She is in the area and she knows we are here. We have to take drastic action,” said Pili.
“We know where she is now. We can go there and take her down,” said Gulat.
I knew what they were talking about. They wanted to take down the manananggal, attack during the day when she was most vulnerable. But what if it was Jason? It was hard to tell whether the form was female or male. It could be anyone. And if it wasn’t Jason, they could easily harm him in the crossfire. What about Mama? What if the manananggal had her hostage? I couldn’t let them just raid the house without knowing the real identity of the enemy. I walked into the living room, cutting short their conversation.
“We’re not going to attack. We don’t know who it is or if it has my mother. We can’t go in there blindly without knowing more. I know my mother is not your priority but if you disobey this, I swear I will never set foot in Engkantasia. You follow my request and I will leave the human world
to save yours.”
No one talked. They eyed each other, trying to decide what to do next.
“What do you propose we do?” Serra asked.
“I’ll finish my training while you try to discover the manananggal’s identity. I only have a couple of weeks left, so we need to act quickly. We need to investigate. We need more facts, not just sheer brutality.”
For the first time since everything started, I felt in control. It felt good. I walked toward the kitchen for some food when I sensed someone following me. I turned to see Serra, hesitating for a second.
“What is it?” I asked. Among all the clan leaders I met, I liked Serra the best. She was calm and collected. You could relax just listening to her talk.
“Can I have a word with you?” I nodded and led her to the kitchen. We sat together.
“I felt your pain. When you stepped out of the window to run away, I felt it. I sensed your need to escape and so I didn’t alert the rest of the group about what you were doing. I don’t blame you. It was a mistake pushing you so hard like that. We’ve been old for so long that we have forgotten what it was like to be young and impulsive.”
“How old are you?”
Serra let out a delicate laugh that sounded like tiny bells in the wind.
“Over two hundred, give or take.” She laughed again, seeing my mouth wide open.
“You are a very brave girl, Karina, much braver than you give yourself credit for. You have handled yourself well given that you’ve been shoved in the middle of a conflict that’s been happening for hundreds of years.”
“That long?”
“One day I will tell you more about your heritage but for now you need to understand that the manananggal clan has always been cruel and deceptive, even when they were in power a long time ago. Blood was shed from both our worlds and it took an epic battle to end their tyranny. They are trying to get that power back now and we have to do everything we can to prevent that,” Serra said, taking my hand in hers.
“If it’s been going on for a long time, how come we never knew about it?”
“But you do. It’s your mythology. In the human world, the truth about the great war has degenerated into a form of mockery, dishonoring the blood that was shed all those years. I guess this is the only way humans know how to cope with distress and fear.”
I shook my head. The horror of the past had become nothing but plots in human storybooks. We kept the truth buried in the fantasy world and used the stories to scare children into behaving well.
“It has been so long since anyone has made contact with the humans that all we remember are the bad memories and very little of the good. I am quite certain that the main reason why we allied with your clan is because it is still a better alternative than having the manananggal in the throne—even if the Magatu family’s lineage has been … compromised with human blood.”
“Compromised?”
“All I can say is that not all of us welcome the thought of having a half-human in the throne. I mean no disrespect. It’s just that, we remember the past and we know the weaknesses of humans.”
“Then you also know well the strengths of my kind,” I said, almost angry at Serra, even if she was only telling the truth.
“I apologize if my words offended you. What I wanted to say is that if we know the weaknesses of humans, then I’m sure our enemies know them, too. They will use that weakness against you, no matter what the cost,” she said, before getting up to leave.
I made myself a sandwich to take to my room, hoping to have a bit of peace. I walked toward the stairs as quietly as possible, hearing snippets of the conversation still going on in the living room between the clan leaders.
“By now she’s figured out we’re all together in this. She’s probably already formed a plan, maybe even called for an alliance herself,” said a small voice, probably Pili.
“He is right, Hari Magatu. By now, she’s already realized that our presence here has something to do with you. She is badly wounded. It might be advantageous for us to attack,” Yukoy said.
So they were the ones who wounded her. How did they track her down? I had to find out more. Maybe they know the identity of the manananggal. I moved out of the shadows and joined the group. They all fell silent.
“Tell me what happened last night,” I demanded. They looked at each other before Serra answered.
“It wasn’t intentional. We were looking for a place to rest when we sensed her presence. Kamudo saw her from a distance as he was perched on top of a tree and lunged at her, knocking her on the ground. We caught her by surprise. Yukoy managed to throw a spear through her, but she got away.”
“Do you know who it was?”
“It’s hard to know their human features when they’ve transformed but if I smell her again, I will be able to tell,” said Gulat.
The trail of blood from Jason’s house flashed in my head, making me shudder. I knew it wasn’t Jason. It had to be female. The male kinds of manananggal were unheard of. That was what I thought.
“But can you be sure it’s female and not male?”
They looked at each other, puzzled by my question.
“There is no such thing as a male manananggal and even if there was, I saw the attacker that night. She was definitely female,” Pili said, eyeing my reaction to the news.
A lump disappeared from inside my chest. I felt like I could breathe a bit better. It wasn’t Jason. But that meant it was someone in Jason’s house, and Jason knew everyone in that house. A feeling grew inside me, a certainty I didn’t want to acknowledge. The manananggal was always gorgeous, with beauty that couldn’t be human. I closed my eyes and an image of Jason’s mother flashed in my head.
It was her. I was so sure of it. The ice cold feeling I got when I first shook her hand. It was a sign, one that I wanted to ignore.
I looked up to find the group staring at me.
“Karina, what is it?” Lolo asked.
“I know who it is. I know who the manananggal is.”
Chapter Fifteen
MAMA’S DIY
ENGKANTASIA BOOK
Syokoy
The syokoy is a member of merfolks. It is a humanoid that has a scaly body, webbed hands and feet, and fins on parts of its body. It has the head of a fish.
Compared to the sirena who has human features, the syokoy looks more like an animal in physical form. It is loyal to its sirena, who is its partner for life. The syokoy will die to protect its sirena.
I was forced to go to school even if I didn’t want to. Dad was convinced school was the safest place for me—away from the clan leaders. He didn’t know that Jason’s mother was the manananggal. I did not tell him that to spare him from even more distress.
I found Mark and Alyssa waiting for me outside the school, shifting uncomfortably.
“What’s going on? Why do you guys look like you’ve stolen something?”
A look passed between them.
“You say it,” Mark nudged Alyssa.
“Coward,” Alyssa hissed at Mark.
“What?” I said, getting impatient.
“When you ran away the other day, we sort of asked around if anyone had seen you, and some kids at school found out,” Alyssa said.
“So?”
“Well, Melissa’s best friend, Natalie, lives near Jason and she’s been telling everyone at school that she saw you stay at his house.”
“I don’t see that as anyone’s business. And so what if she did see me? It’s not against the law.”
“Well, now they’re spreading rumors about you and Jason,” Mark whispered.
“Guys, this is not new to me. It’s happened before when my mom disappeared. I’m quite used to it so don’t worry. I have worse things to think about.”
Everyone stared at me as I walked in the hallway, a definite sign that something was up. But I ignored them and headed straight to my locker.
The word “whore” was written across my locker door in red lipstick. My fac
e started to burn. I clenched my fist to contain my anger. I looked around. Everyone was still staring, waiting for me to do something.
I started counting to ten in my head to calm myself down. But then I heard it, the sniggering a few feet away. I turned to see Melissa and Natalie whispering to each other, laughing while stealing glimpses in my direction. I didn’t know if they wrote the words, nor did I care. All I knew was that the anger I had been keeping inside for the last three years had finally reached a tipping point. All those years I tried to ignore the taunting and stories behind my back came crashing down on me. I walked toward Natalie, dropping my things along the way. Before she could move out of my reach, I grabbed her throat and slammed her against the lockers. I heard gasps all around. Natalie dropped her things and stared at me, eyes wide with fear. She tried to say something but my hand was choking her neck.
“Next time you spread lies about me, make sure you are prepared to move to another city,” I said, slowly, in a voice I barely recognized. I let go of her and walked away. I could hear her gasping for air, coughing to breathe. My arm hurt but I didn’t rub it. Everyone gave me room to move while Mark handed me my things as we walked to class together. They didn’t say anything to me but I could see they were afraid of me, too. What was I turning into?
Luckily for me, none of the teachers saw what happened. It was also a miracle that none of the students told on me. I wondered about this until Mark explained it to me during lunch.
The Girl Between Two Worlds Page 13
