Alona’s Quest for the Golden Tree

Buy books here. Donate through Paypal or here. 🧡🌸

#MahalagaBooks #Children

Alona’s Quest for the Golden Tree

Chapter 5: Late-Night Meanderings

ATE RACHEL’S sneering face stayed with me the entire night. I couldn’t quite shake off the feeling that I let her down somehow. I rolled over, unable to sleep.

The single oil lamp standing sentinel on top of the drawer flickered slowly. Breezes clattered the solitary window, sighing audibly. Several blood-sucking mosquitoes began their nightly hunt for blood, attempting to penetrate the ancient mosquito net that separated us from them.

Nanay snored once. Then again.

Nay took a while before she could sleep, worried as she was. What promised to be a great dinner, complete with special dishes I only get to eat during special occasion, was ruined by the gaping absence of my brothers. Knowing what’s important, I gulped down the food and tried hard to enjoy myself. Even the most thick-headed would find it difficult to swallow if their companion was as surly as my mother.

“Those kids,” she mumbled. “Just wait ‘til I had my hands on them!”

And on she swore, apoplectic with rage.

I was unable to swallow my food decently. The steely look in her eyes was scary. She was a razor-toothed tiger. I had the wisdom to keep my quiet.

When she shooed me to sleep, I did so at once.

But I only pretended to be asleep.

I had bothersome thoughts, things that kept me awake.

Nanay was unable to sleep, too. She kept pacing up and down, our bamboo floorings creaking in her every step.

The dead silence of the night enveloped the whole barrio, yet Nanay was unable to relax. As the night deepened, so was the scowl in her face.

Negrita stood awake to accompany her. She had her ears perk up, alert and ready.

Standing up, Nanay went into the altar and made the Sign of the Cross. It seemed that she was doing so in a fervent desire to ask protection for her wayward sons. A rosary was clutched at her hands. She caressed the image of the Sto. Niño. The child Jesus was wearing a sequined yellow dress, one hand stretched out.

I tried to mimic the Sto. Niño’s pose, and grew tired of it at once. I wondered how he could do it without tiring.

Nanay owned a handful of relics that she prized the most above all. She owned a curiously looking buntot ng pagi, a whip harnessed from a rare kind of white fish pagi and soaked under the Holy Water for seventy-days. It was supposed to ward the place against evil spirits and aswangs.

I’d seen her use it. She would walk around the house, flicking the buntot ng pagi here and there. To make sure that it really stuck, she’d also spray salt and water in every direction, yelling in a demented voice, “Go away you evil spirits!”

She slept soundly after that.

I, on the other hand, never felt any difference.

Today, however, that routine didn’t put her at ease. If anything, it only made her more paranoid, thinking about unknown dangers that could befall her sons.

It was when the sensation of drowning, in a rather chilly lake, dazzled by unexplainable glow of light, forced me to kick so hard I almost destroyed the wall that I realized that I had fallen asleep.

My mother did not stir. Her face was buried under her arms, snoring. Too tired, she felt asleep where she stood guard.

Years ago, a similar situation had happened, too. I was merely a fondling. It was past midnight, and my brothers were not yet home.

My mother took me in her arms. We went outside. It was eerie, it was dark outside. There were strange sounds, slithering sounds. Using the full moon as the light, the two of us looked for my brothers. We went at every places they frequented; the bilyaran, the Betamax, the sea. The places were closed, and they were not there.

We kept looking. At least, Nanay did. Me, I made her life difficult. I wailed and bailed and thrashed around. I wanted to be home. I wanted to drink my milk and go to sleep. I didn’t want to be outside.

Annoyed, my mother hit my hand to shut me up. Instead of shutting up, I cried even harder.

Frustrated, angry and worried, she set me down and hollered, “Habagat! Maliksi! Nasaan na kayo? P**ris na mga bata kayo! Where are you?”

My cries followed her call.

Disturbed by us, a dark creature came out of the darkness. A dog double the size of Negrita and blacker than the shadows came forward. Its eyes were glowing red coals. It was growling angrily.

It was looking at me with hungry eyes.

My mother, momentarily stunned, snatched me up. Held me firmly. And ran.
She ran so fast, I didn’t even think she was capable of that.

She told me that was a sigbin, an aswang’s dog. One that was as equally dangerous as the aswang.

When we got home, Kuya Maliksi and Kuya Habagat were there, sleeping like innocent angels.

Their act didn’t work on Nanay.

They were woken up by Nanay’s wrath. After that, the two felt their buttocks had never been the same again.

And yet, they never learned their lesson.

I BLINKED, noticing the half-opened window clattering above my head. No wonder I was chilled. I got up to force it shut.

It refused to close.

I frowned. Putting all my weight behind it, I pushed my hardest. Someone swore, loudly. Gaping, I wrenched the window open.

Two black eyes stared back at me. Hands’ grabbing the window ledge monkey-like, my brother was creeping his way sneakily into the house.

“Come off it, Kuya!” demanded a quiet voice from below. “What’s taking you so long?”

I peered below Kuya Maliksi, seemingly hanging suspended aboveground. Apparently, he stood in Kuya Habagat’s shoulders. Below, Kuya Habagat grunted under the strain of Kuya Maliksi’s heavy weight.

“Hang on!” Kuya Maliksi answered, still barely hanging. “It’s not as easy as you think.”

He made another jump, which proved difficult because I was hanging haughtily by the window. “Open the window wide, Ne, will you?”

He addressed the last sentence to me.

Instead of moving away, I gave him a disapproving look.

“Nanay was waiting for you two all night,” I told them pointedly.

“We know,” Kuya Maliksi said, whispering urgently. “Stand aside so we could get through fast.”

“You didn’t go home today!” I stubbornly insisted.

“Hurry up!” groaned Kuya Habagat from below.

“We’re on our way home, aren’t we?” Kuya Maliksi pointed out, tensed from trying very hard not to be discovered. “Lower your voice. You might wake Nanay.”

Before I could utter a reply, Kuya Maliksi swore audibly.

Finally buckling under the older brother’s weight, Kuya Maliksi and Kuya Habagat fell down in a tangle of legs and arms. Sprawled on the ground ungracefully, groaning and swearing, they rounded on each other.

“You should have stayed at it a bit longer,” snarled Kuya Maliksi.

“You should have been faster,” retorted Kuya Habagat.

I couldn’t help myself. I laughed at their blunder.

Then, somebody spoke. Amidst the ruckus, accompanied by Negrita’s deep booming barks, the door flew open. Mother was barring the doorway.

All three of us stood frozen.

Nanay looked dark and ominous.

“Come in.”

It was pure ice, cold and steely.

Nervous, exchanging panic-stricken looks, Kuya Maliksi brushed the mud off his bottom and gingerly took the wooden steps. Kuya Habagat followed.
I retreated back into the corner, trying to remain as invisible as possible.
By the light of the single oil lamp, we saw that Kuya Maliksi’s face was sporting a bloody lip and a black eye. Standing a few inches taller than our oldest brother, there was an ugly cut above Kuya Habagat’s eye.

“So,” said my mother in a very cold voice, “you’ve been fighting.”

It was not a question, it was a fact. The voice was clipped, sarcastic, and angry.
“Explain yourselves!”

Kuya Maliksi’s mouth worked, but no words came out.

Nanay’s hand, brandishing her punishment stick, hit the floor with a crack. Both of them flinched.

“It’s not our fault!” said Kuya Maliksi, launching a hasty explanation. “It was –”

Nanay shot her a sharp look, and he faltered.

“Liars!” hissed Nanay scathingly, her every word wishing to wound. “How long have you been doing this? You! Both of you! Did you stop to consider how worried I will be? No – I – Don’t – Think – So!”

Losing control, her words were punctuated with cries and squeals where the stick met skin.

“Too brave, huh? Entering into a fight? Did you think about the consequences? Not once! No considerations, at all! Rascals, both of you, rascals!”

Nanay was shaking with rage.

The two appealed, snouts running out of their noses, avoiding the punishment stick without actually running. From afar, they looked so pitiful yet so comical as they ran around looking like demented folks. I was visited with the urge to laugh. I was not supposed to feel that. What’s wrong with me?

It was several minutes before Nanay finally stopped, tiring herself out with her effort. Slumping on the floor, she beat her chest and wailed most horribly.
The two looked at her, guilt-stricken.

After a quarter of an hour of endless lamentations, during which time the silence had been thick and uncomfortable, Nanay gathered herself up. With a wounded expression, she left all of us for the sanctuary of the backyard. The back door clanged shut violently.

My good-for-nothing brothers, instead of bearing their punishments for a little while longer, jumped up the moment she turned her back.

“Do you think she’s gone?” Kuya Maliksi asked in a hushed voice.

“I think so. She’d stay at the back for a while, I think,” whispered Kuya Habagat.

“Is it safe to eat?”

“I reckon so.”

“Let’s go. I’m starving.”

“My whole body hurts.”

“Me, too. But, I’m starving!”

So the two approached the table, their portion of today’s meal safely covered. Making sure to eat slowly so as not to provoke Nanay’s anger again, they ate their food surprisingly fast.

Then, they went to sleep, as if nothing weird had happened.

But the atmosphere at the house had changed. It was relaxed now.

Soon, everyone was snoring. Even Nanay, apparently finished with the pet she’s in, lie down to sleep.

A good many hours later, my good dream was disturbed by a vague sound I faintly recognized as sobbing. Rolling on my blanket, head still so full of sleep, I went back to dreaming about flying carpets.

(c) 2016, Herbel Santiago

Next Chapter

Table of Contents

Buy books here. Donate through Paypal or here. 🧡🌸