“I’m sorry, Ma’am,” he says. “Salma is my mother. How can I help you?”
“I was told to give something to Salma,” I tell him. There’s a strange, high pressure in the back of my head, very similar to the shrill sound I hear during bangungot. I feel stupid, and I have an irrational urge to hide my arm from him, even though he’s already seen it. “My ma’am is her suki. My ma’am says she’ll give her a good price, and I don’t want to be cheated.”
He smiles. “What’s your ma’am’s name po?”
“Ma’am Loretta Calderone.”
The boy whistles. For the first time, I notice he’s holding a pencil, and the papers in front of him are covered in sketched jewelry designs. “Oh, yes, I know her. Everyone up here knows Ma’am Calderone. What work does she need done?”
With hands that have suddenly grown clumsy, I fumble for the pouch and pull it from my shirt. I am stupidly conscious of the droplets of sweat that splatter from the bag onto the countertop. When the boy sees me having trouble with the drawstring, he reaches for the pouch. “Here, let me—”
“I’ve got it,” I say, pinning the edge of the pouch down with my right elbow, and using my left hand to pull the drawstring free. I pop open the box so he can see the arrhae, keeping it close to my body in case he tries to grab it from me. “Ma’am Calderone needs this dipped in gold for her son’s wedding.”
“May I see?”
Reluctantly, I let him take the arrhae. He examines it in the light, peering closely at the tarnished metal. “We’d usually charge 1,000 pesos for this, minimum. But for Ma’am Calderone, 850.”
“800,” I reply shortly.
“You would beggar us, Ma’am!” he protests, but there’s a hint of a laugh in his voice. It’s a nice laugh. “850 pesos for Ma’am Calderone.” He pauses. “But 800 pesos for you, if you tell me your name.”
“Done.” I slap the money down on the counter, before he can change his mind. A name given is surely worth 50 pesos. “I’m Tin.”
He grins again. “Rodante,” he introduces himself.
Instead of shaking his hand, I make him write a receipt to prove that Manila Jeweler’s is now in possession of the Calderone arrhae, and has agreed to dip it in gold—“14k? 24k? Yellow, or white?”—for 800 pesos. Rodante folds the arrhae and places it carefully back into its box. “I’ll take very good care of this for you,” he says, when he does shake my hand at the end of the transaction. His green eyes are serious. “I promise, Tin.”
“If you don’t, I’ll find you,” I threaten. “Worse, Ma’am Calderone will find you.”
He laughs again, as he lifts himself out of his seat and walks toward the back of the shop. That’s when I see that he’s limping. Rodante’s right leg is a tangled, rippled mass of scars. Just like my arm.
The hum in the back of my head builds to a dull roar.
I am dreaming, and dreaming proper, of my mother’s house in Bicol, a small, bamboo-and-hemp structure that the ma’am in Manila call a ‘shanty’—a word I never knew before coming to the city. Shadows from the malunggay trees dapple our house’s nipa roof, and the scent of the white sampaguita blossoms, by the door, is so strong that I almost don’t smell the dead god arrive.
Perhaps I came on too strongly, earlier, says the dead god. Today it wears a skin bristling with black feathers, thin panels on the side swinging open with each movement, to reveal white bones beneath. I keep forgetting how young you are.
“I’m not that young.” When I lived here, Nanay’s house and the land around it were full of running, tumbling children. But in the dream, the house is silent. The curtain over the doorway swings open in the thick, salty breeze, revealing darkness inside. “Did you go back for her funeral?” I ask the dead god. As soon as the words leave my mouth, I feel stupid; who knows if or how gods travel?
The dead god sighs. I stayed by her side, until your family cremated her, and scattered her ashes in the sea. Then I came to find you.
A face flashes in the window, and for a moment, I see my mother running her palms over the latticed screen, checking for dirt. The dead god’s mark glimmers like white fire in the sunlight, a web of discoloration and scarring across her face. She vanishes before I can call out to her.
I loved her, the dead god says quietly. Very much.
“She loved you, too,” I say. The sea wind whips around us, ruffling the dead god’s feathers and my own short black hair. “She used to tell us stories about you all the time.” I don’t say that these stories, like those of all of the old gods, are banned in the Calderone household, in favor of Catholic masses and Ma’am Loretta’s saints.
The dead god laughs, a dry sound like marbles rattling. Don’t I know. I’ve been looking after your family since its inception, long before the milk-skinned Spanish washed up on your shores, with weapons in their mouths and greed in their hearts. It turns its head to me, empty eye sockets staring through me, to a different time and place. Your mother was special to me, though. She was my favorite, so fierce, so strong. She made me promise to take her youngest daughter as her heir when she passed on, in honor of her years in my service, and to grant you a special boon when you make your pact with me.
I do not want to think of my mother dead and lying in ashes at the bottom of the sea, so I wipe my eyes and ask the god, “What kind of boon are you offering me po?”
The dead god grins, revealing a beak full of thick, blunt teeth. I would give you the gift of transformation. Pledge yourself to me and I will teach you to wing about the night, unhampered by human concerns. I will show you the secret banana groves where your mother hid her legs, deep in dreamland and Bicol’s jungles.
My right hand tingles. I shield it from the dead god’s sight with my good hand, banishing the images the god’s words conjure up. A perfect, straight limb. No more stares. No more hiding. “That’s not what I meant.”
Well, then. The dead god shrugs. I offer you knowledge of charms and spells, enchantments that will guarantee your household safety, recipes to keep the curses of other aswang away. I can teach you to make a man love you, and stay by your side for the rest of your days. How rare is that?
“No, you promised me something special,” I say. I pretend not to notice my knees shaking, so that the dead god will not notice either. I pretend not to think of Rodante, with his sharp green eyes and sweet smile. “In memory of my nanay. She was your charge for most of her life, and you would teach me all these things if I pledged myself to you, anyway. Do not try to cheat me po.”
The dead god clicks its beak. It sounds pleased. All right, clever child. You really are like your mother. I can offer you a special gift: one death, or one life, before you take on my powers. No one will ever know it was you, and you may cast the blame or credit on anyone you choose.
I shiver. What a great and terrible gift. Before I think it through, the words fall from my mouth: “Can you bring my mother back?”
The dead god is silent for too long. You would not recognize her if I did, it says finally. I would have to gather her ashes from the sea, and the ocean has already claimed most of her essence. Even so, I may only keep one living disciple. She already designated you, at her passing.