I rush to her side, and she almost swings her skull into me. I grab her head, whispering assurances into her ear through her moans and screams, and help Sir Carlos hoist her to her feet. That’s when I realize that her nightgown is soaked in blood from the waist down, and she’s sobbing, over and over, “My baby, my baby, my baby.”
Outside the house, my sister collapses in the grass by the gate, Sir Carlos weeping at her side.
You little fool, snarls the dead god. It crouches on my chest, its spidery limbs stabbing down on either side of my face, as I lie in a state of bangungot, paralyzed and helpless. Black flames blaze in its empty eye sockets. That fire was no accident, and that was not a normal miscarriage. A rogue aswang is preying on you.
“An aswang?” I ask, bewildered. “Like Nanay and me?”
Worse. The dead god presses a hand to my forehead, and an image of a hideous, bat-winged creature silhouettes itself against my mind. I picture it dragging its legless torso toward the house, pulling itself up to the window of the maids’ quarters, unfurling its proboscis-like tongue…I wrench my head away, as the dead god says, A manananggal, judging from the wounds on your sister. They only grow like that deep in the jungles of Capiz.
“Someone targeted her?” I would cover my face if I could, the dead god’s visage is so terrible, but I am frozen, the breath crushed out of me by the god’s unforgiving weight. “But why? She’s just—”
She is a Reyes girl, from my line. I am not the only god in the region. And Manila is an amalgamation of many peoples, from many regions. For the first time, the dead god sounds contemptuous. Perhaps you fancy yourself special, Christina Maria Reyes. But there are plenty of other witch-families that would love to stamp you—and me, with you—out completely, and they are much more powerful than an uninitiated girl-child and a stray god without a disciple. It breathes its fetid odor into my face. Maybe I have been too lax on you, and have not emphasized the danger your family is in. The danger that you brought into this house!
“What are you talking about?”
It snaps the necklace from my neck. Even more than the pain of the breaking chain is the stab of pain through my heart, the fear and betrayal. That necklace is mine and mine alone, the only thing that really belongs to me.
The god holds the locket before my face, the broken chain tangled in its fingers. Haven’t you figured it out yet, little girl?
The dead god hurls the locket against the wall, where it shatters. Suddenly I am looking into a familiar pair of tired green eyes, and Rodante’s voice floods my head:
“The kapre was up in a tree, watching him wander through a banana grove. He warned my dad that the grove was sacred, and that if he chopped down any of the trees there, the kapre would curse him.”
An echo of the dead god’s voice from many nights ago: I will show you the secret banana groves where your mother hid her legs, deep in dreamland and Bicol’s jungles.
“I’m sorry,” says Rodante’s shadow, up on the rooftop. My mouth burns, with the remembered taste of tobacco and overripe fruit. “My mother doesn’t like me going out after sunset.”
I will teach you to wing about the night, unhampered by human concerns, whispers the dead god. How rare is that?
An image of Rodante limping away, that first day in the jewelry shop, the scars on his skin now aflame with power: “Maybe that’s why my leg’s the way it is.”
By the time the dead god releases its grip, there are tears streaming down my face. I collapse, gasping for air, the remnants of the bangungot’s paralysis leaking from me.
Think about it, the dead god says coldly. It vanishes, leaving me to face the rest of the night terrors on my own.
“The wedding is still on?” demands Ma’am Chitti. “Are you serious, Mama?”
Ma’am Loretta doesn’t even look at her. Her gaze is trained on her son, Sir Carlos, who sits next to my sister on the couch. Their hands are entwined, and he’s stroking her arm. My sister is pale, dazed; they’ve put her on Ma’am Margarita’s Valium, to dull the shock of losing the baby.
The entire family has taken refuge at Ma’am Loretta’s brother’s house, a few streets down from the old Calderone home. It’s also much smaller than Ma’am Loretta’s house, and the close quarters mean that tensions are higher than ever.
I stand along the wall with the rest of the maids, watching the ma’ams battle and bicker. The shelves of saints, as many here as in Ma’am Loretta’s former room, stare down at us with dead, wooden eyes.
“Carlos.” The man startles at his mother’s voice. “Do you still want to marry Silvia?”
He nods silently, clutching my sister close to him. The two of them are still shaking, trembling together like a pair of rabbits.
“But there’s no baby!” protests Ma’am Margarita. “What’s the use of a marriage—”
Ma’am Loretta slaps her across the face. The sound echoes across the room, followed by shocked silence.
Tears begin to leak from my sister’s dull eyes. Silvia wanted this baby more than anything, I realize. She wanted it because it was his, because she loves him. And because he loves her. And Ma’am Loretta knows that.
Ma’am Loretta snaps her fingers and looks straight at me. “Tin, come here.” I detach myself from the wall, ignoring the American ma’ams. “Make sure you retrieve the arrhae tomorrow, as planned. We must have it for a proper Calderone wedding.”
“Yes, Ma’am Loretta,” I murmur, bobbing my head and excusing myself from the room.
As the matriarch’s daughters begin to scream at each other, I slip into Ma’am Margarita’s room for just a moment. Glancing over my shoulder, I steal one of her Valiums from the bottle atop her nightstand, hiding it in my blouse pocket. A dark, ugly rage burns in my heart. If things are to go as I’ve planned, I’ll need all the sleep I can get tonight.
“I’m sorry,” I tell the dead god, as soon as it appears in my dreams that night. “I want to make this right.” I glance down. “Between us, and for my sister.”
The dead god sighs, the whistle of wind through bone. I’m sorry, too. It was unfair of me to blame you completely. The manananggal tricked you. There was no way you could have known.
“It was still my fault,” I mumble. “It’s my fault her baby’s dead.”
Smooth, paint-tipped fingers touch my face. Do not say that, the dead god tells me sternly. You did not call the manananggal on purpose. The fault lies not with you, but with it. Besides, there’s a reason your ancestors made a pact with me. Neither of us alone can protect your family, but together we have a fighting chance.
I grip the dead god’s wrist. “I know. That’s why I want to make a pact with you and receive your boon.” I breathe in the dead god’s scent, sampaguitas and rot and ash. It is not so different from the scent that once lingered on Ma’am Loretta’s altar of saints. “I want a new child. For my sister.”