Philippine Speculative Fiction, Volume 10 Read online

  Dedication and Acknowledgements

  For every contributor, editor, and reader who has helped us grow through the years – this one is for you.

  Introduction

  X Marks the Spot

  With this volume, the 10th in the Philippine Speculative Fiction series, we celebrate a publishing milestone and look forward to more to come. Our small anthology, inspired by The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror annuals edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, and later with Kelly Link & Gavin Grant, began in 2005 with 18 stories. Among them were established authors like Angelo R. Lacuesta, Gabriela Lee, and Ian Rosales Casocot; writers being published for the first time like Joseph Nacino, K. Mandigma, and Sean Uy; and authors who would later take the editorial helm of the series like Andrew Drilon and Vincent Michael Simbulan.

  What all their stories shared in common was a deep love for the literature of the fantastic, evident in the expansive notions they explored through the lenses of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Some stories had Filipino characters or settings, others did not, but the Filipino sensibility, sometimes obvious, sometime subtle, was present. This slate of stories began the series’ exploration into what it meant to be a Filipino author writing in the non-realist genres – a concern that we continue to wrestle with to this day.

  At that time, it felt like there was little room for speculative fiction. We wrote:

  Realism, of the mode handed down to us by the generations that came before us, is unquestionably dominant. If you look for speculative fiction in the Philippines, you will be dismayed. Science fiction and the literature of the fantastic are in very small numbers and still looked down upon as inferior (as if the strides in international publishing washed over the Philippines and left it untouched).

  Ten years later, we are happy to report that the situation is much better. Along with our annuals, other Philippine publications have created a space for this kind of literature. More and more people are writing SF. Publishing houses like Anvil, Visprint, and Flipside regularly publish genre novels, anthologies, and single author collections. Wattpad allowed authors to do away with gatekeepers and publish their work digitally. Readers look for their favorite SF author’s latest work, discussing the book or story on social media or on websites like Goodreads. SF writers now have a presence in the various literary festivals as well as in national-level writing workshops. Speculative fiction is taught at academic institutions such as the University of the Philippines, De La Salle University, and Ateneo de Manila University.

  We are happy to be part of this, as we help create space for the fiction that we love. There is more to do, more to write, more to explore and to our delight, Filipino authors from all over the country, as well as those across the seas, are up to the task.

  Here’s to the next 10 years and beyond.

  Cheers!

  Dean & Nikki Alfar

  Manila, 2016

  Contents

  Dedication and Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  Santos de Sampaguitas

  Alyssa Wong

  A Small Hope

  Gabriela Lee

  The Owl and the Hoopoe

  Renz Christian Torres

  Hunger

  Lakan Umali

  Fisher of Men

  Rapunzel Tomacder

  Oblation

  Richard Calayeg Cornelio

  Night Predators of Niladan

  Joseph Anthony Montecillo

  IT Girl

  AJ Elicaño

  When the Gods Left

  Kate Osias

  Lamat

  Noel Tio

  Soulless

  EK Gonzales

  For Sale: Big-Ass Sword

  Kenneth Yu

  The Dollmaker

  Joel Pablo Salud

  The Run to Grand Maharlika Station

  Vincent Michael Simbulan

  Children of the Stars

  Francis Gabriel Concepcion

  The Last God of Cavite

  Andrew Drilon

  The Target

  Eliza Victoria

  Marvin and the Jinni

  Raymund P. Reyes

  A Report

  Angelo R. Lacuesta

  Thunderstorm

  Cyan Abad-Jugo

  Self-Aware Characters in Telenovela Endings

  Jose Elvin Bueno

  A Long Walk Home

  Alexander Marcos Osias

  Mene, Thecel, Phares

  Victor Fernando R. Ocampo

  About the Editors

  Alyssa Wong

  Santos de Sampaguitas

  THE DEAD GOD descends on me as I sleep, the way it did my mother the night before my conception, and my grandmother before that. Even with my dream-eyes shut, I know it’s there; the weight of folded limbs on my body threatens to crush my ribs, and I can smell the wreaths of sweet sampaguita hanging from its neck.

  “Go away po,” I tell it, adding the honorific since Nanay always taught me not to be rude to gods. “I’m having a good dream for once.” I usually have nightmares during bangungot, trapped halfway between sleep and waking, unable to push my way fully to either side. The pressure on my chest, the terrible prescience that something very bad is about to happen, and the sound of distant screaming, like a boiling saucepan of human voices, are too familiar to me. But tonight there is only a pleasant floating sensation, fresh from a dream of flying over the oceans cresting Manila.

  Cool, smooth fingers push my eyelids open. Just as my mother told me, the dead god dresses like a saint, all in chipped white paint and dried offerings, braided together on cheap twine. It is man-shaped, though it is neither a man nor a woman. Even though it has no skin or flesh, the stench of rotting lechon assaults my nostrils.

  Magandang gabi, my child, it whispers. Blessed evening, Maria, my heir.

  “You have the wrong Reyes sister,” I tell the dead god. “If you’re talking blessings and inheritance, find Silvia po. She’s two years older.”

  It lowers its bone-pale head, and kisses my hand. The waking dream ripples around me, and my beautiful, healthy dream-arm evaporates, shriveling and twisting into a withered claw. My real arm. I do not make mistakes, says the dead god. You wear my mark, like your nanay and your lola and many others before you. It cradles my mangled hand gently, lacing its fingers through mine. I chose you, just as I chose them. Therefore you are mine, Christina Maria Reyes, are you not?

  I fight the sleep paralysis enough to snatch my hand out of the dead god’s grasp, but when I try to cradle it to my chest, my limb flops against me like a useless wing.

  “Why are you here?” I shout. The shrill boiling sound has started up again, a high wail in the distance. “Nanay promised you wouldn’t show yourself to me until I was grown. I’ve still got years! Besides, Nanay is your disciple right now, not me.”

  No, says the god. It has no eyes in its empty, hollow face, but somehow it manages to look away. Not any more. Your mother is dead.

  The waking dream shatters. I bolt upright in my bed, drenched in cold sweat. The dead god is gone. My sister sleeps quietly, tucked next to me in our small, wooden bed; none of the other maids in the room are awake, either.

  It takes me almost a minute to realize that the teakettles I’ve been hearing are my own high-pitched, muffled whine, and that my lap is damp with tears.

  MY SISTER IS draped in piña, in the middle of the Calderones’ living room, trying to avoid the dressmaker’s pins and the American ma’ams’ glares. The thin piña cloth shimmers over her dark hair like a halo, and she reminds me of the fresco of The Holy Mother, on the wall of Saint Peter of Makati’s chapel, only rounder and shorter.
But she has the Holy Mother’s same expression of inner contentment and peace. All of the bladed comments and piña in the world would not be enough to hide Silvia’s inner glow.

  “I don’t know why we’re paying for this wedding,” says Ma’am Chitti. She is sprawled out on the couch, neck beading with sweat, vying for a spot in front of the electric fan. Her voice rings loud over the dressmaker’s muttered measurements, uncaring of who hears. We maids, standing in the corners of the room, are all but invisible. “I don’t know why there’s going to be a wedding at all.”

  “It’s because he got her pregnant, the idiot.” Ma’am Margarita flaps a newspaper in front of her face to create a fake breeze, and snaps her fingers at me. “Water,” she orders without looking. “With ice.” To her sister, she says, “If he was going to be fucking the maids, especially the under-aged ones, he should have at least used protection.”

  “It’s harder to get, here,” says Ma’am Chitti. “Kasi Catholic.”

  I dip out of the room with a soft, “Yes, Ma’am Margarita,” and pad to the kitchen. My withered right arm is tucked beneath my apron, so as not to offend any onlookers’ sight.

  “Mom should just send her back to the province where she came from. Get rid of her, and let her have the baby there.” Ma’am Margarita’s voice chases me down the hall, and I bite my bottom lip so hard that my teeth threaten to break the skin.

  I have not told Silvia about our mother. I will keep it buried deep inside myself, a dark, jagged hole. Maybe I will tell her after the wedding. Maybe I won’t at all. After all, with no cell phone service back home, and a postal service that takes ages and loses more letters than it delivers to the provinces, how could I know such a thing?

  Stepping into the kitchen at midday is like wading through a cloud of steam. Even the ceiling fan on its highest setting can’t cut through the oppressive heat trapped in the room. Two of the other maids, Jene and Vicky, glance up from the stove, where they’re making sinigang. “How’s it going in there, Tintin?” Jene asks me.

  “It’s fine,” I mumble. I keep my body angled away from them, as I slip my right arm out of my apron, and use my wrist to open the cupboard where we keep the glassware. My hand works just fine, even if I can’t use my fingers to grip things. I know my arm scares other people, though, and even the other maids still stare, when they think I’m not looking. I’m always looking. “Silvia’s getting fitted for her wedding dress, and the ma’ams are making a big deal out of it.”

  “It is a big deal!” chirps Vicky. Before I know it, she’s dropped the ice bucket on the counter next to me, the top already propped open. “You only get married once. And especially a maid, getting married to Sir Carlos –”

  “It’s no wonder they’re pissed,” says Jene. “Your sister’s a nice girl, Tintin, but she’s a probinsyana like us. They want a high-class bride for their brother.”

  “You don’t have to remind me.” I slam down a glass a little too hard, and the others flinch. Sometimes I wonder if they are scared of me, even though I am five years younger than Vicky, and two younger than Silvia. My mother, small and dark-skinned, has the same effect on people.

  My mother. My stomach turns.

  “Tin,” calls Ma’am Loretta, her voice muffled through her bedroom door, adjunct to the kitchen. “Tin, I need you here right now!”

  “I’ll be right there po,” I shout from the kitchen. Hurriedly balancing the glass of water and its coaster on a tray, I ferry it to Ma’am Margarita in the living room, stepping carefully over the train of my sister’s dress. Ma’am Margarita takes it without a word, and I dash back to Ma’am Loretta’s room. Tucking the tray under my arm, I knock on her door. “Ma’am?”

  “Come in, Tin.”

  Ma’am Loretta, matriarch of the Calderones, lies on her bed in near-darkness. All of the curtains are drawn; only a single clip reading lamp lights her face. The shelves lining her room are covered in wooden carvings of saints, each adorned with wreaths of dried, dead sampaguitas. The air is perfumed with their stench.

  I do not know how old Ma’am Loretta is, but if my own grandmother was still alive – if she’d had a normal life, without the interference and patronage of the dead god – I think she would be almost as old as Ma’am Loretta.

  Ma’am Loretta beckons me over. “I have a special task for you, Tin. I need you to go to the jeweler’s for me.” Her voice is low, as she hands me a small wooden box. I cradle it in the crook of my right arm, flipping the latch open with my left hand. My breath catches in my throat when I see what’s inside.

  The Calderone arrhae lies on a pillow of blue velvet, a ring of thirteen gold-dipped coins, strung together like a crown. I’ve never seen this ancient family treasure, but I’ve heard of it: four-peso coins engraved in Spanish lettering, kept away from outsiders’ eyes, passed down and used in every Calderone wedding since the first, in the 1800s.

  “The color’s gotten tarnished, see?” She lifts the arrhae and shows me a series of dark spots on the underside of the coins. “Go to Manila Jeweler’s, above the tiangge, and get it re-dipped. It needs to look good for my son’s wedding.” She lets the arrhae fall back onto the pillow. “Salma’s my suki there; tell her to give you a good price in my name.”

  I can’t believe she wants me, of all people, to hold onto the Calderone arrhae. Me, with only one strong, healthy hand to hold. But I do not mention this. “Yes, Ma’am Loretta.”

  She presses an envelope into my hand; inside is a thin, crisp stack of hundred-peso bills. I swallow hard and look into her eyes. Age clouds their edges milky blue, but at their core, they are mahogany-hard.

  “I trust you, Tin,” Ma’am Loretta tells me. “More than I trust anyone else in this house. Don’t break that trust.”

  “I won’t po,” I say.

  I can’t escape from the room fast enough.

  A TEN-MINUTE JEEPNEY ride becomes thirty with traffic, but I make it to Greenhills without incident. Pushing my way through the tiangge, with the arrhae box tucked in a pouch beneath my blouse, is harder. The market writhes with people, flooding in and out of makeshift booths, pushing past the vendors shouting, “Ma’am! Bags! Wallets!”

  My sister hates this place, but I adore it. There is a lovely anonymity among the crush of humanity in the tiangge; people are pressed too close to care about small things like a withered arm or a damaged face, anything but: “T-shirts, 300, Ma’am! Hairclips, 25 pesos, Ma’am!”

  Climbing the steps to the jewelers’ alley, I let the security guard check my purse. He doesn’t think to check the pouch around my neck. They never do. The jewelers’ alley sprawls before me in a sea of glass cases and glittering stones, almost all of which are real. You could drown in opulence here.

  “Manila Jeweler’s?” I ask the security guard. He points me toward a stall in the corner, with a big, plastic banner reading: sale. It seems largely abandoned, but a single figure is tucked at a desk, behind the large display counter. At first, I think that person is a girl, but then I realize he’s a boy my own age, with very long black hair. Most of that hair is tied back in a ponytail, falling well beyond his waist.

  I clear my throat. “Salma?”

  He glances up at me through stray strands of dark hair, and I catch sight of a pair of eyes, the color of new bamboo. Oh.

  “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 jewel
ry 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.