Philippine Speculative Fiction, Volume 10 Page 3

  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.”

  The dead god stills. If I do that, the child will be mine, it says finally. She will bear my mark and be your heir. And once the mark is passed, I cannot choose another heir, until the death of the next designated.

  “I know.”

  The dead god’s voice sounds almost gentle. If you pledge Silvia’s daughter to me, your own children will never fly free through the night air. They will never feel the dread and thrill of the transformation, nor see the sacred groves of your mother’s line.

  I think of my sister, screaming and bleeding on the bathroom floor, tearing her hair out and battering her hands on the burning tile. Sir Carlos’s determination to marry her even without the child, the fierce, protective way he cradled her on the couch, days after the accident, the gentleness of his fingers as he stroked her hair. Her radiant face, only weeks before, as the dressmaker measured her for her wedding gown. They would surely be able to love such a child as one marked by the dead god. Who could provide better for a daughter like that? Like me?

  “My sister wishes for a child,” I say quietly. “I will pledge myself to you, if you give her a daughter to replace the one she lost. You may mark her, but she must be healthy. And you must bless their household, too.”

  This I can do. The dead god presses a cold, stinging kiss to my forehead, and begins to shrink, paint flecks and sampaguita wreaths dropping to the ground around our feet. Soon it is a tiny black chick, small enough to fit in my hand. As I scoop it up in my palms and bring it to my face, it whispers to me, We will look after them together. I promise.

  I blink tears away. “Thank you po,” I whisper back.

  The black chick pecks at my lips, and I open my mouth to swallow the dead god whole.

  WITH THE WEIGHT of a god in my stomach and a pouch of a cremated saint’s ashes in my purse, the latter scavenged from the ruins of the Calderone house, I chase the hum in my head through dreamland.

  It won’t be long now, says the dead god. My right arm burns with power. We fly together toward Capiz, a single, many-winged shadow passing over the water. I can smell my brother’s curse already.

  “The kapre is your brother?” I ask it. “Is he also a god?”

  It laughs in reply, the black ruff of feathers around our neck rippling in sea breeze. Aren’t we all.

  The dead god is with me always now, as I am with it. The night is our passage, and dreams a current to human reality. Soon, we reach the end of the sea and the verdant shores of the central isles south of Manila. The hum in my head is so intense that my teeth hurt. We’re close.

  Together, the dead god and I land our body in a forest of banana trees, the leaves muttering overhead in the wind. A figure unfolds from a nearby trunk, limbed like a man, but over eight feet tall, and the color of pitch. When he sees us, however, he merely watches us, pointing a long finger toward a clump of trees to the left.

  We bow to the kapre, and trek in the direction he indicated, our bones rattling with each step. The dead god whispers, Makikiraan po, as we pass through, and I see the kapre incline his head before vanishing back into the trees.

  Too soon, we find what we’ve been looking for.

  “Let me do this myself,” I tell the dead god.

  It obliges, pulling back and leaving me with full control over our shared body.

  I sift through my purse for the bag of ash, and step up to the manananggal’s severed waist and legs, which stand on their own, concealed in the shadows of the banana grove, like a small tree growing in the shade of its elders. But I know these legs, the right one twisted and roped in scars.

  Popping the corner of the plastic bag open, I drizzle the ash carefully over the manananggal’s lower half, coating the raw meat and exposed bone in white, powdered saints. Once the bag is empty, I step back, and we hide in the trees, waiting.

  The sun is a sliver of orange, just cresting the horizon, when the rest of the manananggal returns. Its leathery wings flog the air, as it maneuvers itself down toward its standing lower half, its long black hair flapping around it.

  But the moment its torso touches the ash, the manananggal screams and tumbles to the ground, its legs crumbling to dust around it. As the manananggal gapes and drags its hands through the remains of its ruined legs, the dead god and I step forward as one.

  I wave my right hand, and the dead god’s feathers and beak recede, to reveal my face.

  “Tin?” gasps Rodante. “What are you doing –”

  “How dare you.” I flick my right hand, and black feathers slice down through his arms. Power hums in me, intoxicating, dreadful. He screams again. “How dare you use me to hurt my family. How dare you touch my sister. How dare you use me at all!”

  “Tin, stop!” he begs, crawling toward me. “I didn’t know she was your sister. Please, Tin, I love you!”

  I slash through his wings, until the dead god pulls our body away, saying, Enough.

  The dead god may be old, but it is wrong this time. It will never be enough.

  Together, the dead god and I watch silently, as Rodante claws his way around the grove, desperately chasing the waning shade, until the sun rises fully, dousing the land in light. As the sunlight floods the banana trees, what remains of Rodante dissolves into fine, white dust.

  We need to go, the dead god reminds me gently. Your living body will need to wake up soon, and we must be back.

  But it is so hard to move, staring down at what used to be the boy I thought I loved. So full of fire and power just moments ago, and now I can barely feel at all.

  Something golden glitters in the dirt among Rodante’s ashes. I dig it out, revealing a wreath of thirteen coins, linked together like a crown.

  Suddenly exhausted, I loop the Calderone arrhae around our neck, one more string nestled against the sampaguitas. The screaming in my head has died down to a gentle roar, a sad, ancient ache in my bones. With the weight of Spanish and Filipino gold pressing against our shared heart, the dead god flies us back over the brilliant, fiery sea.

  Alyssa Wong is a Nebula-, Shirley Jackson-, and World Fantasy Award-nominated author and 2013 graduate of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop. Her work has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, Tor.com, Uncanny Magazine, Lightspeed Magazine, and Black Static, among others. She is a first-year MFA student at North Carolina State University, and can be found on twitter as @crashwong.

  Gabriela Lee

  A Small Hope

  THERE ARE ONLY six of us left.

  Mattie, the eldest, has survived both the Cataclysm and the Fall, and the arrival of the undead. The rest of them only remember the undead: the shuffling walk of the virus, reanimating the dead flesh that was washed out into the ocean after the ruin of the world. The undead came in waves, moaning and groaning as they searched for fresh meat to satisfy the needs of the virus. But even that did not last – the undead did not manage to find the eternal life we all craved. Mattie says that they do not deserve it.

  I do not remember any of this. I only remember the world we live in now.

  We live on the edge of a small, abandoned village, eighty paces down a dirt road overgro
wn with tall grass. There are low huts built from salvaged wood and corrugated metal, arranged in a semicircle around a roughly-hewn fire pit. We have dug a well next to it, and draw water once a day for boiling. We are surrounded by layers of chicken wire and wood, the thick knots of metal-studded fencing meant to keep the undead out and ourselves in. There is a single gate that swings only a single way. I have never known if it is for us to stay inside or for one to go outside.

  We have a small vegetable garden and some goats. These are tended by Pol and her daughter, Yolly. Yolly is ten years older than me, and does not speak. Pol says this is because she is mute. I know it is because Yolly has decided that she has nothing important to say.

  Girlie tends the armory, which consists of a single gun with six bullets, several blades that she keeps sharpened daily, and an old motorcycle that only she knows how to ride. Girlie sometimes goes on scouting missions for Mattie, but we never know when she leaves and when she returns. Sometimes, she carries her knife. She always leaves her gun behind.

  Sister Francisca joined us after I was born. She taught me my letters and words and numbers, and how to tell the stars apart. We found her outside the fence, praying. Mattie took her in because she was a nurse before she became a sister, and we needed someone who could take care of our sick and dying. Sister Francisca was the one who took care of my mother before she died. She takes care of everyone, including me.

  But more often than not, I wish to be free from her watchful eye. Sometimes, after my chores are done, I stand in front of the fence and watch the world beyond the wires that prevent me from going out. It is green and growing outside. I can see a turret in the distance, a pale white tower that juts against the mountainous horizon. It catches the dying rays of the sunlight and reflects it back to me. What could be beyond the soft hilly rise to our east? How would the wind feel on my face? What could be in the mountains? Is the sea finally free of the undead?

  Sometimes, I imagine what it would feel like to stand atop that tower, to see the world from that vantage point. To see where the water finally meets the land. To feel the air on my skin, instead of filtered through the masks we all wear. To be finally looking down at the world, instead of always looking up.

  THERE IS A seventh member of our community. It lives at the farthest edge of the circle, nearest to the gate. It only speaks to Mattie. Only Mattie is older than it. Sister Francisca, brushing my hair one evening, tells me that it is the Stud.

  Who is the Stud? I ask her.

  All communities in the world keep a Stud, she says. After the Fall, it was discovered that only a third of the male population survived. And when the undead arrived, they seemed to be more drawn to males than to females. So in the interest of continuing the human race, many communities decided to save the males. We traded with them, promising them safety and shelter and food, and in return, they would father children for the community.

  I look at myself in the stained mirror in front of me – one of the things we salvaged from the world outside the fence – and count the brushstrokes on my hair. And what is a male, Sister?

  Sister Francisca’s rhythm never falters. Males are the other half of the human race, Evelyn. They are the ones who contribute to the creation of new life. For instance, have you seen how Pol and Yolly care for their garden?

  Yes.

  Can you remember what they do?

  I think back to the afternoons when I assist them in planting their garden. First, says Pol, there are seeds. The seeds come from the plants that have left them behind, in the hope of living once more. The seeds are planted into the soil and covered, so that they slumber beneath the ground. Then Pol and Yolly water the ground. Sometimes, they add goat shit to it, fertilizer to make the soil healthier and more conducive for the seeds. And then, one glorious morning, the seeds awaken, and new leaves unfurl from the ground. The cycle begins anew.

  Sister Francisca nods in satisfaction. You also have seeds within you.

  What? I am suddenly frightened – did I accidentally swallow the seeds that Pol and Yolly use for the garden? Will I also bear fruit?

  All women carry seeds inside our bodies. But they do not grow, simply because there is no one to water them. Only Studs can water our seeds, and help us grow them into new people.

  Is that how I came to be?

  Sister Francisca nodded. This is how we all came to be.

  So if we have a Stud, then why are we so few? I ask.

  Sister Francisca does not answer. Instead, she begins to braid my hair silently, her head bowed, her lips pressed together into a tight line.

  That night, I wonder if the Stud feels even more trapped than me.

  MATTIE CALLS ME to her hut one afternoon. I have just finished my chores, and my gloves are filthy. My hair is braided and coiled around my head, and hidden beneath my mask. You asked for me?

  Take off your mask, Evelyn, she says, reaching up to do the same.

  I do not tell her, but this surprises me. Still, I reach behind my head and undo the clasps that bind the protective goggles and coverings that hide my face from view. I blink in the unfiltered light, as Mattie’s face, dark and lined like the markings on a tree, comes into view.

  “There,” she says. “This is much more comfortable, don’t you think?”

  I nod quietly, as my lungs try and get used to the stale, recycled air in Mattie’s room. My tongue reaches out to wet my lips, to try and form words with my mouth.

  Mattie walks over to me. I flinch under her gaze. Nobody has ever stared at me this way, as though I was being weighed and found wanting.

  “You are seventeen this month, yes?” she says.

  I nod.

  “Use your words, Evelyn.”

  I clear my throat. “Yes,” I say. My voice sounds alien to my ears. I long to wear my mask once more.

  “Good, good.” Mattie walks around me, her hands clasped behind her back, her white hair a halo around her head. “Francisca tells me you’ve been asking some questions lately.”

  I shiver. I do not tell her that, sometimes, this is all I think about. “I only wanted to know where we come from.”

  Mattie completes her circle around me, and returns to her seat.

  I stare at my boots.

  “That’s a fine question, Evelyn. Ever since our creation, we have always asked where we come from. And now that we are so few – well, we need to find more.” Mattie steeples her fingers in front of her, balancing her elbows on the armrests of her chair. “Girlie tells me that we are the only ones left in this valley. None of the other communities have survived.”

  “There’s more? How come we never visited them?”

  Mattie ignores me. “There were fourteen settlements here, about fifty years ago. Four of us had Studs. The Stud before this one – your father – was a good man. He took care of us, and there were many of us then. I think that was why we lasted so long.” She cocks her head to one side, watching me, as I absorb this new information. “This new one – well, we call him ‘new’, but he’s been with us for sixteen years now. But we don’t have anyone to offer him anymore. Not since Yolly.”

  I start trembling in earnest. I can see where the thread of the conversation is unraveling.

  Mattie stands up and takes my hands in hers. I can feel the rough calluses on her palms. She has done so much to build our lives, and now there are only so few of us left. Without the mask, I can see every line etched on her face. Her eyes are dark. When she speaks, her words are touched with ritual. “Evelyn, will you be our Gift?”

  INSTEAD OF BEING able to leave, I can feel the noose of expectations wrapping around my neck. But how can I say no? Nobody has ever been able to leave without Mattie or Girlie knowing about it. And what if the undead are still out there, waiting to devour us?

  The other women treat me gently. Kindly. On my seventeenth birthday, they take me to the bath house and wash my hair with lavender, the last of our stores. They uncoil my braids and brush the strands, until they shine like moon
light. They present me with new clothes: a dress of white, cinched at the waist, the buttons climbing from hem to collar. The edges of the skirt are trimmed with lace.

  Only Yolly does not participate in this activity. She squats by the gardens, her hands scrabbling against the dirt, her mask hiding her face.

  Mattie explains to me: to be the Gift means to give yourself over to the needs of the body, in the hope of being born anew. To be the Gift means to find a way to awaken the seeds inside the body. To be the Gift means to hope.

  And we have not had hope in such a long time.

  I can feel the heaviness of this hope on my shoulders. I stand at the wire, my eyes on the turret in the distance, a finger pointing toward a freedom I cannot grasp.

  The night before the ceremony, Sister Francisca comes to my room. The only light comes from the candle beside my bed. Her face is drawn and shadowed beneath her fraying veil. Her mask is nowhere in sight.

  She hands me a long, delicate object wrapped in cloth. “I will not let you go in there unarmed.”

  Her gift is a knife. The edge is sharp and keen, and can perhaps slice through the very air we breathe.

  Before I can ask why she is giving me this, she has already disappeared. A second later, my door clicks shut.

  I AM LED to the door of the house at the edge of the fence at high noon. Mattie stands with me. We both wear our masks.

  The door opens a crack, and I cannot see anything but shadows.

  Is this the one?

  Yes, says Mattie. She is the one.

  Fetch her at the usual day, then.

  I feel Mattie push me forward, toward the open gap. I stumble and pitch forward. A pair of strong arms catches me, as the door shuts behind me. For the second time in as many days, I am asked to take my mask off.

  The air is cool and fresh, and does not smell stale, unlike in our rooms. The room is paneled in a sumptuous wood grain, and the floors are littered with carpets that are soft beneath my feet. Unlike our bare walls, these ones are filled with shelves, full of books and strange artifacts.