Odd and Ugly

By Vida Cruz
I.
You come to my tree at high noon in July, sweating, panting, young.
So very, very young. I can’t help staring at you: it’s like watching a
walking, talking circular window with square glass stuck through it. I
knew you’d come someday, but I’m still so stunned to see you that I
disbelieve my own eyes. The small sack in one hand and the clay jar at
your hip tell me that you mean to stay, too.
“Are you the kapre from the stories? The one with the shell necklace?”
you ask, your voice high and clear. You set your jar down and gather
your long, sweat-dampened black hair over your shoulder, away from
your nape, as you glance up from under your straw salakot. Your eyes
are the color of tablea chocolate bubbling in a cup. I’m startled that I
remember so human a sensation.
“That depends,” I say. I lower myself so you can see me, a thing
moving and detached from the canopy of leaves above, although I’m of
the same hues. Humanoid, but decidedly not human. I catch your gaze
falling on my necklace: several cowrie shells strung together with black
beads and woven thread, with a single shell hanging from the middle
like a pendant. Your expression becomes momentarily unsettled;
maybe you’re startled by my ugliness, just like all the other passersby
whom I like to scare. Whatever it is, you shake it off, and the action
comes from inside you: a slow resolve that hardens your features and
makes you cling tighter to your small sack of belongings.
Your boldness is commendable, as always.
I ask you two questions that I already know the answers to: “Who is
everyone? And who are you?”
“Everyone is the town, and I am Maria,” is your simple answer. I thrill
to hear your name. “My tatay owes you a debt.”
I remember your father as a frightened young man, clutching a mango
stolen from my tree, begging for forgiveness and blabbering about the
cravings of his pregnant wife. It feels as if that happened only
yesterday. “Ah, you’re that Maria. You’ve grown.”
You ignore that. “What’s your name?”
I laugh, long and low. “Oh, no. You haven’t earned that yet, ’neng. And
you shouldn’t wander out here by yourself. The town’s tongues will
wag about you meeting a lover.”
“Let them wag.”
“The Guardia Civil will say that you’re conspiring with
revolutionaries.”
“I don’t care about that.”
“The friars will denounce you as a witch.”
It takes a while, but you give me a slow nod. I’m impressed, though I
have no proof that you truly understand the implications of your
declarations. You say, “I’m not afraid of them, señor. I’ve come to
erase my tatay’s debt.”
Señor. I’ve been called many things in my long life, and most of them
unpleasant — but never that. The irony tickles me.
I drop to the ground and straighten my back. You barely surpass my
collarbones. But my height isn’t what gets your attention — you realize
that I’m wearing nothing but a loincloth.
Your gaze snaps back to my face, though your cheeks are pink-tinged. I
grin at your discomfort.
“Erase his debt with what? Another mango?” I know I’m being
difficult, but what other way is there to be? This was never going to be
an easy situation for either of us. “I’ve no use for money, and I have
everything I need in my realm. Are you going to offer me yourself,
’neng?”
You pout. Your bushy eyebrows meet, and your lower lip sticks out, an
arresting dash of pink in your sun-browned face.
You’re making quick mental calculations.
I’m fighting that part of me that has always adored you.
“Yes,” you say in an even tone, flooring me once again. You always
were so quick to take up a challenge, as on the day your father first
asked if you would like to learn to hack stalks of sugarcane with a bolo
knife. I just marvel to see it up close.
And then you add: “I’m going to offer you my services, señor. As your
housekeeper.”
I don’t fight the part of me that is also irritated by you.

II.
It doesn’t work that way, a human woman un-courted by a kapre
shouldering her way into his tree. I’m supposed to chase you first. I’m
supposed to leave small gifts around your house, and you must come
to me willingly. I’m supposed to choose you — or so other kapre told
me long ago, when I still attempted socializing with them. I’ve never
actually courted human women before. But here you are,
choosing me — or my home, at least — and I can never refuse someone
passage when they wish to enter my home.
“I don’t have a house to keep!” I huff.
“Then I’ll be your tree-keeper. Or your realm-keeper,” you shoot airily
over your shoulder as you make your way down my halls. “This is a
good deal, you know? You don’t even have to give me wages or
anything more than a place to stay! I only have to work off the debt!”
I grumble, “You’ll just mess everything up, ’neng.”
You don’t know your way around, and I’m not going to give you a tour
— I didn’t formally agree to you being my housekeeper, after all — yet
you seem unconcerned with becoming lost. I guess you’re that
confident that you’ll get to know all the firefly orb-lit tunnels and
caverns, all the gardens and groves that I’ve filled with collected
human treasures — and all the various flora in between — the same
way you know your own home.
Still, that doesn’t stop me from pulling you by the shoulder when my
giant Venus flytrap’s jaws snap across the path ahead.
“Be careful, ’neng!” I say, and remember too late what I shouldn’t have
said. On cue, the whispers begin.
Is that her?
Don’t be stupid, that is her!
Who?
You know — her!
She’s not very pretty, is she?
I thought she’d be prettier, too.
“I’m right here, you know!” you call out, and I can’t help but laugh
from deep in my gut. First, because their discussion about you is
honestly amusing and second, because I’m relieved you stopped them
from saying anything more.
Nearby, the fire tree — delonix regia, who prefers to be called Delonix
— whispers to me alone, That is her, isn’t it?
“It is.”
If Delonix were a person, she would nod. She is something like my
second-in-command here, the queen of all the flora by some unspoken
agreement. She is also my eyes and ears around my realm. How do
you plan to go about this?
“Go?”
I assume you have a plan or you would’ve handed her the stone by
now —
“Delonix,” I snap. “Not here.”
Honestly, you weren’t supposed to be here yet. My intention was to let
your father know someday in the distant future that I wanted my debt
paid. He wasn’t supposed to send you here before that day — so what
happened? But I put off asking you in order to introduce you to the
flowers. I show you to them all — the spinning vine flowers, the
luminescent flowers, the rotting corpse flowers, the toothed flowers,
the flowers with faces. I rattle off their names like a carpenter
hammers a nail in wood, and I’m impressed when you echo them with
accuracy and grace.
“What amazing flowers you all are,” you say with a smile that comes
from your entire being. You stroke the flowers who allow themselves
to be stroked and bow to those who demand to be bowed to. “I look
forward to working with you all from now on!”
I allow myself to think just for a fraction of a moment that maybe
you can handle yourself around here, that maybe it will be nice to talk
to someone who isn’t rooted to the ground or clouded in malodor.
Then I push the thought down like a stone in mud.
I’m glad you’re here, but that doesn’t mean we can be easygoing with
each other.

III.
In August, you discover very quickly that being a housekeeper in my
tree is more like being a gardener. Those flowers don’t all get hungry
at the same time, and not all for the same food. Some of them tend to
go on and on about their myriad personal woes or else the tedious
gossip of the plant kingdom. Day and night do not pass like they do in
the world outside my tree, but I can say with certainty that feeding and
talking to everyone is two days of work.
Yet you listen to them all as if your very life depends on it — and in
some carnivorous cases, it truly does. You pass sufficient judgments
on debates and arguments when called for. You don’t appear to be
tiring out anytime soon; in fact, you move as if you already belong
here, as if you’ve only just returned to your home. The only thing that
gives away your humanity is that you decline the flowers’ and the
trees’ offers of fruit and honey. The fact that you still climb out of my
realm to gather your own food and water every now and then means
that you don’t intend to stay forever. No one may eat anything in a
kapre’s realm and expect to live in the wider world again.
I don’t tell you that women who end up in kapre trees are not meant to
leave. I don’t tell you that it is completely within my power to bar your
passage out. I don’t tell you that I’ve made an exception for you. If you
already know all this, you’re not letting on.
Somehow, you’ve also found out — likely from Delonix — that I sleep
in the acacia grove. Or maybe the smell was a giveaway, I don’t know
— I’ve been told for years by various creatures that the ash from my
cigars can be smelled from miles away. Between feeding and talking to
the flowers, you’ve somehow made time to sweep the ash from the
grass. While I’m grateful for the cleaner grove, you’ve also displaced
and rearranged my cigar stash. In fact, you’ve done that for all the
objects in the grove: shiny trinkets and love letters and parasols and
all manner of things that people have lost in the forest outside over the
years.
When I discover this, I draw myself up to my full height. I bare my
teeth as I tower over you. You stand there scowling up at me, defiant
like a lit lantern in darkness.
“I knew you’d mess everything up, ’neng!” I growl. “I can’t find
anything!”
“Señor, if you just let me explain my categorization system, then you’ll
be able to find everything,” is your none-too-gentle answer.
“I don’t want anything categorized! I want everything where they were
before!”
“Well, I can’t put them back in the exact mess I found them in,” your
tone has grown frosty with logic now. “That’s unreasonable.”
“Unreasonable?” I thunder. I know I’m being unreasonable. I’ve lived
the way I liked, alone, for so long now. Someone else coming here and
touching my things reminds me of a more distant time, when I
couldn’t own anything. I know I’m reacting to those times, but it’s too
late to stop being irritable. “What’s unreasonable is this arrangement!
I’m going to pay your tatay a visit — ”
“No, no, don’t!” You are about to reach for me. I know it, you know it.
But something holds you back; I’m willing to bet that it is my ugliness
and quite possibly my glower. You lower your hands to your sides;
they continue to twitch, so you ball them into fists. “Don’t do that,
señor. I swore to my parents I’d work off tatay’s debt.”
Something about the way your head is bent, the way your fists uncurl
and pluck at your checkered saya, the way your slippered feet dig into
the ground where you stand makes me uncomfortable. What aren’t
you telling me, I wonder? At last, I say, “All right. I won’t. But next
time, you better let me know before you clean around here.”
You chuckle, a small sound. “The cleaning was as much for my benefit
as yours.”
I feel the irritation rising in me again. “What do you mean?”
“I’m sleeping in the calachuchi grove next to yours,” you say. It is
astonishing, now that we’ve moved on from the subject of your father,
how unruffled you are — either with this statement of yours or the fact
that faint clouds have begun billowing from my nostrils. “And I can
smell your revolting cigars from there.”
“Then why didn’t you categorize the stuff there, ’neng?” I spit out
“categorize” like a mouthful of santol pits.
“Oh, I already have,” you say that as if it’s something I already should
have known, and I guess I should have. You always did appreciate
order. “I just came in here to do something about the stench and
accidentally moved some things. So I thought I’d do something nice
for you and clean your grove.”
That knocks the wind out of me. I know you learned your
thoughtfulness from your mother — I’ve seen you help her help your
elderly neighbors carry bayongs brimming with fish and vegetables
from the wet market to their houses. You’d make a fine wife for a
human husband — and because I let my guard down just a little, the
words spill from my mouth before I can censor them. I regret saying
this up until the moment you lower your head.
“Anyone who’s heard of me already thinks I’m a troublesome woman,”
your tone is subdued, just as when we discussed your father. It really
doesn’t suit you. “I’m not afraid of the new high-and-
mighty haciendero snatching up our lands, or the Guardia Civil, or the
friars in their big churches. My neighbors say that makes me odd, even
dangerous.”
Anger curls in the pit of my stomach. Oh, if that miserable town only
knew. “Then no one in that town deserves you. Even a blind man can
see that that makes you brave.”
You look up at me again. The big brown pools of your eyes are
gleaming.
“Thank you, señor,” you say, your voice lowered to a breath. I can’t
help watching your lips form over the words.
I turn away from the desire to kiss you — from you — for all the good it
will do.

IV.
“Why do no other creatures visit you, señor?”
“Because I don’t want them to. And most aren’t as thick-faced as you,
’neng.”
You let go of the yellow-stained blanket you’ve been washing in the
stream running through my realm, stand up, and give me a dainty
curtsy. Your hair falls forward; you’ve taken to wearing calachuchi
flowers in it lately. I don’t say so, but they and their sweet fragrance
become you. “What a lovely compliment! Thank you, señor.”
I choke a laugh on my cigar. The embers fall on the branch where I
lounge, then to the grass. The flowers nearest me call to each
other, Look out! You’ll get burned! while the rest giggle and titter with
— and not at — your sense of humor. Some of them say to me, She’s as
thick-faced as you! They’ve gotten even bolder with your coming.
You return to the washing. “There’s something else I’ve been
wondering about.”
“Ah, no end to the wondering with you, is there?”
You don’t answer back, but I could swear that there is a hint of a smile
in the slight profile I can see from my vantage point.
“When I was little, my parents and neighbors used to tell me stories of
the diwata of the mountain before she disappeared. Where is she now?
Surely she visits you?”
The diwata of the mountain! The diwata of the mountain! The flowers
chant in singsong.
I hush them. I don’t know what to say to you, though, and you can tell.
You spin around to find me tapping more ash from the cigar.
“No, she does not,” I say at last.
You bite your lip.
“The diwata doesn’t visit anyone now, ’neng.”
“Isn’t that worrying?” you ask. You’re crumpling your saya in your
hands again, as you always do when you’re anxious. “The elders say
that she hasn’t been seen by anyone for hundreds of years! I thought
maybe she kept to her kind or so, but if she doesn’t visit even you — ”
I support my weight with the branch and lean forward, my interest
piqued. “Why are you so worried about her, ’neng? She was long
before your time.”
“I — ” You stare at the grass now. You quiet down as you wrestle with
some inner turmoil. “I guess I thought that she’d answer the pleas of
her supplicants. I thought she’d protect us from the abuses of the
Kastila. If not her people, then her lands.”
I lean back against the trunk. “’neng, if you’re under the impression
that the diwata is all-powerful, then you’re mistaken. The friars came
to her promising friendship. By the time their corruption came to
light, they’d already turned most of the population to their god. She
couldn’t drive out the Kastila without help, any more than you can.”
You sink to your knees. “So she’s abandoned us for good?”
“Hah! Never,” I take a puff from my cigar. “She can’t abandon you any
more than she can abandon her mountain.”
“So where is she?”
I hesitate. “Diwata will be found when they want to be found.”
“But will she come back?”
I meet your gaze. Worry swims in it. How young you are, how naïve,
how innocent.
“Someday. I’m sure of it.”

V.
As someone who never had anything, I wanted everything. And yet,
how I was ever unsatisfied with spending long days and nights
counting stars and fireflies and loving the diwata of the mountain the
best way I knew how baffles even me. I wanted to be able to change
into animal forms like she could. I wanted so badly to know what it
was like to be not me, not in my own skin.
We fought about this a lot, but somehow, I won in the end. Slowly, the
diwata began to teach me the secrets of how to change into a chicken,
a dog, a goat, a boar, and so much more. Despite her reluctance with
all this, she’d always laugh whenever I stopped the transformation
halfway. I’d be sprouting feathers or four hoofed legs or a beak or
tusks or a bushy tail.
Sometimes all at once. We liked going to the river and laughing at how
ugly I looked every time I did this. Anyone else would’ve been
frightened by my grotesque appearances, but not her. And still, she
remembered to warn me that if I favored one form too long, that form
becomes mine.
I think my newfound powers gave me a lengthened lifespan, for I
noticed that people entering the forest brought more advanced
weaponry and machinery with them and the natives wore more and
more Hispanized clothing. Continually turning into different animals
and learning how to move like them gave me their strength, as well.
I began some dangerous experiments soon enough. If I could stop the
transformation halfway through the process, couldn’t I contain the
transformation to just one or two parts of me? I made myself grow
twice my height and shrink to a child’s size. I started hiding in trees
and changing my skin to match the leaves and branches, the way I’d
seen kapre from other forests do. My gauge for success was being
spotted or not by passersby.
But the day came when my skin wouldn’t lose its arboreal colors, and I
couldn’t return to my true height. I couldn’t change a thing about
myself for a long time, and there was nothing even the diwata of the
mountain could do about that. She had to start visiting me in my tree-
ish hiding holes. Eventually, the power to transform returned to me,
but I could never hold a new form for long. Even when I learned to
change back into my human appearance, I could feel my old skin
covering me like an ill-fitting suit. It was no longer who I was; I was
stuck as an ugly tree giant, and it was all my fault.
The diwata claimed she didn’t care how I looked. I wished I could
believe her. I truly hated what I’d become, and I allowed that hate to
overpower her voice. My only defense, albeit a flimsy one, is how
keeping up my human appearance whenever we were together took up
the energy that should’ve gone to listening and understanding her
words.
And then one day, I hid myself from the diwata, knowing that her
finding me was no easy task, given that I wasn’t born on or around the
mountain. I took up residence in a mango tree relatively near the
town, knowing that she wouldn’t dare go near. The town was now the
territory of another god, after all.
I heard a rumor many years later that the diwata had taken to
wandering the forest as a human woman and calling out a name —
mine. I’d missed the diwata ever since, but it was this news that finally
tugged my guilt free of the mire of my self-absorption. I left my tree in
search of her.
And when I finally found the diwata, it was the moment before the cliff
rocks crumbled beneath her feet. Even that moment was too late.
I’ve been trying to atone for my stupidity ever since.

VI.
It’s early in October, and you are sifting through a pile of lacy
mantillas in the santol grove when you find a book. You are so
engrossed in your reading that you don’t notice I’ve just returned from
an afternoon of intimidating humans who wish to sleep, eat, pray, or
make love under my tree. I squat so that my shadow doesn’t fall over
the pages like your hair does.
When the diwata and I first met many years ago, it was me in the
grass, exhausted, hungry, bleeding, and her standing over me, fresh as
sunshine. That night is now literally lifetimes ago, and seeing the way
we are now, I ache for it.
When you finally let out a short laugh, that’s when I ask you what’s so
funny.
You jump. The book falls to the grass. “How long have you been
there?”
“Long enough,” I say. “So what’s so funny?”
You pick up the book and flip to the page you were last reading. There
is a drawing at the top of the page of a boy bending over a crab. The
rest of the page is a block of squiggly, flourished text.
I frown at it, vaguely remembering it from when I first flipped through
the pages. This book was left on a boulder down the path from my tree
a few years back.
“You think a boy and a crab are funny?”
You giggle. “It’s just so stupid! A lazy boy buys a crab from the market
and then tells it to go back to his house so that he can take a nap!”
“Huh? That really is stupid.”
You’re growing more and more confused, and I begin to realize my
mistake. “Haven’t you read this before?”
When I don’t answer, you can only say, “Oh.”
A week later, I am walking past your grove when you sprint out and
nearly collide with my back. I turn around; you wave a book frantically
in my face. “Let me teach you how to read, señor!”
My mouth twists to one side. I’m doubtful. “Why would I need to learn
to read?”
“How can you not? You’ve got so many books in here!” You gesture at
the calachuchi trees. “I found five in there, alone! Many of them are
religious, but not all! It’d be a waste!”
I tell you a half-truth. “I just like looking at the pictures, ’neng.”
You whack my arm with the book you’re holding. I flinch, but do
nothing. You seem to be getting comfortable with me, at least. “Not all
books have pictures — definitely not all the books you’ve collected.
Señor, I think you’d enjoy them more if you could read them!”
Your passion amuses me, impresses me, even, but I really don’t want
to do this. “’neng, I have better things to do with my time.”
Your eyebrows almost disappear into your hairline. “Like what?”
I turn away with a smirk. “Smoke.”
That night, you’re not in your grove. You’re not in any of the tunnels or
caverns we frequent. You’re not even outside my tree. My hand creeps
up to the pendant of my cowrie shell necklace. The power within the
pendant allows me to see anyone I wish no matter when it is or where
they are. But when you were born, I swore that I would use it to check
in on you only once a year, on your birthday, for the last twenty years.
This is how I know that you have good parents, as they always strive to
teach you something new on your birthday — like when your father
taught you to plow your fields with the family carabao when you
turned three and when your mother taught you to prune and water
flowers to sell at the market when you turned four. During the years
when there was a little money saved up, they bought you something
new, like slippers with embroidered roses when you turned fifteen or
perhaps something novel and tasty, like that large jar of ube jam when
you turned sixteen. On your last birthday, earlier this year, your
parents gave you a new baro and a checkered saya — the same ones
you were wearing when you came to me. You embraced them, happier
than I’ve ever seen you. I thought then that if you’re that happy, then I
should be happy, too.
I have so far kept my promise, but I’m frazzled enough about your
disappearance to break it just this once. Luckily, Delonix whacks my
shoulder before I do.
Calm down, she says. She fell asleep in the bamboo grove south of
here.
I’m ready to run there the moment I receive the explanation. “What’s
Maria doing there?”
She’s been gathering all the books she can find in the groves.
“What for?”
Isn’t it obvious? She’s building a place just for books. She’s
determined to teach you to read.
I find you in the grove Delonix described. You are lying on your side in
such a way that I deduce you fell asleep sitting down and then toppled.
A book pillows your cheek and a line of drool runs down the same
cheek. Your fingers are squeezed in between the pages of another book
while two firefly orbs float above you. A third orb reveals that more
books are scattered around you in piles half my height. Have I really
picked up that many books from the forest? Why are humans forever
losing books in there?
I lift you. You’re heavier than I expected, but not all that much trouble
to carry. In your grove, I cover you in a worn, time-stained blanket and
put a thin pillow under your head, its fluff all but gone. How have I let
you sleep in such conditions?
The next night, I sneak into town disguised as a stray dog because I
don’t want to have to expend precious energy fighting people who see
me as a monster. In my true form, I steal a whole four-poster bed from
some rich young mestiza while she’s out visiting her lover. I take some
of her dresses and shoes for good measure, too, so that you don’t wear
out the clothes you arrived in. It’s not easy, avoiding the Guardia
Civil’s night patrol with heavy furniture in tow, but I manage it with a
few more disguises. I hide the bed and the clothes in the forest and
return to the town, long enough to watch the mestiza enter her house
just a little after dawn and scream for the Guardia Civil from her
bedroom window.
I let you think that the bed is just one more abandoned thing I picked
up in the forest, partially because I have fun teasing you that rats have
made their home in there. I even threw in two weeks’ worth of fruits
from the trees beyond my tree. You’re grateful anyway, though you
point out that I could’ve given you this bed and those clothes when you
first began living here.
Over the next few days, you alter the dresses to fit you, and they fit you
well, indeed. When the fruits I got you run out, you still go out and
gather your food from the outside world. Yet you look more well-fed
and well-rested somehow. Funny how much difference a good bed
makes.
When you show me the bamboo-turned-book grove and ask me if you
could teach me how to read, I don’t refuse you.

VII.
You ask me after one of our reading lessons in November why I collect
so much junk. I’m taken aback; I’ve never said my reasons aloud
before. The flowers aren’t interested — they complain that the junk
takes up space meant for themselves — and Delonix doesn’t question
me about it.
I begin by pointing at a clock here, digging out a handkerchief there.
The words come out in a trickle at first, and then like a river released
from a rocky spring. I explain that all these things have stories,
whether I witnessed them or not: that a mud-caked set of letters were
left by a young woman in the hollow of my tree, where they went
undiscovered by her lover for years; that a golden funeral mask was
part of the loot some thief buried in a clay pot at the roots of my tree;
that a noose was left behind when I scared away several Guardia Civil
who were going to execute a poor farmer suspected of sedition and
insurrection. And that was just a sampling of the objects I found on
and around my tree. I’ve found countless other things in my jaunts
around the forest and the mountain it surrounds, things I invent the
stories for: pipes, picnic baskets, slippers with broken straps, salakots,
rifles, swords, jewelry, coins, bouquets long since dried out, blankets,
rosaries, furniture, food. Sometimes I find these bloody, sometimes
muddy, sometimes torn, sometimes whole and new.
You hang on to my every word, rapt, hands clasped on your lap.
Sooner or later, you’ll ask about my necklace, and when you do, I
surprise myself with the ease with which I tell the story.
“It was my mother’s. It was the only thing she got to bring out of her
homeland.”
You are sitting on your ankles when you hear this. You redistribute
your weight, straighten your back. “You mean, you didn’t always live
in this tree?”
“No. And I wasn’t always a kapre, either,” I say. I imagine my smile is
bitter. “I wasn’t even born in this land.”
“Where were you born?”
“Portuguesa. España’s rival nation. I was lucky to be brought up by my
mother, but I was eventually sold from Lusitano to Lusitano, from
Portuguesa to Brasil and back — and then finally to a conquistador de
Castile headed for the Filipinas. Not long after we landed here, he
made me help build the walls of Intramuros in Manila. And that’s
when I ran from him.”
“I see.”
“Do you, now?” I squat to your level on the grass. “Kapre. Tree giant.
Cafre. African slave. Kafir. One who does not believe in Allah. The
meaning changes depending on who says it and where it’s said. I am
all three things, ’neng.”
“And how did you end up like this?”
I feel my smile grow wider. “I asked for this.”
Your round eyes go rounder. “You…?”
“And I don’t regret it. Or at least, I don’t regret it now. Before, I owned
nothing. Now, I own more than I’ll ever need. There is nothing to
return to in my former life.”
Your gaze doesn’t waver from mine. “What do you regret, then,
señor?”
I almost topple backward. “What?”
“Everyone has something they regret. You were human once; I don’t
think you’re an exception to that.”
Images of a ground abruptly tapering into sky, a wisp of hair, a flash of
white hem, and outstretched fingers race through my mind, suddenly
free from the prison I’d locked them in. You reach up to touch my
cheek. The gesture is so sudden, so very much like the way you used to
do in the past.
“I’m sorry,” you say. Your eyes brim with pity. “It’s just, you looked
like you were about to cry.”
The breath I take is sharp. Your touch, the memories — it’s all too
much. I stand up, which knocks your hand out of the way. I excuse
myself to smoke outside my tree. I know the excuse is a poor one and
that I’ve never cared where I smoked before now, and that I just came
back from a trip outside. But you looked so confused and so sorry,
when it’s I who should be begging you for forgiveness. I can’t stand
here a moment longer.
Why are you here? I’m not ready. I don’t know if I’ll ever be.

VIII.
I avoid you with an astounding single-mindedness for the next few
days. I’m always smoking outside now; whenever you climb out to get
your food and water, I conceal myself even higher up the branches of
my tree.
However, that doesn’t mean I don’t watch you. To your credit, you
don’t try to get my attention. You don’t even force me to take up
reading lessons again. You simply go about your day in mechanical
fashion: you wash old clothes and polish the rust off old metal, you
water the flowers and listen to their problems, you eat and drink, but
you’re not really focused on whatever task you have at hand. Twice,
tears slide from your eyes. You wipe these away with vehemence. Was
this really my doing?
No, you idiot, not everything is about you, Delonix snaps when I ask
her. Maria misses her parents.
Ah. Why hadn’t I thought of that before? You must feel deeply alone
here, despite the company you keep. I’ve certainly been no help.
I make a decision then and there. I find you in the calachuchi grove,
folding handkerchiefs.
“Maria!” I call.
You lift your head, your mouth slightly open. You rise to your feet as if
you will totter and fall if you don’t move with a deliberate slowness.
“What did you call me?”
For some reason, I want to run away. I press my toes into the dirt,
however, and grit my teeth as if my soul will escape through my
mouth. “Your name. Maria.”
“That’s the first time I’ve heard you say it.” You sound like you’re
floating.
Abashed, I soldier on and enter the grove. “I want to give you
something. Hold out your hand.”
Your eyebrows furrow in suspicion, but you do as I say. I unclasp my
necklace and drop it on your palm. Your suspicion is gone, replaced by
confusion.
“This necklace is magic,” I explain. You look at me, blank and yet
wondering. “If you think about the person or people you most want to
see while wearing it, it will show you exactly where they are and what
they’re doing.”
It’s a good thing you don’t ask me whom I’ve been seeing with it.
You go very still. Even your breathing is subtle. Your gaze probes me
from head to toe, as if you’ll find some dark motives writ on my body. I
shift my weight from foot to foot. I’m about to leave when you finally
say, “Thank you.” The necklace circles your neck, your hands lost in
your thick hair while you struggle with the clasps. Soon, you add, “I’m
sorry, señor. Will you help me put this on?”
I want to help you and don’t at the same time. Yet you’ve never
specifically requested my help before, and the truth is, despite how
much I duck and hide and run, I want to give you everything you want.
I grunt my assent, and you give me the necklace. I move to stand
behind you. You’re so small that I have to bend my knees to level my
gaze with the clasp. You part your silken hair and smooth the waves
over your shoulders, allowing the scent of coconut milk and calachuchi
to waft in my direction. You used to smell like that, long ago. It fills me
with a longing that accidentally comes out in a sigh.
“Señor, is there any reason you’re tickling my neck?” you ask.
I almost drop the necklace. I can’t read your tone, and I have no idea
what expression you’re making. I fight the urge to turn you around.
“I’m sorry,” I grunt as I slide the necklace around your neck once
again. It’s confounding, how much easier it is to put this necklace on
myself instead of someone else — or maybe it’s just you. I’m trying so
hard to focus on the clasp instead of the places where I used to kiss
you. I’m trying so hard not to touch your skin, but the clasp is
ridiculously small and my fingers ridiculously large. Unavoidably, they
brush against your smooth nape. Mercifully, you say nothing.
The moment the clasp is fixed in place, you spin around, and I back
away half a step. Your eyes are downcast as you pull your hair behind
your shoulders.
“Thank you,” you say. Then you lift your head, and there is this look
you have that I can’t read — rather, that I don’t dare read. If I read it, I
feel as if hope will seep into me, and I already know that that will be
too painful to bear.
I gesture at the shell pendant. “Go on. Try it.”
Your fingers wrap around the cowrie shell. You don’t need to close
your eyes, but you do. Nothing happens for a moment, and then all of
a sudden, you are squinching your closed eyes and grinding your teeth.
Your cheeks are wet with tears. If you pull on the shell anymore, you
will give yourself burn marks.
“Tatay! Nanay!” you cry. So much anguish is packed in those two
words.
As your legs buckle beneath you, I grab your shoulders. In my hands,
they seem so thin and fragile. As gently as I can, I shake you. “Maria,
Maria! What’s wrong?”
Your eyes open. More pearlescent tears fall. You grasp my wrists with
what feels like all your strength. “Please, señor. You’ve been so kind to
me — I shouldn’t ask you for more, but grant me this one request, and
I’ll never ask for anything again,” you say, and I hate that you feel you
have to beg me for anything. “Please let me go to my parents.”
I’d planned to tell you everything, actually. I’d planned to tell you that
you’d died once, and who you’d been before you died. I planned to tell
you that your soul had flown to the nearest vessel — your parents had
been making love some ways down the mountain — but that I’d kept a
piece of it, safe, for the day when you’re ready to hear all this. I’d
planned to tell you that some months later, your father stole a mango
from my tree and that I’d asked him to send you to me, someday in the
distant future, in return. I’d planned to tell you that I couldn’t even
make plans to tell you any of this since you first arrived, because I am
a coward. Because I’ve been too afraid of what you’d say. Too afraid
that you wouldn’t forgive me.
Instead, I’m paralyzed by the outpouring of your emotions and the
fear that you’ll never come back if I let you go. Yet I cannot be selfish
any longer — we’re here in the first place because of me. I won’t stop
you while you pack or as you exit the passage leading to the outside
world.
I slide my arms down in such a way that your grip on my wrists is
dislodged. Your hands all but disappear in mine. Even your calluses
are baby-soft compared to mine. Our gazes meet over my fingertips
and their cracked nails. Tears give your eyes a glassy sheen; hope
lights up your expression despite that. If only I could make it so that
you’d never shed a tear again.
I say, “Take all the time you need.”
IX.
After you leave, I prepare to follow you. I’d always intended to follow
you, to make sure that you reach your destination unharassed by
drunken townspeople, lecherous friars, or suspicious Guardia Civil
patrolmen. You’d reach your house, embrace your parents, and never
know I was there.
As I stride up the passageway leading out of my tree, I walk past one of
Delonix’s trees and pat the trunk. “Take care of everything while I’m
gone.”
Aray! How would you like it if I whacked you square across the
behind?
I scowl, but keep walking. “You seem crankier than usual.”
I’m a little sore. I gave Maria one of my saplings.
“What for?”
She said she was going to use them to mark her parents’ grave.
That stops me mid-stride. “What?”
You didn’t know? Delonix’s tone tilts subtly toward pitying. It takes
much effort to refrain from kicking her. Maria was branded a
seditionist and a revolutionary for spitting in the face of the
haciendero who tried to claim her town’s farmlands. It’s likely that
her parents were executed by the Guardia Civil for hiding her, or for
failing to tell them where she went.
I drag my hands through my hair in frustration and admiration. Why
didn’t you tell me? I voice that question aloud, too.
She didn’t know they were dead until she was shown that vision. And
even then, she didn’t tell you the truth because she didn’t want you
following her and getting hurt on her account.
“Of course I’d follow her!” I bellow. I could punch Delonix, but she’d
make me pay for it later. “I — ”
You what? Delonix’s tone is colder than the December chill. Whatever
you feel for her, she certainly doesn’t believe it if she knows it! Do you
know nothing about women after all this time? They need to hear you
say things before they can believe them!

X.
My earlier fear of your never coming back, stirred by Delonix’s words,
has me in its grip and lends urgency to every step. I cross the forest in
the shape of a monkey swinging through the trees, and then a lone
stallion galloping into the farmlands surrounding the town. Once in
town, I become a dog and change course for the cemetery on a wooded
hill to the north.
There are no guardsmen posted by the cemetery gate, which
immediately arouses my sense of foreboding. No one accosts me while
I change into my old human form and amble through the gate as
though I belong there.
I soon learn why. In the corner of the cemetery reserved for unmarked
graves, a dozen or so Guardia Civil, armed with rifles, have you backed
against one of the angel-topped columns that break up the cemetery’s
wrought-iron fence at intervals. You are the lone person dressed in
black among a bunch of dark-blue uniforms. Your hands are raised
above your head; further above your head is a single firefly orb, which
they will no doubt use against you as evidence of witchcraft. At your
feet lie a black lace mantilla and a spade. A fire tree sapling is planted
in a mound of freshly turned grave dirt not too far away. Clumps of
dirt still lie in the surrounding grass.
I change into a snake and slither to the back of the group.
A tall, blond-bearded man is talking. The orb-light reveals a sharp
profile with a nose that could cut and piercing blue eyes. His body
shifts a little, showcasing three medals pinned just above where his
heart would be. He is likely the Capitan of the Guardia Civil.
“Binibining delos Reyes, long have we been searching for you,” he
declares in heavily-accented Tagalog.
“You must not have been searching very hard, Capitan,” you say with
your characteristic boldness. “I’ve been close by all these months.”
“You don’t seem to grasp the severity of your situation, binibini,” The
Capitan’s expression is neutral as he speaks, but when his gaze drags
over your person, it transforms into disbelief, and then outrage.
“That’s Señorita Alonsa Chavez’s dress! So you are the thief! For
certain you stole her bed, too!”
“Yes, Capitan, because I am big and strong enough for such a task.”
The Capitan wavers for a moment, then clears his throat. “Maria
Esperanza Gabriela delos Reyes y Dagdag, you are hereby under arrest
for sedition against the crown of España — ”
“Such a weighty charge for someone who merely spat in the face of a
petty haciendero stealing a poor town’s lands — ”
“ — theft, resisting arrest — ”
The Capitan’s speech bores me, so I don’t let him finish. I change into
a man, grab a rock bigger than my palm, and ram it against the back of
a guardsman’s helmeted head. It makes a dent in the man’s helmet
and he crumples like a fallen doll.
The metallic clanking draws the attention — and the rifles — of rest of
the patrol. As the guardsman falls, I snatch his weapon and hit his
neighbor in the gut with the rifle butt. He goes down faster than a bag
of rice.
“El cafre!” the Capitan shouts. “Bring him down, alive!”
I yell, “Maria! Run!”
I change into a cricket as I pounce for the nearest guardsman. He pats
and pulls his uniform all over, and three of his comrades crowd round
to help him. But I have already dived for the ground, changing into a
snake as I do. I wrap myself around a pair of booted feet outside the
circle of commotion and pull.
The guardsman topples, taking everyone with him. His rifle
accidentally fires, but the bullet hits the angel statue. I become a
monkey and launch myself at another guardsman’s neck and use it to
swing around and grab his rifle. The moment my simian fingers close
over it, I am a man again, rolling on the ground. I swing the rifle at his
legs and shoot another in the knee.
And that’s when a bullet finally gets me in the shoulder. I drop the rifle
and clutch the wound. It’s been a while since I smelled my own blood;
I’m surprised the scent is still metallic, still human.
“No!” you scream.
I raise my head. A guardsman has your hands behind your back.
Meanwhile, the Capitan and the rest of the patrol surrounds me, guns
pointed, even most of those I tripped up. Eight men, in all.
The Capitan examines me while the business end of his rifle is pointed
between my eyes.
“El esclavo, el monstruo, el demonio!” the Capitan spits. To you, he
says, “Binibining delos Reyes, you will also be charged with assisting a
runaway slave and witchcraft.”
“He is a free man! Let him go!” you cry, to my surprise. Of all the
things you could’ve said. It warms me to hear it, and my courage
swells.
“I think not,” the Capitan smoothly answers. “A demonio such as this
is neither free nor a man. Who shall pay the largest sum for this
wretched creature, I wonder? The friars? The militia? Perhaps even
the Gobernador-General himself? I can only imagine what they would
do with such hell spawn as this, however — ”
I grin at the Capitan. “If I may dispute something you said earlier,
Capitan, given how much Señorita Chavez spends in your bed, she
needed neither her own bed nor her dresses.”
It is a stab in the dark, but it works. He goes red, as do you. Another
shot hits its target, this time my thigh. I grunt, which turns into a
groan as the Capitan plants his booted foot on the wound and presses
down. The night I ran away from my former master is repeating itself.
The Capitan leans forward and looks down his long nose at me. “I
won’t kill you, but I need not sell you in one piece!” he says.
Someone else groans, and we all turn toward the source. The
guardsman holding you is a writhing ball on the ground, one hand on
his foot and the other on his groin. As the Capitan turns his rifle on
you, to my infinite surprise, you tug the necklace off so hard that it
snaps — and smash the pendant against the column behind you.
The cemetery is flooded with light.
When it recedes, some guardsmen are on the ground while the others
stagger between graves like drunkards. All are shouting and clutching
their faces.
“My eyes, my eyes!”
“I can’t see!”
“Dios mio! Help! Help!”
And in the midst of it all, you stand there radiant in white, flowers in
your hair, power crackling at your fingertips, the orb haloing your
head. Awe and pride bloom within me, a natural reaction every time I
see you. Some things just don’t change.
While they stumble about, you remove the bullets and close the
wounds of the men who’ve been shot because you don’t believe in
unnecessary death no matter your form. Then you stand up and flex
your fingers.
The ground trembles as the sapling grows into a sturdy tree before my
very eyes. Branches as wide as a man and pliable as vines, with each
movement creaking like ships and cracking like thunder, knock out the
remaining guards with solid conks to their heads. They wrap
themselves around the limp bodies and pin them to the wrought-iron
fence, the Capitan last of all. What I’d give to see their faces once they
awaken.
Yet my own vision is swimming, clouding, blackening. The last thing I
see is you turning to me, running, kneeling at my side.
As my eyes close, I swear I hear you call out my name.

XI.
I wake with a start in my own grove, no longer bleeding or in pain. I
can’t be blamed for thinking that everything that happened in the
cemetery was a dream, or that I’d died. But neither situation is true.
There is a slight pucker of a scar on my shoulder and its twin is on my
thigh, both a lighter green than my skin. They twinge slightly when I
stretch and when I walk, and I know they will be there no matter what
form I take. My mind is on you, however.
Once I step out of the grove, Delonix says, Finally. I thought another
day and night would pass with you unconscious.
He’s awake! He’s awake! Hundreds of flowers rustle and echo.
“Where is Maria?” I ask at large. Again, hundreds of voices make
themselves heard, all with wildly different answers. But one voice
speaks above them all.
“I’m here,” you say.
Stray giggles and whispers punctuate the sort-of hush that falls over
the flora. I spin in the direction of your voice and drop to one knee, my
heart pounding in my throat. I want to catch you in my arms and kiss
you and dance all at once — but your face is blank, and what’s more, it
will take three long strides to get to you. Why are you standing so far
away? Are you angry with me?
You close the distance between us by two strides. “Why do you kneel?
Stand up.”
“You are the diwata of the mountain,” I say, as if that will explain it.
“Is that all I am to you?” There is something in your question that
makes me look up, wondering, hopeful. You hold your hand out as I
do; my cowrie shell necklace, undamaged and completely whole,
dangles from your fingers as you say, “This is yours.”
You’re both Maria the diwata of the mountain and Maria the human
woman. Everything and nothing has changed. I feel as if magic lingers
where your fingers brush mine when I take the necklace from you and
put it on. To distract myself, I ask you, “How long have you known that
the white stone was in the necklace?”
Your dark eyes bore into mine. I feel a little faint, but hold my ground.
“Only when you gave it to me, and I had that vision.”
“It seemed like you never really wanted it.”
“I admit that I would’ve wanted to know about my parents sooner. But
some part of me also didn’t want to know. Besides, you’re grumpy but
kind. You didn’t treat me like a servant or a slave. I’d have been an
idiot to leave such good conditions.”
Is that the only reason you didn’t leave, though? I’m disappointed, but
I try not to show it. “And how long have you known about what the
stone can do?”
“A week or two? Although small, strange things have been happening
to me all my life: I could grow crops quicker, soothe the farm animals
better, and any injuries healed unusually fast. What Delonix didn’t
hint, I pieced together.”
“You told her?” I raise my voice so that Delonix would know I was
speaking to her.
She said hint. I only hinted. Besides, you weren’t going to hint or
reveal a thing, Delonix said.
Not a thing! Not a thing! So secretive for no reason! The flowers
whisper-scream.
“Good point,” I concede.
“My turn to ask questions,” you say. “Why didn’t you just tell me about
any of this?”
For the first time since we started talking, I look away, down at my
own huge, gnarled toes. I clench my fists. “I…I couldn’t. You weren’t
ready to hear it, at first. And when you were…I still wasn’t ready to say
it. I was afraid you’d never forgive me. I’m a fool and a coward, Maria.”
You say nothing for a long while, which makes me think that
you are angry with me. I won’t blame you if you leave and never come
back. Instead, your bare feet pad into view; I’m surprised when I feel
your soft palms on either side of my face. I lift my gaze, startled by
your nearness.
“Hmph. Well, you could’ve avoided getting shot if you’d just stayed
home. I would’ve smashed the necklace anyway and handled the
Guardia Civil by myself.” For the first time since we started talking,
you smile, and it lights up your eyes. Perhaps you even feel the rapid
beating of my heart; every part of my body certainly does.
“I don’t doubt that you would have,” I say. In spite of myself, my lips
spread into a grin.
“Sweet talker,” Your hand trails down my face, down my neck, to the
scar on my shoulder, causing a shudder to travel down my spine.
You’re wearing a small frown, however, as you examine the pale scar.
“I had every intention of telling you about my parents once I returned
from marking their grave,” you say as you trace its grooves. “But I
didn’t plan beyond that. The risk of me getting caught was too great.”
A single tear tumbles down your cheek. I think your parents would’ve
been proud — as proud as I am, if not prouder — if they could see you
now, and I say so. I catch another tear on the tip of my finger. You
wipe the rest with the back of your hand.
“You weren’t meant to follow me,” you continue, resting your fist over
the scar. “I didn’t want you getting hurt. It was like the night we met
all over again.”
“How is it that you still don’t understand?” I press my hand over
yours, flattening it against my chest. If you hadn’t felt my heartbeat
before, you most certainly do now. “I would have followed you either
way.”
It’s your turn to gaze down at my feet now. I rest my forehead atop
your head and inhale its sweet coconut-and-calachuchi smell. My
other hand circles your waist and pulls you closer.
I hear the flowers holding their breath. Some are squealing as quietly
as they can. I’m too lost in these moments with you to care.
“Do you prefer me looking like a human?” I ask.
Your gaze meets mine. Our noses, our lips, are suddenly much closer.
“Ezequiel, you idiot,” you say, your tears streaming, and although your
voice is a touch irritated, I am thrilled to hear it saying my name, at
last. “I prefer you. I’ve told you that countless times in different ways!”
I laugh, and as I do, I change into my human form and stop the
transformation halfway. Greenish hues play against the black skin,
and my hands and feet are of differing sizes. You giggle. Nothing’s
changed, and it’s more than I deserve.
As I change back, I blurt, “Maria. I’m sorry — about everything.”
Your eyes fall on my lips. Your fingers are already trailing over them.
“I already forgave you a long time ago.”
I take your chin and kiss you so softly, our lips barely touch at all. This
is not the kiss I was hoping for on our first meeting in such a long
time, but it is appropriate, given your mix of emotions.
But then you throw your arms around my neck and kiss me harder,
longer. My disappointment melts away, as does time. You taste like
rain after a long drought and sunshine and salt tears.
I missed you.
I realize that the flowers are cheering when we part.
Finally, you two!
Well, it’s about time!
I almost wilted from the suspense!
You take my hand and tug on it, gesturing down the path. Cheerfully,
you say, “Come on, Ezequiel, those farmers could use a little nudge.”
I know what you’re thinking. “Toward the fires of revolution?”
“And then some.”
Always jumping in to help others. It’s one of the things I love about
you. But it’s been so long, and just this once I’d like to be the only one
on your mind. I tug your hand in the direction of my grove; you let
yourself fall back into my arms, giving me the opportunity to plant
three slow kisses down your neck.
“Couldn’t the fires of revolution wait until morning?”
You spin around and take my mouth in yours. “All right,” you say in
lowered tones after we part. Lightly, you tap the tip of my nose. “But
only until morning.”