The Earth-Healers
The Earth-Healers
Story by
Cyan Abad-Jugo
Illustrated by
JC Galag
THE EARTH-HEALERS
Story by Cyan Abad-Jugo
Illustrated by JC Galag
Copyright to this digital edition © 2016 by
Cyan Abad-Jugo and Anvil Publishing, Inc.
Copyright of illustrations © 2016
JC Galag and Anvil Publishing, Inc.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
means without the written permission of the copyright owners.
Published and exclusively distributed by
ANVIL PUBLISHING, INC.
7th Floor, Quad Alpha Centrum
125 Pioneer Street, Mandaluyong City
1550 Philippines
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www.anvilpublishing.com
First printing, 2016
Book design by Joshene Bersales
E-book formatting by Arvyn Cerezo
ISBN 9786214200597 (e-book)
Version 1.0.1
Contents
Acknowledgments
CHAPTER 1
Mang Gorio’s Cow
CHAPTER 2
The Underground Rat
CHAPTER 3
Beneath The Mines
CHAPTER 4
Drill And Danger
CHAPTER 5
The Awakened Giant
CHAPTER 6
The Many Miracles
Guide Questions for Classroom and Book Club Discussions
Acknowledgments
T he Earth-Healers first appeared in serial form every Monday from September 10 to October 15, 2012 in The Learning Section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
I’d like to thank Gilda Cordero-Fernando, who first mentioned me to my editor with kind words and undeserved praise.
Thank you, Chelo Banal-Formoso, Learning Section Editor, for your endless supply of encouragement, and for your unflagging energy in promoting the series. Thank you, Bench, for sponsoring the series. Thank you, Steph Bravo, for showing me what my wonderful characters look like.
Thank you, teachers and students who joined and participated in the reading program. Your responses and letters and essays, your handmade projects and your own written stories, have been an endless source of delight and inspiration. Your feedback has been invaluable. You are the unsung heroes, like Jopi in this book.
Thank you, Anvil Publishing, for making my dream come true and making the series into an illustrated chapter book. Thank you, Joyce Bersales, for being a kind and understanding boss and for helping me do some clear thinking. Thank you, Louise Silvestre, for painstakingly refining this book. Thank you, JC Galag, for your illustrations—a true work of the imagination.
Thank you, Tita Thel, for your enthusiasm, for keeping tabs on the series, and for providing me with copies. Thank you, Mom and Dad, for being my first appreciative readers. Thank you, Micho, for your knowledge of current events, and Colin and Megan, for sharing your love of animals with me. This book is for my dearest friend, Jean, who loves silence and space as much as I do.
CHAPTER 1
Mang Gorio’s Cow
S omething was happening to Mang Gorio’s cow. Every day, more of its brown fur turned white.
“It’s beginning to grow old like me,” said Mang Gorio, pointing to the few strands of white on his otherwise smooth head.
“I hope it’s not growing bald like you, too,” teased Aling Dalia, as her son Jopi gave his uncle a share of their homegrown pechay, gabi, ampalaya, and tomatoes.
As Mang Gorio turned from their door, Jopi called, “Tio, may I look at your cow later?”
Mang Gorio didn’t hear him. Just then three short explosions rang in the next mountain, the booming sound echoing all around them. Birds startled out of trees in all sorts of directions, and the chickens squawked. Work at the mines always began with the mayor’s drill gunning awake.
“I wouldn’t go near that cow if I were you, Jopi. For all you know, it has some kind of strange, infectious disease. Or … or,” Aling Dalia gulped, crossing herself, “it could be under some kind of enchantment.”
Jopi shook his head, but he took care to do it as he slipped out of the house. Now that it was summer, he had to help his mother with the morning’s errands, beginning with drawing water from the village well. Then it was weeding and watering their vegetable patch, sweeping out the yard, and putting up newly washed clothes strung on a line between their two mango trees.
At lunch time there was nilaga, cooked by Eddie, a giant of a man who helped out in many houses around Molles Village. Eddie watched as Jopi gulped down soup and gobbled up meat and rice all dumped together in one bowl. Then, as Jopi wiped his mouth, Eddie said, “When you see the cow, wait for all its hair to turn white. Then, make sure you touch her on the forehead, right between the eyes. Use your point finger.”
Jopi grinned at Eddie. Sometimes Eddie was even stranger than Aling Dalia. But Jopi liked him. Eddie always shared the latest news, like the one about the Mayor bringing in a monster drill from the city, to work the mines in Mount Zoilo. It was attached to a sixteen-wheeler truck and could dig straight down. The Mayor was tired of pickaxes and iron bars. He wanted more gold in less time.
Aling Cita—Eddie’s mother, and the village faith healer—tried to stop him. But the Mayor just laughed in her face, and so did some of the townspeople. They told her to be grateful that the mines in Mount Zoilo provided jobs to more people, and they advised her to send Eddie to work for the Mayor. Instead she asked her son to stay away from the mines, and to work for people in the village.
Jopi drained his glass of water and put it down with a thunk. There was still time to take a peek at the cow before his mother woke from her siesta and found more things for him to do. He waved at Eddie, rushed out the front door and down the lane, crossed the plaza and passed three more streets, to where Mang Gorio lived. He let himself in Mang Gorio’s yard, and approached the cow tethered under the coconut tree.
It showed no signs of alarm or even of awareness that Jopi was there. It stood, unmoving, and Jopi would have thought it a statue, all of white cement, had it not been for the slow and rhythmic swing of its tail. Its tail was white. There remained only one small patch of brown right between the eyes. Was it possible? He blinked and saw just in time the last tufts of brown curl into white.
The cow looked straight at him. “Now,” she said.
And Jopi did as Eddie had instructed him, without really thinking about it. He placed his finger where the last of the fur had just turned white.
The next thing he knew, he was lying down on something flat and hard, and Aling Dalia, Mang Gorio, and Eddie hovered over him.
“I’m telling you it’s just sun stroke,” declared Mang Gorio.
Aling Dalia wrung her hands, saying, “No, it’s the cow, it’s placed a spell on him.”
Jopi looked around and realized he was on the old man’s bed, inside Mang Gorio’s tiny house. Eddie leaned forward and said, “He’s awake now.”
“Joseph!” cried Aling Dalia, and grabbed her son in a tight embrace.
“I’m all right, Nanay,” said Jopi, before he caught sight of himself in Mang Gorio’s mirror. Because the sun shone so brightly through the window, Jopi thought his hair had turned white. When he looked again, his hair was just the same. He rushed out of bed to the window. “Is Guyabano all right?”
“Who’s Guyabano?”
“The cow,” said Jopi, and saw her standing right where he had last s
een her, under the coconut, just swinging her tail as patiently as an almost-statue. “She told me.”
“Really?” said Eddie, rushing to look out the window, too.
“Don’t be silly,” shrilled Aling Dalia. “Just go fetch my husband at the terminal already.”
“Nanay,” said Jopi. “I can walk by myself.”
“No, no, no,” said Aling Dalia. “You lie down until your father comes.”
And that was all Jopi could do the rest of the afternoon—staring at Mang Gorio’s ceiling, not allowed to move or even look at the cow again. His father, Mang Pedring, arrived past five and hurried Jopi to his tricycle so that he would not miss his fares coming home from the mines. Aling Dalia made Jopi sit beside her in the tiny cab rather than on the motorcycle behind his father, fearing he would fall off.
Jopi slumped in the cab, then decided it would be more exciting to look at things upside down. Aling Dalia was too busy shouting at her husband about the cow to mind her son very much. He swung his legs on the seat and lay his head on the floor, gazing up at the trees. It was just before sunset, the sky awash with orange, and the light shone strangely. As Mang Pedring stopped at a traffic light, Jopi thought he saw something hidden in the trees. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. There was a tiny dark face peering at him from among the branches.
CHAPTER 2
The Underground Rat
T here it was, framed by branches, a tiny face in the shadows. As Jopi stared at the creature, two more joined the first and beckoned him. But the tricycle revved up and sputtered down the road, and the creatures shook their heads. Jopi lost sight of them as the tricycle turned the next corner. Then, as several trees whizzed by, Jopi began to see even more faces, all shadowy and blurred.
At the last stop before Jopi’s house, one of these creatures went so far as to dangle from the branch of a tree with his foot, and caressed Jopi’s face. “Save us all, little boy,” he whispered, in a voice like the rustling of leaves. Jopi wanted to hold the creature’s soft hand, surprised by his gentleness as much as his sadness, but the tricycle clattered on, and all the faces retreated into deeper shadow. The sun had set at last.
When he got home, Jopi rushed to their yard. He looked up the two mango trees and waited a long time. Still, nothing moved but their garments on the clothesline. At last his father came back from work, and his mother called him inside to supper. Mang Pedring told them the newest gossip from the terminal. A wooden beam in one of the tunnels at the Mayor’s mine had collapsed, and caused a number of rocks to crash upon some workers. One of them was Mang Celso, who was Mang Gorio’s friend and neighbor.
“It is a good thing,” Aling Dalia remarked, “that the rocks hadn’t fallen directly on his head. That would have been a terrible accident.”
Mang Pedring agreed. Then he turned to Jopi, and said, “Your own accident today cost me some fares, you know. At about that time, a lot of the miners were on the way home.”
“It wasn’t an accident, Tatay. The cow that turned white spoke and—”
“Stop arguing with your father,” said Aling Dalia.
“Stop that nonsense,” said Mang Pedring.
And then it was time for sleep.
In the middle of the night, Jopi jolted awake. He listened for his father’s snore and his mother’s softer purr, then heard the sound again. It was under his banig, which he rolled to one side. Stiff and stringy strands of silver pricked up between the slats of bamboo. The scratching continued, and Jopi realized it was a rat.
“Can you please open up?” said the rat. “I need to talk to you.”
Jopi looked at the bed where his parents lay, and imagined what would happen if his mother woke just as he let the rat in. “Sorry,” said Jopi, “I can’t let you.”
“Very well. Then can you come down here instead?”
“I’m a little too big to fit under the floor,” said Jopi.
“Just grab one of my whiskers,” and what Jopi thought of as nylon threads wiggled at him. “But gently.”
With thumb and forefinger, Jopi took hold of a whisker. He had just enough time to think that it was as white as Guyabano’s fur when he found himself pulled through the slats and as small as the rat.
“The name’s Tim, short for Itim.” He was possibly the blackest rat Jopi had ever seen, except that in all Jopi’s ten years he had never really been this close to a rat before. Tim winked, and held out his forepaw. Jopi shrugged and shook the paw, because now that he was underside, he was sure his mother wouldn’t notice.
“Well, hop on,” said Tim.
The rat moved quickly through dark and winding, narrow tunnels. Somehow they always managed to squeeze through, the rat’s silvery whiskers first, then neck, then back, with Jopi in tow, and the tail last. Soon the way led up to wide-open caverns, with manmade beams and steel structures, so that Jopi knew they were at the Mount Zoilo Mines.
“What are we doing here?” demanded Jopi.
“We have to follow one of the shafts downward,” said Tim.
“But my father will be angry. He says the mines are dangerous,” said Jopi, remembering his mother and father’s conversation that night.
“Yes, it’s very dangerous,” said Tim, weaving this way and that among wheelbarrows and tin pails. “That is why we have to do this.”
Jopi was much too interested now to argue. He had never been to the mines before, and his father only drove his tricycle as far as the jeepney terminals, to take back and forth their neighbors who were miners. In their family, only Mang Gorio had ever worked there, and only for a short time when the mine started operations. A dynamite had nearly blown off his hand, Aling Dalia told Jopi once. But Tio Gorio merely said that the dust in the mines had been too much for his lungs.
Jopi looked around him. Somehow he could see in the darkness. On one side of the cavern were racks and piles of shovels, picks, and iron bars. Beside these tools, he could make out an entryway which framed the midnight sky, and a part of him longed to go toward the open air. But then Tim turned to the tunnels that led deeper into the ground, racing into one and then another shaft, further and further downhill. And Jopi saw a darker night.
CHAPTER 3
Beneath The Mines
T he way downward, through tunnels and shafts, grew pitch-black. Soon, it grew colder, too, and Jopi attempted to bury himself in the rat’s fur. He felt as if he were freezing into an icy pebble, crystallizing into a diamond, and just when he thought he could bear it no longer, when he thought he would stiffen and fall off, the feeling came back to his fingers, his hands, his toes, and his feet.
“Is it much farther, Tim?” asked Jopi, gasping.
Tim paused, and looked over his shoulder at the boy. “We’ll have to go some ways more,” said Tim, “but not too far down or you will burn into a crisp.”
Burning into a crisp seemed better than turning into a popsicle.
“Where are we going, exactly?”
Tim considered him with dark, round eyes. His whiskers quivered with excitement. “We’re going to the earth’s crust, deep into the Hot Regions, right at the outskirts of Peridotite.”
Jopi had never heard of such a place. He settled back down on the rat, and tried not to pull on Tim’s fur too much. Still, it became more and more difficult to keep his balance. Even Tim began to slip on stones and on rubble.
Then Jopi realized that he was no longer cold. In fact, his hands and legs had become sweaty, and he kept sliding away on the rat’s coarse fur. Tim was panting. Jopi began to think he was sitting in an oven, with the knob turning slowly from low to medium to high. He expected himself to burst into flames at any moment.
Now he preferred turning into a popsicle.
The way narrowed, and the ground beneath them, or the walls around them, began to change shape, making Tim more and more unsteady on his feet. Then there came such a swaying and shaking that Tim stumbled and Jopi fell off him, and the earthquake lasted so long that Tim and Jopi tumbled around like two stones in a
jar, crying out in fear and pain, not knowing whose hands and paws and arms and legs were whose.
Jopi screamed, as he was sure there were more and more hands and legs that brushed against him, and not one of them belonged to Tim. Finally, the quaking ceased, shuddering to a stop, or perhaps to draw breath for the next seismic instant.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” said Tim, his tail drooping. “I had to bring you here or you wouldn’t have understood. Look, look,” and he gestured with his front paw ahead of them, where their small tunnel gave way to a fissure with no discernible top or bottom.
Or perhaps, directly below, one could just glimpse a lake of some kind, but rather thick and nearly solid, black and somewhat orange. Boiling, broiling, unbearable heat blasted into his face the moment Jopi peered down.
Stumbling backward, he looked across the fissure, just an arm’s breadth away from him, and he thought he could imagine the face of a giant. Jopi startled and stepped back some more. And then he saw—all the way to the top and all the way to the bottom—that there were giants sleeping.
Yes, giants. They could be nothing else. Side by side and foot to foot, heaped high, one on top of another, in a great, big, hopeless, tangled pile. Some had their arms or legs around another, and some seemed stuck at the head or hip or elbow. He could not tell if they were rock or flesh and bone, but he could make out their marbly faces, brown and gray, black and blue and yellow, more enormous than even Eddie could be.
When he focused on one, he could see the closed eyes, the curved cheeks resting on an open palm, the limbs that barely stirred. When a giant wanted to shift in his sleep, he caused another giant to turn, or many together at the same time. Sometimes many bodies, far apart, moved at once. Each movement shook the ground and made a sound, from a tiny scritch to a scrape to a scrunch to a grind and a groan. Their very breath made the air hum and rumble.
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