The Earth-Healers

by Cyan Abad-Jugo

  “What are they?” cried Jopi.

  “They are the earth’s crust itself,” answered Tim.

  Some giants grimaced, as if struggling to surface from some dream.

  Jopi gaped at Tim in disbelief. “Earth’s crust? They look like … giants …” Jopi stopped.

  “That’s because you think that the Earth, your planet, is just one huge solid mass. It’s not. It’s made of a ball of gas in the middle, and layers and layers of air and fire, earth and rock. You see underground now with new eyes. They have a spell on them, thanks to Guyabano.”

  “I’m under a spell?” Jopi looked down at himself. And then he remembered he had been riding the back of a rat for many hours now. At the very least, he was under his weight and under his height.

  Tim nodded at him sagely. “Yes, Jopi, touching the cow has given you powers none of the other people above have. You could understand the cow, and you can understand me. The spell has also let you change size, and withstand extreme temperatures.”

  “I understand all that,” said Jopi, nodding back. “But the question is, why?”

  “The spell chose you,” said Tim. “It must mean that you can help us, the creatures of the earth.”

  Jopi remembered the monkey-like shadows in the trees, their mournful faces, and the one request to save them. He began to tell Tim about them.

  “Yes, the tree-spirits,” said Tim. “So you saw them too, did you? I guess that means they feel it, too.”

  “Feel what?”

  Tim sighed. “Danger. All of us sense it. We are all in terrible danger.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Drill And Danger

  D anger,” the rat had said. Danger everywhere—in these mines, and under them, farther than anyone had ever gone before.

  “Well, yes,” said Jopi, “what could be more dangerous than a sleeping giant falling on top of you?” He began to feel angry with Tim for bringing him here.

  “Well, there’s the even greater danger of the giant waking up,” said Tim.

  “Thanks a lot!”

  There was a slight tremor which hummed a moment under his feet. Jopi wished he had not raised his voice above a whisper. He looked at the sleeping giants nearest him, then at the long dark tunnel they had come from.

  “It’s time to go then,” Jopi decided, walking backward, keeping an eye on the giants. Then he saw more.

  Up and down these giants climbed a multitude of creatures, busy smoothing brows and stroking an arm or a leg gashed deep by all the movement around it. The creatures looked like children, but from the top of their heads to their toes, they were covered in long, silver, gossamer strands of hair. In the orange light escaping from below, they shone faintly like stars.

  “Earth-healers,” said Tim. “They live here below-ground among the giants. They sing them to sleep and heal their pain.”

  “The giants are in pain?” asked Jopi. He could believe it just by looking at their faces, the moving around when their sleep became troubled, the shower of dust and pebble as the heavy hand of one brushed and made a rent against the cheek of another. What he could not believe was the tenderness and care the Earth-healers had for them. Why would they care for these giants?

  Tim waved at three Earth-healers stepping lightly toward them. “Here come Thetys and her brothers, Pange and Rodin.”

  They nodded to Tim, and more than half-bowed to Jopi.

  “Please help us,” said Thetys, her eyes sparkling like black diamonds. “You are our hope.”

  “Me?” cried Jopi.

  “There isn’t much time,” said Pange. “Too many giants have been disturbed from their sleep. If just one wakes, he’ll be angry, and there will be a tremblor.”

  “An earthquake,” said Rodin, “which could destroy Mount Zoilo, and set off volcanoes, or unleash the river into your town. We can’t predict what will happen, but the result will be the same.”

  “Many deaths. Much suffering.” Thetys kneeled and faced Jopi. There was a bald patch around her eyes, which made her look sad and tired. “The Mayor’s drill, he has driven it in too deep. We can’t hold out much longer, we are growing weak, and the giants are wounding and waking.”

  “So they want me to talk to the Mayor,” thought Jopi, nearly choking.

  He could not even remember what the Mayor looked like. The Mayor often rode past Molles Village on the way to the mines in his car, but the tint on the windows were so dark that it was impossible to look in. Then he was followed by lots of big, burly men on motorcycles. Those men Jopi could picture in his mind; one almost ran him down just the week before. Had Eddie worked for the Mayor, he would have been the best of them, except he didn’t look so tough and mean.

  “You have to try,” whispered Thetys. She cupped Jopi in her hands—because he was still the same size as Tim—and she stroked his cheeks with her thumbs. He felt quiet and becalmed, and fell asleep with a song in his ear. And then he dreamt he was an Earth-healer, trying to soothe an awakened giant. He felt himself squeezed by a stony fist and gasped.

  Jopi woke in a sea of sweat, scrabbling at his mat. “Stop that scratching,” scolded Aling Dalia, and he sat up in a panic. Where was Tim? Where were the Earth-healers? Suddenly, the world roared.

  “It’s the drill!” cried Jopi.

  “Of course,” said Aling Dalia, “they always warm it up before eight.”

  She was putting away the remains of Mang Pedring’s breakfast. Jopi’s father had already left to drive some of the residents of Molles Village to the jeepney terminal, where they could catch a ride to the mines.

  Jopi leapt up. “I should have gone with Tatay! I should go to the mountain, talk to the workers, tell the Mayor to stop!”

  Jopi ran out of the room, and onto the road. As Aling Dalia yelled for him to come back, the earth beneath him groaned, and he stumbled. He was surprised to see that the people around him had felt nothing, and went on feeding their chickens, cows, ducks and pigs. Two of his neighbors helped him up.

  “I’m fine, I’m fine,” said Jopi, twisting from their grasp for fear they would take him back to his mother, “but I need to find the Mayor.”

  They laughed at him. “Have you checked the next mountain?”

  “Find the Mayor,” chittered the trees, and Jopi could see them, the tree-spirits, joining voices.

  “Find the Mayor!” murmured the ground, making the fowl whirl above their heads in a flurry of feathers.

  The villagers stopped laughing and looked at their uneasy animals. The pigs and cows lowered their heads and slumped to their bellies. Except for Guyabano, who came charging through the plaza just then, followed by Mang Gorio.

  “Help!” called Mang Gorio. “The cow has gone berserk!”

  But Guyabano, her tether lose around her white neck, had already slowed to a halt before Jopi. “You have to go now, Jopi.”

  “Tell the Mayor,” trembled the earth.

  “Tell the Mayor!” whispered the trees.

  “I need to talk to the Mayor!” said Jopi.

  More villagers had gathered around them, eager for a show, while the cow stood calmly beside Jopi.

  “Take my jeepney,” Mang Adan spoke up, eyeing the cow. “You’ll get to the Mayor faster this way. You can drive, right?”

  Jopi stared at him until he realized Mang Adan was talking to Eddie, who had joined him with his mother, Aling Cita, in tow.

  Eddie led the way to the jeepney terminal where Mang Adan handed him the keys. Jopi clambered up to sit in front with Aling Cita and Eddie. A few of their neighbors boarded at the back.

  “There’s no time to lose,” said Jopi.

  CHAPTER 5

  The Awakened Giant

  E ddie dropped them off just outside the wire fence and the gate that closed off the mines. They could see some people moving in and out of a tunnel entrance, the miners who worked above and below the surface of the earth, and the workers and truckers who manned the drill. The foreman, Mr. Munuri, met them, wrinkling his forehead at the
crowd, and wringing his hands. “What are you doing? What do you want? No onlookers allowed here.”

  “I need to talk to the Mayor,” said Aling Cita.

  Mr. Munuri frowned at her. “You know you are not welcome here. You have been turned away once before.”

  “I haven’t,” said Jopi, surprising everyone, including himself. “So you will let me in.”

  Mr. Munuri was taken aback. He was not used to taking commands from children, especially not a young boy with blazing orange eyes, which dazzled him in the daylight. “We’ll see,” said Mr. Munuri. “Please follow me? And everyone else has to wait outside the barrier.”

  Mr. Munuri led Jopi into a shed next to the main entrance of the nearest mine. There were workers here, too, using wheelbarrows and buckets to carry the rocklike ore and pile them against the walls. More of them collected these rocks and placed them inside rotating drums, where they poured a thick, muddy, metallic-smelling liquid.

  When Jopi turned his head away from the burning smell of the fumes, he caught sight of the next room. There were tables, with pails and basins on top of them. Jopi tried to look at what were inside the basins, but Mr. Munuri, recovering himself in the shade, saw where Jopi was looking and closed the door. So, Jopi thought, that was the room where the gold was filtered out from the sludge that came from the rotating drums. Jopi had always wanted to see what a gold nugget looked like.

  “Here comes the Mayor now,” Mr. Munuri gestured out the window to their right. “You better not be wasting his time, boy.”

  Jopi pretended not to hear him. He watched from the window as the Mayor came out of the makeshift, air-conditioned office at the top of the mountain. He wasn’t much too look at, just a short, round man with a mop of hair and gold-rimmed glasses that glinted in the sun. What worried him more were the men around him, big and tall and like giants themselves. Jopi was relieved when the men showed no signs of entering the room with the Mayor. Two positioned themselves at the door, while two others stationed themselves outside on either side of the window.

  The Mayor frowned at Mr. Munuri when he caught sight of Jopi. “Who is this, Munuri? What is he doing on my property?”

  Mr. Munuri glanced at Jopi, and Jopi took it to mean it was his turn to speak.

  “You must stop drilling right away, sir,” began Jopi.

  Mr. Munuri and the Mayor exchanged glances. The Mayor looked very angry. “You brought me another protester? You are really beginning to waste my time, Munuri. Maybe you prefer some other job?”

  Jopi cleared his throat. “If you continue, sir, we will all be in terrible danger.”

  “Danger? Who are you, boy, to threaten me in this way?” He grabbed Jopi by the collar and dragged him toward the door. “It is you who are in danger—of a good beating once I report you to your parents. Don’t you know who I am?”

  Jopi bowed his head, unable to look at the Mayor’s puffed-up face, his glaring red eyes, and the pulsing vein on his forehead. The Mayor pushed him out into the bright sunlight. Jopi blinked. He could see that Aling Cita, Eddie, and all the folk who had accompanied them from Molles Village, were still waiting for him. But someone had let them in through the now-open gate.

  This angered the Mayor all the more. “Do you know who I am?” he addressed the crowd. “I took care of things so that now the mountain has given us gold, more gold than we could possibly imagine.” He waved his hand, and some of his men, waiting for the signal, opened another shed bursting with sacks and barrels of gold. “I also took care of you, I gave you jobs. What more do you want me to do?”

  Suddenly, the ground shuddered. Many of those working underground rushed to the surface, screaming. Jopi took his chance and broke free from the Mayor. “Hey!”

  Jopi dashed toward the sixteen-wheeler truck and hurled himself up to face the monster drill. The worker manning the drill gaped at him through the window of his tiny booth. “Stop!” said Jopi.

  The ground shook, and people cried out. The Mayor’s bodyguards hesitated, and the workers, most of whom were people from Jopi’s village, clung to the bodyguards, begging for help.

  “All those not working will be fired,” yelled the Mayor, “and have no share of the gold. I am warning you!”

  The ground rocked, and the Mayor’s makeshift office slid down the mountain face along with the boulders and trees, toward the people. The drill juddered to a stop.

  In the sudden hush, the earth tore open like a blanket ripped in half, and a giant yawned awake. Silvery-white creatures ran across his chest like so many spiders, and tried to restrain him, but he roared and flung them aside.

  Meanwhile, the Mayor endeavored to keep the people away from his shed of gold. His bodyguards headed them off, but some escaped their clutches and snatched at the sacks. They dragged these to the chasm and tumbled them in heaps.

  The giant was distracted by the shower of gold and then by the Mayor, who tried to take it all back. The giant grabbed him to take a closer look, as the Earth-healers hurriedly plumped up the sacks of gold into dozens of pillows around him. The taller ones among them called to the giant to try out his new bed.

  There was a pause, as if the whole world held its breath.

  And then the giant lay down and settled in to sleep.

  In their attempt to return the gold to the mountain, no one paid much attention to the last of the earth’s tremors, the swaying to a sudden standstill. No one heard the voices of the Earth-healers singing the giant to sleep. No one noticed a little boy who slipped from the truck and fell onto the rocks below.

  CHAPTER 6

  The Many Miracles

  I n the news that evening, reporters described the earthquake of Mount Zoilo as a miraculous one. It had cut open the earth, created landslides, and covered up the mines completely. It had caused many injuries, and some destruction of trees and houses. But there were no reported deaths, no talk of sleeping giants or silver spidery creatures. There was only one person missing. No one knew what had happened to the Mayor. He had literally disappeared from the face of the earth.

  Jopi knew more than most. He had fallen on the rocks with a thud that stunned him, but before he could feel anything, he sank into the stone, sifted through the soil, and, like grains of sand, poured gently into the palm of a sleeping giant.

  He was surprised to find himself alive, unbroken, and in one piece.

  Thetys, Pange, and Rodin appeared beside him, and told him to keep still. As Thetys stroked Jopi’s brow, Pange and Rodin sang a song filled with sadness and regret for the mountain. Somehow images of what had happened echoed through Jopi’s mind. The mines had collapsed, with several beams bent or broken, or tunnels filled to the brim with rubble. Some giants had also been harmed, uttering their last garbled words before crumbling to dust.

  Jopi wept. He had not meant to care for the giants, and he felt sad for the sleeping lives they lived, and thought of what they missed above-ground, in the sunshine or under the stars.

  Thetys nodded and said, “You do well to weep for them, Jopi. The giants do much good without getting one word of thanks or understanding from anybody. It is their dreams that feed the earth, that wake dormant seeds, sending them up into the sun to bloom into flowers and plants, trees and vines. It is their dreams that teach the birds to fly, and the fish to swim. It is their dreams that whisper to you on a sunny day, with the wind in your face.”

  As Jopi ceased to cry, the Earth-healers congratulated him for stopping the drill. Had the mine continued its operations, more giants would have wakened. More destruction would have followed. More people would have disappeared. Mount Zoilo might have exploded and buried their village below. This had already happened to other villages in the country. It was why the tree-spirits were so sad, mourning for the folk they had lost in these villages. And then Jopi was restful, and gave in to sleep.

  “Be well, dear one,” they whispered, and for a time Jopi dreamt with the giants.

  When he woke, he found himself in his own bed, his entire
body covered in gashes and huge purple bruises. While Aling Cita tended to his wounds and wrapped them gently in plaster, she told him that her son Eddie had found him lying face down on the rocks. The villagers had panicked when he had gone missing, and had panicked again when they thought he was dead.

  “But what put it in your mind to go to the Mayor like that?” cried Aling Dalia. Her hands, holding the basin of warm water, trembled. Jopi could tell she was working herself up into a scolding. “If you knew about the danger, why did you run toward it? Why didn’t you give warning? Why didn’t you protect our chickens or our vegetables or our laundry? Why didn’t you stop it?”

  In another moment, Jopi was sure his mother was going to blame him for the earthquake itself. Aling Cita interrupted, “He is a brave boy. His arrival put people on their guard, and made them alert to any slight change of temperature or movement in the mines. They all rushed out at the first sign of quake.”

  Aling Dalia turned away, and emptied the basin out the window. She refused to be impressed. “And your father is there in the plaza, feasting with the rest of the village, as if nothing were the matter with you.”

  “But I am alright, Nanay,” protested Jopi, attempting to sit up. Now that his mother had opened the window, he could hear the sounds of celebration more distinctly, the speakers blaring with music, someone on the microphone, followed by cheering.