Birthplace

by K. S. Villoso

  She shrugged. “He was an asshole. He deserved it.”

  “I mean...”

  “We’re going to have to try really, really hard to get over this, okay, Pablo?” she said.

  I whimpered.

  “Is that a yes?”

  “I think that’s a yes,” Enrique answered for me. He walked close to us and nudged my leg. “It’s cold and we need to run before the others catch wind of this. Change back.” His eyes were cold and challenging. I didn’t think he believed I could actually do it.

  I dropped my head and obeyed.

  I didn’t know how eating the live flesh of another aswang would affect me other than maybe killing off what little remained of my conscience, because I really didn’t feel sorry for what I did, even when I started thinking it might have been nice to have Ciskong around to tell me more about the lore. But that night we left the village, trying wholeheartedly to ignore the sounds of bolos hacking away at flesh, I felt invigorated. Sated. It made me want to jump on someone’s rooftop and howl away at the moon.

  What I did know was that life, far from being a movie, wasn’t even in the least fair or reasonable. As soon as Enrique and I washed ourselves by a stream and stole clothes to be able to pass off as men again, Rachel Ann stopped talking to me. I thought she was maybe tired from all of this—hell, who wouldn’t be?—but then I noticed she kept away from me too, like there was this big invisible rock between us.

  We got into the first jeepney on the road and Enrique took the seat furthest from us. I sat in the corner closest to the entrance, my elbow draped over the metal rails. Rachel Ann placed about three meters between us. I saw her pull her cellphone out.

  That annoyed me greatly. “You had that all this time?” I retorted. “Why didn’t you call for help?”

  “I had one bar,” she said. She gave me an odd look. “Who would believe me long enough for me to tell them how to save me?”

  “Still!”

  “Will you be quiet, please?” She turned her back to me and started to dial a number. A few unsettling moments later, somebody picked up on the other side, and I heard her mumble, “It’s me. Yeah. Rachel Ann. We got stuck at Pablo’s relatives’ place. The typhoon.”

  I glanced at Enrique. He was looking out of the window, pretending he had nothing to do with any of this. Or perhaps, I thought, he was enjoying the aftereffects of his first good meal in eight years. The wound Ciskong had opened on his neck now seemed nothing more than a scratched-out scab on its way to healing.

  “Yeah. I’m sorry.” She paused. “Mom? I’m pregnant.” Another pause. I could hear her heart thumping, along with the baby’s. “Dad knows, too? Is that why...”

  I wondered if I was the only guy on earth who was clueless up until that last moment. I flipped to the other side of the jeepney and sidled all the way up to Enrique. He glanced at me. “Hey,” I said.

  He nodded once.

  “How hard is it to hide being pregnant? I mean...”

  He shifted his eyes to Rachel Ann without moving his head. “Harder than we think,” he said. “There’s all these little things... sleepiness, exhaustion.” He gave what for him normally passed off as an amused smile. “You feel like an idiot, don’t you? For not figuring it out sooner.”

  “Yeah, something like that.”

  “Ah,” he said. “She hid it from you specifically, you know.”

  He looked like he had something else to say, but then Rachel Ann started talking again. “You’re both mistaken. It’s not Pablo. I know he came out here with me but that’s just—it’s Mark. Pablo was just trying to protect me. Mark’s the father.” She frowned. “Of course I’m sure. Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

  Funny. You’d think if you heard something like that, followed by what you thought was a gun being cocked in the background, that the last emotion you’d ever feel was jealousy. But that’s exactly the feeling I had. Hell, I never even really accepted that I could be jealous of her pasty-faced excuse for a boyfriend until that moment. Here I was after everything—after all I’d done for her, and learned I would do for her—and I was getting shoved to the side for him. Ignore Pablo, he’s not important, it’s Mark...

  I felt Enrique’s firm hand on my shoulder. I must’ve been seething or chewing my own fists. “She told me about this Mark,” he said quietly. “He sounds like such a—”

  “Tool? Asshole? Something to throw out in the middle of the night?”

  “I was going to say like a guy who’s young and doesn’t know any better.”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  “I’m just saying.” He shrugged. “We can still go beat him up if you want.”

  “Aww, thanks. And I didn’t get you a Christmas present.” I sighed. “You’re way too damn nice, Riko. It’s not healthy. Don’t tell me you feel sorry for the villagers, too.”

  We hadn’t really talked about that. I didn’t know their reasons, but see, I thought that we went up there in the first place to get even with those bastards. Think about all the people they’d killed over the years... all those little children their parents probably still think were lost out there in the world. I thought that sick feeling in my stomach that came from watching them mindlessly slaughtered in their human forms would pass once we got out of there.

  It hadn’t, of course. Life suprised you like that. Something that was so important a few days ago now seemed like a fart in the wind. I heard Enrique sigh, and imagined he must think I was some sort of social retard with no amount of empathy whatsoever. He was probably right, too.

  But all he said was, “It’s tough to let go of the only life you know. At least, the only life I could’ve turned to. They might be... the way they were... but now I have no one.”

  “You insult me,” I snorted. “You’ve got me. Even though I’m sure I’ll regret saying that.”

  He stirred. “Thanks.”

  “Just don’t go about announcing it to the world,” I said.

  We heard Rachel Ann fall silent. She was slumping back into her seat now, one hand over her eyes. The other was holding a dead cellphone.

  Enrique nudged me. I grabbed the top rail and pulled myself over to her side.

  “Hi,” I said.

  She looked at me. She shouldn’t have looked so sad when she looked at me. “Mom’s going to call Mark’s parents,” she said. “We’re going to have a talk about this when I get back. A decent conversation. She promised.”

  “That’s good,” I said, which was not how I actually felt.

  vShe saw something, and reached with her hand to clasp the ring pendant on the chain around my neck. I hadn’t taken it that first time. I’d picked it up from the ground on the way out of the village. She traced the small markings with her fingernail. “I’ve always wondered where you got this from,” she said. “Who had it before. If it was from a lover, and did they lose it, or throw it, or...?”

  “What makes you think I didn’t buy it for you?”

  That made her smile. She got me, of course. It made all of this so much harder to accept.

  “Enrique’s my brother, by the way.”

  She looked confused. “What?”

  “He’s my kuya. Dad—let’s just say he doesn’t have as squeaky clean of an image as he makes it seem.” I smiled. “I just wanted to let you know. Before you start accusing me of lying to you again.”

  “I never...” she started. And then she glanced at Enrique and then back at me. “I suppose that’s why he was so familiar. In a way. Why I trusted him so quickly.”

  I didn’t say anything, but she must have read into my thoughts, because I felt her hand ease its way past my knee and on my own. “I do trust you too,” she whispered. “Even when you don’t exactly come off as trustworthy most days… I trust you. More than you’ll ever know.”

  I choked back my tears and turned away. I squeezed my fingers.

  “This will all get so very complicated from now on, Pablo. You’ll have to...”

  I took her hand and
placed it over my lips. It was the closest thing I could get to kissing her again without having to beg for it. “I’m sorry,” I said, because I didn’t think I could ever stop loving her.

  She nodded. Pulled away, but only so she could place her head on my lap and pull my arms around her. It was enough. It would have to be, for now.

  The jeepney continued to creak down the road as the sun appeared in the sky. I thought I heard a scream tear through the air in the distance, but I turned my head away and stayed where I was. I’d decided it would take a shovel and a lot of grunt force to get me to budge from this seat.

  It was probably just my imagination, anyway.

  Epilogue

  * * *

  * * *

  My parents were waiting for me on the porch at Auntie Sabelle’s. I smelled them before I saw them, and I stopped. Enrique grabbed my elbow. “You have to face them, Pablo,” he said.

  “I just wanted to grab my things,” I murmured. “I really don’t need this right now.”

  “It’s better this way. I’ll be right beside you the whole time.” Looking at him standing there, tall and straight, I almost believed him.

  We sauntered over to the gate. My mom saw me for the first time and got up, tears welling in her eyes. My dad, who must’ve been aware of us at the same time we were aware of him, didn’t turn. “Sit down, Gloria,” he said. “Pablo.”

  “Glad to see you flew all the way here just to see me,” I said sarcastically.

  I saw his eyes flare. I could almost see myself in them, upside-down. It’s funny, but the only thing I could think of, even as the rage began to seep in me, was how I’d never really looked into them before. But then again, if I had, would I have believed it?

  “My stuff’s in the room,” I told Enrique. “In a bag under the bed.”

  “Enrique,” my dad growled. “I need to talk to you after.”

  “I think you need to talk to Pablo,” Enrique murmured. He dropped his head and ducked into the front door, smoothly moving past Auntie Sabelle, who tried to block him. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. Maybe growing up without Dad screaming at him every which way made him immune to the anger in his voice.

  Which left me standing there alone. I realized, a little too late, that I was shaking. I glanced at my mom. “I don’t want to go to Canada,” I said.

  “That’s not your decision,” she murmured.

  “It is. It’s my life, isn’t it?”

  “He just wants to stay with that girl,” Dad snorted. “That slut.”

  “Rachel Ann is not a slut,” I said.

  My mom blinked. Clearly, this revelation was new to her. Well—she had to hear it sometime.

  “I’ve had enough of this childish prattle,” my dad said. He lifted his arm, meaning to hit me with it. I didn’t flinch. I was shaking, but I stood my ground, staring at him. I turned my head away from my mom, so she wouldn’t see, and bared my fangs at him.

  He took a step back. “Shit, no,” he murmured.

  “Oh shit, yes,” I said, grinning at him. “What did you expect, with all your lies?”

  “I was trying to protect you, Pablo.”

  “How can you do that if you’re never straight with me?” I wanted to yell, but for some reason, I was able to keep my voice even. I saw Enrique step out of the door again, bag in his hands. I turned to my mom. “Neither of you questioned their reason for why I was being expelled. You got the letter, and you took their word for it. You could’ve asked me. You could’ve defended me. You could’ve gotten a drug test. I wouldn’t have said no. Would’ve passed the damn thing, all flying colours, but it’s too late now. You wouldn’t even look at me, let alone talk to me.”

  My mom placed her hands over her mouth. “They said you were caught red-handed.”

  “It was Mark’s friend,” I said. “They were smoking the stuff outside the school grounds. When they left, I saw that someone had dropped a wallet. I picked it up and opened it, to see whose it was, and the drugs fell out just as that teacher was walking by. When he asked me, I…” I swallowed. “I didn’t say. I didn’t want them to get into trouble. They were Mark’s friends. Mark was with Rachel Ann. It would’ve ruined her.”

  “Bullshit,” my dad said.

  I looked at him. “And that’s why I never bothered.” I held my hand out, and Enrique placed the bag in it. “Thanks for everything, but I’m leaving for good.” I turned to my mom. She was crying. I told myself it was better this way.

  Nobody stopped us when we went back out into the street. Enrique didn’t say anything until we had reached the road. “Mark’s friend…” he started.

  “Yeah. Maybe I lied a little,” I said. “It was Mark.”

  “Still protecting her, huh?”

  “I will. All my life.” My phone had started ringing. I picked it up. It wasn’t a number I recognized, but I figured who it was. I contemplated turning it off immediately, or letting it go through, but I picked it up and answered.

  “Pablo.” My dad’s voice was hoarse on the other line. “Come back. I love you.”

  Tears stung my eyes. “I’m sorry,” I said. I didn’t wait to hear what else he had to say. I pressed the phone into my palm, took a step back, and threw it. I watched it sail through the air and disappear behind a fence or on a rooftop somewhere, taking my dad’s voice with it. I hoped it would stay that way.

  “Come,” Enrique said.

  I turned and followed my brother into my new life.

  About the Author

  * * *

  * * *

  Growing up in a squatter's settlement in Taguig, Manila, I was fortunate enough to be an only child and have parents who could afford small luxuries, like old computers and the occasional classic novel (which were always on sale). Because I was barely allowed to go outside, most of my time was spent looking in...reading, writing, pretending.

  We migrated to Canada in 2000. I learned that the world could be less dirty and that you didn't have to fall into open-air sewer ditches all the time. That there were libraries where books were free. Still, loneliness seized me, and as if I wasn't already writing enough, I wrote even more.

  I have now spent over 22 years trying to master this craft. Most days, I'm convinced I am absolutely incompetent at it. I published my debut novel, Jaeth's Eye, recently, partly because I thought it was ready, but mostly because I was getting sick of it after two completely different, hundred-some-thousand-word drafts. I am now working on wrapping up Book 2 of that series, as well as polishing up the final draft of my YA urban fantasy/paranormal novel. Don't be afraid to send me a message or ask me any questions; I don't bite (often).