The Difficult Loves of Maria Makiling

by Wayne Santos

  The Filipina nurse went back to Maria. “Come,” she said. “You have to let them work.”

  But it wouldn’t work. They were going to try, with the very best of intentions, but nothing they were going to do would help now. Maria knew. She could see from the way Tate’s body seized, and he arched his back. His eyes darted everywhere, and in flashes, just for a quick instant, Maria saw the same googly eyes and rictus grin she’d seen on the dwarf hanging off that guy’s neck in the SUV.

  That’s when it finally washed over her, like a flood she hadn’t been expecting. The nurse pushed her away. Tate thrashed, even as the doctor and the other nurse struggled pointlessly to treat him. The anger had been missing, but it was here, now, enveloping her, mixing with the fear and the love, a trinity of emotion that, when they united, felt like they broke something inside her.

  And that something was now coming out.

  And why the fuck shouldn’t she just let it out?

  So she did.

  Heat rushed to Maria’s face. Then it wasn’t just a warm sensation, it was actual heat, and light. Her hands were glowing, a faint green at first, becoming brighter and more intense, and the high-pitched hum that had played through her head ever since Tate started dying deepened—lower, louder—rumbling through her, then through the floor, shaking the room.

  The nurse with Maria screamed and backed away. The doctor and the nurse at Tate’s bed took a few seconds more to process that something of a higher priority was happening in the room. When they saw the glowing green woman with rage and terror and love in her heart and the unstoppable momentum of a freight train, they gave Maria the room she was due.

  It was like her mind was a house, like a door, down in some locked-away portion of the basement that she had forgotten about, suddenly opened. Memories she didn’t even know she had flowed through her mind and some semblance of understanding settled down in 21st-century Maria Malihan.

  This wasn’t her first rodeo. Not her first dying love.

  But maybe today, it could be the last.

  She had power. She didn’t have all of it yet, wasn’t even sure how much she’d have under optimal circumstances. But even this first, dim understanding of who she really was, and where she came from, had unlocked the forces sleeping right under her fingertips, beneath her eyelids, in the soles of her feet with every stride she took.

  Sounds filled Maria’s ears. Tate’s erratic heartbeat, the arrhythmic pumping of blood in his veins, his stuttering breath—and beyond that, the sounds and murmurs of patients in this hospital. And beyond that, the traffic, the motors, the grinding gears of elevators, escalators, sewage systems. And beyond that, the leaves rustling in the wind. The birds singing to each other, as raccoons slept, and wolves prowled woods, looking for rabbits that hid in the brush.

  Maria concentrated on those sounds, the natural ones, the ones that filled her and energized her, made her realize who she really was, and used them as her anchor. From those sounds, it became easier to smell the leaves and animals and flowers and water on the lake. Then to feel the heat of the sun, the tickle of soil underfoot. And somewhere off in the distance, mountains. Not her mountain, but mountains nonetheless, and they recognized her as a daughter, and lent her their power and majesty. It wasn’t everything it could have been, she hadn’t come into herself completely.

  But it was something.

  She had to discard Maria Malihan for now, or at least, big chunks of her, like the part wildly screaming what the fuck internally at what was happening right now. Older instincts were taking over, and they would get done what needed doing.

  She walked towards Tate, and he looked like he was getting smaller, more delicate, until Maria realized that she was just getting bigger, the ceiling coming down to greet her.

  She had to kneel, her larger hands easily cupping his face, as if he were a child. A dying, broken child. And when her skin made contact with his troubled flesh, she felt it inside.

  The fucking dwarf was in there somewhere, continuing to wreck him. To kill him. It was making sure it finished the job, and Maria now had a dim understanding of why, compounding her rage.

  But first, the purification.

  She was not going to ask to be excused by the Dwarf, even now the words “Tabi-tabi po” came naturally to her mind and her tongue, in the same way that the name for the Dwarf’s kind—Duwende—was rising in her memory. Maria might not have known how to handle borderline advances from executives higher up the corporate ladder, but right now, with this little supernatural pissant about to kill her boyfriend, she knew exactly what to do.

  She flooded out the little bastard.

  Growth. Purity. Natural forces, and the warmth of a loving, nurturing hand. These things had always been in her, and she’d tried to give them to Tate in the indirect ways of mortal love. But now she could channel them directly into him, into his heart, his soul, his mind, and most importantly, his body.

  Something screamed in the hospital room, and it wasn’t Tate. But it made the doctor and nurses scream as well. Lights strobed in the room, causing crazy, dancing shadows to oscillate up and down the walls like a nightclub, and it took her a few seconds to realize the light was coming from her.

  Maria was strangely thankful that she didn’t yet completely know who or what she was. It made it far easier to ignore the crassness of her whispering “Burn, you little fuck” as she bent the forces of the divine to her will to save her heart and her love. It could still be awe-inspiring even with the swearing, couldn’t it?

  She pushed forward, sensing the corruption in Tate’s body, washing over it, and destroying anything that didn’t have the sense to get out of her way. Her power was going to annihilate anything in there that was not Tate.

  And the Duwende, realizing the inevitability of his defeat, fled from Tate’s body in a last, panic-stricken bid to preserve his life.

  There was a wet sound, like wallpaper peeled away from a wall, and Maria saw first the shape of a nose, then an open, fearful mouth pushing through Tate’s left shoulder. She could even make out the crooked teeth in that mouth as the panic grew, stretching against Tate’s skin like it would tear his flesh open.

  But the small, skinny, pointy-hatted dwarf reached out, clawed at the hospital bed and pulled itself away from Tate’s body, its own body covered in boils and burns. It left a foul, pus-like substance on the bed as it rolled off, and hit the floor, howling in pain.

  Without even thinking, Maria reached out with one hand and enveloped the Duwende in her fist. She squeezed, and the Duwende screamed even louder. She brought him up to her face.

  “You don’t fuck with my boyfriend, you rat-shit son of a bitch.”

  The Duwende shrieked, kicking his legs uselessly in the air, his hands slapping at Maria’s grip, but it was a pointless effort. Her hand was a vise, and it crushed his throat.

  Even as the Duwende’s screaming died, the screaming from the others in the room grew. Maria looked back at them and had to think for a few seconds before she remembered who they were and what they were doing here.

  Doctor. Right. To help Tate.

  Tate…

  She lowered her arm, keeping the Duwende dangling like a doll in her grip, and returned her attention to Tate.

  He was breathing. And it was normal breathing, not labored or laced with liquid. His body no longer looked like it was trying to twist into a deformed, fleshy pretzel.

  Even the vital signs monitoring devices now beeped in a steady, almost friendly, clinical rhythm. He didn’t look 100%, but he certainly no longer looked like he was on the verge of a painful death.

  She’d done it. Tate was still alive. This was one of the times she’d gotten this far.

  “Oh, thank fucking Christ,” she said to herself.

  She moved away from Tate and let go, the Duwende falling to ground with a loud, undignified thunk, completely unconscious. She looked down at it and noticed it was growing bigger.

  No, it wasn’t the Duwende, it was
her. She was returning to normal size, the green tint to her skin fading away, her normal brown coming back. The energy that had coursed through her, like some kind of warm, green lightning that had electrocuted her entire being, was still there, but it was low now, like the comforting hum of a generator, rather than a wild, rampant thing running riot through her soul and hyper-charging everything about it.

  And now she had some serious reorienting to do. She was still Maria Malihan—at least, most of her, the ‘front’ part of her mind that was still sitting at the steering wheel was. But she was a whole lot more than that too, with vast, monolithic icebergs of thus-far hidden biography looming in the ocean of her memories.

  There was a whole lot to unpack.

  Also, hospital staff.

  She turned to look at them. The two nurses and doctor were seized up in the corner, like a pile of medicinal-smelling laundry that someone had carelessly tossed and forgotten about, all piled into a big, terrified, multi-limbed hug.

  “So…” And even Maria had to start at that, because her voice blossomed in her mind like a soothing embrace, and in the air, it was like the softest, gentlest thunder, rumbling along through the floor, the air, and even over the people at the other end of the room. She cleared her throat and spoke again. “So…” she said, this time her voice cracking, then starting to sound like it normally did. “Wow. Okay. No more helium for me. That… that wasn’t normal hospital protocol, I’m guessing?”

  The three hospital staff shook their heads.

  “Sino ka ba?” The Filipina nurse asked in a terrified whisper.

  This time Maria blinked rapidly. Comprehension. “Holy shit, I know what you just said! You just asked me who I am, right? Right?”

  She nodded.

  “Shit, I can understand Tagalog! How the hell did that happen?”

  “Then, can you tell me what the hell just happened here?” The Filipina nurse asked, and Maria understood that too.

  “No, no, you guys. Guys, guys, you have to look him over, okay? Is he going to be all right? I mean, he’s not dying anymore, right? That’s good, right?”

  The doctor, being a lot braver than Maria probably would be in this situation, tried to regain control. She broke away from the hugging nurses and approached Tate’s bed, but stopped as she got to the unconscious Duwende still sprawled on the ground. He was drooling.

  “Oh, right, the Duwende,” Maria said. She sidled over, stuck her foot out, and pushed him to the side like she was clearing a path to the coffee table.

  “That’s a Duwende?” The Filipina nurse asked in Tagalog. “They’re real? Aren’t they just supposed to be making trouble in houses?”

  “What are you two saying?” the doctor asked. “Is it safe?”

  “It’s safe, it’s safe,” Maria said gesturing towards Tate. “Make sure he’s okay, please.”

  “Well, just from his vitals, he’s in a much better place than before… whatever it was… just happened,” the doctor said, going over to him.

  “How come you can understand me now?” the nurse asked.

  Maria shrugged. “I’m… remembering things. From my past.”

  “That must be some past,” the nurse said. She looked to the other nurse, a skinny, pale red-headed man that looked like he was going to hyperventilate himself into a coma. “I think I need to take care of this one.”

  “You really look like you do.”

  The nurse nodded with her head down at the ground where the Duwende lay. “What are you going to do about him?”

  What indeed? For a second, Maria debated whether she was prepared to take a life. Whether, for that matter, killing the Duwende even counted, technically. It was a piece of folklore; it had no ID, was registered in no Canadian databases, was not a citizen of anywhere, so in theory, she could kill it off without any legal consequences, or so she imagined. This thing had taken hold of some driver in a car and steered that car right towards Tate. Even as she’d pushed Tate out of the way, this little bastard had redirected the car to hit him. And then, he’d gone inside Tate to try and finish the job. She really wasn’t sure whether any of that deserved mercy.

  But she also wasn’t sure whether she was just trying to find excuses. Only bad guys killed without remorse. Years of comic books, cartoons, anime, television, and Japanese RPGs had impressed on her that good people only killed in self-defense, with remorse. But she really wanted to kill this little shit and not feel bad about it afterward, which was ringing some distant ethical alarm bells.

  “Fine,” she said, and she wasn’t sure whether she was saying that to the people in the room, or her own conscience. “You guys have security or something in this hospital, right?”

  “I don’t think we have anything to secure that,” the doctor said.

  “Maybe the cops do,” Maria said.

  “Not sure I’d bet on it,” the Filipina nurse said.

  Maria rolled her eyes. “Fine,” she said again. “I have something I need to do, but you guys are taking care of Tate, and if this will motivate you to give it your best shot, I’ll do what I can.” She bent down, took a closer look at the Duwende, who was, she now noted, paying closer attention, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and jorts. She grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, winced slightly at the boozy smell from his breath and slapped him a couple times, saying, as sweetly as she could manage, “Hey, fuckface. It’s your wake-up call.”

  The Duwende blinked a few times slowly and then widened his eyes as he finally took in the sight of Maria staring at him. He unleashed an ear-piercing screech that sounded like a cat being microwaved, and Maria cut him off with another slap.

  “I swear to God, this wasn’t my idea,” the Duwende said in Tagalog.

  “Oh, I already figured that part out,” Maria said. “But you’ve upset these people, and really ruined my day. So, y’know… what are we gonna’ do about that?”

  The Duwende blinked slowly. “You’re… you’re not going to kill me?”

  “That depends on what happens in the next three minutes,” she said. “Are you going to give me a reason to?”

  The Duwende shook his head. “None of this happened the way it was supposed to.”

  “You think that’s rough, you should hear how my day’s been going,” Maria said. “Now, you know who I am, right?”

  He nodded. “Wait. Do you?”

  “I have an inkling,” she said.

  He closed his eyes, head tilting back as he went limp in her grip. “Yeah, none of this went down the way they said.”

  At the use of the word they, a flash of anger shot through Maria like a sharp, quick blow to the back of the head. “So I’ve got a deal for you. And if you take it, you walk away from here, with whatever this is that you call a life intact. Do we consider you alive, or do we think of you as some Jungian archetype made manifest?” She leaned in. “I mean, if you’re alive, it’ll really hurt to get emasculated, but are you really alive?”

  Maria caught herself in mid-flinch as the Duwende whimpered and wet his jorts.

  “I’m going to take that as a yes.” She let him go and stood up, to get the full effect of towering over him. “You were supposed to report back upon success, right?”

  Another nod.

  “I would appreciate you not doing that. In fact, I think you probably don’t want to return to this job at all. Go home. Give up the life, or I’m coming back to make you give up.” She crossed her arms. “You can test me on this. I don’t think you’ll like the results, though.”

  “I believe you. I completely believe you.” He bowed to Maria, and she returned the gesture with a nod. Then he put his palms together almost as if in prayer, turned to the Filipina nurse and gave a quick bow to her and the other nurse.

  Maria watched the little Duwende, keeping her limbs loose, and the magic inside her open and responsive. It was a weird, contradictory sensation, new yet familiar. “Be true to your word, little guy,” she said. “Or this won’t be the last time you see me. The next time’ll
be the last time.”

  “I will. I promise, oh, God, I will.”

  Maria wondered if he was going to sink into the floor, vanish into a puff of smoke, or some other CG-worthy effect to mark his magical disappearance, but he just made a break for the exit. Loud screams and cries of “rat!” erupted from the hall as he scampered out. Maria must have hit him harder than she’d thought, if he didn’t even have the power to disappear.

  And Maria now knew a little something about herself.

  Her body seemed normal again, but her clothes were a bit of a mess. Her hair was probably all kinked-up now too.

  “What the hell just happened?” the Filipina nurse asked—this time, for the benefit of everyone else, in English.

  “A reprieve,” Maria said. She looked at the doctor. “Is he going to be okay?”

  “Assuming he doesn’t have any more malignant, cancerous little spirit men in his body? I’d say the odds are good.”

  “Okay,” Maria said. “Try to keep him that way, please?”

  The doctor made a face. “This is a hospital. That’s what we do around here.”

  “All right. Then I’m going to finally take your advice and leave the room to you. I’ll be back later to check on him. We don’t need to talk about any of this to the public, do we?”

  “How?” the other nurse asked, finally speaking. “I’m going to say on Twitter that some giant psychic lady pulled a dwarf out of a hit-and-run victim? How many retweets do you think that’ll get me?”

  The other two looked at Maria with similar dubious expressions on their faces.

  “Just take care of him, okay?”

  “We will,” the Filipina nurse said, switching back to Tagalog. “And what are you going to be doing?”

  “Got an errand to run,” Maria said. “I gotta see a horse about a man.”

  Chapter Five

  EQUINE IS A DEBATABLE TERM

  MARIA WALKED THROUGH the hospital, even though what she needed to do next didn’t actually require walking. She wanted to walk, though; she needed the reassurance of familiar physical movement to match what was going on in her head. She was walking in there, too.