Chapter One
JULIO SAT IN his usual seat just before sunset, surveying the area as far as he could see. There was less than an hour until dusk and in this hour, if one was paying attention, legends would come alive. He was looking at the rice fields when his old eyes noticed something strange and subtle. The late afternoon breeze was blowing left to right as it mostly did all year long. And yet, a little to the left from the center, a group of stalks were not only resisting the breeze, but going against it!
He knew that his eyesight had diminished a little with the passing decades, but he was also aware that his sight was sharper than any other man’s. By human standards, his vision was clearer than anyone else’s, but it was not as it used to be.
Still, he knew there was something amiss, and in there might lay things that brought him little joys in his otherwise sedentary existence.
Then he saw it. Without the need for squinting, he saw it.
The area around the defiant rice stalk seemed to blur and then the image warped. Subtle but with eyes trained to see, he knew there was something.
Julio did not remove his gaze but consciously controlled his breathing. He wanted to see and that meant he had to be physically and mentally prepared. It was not as easy as it used to be when all he needed to do was tune his entire being. Over the years as he grew older, he found that he had to exert a little more effort in order to even detect them -- precisely the reason why he sat in this place a few hours before sunset.
When he felt calmer and the ringing tone in his ears went down, the first images of what was happening in the rice field came into view.
A flying creature, as small as a mouse with wings that spanned twice its height in every direction, seemed to be playing among the plants. Julio smiled. It might have been playing or it might have been tending, he did not know. He knew they tended to plants, but he was familiar enough to know that they were also playful and a bit temperamental.
This was not the first time he had seen the creatures since he came back to the barrio but this would be the first time he would attempt to make contact in decades. Perhaps his recollection of the realm through story telling had made him ache for the place.
Julio focused his attention on the small creature and whispered its name, “Monatson.” Almost immediately, the creature stopped mid-air and turned to face the direction of the call. It didn’t take long for it to spot Julio as he was the only one there. It then flew in many patterns, all irregular and erratic, dropping and rising. This told Julio that the creature was in a panic.
In one of his journeys into the Magaram’s world, he had been taught that only a select few knew of the Magaram’s existence. While there had been accidental sightings either by luck or by accident, there was no chance they would be able to see them again. The law of the Magaram was unbending in these circumstances -- unless through desperate need or special circumstance, no one shall be admitted to the realm. Violating this high law meant death.
The panicked creature with its erratic flight showed this fear. To be seen was one thing, easily dismissed and easily debunked by the humans. But for a human to maintain sight and call them by their name meant almost certain death. Julio knew of this fear and worked to calm the creature.
“Monatson,” he whispered once more, “Kaysang coa moni. Monatson, I am your friend.”
Once again, it stopped mid-air, with the exception of its fluttering wings.
“Padika,” he spoke, maintaining the concentration required to maintain contact, “Diup coa ridi. Mahai na pahonna raywa coa kataki yoi. Come. Be with me. A long time has passed since I saw one of you.”
The creature moved forward cautiously. Julio smiled when he noticed the flight pattern. It was no longer erratic, it was now graceful. It came forward in a surge and then stopped, as if waiting for him to do something.
Julio just sat there and concentrated. He knew that the creature had lost its fear in favor of curiosity. After all, there were only a handful of people that knew the Magarams existed, and even fewer who knew how to speak their language.
Julio whispered again, “Han moi pagligsa, samatla. Thank you for your trust.” This time, the creature flapped its tiny wings excitedly and its forward surges covered longer distances. Finally, Julio thought, containing his excitement and years of yearning, A friend that may just help me open a new way for me to be admitted back.
Suddenly from a distance, he heard familiar voices calling him.
“Inkong, Inkong!” the children called. They were running to him excitedly and for a moment, Julio smiled. He knew the reason -- they wanted more of the story. He had to cut it short the night before, ending it as it was already dark.
Then he realized that he had just let go of his connection to the creature.
Julio hurriedly scanned the landscape hoping to find the creature. He spotted it, or rather the warping of the area around it, but it was going back in the direction that it came from -- away from him. He felt a sting. He was hoping to have communed with the creature, hoping he could have earned its trust, hoping it could help him.
Now it was gone, and he didn’t have enough time to summon it back. The children were already near.
“Inkong! Tell us more about Ricardo,” Lito demanded, the first to arrive.
Ricardo was the name he had used in the tale. Julio did not want the children to overwhelm him with the many questions they would have asked had they known it was him. Still, he gained immense pleasure from just recounting his adventures although they were told through an alias.
“What happened to him? What did he do with the feathers and the scale?” came Elia’s questions in quick succession.
“Alright now, one at a time,” he answered.
“Did he see the beautiful lady again?” Yayong asked.
“Just tell us the story before it gets dark again,” said Manuel this time.
“But there is nothing more to tell,” teased Julio.
“No!” Pedro exclaimed, “You said adventures, not adventure!”
“I did?” he asked, pretending to have forgotten.
“Yes! Yes! You said there was love,” chimed Elia.
“Stop it, love is not adventure,” complained Manuel, “It’s boring.”
“But what if it was love that started the adventure?” Julio posed the question, “Or what if it’s the adventure that started love?”
The group of children fell silent for a moment, thinking of the question.
“Adventure comes first! Just like in Ricardo’s story,” Lito answered.
“But he did not ask for adventure,” Elia quickly countered, “He fell in looooove with the lady first.”
“Eeeewww,” the boys cried in unison.
“There now, there now,” Julio piped in, “All adventures must have some amount of love; otherwise it would not be an adventure.”
The group’s puzzled faces made the old man laugh.
“Do you want me to continue?”
The children’s faces lit up. Adventure or love, they wanted to hear the rest of the story. Julio fell silent as he prepared. Momentarily, his mind wandered to thought of losing the Monatson earlier and couldn’t help but feel sad. He had a job now, and that job required him to elaborately wrap the children’s thoughts around the story.
Julio took a deep breath and started.
SUMMER, 1938.
Like all the days since the day he came back from his near-death encounter with the great bird, Julio pondered over the problem of time. It had been a long time since that encounter but Julio had never been able to shake it off his mind.
It had been more than a year, a year and a few days. Exactly how many, he cannot recall. To him, it seemed just like yesterday. Not a day went by without him thinking about the incident.
It was just one of the things that occupied his mind, truthfully. But even after all the time that passed, he could not get his head around the lady. The following day after his encounter with the avian creatur
e, despite all the muscles in his body protesting with each step, Julio went to the well to clear things up.
He had resolved to ask the lady where she lived, where she went and even where he was.
He did not see the lady that day, or in the days that followed. He made excuses for the first few days, or was it weeks? Julio even alternated the time he went there until he covered all hours from early in the morning to late in the afternoon. On some days, he even just stayed there, waiting for up to four hours to see if she would arrive.
But regardless of whether was morning or afternoon, the woman never came.
It took months before he finally accepted that she might possibly be gone for good.
Although it was hard for him to accept, it came as a bit of a consolation for him that he still had the feathers and the scale he had collected. These were the only artifacts that reminded him that what he had gone through was not a dream.
It didn’t matter how it seemingly happened in the blink of an eye. It didn’t matter how he had been found sleeping with aching muscles but no wounds. As long as he had the trinkets, he knew it was real.
There were no words to describe the great constraint he had when it came to guarding his encounter’s secrecy. Julio had not told a soul about his adventure to this very day. For some reason, he felt it was a secret he had to keep.
That, and the fact that he probably would be ridiculed if he told a single person about it was reason enough to keep it to himself.
It did not stop him from asking around though. At first he was hesitant, but he eventually found a good strategy -- ask the town elders. They would love to have someone to talk to and he could learn from them, as no one really wanted to talk to old people. In his spare time, he found himself around the neighborhood where there was at least one old person. Most of them proved to be boring over time, sometimes within the same day. Most of them told the same stories with different versions and embellishments. This told him right away that they did not have any experience regarding whatever it was that he wanted to know.
Dozens of times, the elder folk would mention the Magaram and describe them or their deeds. Mostly, they talked of monster lores and folk tales, but not one of those stories related with his personal experience. The elders were always thankful for the conversation, especially that Julio came under the guise of boredom and eagerness to help out with some chores. When it became apparent that they could not add anything to what he already knew, or tell him what he wanted to know, Julio would either excuse himself or just not show up altogether.
This was not the case with Insiang Pina. She never talked about the folk people. She never talked about the Magaram. But even so, no one would say she did not believe they were real.
Insiang Crispina, or Pina, was the resident town healer. Her healing process was known in at least five other surrounding barrios, although separated by no small distance. It was said that in her childhood, Insiang Pina was courted by a man of immense charm that made the entire barrio envious of her. She was the youngest of six children and, as was customary in the barrio, was given almost all household tasks when she turned twelve.
At one point, while she was gathering mushrooms in the nearby coconut grove, she had spied a fancy carriage resting below the shade of the coconut trees. In a remote barrio like theirs, a carriage was a rare sight. It would have been a great occasion for the town folk to see one a year.
Born under the Spanish occupation, the town that Insiang Pina lived in almost bore no difference to the one where Julio lived. The only difference was that there was one big house where the Spanish ruler lived and where the soldiers were garrisoned. These days it was taken over by a regiment of American soldiers and served as their headquarters in the small town. It was here where the Americans congregated when they were relieved of their shift at the place frequented by Julio’s father.
Although Carabao-drawn carriages were now familiar, horses like what the Americans had were still quite a marvel to behold. These creatures were so tall and well-groomed that they looked majestic on their own.
All the elders that Julio talked to spoke of the famous tale of Insiang Pina as if they had known the entire story first-hand.
They said that not only was the carriage drawn by two majestic horses, the carriage in itself was the definition of majestic. It was painted stark white while its groves and edges were highlighted in a combination of black and gold. Its wheels and spokes were also of the same colors.
In a town where everybody deemed it a remarkable event to see a horse or a carriage, Insiang Pina was indeed awestruck when she cast her eyes on the wondrous sight.