Philippine Speculative Fiction (20 page)

“Are they still making fun of you?” she asked.

“Umm, n-no…” Bram stuttered. “You, umm, you scared them off good last time.”

“Good. That Stefan is a real pig.”

They were quiet for a time, and then Marike turned her head up toward the mountain.

“You know about the witch they say lives up there?”

“W-wi-no.”

“They said she can do things, amazing things, you know? I wanted to meet her, but mama said she’s dangerous. She said she’s the reason Old Man Wob went all crazy.” After
popping the last blackberry into her mouth, Marike looked up at Bram and grinned, the berry’s juice dribbling down her chin.

“Can the witch, umm,” Bram suddenly asked, screwing up his face in concentration to get the question out right, “Can she, umm, m-maybe she can fix my head?”

The smile dropped from Marike’s face. “What do you mean?”

“It’s ‘cause I, I, I’m a fool, they… umm, they said I was.”

“I think your head is fine, Bram. You’ve got a big heart, that’s what counts.”

She leapt down happily from their resting place. But what Marike failed to see was the coiled-up serpent bathing in a patch of sun, right at the base of the rock. She stepped on its tail, and in
the only way it could have reacted, the snake sprung violently and sunk its teeth into her ankle.

Bram scrambled back to the village as soon as he could, panicking and wailing and with Marike’s limp body in his arms. It was far too late. When the girl was proclaimed dead, all eyes and
fingers immediately turned on Bram, blaming him for the tragedy. Simple truth was, she had tried to be his friend and she paid for it, they said. Bram was dangerous and stupid, she should never
have tried speaking to him, a girl as young as she, they said.

Bram was quiet all through the dusk.

That night, when all was dark and the village asleep, he walked back to Marike’s household, where he had been pelted with the worst of the screaming and accusations. Her family was going
to have the ceremonies and the burial the next day, and had just retired to separate rooms. He snuck inside—quiet as a mouse, despite his size—and found her upon the same bench where
the village’s doctors and priests had pronounced her dead. Watching over her was a pair of stone-eyed statues made in the shape of the old gods. He ignored them easily, taking Marike in his
arms and then striding straight for the mountain path.

BRAM HAD NEVER felt such a level of fatigue—the mountain air was suffocating him, the sunlight beat down on his back, and the witch’s axe must’ve been under a
spell, because it just kept getting heavier and heavier and heavier. The strain and sweat running down Bram’s arms alone were nothing like he was used to. Finally, the witch nodded her
approval at the small pile of wood he’d gathered.

“Very well, giant,” she told him. There was slight amusement on her face, there in the turn of her lips and spark of the eye.

“C-can you make her alive now?” Bram finally asked with a ragged breath. She has to. She has to make Marike alive, it’s only fair.

“No one escapes death,” the witch answered. “But there are ways to trick it, for a short while. Watch… closely.”

Then she began to move, taking the pieces of wood Bram had gathered and rearranging them into a very familiar shape on the ground; that of a person. A big chunk of wood lay in the middle, while
a smaller block lay right beside it—a crude torso, and an even cruder head. Several long pieces of lumber formed the arms and legs, the gnarled ends of the wood taking the place of hands and
feet. She put them together in a position similar to Marike’s limp body. Bram watched, sweaty palms gripping the edge of his pants.

The witch then knelt by the corpse and touched her lips to Marike’s. Bram felt flustered by the sight of the kiss, but he was even more distracted when he saw the witch’s gray eyes
turn pale and white. The witch then moved to her arrangement on the ground, took the wooden head in her hands, and kissed it as well. The color in her eyes suddenly returned, as quickly as it had
dissipated, and with that, the witch’s odd ritual was over.

The wood began to move. At first Bram thought it might’ve been the wind causing the wooden arms to twitch and shake. But then the arms dragged itself across the soil, and the knees folded
up. The wooden person sat up, of its own accord, slow and shaky as an elderly woman might wake in the morning. Bram watched in fascination as the living tree-person stood up off the ground, knees
and shoulders creaking frighteningly with every slight movement. The block of wood that was the head swung about and turned to face Bram—there were no eyes there to see, but a line of
creased, cherry bark on the surface made a very convincing set of lips.

“Here is your girl,” the witch said, wearing a satisfied smile as she surveyed her work. “Leave the old body behind. This is her body now.”

Bram took a tentative step toward the tree-person. The tree-person took an unsteady step toward him as well and reached out a branch-arm, still crawling with termites, toward Bram.

“M-Marike, is that, umm, is that you?”

The wooden head swung shakily up and down—a nod.

The tree-person was nodding at him.

Marike was nodding at him.

BRAM HELD MARIKE’S grainy birch hand as they descended the mountain through the same treacherous path Bram had taken heading up. Their progress was excruciatingly slow,
not just because of Bram’s exhaustion, but also because of Marike’s new body. She was taller than before, almost as tall as Bram now, but it seemed she’d become as clumsy as he
was. The steps of her wooden feet were heavy, and she skidded dangerously on every muddy trail. Any dexterity and sense of balance she used to have had obviously gone with the witch’s
transfiguration.

And it was all so odd—Marike had neither eyes nor ears, but somehow could react when Bram spoke to her, or motioned to her. And although rough bark had taken the place of her skin, she
still responded to his lightest touch.

“You’ll be, umm, okay,” Bram told her. She had held his hand before, leading him away from the village boys when they were making cruel jests at him, but now it was he who led
her. It was queer.

“Are you, umm, are you hungry?” Bram turned to his friend, who gave him the equivalent of a blank stare. The gnarled branch of her left arm pointed vaguely in the direction of the
village.

“Umm, if you want to head back to the v… the vil… okay, let’s go back.”

He wasn’t sure how he was going to feed her, anyhow. For all his size and strength, Bram wasn’t even capable of feeding himself. As they made their slow descent down the mountain for
home, Bram felt his stomach protest in hunger. It almost distracted him from the utter aching of his muscles.

“You know,” he gasped, “Th-they said you were dead, but they’ll… umm, this will be a good surprise. Right?”

But even then Bram was unsure how well the others might take this transformation, and he couldn’t even fathom what he should answer when they began questioning him. Instead of wondering,
he just kept walking, pushing through the wild greenery of the forest, leading Marike along the way. Hours passed. He wondered if Marike felt the same weariness in her legs.

Did trees ever become tired?

What was more prone to breaking—flesh and bone, or wood?

“You were, umm, good to me,” Bram said, unsure of what else to say. He had been doing all the talking, as the witch had left Marike with no tongue of her own. “Thank
you.”

Stumbling right after him, Marike’s head swung up and down—another nod of acknowledgement. Like an old wooden marionette, hanging by invisible strings from above, every movement was
limp, and the creaking in every joint made it seem she could fall apart at any time.

Yet moving on, Bram’s strength finally began to fail him. More than a day now without proper rest or food, his head was throbbing, aching. He was no good at hunting or foraging, either.
When the sky had turned black and stars glimmered through the forest’s canopy, Bram tripped on a root, stumbled, and crashed into the earth. The collapse of his massive body sounded like yet
another fallen tree.

This time, he did not stand.

The cold air seeped around Bram, and like a heavy blanket weighing down on him, the chill prevented him from getting up. He tried to push himself into at least a sitting position, but the mere
effort drove icy blades into his lungs. His breaths turned to shuddering gasps. Marike crouched beside him and cocked her head to the side. There might’ve been worry in her eyes, if the witch
had deigned to provide her with a pair.

“S-sorry, M-Marike…” Bram murmured. The stars above him were spinning around and around and around. “Can I, umm… can I rest here?”

But even as Marike lay a hand on his shaking shoulder, Bram knew that this wasn’t the kind of sickness that was going to leave with the dawn of the next day. To get well, to fight the
sickness, he needed help. Medicine, maybe, and at least some food in the belly and a fire to keep him warm.

As the moon peeked from behind a wispy robe of dark clouds, Marike went off a small distance and managed to gather a few nuts for Bram, and she lay them in a pitiful bunch by his curled up body.
The meager offering did little to appease the feeling of his blood freezing up in his very veins. Marike was a tree now, and it seemed she had become impervious to the cold, but Bram felt the chill
to the bone.

He finally figured out who between them was the more breakable one.

“I’m s-s-sorry, M... I…”

His words were broken, less now by his usual stammer and more by the chattering of his teeth. The howl of wolves in the distance suggested there were other dangers to worry about as well, but
all Bram could do was huddle and suffer and gasp, and all Marike could do was quietly watch.

If I die, maybe the witch can also make me a tree-man. Maybe Marike will take me up and cut trees for me. And I can still be with her.

But even as Bram faded in and out of sleep, the kind of sleep that had no waking, Marike began to rub her hands together. Slowly at first, such that Bram couldn’t understand what she was
doing, but then harder, faster, more vigorously. Her forearms, she rubbed against each other too, scraping wood on wood. It was difficult with the night’s breeze, but with a little more
gashing of the bark and the tender layers beneath, some friction and plenty of persistence, Marike was finally rewarded with a little smoke.

Even someone not right in the head like Bram knew fire when he smelled it, saw it. The dry needles and bits of fungus on Marike’s arms were tinder enough, and the forest air breathed life
into the spark. Bram wanted to get up again, to stop her, but he was too weak to even try, and soon her arms were aflame.

The fire might’ve been the brightest thing Bram had ever seen, and for many moments, he wasn’t sure how real it was–the warmth, the relief from the frosty night, the
realization of the wrongness, and the panicked thoughts, no, no, no…

Bram sobbed something incoherently, his voice coming out small, helpless. Sick and curled up on the forest floor, he reached out an arm for Marike as the fire spread to her torso, to her legs.
Soon her entire body, from the twigs on her head down to her splintered feet, was garbed in bright yellow and orange. She showed no sign of pain. All she did then was lie down beside Bram, just
near enough for him to feel the warmth, maybe even to roast the nuts she’d gathered.

“Marike,” he finally choked out, desperately. “M-Marike…”

For Bram, it was like the sun had just stepped onto the earth in all her blazing glory. Yes, Marike was the sun. Marike was warmth and light and love. But it would only be for one night, because
as she lay there, glorious and beautiful, the wood already began to blacken. Already, her fingertips were curling up, fuel for the hungry flame.

THE NEXT MORNING, when dawn was heralded by jays across the forest, a group of villagers found themselves halfway up the mountain, yelling and calling out Bram’s name.
When they heard the sobs, they followed it to a well-lit glade in the woods. The villagers stopped short of the peculiar sight.

What they were looking at was this: a giant man, crying fitfully like a babe next to a smoldering pile of charcoal and ashes.

Rochita Loenen-Ruiz
is a Filipino writer of science fiction and fantasy. A
graduate of the Clarion West Writer’s Workshop, Rochita was the recipient of the 2009 Octavia Butler Scholarship, and the first Filipina writer to attend Clarion West. Her short fiction has
appeared in a variety of online and print publications, including
Fantasy Magazine, Apex Magazine,
and in
Weird Tales
(when edited by Ann VanderMeer). In the Philippines,
her short fiction has been published in
Philippine Panorama
,
Philippine Speculative Fiction Vol. 2
,
and
Philippine Speculative Fiction Vol. 4
.

THERE ARE THOSE who say the Compassionate are the best thing that could have come to us. They raised us up from obscurity and their benevolence made it so that the name of
our small continent became known throughout the star system.

“
If the Compassionate truly wish us well,” Piray said. “They would cease to deal with us as if we were nothing more than mindless children. Why, if we are truly free, does
our Leader-Elect allow for the continued presence of the Compassionate’s pacifying forces on our shores? Why are they afforded a better consideration than the common of Luwalhati? And why, if
they only wish us well, must we cede to them rights and licenses to ancestral lands and the powers that live there?”

Piray was one of the most vocal dissident voices. Where others chose to turn a blind eye to the excesses of the grand council that surrounded our Leader-Elect, Piray refused to pretend
ignorance.

“
Have we not fought for the right to have a voice?” Piray said. “It is not the people who serve the government, but it is the government who must serve the
people.”