The room was left after that time. During the past hours, the room remained blank save for the few throttling footsteps and the small giggles and hushed whispers just outside the room. Sal’s stomach growled for it has been more than half a day since she’s eaten. She curled the mattress on herself. At least some sleep will curb off the feeling of lack.  

Heavy rushing footsteps announced the arrival of someone just outside the door. The door burst open. There stood a man who would have been an ogre in human form in his size. How he must tower over Sal’s little frame. The arms in his large frame were muscly and that weird tuft of dark hair like grass forcefully shorn sat on his scalp.  

Sal peeked at the man through the fist-sized space on the mattress wrapped around her head. The man walked around, muttering to himself, loud.  

“Hey, kid. Did you see Lea?”  

The speech was different. The singsong accent is even stronger than the woman’s, as if he was singing a song himself. Also, there was something different in the way he pronounced some words.  

 “Man, it’s already this late? But come to think of it” The man paused. “It’s almost past lunchtime, aren’t you hungry?”  

Sal remained quiet. Her sight turned away, but she can’t help but stare at the man’s boots then the faded, metal pin by his chest.  

“I know. I know. I may look scary, but this guy in front of you is the best Constable in the whole city. I am the best at catching criminals. Anything you need, you can ask me. Ever heard of the Rock-”  

Sal fixated on the metal badge and his words melted in the air. But then, the man promptly paused and laughed a bit, before taking off his badge and handing it over to her. Sal took it, albeit gingerly.  

Rocco Marasigan  

Pd. Constable.  

“I’m kuya Ro, and you?”  

 Sal refused to speak. Her stomach growled. The constable further insisted that she join outside in the dining table but it must have took her a dozen refusals. The man had tin for ears.  

“I’ll see you there!” The constable waved at her. “ If you see Lea, tell her, her wonderful son has gone downstairs to eat!”  

Son?  

That was odd. What was odder still was that all the usual chatter was accompanied by a clatter and clang of silverware. As none seemed to guard the room, Sal followed the sound of the noise, braving the picture-less hallways as she went. Instead, she made out pictures from the stains and the patterns on the wood grain of the wall.  

The children sat on a long table in what must be the dining area. They were like little stumps with heads bobbing up and down like birds and pigeons as they scooped up for from their bowls. Their chatter was a mix between birdsong twitter and childish shrieks.  

“Hey! Just in time for second servings.”  

Sal flinched at the arm on her shoulder  

“Oh, sorry.” The constable said. Sal kept her vision away from him but the smell of newly-cooked rice wafted to her nose. The man was carrying a bowl and a ladle like a serving maid and he was welcomed in the table with cheer.  

Sal’s hunger backed out. The sight and sound of what felt like a hundred children, twittering without a care struck her. As Rocco and the older woman she’s seen before insisted that she eat, an off-putting, uncomfortable silence fell on the crowd of children. They all looked at her. Wide-eyed, gap-mouthed dolls as they are. All staring at her with their brown eyes. She twiddled her hands. Should she bring her mouth to the bowl like they did? How do they eat with their hands? Or does it daintily from a spoon as she was taught?  

“Most behaved kid gets extra rice!” the constable boomed and the table erupted again with noise as the children tattled on each other. She thought she saw the constable wink at her.  

“Are you not feeling well?” the older woman from before turned at her. Sal did not quite know how to answer as the question stood there hanging. Sal turned away and proceeded to dig into the food, but it was dry, salty fish on undercooked dry rice. A nice serving of hot soup with thyme might’ve made it more palatable. But she tried to push the food to the back of her mouth. That at least, quieted down the older woman.  

“Why are your eyes green?” a child asked. It was followed by a quick shush and incomprehensible whispering between the child and the older one who’d shushed him earlier.  

“Children, she is our guest. You must be kind to her.” The older woman said.  

“Yes, ‘Nay Rosa.” The children said in chorus.  

“Anyway, does it taste good? I cooked that.”  

Eyes looked at her with expectation that she thought she’d shrink from her seat and be eaten up by the very chair she sat on.  

“Do you have thyme?”  

The woman was surprised, but laughed it off.  

Quickly soon, everyone around her was wrapped in the chore of eating. And though her stomach growled and she is deemed well enough to eat, Sal preferred her room where no one would watch her or bother her. They were all like little bees with brown eyes.  

Sal took the serving ladle, the clearest silverware, and glanced at her reflection on it. Green eyes stared back at her.  

 “Are they all your children?” Sal asked the woman.  

The woman smiled. “Well, for now they all are.”  

“They were not before?”  

 “Well, many things happen in life.”  

A child chimed in, “My old man was always angry. I like ‘Nay Rosa more.”  

 Sal cringed. She clasped a hand to her mouth. The dry, salty fish tasted even more gross. Avoiding the constable who stood by the hallway that leads to the room. She left the table and shot straight out of the hall finding herself in the nook behind the grand staircase in the ground floor.  

 At the first sign of noise, Sal ran out of her hiding place and out into the quiet courtyard where the dead fountain stood. Looking above, one would see a wide azotea leading to a smaller staircase. A place where people may stay. Sal wandered the perimeter of the villa, chancing upon the backmost yard where the walls are not lined by doors but only vacant windows. Just a few steps before her, thick brush of trees spread out from left to right.  

It must be nice to disappear then. The wild thicket of trees with yet unknown names enticed her. She walked inside and dried leaves crackled under her bare foot. She looked up the sky. The leaves above wrap around the sky like a hands about to be clasped over her eyes.  

The strange day turned into a familiar night before her eyes so she runs off. Searching across the woods, the clear dirt path before jumbled into zigzags. Numbness took over her sore feet as the wind rushed past her. She caught her breath. She arrived.  

It was not a familiar place but a greater sea. Just beyond the woods was not home. It was a long strip of riverbank with a long bridge connecting it to the other land visible on the horizon. So far away.  

“Well, that was one nice view.” The constable emerged from the woods. “But hey, the river can wait. ‘Nay Rosa is worried.”  

 A row of houses lined the land on the other side of the river like matchboxes.  

“Let’s go back home, shall we?”  

Her feet stayed on the ground. She was disgusted at the cheeriness in the constable’s voice “Can I?”  

 

 

 

SAL’S sight welcomed her own face the moment she woke up. Or at least, that is how sleepiness garbles it out to be. She lay in bed, with the other woman slapping her arm.  

“I thought you would never wake up. Such a heavy sleeper, you. Anyway, let us go.” The woman leaned into an uncomfortable proximity. “ The visitors, must be district inspectors, will come by lunch to check on the Hospicio. We still have the whole morning to go.”  

It does not make sense. “Visitors?”  

Lea nodded, “Not a visitor, child. Vultures.”  

The way the woman gripped her arm, as if her fear had just been transmitted to Sal. Visitors. Vultures. There was no difference to Sal for she would hide from both all the same. They will see her. They will see her. Sal fiddled with the envelope she found lying by her side.  

The other woman gathered clothes, money and a few objects in a small tampipi. But as soon as she’d placed them on the box, she overturned everything again as she searched for something, cursing under her breath.  

“We’re losing a few minutes by the hour.” she muttered to herself before turning to Sal .”Just follow me, we can ask for Nana Caluya’s help for shelter.”  

“Nana?”  

“ She’s from the Le clan so she will probably be sympathetic to us.”  

The woman turned at her. The urgency in her voice rising to one Sal knew well, annoyance. The woman snatched at the envelope on Sal’s hand.  

“This is mine!”  

“Sorry.”  

The woman hugged the letter to her chest. A slight reprieve from the sight of her rushing around. But it was not for long, the woman dragged her again by the hand as she spouted orders and practically dragged Sal to a humbler, almost unused staircase in the Hospicio leading to the backyard.  

Neighing of horses. It was almost a distant memory but the same nervousness is still there.  

The other woman cursed before stacking them both inside an old stable filled with old, and broken furniture and other disposed belongings.  

“I punito Casa, tis troa.”  

Sal stole a peek through the wooden slits of the stable. From afar, there stood a man she thought she might’ve known with the way he dressed. All mercantile seemed to wear the same clothing like a uniform of some sort. All dull gray sticks they were. Beside him was aman who wore the same clothes as the constable.  

“Why is the constable with them?” Sal asked.  

The woman tapped her head down and hushed at her.  

“The constable-”  

“That’s not Rocco.”  

“Why would someone like that be here?”  

The woman sighed loud before whispering. “Our priority is escape. We can go”  

“With Nana Caluya and the others.” Sal echoed.  

“Good, I-”  

“I don’t know them.” Sal stared at the tangle of broken furniture like a spiderweb, a familiar web. “I might know the other man outside.”  

The woman gripped Sal’s hands. “You’re crazy! Have you forgotten you almost died? What do you intend to do? Just waltz outside those evil men?”  

“Evil?” Sal whispered to herself.  

“They don’t protect us. The Mercantile don’t protect us. You should’ve understood that.”  

She searched the face of the woman whose face almost reflected her own, eyes furled in anger, brows furrowed. Anger. Annoyance. It must have been logical to agree to the statement and yet, it seems that it does not make sense the way it does to this woman.  

The weight in her hest started to grow, the same weight she carried at the Casa before. Compelling her to stand to her full height, short as it may be. That weight, she finally knew its name. Anger. Indignance.  

“What is my name?”  

She stared the woman down.  

The woman hissed at her to get down and when that did not work, she pulled at her arm to try to get her down.  

But Sal stood, planted her small feet on the ground.  

“I don’t know all those people you tell me.”  

“They’re all wonderful people, I tell you. So if you just.”  

“Mi esiro les Casa.” Sal waited for the woman’s reply.  

“What are you talking about? I can’t understand.” there was a pause. A staccato at her words, like she’s wondering on what to say unlike the total confidence of her delivery before.  

“ I am Salice Nabiaty of the Cuorre and I am a runaway.”  

Sal waited for the scorn. Waited for the disgust from hearing that name from her. Yet, only green eyes like her own stared back at her.  

“You’re deluded. The Cuorre only has a son.”  

Of course, she was stupid. Not thinking straight as she always was. Out in the woods, maybe it can accept her, swallow her whole. She wrangled away from the woman’s grasp and ventured towards the tangle of furniture.  

The woman pulled at her skirt, but was easily warded off when her tampipi spilled open.  

Sal ran away. Out in the woods, running straight towards the thick leaves. She ran until the wind was louder than the words repeating, hounding her mind.  

And it stopped. Out in front of her was the long line of the riverbank. A lone carriage dotted the side leading to the bridge. The wind rustled louder than any conversation or a human word could. The place, the Hospicio was too wide, too big. Sal walked towards the empty carriage, and finding it open, climbed inside where she fell asleep.