The Mound (Part One)

Part of my family's year-end ritual is conducting intensive 'roof-to-floor' spring-cleaning. While my wife was busy with old stacks of boxes filled with used clothes, I took to weeding our overgrown garden. As I was scouting around for unwanted growths among the bougainvilleas, I was surprised to see a mound. About half-a-foot high and two in girth and size, it was an eyesore. My hands impulsively took a hard grip of my rake and was ready to strike, when I was reminded of that one summer in Batangas. That was reason enough for me to say, "Hold it."

Memory told me that experiences with mounds of this sort is never favorable. I was in high school and was in no condition to believe tales of old--- that mounds were to be treated with utmost consideration and respect. Despite warnings of more careful friends or nannies originating from far-flung provinces, I chose not to take heed of them.  Having grown up in the city, I assumed that it belonged to the 'urban myth' category, so I was  resolved to proving it wrong. 

My friends and I were an active lot. We found excuses to go out and explore. Batangas was not an exception. The place, Anilao--- if my memory serves me right, was then very scenic--- considering that it had already suffered tourist exploitation.

The beach we chose was a diving spot, hoping to get our first successful open-sea underwater adventure.  We deposited our things in our respective rooms and went about our ways exploring the place. Most of us went straight to the beach. We had no idea where the others went. We only discovered where, when they came back all looking smug for having found a nice secluded spot which was not part of the resort guide map. It was our way of proving who was the most thorough--- finding secret places.

The place they've been to was only 1 kilometer off the trail. It was understandable why we had missed it in the first place: the path was covered in thickets. Off the main trail, our 'find' was not easy to follow, given that it seemed to have never been walked on for a long time. At the end of the trail was a dead end. Rising for about 50-60 meters high was a rock formation. The vertical ascent sloped to about 105 degrees--- suitable for free-climbing.

Reaching the top of the formation, we were greeted by a wonderful sight--- a waterfall, pure and untouched, trickled lazily down a lake. The whole place covered about 500 sq. m. and  overlooked the entire beach front. We realized that we could have been the only dayos (outsiders) who may have ever made it there. How could a place so surreal be a secret?

Something that resembled our secret place

After having spent half-a-day bathing in the clear bluish waters of our secret garden, we decided to come back the next day. 

The way back down was far more difficult than imagined. The welcoming slope of the rock formation had turned out to be very slippery from our point of origin. The rocks which served as handles while going up seemed to have become slippery footholds as we groped our way down. 

As we touched the base of the rock formation, everybody was completely exhausted. Trying to gain lost energy, others settled for a cooler refuge under a Narra tree. I, on the other hand, went further on to look for a softer spot. 

Then, I had found it! 

On the far end of the 'secret trail' was a gully, at the center of which stood a mound rising from the ground for a good 4 feet tall! A natural prankster, I called out to everyone, "Oi, mini bundok (tiny mountain)!" I strode up the funny-looking hill in mockery of my friends' stupid fear of giant mounds.

I did not expect my friends to take my prank seriously, but I was surprised by their reactions! All of them motioned for me to get down. Nothing ever really happened to me, but the urgent looks on their faces gave me the creeps. So I did their bidding and went down. 

The gesture dented my ego, so before leaving, I gave the mound a good kick. 

For a structure as massive as it was, it to give way all too easily. My single kick caused the entire top to topple down. 

To be continued...

The Mound (Part Two)

That particular display of arrogance proved to be my undoing.

After a few drinks that afternoon, each of us went to our respective rooms. I had completely forgotten about our previous adventure and went straight to bed.

I did not know if it was due to fatigue, but that night, my sleep was constantly interrupted by  strange dreams--- or were they? I would be awakened for many hours hence by inexplicable activities, the nature of which I could not discern. 

In my groggy state I was overpowered by the need to stay lain, but my mind was well aware of the on-goings around me: doors opening and closing, people in hooded cloaks marching right in--- chanting prayers that were painfully unfamiliar. To my amateurish ears, the prayers sounded Latin, but I could not have guessed any better.

People in hooded cloaks marching right in

I knew I was asleep but I also knew that the clock by my bed displayed 2:00.  I was aware of unwelcome presences--- of hooded figures chanting and whispering and that they had in their hands candles, all black and tapering. I also felt it when they had decided collectively, without even speaking, to carry me from where I was lying--- out to the porch of my villa. 

I was aware of unwelcome presences--- of hooded figures chanting

I was also aware that they had carefully laid me down--- dead as a  log--- across my own doorway, so that it would look as if I was blocking the way in. 

When morning came, I was surprised by my own failure to be surprised. The first sight I had set my eyes on was the beachfront. I was lying across the path that led to  the room just as I had  dreamed! Had I sleepwalked?

How I must have looked like, sleeping by the doorway

I stood up and got dressed immediately. My friends met me for breakfast before we  went for our first open-dive. While changing into my dive suit, they were all dumbstruck to see, as I took off my shirt, red markings on my torso.

Something that resembled my torso markings

The pattern looked to me like one of the intricate etchings found on walls of Chinese temples. Its deep reddish hue resembled fresh bruise. I touched it; it didn't feel anything.

"It's nothing. Let's go," I faked; but at deep in my subconscious, I was beginning to have an inkling. I had made a mistake.

The red markings were just the beginning to a series of unfortunate events that would forevermore constantly teach me a very important lesson.

To be continued...

The Mound (Part Three)

Our summer vacation which seemed very promising in the beginning had turned out to be a nightmare, I began to realize. The succeeding days had proven it.

Camp around bonfires will never be the same because of what had transpired in the following nights. As if to say "they haven't had enough," these beings, which seemed to have been responsible for all the strange happenings, gave me another reason to worry.

That very night the strange markings had appeared on my torso, I tried to isolate myself from everyone, thinking that by doing so, it would save us the trouble of being dragged into the entire voodoo experience.

Away from the only source of light, the beach was a darkly lit canvas--- its tint exuded all shades of black. And while walking along the shore, I was approached by my friend Bella to tell me I was without a head. 

I made her say it again. 

"You are headless!" 

"I should slap you--- that's what they say," added my stuttering friend. "They say if I slap you, you won't die,"  to which I gave in and let her. What harm could it do? I was in no position to show skepticism especially after everything that has happened. 


"Okay," was all I managed to say.



Bella approached me and said, "I should slap you; you're headless!"

***

The next morning, we boarded the ferry. I was reluctant to leave without any attempt at initiating a proper closure--- to make amends with the beings, elementals, or whatever else they may be called. But I didn't know how. 

The port of Batangas slowly drifted away from my view. The occurrences in the resort made a believer out of me. Indeed there are things beyond our understanding--- things that, however absurd, must be regarded with respectful distance. I knew my place right away.

I was awakened from my reverie by Oscar, who asked me to accompany him to the men's room. I was in no mood for anything so I simply said "no." I was too occupied to entertain anyone.

*** 

Arriving in Manila, we readily got off the ferry, our backpacks already slung on our tired backs. Cabs abound the port area, but we could not hail one because Oscar was nowhere to be found. It was then that I remembered where I last saw him. "Check the men's room," I offered. True to my words, Oscar was waving from the second deck of the ferry. We motioned him to go down.

Approaching us, he exclaimed, "How did you get here," in apparent irritation to me. 

"You're asking me?"

"Yes."

"I didn't move in my place from the time we left Batangas."

"Don't toy with me. I asked you to come with me."

"And I said 'no'"

"No, you didn't. You went with me." 

"I didn't." And I was telling the truth. The look on Oscar's face indicated the he, too, was telling the truth. 

"I should have said 'sorry' to them," I found myself muttering. 

*** 

While everybody forgot about our heated argument, I was in low spirits the whole time we were driving home. The service dropped me off my gate and I bid my friends goodbye. I rang the doorbell and it was my brother who opened the gate. 

He was saying something unintelligible so I motioned to him "later." Once inside, I asked, "O, what were you saying?"

"Kuya, you have no head," to which I retaliated, "Huwag mo akong bibiruin ng ganyan. (Don't use that prank on me.)" I had to coax him to admitting, but my brother simply claimed he was joking. Was he really? I didn't know which to believe already. Jiro would not joke about such things. He's not just the type. Did he retract because he sensed that I was dead frightened? 

To make matters worst, my mother, who then still lived with us, told me my girlfriend had called. "She says it's urgent." I was too tired to make phone calls. So I headed for my room.  "Bukas na lang. (I'll call here tomorrow)." Incidentally, the phone rang. It was Nesell. I lifted the receiver to my ears. "Hello." 

"Gi, are you okay?" 

"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?"

"Your lola (grandmother) called." 

"Huh?"

How would any of my grandmothers know of Nesell's phone number, and how would any of them call, when my Lola Simplicia had just passed away not too long ago, and my Lola Amalia was in Bicol?  The other lola I know, my Lola Rose, was in the States, and none of my living grandmothers would make a personal call to me. 

"The machine has her message," interrupted Nesell. 

"Can you play that for me?"

Beep. (Static). Ibalik n'yo sa akin ang apo ko. Ibalik n'yo sa akin si Gian! End of message.

I was dumbfounded. It was my lola's voice. The one who had died.

The strange dream. My having to sleepwalk. The red markings on my torso. The two sightings of me being headless. My doppelganger. I had to talk to someone. I needed help. "Yes, it was I!" "I did it!" "It was I, who destroyed the mound!" "I was to blame!" 

*** 

Eleven years have passed. I glad to be smiling today. They say that everything that we go through--- whether they be challenges or small victories in life--- they will come to pass. 

Proof of that is me telling this particular story. I guess, many would be curious as to how I came to put an end to the curse (if it may be called that) that changed my perception of many things. 

The night I admitted my faults to my parents, Nesell called me again. 

"Mommy had asked an albularyo (a witch doctor). The albularyo said you must bury the shirt you were in when you destroyed the mound." 

That I did. That ended it.

***

To this day, I learned not to laugh at folklore. Fact or fiction, I have high regard for the wisdom of the country folk.

That's Not Me

As the lights went off, Kaye gasped at her reflection--- "That's not me!"

This particular story is of my friends' account. I can attest its truthfulness because I was there when it happened. It was not a firsthand experience on my part, but after hearing Kaye's first words after she had lost consciousness and seeing the horrid look on her face, I was convinced that everything she had said did happen. 

The seminary now

I would not say that it was a mental glitch that had occurred to her, since Kaye was one of the most sane and 'straight' students we know. Her strange story happened right after we had heard mass. The entire class was tired from the previous days' affairs--- listening to long sermons, exchanging thoughts after every passage from the Bible, seeking penance for past sins committed--- we were looking forward to a nice conclusion to what we then considered a 'spiritual camp.'

The bathroom now torn down

The place where we held our retreat was a secluded spot in the far reaches of Antipolo. It gave the impression of being derelict--- probably due mostly to the lack of maintenance funding, and not because of deliberate neglect. Nevertheless, the place had a rustic feel to it. It held a strong history for being witness to the lives and deaths of its former and present occupants--- tenants and  transients such as we were.  It seemed to have been built during the Spanish  times because the building exuded a Hispanic touch to its romantic architecture--- white washed walls-, brick- and terracota finish, large antique wooden doors that doubled as some sort of sound barrier,  high ceilings and arched windows, which were wide and open to wind and breeze, and very long bathrooms. I was drawn particularly to the latter. It was where Kaye's travails had begun.

Kaye was looking at someone else's face in the mirror!

The bathrooms had several functions--- maybe that was why they were built to be quite roomy. The girls' bathroom, particularly, had ten individual cubicles for the toilets alone,  a locker room and showers that could accommodate twenty bathers all at one time. The walls were tiled but there was nothing special about them. In the anteroom, there was a wide mirror. 


It was this mirror that's to change Kaye's perceptions, for life. 

***
Stepping out of the shower room, Kaye was glad to have finished ahead of the others; she would dry her hair while waiting for everyone else, as promised. Being in a place that was older than any of their great-grandparents, the girls knew that it harbored spirits. They did not care whether or not the spirits were friendly; they had to stick together so nobody's left behind. 

Grabbing hold of the towel, Kaye stood in front of the mirror that was strategically placed in the entrance of the bathroom. She would know if everybody had already finished; she was blocking the only exit. 

The room with its high ceilings echoed the conversations. 

"Keep it down, ladies, the whole building can hear us," Kaye smiled to herself while saying.


More giggles. 

Then without warning, the Kaye's towel, being loosely knotted, slipped down to the floor. While bending down to pick the towel, Kaye gasped when the lights went out. 



Something may have caused the power surge for the entire hall to lose electricity. As the lights went off, Kaye suddenly felt alone! The shrieks that were supposed to come after did not. It was dead quiet. 

Turning toward the mirror, Kaye was to see what would trouble her many times hence. 

Despite the pitch black darkness, the mirror showed her face--- luminescent as if light was coming from within! It was staring at her with utmost cruelty--- it did not twitch when she did. The face was hers yet not seemingly in so many ways. It seemed to be thinner with perfectly unblemished skin. 

She had no time to scream because the lights went back on. Kaye would have felt relieved but there was something amiss. 


"Where was I taken?"

She knew she was still inside the same room, although it looked awfully different, as if someone had come in to rearrange it while it was dark. 

"But it had only been seconds!"


She went to look for the others.

"The shower room!" 

It was not there! She turned to the left, "I have to warn the girls!" 

When she went inside, there was no one. The floor was dry. No water dripped from the shower heads. 

"Did I hit my head?"

As the towel dropped again, Kaye ran out of the bathroom, stark naked. She didn't care. There were more important things to think about.

"What time is it? I know it was seven."

She passed by the clock in the lobby. "Eight-seven!"

"Had it been an hour?" 

She continued to run--- across the courtyard, to the other building.

"The cafeteria!"

***

Everybody was in their high spirits. It was the last night. 

Our table sat ten people, five young men and five girls. We sat by the entrance so we could sneak out for a smoke. 

Suddenly, the cafeteria doors opened. We were met by a disheartening sight. Kaye, naked and soaking wet, was in tears and in no condition to care whether or not everybody saw her like that. 

She was raving mad. Angry at the company who had left her. Turning her head toward their table, she had almost lost it. Her friends were all open-mouthed, looking at her in disbelief, their hairs dry.

Someone from the other table heard one of the girls whisper, "She left us, first. I checked; she was not there! She could not have been, lest we would have bumped into her."

The Summer House

There it stood imposing against the sinking afternoon sun--- her literal dream house!

After Dad and Mom had separated, it was hard to reconcile fact from fiction. Since Mom won't be around to say that a particular story was real or not, I would have to reconstruct this one incident from rough memory.

During the last few years of her stay in our house, my mother would be described as a shy homebody. So, imagine our surprise when she started going out with some of her friends from church. This account is about one of the personal experiences of her closest, Rose.

It was one of those frequently mentioned blabs that come up every now and then in lazy conversations over cake and coffee. Rose would interrupt a rather juicy gossip with an anecdote about her strange dream. It was of this house found on top of a hill. With no address or popular landmark to use as a point of reference to prove that it did exist, Rose would feign exasperation for having been bothered by it, by such detailed realism, having dreamed of the same for several consecutive nights or so, for many, many years.

It had been so realistic, she could detail the grain of the oak table in the dining, to the rows of sunflowers that lined the picket fences of this particular summer house. There was something so homey about it that Rose had decided it was her literal dream house. If it did exist, she would find all means to acquire it for herself.

It would have been just a passing fancy--- a new-found attachment to house-hunting--- since Rose was ready to give up on her quest to look for it, when incidentally, during one of her spiritual trips in Tagaytay with Mom that they came across a familiar sight!

There it stood imposing against the sinking afternoon sun. Its back towards the scenic Taal. They had to stop. She parked by the curb and gasped. Along the white picket fences and rows of sunflowers, hanging was a signage that said, "For Sale. Inquire Inside."

Rose grabbed my Mom's arm, who then was dusting off pollens from her white baggie pants, immediately sending both of them hurling towards the fender. With just a look, Mom understood that Rose had found it.

A natural snoop, Rose pushed open the door that was coincidentally unlocked and ajar. There it was. To prove that her dreams were no dreams, Rose showed Mom every nook and cranny of the summer home as if she were herself the real estate agent. She detailed how, in several of her dreams, she had often opened the drawers of the kitchen cabinets, the doors leading to the different rooms and parlors, turned on the TV, the radio, everything she had set her hands on.

They were about to decide that the house was deserted when a graying old woman came out from the corners, probably from one of the rooms they had forgotten to look at. She was gaunt and from the expression of her face, unwelcoming.

"How can I be of help?"

"We are wondering if this house is for still for sale," Rose trailed off in apparent thoughtfulness.

"That's what it says in the sign I put outside."

Irritated, Mom interrupted, "How much does it cost?"

"Paid in full, it's 2.8."

"2.8. This?"

"Yes."

"But it's too big!"

"Why the price?"

"Well, it had been sold not very long ago, to a childless couple, who, after two weeks of living here, migrated to the States in a hurry."

"They bought it, only to sell it again?"

"They would have stayed if not for the strange occurrences around," her voice trailed off.

Mom grabbed hold of Rose's arm and pushed her to the side, "There must be something other than stupid stories to make this house 'too' available."

Then, turning to the old lady, "By 'strange' you mean..."

"Yes, ghost stories..."

"We don't believe in ghosts," answered both in unison.

"I would not have believed them myself until I decided to stay for the night, and many nights after that."

"You--- experienced the strangeness yourself."

"Yes, at first there were stories, about an apparition visiting--- making noises at first, then moving things--- then becoming frequently more 'seen'--- vi- visible..."

There were stories of an apparition visiting--- moving things and becoming more 'seen'

"...I would not have believed it myself, had I not seen the face..." the old woman continued.

"You don't expect me to buy that.," Rose said jeeringly.

Then, ignoring my Mom, the old woman turned to Rose and said, "No, I don't expect that you would. I would not have, until I just realized--- that the apparition was you!"

Rose forgot about the house and never mentioned it ever again.