The Veiled Woman

"Come inside Segnor. Though I could not really stand seeing mother at this instance as she is too inconsolable," Diego struggles in fighting the tears off, "Nanang Ditas is kind enough to help us in comforting her,"

Diego leads his segnor through a bamboo ladder leading through the stilt hut. In the living room there sprawls Nita on a straw mattress, the old woman looks miserable with her eyes swollen from crying, her hair almost covering her face. Ditas sits beside her holding a camisa, one of Utoy's, comforting the weeping woman. It is Ditas who sees Teo first as he makes his way into the living room,

"Oh good Lord," the surprised woman shrieks

Nita rises and holds Teo's hand. With his presence, the inconsolable woman breaks down to her knees and cries again,

"Segnor, help me find my boy. My poor Utoy, he must be really scared now. It breaks my heart to imagine him in harm's way. What did we do to deserve this suffering? My family regularly attends the mass, we always pray unto the Lord every morning when we wake up and before we go to sleep. We thank Him for every meal and never did we look at our neighbors with judging eyes, unlike those insolent people in front of our house. Segnor, Utoy is a virtuous boy. A religious boy if I may add. Fray Luciano can attest to that as my boy never misses the Padre's mass. He might have not known my boy personally, but I am certain he can recognize him, the boy who likes to sit near the altar. My boy, Segnor, help me find my poor boy, my Utoy,"

Teo assists the weeping woman to stand up as he clasps her hands in his tighter

"Aling Nita, I will personally ask my Uncle to find Utoy, he can have some Civil Guards patrol the fields to find him,"

"My heart is crushing while sitting here not doing anything to find him, he must be out there and starving. He must have not eaten since last night" Nita exclaims

"And your hysterics will not bring your boy back Nita, so hush at once. If you pass out for crying out loud, I will bathe you in boiling water to wake you," Ditas quips

"If only his brother did not leave him alone in the fields he would have made it home safe" Nita stabs Diego with a charging look,

"And you'd rather have both of your sons disappear, Nita?" Ditas stands up, "come, let us prepare, the woman will be here shortly,"

Teo follows Ditas to the front lawn with Nita still by his hand. They gather around the cauldron and watch Ditas as she throws the shirt in the boiling water,

"This will bring Utoy back, that is if he walked away by himself. The boy must have a hidden sulking regard to anyone of you and decided to spend the night alone somewhere," Ditas nods at his Segnor, who looks confused

The horde of the prying faces in the front lawn slowly disappears as some can be seen leading their children away, with some taking steps back and immediately carry their children away to make way for some approaching people. When the path clears, Mang Gener, Nita's husband, steps in to their front yard.

The old man has an exhausted expression, which is a mix of tiredness and of grief, still catching his breath.

"Is it past three in the afternoon?" he gasps

"We are just on time, Mang Gener," says a voice from behind him

A woman in gray blouse and black skirt, covered in dark brown veil, steps in behind Mang Gener. The woman's presence sends the neighbors away and back to their houses; some can be seen carrying their children away while covering their children's eyes with their hands. The woman stands in front of the cauldron and removes her veil revealing her long black hair almost touching the ground with gray roots. She ties her veil into her waist to keep it from falling off

"Thank you for coming over, Fabiana," Ditas greets

"This will not suffice, Nanang Ditas," the woman nods at the old woman as she points to the boiling shirt in the cauldron

"We will prepare the alum and the incense then," Ditas steps back and gesture Diego to bring in the dried coconut husks with alum and frankincense

"Please Segnora, bring back my boy. I must be punished for my disobedience, Fray Luciano can reprimand me and the Lord may cast His wrath upon me but I will gladly oblige. I have tried to ask the Lord to bring me my boy back all night but He seemed to be needed by someone whose burden is greater than mine that He decided to heed their pleas before mine and my boy" Nita sobs, "You are the only one who can heed us now, Segnora,"

Fabiana touches the woman by her shoulder as she nods and smiles warmly, her eyes reflecting compassion

At a small wooden table the woman settles her belongings, a small straw bag filled with herbs and roots, and a bottle of oil and a small bolo which used to hang on her side which surprised the people watching her

"I can ward off bad entities that will come after me, but not those who are possessed by them, this can" she claims looking at the small bolo as she unsheathes it and lays it on the table

Ditas starts to burn the alum and the frankincense with a burning coal in a dried coconut husks, creating a unique scent that glides into the air. Fabiana carries the dried coconut husk and brandishes it into the atmosphere while whispering a prayer

lsko notices the curious look on Teo's face. He nudges at him and with his eyes he points out to the praying woman,

"She was believed to be a mangkukulam, a pagan witch" Isko whispers, "she lives in solitude in the woods near the Asisig river. They say she feeds off from young children and even unborn ones" he chuckles

"How will those burning incense find Utoy?," Teo enquires

The woman stops reciting a silent prayer as she turns around to face her spectators. She walks towards Teo and gives him a detached look:

"A man has a soul that necessitates it to be balanced with his nature, in earlier times, we call the souls, dungan. As men grow older, these dungan become imbalanced with his nature because of poor sustenance and man's vices. But the children, the innocent children have their souls perfectly balanced with nature; so pure of a soul that sometimes theirs attract entities; both the malevolent and benevolent kinds, and these entities capture those dungan," she pauses to brandish the coconut husk into the air again, "if the boy has his soul captured by these spirits then we have to respectfully ask them to bring his dungan back, to bring him back" she finishes

"How will those burning incense retrieve the boy back if he is really abducted?" Teo interrupts

"The incense will not, but this will invoke the spirits of the ancestors to help us in tracing his dungan," she responds vaguely

Teo gets more confused with the woman's response, he tries to find the answer to the people around him but to his surprise, he finds them with their heads down all submitting to the mysticism of the woman

With her veil covering her face again, barefooted, Fabiana walks towards the backyard, still swaying the burning incense in coconut husk in the air. Under the mango tree she settles, moaning softly as if speaking to an unseen force above the trees, hiding in the leaves. She then turns around and reaches for the goat tied in the stilt of the hut, she touches the goat's head and stares deep into its eyes, whispering into its ears. After which, she holds her ear near its mouth and she can be seen nodding, as if the goat whispered unto her. Moths, butterflies and other insects fly around the woman with some settles on her skirt; the chickens and ducks that used to roam across the road gather in the back yard as well; and birds perch on the tree branches looking down at the woman. Their collective noise gives a peculiar sounds as if conveying a message to her.

"I understand," Fabiana then nods and removes her veil, tying it again into her waist

As she walks away from the mango tree, the insects that flocked her skirt flies off along with the birds; while the ducks and the chickens proceed to roam away from the backyard. Fabiana reaches the front yard where her spectators still have their head down, with only Teo and Isko witnessing the occurrence that she caused.

"The boy's dungan is not with the tamawos nor the dwendes," she proclaims, "the ancestors claimed that his soul was not seen anywhere near the regions of the engkantos"

"Praise be to you, Fabiana, at the least the boy is still alive," Ditas proclaims holding Nita's hand

"Praise be to the ancestors, Nanang Ditas'' Fabiana responds smiling at Mang Gener and Nita, "the ancestors claimed that the boy was with a mortal,"

"Isn't that evident, Segnora?" Teo interrupts, "even before your theatrics started we all know that the boy was abducted," he sternly proclaims

Fabiana gathers her belongings from the small table and she keeps silent for a moment,

"May I know if the disruptive Segnor has an idea of the mortal who took the poor boy?" she asks calmly

Teo twitches his neck and takes air in;

"Pardon me if I disturbed your act, Segnora, but I honestly do not have an idea who could have abducted Utoy. My uncle, the Captain, can have the Civil Guards check the fields and the neighboring towns. And that is what I have been proposing us to do, instead of burning incense and invoking imaginary spirits in the trees" Teo pauses, "my apologies for my being stubborn, Nanang Ditas, Aling Nita, Mang Gener. Fray Luciano would have been furious to know of these hideous rituals,"

"When someone you hold dear the most suddenly goes missing, you would wish that they are still alive, isn't that right, Segnor?," Fabiana pauses, "more than anybody here, you have been through enslaving sadness for losing someone dear; and deep down inside, you still wish that the one missing is still around. How come the only person who should have understood how this family feels is the same person denying them of their hope?"

Fabiana reaches her arm to Nita and caresses the woman's back as she calmly retorts;

"There is so much hope in knowing that at the least, we can look for the boy somewhere rather than to look for his corpse" to this Nita sobs silently and Gener nods in agreement

"Segnor, the boy has a poor family, the father tilts the soil that belongs to your land. Insignificant people are easy to be replaced with. I am unsure if the Captain could be bothered to look for some things which can be easily replaced" Fabiana retorts.

Surpised by her response, Teo clutches the hem of his shirt, looking furious and more tensed

"Lucky them that they have you here, Segnor" Fabiana interrupts, "You claim you can ask your Uncle to search for the boy,"

Fabiana puts her head down and covers her face with her veil once again before she faces the young man

"you can personally ask the Captain in front of the boy's family to look for him once he arrives here with the Civil Guards, I hope you will get a favorable response,"

The woman then hangs her bolo on her side skirt and arches her back closer to Teo as she whispers to him;

"One of the ancestors said they saw a man's dungan who has a message for you," she pauses, "Don Lorenzo said he accepted your prayers when you were at the foot of his tomb. He has always been proud of his foster son, he said; and he misses you, too" Fabiana steps out of the front yard and into the road with Mang Gener following shortly.

Her message echoes over his head, leaving him nauseous, Teo seems frozen as he feels a cold breeze engulfs him, his knees are trembling as he keeps clutching the hem of his shirt looking at the veiled woman walking away and disappearing into the smoky road. Teo is left dumbfounded as he does not notice Teniente Leon arrives on a horse back with two Civil Guards, just like how Fabiana foretold that he will come.