4 Pain (part 1)

The smell of sweet ripe alatiris was heavy in the air. I opened my eyes to a sun setting behind the red mansion. The wind was cool on my skin. The sound of bird song played in the air. I was sitting under a very young alatiris tree; its branches barely reached up to the sky.

"Eve? Is that you," Grace's voice said, walking up to me with her young teenage body. "It's been so long. Are you pregnant again?"

I looked up at her as she sat next to me.

"What do you mean 'again'?" I looked down at my body. It was slightly older than the last time I was here. I was already showing, but it was a lot smaller.

"The last time we met, your belly was so big. You looked like you were about to give birth right here," she said with a laugh.

I rubbed my small swollen belly.

She looked at me and seeing the expression on my face, she said, "Sorry, I didn't mean to laugh."

"No, it's alright," I said. "Where did we last meet?"

"You don't remember?" she asked, cocking her head questioningly to one side. "Right here. We had just moved alatiris tree right here."

"I was pregnant then?"

"What is wrong with you? Did you hit yourself in the head or something?"

I laughed and then I stopped, remembering what was going to happen to her soon.

"No…" I hesitated to talk further, but I took a chance anyway. "If I tell you something really weird, will you believe me?"

"Depends, will it be the truth?" she said as she began to braid her long black hair.

"Of course!" I answered back.

"Okay, what is it?" She looked at me with her big brown eyes.

"I—" a call from the mansion interrupted me.

"Grace! Come home now!" a man's voice yelled.

"Yes, Papa!" Grace answered back, standing up quickly. She looked at me. "You should come with us, too. It won't be safe out here by nightfall."

She pulled me up on my feet and led me into the red mansion. She looked at her father and pointed at me. He merely nodded in understanding. We exchanged brief glances, and somehow, in the back of my mind, I recognized him.

"Grace, what's happening?" I asked her as she led me to the house. I saw the window I climbed into earlier, but the vines were barely crawling up the walls. She saw dead vines piled up on the spot where the bodies will have been piled onto.

Grace pulled her through the hallway, past several doors, and into a secret passageway in one of the hidden rooms.

"Careful, ladder," she said as she disappeared into the hole in the ground.

I followed after her, and when I landed on the floor, the passageway was sealed above us, flooding us in darkness.

A small candle was lit in the middle of the room, and I looked at the faces of scared women of all ages huddled together in the middle of the room.

Grace pulled me to join the group. She pointed at me and mouthed, "This is Eve." I waved at them and they smiled me. I think they did. I could only see parts of this their faces in the dark. "These are my titas."

Grace pulled me into a corner of the room, and we sat there together in the dark. Her large brown eyes reflected the small glow of the candle.

"Why are we hid—?" I began, but the dark memory stops her. "Who are we hiding from?"

"The dayo. They do random raids at night," she whispered.

"So they haven't made their way here yet," I mumbled more to myself.

"There's talk in town about the dayo marching their way through all the northern baryos," she explained, hugging her knees. "They're still pretty far, but Papa wanted to be careful."

But this is where the dayo soldiers will set up their garrison. There was no use hiding.

I looked to the other women if any of them were watching us.

They were already choosing spots around the candle where they can sleep.

And then I understood why they all felt familiar to me, even Grace's father.

The pile.

I looked at Grace, a sudden surge urgency rushing through my veins. I had to get them out of this place.

She looked at me and noticed my distress. "What is it?"

I opened my mouth to talk, but another thought came to me.

If I interfere with the flow of time, will I ever be born?

"Is it the weird thing you wanted to tell me?" she said, looking worriedly at me.

"I— ah— yes," I said, reluctantly. I rubbed my belly. "I think I can travel through time."

She looked at me suspiciously. "You really did hit your head, didn't you?"

"You promised you'd believe me," I told her.

"I thought when you said 'weird,' you meant you had an extra toe or something!" she answered a little too loudly, earning her a shush from the women around the candlelight. She mouthed an apology.

I held on to her forearm and made her focus on me

"Well, how else can you explain that I look younger and less pregnant than when we first met?"

Grace looked at her through squinted eyes. "You did mention that you'd say something as crazy as this last time."

"I did?" I asked, innocently. It felt weird that as I went back in time, time also went through my own body. I would probably be my present day age by the next time I return to this time.

"Okay, let's say I believe you," she began. "What were you doing in your own time?"

"I was about to give birth to my daughter," I said without thinking, rubbing my belly as I talked.

"Is it hard, being pregnant, I mean?" she asked, watching the fire dance in the middle of the dark basement.

"It is, but there are days when I feel so overwhelming happy with this child inside me. And I feel like I would do anything for her." I paused. "And then there are days when I don't want it anymore. I feel an overwhelming hatred for this thing taking away everything from me."

Grace didn't talk for awhile. "Will it be painful?"

"Childbirth? It has been painful for me, but then my labor's only began before I traveled back to this time."

"Oh," Grace said simply.

"Why do you ask?"

"My father wants me to marry the old man on Crispulo street. His wife died without giving him a child."

"Can't you say no?"

"No."

I fumbled with the hem of my dress. Is it right for me to dampen her mood about her future? Instead, I asked, "I saw vines growing out on the side of the house."

"Yeah, they go straight into my room. I ask Papa's men to remove them because of all the bugs."

"Maybe you should grow them out?"

"Why?"

"They look nice. Maybe you can get a Romeo and Juliet moment," I told her, making her look at me with a curious expression on her face.

"Who are Romeo and Juliet?"

"Characters from story. Are there no books here?" I asked her.

"There are, but Papa wants me to concentrate on my needlework," she said and then began imitating her father's gestures. "Women belong in the kitchen and in the bedroom. They have no business going about reading like men."

I laughed at her antics, but I felt a bit of pity for her, too.

A serious thought came to her. "Do you know what's going to happen to us?"

I nodded, opening my mouth to speak. She raised a hand to stop me.

"No, don't tell me."

"Don't you want to know what's going to happen to you?"

"I don't know," she said. "I just know that I don't want to live my whole life feeling afraid all the time."

"Is there anything you want to know about the future?" I asked reluctantly.

"I don't think so," she said, thinking. "Wait. I do want to know one thing. Will I have children with the old man of Crispulo street?"

I smiled and shook my head.

"Oh good," she said, breathing a sigh of relief. "What about you? Do you know what's going to happen to your future?"

I shook my head. "No, I've only been to past. I don't think I'd want to know what my future has in store for me. I still want to be able to choose my own path."

She mumbled an agreement. "Is your baby a choice you made?"

I stopped to think about that. "Not at first. I tried to get rid of it, but I guess I wanted to keep her. I never felt this happy before her."

She nodded and touched my belly. "Hear that, baby? You are strong. You are brave. You are loved."

"Where did you hear that?"

"From you, in my past, I guess. Or your future. I don't know," she said with a laugh.

"Well, I first heard it from my Lola Amor."

"She sounds like splendid woman."

"Well, she's her mother's daughter."

"Is the future why you want me to grow out the icky vines on side of the house?" she joked.

"You said you don't want to know," I said gleefully.

"Yeah, but if it means—"

A series of heavy footsteps tumped on the floorboard above them.

"Shush!" the oldest woman in their group said. An eerie silence fell in the basement. She blew out the candle, and then there was darkness again.