Chapter 25: First Case

Lumi couldn't sleep. She did sleep after eating a hefty serving of Lomi, which she loved. She woke up at 3 am, the witching hour as Matthos calls it. Speaking of Matthos, she can hear him speaking on the phone in a hushed voice. He did not sound pleased. This was the first time that she's hearing him in such a state, and it feels so foreign to her.

Tiptoeing out of her room, she gently opened the door to the library only to find Matthos staring at her. She was about to close the door when he waved her to come inside and tapped the table. Lumi sat there and patiently listened to the conversation between him and the caller on his metal device, phone? 'Yes, that's what it's called,' Lumi made a happy dance inside her head because she remembered her lessons.

"What of?" Matthos wrote down words that Lumi quite understood. He had good penmanship, but it was just too small and rushed.

Finally remembering that she's also in the room, Matthos turned it to loudspeaker. Lumi watched as he set the phone on the table.

"Yes," the grumbly voice came from the phone and it almost made Lumi jump. It was raspy, like the voice of someone who had a cigar too many. "It's very suspicious considering that the hysteria is dying down, a little. The agents created a theory which I find stupid. The people affected are parents, mothers, and fathers mostly. Only a little of the population are religious people," the woman exhaled, "Now the government is saying that the biohazards are affecting the brains of these patients to think that they're seeing the sign of the times. Some kind of end of the world thing. I don't know about you, Matthos, but there's something weird going on about these two cities."

"What else do you have for me?" He pinched the bridge of his nose, exhausted to the bone with all the reading he'd done hours before.

"Something unimportant," the woman stated in a bored tone, "There's a case of a baby falling asleep and not waking up. Baby shaking syndrome, I suppose. However, the sister is a victim of hysteria. She said they're taking her child, and now chaos is taking place."

Lumi's ears perked up, 'sleeping child?'

Matthos's tired eyes opened up, finally alert, and said, "I think we should look into it."

"What? Look at baby formulas or how people hold children? Matthos, when did we ever act like those maternity advocates?" the voice laughed. She found it incredulous that their researcher would even suggest such a thing to them.

"Try to look into it," he ushered. Then he felt foolish, so he diverted the conversation, "Why don't we focus on the victims' energy?"

"Why would you even put energy into this?"

"What if this thing is like a magnet? That these people's spiritual energies are what's powering the curse? That if these people's energies are controlled to some point, then we can dull their curse's control?"

The line went silent for a while.

"You know what? You have a point. Okay, I'll ask some healers to experiment on this. So your theory is, for now, lower their spiritual energies, basically subdue them?"

"Yes," Matthos confirmed, "That's what I am suggesting."

Lumi suddenly wrote on the paper, "*Water cleansing"

Matthos stared at Lumi, asking her to dumb it down for him. She then wrote, "Pagtatawas, oracion, alum crystal."

Finally getting it, he explained, "Do water cleansing. Barney's parents will know how to do it through pagtatawas, a Filipino way of water cleansing. Since we can't diagnose the problem, they can create an oración spell to control, mass and choose some that we can track."

"Huh," the person on the other line sounded like she's considering it. Lumi was staring at Matthos who was at his wit's end, though not for the reason she thinks of, he's just extremely drowsy. He wants to sleep already and this woman won't let him.

"You know what," the woman laughed, "I don't know why I didn't think of it that way! All we were doing was looking for possible sources and containing. Well, I'll have healers to do that Pagtatawas and, what else would you recommend?"

Matthos looked at Lumi, begging her for more ideas so he can doze off. She sighed and wrote, "Priest, bless and remove black spots."

"Bless religious places, remove crystals, find black spots."

"Okay, Matthos, I'll do just that," the woman replied.

"Good morning, Valeria Ramos. Now let me sleep." He ended the call and gently laid his head on the table. He looked at Lumi and grinned, "Thanks, Lumi."

"You're welcome, Matthos. However, the sleeping baby?"

"Could be anything," he told her, "People in the modern age don't know how to handle babies so they accidentally kill them. Don't worry, it's not here yet."

*Pagtatawas- a Filipino way of healing. The healer says an oración or prayer and puts the alum crystal on a basin of water. Then, the alum crystal is placed in front of the fire. Once it starts to crack, the healer will put it in the basin of water. The crystal will take the shape of the being that is currently infecting the victim.

Pagtatawas is also used to control one's energy.