by Yeyet Soriano

Image by Jenny Mavimiro on Pexels. (All photos and videos on Pexels can be downloaded and used for free).

She has forgotten what she had needed to do. 

She is standing on the top of the stairs connecting the first and second floors of their house. Was she coming down or had she just reached the top? She isn’t sure. Her mind is foggy with sleep. 

She looks down and she is wearing a full pajama set in black with white trim and her gray fluffy bedroom slippers. Strange, she never wears her bedroom slippers outside the bedroom. Is she dreaming? She suddenly becomes aware of her throat feeling parched and slightly irritated. 

Ah, that’s it. She must have been on her way down to drink a glass of water. 

She descends from the stairs slowly. Patches of moonlight stream through the big window in the living room, so it isn’t completely dark. She enters the kitchen and pours herself a cold glass of water from the refrigerator. As she drinks, bits and pieces of the nightmare that must have woken her come flooding back.

Help me!

A young girl’s voice, but sounding muffled and far away.

Help me!

A sudden pain shoots through the right side of her head and starts throbbing. She almost drops the half-empty glass of water. She carefully lays it on the counter, where another glass of water sits. It’s probably her husband’s.

She can barely keep her eyes open, the pain overwhelming her to the point of swooning. But she holds on, wanting to be back in bed before giving in. She feels her way back to the staircase, and holds tightly to the banister. 

When she reaches the top, the pain suddenly disappears, leaving her light-headed. She opens her eyes. The half-moon’s light streams through the living room window below.

She has forgotten what she had needed to do.

#

Celia Crisostomo sighs deeply when she sees the deliveries by the gate for her husband, Enrico. In almost thirty-five years of marriage, she knows the signs when he’s embarked on a new “project.”

Every two or three years, Enrico would immerse his whole attention and being on a new hobby. Each one, Celia can trace through her core memories of those times. 

The phantom whiffs of the lingering scent of chicken poop that permeated their house more than twenty years ago reminds Celia of the time Enrico became fascinated with breeding and training fighting cocks, to the point that they even bought a farm near Tagaytay to house his close-to-a-hundred heads of breeders and fighters. When he grew tired of it, he sold everything off for a tidy profit. 

The time that Celia kept to herself inside the house, afraid to go out, was the period of time Enrico moved on to American Bullies. He joined dog shows and even won awards. Celia never warmed up to dogs in general. She was more of a cat person.  

The relaxing stage was when Enrico filled their pond with beautiful koi. Until they all died due to a mysterious virus. How Celia misses just watching the fish swim around peacefully while she had her morning coffee. 

The period of the birds was more of an auditory memory for Celia. The cooing of the doves he had built a dove coop for on their rooftop. The sound of their wings in flight. When he moved on to colorful birds, and built a small aviary for them on their balcony, Celia woke up every morning to the sound of the birds twittering. At first, it was just annoying noise, but over time, she grew to like it, and it had become music to her ears.

Then, during the pandemic, Enrico started buying plants—big, expensive ones. Celia always thought she was living in a jungle whenever she went to the garden. While disconcerting at first, she found solace in all the green around her.

There was always something new with Enrico, and once Celia has started to adapt to that, he would move on to the next new thing.

Celia looks at the big pots, sacks of what look like garden soil, and some oddly shaped tree trunks. It was as though Enrico had suddenly decided to become Mister Miyagi in middle age,  learning the art of the bonsai, like the Japanese sensei in the original Karate Kid movies of their youth.

Celia’s gaze falls on the assortment of miniature tree trunks. Goosebumps rise on her nape, and something cold caresses her spine. While she appreciates the beauty of a well-tended bonsai, she’s always pitied the tree that would never reach its full potential because of  constant shaping and pruning. Something about it calls to mind the ancient Chinese practice of foot binding. So much pain to endure to achieve beauty. 

“Your orders have arrived,” she says when Enrico, ceramic mug in hand, steps into the garage to join her.  Enrico smiles like the kid that he was half a century before. He always looked like that when he was beginning a project–like a child in a toy store. 

Celia can’t help but smile back, even though she feels a slight twinge in her heart. She rued the fact that they never had kids–a boy who would have looked like Enrico, and girls who would have been Celia’s partners in crime. Both of them had physical issues, and neither wanted to adopt; so now Enrico has his projects and Celia has her cats–a tuxedo, a Persian, and puspin–a rescued pusang Pinoy.   

“I’m trying to learn grafting,” Enrico says. “I will graft my chosen color combinations on the bougainvillea tree trunks I selected. We will have such pretty flowers in the summer!”

This coming from the man who had refused to put any flowering plants in their farm, Celia thinks, the same one who weaned her out of favoring the outlandish color combinations she used to wear.  Now she dons classic muted colors that never go out of style, and he wants to adorn their house with colorful flowers. This is what getting old means.

“Just how many trunks did you buy?” Celia asks. From where she stands, she can see at least six of them.

“A couple,” Enrico answers. “And they’re more root stock than trunks, really. It’s the roots that have the interesting shapes, not the trunks.” 

He never says the exact numbers when it is more than normal. Celia thinks he might have bought more than ten. He always goes overboard. 

She walks closer to the trunks in the garage—to herself, she still calls them trunks, even if Enrico has corrected her. They are all oddly shaped, gnarly, perfect for bonsai-making. They do look like twisted roots that normally grow underground. 

“You got carried away buying again, didn’t you?” Celia asks gently. Asked incorrectly, Enrico might get mad. 

“Wait till you see the star of the bunch! That one will be delivered tomorrow,” Enrico gushes. 

Celia sighs. At least this new hobby looks lucrative. Perhaps it will tide them over for the next few years. Until the next new thing comes along and catches his fancy. 

#

“Cel!” 

Celia remembers laying her head down on the couch arm to rest briefly, but now she is wide awake. The living room TV is still playing the latest series she is binge watching, in between meetings–her IT job for a multinational is mostly remote.

She wonders who had called her name and woken her, then chuckles to herself. Of course it’s Enrico. There are only two of them in the house; who else can it be?

“Coming!” she calls out, suddenly suppressing the need to laugh. That answer would have meant something else a decade or so ago, when they were both a little friskier. 

Enrico is in the garage and front yard area. Celia carefully carries her tuxedo cat, Keanu, who had been sleeping on her lap. She transfers him to the couch, changes into her outdoor slippers, and steps out of the main door. Enrico is  very particular about wearing the appropriate slippers depending on the location. 

She sees it before Enrico has a chance to present it to her—a short but thick, severely gnarled tree trunk (roots, he calls them roots) already repotted. It is the stuff of nightmares. She could swear there are faces etched on the trunk looking out on her.  It is leafless now, and its obvious roots look like they have  multiple stories to tell. 

Celia reluctantly walks closer. Enrico is smiling from ear to ear, extremely excited and proud.

“This is the star of my collection, Cel,” Enrico gushes. 

Celia cannot believe this is something anyone would consider the star of a collection, but then, there are many people in the world who appreciate the macabre. Because that is what it looks like—it looks like it houses a small but powerful monster that would only come out at night. 

“Are you sure you didn’t buy this together with a small tiyanak hiding inside?” Celia asks, trying to make light of it, half-hoping that the monster baby that is the stuff of many local horror movies won’t suddenly pop out.

“Oh, wouldn’t that be the coolest thing,”  Enrico says, laughing. 

Definitely not cool, thinks Celia. Leave it to Enrico to embrace the potential horror hovering around the tree trunk. 

“You know, once I graft the colors I want and it goes into full bloom, this will be the most beautiful bonsai of all!”

As long as nothing comes out of it at night, Celia thinks, I would be fine.

“How exactly did you get this?” she asks, morbidly curious.

Enrico starts fussing with the trunk, and the soil kissing its roots, and the pot. “I saw that it was on sale online and I contacted the seller.”

“Just like that?”

Enrico looks up at her. “That’s how it goes.” 

He continues picking off stray branches from the trunk. “The seller is a high school principal. He said he needed to raise funds for the school band.” Enrico looks at Celia. “He said this trunk’s close to eighty years old. Can you believe it? It’s older than us!”

Celia shrugs. That trunk looked like it had been existing longer than it should. She wishes Enrico would place it far from any of her favorite spaces in the house. “Where will you place that?” 

“The roof deck of course. All the one-of-a-kind bonsai will be moved there,” Enrico says. “I’ve asked some muscle from the clubhouse maintenance team to come over later. They’ll help me move these pots.”

The roof deck was another project of Enrico’s that had just recently been completed–one that had caused a big dent in their retirement savings. 

“How many will be coming over?” Celia asks, thinking already of the food and drinks she would need to prepare.

“Five max.”

With just the two of them in the house, meals are quite easy to prepare. Celia did meal prep on the weekends, so during the weekdays, all they needed to do was heat food up. However, in this case, she will need to do extra cooking to feed the support team later.

“Why don’t you make some of your delicious tuna pasta? I think we still have some canned tuna, cream and pasta lying around.” Enrico does the marketing and grocery runs, so he always knows what they have in their pantry.  “Or will your afternoon be filled with meetings?” 

“I have some free time in between,” she answers. Now that they are talking about food, she stares at the irregular lines of the trunk before them. In her mind, it looks like a huge maw ready to devour anything near it. 

“What?” Enrico asks, seemingly amused at Celia’s expression. 

“I’m expecting something to come out of that trunk!”

Enrico’s laughter echoes and pursues Celia into the house as she hurriedly sets out to prepare for the guests later. 

#

It’s been two weeks since the trunk was delivered to their home. Celia knew that something was wrong. Throughout the day, she would find herself going round in circles, avoiding the roof deck and its hideous bonsai. But she would also find herself going in and out of rooms with no idea why she was doing it. She would go to bed very tired, like she had been going up and down the stairs. Although she would sometimes have vague memories of doing so, she didn’t remember why she would need to do that.

Worse, every night since the trunk had been delivered, Celia had been having nightmares. At first, her sleep had been interrupted by soft voices muttering overlapping and unintelligible words and phrases. It sounded like there were several voices vying for her attention. Celia wanted them to stop. She would place her hands on her ears, but for some reason, the voices only intensified and bounced around freely in her head. She eventually realized the voices weren’t coming from outside, but from inside her. Now Celia knows she is dreaming when the voices in her head begin whispering. Lately, however, the muttering voices had grown louder, and would not stop despite her pleas.

Tonight, Celia anxiously waits for sleep to arrive. She clutches the comforter and pulls it to cover her exposed shoulder. Enrico stirs slightly, his soft snores interrupted. Both she and Enrico like their bedroom below 18 degrees Celsius, but during the night, they always sleepily fight over the comforter.

Celia feels a chill and belatedly realizes the comforter is gone. She is outdoors in her pajamas and the cold night air is strong. She looks around to determine where she is and a cold hand grabs her heart when she recognizes the view from her roof deck.  Her heart beats against the cold hand and the voices in her head start intensifying. They are screaming in pain. 

“Please stop,” she pleads with the voices, but her own voice is drowned out by the cacophony of alien voices vying for her attention. 

Her feet start moving, and Celia stiffens, trying to stop them from going where they intended to go. “No, please, stop!” she screams at the top of her lungs. But her feet don’t listen. Neither do her legs who are complicit. Tears prick the sides of her eyes as Celia squeezes her eyes shut. 

When she opens her eyes, Enrico’s tree trunk stands before her, bigger than she remembers it to be. Enrico had installed a small solar spotlight on the soil and it now illuminates the trunk eerily. Celia feels a wave of melancholy wash over her. Her cheek is wet with tears.

“Am I crying?” Celia asks herself, confused. She hears someone crying–but it isn’t her. Her hand touches the tree trunk and finds that  it, too, is wet.

Celia’s hand feels around the trunk, trying to search for something. The crying becomes louder. Her other hand joins the search, and Celia finds her body inches away from the trunk. Now her arms are around it in almost like an embrace.

Help me, comes the clear whisper from inside the trunk, the voice of a young girl. 

Celia tries to disentangle herself from the trunk’s embrace, but she is stuck. She is stuck and she is being sucked into the trunk the more that she struggles.

Between the feeling of being pinioned into a forced embrace, to the voice whispering into her ear, Celia wants to escape. “Stop!” she begs. She can smell the earthy smell of the trunk on her face. And some familiar scent her brain cannot grasp. “Stop!” She screams as she is squeezed inside the hollow of the trunk, which, undulating, engulfs her.

It is difficult to breathe. It is dead quiet. 

Then suddenly–the child’s voice rings clearly: Help me!

Celia falls into the abyss.

Her eyes fly open just as Enrico is shaking her awake.

Celia is back in bed, and she reaches up to embrace her husband and cries into his chest.

“There, there, Cel, it’s just a dream,” Enrico coos, his hands moving up and down her back, trying to comfort her.

#

It had started with the trunk. Celia knows that it would only end if she discovered what the dreams are trying to tell her. 

There was one person who she was able to talk about her dreams many, many years ago. It’s strange how suddenly the memory of this person became clear. This morning, she just found herself going to the place where she could find that person. A place suddenly she felt she needed to go to. 

Celia looks up at the sign over the entrance gate, Kolehiyo de Stella Maria. 

It’s been more than forty years since she last set foot in her elementary and high school alma mater. Celia feels two conflicting perspectives: the school hasn’t changed a bit and yet it seems smaller, less important, less real.

As soon as she passes through the gate of the school, along with the throng of students going about their class day, the memories she never realized she had lost starts trickling back.

A smell of a cologne from long ago. 

There is a whispered name but Celia cannot hear it clearly. No wonder the compulsion to visit the school after all these years came unbidden. Celia believes she will find the answers here. 

“Who are you?” Celia whispers as she walks through the school grounds. The tears stream down her cheeks. The unremembered name coupled with the smell of the cologne bring a whole torrent of emotion within Celia. Emotions she is now processing, without fully understanding.

“Celia Miranda?” Celia looks up to the sound of her maiden name and stares at a nun with a face she also conveniently forgot, but now she knows even if it is older. 

“Sister Emma?” Celia’s voice cracks, but Sr. Emma’s eyes meet hers, and she catches Celia as she falls into her embrace, sobbing. 

#

Celia finds herself in Sr. Emma’s office, a room she had frequented when she was still in school. Sr. Emma was her favorite teacher, who also happened to be her guidance counselor and friend when she needed one so desperately.

“I remember I always felt safe here, Sister,” Celia says, as she looks around the familiar office. 

“This is always a safe space for you Celia,” Sr. Emma says gently. Celia misses her suddenly. 

“How could I have forgotten you?” Celia asks, confused.

“It’s your mind’s natural defense mechanism, I think, Celia,” Sr. Emma answers, always being the voice of reason. “Maybe memories of me would trigger other memories you would rather not remember.”

Celia stares at Sr. Emma, absorbing the nun’s words, as memories start coming back. Memories of how she spent many an afternoon in Sr. Emma’s office, discussing life, religion, but mostly dreams. 

“Celia.” Sr. Emma leans forward on her desk. “Why are you here? The last time I saw you was during your graduation. You never attended any of the reunions. Why now?”

Celia blinks. “I’ve been having dreams, Sister.”

Sr. Emma smiles. “You always loved discussing your dreams.”

Celia smiles. “Because you always helped me make sense of them.” 

“Just like old times,” Sr. Emma says gently. “Okay, tell me about your dreams.”

Celia tells Sr. Emma everything. 

“Interesting,” Sr. Emma utters while stroking her chin. “A tree trunk signifies stability in your waking life. Your foundation, your core. Do you have any reason to feel unstable?”

Celia shrugs. “Not particularly. My life is quite good, satisfying even,” she answers.

“I see,” Sr. Emma says. “Now, being swallowed by the trunk, on the other hand, signifies either surrendering or feeling vulnerable…or feeling stuck and losing your individuality to an overwhelming environment. It’s like there is maybe an internal struggle happening within you where you feel stressed and powerless.”

Celia hears the words, but they don’t resonate at all. But there is a part deep inside her that seems excited with what Sr. Emma is saying. 

“The voice,” Sr. Emma says. “…the dominant one, you mentioned it sounded like a young girl?”

Celia nods.

“May I ask, Celia,” Sr. Emma says gently. “Do you have kids?  I remember when you were in high school you told me you wanted to have three kids, two girls and a boy.”

Celia feels her heart break into pieces. The tears came again, but she doesn’t break down.

“Unfortunately, my husband and I were not blessed with kids,” she manages to say. “I was so specific, Sister? Two girls and a boy?” Celia asks as she dabs the tears from her eyes with tissue.

“Yes!  You and Angelyn were always one-upping each other. It started with you saying you wanted one kid, then she said she wanted two, then you said three, then she said she would have four…”

Angelyn.

The whispered name suddenly becomes clear. Angelyn. Memories continue to trickle back.

“Angelyn…” Celia says slowly, more to herself than to Sr. Emma. “I—”

“You forgot about her too,” Sr. Emma says softly. 

Celia nods. How could I have forgotten Angelyn?

“What do you remember now?” Sr. Emma asks. 

“I remember being mad at her,” Celia reasons. “She just left me without saying goodbye. One day we were talking about a TV show we were going to watch together on the weekend, and the next moment, she was just gone.”

Sr. Emma lowers her eyes.

“Sister?” Celia says.

Sr. Emma reluctantly raises her gaze and looks back at Celia.

“What happened to Angie?”

Sr. Emma hesitates before she starts speaking. “The school administration said that Angie and her family moved away.”

“Did they? Did she?” Celia asks. 

Sr. Emma sighs. “I always thought there was more to it than they were sharing. I knew Angie. I saw how close the two of you were. I don’t think she would have just left without saying goodbye, at least to you. And to me.”

“What did you think?”  Celia asks.

Sr. Emma smiles sadly. “I hoped they did move away as a family, and Angie is happy and thriving. I always want to remember her smiling that smile of hers.”

Celia tries to remember Angelyn’s smile. All she sees in her mind is a figure of a girl, but the face is a blur.

“Oh, by the way,” Sr. Emma says, remembering something important. “I found something in my old albums. I had it digitized and enhanced. It’s like I knew that soon you would be paying me a visit.”

Celia smiles. “Look at you, Sister, being tech savvy!”

Sr. Emma titters. She hands Celia a photograph.

“Do you remember this?” Sr. Emma asks.

Celia smiles. “Yes, I remember this!”

Young Celia stands beside young Sr. Emma and on Sr. Emma’s other side is Angie, Celia’s best friend.

Angie. 

“She’s smiling that goofy smile of hers!” Celia exclaims, laughing, remembering Angelyn’s smile.

“Yes, she is, and you look like you’re in between a laugh!” Sr. Emma says.  “I always loved your ponytail!”

Celia absent-mindedly touches her hair, making sure it was down and not up in a ponytail. She then focuses on Angie’s goofy smile and chuckles again. Every memory comes back in droves, but there is one powerful memory that triggers a response in Celia.

Angie loved a specific brand of cologne, Denenes. She wore it every day. That was the familiar scent that Celia smelled when she was in close proximity with the trunk. 

Angelyn’s cologne. 

And then Celia also recognizes the dominant voice she hears in her dreams. It’s Angelyn’s voice. 

While confused, Celia focuses on the photograph and looks lovingly at Angelyn and feels such overwhelming love and loss. But something catches her eyes. Behind Angelyn…

Celia stiffens and she almost drops the photograph.

“Celia, are you okay?” Sr. Emma asks, worried.

Celia smiles.  “I’m okay, Sister. I just remembered I need to be home by lunchtime. I promised my husband.”

“We haven’t finished talking about your dream!” Sr. Emma exclaims. “I have some more theories.”

Celia gathers her things and stands. “No worries, Sister, I will be back!”

“Promise?” Sr. Emma asks with a smile that Celia equates to finally coming home. 

Celia smiles back. “Promise.”

#

“Rough day at the office?” Enrico asks.

Celia looks up from moving around her food on her plate and smiles at her husband.

“Just another one of those issues we need to resolve during cutover before we go live with the system we are implementing,” she answers lightly, taking care not to show her obvious distress.

Enrico nods as he always nodded when Celia starts talking using her project jargon. While she wants to share everything with Enrico, there is something about the dreams that she feels he will take offense to. How can she tell him that his bonsai that he is so proud of is repugnant to her? How can she tell him the bonsai he so lovingly tends is haunting her dreams? It is better to just be quiet. 

Celia earlier braved a visit to the roof deck when she arrived from her visit with Sr. Emma. There had been something familiar about the background of the photograph Sr. Emma gave her. Behind Angelyn was a short bougainvillea tree that reminded Celia of Enrico’s prized bonsai.

Staring at both the photograph and the actual tree side by side, Celia can still not be certain. There are forty years between the time the photo was taken to the present. The trees don’t look exactly alike.

But Celia is sure. She knows it in her gut, the two trees are one and the same.

That night, Celia dreams. The voices are louder, clearer. Angelyn’s voice is the loudest, the clearest.

Follow the fire. 

Find us. 

Go back to the beginning.

When Celia wakes, she is not surprised to find herself on the roof deck, lying at the foot of the tree trunk behind Angie in the picture that Sr. Emma gave her. There are some pink blossoms already sprouting from the trunk branches, along with white and blue blossoms that Enrico had recently grafted. 

Go back to the beginning, the voices said. Celia remembers. She sits up to touch the new colorful growth. There is a faint aroma of something burning.

She’s had another nightmare. She has a promise to keep.

#

A promise is a promise. Celia is back in Sr. Emma’s office a few days later. Work had occupied her time the past few days. 

“I had another dream, Sister,” Celia confesses.

Sr. Emma smiles. “I gather as much.”

“The voice is now telling me to follow the fire and go back to the beginning,” Celia says. “And I am sure one of the voices is Angie’s. It’s her cologne, too, that I smell around the trunk.”

“Going back to the beginning, I think, is obvious, especially since the voice is Angie’s. She may be asking you to remember something important related to the time you were together,” Sr. Emma starts interpreting. “Following the fire symbolizes an urge to confront intense emotions, undergo a significant life transformation, or manage a situation that feels out of control.”

Celia is silent, staring at Sr. Emma.

“Is something out of control right now in your life, Celia?” Sr. Emma asks.

“The dreams. The nightmares. I feel like I am losing my grip on reality. I am almost afraid to fall asleep—but then…”

“But then?” Sr. Emma asks.

“But then, I get to hear Angie’s voice and smell her cologne. I miss her so, Sister. Sometimes, going through the nightmare is worth it just so I could have those pieces of Angie back.”

Sr. Emma reaches out a hand across the table and Celia grips it. 

“When did the dreams start?” Sr. Emma asks.

Celia sees the trunk in her mind. It all started with the trunk.

“The picture that you gave me, Sister. There was a tree in the background, behind Angie. I don’t remember seeing it in school today. Do you know what happened to it?” Celia deflects the question and asks the real reason she went to the school in the first place, while she disentangles her hand from Sr. Emma’s gently.

“Ah, that!” Sr. Emma peers at a copy of the photo on her desk. “Such a strange story that happened right after Angie left school. I remember it because it was just odd.”

“What happened?” Celia asks. 

“The school administration was all excited because they received a big donation to construct a new wing housing new classrooms and a library.”

“I seem to remember the construction, yes,” Celia muses, as the memories of the construction smells and sounds return.

“Those trees needed to be relocated, and I remember that some of them were relocated outside the school.”

“And this particular tree?” Celia asks. 

“I remember that it went to a school near us, Santa Elena College. I remember because a nice-looking teacher and a student of that school came personally to claim it.”

“Sr. Emma! Nice looking?” Celia teases.

Sr. Emma blushes onscreen. “He was nice looking! I think Jesus forgave me already for having some impure thoughts that time. I was young.”

They laugh.

“Do you remember the name of the teacher?” 

“Of course! I heard he became the principal after a few decades.”

“The name?”

“Mario Samonte. Sad though, I hear the school has fallen into hard times. Rumor has it that it would soon be up for sale.”

“Oh,” Celia exclaims.

#

Celia and Sr. Emma find themselves at the entrance of Santa Elena College. It is only a few blocks from their school. 

The rusty gate opens with a shrill creak, and an elderly man looks out to greet them. He looks like he is closer to seventy than sixty, with neat white hair and intelligent eyes peering from over small black rimmed glasses. “Celia Miranda?”

“Crisostomo–Celia Miranda Crisostomo,” Celia says. She wonders if she gave her maiden name instead of her married name when she called him. Maybe being in her old high school brought back old habits, like giving her old name. She smiles, imagining the man forty years younger and able to send a nun’s heart into disarray.  She sneaks a peek at Sr. Emma to see if any of the old crush is still there, but Sister’s face is serious. 

The man opens the gate a fraction and motions for Celia and Sr. Emma to follow him inside. 

The school is deserted. 

“When are the students and teachers coming back for the next school year?” Sr. Emma asks. Celia looks around and the school isn’t just empty. It looks unkempt as well. 

Mr. Samonte stops walking, short of breath. He points to a bench under a tree. He sits on the left side, and Celia sits on the right side. Sr. Emma hesitates and then she sits in the middle.

“We’re closing down.” he answers Sr. Emma. “We’re trying to sell what we can before the end of the year when the new owners get the land.”

“Oh, will they continue the school?” Sr. Emma asks. 

Mr. Samonte sighs. “Sadly, no. They will demolish everything and build a commercial complex.”

“I’m sorry,” Celia says, not knowing what else to say, her mind still trying to remember what Enrico said about the sale.

“It’s okay,” Mr. Samonte says. “It’s about time I really retire anyway. I’ve spent most of my life in this school. First as a student, then a teacher, then up the ranks until I became its principal. And even when I retired as principal, I still stayed in one capacity or another.” Mr. Samonte smiles. “So many memories. This is where I first got beat up as a kid, but it is also where I fell in love for the first time. I’ve made lifelong friends, and I’ve taught and guided so many children.”

Find me. Find me. Find me. Find me. Find me. Find me. Find me. Find me. Find me. Find me.

Celia’s mind is suddenly assaulted by different voices saying the same thing repeatedly, each voice getting louder and louder.  

“Do you want a drink of water?” Mr. Samonte asks.

Celia is not thirsty, just dizzy, but she needs to press on. She shows Mr. Samonte the photo of herself, Sr. Emma, and Angelyn with the bonsai. “My husband has one just like it. Sister says this one was given to your campus many years ago.”  

Mr. Samonte smirks and tells them to follow him. He leads them to an empty greenhouse. “That’s where the trees used to be planted.”

It was so dark. So dank! 

“There is high demand right now for those tree trunks.” Mr. Samonte smiles. 

“Yes,” Celia says, trying to quiet the voices in her head. “My husband has been bitten by the bug.”

“I see,” Mr. Samonte says, as if trying to figure something out. “He’s always been a green thumb,” he finally  says. “When he requested to buy all of them, I couldn’t say no.”

Celia pauses. “You know Enrico? And he bought all your trees?”

“Of course I remember Enrico. Didn’t he tell you? He was in my class during my first year of teaching!” Mr. Samonte chuckles. “A quiet, but studious boy, your husband was. A scholar. He volunteered to help me out in this very greenhouse. He would visit a few times a year to check up on them over the years. It felt right for him to take possession of the trees he helped nurture, even if there were others who were interested to buy them. He was the only logical choice.”

Celia feels light-headed again. “He said you sold the trunk because you had a school band needing musical instruments?” 

Mr. Samonte gave out a loud chuckle. “Oh dear,” he says, drying the tears spilling from his eyes due to hard laughter. “That was an old…joke between us.”

“A joke?”

“Yeah, back then I was assigned as the adviser for the school band, and we were in dire need of musical instruments. And because I was having a hard time getting funding from the school, I kept on joking about doing things and selling off things around the campus just to raise funds.”

“Ahh,” Celia utters but she is still confused.

“So when Enrico called me about buying the trunks, he mentioned that I can finally buy music instruments for the school band!” Mr. Samonte says, laughing. Celia notices the lack of humor in the laughter.

Celia laughs along, her laughter also lacking the same. “Oh, I see!”

Sr. Emma shakes her head, looking confused. Celia sees that Sr. Emma definitely doesn’t see.

Mr. Samonte turns to Sr. Emma, as if seeing her for the first time. “I remember you. You were there when  I visited your school to take a few of the tree trunks off your school’s hands.”

“That was almost forty years ago,” Sr. Emma says, her voice rising a few pitches higher.

“Those were the days,” Mr. Samonte answers, lost in thought. Then his eyes brighten as he turns to Celia.

“Enrico was with me when we picked up the tree trunks from your school.”

Celia feels  light-headed again at the prospect that Enrico was at her school even before they ever met.

“I remember you had one of your students with you!” Sister Emma exclaims. “That must have been Enrico!”

She turns to catch Celia’s eyes, but although Celia notices, she continues to stare intently at Mr. Samonte.

“He helped me with taking care of those trees,” Mr. Samonte smiles sadly. Then he looks at Celia. “He was more the father of those trees than me.”

Something in the way he phrased the statement sends chills down Celia’s spine. 

“He also worked at our family’s funeral business.  My father inherited it from his father. It passed down to the eldest son going back two generations. It was just a few blocks away from this school. My father was grooming me to take over.” He faces Celia directly: “Enrico worked there part time to earn pocket money. He was pretty handy around the incinerator.”

Follow the fire! 

Celia can’t breathe. From the corner of her eye, she notices Sr. Emma staring at her. 

Mr. Samonte tilts his head to his right side and smiles ruefully at Celia. “Enrico said you were smart. He’s always said you were special.”

Celia feels the world turning suddenly. She excuses herself from the interview. Sr. Emma is quick to take the hint and they quickly take their leave. 

#

Celia is back home in her home office, surrounded by her three cats, Keanu, Bessie, the Persian cat, and Kala, the rescue, who are mostly sleeping at her feet. 

He’s always said you were special.

Celia’s phone vibrates. If you need me, just call me.

Sr. Emma did not say anything else. Just those words. She had always known when not to press with Celia. But the way Sr. Emma phrased her message also meant she may have connected the missing dots Celia is still struggling with.

Celia immerses herself in the dulcet tones of Prince’s voice, along with the wailing of his electric guitar. The tears rundown her face as she tries to drown the voices in her head. 

Keanu gently kneads her thigh through her denim pants and Celia is back in the present.

“Cel!” Enrico calls out from the living room.

Celia carefully picks up Keanu and sets him on the floor. She leaves the room to see what her husband needs.

Enrico proudly shows her a bilao of pancit malabon.

At the sight of her husband, Celia feels some of her anxiety dissipate. She sets the table and they have their afternoon snack.

“I visited your school earlier and I met Mr. Samonte,” Celia says out of the blue, unable to keep it to herself. She and Enrico talk about everything. That is the secret to their deep friendship and relationship. Nothing is off limits. 

Enrico nodded, as though Celia’s confession were no surprise. “He got old. I still remember him as a new teacher who was pretty cool.”

“We all grew old, Enrico.”

“Not you,” Enrico says gently, reaching out to touch her hand.

Celia blushes. 

“And you visited your own school too, didn’t you?” Enrico asks gently. 

Celia nods, relaxing in his presence. “A few days ago. You know, there was a lot I forgot about my school.”

“Really?”

“I don’t know, my memory is going, I think.” 

“This coming from the person who remembers all my shortcomings from the time we met!” Enrico says chuckling.

Celia giggles. “That’s true.”

“Do you remember when we first met?” Enrico asks.

“Of course, we met in college, freshman year!” Celia announces, proud she did not forget. How could she forget the best thing that ever happened to her?

Enrico smiles. “The freshman mixer!”

“I was so shy and afraid I wouldn’t make friends with anyone,” Celia recalls.

“I was supposed to not attend it because well, I never liked mixers,” Enrico continues.

“You asked me to dance,” Celia says, blushing at the memory of handsome Enrico approaching her, asking her to slow dance to Spandau Ballet’s True. 

“You were shaking,” Enrico reminisces.

“We danced all the slow songs afterwards, you never let me go,” Celia recounts.

“Nope, never,” Enrico answers.

They share a loving gaze, both recollecting that point in time that changed the trajectory of their lives. They became friends, they fell in love, they stayed together through thick and thin, and after a few years after they graduated and started on their individual careers, they got married. They’ve been together for more than forty years. 

#

That night, Celia wakes up when a slight drizzle splashes cold water on her upturned face. She is again at the roof deck, in front of the gnarled trunk. It now has new leaves and a bit more of colored flowers. The voices scream. 

“What do you want from me?” Celia whispers in despair. 

You’re my friend, Cely.

“Angie?” Celia calls out. 

Yes. No. Me. Overlapping voices. The other voices are coming from the other tree trunks.

Then the voices are suddenly quiet. Celia realizes she is soaking wet from the rain.

Reluctantly, she  walks away from the trunks and walks toward her room.  She grabs a fresh towel from the linen closet and starts drying off.  She notices the door to the guest room is ajar and she walks over to shut it.

Here.

A soft whisper. 

What’s here? Celia wonders. She opens the door and turns on the light.

She and Enrico seldom have guests over, so the guest room has become more of a storage room. There are boxes strewn around the room. Each box is marked with the name of the person whose things are in the box. Most of the boxes are Celia’s. A few are Enrico’s. One box is unmarked. It is under several other boxes and shoved into a corner. Something about it captures her attention, so she clears away all obstacles until all that is left to do is to open the box. Inside is a  dusty binder wrapped in several layers of plastic. Her shaking hands unwraps the plastic. 

The binder is filled with doodles and writings and newspaper clippings. The last few pages are the important ones. Each page contains a picture of a girl and a name of a school. Celia recognizes some of the schools, which were close to her own. On the side of each page is a doodle of a tree in full bloom. Each tree looks very unique. Each tree looks strangely familiar.

Angie’s picture—with her unique smile—has a doodle of the tree trunk that Celia keeps on walking to in her nightmares. 

The monster trunk. 

Another kid’s picture has a doodle that looks suspiciously like the tree beside Angie’s tree trunk. Another picture has a doodle that looks like another one of the tree trunks that is now on her roof deck.  

Celia finds it hard to breathe. She opens the window and notices the rain has stopped. She lets the cool air wash over her. 

All the doodled tree trunks in the binder are now on their roof deck.

Celia closes the door of the guest room behind her.  She opens the door to the staircase. She grips the stair banister as she stumbles up to the roof deck.

The roof deck. The site of their afternoon coffee conversations. The venue of their late-night after-dinner nightcaps. The location of Enrico’s bonsai collection. Different sized and shaped tree trunks with different colored bougainvillea blooms bursting colors and beauty against the dark sky. 

Their usual table stands in the middle. Enrico is sitting there sipping something warm, staring off into the dark horizon. She looks around her, eyeing each bonsai as she passes them. 

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five. 

Six.

Seven.

Eight.

Nine. 

She shudders as her eyes land on the tenth bonsai trunk which started this all for her. The one behind Angie in the picture.

Ten. 

Angie.

“Hello, Dear. How was work?” Enrico asks, as though it were the most normal thing to ask her in the dead of night. His face is the same face she had loved all these years. His eyes are the same eyes that had melted her heart. His voice, although older, is the same voice that made her heart leap with joy when he first said he loved her. He is still the man she fell in love with during her freshman year in college. The man she lived most of her life with. The man she promised to love and cherish till the day she died. 

“Busy, as usual. Another project just started,” she answers, surprised at how calm she sounds. 

He smiles. The same smile that convinced her he was the one she had been waiting for during the freshman mixer. 

“You? How goes the latest bonsai?”

His smile grows wider and his eyes twinkle. “This will be the best of them all, I can feel it.”

She sits on her chair and tries to steady her breathing. 

They stay like that, in silence.

“Do you regret that we never had kids?” he eventually asks. 

“Sometimes,” she answers. Of course she would have wanted to have kids—two girls and a boy. “You?” she asks back.

“Not really,” he answers. “I don’t think I would make a good father.”

She is about to object when he turns to her and smiles sadly.

“I’ve never been good around kids and teenagers—that’s why I was glad when I became an adult and I didn’t have to spend that much time with them. Plus, there’s so much danger in the world. I don’t think I can take it if I have to think about the dangers surrounding my kid.”

“We could try to protect them the best we could,” Celia says, her voice catching in her throat. 

“I didn’t want to risk it,” Enrico says. “There is so much evil in the world.”

Celia flinches. What does Enrico mean?  She always thought she was the one who had difficulty conceiving. They both went for testing, and Enrico said… Enrico said…Celia sighs. She just believed what Enrico told her. She doesn’t even remember seeing the formal test results. She tried everything. They tried everything. But what if…?

“As long as I have my bonsai, I feel like I am taking care of something precious, something undefinable.” He looks at her seriously. “These are my kids. Our kids, Cel. And as long as I have you, I feel that I am on the right path.” He looks at her lovingly.  “You are my world, and the reason I am…happy.”

“You are my world too,” she answers. He is still the man she fell in love with. The man who would be the one she would stand by until death do them part. But she needs to know one thing.

Go back to the beginning.

“When was the first time that you saw me, Ric?” Cela asks, trying to keep her voice calm.

“I saw you walking down the street near my school,” Enrico answers, staring at her intently. “You and your best friend. You looked so happy and carefree.”

Celia’s heart grows cold. 

“He pointed you out to me, saying, she’s the one,” Enrico continues. “But I made a decision there and then.”

Celia feels her world start to crumble.

“He was never going to get you, so I had to choose your friend. Even if you were the one he wanted.”

Time freezes.

“Because you had your hair up in a ponytail and you had a beautiful neck,” Enrico says gently.

Wear your hair down, you look better. Try not to expose your neck so much.

Celia remembers Enrico’s words to her early in their relationship. She stopped wearing her hair up after that.

“And you wore colorful accessories over your school uniform,” Enrico continues calmly.

You are beautiful enough. Don’t wear loud colors that would call attention to you. 

Celia’s heart starts palpitating. She had gotten rid of all her colorful clothes and accessories and had started going with the classic muted colors. 

“And because you laughed so easily without a care in the world,” Enrico whispers.

Cel, don’t laugh too loud when we’re in public. 

This one had been the most difficult thing to control, but Celia was able to do it, reserving her natural laughter only when she was with Enrico. 

“Much as I had wanted to approach you and meet you that time, I had to stop myself. Because doing so would have meant…we won’t be here together now.”

Celia stops breathing for a few seconds.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” Enrico says softly.

“Angie,” Celia whispers.  

Now you know everything, Angie’s voice whispers back.

“She was sweet,” Enrico says without missing a beat. “I named this bonsai after her.” He waves vaguely in the direction of the monster trunk. “ I made sure to bury some of her ashes in the soil, so she could rest somewhere beautiful. And I made sure she had sunlight, water, and good nutrients, so she could live on.” Enrico looks at Celia lovingly. “I took care of her for you, Cel.”

Something inside Celia breaks at that point. There is an audible pop inside her as she decides to silence the voices in her head. Angie and the others start to protest. But Celia, when she decides to forget, she just forgets. Isn’t that what she did when Angie disappeared? 

How easy it is to forget. All she needs to do is to think of her life with the man in front of her. This is Enrico. The love of her life. Just think of the present–the present is what is important. The past is long dead and buried. And as long as the ten bonsai trees in their roof deck bloom colorful flowers, everything will stay dead and buried. 

After all these years with Enrico, Celia has become an expert at forgetting everything else outside of their life together.

About the Author. Yeyet Soriano is a multigenre author who specializes in speculative fiction, contemporary romance, poetry, and crime fiction.

Based in Manila, Philippines, her day job is that of a cross-regional IT leader for Asia-Pacific, EMEA, and Latin America for a multinational corporation. She is a people leader, a coach, and a mentor.

She has a very supportive husband who has never read any of her works (he only reads to fall asleep). They have three wonderfully unique kids, each with their own idiosyncrasies.

Published works:

Turning Points | In My Dreams | The Retreat | Kate, Finally | The Crime Circle | In Tune | One by One | Hearts and Melodies | Kalanta | Stealing Amaya | Lyrics & Rhymes | The Audacity: Boomerang | The Serenas Family: Steal, Stalk & Sink | Shadows & Lines | Blossoms & Vines

Anthologies:

Flesh (He loves Me…Not) | Summer Feels (Buddy System) | 12 Months of Romance 24 Reasons to Love (Life’s Tricks and Treats) | Start Here (Another First) | The Secrets We Keep (Kate’s Retreat) | BRU Love: A Fair (In the Key of Z / More Than Meets the Eye) | Magkasintahan Volume XXV (The Seventh Time) | Dystopia Manila (The One) | Deck The Halls Volume 1 (The MaRiTeS Brigade: The Case of the Christmas Pan-Tree) | In Full Color: No White Flags (Tri Hard / Three Things I Hate)

Author Website: www.yeyetsoriano.com