THE END
Someone is saying my name. The voice is gentle but insistent. My eyelids feel heavy, gummed together. The ground under my back is soft, and I’m sinking into it like water.
‘Ami, open your eyes now.’
I don’t want to, but the voice won’t go away. I sigh deeply and tell my eyelids to lift. The slice of world is bright through my lashes, white and harsh. I close them again.
‘No, Ami. You have to wake up.’ A hand grips my shoulder lightly and shakes. ‘It’s time to wake up.’
I know that voice. I know that voice is not Mari’s, or Kidlat’s. I open my eyes again, slowly. My tongue feels swollen and sticky.
‘Sister Margaritte?’ I say, though what actually comes out sounds quite different. Her face sharpens into focus after a few blinks.
‘Hello, Ami.’
I turn my head, and my neck aches.
‘Where?’ ‘The hospital. Culion hospital. You’ve been here a few hours.’
I’m alone in a room painted a bright white. The air is antiseptic and bitter. My right hand aches and when I look down at it all I can see is a thick mass of bandages. I hold my hand up and it throbs. ‘What—’
Sister Margaritte places it back on the pillow it was resting on. ‘I’m afraid your friend Mari did more damage than the snake. Someone heard them shouting for help, and thank goodness you were brought here quickly. Mari had killed and brought the snake so we were able to give you the anti-venom. Doctor Rodel set the wrist as best he could.’
I can feel the pressure of a splint along my arm. ‘Is Mari all right?’
Sister Margaritte’s face is serious suddenly. ‘Yes.’
Something in her tone makes panic well up in me. ‘What?’ ‘She’s gone, Ami. And Kidlat’
I blink stupidly. ‘Gone where?’
‘Mr Zamora took them.’ My heart sinks. ‘Tried to take you too, but Doctor Rodel and Doctor Tomas insisted you were too unstable.’
‘Where did he take them?’ I ask desperately. ‘Back to the orphanage?’
Her answer is exactly what I didn’t want to hear.
‘They’ve been relocated.’
‘To where? Manila?’
She shakes her head. ‘He didn’t say.’
‘No!’ We can’t be separated, not after all this. I wanted her to meet Nanay, and to have someone to be with after . . . after all this.
Sister Margaritte takes my good hand. ‘I know.’
But she can’t know. She can’t know that Mr Zamora has taken Mari to a fate she worked so hard to leave behind. To a workhouse. I blink up at Sister Margaritte. It is so strange to see her again, so strange to be back in Culion Town even though that is all I’ve wanted for weeks and weeks.
I throw off the covers, though the movement makes my hand twinge. ‘I’m not leaving.’
‘Yes, you are,’ says Sister Margaritte, taking my other wrist in a surprisingly strong grip. Something hits the window with a soft thump, and for one delicious moment I think it is Mari, dangling a message at the mesh to tell me she is waiting. But then another hits and I see it is a butterfly, throwing itself at the screen.
‘Poor things,’ says Sister Margaritte sadly. ‘It’s the light from the white walls, they seem drawn to it. You’re lucky you have a screen, or the room would be full of them. They’re everywhere.’ Her eyes go distant. ‘It’s quite beautiful actually.’
I pull on her sleeve. ‘Please, Sister. I’ve come all this way. You helped write Nanay’s letters. You said I should come—’
‘Yes, I am glad you are here. But you cannot stay, Ami.’ She says this sadly, and I can tell she is sorry to have to say it at all. ‘It is the way things are now.’
‘But I have to see Nanay—’
‘Of course. Now you are here, you must.’ She stands, elegant in her black habit. ‘But no one must know, Ami. You understand?’
She reaches into her robes and pulls out a silver whistle. ‘This is to signal a fire. I am going to go outside and blow. When you hear it, go straight to room fourteen. It’s just down the corridor, to the left. It takes ages to evacuate this place, and even longer to get back in. The rounds will be delayed, so you’ll have a couple of hours at least—’
‘A couple of hours!’ I did not come so far for so little.
‘Ami.’ Sister Margaritte’s back is to me, but her voice cracks. I wait. She takes a deep breath and turns to me again. ‘Your nanay, she’s – she’s been waiting.’
‘I know, and that is exactly why an hour or two is not long enough—’
‘No, Ami. She’s been waiting to say goodbye. For her pahimakas.’ Something spills down her cheek and I realize her eyes are bright with tears. It is like watching a statue weep.
I am so astonished by the tears I don’t feel the words sink in until they are bubbling in my mind. Waiting to say goodbye. Pahimakas. Last farewell. She can’t mean . . .
‘No.’ The world is falling away. I can feel my face crumpling, and suddenly Sister Margaritte is sitting on the bed beside me, her face is close to mine and she is holding my upper arms so tightly it hurts.
‘No,’ she says quietly, fiercely. ‘Don’t cry. Not yet.’ It is silly of her to say that when she is crying herself, but I make the tears stop on their way to my eyes.
‘You made it, Ami,’ she says in that same blazing whisper. ‘You crossed the forest. You brought the butterflies. You survived the snakebite.’ She loosens her grip slightly, and her tone softens. ‘You are a remarkable girl. And your nanay needs you to be remarkable now. She’s ready, but she’s scared. I know that you are too, but you have time to be scared later. You can cry later. Give her hope, Ami. Give her courage.’
I feel a heat welling inside me, the same fire I felt when Mr Zamora was about to strike Mari on the clifftop. I will not let Nanay be afraid. I nod. Sister Margaritte stands up again and tilts her head back as if she’s trying to make her tears flow backwards.
‘Good,’ she says in her normal voice. ‘Remember, left out of here. Room fourteen.’
Then she is gone and I tell myself again and again to be remarkable. The whistle sounds outside my room and I hear her shout, ‘Corridor clear!’ There are shouts and scuffling from somewhere further away. I lower my legs out of bed, toes cramping slightly as my feet take my weight. My head spins and my hand thrums, but I make it to the door without stumbling. I listen at the keyhole for a moment before deciding the noises are all far away, then go out into the corridor.
This is painted a bright white too, and the paint has fingerprints in places where hands have touched the drying surface. The hospital never had a corridor before, or so many individual rooms. They have built so much, so fast. I turn left and pass rooms twelve, thirteen, stop outside fourteen. I want to take a breath, to ready myself, but there is no time to waste. I turn the handle and step inside.
The room is bare except for a wooden cross on the wall, a small table with a glass on it and a bed on which a small, huddled shape lies beneath thin white sheets. At the sound of the door closing her head turns. I see it is swaddled in bandages. I hear her voice, and it is all I can do not to cry at the sound. She sounds very old, and tired.
‘Ami?’
‘Yes, Nanay.’
I do not move closer. Despite what Sister Margaritte said, I am scared. Then Nanay manoeuvres herself on to her side and I see her gentle eyes above the bandages and I forget the fear. I am only happy, happiness filling me head to toe as I cross to her side and bury my face in her neck. Through the bitter antiseptic she smells of her, earthy and sweet.
‘Oh, Ami,’ she murmurs, holding me weakly. Her arms are not bandaged and her skin is smooth and warm through my hospital tunic. ‘You came.’
‘Of course I did.’
‘And what an adventure you’ve had.’
‘You’ve heard?’ I say, disappointed.
She draws back and says, ‘Some of it, but I’d like to hear it from you.’
She moves up in the narrow bed so I can climb in beside her, and I tell her. It is like one of our stories. I tell her about the orphanage and Sister Teresa, and butterfly lessons. She seems very tired and I wonder if she is on what Rosita was, a drug that makes you feel tired but painless and floating. I keep my mouth busy with my journey, remembering to be brave.
I tell her about the letters, and the fire, and Lihim. I tell her about the fish, and Kidlat. I tell her about walking and sleeping under the stars, Bondoc with the matches, the carpet of rotten fruit, and the snake. She holds my hand tightly at this part. But most of all I tell her about Mari, and the butterflies.
‘That’s a wonderful adventure, Ami. You’ll remember that for ever.’
‘Yes,’ I say.
‘You sound sad?’
I am thinking of how quickly Mari will forget me. ‘The girl I came here with. She was taken away.’
Nanay strokes my hand. ‘I’m sure you will find each other again. Sister Margaritte has sent for Bondoc. He’s said he will look after you.’
‘What about Capuno?’
‘Capuno is busy enough. He’s teaching now, at the school here. You are the most precious thing, Ami. You will be looked after. You are loved.’ Her voice cracks and she looks away, through the window. ‘And the butterflies are miraculous, aren’t they? Sister Margaritte says they’re all over Culion, landing everywhere.’ Nanay sighs, her breath whistling worse than I have ever heard it. ‘I wish I could see them.’
‘There are so many, maybe even more than at your butterfly house.’
‘I’m sure.’ She smiles thinly. ‘Your ama loved them almost as much as me, and we both loved them for the same reason. Can you guess what it is?’
I think. ‘That they’re beautiful?’
Nanay shakes her head, the movement making her wince. ‘Some butterflies only live a day, some a week, some a month. But they spend every one of those days busy living. And they make the world a more beautiful place, however brief their time.’
Her arm tightens around me. She is saying these things as though she means something else by them. Her voice is sad and soft and I have to clench my jaw to keep from crying.
‘I brought back your basin.’
‘You keep it. Ami, I—’
I don’t want her to explain. I know already, from what she just said and from what Sister Margaritte told me. I think I knew even before that, from when I read the letter Mari stole for me. But it doesn’t make my chest hurt less, doesn’t make it easier to breathe.
‘Have you been going to church?’ I say hurriedly, because I need to stop her from speaking and the cross is above us and it’s all I can think of to say.
‘Of course not.’ She reaches under her pillow and pulls out her terracotta gods. ‘But they’ve nailed that to the wall and won’t take it down.’
A butterfly flies with a thump at the window. A thought flits through my mind.
‘They like the white. It’s so sad,’ remarks Nanay. Then, ‘What are you doing?’
I wriggle out from under the covers, and cross to the window. The mesh is held in place in a wooden frame, wedged into the uneven square hole. I can tell it was done in a rush. I begin to press the wooden frame with my un-splinted hand.
‘Ami, you’ll get in trouble!’ hisses Nanay, but she can’t get out of bed to stop me. After a few moments the screen falls forward and out of sight.
As if it had been waiting, a single brown butterfly flies inside and lands on Nanay’s white sheet. We are both silent for a few seconds, then Nanay laughs in delight and it is the first truly loud noise she’s made. The butterfly takes off but it doesn’t matter because more butterflies are coming in, drawn to the whiteness. By the time I have climbed back into bed beside Nanay there are a dozen flitting around, landing on the sheets or the walls.
We watch them, Nanay holding my hand tight, as they fill the room like leaf-fall, swirling their invisible currents and weaving around our heads. Nanay kisses my forehead.
‘Thank you, Ami.’
‘That’s all right. Sister Margaritte says I brought the butterflies.’
‘And so you did.’ Nanay’s voice is tired again. ‘Do you mind if I close my eyes for a while?’
There are so many things I want to say, but I’m scared if I speak I’ll cry, so I shake my head. We lie like we used to after I had a bad dream, Nanay’s arm draped across me. She speaks softly into my hair. ‘It’s all right, Ami. I’m not scared. I’m glad you came.’
‘I love you, Nanay.’
‘I love you,’ she says.
It feels almost good to cry. My body shakes and Nanay holds me to her until I can stop. I take deep breaths like she taught me as she begins telling me a jumble of stories, new ones and old ones and true ones, about the giants, and the house with flowers where she was happy with Ama, and butterfly forests. Her voice slows and dips; the butterflies swirl.
When she stops talking, I don’t turn around. I hold my stomach tightly, as though squeezing will stop my insides from feeling like they’re tearing apart. The room falls into a shadowy dusk, and then the door opens and Sister Margaritte is standing in a swarm of butterflies. Nanay’s arm is heavy across me. And still. The quiet of her no-breath is the loudest sound I have ever heard.
A giant, gentle hand moves Nanay’s touch from my side. Bondoc lifts and folds me into his arms. There comes a silence so complete it can mean only one thing: outside, the sky cracks. Finally, the monsoon washes the air clean.