Candle in the Attic Window(84)

It came back to the girl in the coffin, as always.

“She was such a smart girl. She wanted to be a doctor, but her parents couldn’t afford to send her. It’s so sad ....”

Marianne mumbled an excuse, slipped away, knowing she’d probably offended the woman. She walked over to the fridge and grabbed a cool bottle of water.

She stared at the water-stained ceiling as she drank. White paint flaked away in places. The shadows of moths were silhouetted in the light fixture. More fluttered about, coming in and out as people walked in and out of the house. There would be no sleep in the house until the body was laid to rest.

The family watched over the body in shifts. It was a blur of faces and smiles. Marianne tried to remember the names and faces of all the relatives she had never met. It seemed her family was related to everyone in the town.

A lizard skittered across the wall. The movement caught her attention. She watched it climb over into the next room and she followed.

She shut her eyes as she passed the glass coffin, but she couldn’t erase the memory of the girl’s face. The girl wore a borrowed white dress, edged in lace. In her mind’s eye, she saw the girl open her eyes and grin at her. Marianne felt the edge of the coffin scratch against her bare arm. She gasped and nearly knocked over a candle.

In the coffin, not the dream, Carmelita’s eyes were shut, as if she were sleeping. Marianne ran out the door and into the next room.

It was a big house, bigger than any she’d lived in, back in Canada. It was an old colonial-style mansion, left over from Spanish times. The Padilla family had been important people once, but the house had not been maintained. Some of the old stonework was crumbling and blackened with pollution. But Carmelita’s family was poorer yet, so her grandparents had offered to let them hold the wake in their house.

In this room, an old piano leaned against the wall, scratched with years of misuse, by cousin upon cousin. The chandelier was dull brass. She tried the light switch, but the bulb burnt out in a blast of light, leaving her in darkness. Despite the humidity, the heat, she shivered, as if a cold breeze filtered past her.

Someone stared at her from across the room. She froze, looking into a face so similar to her own. She could not move. She thought her heart went still.

“What are you doing here in the dark, anak?”

The elder lady, the house help, flicked on the light switch. It turned on without a fuss, in an electric hiss. Marianne let out a breath, staring at the mirror. It had just been a reflection.

“Nothing, po.”

“Carmelita loved to play the piano. She would sit here for hours. Do you play?”

“No.”

“Call me ‘Yaya’. Your father used to call me that when he was a boy.” She smiled. “Oh, what a terrible boy he was.”

Yaya patted her cheek, then frowned, as she put her hand to Marianne’s forehead. “You are burning up. Fever. Come, you’d better lie down.”

Marianne stared at the mirror, transfixed by the reflection lit by the electric light, and the moon. Her skin seemed too pale, a shade of death. Her hair seemed uneven on one end, as if ...

She trembled, as she stumbled back past the body, and collapsed onto the floor.




Marianne rolled out of her bed, wiping the sweat off her neck with cold fingers. Her head still throbbed and she wondered how long she’d been sleeping. As she put her feet onto the wooden floor, a cockroach swept past her toes, into the darkness under the bed. She let out a little shriek, before shaking out her slippers, and sliding her feet in only after inspecting the insides.

There was the sound of chanting, as she walked downstairs, using the worn wooden banister to steady herself. Her legs felt like jelly. Talk picked up louder, as she entered the living room, and people were dispersing, rosaries in hand. The tables were piled up with food again, but there were fewer people and the coffin was missing.

“Ate, Marianne?”

A young boy in a baseball cap and a young girl in a floral dress came up to her, hesitant. Marianne searched through her memory to recall names and faces, but she couldn’t.

“Yes?” she replied, aware she was dressed in pajamas, while everyone else was in black or white.

“Can you finish the scary story you started to tell us at the libingan?” The boy searched for the word in English. “‘Funeral’.”

Marianne frowned. “The funeral?”

“Yesterday. I can’t sleep until I find out what happened!”

Marianne’s mind was blank.

“I’m sorry. I don’t feel so well. I need to find my mom and dad.” Marianne walked fast, trying to avoid everyone as she wound through the mourners. She heard her parents’ voices out in the yard.

Marianne paused at the screen door because her mother was yelling. She could see their silhouettes, against the concrete wall, away from the florescent lights of the house. Her father tossed a cigarette onto the dirt and rubbed it into the ground with his feet. He’d given up smoking years ago.

Her mother stormed towards the house. Her cheeks were red with anger.

“You should have told me,” she said, as she flung open the door, and stopped just before crashing into Marianne.

“Oh, Marianne, are you feeling better, dear?” She placed a hand on Marianne’s forehead, patted her back, but glanced over her shoulder at her husband’s hunched form in the yard. “The fever’s gone.”