CHAPTER ONE

A STRANGE NEW WORD

​        Aswang.

         ​It was a strange sounding word.

               While Oscar could understand most Tagalog, he lacked the benefit of growing up in the Philippines and thereby being immersed in the language. What he did understand came from hearing his parents talk to one another and occasionally to him, and the repetition of some words and phrases set into his brain until he could make logical inferential leaps to understand what was being talked about. But for the most part English was always the language of the house.

​Oscar watched his Mom talking on the phone to his Tita Medi.

There it was again.

               Aswang.

               He stood in the doorway to the kitchen with Gabby, the family’s four-year old border collie, dutifully watching his Mom waddle around the dinner table to ease into a chair. She was in her second trimester and he was excited to come home from school every day and put his ear to her belly and hear and feel his baby sister kick. When she saw him in the doorway, she waved him over to the table and said goodbye to his Tita Medi before hanging up the phone.

​​She kissed Oscar on the cheek. “How was school today?”

​​        “Mrs. Cunningham gave us homework! She never gives us homework. Homework is for older kids.”

​​        “Well, you’ll be in the second grade soon. Maybe she thinks you’re old enough to start doing homework.”

​​        “But it’s Friday. Nobody should have to do homework on Fridays.”

​​        “I know. You have a whole Saturday of cartoons to watch. What’s your homework?”

​​        “We have to write a scary story for Halloween. And then Mrs. Cunningham is going to put them all together in a book.”

​​        His Mom smiled, “That sounds like fun.”

​​        “And then next week we have to draw a picture about our story.”

​​        “Well, you’re very good at that. I think you get that talent from your Dad.”

​​        “I bet Willie doesn’t have homework.”

​​        “That’s because he goes to a different school. But maybe he does.”

​​        “Are we going over to his house tomorrow?”

​​        “Yes. Your Tita Medi is going to the Baby Doctor with me, so you and Willie can play all afternoon.”

​​        “Can I hear her Mommy?”

​​        “Sure. Come here.”

​​        Oscar’s Mom embraced his head and laid it gently on her stomach. He could hear liquid squishing and a little heartbeat.

​​        He whispered, “I think she’s sleeping.”

​​        “Are you sure? She was kicking earlier. Maybe you should call her name.”

​​        Oscar lifted his head and cupped his hands on his Mom’s belly. He whispered into his hands, “Amanda. Wake up. It’s your big brother Oscar. Can you hear me?” He quickly put his ear to her stomach and waited for a response. Nothing at first, but then a little kick.

​​        “OH!” he cried. “I think she’s mad I woke her up!”

​​        His Mom laughed, “I’m sure she was awake already. She was just teasing you. Like hide and go seek?” His Mom kissed him on the forehead again and stood up from the chair. “Do you want a snack?”

​​        Oscar sat at the table and nodded his head.

​​        “What do you want?”

​​        “Um…. pizza!”

​​        “We’ll order pizza tonight since your Dad is out of town. It’ll be our little treat so I don’t have to cook.”

​​        “Um…turon?”

​​        “Okay.” His mom took a zip lock bag from the freezer and unwrapped three, wax paper covered, egg rolls. She pulled a frying pan from underneath the oven, poured in cooking oil and let the temperature rise. In a few minutes the kitchen was sizzling with the sound of the turon swimming in the oil bath until they were golden brown. The smell in the air was sweet and nutty at the same time. In almost no time at all, the egg rolls were laying before his eyes on a bed of paper towel and a plate.

​​        “Let them cool first Oscar. You don’t want to burn your fingers or your mouth.”

​​        The thought of biting into the warm won ton wrapper and the sweet, sugary and mushy plantain inside was so exciting that Oscar almost forgot to ask his Mom what was initially on his mind. “Mommy what’s asuwaung?”

​​        His Mom laughed. “You mean aswang?”

​​        “Yeah, aswang?”

​​        “Your Tagalog is getting good huh? Did you understand what your Tita Medi and I were talking about?”

​​        “Some of it. But I don’t know what an aswang is.”

​​        “Uh…It’s like a witch.”

​​        Oscar’s mouth went dry. “A witch?”

​​        “It’s an old Filipino wives’ tale. It’s kind of like a witch.”

​​        “Is it true?”

​​        “No honey. It’s just a superstition. A monster you find in fairy tales.”

​​        “What do they do?”

​​        “Lots of things. When we were kids our grandparents used to tell us things in order to make us behave, so they would make up stories about witches and goblins and monsters that would steal children or eat them if they misbehaved.”

​​        “Like what?”

​​        “Like…aswangs would come to your house at night and hide on your roof, and they have long tongues like thin ropes that they would slide through cracks.”

​​        “Why did they do that?”

​​        “Because with their tongues they could do things like drink your blood, or steal your baby from your belly. Aswangs are always doing things like that to pregnant women.”

​​        “Why?”

​​        “I don’t know honey. I guess that was our grandparents’ way of telling us to stay away from bad boys.”

​​        “Huh?”

​​        She laughed. “Nevermind.”  

​​        “Why were you and Tita Medi talking about aswangs?”

​        His mom picked up a turon and peeled it away from the paper towel. She split it open with her fingers and laid the two halves on Oscar’s plate. Steam rose from the soft yellow fruit inside. Oscar was amazed how his Mom could do things like that, like touch things that were very hot.

​​        “Your Tita Medi’s Mom, Lola Panching, still believes in those things. We were just laughing about it.”

​​        Lola Panching was Willie’s grandmother, but to Oscar she didn’t seem like a grandmother. His own grandmother was sweet, and soft, and smelled like fresh laundry. She was warm and always smiling and hugging Oscar. Lola Panching was not a grandmother. She was an old woman. She had moved into Willie’s house over the summer and stayed longer than she had planned to. She was squat, and dark skinned with short tight curly hair that looked blacker than his hair. Where Oscar’s grandmother’s hair was a gentle fade of brown into gray, Lola Panching’s hair was a wild bush of dark and oily twigs. She smelled musty, like dead flowers and dirt. And she spoke in a Filipino dialect he did not understand. When she did speak English, it was always raspy and quick and buried underneath a tinge of contempt for English. She wore glasses too small for her round face, and the lenses were so thick her eyes looked like nothing more than two thin slits on her face. She scolded the boys over the summer when they ran into the house from the swimming pool without any shirts on. In her rapid and scratchy English, she declared if you don’t put a shirt on when you’re inside a house, lightning would tear through the ceiling and strike you dead. They were never allowed in her room. Oscar’s grandmother was always leaving her door open and would let him in to sleep in her bed or sit on the floor to play. Lola Panching’s room was always dark. The thin red curtains were always drawn to keep the heat and sun out of her space. And to “Save electric”, as she once put it. The room was filled with statues of The Virgin Mary, and Crosses of Jesus, and pictures of Jesus, and statues of Saints he had never heard of. There were tall and thick votive candles, some completely used up, and some still wrapped in plastic. He and Willie got in trouble for playing hide and go seek and sneaking into her room to hide. After that happened, the door was always locked whenever Oscar was around.

​​        “Your Lola Panching is very superstitious. She’s never been to the States so she finds a lot of things here very different.”

​​        Oscar didn’t like when his Mom called Willie’s grandmother, ‘Your Lola Panching’. She wasn’t his grandmother and to call her that seemed unfair to his real grandmother whom he loved.

​​        Oscar chewed on the warm plantain. “Is she ever going back to the Philippines?” he asked.

​​        “I don’t know. All her family is here now. So she has no one there. All her friends are gone or have moved away.”

​​        “She has friends?”

​​        Oscar’s Mom gave him a look. “You should be nice to her. It’s not easy leaving your home to live in a place that’s very different from where you’ve always lived.”

​​        “Willie says she takes out her teeth at night and sometimes forgets where she puts them.”

​​        His Mom laughed. “That’s normal.”

​​        “Grandma never did that.”

​​        “That’s because your Lola is a beautiful woman who took care of her teeth. She didn’t have to get false teeth.”

​​        “I hope I never get false teeth.”

​​        After his snack Oscar put his backpack away and went to the backyard with Gabby to play. The air was crisp and the daylight was fading earlier everyday. He was kicking a soccer ball against the wooden fence. Gabby would try chasing after the ball but could never wrap his jaws around it, but would still try and keep it away from Oscar whenever he could.  Oscar’s Mom pulled the sliding glass door open from the family room overlooking the deck, “It’s getting late Oscar,” she said.

​​        “Just ten more minutes?” he pleaded.

​​        “Okay, just ten.” She turned on the floodlights on the corners of the house. The sudden light cast long crisscrossed shadows of the trees across the yard and against the wood fence. “It’s getting dark. Aren’t you cold?”

​​        “No, Mommy.”

​ ​        “Okay. Don’t leave your soccer ball in the yard when you come in.”

​​        “I won’t.”

​​        “You think you can close the garage by yourself?”

​​        “Of course.”

​​        “You sure?”

​​        “You just press the button.”

​​        “Did Gabby go already?”

​        Gabby heard his name and ran quickly towards Oscar’s Mom before darting back to Oscar after he heard the thump of a foot hitting the soccer ball.

​​        “Uh huh.”

​​        “Good boy Gabby. Ten minutes. And then straight to the bathroom so you can take a bath. Then we’ll order pizza and watch a movie.”

​​        “Okay.”

​​        Oscar continued to kick the ball against the fence. Gabby continued to switch his attention from the ball to the fence and back again until he could find an opening to nudge the ball away from Oscar. The long shadows of the trees against the fence made good targets. Some of the shadows looked like twisted, gnarled up hands poking through the woods behind the fence and the yard.

“Take that aswang!” He yelled and delivered a kick so hard he thought it might bust through the fence. The ball flew back at him and he caught it in midair before sending it hurling against an ominously looking set of arms clawing at him from the other side.

“And that!” he kicked again.

​​        Gabby leapt and barked with approval.

​​        The ball flew back towards Oscar but over his head. Gabby raced him to the edge of the deck before Oscar was dribbled it away with his foot. He sized up the darkening horizon of witches’ hands growing larger and more numerous as the sunlight disappeared.

​​        “They’re everywhere!” he yelled. He picked up the ball in his hands and squeezed it between his fingers. His breath was heavy, and he could see it escaping his mouth in the quickening cold. Then he closed his eyes and chanted aloud over the ball, “With this magic ball I’ll kill them all. If I hit the fence from here I’ll kill them all.”

​        He placed the ball onto the grass. The frantic action of the last half hour had suddenly stopped and Gabby sat down and panted wondering what new part of the game this was. The witches’ arms looked too far a distance away. Oscar took a few steps back and sized up the fence. Then he took a practice run at the ball before feeling that he had enough strength to power it through. Gabby followed him and stopped when Oscar stopped. He looked happy but confused. The witches were creeping up from every corner. It was now or never. Oscar took a deep breath. Dug his feet deep into the yard and bent his hips and knees. Then he sprang into action just as the witches’ bodies began taking solid shape in the distance. He could feel his body pop into the ball. The ball exploded on contact. It flew through the early evening air ripping the dark like a white meteor. Gabby shot out after it with a bark. Oscar watched it tear at the dark horizon, until it sailed over the fence and into the wild woods beyond his sight.

​​        “OH NO!” he cried.

​​        He ran to the fence and tried to spy the ball through the slim spaces between the planks of wood. He couldn’t see it through the thicket of shadow and trees. “Oh no.” The fence was too tall for him to climb. And there was no way to get into the woods without leaving the backyard, which he was never supposed to do. But Dad will be so mad at me, he thought. This is the third ball I’ve lost, he cried. Maybe I could sneak around the back before I have to go inside, he thought to himself. He had only been into the woods once before, but that was during the daytime and that was with Willie. Their parents got very upset with them when they disappeared from the yard that time, and he promised he would never go back there again. “The fence is there for a reason,” his Dad told him. “It’s to keep our house safe and to keep you safe. How can we see you if you leave the backyard?”

​​        But Dad will be mad, Oscar thought again.

​​        Within his panic he heard a comforting sound. The sliding glass door opened and his Mom stepped onto the deck, “Oscar what are you doing honey? It’s time to come inside.”

​​        “Mommy…”

​​        “What is it?” She stepped off the deck and walked towards the edge of the yard.

​​        “Mommy…” He could smell her lotion and feel the softness of her jacket wrap around his shoulders. He felt safe. 

​​        “What honey?”

​​        “I kicked the ball over the fence.”

​​        “Wow! That must have been some kick.” She got on her tip toes and tried to look for the ball over the fence. “Sorry honey, I’m not tall enough.”

​​        “We should go get it,” Oscar pleaded.

​​        “Oh, not tonight.”

​​        “But Dad---“

​​        “Dad won’t be back until Sunday and we can get it before then. If not, we’ll just wait for him to get it.”

​​        “But he’ll be mad.”

​​        “I don’t think so. Your Dad was a little boy once. I think he’ll understand. Come on. Let’s go.” She kissed his head. “Whew! You’re a little sweaty. I think you really need that bath. You must’ve been working hard out here.”

​​        “Fighting aswangs!” Oscar declared.

​​        “How many did you get?”

​​        “At least twenty!”

​​        “Well that should keep us safe.”

​​        As they came closer to the deck his Mom stopped on the steps and crouched down. “Did you see that?”

​        Oscar’s eyes grew big and he froze. “See what?” he whispered.

​​        His Mom stood up. She squinted at the roof.

​​        “What?” Oscar said again.

​​        “I thought I saw something on the roof,” she whispered.

​​        Oscar swallowed and tried to speak but nothing came out of his mouth. He wanted to see what his Mom saw but was afraid to at the same time.

        The air was cold.

​​        “Right there,” she whispered and pointed a finger towards the highest corner of the roof. Just as Oscar’s body became frozen with excitement his Mom grabbed him.         “BOO!”

​​        “AH! Ha ha ha ha…” he screamed. “That wasn’t scary.” They walked up the steps and onto the deck together.

​​        “Are you sure?” his Mom asked. “You seemed scared to me.”

​​        “Nuh uh.” Oscar shook his head. “Dad says that when he’s out of town that I’m the man of the house. Nothing scares me.”

​        She sniffed his head again. “I can tell. No aswangs would come near a stinky boy like you. You scared them off!”

​​        “Mommy…”

​​        She locked the sliding glass door and drew the blinds down tight. “Go on. Upstairs to the bathroom. I’ll close the garage door.”

​​        “Okay.” He ran upstairs.

        That night they ordered a peperoni pizza and watched “Ratatouille”. Oscar had already seen it a few times, but it was his favorite movie so far. He liked the soft colors on the screen and the characters looked like the pictures in some of the books his grandmother read to him. Remy reminded him of Gabby. Although he was a rat and Gabby was a dog they seemed to make the same faces. He even called Gabby Remy for a while until his Mom told him not to do that because it was confusing to call a dog by two names. The movie was almost over when Oscar heard a noise coming from the upstairs.         It sounded like something scratched at the roof.

​​        “M-mom?”

​​        There it was again.

​​        “Mommy?”

​​        His Mom had fallen asleep next to him on the family room couch.

​​        “Gabby?”

​​        The dog lifted his head from the foot of the couch and yawned.

​​        “Did you hear that?”

​​        Gabby turned his head up and then rubbed his paw against his ear and put his head back down on the floor.

​        Oscar tapped his Mom. “Mommy…”

​​        “What honey? Is the movie over?”

​​        “I thought I heard something upstairs.”

​​        “Oscar, it’s nothing.”

​​        “But I heard something…on the roof.”

​​        “Okay, no more jokes.”

​​        “I’m serious,” he pleaded.

​​        “I am too,” she said. “It’s probably a raccoon or squirrel.”

​​        “But…”

​​        “Okay,” she propped herself up and rubbed her eyes. “Oh my gosh, it’s almost eleven-thirty! We have a big day tomorrow. We better go to sleep now.”

​​        “But the movie isn’t over yet.”

​​        “Honey you’ve seen this a million times. You can watch it again tomorrow. If you don’t get to sleep soon you’ll be really tired tomorrow and won’t be able to play with Willie.”

​​        “But I’m not sleepy.”

​​        She grabbed the remote control and shut the DVD player and television off. “Come on, let’s go.”

​​        Oscar followed his Mom through the family room and into the foyer as she turned the lights off. She checked the front door to make sure it was locked and checked the keypad for the alarm to make sure it was armed. It was a routine Oscar witnessed many times before with his Dad and his Mom. And although he wasn’t tall enough to reach the keypad on his own, his Dad taught him how to set the alarm. They practiced the sequence over and over again so when he saw his Mom complete it, the weight of his imagination lifted from his body and he was relieved.

​​        “Did I do it right?” his Mom asked.

​​        Oscar nodded.

​​        “Okay. Bedtime. Go to the bathroom and brush your teeth. I’ll get your bed ready.”

​​        “Can I sleep with you tonight?” he asked.

​​        “Oscar…”

​​        “Please. I’ll be quiet I promise.”

​​        “Aren’t you too big to be sleeping in my bed?”

​​        “Please. Just tonight.”

​​        “Okay.”

​​        “Can Gabby come too?”

​​        Gabby sat next to the staircase waiting for a sign.

​​        “No, Gabby has his own bed. He can sleep in the hallway if he wants to but he’s not allowed in the room.”

​​        Gabby ran up the stairs and waited dutifully at the top of the stairs as Oscar and Mom climbed to the second floor.

​​        When he was tucked into the bed next to his Mom, Oscar was still wide awake. His eyes were fixed on the ceiling and the window overlooking the backyard.

​​        “Okay,” his Mom said with a sigh, “Are we all snug and ready?”

​​        “Uh-huh.”

​​        She reached across him for the lamp on the nightstand.

​​        Oscar stopped her. “Can we leave the light on?”

​​        “Oscar, no. I can’t sleep with the light on. There’s a night light in the bathroom.”

​​        “But…”

​​        “But what?”

​​        “It’s dark.”

​​        “Honey, you’ve got to stop this. There’s nothing wrong with the dark. Remember we talked about this with your Dad?”

​​        “Uh-huh.”

​​        “Remember what he said?”

​​        “Uh-huh.”

​​        “There’s nothing wrong with the dark. The darkness is for our imagination. How else are we supposed to dream?” 

​​        That night Oscar didn’t dream, he prayed. He prayed under his breath while his Mom slept. He prayed for his Mom and his baby sister’s heartbeat and for Gabby in the hallway all by himself and for his Dad who was gone until Sunday, but mostly he prayed for the scratching sound on the roof to go away. Buried and hiding underneath the comforter, he prayed until he fell asleep. A few hours later he woke up. It was still dark. The comforter had become too warm so he had kicked it off and now he found himself cold and without a bed sheet at the edge of the bed away from his Mom. He sat up and was about to pull the comforter back over himself when he heard a noise pulsing the air.

​​        Tik. Tik. Tik.

​​        It was soft at first, like the clicking of a bird. He looked over at the window but the blinds were drawn to guard against any of the night creeping in. He readjusted his eyes to the dim light coming from the bathroom but it was barely enough to see anything more in the room than the fuzzy shadows of corners from the doorway projected onto the walls.

​​        Tik. Tik. Tik.

​​        Something touching the window? Was it raining?

​​        Tik. Tik.

​​        He felt his chest go hollow and tried to hold his breath and hide his breathing, but it couldn’t stop the desperate thumping of his heart. He tried to remain still. His head felt hot and a little moist.

​​        Tik. Tik.

​​        He thought about shaking his Mom, but stopped because he knew she would be mad at him for waking her.

​​        Please go away he thought to himself.

​​        Please go away and leave us alone.

​​        Was there something at the window? Gabby was always the first to know when someone was at the door. The dog would bark and get excited with the slightest of sounds. He was a good watchdog that way, Oscar thought. He could hear Oscar’s Dad pulling up the driveway from work before he opened the door. He could hear Oscar being dropped off in front of the house by the school bus. If Gaby didn’t hear it, then it must not be there.

​​        I wish Mom had let Gabby sleep in the bedroom. Maybe he can’t hear it because the door is closed?

​​        “Oscar what’s wrong?” his Mom asked.

​​        His heart jumped.

​​        “What’s wrong?” she asked and touched his cheek and wiped a few strands of hair from his forehead. “You’re hot. Are you feeling sick?”

​​        “No.”

​​        “Are you sure?”

​​        He nodded.

​​His Mom turned on the lamp on the nightstand. She squinted and got up from the bed. “Do you want me to turn off the heat? It feels a little warm in here.”

​​“No.”

​​        “Try and get some sleep. We have to be up in few hours.”

​​        “Okay.”

​        She pulled the bed sheet from underneath the comforter and wrapped him into it. “Do you want the comforter?” she asked.

​        He nodded.

​        “Don’t bury yourself in it; you won’t be able to breathe.”

​        “Okay.”

​        She turned off the lamp and tucked herself back into bed. ​​When Oscar was sure she was asleep, he rolled the comforter over himself and hid underneath the cover.          Underneath the blanket he no longer heard the Tik Tik Tik.

 

CHAPTER TWO

A BRIGHT MORNING AFTER A LONG NIGHT

​​        Oscar woke up to the sound of his Mom in the bathroom shower. The curtains were drawn and the room was awash in sunlight. The television was on and he felt relieved to hear and see familiar things that were the life of the house. The bedroom door was open and he could see Gabby chewing on a toy and squeezing it until it made a panicked and squeaky yelp.

​        He freed himself from the rolls of comforter, blanket and bed sheet and the mounds of pillows strewn around the bed. When he got to the window he could feel the sunlight hot and bright against his face. The sky was bluer than he had ever remembered it, and from the perch of his parent’s two-story bedroom window he could see the trees in the woods beyond the backyard fence. Some of the trees were already beginning to change shapes and colors. Some had shed most of their leaves until only their bare bones remained.

​​        “Oh good, you’re awake,” his Mom said and kissed his head. ​“Did you sleep okay once you finally fell asleep?”

​​        “Uh-huh,” Oscar replied.

​​        “You know those stories about aswangs aren’t real right? Just make believe.”

​​        “Uh-huh.”

​​        “Okay. Well we have to get ready. Let me finish drying my hair and I’ll get your clothes and you can take a shower.”

​​        “Okay.”

​​        “Can you do Mommy a favor and let Gabby out?”

​​        Gabby heard his name and “OUT” and started barking.

​​        “Mommy!”

​​        “Oops…sorry,” she whispered. “Can you let Gabby O-U-T?”

​​        “O-K” Oscar whispered back, and went downstairs to turn off the alarm after putting his shoes and hooded sweatshirt on.

​

​​        Outside the air was crisp and the sky deep blue and brilliant with light. There was a slight breeze jostling the trees; their leaves flaked the backyard with specks of red and yellow. Gabby was running the length of the yard as he always did like a sentry sniffing and investigating every corner of the space that was his self-imposed duty to inspect.

        A sudden gust of air twisted around Oscar, enveloping him in a tornado of red and yellow leaves.

​​        Oscar laughed and Gabby barked until the wind fell apart.

​​        Oscar was picking leaves out of his hood when he noticed a soccer ball on the ground at the foot of one of the larger trees in the yard. He looked behind him and saw no one, just the sliding glass door on the deck he left open into the house. He approached the tree and examined the ball. His name was written in black ink in his Dad’s handwriting on the mottled, leather skin.

​​        Gabby barked and ran back into the house. Oscar stared at the woods creeping above the wooden fence and thought about peeking through the crack between the boards to see if a soccer ball was still lost back there.

​​        His Mom walked out onto the deck. “Oscar! We have to get moving. Come inside and take a shower and get dressed. We’ll pick up some McDonald’s on the way to your Tita Medi’s house.”

​​        He studied the ball again and gripped it in his hands. “I found my soccer ball,” he said walking back towards the house.

​​        His Mom asked in a stern tone, “Did you go back behind the fence?”

​​        “No.”

​​        “Oscar?”

​​        “No, I promise. I just found it by the tree.”

​​        “Are you sure it went over the fence last night?”

​​        “Yes.”

​​        “Well honey it was kind of dark last night. Maybe you thought it went over the fence.”

​​        “I saw it go over,” he said.

​​        “Well, maybe someone was walking in the woods and threw it back over.”

​​        “Maybe.”

​​        “Come on. Let’s go. At least we won’t have to buy a new one.”

 

​​        Willie lived in a part of town that had until recently been farmland. He and Oscar were neighbors until Willie’s Dad got a new job and could afford a much bigger house in a new development in a different school district. Only a few of the houses were fully built. Most stood like skeletons rising up from a graveyard of brick stacks, wood beams, plastic tarps, and disturbed earth. Of those few, only one or two were occupied, from what Oscar could tell. The rest of the neighborhood was sparse and populated with old trees. He thought it must be lonely for Willie to have no neighborhood kids to play with after school. When they arrived at the house, his Tita Medi was wearing yellow dishwashing gloves and pulling large green garbage cans upright that had blown over in the wind after the garbage men emptied them.

​        “Luisa,” Tita Medi said to Oscar’s Mom. “Ay Nako…we’re going to be late!” She was picking up a few pieces of paper blown out of the cans. “Those damn garbage men just leave the trash in the street!”

​​        “I’m sorry,” his Mom said as she struggled out of the car with Oscar’s book bag. “Paciencia…It’s hard moving around in this car. I think we’re going to have to get an SUV.”

​​        Tita Medi kissed Oscar’s Mom on the cheek and grabbed Oscar to give him a hug with her forearms. He had the soccer ball in his arms and her hug nearly squeezed the air out of him.

​​        “Pugi naman!” she exclaimed. “You’re such a handsome boy! You look nothing like your Dad!”

​​        “Ay, bruja!” his Mom said and smacked her in the arm.

​​        “What’s this?” Tita Medi asked pointing her chin at the bookbag.

​​        Oscar groaned, “Homework.”

​​        “You work on Saturdays?”

​​        “Uh-huh.”

​​        Tita Medi laughed, “Maybe you are like your Dad. Did you eat?”

​​        Oscar nodded his head. “We had McDonald’s.”

​​        “That’s why you’re running late,” she said looking at his Mom. “Mare’ I told you Lola Panching would make him breakfast.”

​​        Oscar’s Mom spoke to Tita Medi in Tagalog.

Tita Medi smiled at Oscar. “Did you understand that?” she asked.

​        Oscar nodded even though he only understood part of what his Mom had said.

​​        He replied sheepishly, “She said something about not liking her cooking.”

​​        Tita Medi laughed. “Your Tagalog is getting good. Better than Willie’s. We better be careful what we say around you from now on, huh?” She peeled off her dishwashing gloves. “That’s okay. Willie doesn’t like her cooking either.”

​​        “Where’s Willie?” he asked.

​        Tita Medi paused for a moment and looked at Oscar’s Mom before saying something in a dialect he did not recognize. ​​ “He’s not here today,” she said. “His Dad took him to Wisconsin to visit his cousins. I’m sorry. I would’ve let you bring Gabby over but we don’t have a fence and your Lola Panching is afraid of dogs.”

​​        Oscar stared at the front of the house. It was newly painted and bright and already decorated with Jack-O-Lanterns for Halloween, fake cobwebs, and a stuffed witch made up from pieces of mannequins left over from Tita Medi’s failed dress shop. The witch was campy with an oversized head, giant floppy black hat, red glowing LED eyes, and red and white striped socks, but if he stared at it long enough it could easily lose its kitsch and slip into his nightmares. Oscar had hoped he and Willie could carve pumpkins together that day like they had when he lived in the old neighborhood. He thought that was the plan. His Mom and Tita Medi would go to the baby doctor while he and Willie played and when the Moms came home they would carve pumpkins and watch Hocus Pocus and eat a few treats from the plastic bags of candy their Moms squirreled away since September. It was an old tradition as far as he was concerned, even though they had only done this ritual twice before. Oscar embraced the soccer ball to his body. The front door was open but he couldn’t see into the cavernous dark mouth of the house beyond the mannequin’s red eyes.

​​        “Come on,” his Tita Medi said as she ushered them up the front steps. “Let’s get you settled so your Mom and I can come back as soon as possible.”

​​        “Can I come with you?” Oscar asked.

​​        “No honey, last time you went with us you complained about how bored you were. You’ll be fine here.”

​​        Tita Medi said, “You can play with Willie’s video games. You guys always have fun playing Mario Kart don’t you?”

​        Oscar nodded.

​​        Tita Medi shut the front door behind them. “Just don’t go into the backyard, okay? The pool is drained and the cover is on but I don’t want you getting hurt. If your Lola Panching catches you outside, she’ll pull your ears off!”

​​        “Oscar, you promise?” his Mom asked.

​​        “I promise, Tita.”

​​        “And no ball playing,” his Mom insisted. “I know you brought your soccer ball but you can’t kick it inside the house. There are plenty of things for you to do to keep yourself busy okay?”

​​        “Okay.”

​

​​        The women stood in the hallway to the front door speaking so quickly and in soft tones that Oscar could not make out what they were saying. He sat in a chair in the family room near the television and watched them gesture and laugh at his Mom’s belly. He saw Lola Panching rub his Mom’s belly once more and the hallway erupted in cackles. Then the front door was opened and a blast of cool air and leaves blew into the house.

​​        As his Mom and Tita Medi walked down the porch steps and towards the driveway, Lola Panching’s raspy voice declared something in a dialect he did not understand and she slammed the door shut. It was silent until he heard her scurry to the dining room in her house slippers and into the kitchen to open a pantry door. He sat still for a moment and eventually got up from the chair to creep over to the hallway. The old woman was bent over and sweeping the loose leaves into a small pile before opening the door and flushing them out into the world with what sounded like a curse word and a violent swat of her squat shoulders. She slammed the door hard, shutting out all the sunlight. She squinted at Oscar through her thick-lensed glasses and blinked several times as if making sure she saw him before turning the deadbolt and curling the broom underneath one of her stubby arms. Then she shuffled back through the dining room to the kitchen brushing imaginary dust off her dark red and pink flowered muumuu dress, all the while mumbling to herself.

​        Oscar planted himself in front of the flat screen television and flipped through the stations looking for cartoons, but found none. The time on the guide read: 11:41 a.m. The Doctor’s appointment usually ended around three o’clock.

​        There was a little mechanical whistle and click above the fireplace, and the cuckoo clock Willie’s Dad brought back from Germany began chirping wildly. It was jostled badly in the move across town and Willie’s Dad could not recalibrate it properly. Oscar and Willie would laugh and laugh when it went off at any point in the day, partly because it became a game of hide and seek like a jack in the box. But the real entertainment would come from Willie’s Dad who could be heard cursing the clock in Tagalog like a man driven mad by a cricket rubbing its legs somewhere in his home. In an empty house though, without Willie there to share the joke, the sudden burst of song made Oscar uneasy. It was no longer an artificial amusement, but by some accidental fate now alive. He resolved to keep himself busy with the Wii and play Mario Kart, but only managed to play four rounds before becoming bored with the computer as his opponent.

​        He went to the front door and looked out of a window in the hallway next to the door. Outside the world was bright, but to the West there was a grayish blue horizon. The wind had picked up and Oscar watched the green garbage cans blow over once more and begin tumbling in slow rolls across the yard like big hapless turtles.

He thought about going outside to wrangle them in when he sensed the familiar odor of dead flowers and dirt behind him. Lola Panching’s oily, phlegmy voice spoke, "Hindika puede mga laro salabas.”

​        "I wasn’t going to play outside," Oscar replied. "I was just looking at the garbage cans."

​        "Ano?"

​        Oscar struggled to find the right word but was only able to come up with a partial expression coupled with a pointed finger. "Um...basura...garbage cans."

​        The old woman pushed him aside and stood in front of the window. She squinted and scratched the wild bush of twigs that was her hair. "Saan?"

​        "There," Oscar said pointing through the window.

​        "Eh," she groaned, grabbing him by the arm and dragging him to the kitchen. "Bahala na!" she declared, which Oscar took to mean "who cares?"

​        "Did you et?" she asked as she sat him at the breakfast bar.

​        "I’m not hungry," Oscar replied.

​        She began pulling Tupperware containers from the refrigerator. "Your Mami sed to et."

​        "I’m not hungry."

​        "You dant like Pilipino food?" She stared at Oscar as if waiting to be validated in her belief that he was a spoiled American boy like Willie who refused to eat Filipino food because it looked or smelled funny. Boys their age in the Philippines were fortunate enough to have anything to eat at all, she would think to herself. She mumbled something in her native dialect barely audible to his ears and shoved a Tupperware container into the microwave. She unhinged the cover to the rice cooker and scooped two, balled, spoonfuls onto a plate before angrily striking the metal rim of the pot with the flat, plastic, ladle three times to shake off the sticky grains.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Oscar hated the old woman’s rice. It was always too mushy and cold. When it was re-heated it was too hot and, even then, still a clumpy mess. Lola Panching dropped the plate of rice in front of Oscar and turned her attention back to the microwave. When the dish stopped turning she pulled out the Tupperware and revealed Oscar’s lunch. Meatloaf with raisins. The old woman’s meatloaf was a mash of things Oscar hated. The textures were always difficult to chew. There were whole pieces of liver in the mix, along with the raisins, and a sliced hard-boiled egg. He would always try to eat around those things but get scolded every time for wasting food. The only saving grace was that he would usually drown the loaf in ketchup.  That would always be enough to survive the experience.

​        He got off the bar stool chair and walked to the refrigerator. The old woman watched him with a skeptical eye as he opened the refrigerator door. "No ketchup," she said.

​        Oscar looked at the shelves along the inside door and the different levels of the fridge.

        No ketchup.

        His shoulders slumped and he shut the door.

​        Lola Panching pulled a plastic glass out of the dishwasher and filled it with cloudy tap water. She set it next to the plate and walked away. He stared at the plate and thought of ways to dispose of the food without drawing the old woman’s suspicions. He could hear her in the family room watching soap operas on a Spanish channel. She would do this every time Oscar and Willie would play. It kept them away from the Wii and her, and the boys would be forced to go outside to find some other diversion. Oscar got off his stool and crept into the hallway. He found his book bag and soccer ball and carried them back to the kitchen. He took a plastic grocery bag from one of the drawers, dumped the meatloaf and rice into the sack, and buried it in his bag.

​        “I’m finished,” he declared out loud.

​        The old woman ignored him and continued to watch television.

​        Oscar waited for her to come back to the kitchen.

​        “I said I’m finished,” he said again.

​        Lola Panching yelled something from the other room that he could not understand and continued to watch her show.

​        Oscar sighed and rolled the soccer ball along the edge of his foot then kicked it gently until it settled at the lip of the hallway that led to the family room. He took out his pad of paper and pencil and stared at the blank page waiting for an idea to come to him for his homework until his eyes became heavy with sleep.

​

CHAPTER THREE

A FAMILIAR SOUND

        When he woke, the kitchen was darker. He looked at the blue numbers on the microwave clock. It was already 5:25 in the afternoon. The house was still except for the refrigerator humming, and the soft sound of a wind gust and rain hitting the kitchen windows.

​        “Lola?” he asked.

​        No response.

​        “Lola Panching?”

​        Still no sound.

​        He walked to the family room and found no one there. The television was off and the sofa empty. He rounded the corner to the hallway and looked out the window at the driveway. His mother’s car was still parked there but Tita Medi’s car was still gone. He remembered how long his Mom’s appointment was last time but something told him that it didn’t take this long. Outside the weather had changed. The green garbage cans were no longer in the front yard and he imagined that they had blown off the lawn and were somewhere down the empty street. He turned to look up the staircase leading to the second floor. There was a dim nightlight glowing at the top. Down the hallway at the very end was the old woman’s bedroom.

He called out again, “Lola Panching?”

He climbed the stairs but stopped to switch on the second floor’s hallway light. As he climbed he could hear a faint snore like a buzzing, then an occasional wet cough, then more buzzing. When he was at her door, it was closed. He knocked lightly and mumbled her name. No response. He gripped the door handle and turned the knob, pushing delicately against the door and urging it to give way. Once the door opened, a long and thin stream of light cast itself into the dark room. Her red curtains were drawn shut, but there were two votive candles burning in the corner at the foot of a statue that looked like The Virgin Mary. The candles cast long, twitchy shadows of saints and crucifixes against the wall and ceiling. The room was red and muddy with darkness. He could make out the old woman sitting upright on the bed, her back and head resting against the headboard. Her glasses were off and on the nightstand next to her teeth. Her hair was no longer black and thick, but thin, long and white like cobwebs. The oil mash of twigs he was used to seeing was pinned on a mannequin’s head next to the vanity mirror. The mannequin had a look of shock on its face as if it had been separated from its body at a moment of surprise. Willie said his grandmother wore a wig but Oscar thought he was lying. The cordless phone was in her chubby hand and tucked against her body. Whenever she watched over Willie and Oscar, she would take the phone wherever she went. The boys had made prank calls once and caused her no end of grief when one of their victims called back and cursed her over the phone in words she did not understand. If it was not in her possession then she would hide it, forgetting where she put it on more than one occasion.

Oscar moved closer to the bed and noticed a gaping black hole in her face where the buzzing sound came from. She had a little tongue that hung on her bottom lip and quivered when she breathed out like a worm to lure smaller fish. He never saw Lola Panching without glasses or teeth, and it was a secret thrill to get a glimpse at the true face behind the thick, oily, black-rimmed lenses. She had no eyes. At least in the darkness she seemed to have no eyes. Just tiny squished raisins where her eyes should be, like the raisins in the meatloaf, loose skinned and puss filled. The phone continued to ride her belly as she breathed in and out. Suddenly the little green light on the phone flickered in the dark and rang out. Lola Panching was startled and shot up from the bed with the phone squeezed between her stomach and her drooping chest.

Oscar stood still, hoping she couldn’t see him.

She stared at the shape of him in the darkness against the light in the hallway and blinked before cursing at him in her native tongue and pushing him out into the hallway. Then she slammed the door shut and locked it before answering the phone.

Oscar’s heart was beating so hard he was sure the old woman could hear it even with the door closed. He pressed his ear against the door with cupped hands and listened to her raspy murmuring. She was speaking Tagalog, but some words he did not understand. He was able to make out a few things but not much else:

His Mom’s name.

The baby.

Doctor.

Problem.

And something that sounded like, “nawala ang bata” posed as a question.

“Wala” he knew to mean “lost”.

“Bata,” he knew meant “child”.

Then the old woman said, “Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. Sige pakatapos. Kami ay dito. Okey,” and turned the phone off.

When she emerged from the room she was adjusting her wig. Oscar was standing at the far end of the hallway next to the stairs. She seemed smaller than she was earlier in the day, enveloped in the red darkness of her room. Her teeth were back in place and she sucked on them before leaving her room and shutting the door. The glasses were on and that familiar oily stare observed Oscar for a moment before walking towards the boy.

“Where’s my Mommy?” he whimpered.

The old woman stopped in her tracks and scratched her scalp. Shook her neck to the side until it made a wet crack and spoke, “Your Mami---“

“Is she okay?” he cried.

“Your Mami okey,” she said and kept walking.

Oscar turned towards the stairs but kept his eyes on the old woman. He placed one foot on the first step and held onto the rail.

She said in a stern voice, “Maingat, Oscar.”

“I am being careful!” he yelled back, his nose beginning to run. “Is my sister okay? Is Amanda okay?!”

“Okey,” she said and continued walking towards him, “okey,” she mumbled.

“I don’t believe you!” he said and ran down the steps to the front door. He tried to open it but couldn’t manage the tight deadbolt.

He struggled until the old woman grabbed his hands and swallowed them into her own. She squeezed them, digging her flat, square, nails into his palms and drawing his arms together so he could not get away.

“Hoy!” she yelled and drew his face close to hers. “Hindi puede laro salabas! No outside!”

Oscar tried to close his eyes but could not help but see the hole that was her mouth and the young teeth, sticky with old saliva and out of place within the ruins of her dark face. She dragged him to the living room and pushed him onto the sofa. Then she turned on the television and threw the remote control onto the cushion next to him.

“Your Mami sed to et,” she huffed and shuffled away into the dark hallway towards the kitchen to fix him a meal.

“I’m not hungry!” Oscar cried.

The old woman ignored him and began the routine with her Tupperware and the microwave and the rice and the meatloaf.

Oscar got up from the sofa and ran up the stairs and towards the old woman’s room. He was determined to find the telephone and call his Mom, call his Dad, call anyone, maybe even call the hospital to find out what happened. He turned the doorknob but it was locked. He slammed his shoulder against the door but it did not budge. He tried once again with more force, this time cracking a piece of the frame but not opening the door. He slumped to the floor and sobbed until his breath was stuttered.

Then he heard something familiar from inside the room.

Tik. Tik. Tik.

His eyes grew big.

Tik. Tik. Tik.

He sat still and swallowed the tears on his lips.

Tik. Tik. Tik.

It was right behind the locked door.

He crawled away to the stairs.

He could hear the microwave rotating his dinner in the kitchen and maybe the refrigerator door opening and then closing. There was the unmistakable mumble of her native tongue coupled with the slam bang of the ladle against the rice cooker pot.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

He backed himself down onto the steps crawling backwards to the first floor and keeping his eyes fixed on the second floor.

At the foot of the stairs he was yanked by his arm, stood up, and twisted around.

Lola Panching was staring at him with mad eyes, digging her fingernails into his shoulder with one hand and shaking the plastic grocery bag with his disposed lunch in the other.

“Ano ito?” she screamed flinging spittle and hot breath at his face. “Putragis!”

He had heard that word before. It was something his Dad yelled at him when he lost his soccer ball. It was a word he heard when his parents fought. It was a bad word, a curse word, and even though he didn’t know exactly what it meant, he knew it carried with it, rage.

She shook him until his arm felt torn from his body. Then she dragged him to the kitchen and shoved him against the breakfast bar. He cried from the pain, and from her voice, and from the feeling that his Mom had abandoned him and left him alone with this woman that she knew he hated.

On the breakfast bar was a steaming plate of the meatloaf, a wet, cold lump of rice and a plastic glass with cloudy tap water.

She pointed at the counter, “You et!”

“No!” Oscar screamed back.

“You et!”

“No!” he yelled and tried to push his way past her squat girth.

They struggled in the kitchen hallway. The plastic grocery bag ripped open and spilled its contents onto the floor next to his book bag and soccer ball. This drove the old woman into a sick frenzy and she raised an open hand at him.

Oscar had never been hit before. The sight of this crazed woman’s dark, wrathful, hand terrified him.

He cowered and collapsed onto the floor, curling into a ball underneath the countertop.

The old woman charged ahead, but stopped short of striking him. She seemed pleased with herself. She was finally able to reach into her old world bag of tricks and find something Oscar feared. She brought down her hand and grinned, standing over him.  Then she mumbled something to herself before backing away from Oscar and stumbling on the soccer ball left rolling on the floor.

Her fat arms flailed to grab anything in reach to break her fall but there was nothing.

The heavy glasses slipped off her face before her head bounced on the wood floor. Her oily face settled on the ground with a wet thud. The wig fell half off. Her teeth lay next to her head, the young set thick with saliva webs. The worm tongue flickered before a low groan and a sudden release of air from her lungs shrunk her body.

Then silence.

Oscar tried to speak but his mouth was too dry. He looked between the bar stool’s legs to see if she was okay, then nudged the stool aside with his leg before managing to force a weak sound from his lungs, “Lola?”

No response.

He tried again. “Lola Panching?”

No response.

“Please say something.”

She lay lifeless on the floor.

“I’m...I’m sorry,” he said. He crawled to the body and sat next to it before stretching out his hand and touching her shoulder.

“Please." He shook her arm. "Please. Please don’t die.”

Her black eyes were open but there was no light in them, no shine. They were dull and scarred with cataracts.

“I-I’ll…I’ll call for help,” he said, and stood up to run up the stairs to the second floor. It wasn’t until he was at her bedroom door that he remembered it was locked and that there was that awful sound coming from inside her room.

It’s just your imagination; he thought to himself, Dad said the dark is there for our imagination. There is nothing there but the dark and your imagination. He placed his ear to the door and heard nothing. There has to be a key, he thought to himself, she has a key.

Oscar ran downstairs and tried to rouse the old woman once more. “Lola Panching…where’s your key? Please help me…I need to call for help. I need your key.”

The old woman said nothing and just lay there.

Oscar felt around her housedress for a pocket, “I’m sorry Lola…” he began to cry, “but I need to find your key.” He pushed her doughy skin around until he was convinced she had no pockets.

He cried, “Where’s your key?! There has to be a key," he whimpered and pressed his weary head against her body. There was no breathing from the old woman. No sound of the body gurgling like it did when he pressed his ear against his Mom’s belly to hear his little sister’s kicking.

“Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!” the mechanical bird screeched from the family room.

Oscar screamed.

When the clock went silent, Lola Panching’s bedroom door opened. The sound of something dragged its weight across the second floor. He grabbed the soccer ball and held it close to his chest.

The thing put a foot on the first step.

Oscar pushed himself underneath the breakfast bar.

Then the sound of a second step.

Then a third.

Oscar gripped the ball tight underneath one arm and crawled towards the sliding glass door to the backyard. He pressed his face against the glass and felt the cold outside. He reached up with his free arm to unlock the door and slid it open. A cool wind slipped into the kitchen and when there was just enough room for Oscar to squeeze through, he snuck out and rolled onto the wet patio pavement. He slid the door shut.

The rain had slowed to a drizzle, but the wind had become stronger. It blew the hinges off part of the canvas pool cover so the tarp was rising and sinking with every gust. The motion detector floodlights came alive. He knew beyond the pool was a garden, but no fence, and beyond that nothing but thick woods and more woods. He thought about running to a neighbor’s house, but didn’t remember which direction had the only other lived in home in the neighborhood.

He felt the thing’s presence in the kitchen and decided to hide underneath the tarp in the empty pool.

Inside the pool’s dark cavern, he scurried to the deep end. It was wet. Rain leaked through the break in the cover and collected at the bottom. The wind shook the cover and with every burst the tarp would snap up and a swath of light from the floodlights would reveal the empty pool’s sunken landscape. When the floodlights finally went out he gripped the ball and prayed. In the dark, Oscar heard leaves blow in and scatter across the bottom. His socks were wet and stuck to the mat of leaves around his feet. He did his best to squat against a sloping side without getting his pants wet. He didn’t know how long he would have to be there, but it was better than being inside the house with that thing and that dead body.

The floodlights came back on.

The tarp flapped up and down like a giant wing trying to break free from a chain to confess Oscar’s hiding place to the world.

Please go away, he thought to himself.

Please leave me alone.

He heard something faint within the roaring wind. Something dragging its feet against the grainy, wet pavement. It coughed and groaned, the breath gurgling and then growling as if it wanted to speak but could not form the words.

“Please go away,” he whispered gripping the soccer ball.

“Please…please go away.”

A burst of air unhinged another section of the tarp and his shelter’s deep hollow belly was laid bare. The insulating darkness was gone with the flickering light and the twisted shadows of tree limbs in the yard grew long and wild on the pool’s curved sides. They twitched and read the barren landscape with muddy fingers, impatient and excited, feeling for the boy, carefully touching and retreating from round corners and leaf covered puddles of water. From the sloped bottom Oscar could barely make out the blurry silhouette lurking at shallow end of the pool. He was afraid to look, and closed his eyes as if not seeing it would somehow make him invisible to its gaze.

The wind stopped and there was the sound of something familiar.

A car horn.

Tita Medi’s car horn.

She always honked the horn when she pulled up to the driveway as a signal to anyone in the house to open the garage door.

The thing at the edge of the pool stopped moving. Its breathing now more clear. It remained still, waiting for a clue of some sort to suggest its next move.

Oscar heard it whisper his name and then utter a:

Tsk.Tsk.Tsk.

Then it shuffled in one direction before running across the wet pavement away from the house and leaping over the pool cover and into the deep woods.

The car horn continued:

Honk. Honk. Honk.

Oscar climbed up from the pool’s depths and poked his head out from underneath the cover. Leaves were twisting and flying around the bright floodlights like a colony of mad bats. He ran from the pool and around the house as fast as he could. When he got to the front of the house he saw Tita Medi helping his Mom tread up the driveway and onto the path to the steps and the front door.

“Mommy!” he cried.

“Oscar?”

“Mommy!” he cried again and grabbed onto her waist and her warm belly.

“My God!” she said. “What are you doing outside? Where you playing outside? You’re all wet.”

“No---“

“Oscar,” his Mom said holding his face with both hands, “don’t lie to me. You know you aren’t supposed to be outside.”

He said, “But I wasn’t playing---“

Tita Medi spoke, “Where’s your Lola?”

“Something happened,” he said, “there was an accident.”

“What?”

“She needs help.”

“Ay nako!” Tita Medi ran towards the front steps.

The garage door opened like a giant mouth yawning from sleep.

Inside the garage, the old woman stood unmolested in her slippers with her glasses on, her teeth in place and an umbrella in hand.

“Oscar, what are you talking about?” his Mom asked.

Lola Panching waddled out of the garage and gave a toothy smile.

“Lola,” his Mom asked, “is everything okay?”

“Okey,” she replied.

 

Inside the house the kitchen was clean. No signs of struggle. The three women talked in Tagalog and laughed a bit before Oscar’s Mom declared that they should be leaving in case the weather got worse. Oscar sat at the dinner table away from the breakfast bar staring at Lola Panching. She was all there, standing before him, the oily bush of fake hair, the fake teeth, and the fake smile. She said something about having to feed Oscar meatloaf because it was all she had and that it was sadly the easiest thing for her to bite into. When they were ready to leave, the old woman wrapped up a thick slice of meatloaf in aluminum foil and shoved it in a Ziplock bag. She handed it to Oscar in the hallway at the front door. Her eyes were fixed on him the entire time as his mother kissed her cheek and thanked her again for watching over him.

His Mom said, “Your Lola Panching says you were so well behaved and if I ever need a babysitter she would be very happy to take care of you. You and your baby sister.”

“Is she okay?” Oscar asked. “My sister?”

“Of course. The doctor says everything is going to be fine,” his Mom replied.

Lola Panching rubbed his Mom’s belly and grinned. “Okey.”

“She says you really liked her meatloaf.”

The old woman opened the door.

“Goodbye, Mare’,” his Mom said to Tita Medi and kissed her on the cheek. “Salaamat po.”

Tita Medi gave Oscar a hug. “I’ll bring Willie over to your house for Halloween okay? There’s really no one in this neighborhood, so we’ll come over there. Sound good?”

Oscar nodded.

He walked down the path from the front door to the driveway holding his Mom’s hand when something hit his leg.

It was his soccer ball.

Oscar picked it up and looked at Lola Panching.

She was lurking on the porch.

The pumpkins were fine, but the fake witch had been knocked over in the storm. Its floppy hat was gone and its eyes were now blacked out. The old woman stood alone in the doorway with a bad smile. Their eyes locked.

She raised an arm and pointed a finger at Oscar, “Maingat, Oscar,” she said, “…be careful.”

Her other arm was stretched out against the doorframe, the dark hand caressing the wood over and over again before tapping it with her index finger three times.

Tik. Tik. Tik.