Lea headed, no, hid in the kitchen in the back of the hut. But restless as she always will be it seemed, so Sal crawled away and followed her there. 

She stood there flitting between fire, and coal, and a pot of water. There was a frenetic calmness to the way she held herself, like how a hummingbird’s nature is to flap its wings so fast when feeding. 

“ Is Mang Ilo still there?”

It took quite some time to put a face to the name. There were no other voices now besides the familiar ones, the boatman, the cousin, and the couple. Ro is not there, perhaps he must be outside.

“No, I think.”

Lea showed her a cup filwed with black water. Soot stirred in it, scary yet, Sal can’t tear her eyes away. Before she could get lost in the color, Lea was gone and out there back in the room where Inie stayed.

She would’ve followed her there until she glimpsed Inie’s dirty soles. Nary a step more, but then she knew in herself that she’d stay to see if something as black as the liquid in that cup could really be drunk by someone. 

“ This water might look gross.” Lea supported Inie by the back. “ We use this to purge toxins out of the body. Like tea, but a little different. “ Her voice was calm, the familiar kind of calm that brings Sal back to the days of staring at the stained ceilings in the Hospicio.

If Inie was unlike herself, she would refuse.

“Alright.” Inie rasped. 

Sal ducked her head through the doorway to see Inie dunk the liquid in her mouth in one go. She waited for something to happen. If Inie will retch. Vomit it out. But nothing. Silence.

Lea wiped the trace of the sooty water off Inie’s cheek and laid her on the bed.

Sal was suddenly aware of how she watched a whole five minutes without looking away or how the dust played in the sunlight and settled in their cheeks. Inie lay there still pale, but the Inie in Sal’s mind was much more of a pallid ghost than this girl who looked much more …normal.

Sal reached out a hand to touch.

“Who are you? What are you doing?” Someone’s voice quivered. It was from a face they’ve never seen before, a familiar voice among the throng that went in and out of the hut.

Sal assured to herself that Lea would still be the levelheaded one even as she conversed with a stranger. She laid her arms on her side.

Sal darted a look at the stranger, no, strangers. Two of them stood there, a woman and another behind her. ITs features curled up unto itself but with a strange look in the eyes like an animal waiting to lunge.

Sal hid herself behind the door and curled into her knees to make herself smaller.

“No, listen.” Lea spoke.

“ Please, I’m trying to-”

“ Thug!” The stranger shrieked.

There was thumping across the bamboo floor.

Lea propped herself against the wall, quite far from the door where Sal is. The two strangers are finally out of sight. Sal thought she saw Lea glance at her for a second. Then, the yelling continued.

“ Listen! I’m not doing anything bad.”

“ I don’t believe you.”

“Then don’t!”

   Another round of foot stomping across the floor. 

“ What have you done?” The cousin’s voice added to the already numerous voices in the room. “ By jove! Inie. Are you alright? What did she do?”

“ Listen. Whatever I did, I was trying to help. It’s charcoal water and -”

“ Go away! Go away!” The cousin insisted.

There were a few more angry stomps across that got softer at each step. Lea’s steps it must be. But when Sal decided to peek, it was not Lea’s feet making those sounds. She barely lifted her sight and Lea’s feet were getting dragged out the floor even as they stomped madly. More shrieking. The strangers ran out, so did Lea.

The strangers only ran out into the row of huts this place calls a village. Never has Sal felt the urge to see the strangers’ feet get sore and melt like candlewax from all that running. When the strangers disappeared, she implored Lea to come in and she did. When they were both inside, Sal scanned the place, it was her, Lea and Inie in the room. She locked the door and sat behind it, barring it with her body.

“ What is she doing?” Sal forgot the cousin existed.

There was more yelling and arguing that it just melted into space, making the air shake.

Then, a wild push thumped across her back. Knocks. Calls. It was not just one voice from behind the door. Twos, threes, dozens.

“ Hey, is someone there? I can’t open this door one bit.” IT was the constable’s voice.

Upon hearing his voice, Sal scooted out from her spot. No sooner than she did, people poured inside. They carried axes, poles. 

“ Lea?” Ro started. “ Did you see the thief.

Sal listened to the murmurs and questions on the air from under the table where she hid.

“ She’s the thief!” Fingers pointed at Lea.

“ Do I look like one to you?” 

In the midst of all the whispers and the jeering melding together, Ro’s voice resounded clear. “No.”

Ro’s footsteps sounded loud against the bamboo floor even barefoot. When Sal peeked from her position, Ro was positioned in front of Lea, his arms outstretched in front of him.

“ People, please. Listen. This girl here is my friend. There is no way she would hurt this little girl. How could she? She’s a physician’s assistant. She came here to help when she learned of this girl being sick.”

“ You’re being fooled, boy.”

“ You’re supposed to help us, proper citizens, not her!”

All the yelling and the voices calmed down to a whisper. Two more footsteps entered the room. Sal peeked out to see the couple standing in front of Ro and Lea. Every mouth was shut and all eyes glued on them. 

The woman spoke, “ I do hope we all are here in good faith, why disturb our sick here for that matter. “ 

The man then came forward, “ We all should stay calm, alright. Anger will get us nowhere.”

Someone spoke from the crowd. “ A thief, an outsider, broke into your home and was harming Inie. What should we do but help?”

The woman nodded to Lea and Ro, and they stepped back. The woman stepped into the little empty space, the dividing line between her and the crowd. “ If there was a thief in my house, I would be the first to drive them out here and send him out on the boat out of the island. But if it is a guest, should we not show hospitality, as good people ought to do. As such, I apologize for not introducing them, but here, they are my guests. The constable, Ro, and Lea, they are guests in this community.”

________#______

Daybreak was just barely peeking when Lea walked out of the hut, bags packed. No ruminations. No thoughts. As expected, Sal thought to herself. Lea slept after the commotion earlier with the villagers and was already setting out to the horizon first thing in the morning.

Sal draped her panuelo over her head before wetting her feet with the morning dew and followed Lea outside through the grasslands.

The breeze blew cold even as the yellow sunlight hit her skin and the cerulean sky stretched ahead. She stepped into water and soaked her toes in them. Down there in the water were rocks, big and small, pebbles, ripples. More ripples. Yelling.

The yelling pierced through the air even worse when Sal looked up. Lea stood in the middle of the stream, her hair looking weird and the sleeves of her dress now clinging to her arms. She took the edge of her kamiseta and wrung it.

“ Go away! I don’t want your germs on me.”

The boy’s singsong voice was grating.

Lea got out of the water. No retort. But strange. Surely. That mouse of a boy can’t beat this loud woman. The water must wash the words away. 

Sal drew her feet out to the water but the edges of her skirt dragged in the murk. PErhaps, for better. When the boy laughed, Sal can’t help but feel herself getting dragged back into the reeds. 

The boy continued laughing and pointing at LEa. His face was a strange blur of lines and dots from where Sal stood but they looked like big blobs of black eggs that you’d want to crush.

“ Silence!” Sal wanted to eke out. It came out a little above a whisper when the boy shrieked. It was loud enough to rouse the birds a mile away. The boy sat on his bottom in the flowing water of the stream as it coursed against his ankles. He cried. It echoed across the grassland, across the tall weeds, and to the distant huts in the village. Sal feared his call would attract other creatures like how a single dog’s cry would rally everyone else to cry with him. 

In the distance, they trickled in. Dozens, no, more of them appeared across the horizon. Figures like ants big and small, slender and stout, all of them faceless, appeared from between the tall grass. 

Sal jammed herself behind the grass from where she stood. The air was filled not with the boy's shrieking but the murmurs and jeers and the smell of dust kicked up in the air mixed with the smell of grass. 

The crowd, moved like a cluster of black ants swarming up the wooden posts. They surrounded the boy, held him like how ants protected their queen. Another cluster divided and marched up to Lea. When one of them moved to seize Lea, Sal closed her eyes. 

The air shook with the sound of a slap. Voices melded into each other, angry voices, concerned voices, reprimanding voices. They drowned out any voice Lea may have made. 

Sal's feet went asleep from crouching on the water and her underskirt wet from touching the stream but it was a momentary distraction from Sal's thoughts. Ants, she remembered, were small creatures. She hoped they'd hide and hope they keep quiet. 

Perhaps she could run and whisk Lea away, but her legs hurt and at the sight of the number of the crowd, the strangers, all these older people who spoke in a strange accent and dressed roughly.Sal grew frightened. 

Out there in the village, Sal spotted someone in the hut. His khaki uniform was clear from afar. He looked like a dot from where he stood. Perhaps if the distance between here and the hut collapsed, he’d be here much faster. He’d be here and speak to all these people and they’d look at him with eyes like children watching a play and listen to what he will say. 

Sal beat at her throbbing feet. From afar, the yelling was colored by panic. They set the boy on a big root of a nearby tree. He laid still like a doll. The strangers surrounding the boy knelt on their knees or lowered themselves. They carried him further onto the shade of a tree, fanning him while a circle of women stood around him. A part of the crowd led by the familiar lady, broke off the crows to cross the stream towards Lea. 

Even as the throng of people came to her, Lea picked up her skirt and started to march to the other side of the shore, facing all these people. 

“ If he collapsed, massage his palms!” Lea yelled from where she stood. There was no response. When she walked over to the shore, the men barred her. She pushed into and they pushed her too. Her things scattered onto the shore. She kept yelling. “ Listen!” 

No one else did. 

She felt weak at seeing them push her like that. She could only cover her eyes and listen. She listened to her voice against the crowd. “ Massage his palms, don’t lay him like that.” Lea yelled in between heaves. Sal listened to the words and then the words were joined in by the crowing of chickens, a heavy rustle of footsteps, and a voice booming across the crowd.

“ Calm down, people. Calm down. Hold your horses. Hold your chickens. Whoa! Whoa. That’s not how you hold a lady.”

Ro’s voice boomed clear despite his distance from where Sal stood. He whisked LEa behind him. His figure loomed a good height over the other like a tall tree standing before a smaller tree. 

The man was the stooping tree. His voice was too scratchy like mixed dirty, jelly the last Sal heard of him. It was not enough for the air to carry his words but his hands did more of the work. HE gesticulated his hands in the air. 

The people in the distance were tall grass that swayed with what must be the volume of her words. The words were barely audible, but the lady continued. She lunged forward, crooked fingers pointed at Lea.

“Get away from us!”

Suddenly, she hunched. The strength that kept her tall faltered. 

Sal followed her line of sight. A white haired woman walked on the opposite bank of the stream. Her steps dragged across the earth yet remained resolute. The crowd parted for her and let her inside the semicircle of people where the boy lay.

“ You’re the chief. We’ve been here with you for years. For my auntie’s sake. Do something. Ever since that greenie came, people have fallen sick. Even your charge, didn’t she fall sick after staying with that girl?”

The words rang in Sal’s head. Greenie. Gree, green like the color of the monster of envy. Her reflection in the water was dark, a blurred imitation of a face.

“ She is a guest our house has decided to accommodate. We all ought to show respect.”

The man’s words were clear this time. A lump formed in Sal’s throat. She did not want to hear any more.

“ You are fooled by this woman. Sir Constable.” The lady continued, her tone unchanging.

Sal covered her ears yet Ro spoke ever so clearly as if speaking to a crowd.” I know you are upset, but the longer we stand here, fried by the sun’s heat, the longer your nephew lays there sick. Please, this lady has been by my side when wounds needed mending and sicknesses needed cure. I trust her, I hope you can too.”

Lea pulled at Ro’s arm and said something too soft for Sal to decipher. IT was only for Ro’s ears and the opaqueness irked Sal. Perhaps something Sal was too unfit to hear? Before long, Lea was stomping off. Ro following behind.

The two of them danced the same waltz. Ro walking backwards, gesturing in front of a charging Lea. It was all too familiar. The same steps. Sal waited for a break in something. A different step. A bend in a different direction.

LEa pushed Ro so hard her bag fell from her grip and scattered her belongings in the ground. Clothes. Small pouches of herbs. An envelope. The most dangerous envelope. The constable gathered them. Just when Sal thought the envelope will escape his notice, he picked it up. 

Sal counted the seconds he only held it in his hands. She waited for him to say something. Perhaps, he’ll read it. Whatever it may contain, perhaps everyone in the crowd will hear it and look at Lea with understanding in their eyes. PErhaps, they’ll let her inside that closed crowd.

Ro shoved it unceremoniously in the bag like the rest of her belongings. The scenario was almost right there, playing so well, but the red-hooded girl chose to take the bend on the road leading to the fox. Afternoons watching play-acting kids in the Hospiciom watching them spend the scenario laid out in front onf them. Sal forgets she is a watcher. She is meant to only watch.

Sal beat at her numb legs to move. She scouted the place to look for other players to come in this stage. There, in the huts walked out a girl, a bit spindly but walking resolutely with a certain adult-like gait, the walk of what should be a curious child eavesdropping in the ruckus.

A small gasp of surprise echoed a little from the people nearest the bank. It took awhile to see it was Inie who has just arrived.

“ You’re not that well yesterday, You might get sick further.” They said to the little girl.

“ Inie visibly shrugged and bent over to help up Ro and LEa to their feet.

“ What are you doing?”

“ I am just helping her.”

Sal kicked her legs, they hurt but not as much as the relief of finally making a step.

Inie quipped “ She makes nicer teas.”

RO slapped Lea in the back, arms slung around LEa and Inie, he remarked. “ I told you, Lea is a professional.”

The braided lady tried to get RO off her back, She spoke softly yet harshly. Sal imagined what could the words be. PErhaps ‘stop’ or ‘you idiot, stop’ or ‘this is embarassing’

“ HOw can someone like her be a physician.” Some voice jutted in from the crowd. 

The boatman stepped forward, holding an envelope. A rush of anticipation bellows in to Sal. The boatman held it up, albeit scrunching his face. Why couldn’t he just read it aloud? Sal thought to herself. PErhaps, she has to read it herself. No, that would be dangerous.

THe boatman handed it to the village head. HE read it, slowly, like he was grinding hard candy in his teeth and spitting it little by little. Sal completed the words.

“ If perhaps you have made time to visit us again. We would be glad too. The doctor would very much like for you to resume your duties. No other hand was as deft as yours. Perhaps, you can consider. Dr. V-”

Lea eked out. “ Doctor Vittorio-”

Sal felt lightheaded, the blood must have rushed from her legs to her head. She waltzed out of the cover of the grass.

The stream seemed to part for LEa. The crowd of people were as if compelled by some wind, or the village head. They finally let her in that tight circle of people. Lea was not a lone geese in that moment.