章 2: Two
There was something about the way her mother looked at her over dinner that made Cara think something was wrong. Dorothy had always been the one to initiate a conversation during the course of their meals - something along the lines of God's will, and the second coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, maybe something about a talk among local folks on how politics was decliding by the day into more of a dogfight against rich and smiling members of a the community; things that are either too complicated or too uninteresting for her thirteen-year old mind to partake. But there was none of that that night. Not even her mother's usual griping of whatever she may have encountered during the day that she deemed immoral or politically incorrect - not that she would know. Instead, across the six-seater wooden oak table, her mother eyed her very differently. Like how one would eye something that may be dangerous. Something that needs to be kept an eye on. Cara pretended not to notice, and focused her eye on the patterns on the table carefully enhanced by woodstain. Her brother was saying something about an old man that got swept by a pedicab earlier that morning.
Now finally on her room, Cara jumped on her bed and looked out the window, for which displayed to her a view of the chapel across the street, and a three-story furniture shop beyond it. Although it had been already nine pm, a light was shining up there on the chapel. A wavering orange light against the thick cold darkness. It was a candle light.
'What do we have here?' She said to herself, almost whispering.
She stood closer to the window and squinted. She was almost sure there was a shadow casted on the wall inside the chapel window, and although she couldn't quite distinguish it between a man or a woman, she was sure it was a person. Maybe it's Pastor Pascal, a late night research on the second floor library? Yes. The Pastor has spoken about a draft for a book he had been writing. Maybe that's what it was. In fact, that was what it was ---
But, dear Cara, why the candle light? The chapel couldn't have gotten their electricity cut-off, could they? Certainly not. There was a steady flow of tithe from the masses, and even if it did come to that, the barangay folkies wouldn't allow electricity to be taken away from what some may consider a beacon of hope. Certainly. So why the candle light?
The candle light flickers before going out. Cara saw darkness claiming what once was a bright spot of the universe back into the abyss. She felt uneasy. Like someone was watching. But nobody could, nobody would know where to look. Her lights were off and her blinders were half-shut. But still, she felt that uneasiness run through her spine, making her feet cold and legs weak. That creeping feeling, like a building slowly casting a shadow on an empty playground at mid-day when all kids are supposed to be out and frolicking under the sun. It was that feeling when she has to stand in front of the class and talk about how she happened to have no arms but also how she can shockingly paint better than all, if not, most of them. That same feeling of uneasiness when you're mother is eyeing you across the table.
The candle light flickering before going out. That was all she remembers the next morning when she wakes up on the floor next to half-empty bottles of paint and dirty feet. Her window open again like the teeth of a creature she painted unknowingly not too long ago.
**
On the weeks following Dorothy's first discovery of the painting, half a dozen more followed. The artworks seemed to be getting worse and worse. Taking it down to the pawnshop had been a once or twice a week thing. An act that seem to brighten up the eyes of the old man. Although she hadn't ask the old man where he stashes them, she imagines it in her mind's eye in some oldman-attic, inside boxes with no labels, gathering dust. And rightfully so.
Every morning she would get up and quietly float her way down to Cara's room, crack open her door and peer in. There would be nothing for her most of the time, but there are times when Cara painted those things again. And she still couldn't get her mind around what to do with them (aside from stashing them into that old pawnshop). She tried talking to her, the kind of attempt mothers do when they need to have a talk with their daughters but hesistant to do so for sensitive reasons. But Cara seem distant these days, more silent. When she asks her questions about school, her daughter would just nod absently while staring at her food, as if trying to paint a picture with her mind. It was as if she knew something was wrong.
Cara did not go around looking for the paintings, which was how Dorothy knew her daughter had been painting them on her sleep. She had spent long nights pondering the wrong things she may have done raising her child. Cara was a smart girl, naive at times, but she was still a kid. She was a regular honor student, and a couple years ago insisted against being homeschooled. I need friends, she remember her saying. But she never took any particular liking to anyone in her class, and never introduced her to any friend when she chaperoned them on their school fieldtrips. Then, months after, when the mango trees outside their house began to bud in coral yellow, she came home with a big smile on her face, inside her knapsack were colored pencils and a sketchpad she had won in a spelling bee. A year later she was already painting, or at least trying to. Painting with her feet took another year to master.
Maybe she really did make a friend from school Dors, a voice in her mind said. You see, all her art, her paintings, the exhibits, it's all the work of the dev--
A loud bang erupted from downstairs.
She bolted up from her chair and went running down the hall. She reached the bottom of the stairs and scanned the living room.
Nothing. Everything seemed to be in place. Nothing askew, no broken shards of glass, or a tumble of whatever it had been that fell or got knocked away. She waltz into the kitchen, carefully planting each foot with a silent delicacy comparable to an intruding cat in the night. She peered in, head poking out into the kitchen. The face she saw on refridgerator was ghastly.
Across the kitchen, under the dimunitive lightning from the living room casting an orangey glow, the face looked back at her. The shiny gloss finish of the refridgerator was glinting under the light, and so was the face. It was her own reflection. A forty-year old single mother, a devout religious carefully raising two children on her own since her husband left seven years ago with no hint or warning whatsoever. Her hair had turned white through the years, though well kempt. She was stocky, short, and had a face that's not to mess with. Although it was dark in there, she saw the drooping eyebags that hanged on her face. All those late night pondering had caught up with her. It was getting worse. In fact, things were getting worse. The paintings were getting worse. The
work of the dev-
She stopped the thought. Such thoughts were not allowed in this house at this hour. Never had she thought of an idea to be so… frightening. Yes, that was the word. She walked back into her room and closed the door behind her, suddenly beginning to realize she was worried, not about her sanity (although she may have considered it for a second) but of her daughter's well-being.
Outside the window, behind the lush branches of trees, she saw a light go out up on the chapel. On a good day, she would've assumed it to be fireflies dancing on the trees, they were common during the summers. But there were no such things on that quiet night, only the chirping of insects and the croaking of what seem to be toads from under the damp soil of their backyard. Perhaps it was the Holy Spirit giving her a sign, like the bushfire from the book of Exodus; a presence of God. Yes, she thought. Perhaps it is. Perhaps it was time to take things under holy protection. Yes, Pastor Pascal would understand.
Downstairs, she never saw the living room windows askew.
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