On a normal day, the cemetery was a place seldom visited by the living. Though it held displays of fascinating architecture, tradition, and sentimentality, its company was kept only by that of the occasional songbird, whose voice echoed across the empty grounds, or by the shadows that lurked in every corner.
On a normal day, the cemetery would be still, and silent, and lonely.
But no story occurs on a normal day, and this is no exception.
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Avalyn watched the purple balloon dancing in the wind, with its white string tied to one of the flower vases near a headstone that was kept immaculate. It was only a simple marker compared to the ornate, baroque-style mausoleums around it, but it stood proudly regardless.
It was her least favorite day of the year— Undás, the Filipino term for Dia Todos Los Santos, or All Saints Day. In the Philippines, it is not very common to celebrate in quintessential Halloween activities like trick-or-treating, dressing up in costumes, or pumpkin carving. It is a time to visit the cemeteries to honor departed loved ones with food, burning candles at their graves through the night, and sharing tales to recall fond memories. (Meanwhile, the kids would share scary stories.)
“Viola!” The voice came from a cheerful looking woman around her mid-forties; her accent was barely audible. “Viola, honey, we’re going to go talk to Lola Gloria over there.”
A girl raised her hand, waving. “Sure, Mom, I’ll be right here with my cousins.”
Avalyn hadn’t noticed her, sitting on a bucket beside a tombstone made of marble, amongst a few other children her age. She had the same wavy black hair as the woman who had spoken; most likely her daughter. How did I miss her...?
She disregarded this, and returned her gaze to the lonely purple balloon that bobbed slowly in the wind.
—————————————————
Viola sat on a makeshift stool, shifting her body on the overturned yellow bucket that they had used to carry flowers to the cemetery. While the adults busied themselves with small talk and memories, her cousins had been telling her Filipino ghost stories.
She and her parents were in the Philippines visiting family, and it was her first time experiencing Undás. Though she missed dressing up for Halloween, she found the two-day celebration cheerful, albeit in an uncanny way.
She inhaled deeply, catching the savory smells of garlic and onion-infused dishes, to the sweet aroma of Filipino desserts. “Wow, there’s so much food here! I can’t believe they sell food too. Do people actually eat here? Everything smells so good!”
“Yeah, a lot of people do, but we don’t. We bring our loved ones’ favorite dishes, but you can buy them here too.” Evangeline —the oldest cousin— pointed to a few food carts around the cemetery. “It’s tradition to bring the rice cake with ube. You know, the sweet purple yam that Inang makes.”
“Psh, that’s boring,” chirped her brother, Tommy, rolling his eyes, “can we get back to the scary stories?”
“Now, now, settle down.” Evangeline said between chuckles, then lowered her voice to an ominous whisper. “It comes at night,” she murmured, waving her hands to dramatize her words, “hungering for human flesh and blood. No one knows exactly what it looks like because no one has lived to tell the tale.”
“What a cliché, até," Tommy interrupted, using the honorific for older sister.
Evangeline swatted at him playfully before continuing in a low tone. “From its slavering mouth comes an impossibly long tongue that makes a tik-tik-tik sound…"
“Wait,” Viola interposed, rubbing absently at her un-pierced earlobe, “how does it’s tongue make a ticking noise?”
“Supposedly, its tongue flicks really fast. It’s so long that it can slither in through a window, towards its sleeping victims...and then punctures their neck— ” She lunged for Viola and Tommy who both jumped back with twin shrieks (though, who was louder is up to discretion). “—and sucks out all the blood, and the internal organs!”
Viola enjoyed scary stories, but this one raised the fine hairs on the back of her neck and sent shivers cascading down her spine. She hadn’t noticed that her slender hands were knotted into tight fists making her knuckles appear white like the joint of a butchered cow hock bone, until she felt the tingling sensation of blood being constricted.
Viola glanced over her shoulder and noticed a girl and her parents, standing unmoving at the crest of the hill; she trained her gaze on them to distract herself from the frightening tale.
The girl held no flowers to lay at a grave, no gifts to bring to her ancestors. The same was true of her parents, who stood a few feet behind her. The three were dressed in clothes that looked as if they came from a time long past— shirts with extravagant embroidery, high collars, and trailing sleeves.
Perhaps it’s just their style, she reasoned, and thought no more of the matter, though she did notice that they seemed to be tracking the movement of the people in the graveyard, her included. A hot gust of wind billowed across the graveyard, at that moment, and Viola noticed that not a single strand of the trio’s hair had moved.
Unable to resist her curiosity, she decided that she had to have a closer look. Besides, it would be a good respite from these aswang stories. “I’ll be right back,” she said to her cousins, and rose from the yellow bucket.
—————————————————
“Hi,” said a voice from behind her.
Avalyn gasped and stumbled a few steps backwards, unaccustomed to people approaching her. There was warmth and kindness in the girl’s voice, something that was a rarity in her world.
“I’m so sorry; I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Oh, no, it’s fine, you didn’t. I just wasn’t expecting you..."
“Hello there,” Avalyn’s mother interjected in her cloyingly sweet voice, “Avalyn, dear, is this your new friend?”
“Um, yes, Mom—“
“Do you live around here?” Her father asked in an apathetic tone.
“Er...no, she doesn’t. But I was just going to show her something at our house, if that’s okay?” Avalyn asked, though it sounded a bit desperate for a simple question.
“Of course, darling,” said her mother with a smile, though it looked a bit grim for a good-natured gesture, “we’ll see you there.”
With these words, she ushered the girl down the hill, to which she obliged without any hesitation.
—————————————————
Viola had always had a keen sense of perception. Up on that little hill, she had noticed a strange, metallic smell emanating from the parents. Their daughter didn’t share this trait, but she did seem rather distraught.
“You have to listen to me—” She was saying now, urgency lacing her tone, “Er... I’m sorry, what was your name?”
“I’m Viola,” she responded anxiously, “what about you?”
“Avalyn,” she returned quickly. “Listen, Viola, don’t turn around. I need to get you away, and make sure they don’t follow you home.”
Follow me home? As disconcerting as this statement was, Viola couldn’t help but say, “Y- your parents looked right at me, but I didn’t see my reflection in their eyes.”
“Listen very closely...” Avalyn’s voice dropped to a whisper as she increased her pace; Viola hurried to keep in time with her. “They’ve chosen you; that’s why you can see us.”
“ ‘See us?’ Why wouldn’t I be able to?“
“It’s all true!” Avalyn exclaimed, her voice on the verge of breaking. “The tales you’ve heard. The different names they call us. We’ve been here all along. We come out on Undás, to these cemeteries.”
The warmth from Viola’s body abandoned her, as the sickening feeling of dread settled into the pit of her stomach. “Are you— are you one of them?”
“No. No, not yet... It all happens on my 16th Undás.” A golden ray of light from the setting sun made her ruby earrings —each surrounded by delicate gold leaf— glitter like drops of blood set against her dark skin. “Which is next year.”
“Next year,” Viola breathed softly, a sudden swell of sorrow rising in her panic- stricken heart for this poor girl that she barely knew. “Oh, Avalyn, I’m so sorry.”
She led Viola down a narrow, winding path, towards a house that was partially surrounded by a line of dark acacia trees; parasitic vines entangled with their trunks. Under the brindle light of dusk, the high pitched chirping of crickets broke the silence, but they sounded...muted, almost as if they were echoes.
Avalyn drew a sharp breath. “They’re coming. Run!”
Their shoes kicked up clouds of dust from the dirt path that swirled around their ankles. Through the quiet soundtrack of crickets and birds, Viola could hear something that sounded strangely like music, even though there was no one around.
At first, she couldn’t make out the words, but as they progressed, a chorus of soft voices rose from the twilight, each singing in breathy tones that left Viola feeling as if she was transcending some invisible boundaries.
They see you, sweet child,
And you see them too.
Fall not to their beguile,
Or they will catch you.
“Do you— do you hear that? I hear sing—”
“Quickly! We’re almost there!”
Avalyn pushed open an ornate gate that blocked the path, gesturing briskly for Viola to follow. A lattice of vines that hung from the gateway brushed the top of her head like a gentle caress, sending icy prickles through her body.
Avalyn rummaged through the pockets of her old-fashioned dress for a moment before procuring a golden skeleton key, and inserted it into the lock on the proud, mahogany carved door. The lock clicked; the door opened with a drawn-out creak.
The house seemed like it was under a constant shadow, making it feel almost like a mausoleum; no ripples of sunlight broke through the drawn, damask curtains, the colors of which were indecipherable under the collection of dust. Viola felt the coldness from the marble floor even though she was wearing shoes; she could taste the metallic redolence in the air.
“This way, quickly!” Avalyn said impatiently, crossing to a stairwell that rose to what must’ve been the second floor. “I have a plan.”
Viola complied; the stairs groaned with each footstep. Avalyn turned to a white door and opened it, revealing a room that didn’t seem like it belonged there; the uneasiness of the house didn’t permeate its boundaries.
Avalyn closed the door behind them and collapsed against it. “Listen closely. My parents have chosen you for their next...” She grasped helplessly at the air for the right words. “...their next repast, for lack of a better word.”
“Their next what?”
“They hunger for your flesh and blood,” Avalyn explained bitterly, lifting a hand to rub at one of her ruby earrings. “Like I said, they’re aswang. Shapeshifting Filipino demons that prey on humans, preferably children...amongst other things.”
“We have to switch clothes,” Avalyn said briskly, unbuttoning her gray cardigan, “there’s not much time before they get here; hurry!”
“What?”
“Just trust me!”
Viola did as Avalyn asked, though she wasn’t sure what her plan was. When they had swapped clothes —the white dress swirled around her ankles, light as a plume of smoke— Avalyn led her to the window, dressed in Viola’s own black T-shirt and bluejeans. “Look there. Do you see that acacia tree?”
“I— I do.”
“You need to climb out of the window, onto the tree,” Avalyn said, the agitation in her voice mounting, “then you need to get to that gazebo and remain seated.”
“I don’t understand,” Viola protested, but Avalyn continued over her.
“It is crucial that you remain seated until you hear my parents close the front door. Don’t look at them. That’s where I sit when they’re feeding, so they won’t know it’s you. Then you have to run! They’ll show you the way.”
“They? Who’s they?”
“The voices! I don’t have time to explain.”
“What? But— aren’t you coming?” Viola glanced out the window, towards the path leading to the house. Avalyn’s parents weren’t yet in sight, but she knew that when they were, it would be too late. “Aren’t you coming with me?”
Avalyn smiled, but it was fragile— like she was made out of porcelain, ready to break at any moment. “You have to go, Viola. Please.”
And before Viola could object, before she could beg Avalyn to come with her, she was being pushed towards the window, and had no choice but to climb out onto the windowsill and down onto the acacia tree.
When she turned back, there was only the sight of her own reflection in the glass.
—————————————————
Amalia and her husband, Alon, skulked through the shadowed gloom of the stairwell, their clawed feet barely leaving imprints in the dust. They had seen their daughter, Avalyn, sitting out on the gazebo as she normally did whenever they fed, so they were unafraid of being interrupted. And after all, they were very hungry.
A light was visible under the door of Avalyn’s room. Alon stretched one, clawed hand towards the doorknob, red eyes alight as he took in the thrilling scent of fresh blood. The two aswang crept into their daughter’s room, their attention purely focused on the shape on the bed, which was apparently asleep.
This would make for an easy meal.
Amalia and Alon’s prehensile tongues snaked forth from their grisly jaws, flicking with a sound like the clicking of a clock. It hovered over their victim’s neck for the briefest of moments, then down it plunged, with all of the finality of an executioner’s axe.
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When they had finished, Amalia reached for the blankets that covered the still body of their target, revealing the fabric of a black shirt. She pulled it back a bit farther, and stumbled back like she had been burned, hands clapped over her mouth.
“Amalia?” rumbled Alon, peering at her closely. “What is it? What—”
There, in the girl’s ear, gleaming in the low light, surrounded by delicate gold leaf, was a ruby earring the color of blood.
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The last thing that flashed in her vision was a lonely purple balloon, drifting slowly in the wind, before her dark eyes closed.
As one final, relieved breath escaped her lips, peace, at last, settled over her, and Avalyn was gone.
—End—
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