Ronoele's Tree

I'm Home

Damian was on his way to the backyard when a silhouette lurking at the side of their house caught his attention. It was almost noon, but the figure tiptoed, not wanting to be caught by anyone.

“Where do you think you’re going, Teddy?” Damian called.

Teddy fixed his beanie like a coy child. He gave a cough while his eyes scanned the bamboo grass in their backyard, only to avoid Damian’s scrutinizing gaze. He whistled as he checked his sky-blue shirt for any unwanted spots.

“I just came home,” he said to his father, whose sour face made him uncomfortable.

“I know you just came, but it looks to me that you’re going somewhere without even saying hi,” Damian replied sarcastically.

“Uh? Hi?”

“That’s not even funny!” Damian hit the foundation of the house with his cane that made Teddy jump in shock. “Stay where you are. Don’t you dare step out of that gate! Do you understand?”

Teddy didn’t respond. Instead, he released a lopsided grin—the one that gave an uncanny vibe.

“DO. YOU. UNDERSTAND?” Damian repeated. This time with authority.

“Okay. I get it,” he replied, raising both hands in the air as a sign of surrendering to his father’s order. He took Damian’s crutches in one hand and assisted the old man is taking steps on the creaky bamboo stairs.

“Since you’re already here, why don’t you fix the stairs?” Damian asked his son.

“But… I don’t have plenty of time.” Teddy scratched his head, pouting like a child who is asked to do a chore when he wanted to play.

“Then make the most out of it.” Damian took his crutches from Teddy and sat on his wheelchair, pointing to the carpentry tools.

“Where's Nat?”

“Probably keeping herself occupied by whatever,” Teddy said, taking a pair of green gardening gloves from his backpack before grabbing the hammer and some nails from the toolbox. He was rummaging for the other tools when Natalie’s mobile phone vibrated on the table, but before he could even get there, Damian had reached for the phone and checked it.

“Who’s that?” he asked while putting his tools on the doorstep: he didn’t want his father to be bothered by him asking for anything while working on the stairs.

Damian moved his wheelchair towards the door and handed the phone to Teddy. “As if I know how to use this thing.”

“It’s Natalie’s phone. I can’t just peek at her messages. I don’t want to be skinned alive,” Teddy said, ignoring the gadget Damian was handing to him. He turned his attention to the stairs while Damian went back to the table to put the phone back in its place. Both of them didn’t want to anger their only girl.

***

Manolo lay down on the protruding roots of the oak tree, feeling its rough surface under his calloused hands.

“Ronoele,” he sighed. “I’m sorry. They’re still blaming you.” He took his mobile phone to send Natalie a message and waited for several minutes, but there was no response.

‘She must be studying, now,’ he told himself, remembering his struggles when he was also in his final year as a criminology student.

His mind brought him back to the times when he would bury his nose on piled dense books on criminal case studies and the revised penal codes, learning about laws and their corresponding punishments. He even simpered at how he memorized terminologies, at the same time dealing with the study of fingerprints and being exposed to cadavers, which some would even be a few days old and on their decomposition stage.

When Rissa was killed, it was just unfortunate that he couldn’t intervene with the investigation, because aside from the fact that he was on leave, he couldn’t meddle because their village was out of his jurisdiction since he was assigned in a different town. Despite that, he still gave a hand to the officers who were in charge of his cousin’s murder case.

Even though most of the residents in the village blamed Rissa’s death on Ronoele’s tree, there was no way he would believe that the dead could come back to life, not to mention in tree form just to kill unsuspecting victims.

The world was indeed filled with unfortunate events which some people were just unlucky to get messed up with the mischievous fate. He took a lungful of breath and lay down on the huge protruding root of the oak tree, and closed his eyes to escape the world he was in. It made him forget how cruel life was for innocent people like Ronoele and Rissa. He stayed in that position at peace for some time, letting the warmth of the afternoon breeze and solitude embrace him. Only the jovial insects hopping around and singing their melody reverberated in his ears.

The soothing environment tempted him to take a slumber. And just as he was about to succumb to sleep, a sensible touch crawled from his legs up the waistline of his pants. He ignored it, certain that it was sleep drawing him to the world of wondrous dreams. He let the sensation linger until it moved upwards.

This time, soft palms caressed his muscled abdomen. The cool air licked his exposed skin—his shirt was slightly pulled upwards. ‘This is just a dream,’ he told himself. The warm palms went on, trying to unbutton his pants and unzipping them. He slightly jolted when the fingertip of whoever owned the hands reached the waistband of his underwear, forcing its way to the treasure he had been hiding under that piece of cloth.

He allowed the hands to freely grasp anything within its reach, imagining it might be Natalie trying to be seductive. However, a warning lighted his head; he knew his girlfriend was well-raised and a prude, so she would never do such an aggressive act.

A creepy thought crossed his mind. Could it be a perverted ghost?

“Look at my luck,” a soft voice whispered. “I knew I would find you here.”

Hearing that, Manolo forced himself to be awake. He had been temporarily in sleep paralysis, but he forced himself awake by biting his tongue. Upon seeing the source of the voice, he pushed hard, causing the almost female to stumble on her back. Her loose crop top blouse revealed her milky chests hiding under her brassier.

“What are you doing here?”

“To claim what’s mine,” she smiled naughtily. “No one is around. No one will see us here. Now, take me.” She took off her upper cloth and seductively crawled towards Manolo.

“You’re out of your mind, Olga! I was and will never be yours! NEVER!” he stood and dust off some dirt, twigs, and leaves from his clothes. “I already belong to someone else,” he added before turning his back on her and running away as fast as he could, not to be followed by his crazy, obsessive admirer.

“Manolo,” she cried, getting on her feet, putting her blouse back on. “Wait!”

Manolo was fast, and all thanks to the tall cogon grass everywhere, he was quickly out of sight. Olga cursed under her breath. “Stupid girl!” she muttered. “You have him there. You’re too slow.”

She stormed like a child throwing a fit, almost stumbling on the roots of the tree, just to get out of the place. It was too late when her eyes landed on the vast empty area, realizing she wasn’t familiar with the place.

She hugged herself when the warm air turned biting cold, penetrating her exposed skin and pores from the scalp down to the ankles: she wore a pair of sneakers, so her feet were safe from any pointy objects along the way. The wind suddenly whistled in her ears, whispering a threat, as the heavy branches of the oak tree creaked eerily. Frightened birds on the branches of the nearby trees flew their way out of the vicinity to escape the unforeseen promise of peril.

Olga looked around for signs of other people who could help her find the way out of the thick, grassy field, but none, even insects, was with her. She swallowed a lump of frantic butterflies fluttering in her stomach. Her heart ran a race against her own breath. Then, her searching eyes landed on the spot where Rissa’s corpse was dumped. That made her squeamish heart become even more revolting, wanting to jump out of her chest.

Olga took several steps following the path Manolo took to get out, but breaking twigs and branches under someone else’s steps stopped her for a short while.

“Who’s there?” she stuttered, clutching her arms to her chest, looking behind her to see if another person was watching. The first time she scanned the area, there was no one. But when she glimpsed at the oak tree, a silhouette behind the trunk made her scamper away, checking over her shoulder as she ran.

She stumbled her way out onto the waist-high grassland, scraping her palms and knees. Hope smiled at her when she reached the rough roads. Cool and clean air filled her lungs when freedom from danger finally embraced her.

“The chase doesn’t end here, Manolo. I won’t stop until I make you mine!” Olga gritted her teeth and stomped on the path leading home.

***

“Where on Earth have you been?” Sammy blurted. He ran to her sitting on the couch, touching his only child with scratches and bruises. “Who did this to you?”

Olga rolled her eyes. “At least came home in one piece, not like Rissa,” she said and left her father.

Sammy clenched his fist, feeling sorry for himself for raising a brat. He sneaked behind her to observe what she was about to do next. When Olga slammed the door of her room, Sammy went straight to his surveillance room to monitor her. Being an engineer sure saved his butt from a lot of concerns.

Their house was the first to have CCTV cameras in the village since they were affluent to afford the system.

He had a hidden camera in Olga’s room to watch all her movements. Since her mother died after giving birth to her, Sammy was the one who filled in the role of a wife and mother of their household.

Sammy turned the volume up so he could eavesdrop. Olga was on her bed and the spy camera hid behind the bedside table.

“Girl, you won’t believe what happened to me earlier,” Olga began. Sammy couldn’t hear who his daughter was with over the phone, but he didn’t mind. He just wanted to know what happened to her and what was she supposed to do next.

“I went after Manolo. It’s just weird because his favorite spot to rest had been where his cousin was killed.” Olga slammed her body on the fluffy mattress, stretching her full length onto the cottony bed, oblivious about being spied on.

“I almost got him, but he’s really tough to seduce,” she continued. “But something strange happened. When he left me, I saw something behind the oak tree. No, it’s not something. It’s more like a human figure.”

Sammy clicked his tongue at the thought that what Olga saw might be the one who killed Rissa. Despite his fear, he continued listening.

“I don’t think it’s a tamawo either. I haven’t seen one before.”

There was a long pause on Olga’s end, but her utterances of approval hinted to Sammy that she was listening to the person she was talking with.

“Uh-huh. I see. Okay. See ya!”

Sammy didn’t waste any second. He went out of his monitoring room just under the staircase and pressed the code to lock it. That area of the staircase was disguised as a brick wall on the façade just like the walls of their house to make sure no one would suspect that a room was hidden there.

He sat on the couch, pretending to read an engineering book. That was the position he was in when Olga’s clunking steps echoed downstairs. Sammy peaked out the book he was reading only to see Olga wearing a spaghetti strap top and a mini-skirt. He put the book down and glared at her with fiery eyes, not of desire but of anger.

“Where do you think you’re going in that outfit?!”

“Chill, dad. I’ll just pay Edna a visit.”

“At this hour?!”

Darkness spread across the skies waved at Olga’s sight when she looked at the window. The sun had been defeated for the day and was about to slumber.

“Come on, dad. I’ll be with some friends.”

Sammy gave her a warning glare but eventually conceded since he knew who her friends were.

“Send me a message when you get there,” he said before Olga shut the door on her way out.

Olga walked like a peahen flaunting her flawless figure to the young men who were staying at a*****e outside their house. She gracefully gyrated her round hips, making the bystanders salivate.

‘That’s right, drool, fools. You can’t have this bod of mine!’ She simpered at them and gait like a duck until she reached the intersection going to Edna’s house. The road towards her destination no longer had street lights… their village’s blind spot. She sighed, feeling for her mobile phone in her skirt’s pocket.

“Damn it!” She kicked some stones on the rough road.

“What’s wrong?”

She jumped when someone behind her spoke. She looked at the source of the voice but couldn’t see clearly who it was because there were no lights. Musk and the woodsy scent lingered in her nostrils, which she assumed was from the person who startled her.

“I forgot my phone. I don’t have any light,” she said in her sweetest voice when she recalled the intruder’s handsome voice. She even batted her eyes, thinking he might see how beautiful she was.

“Where are you headed?”

“To a friend’s house. She lives at the end of this dark road.” Olga adjusted her tone to a scared one to keep the ‘night’ not in shining armor by her side. She even hugged herself to tell him how terrified she was of the dark.

“You’re bold enough to go out at night looking like that…” the stranger pointed at how Olga wore her outfit. “Aren’t you afraid to attract danger in those clothes? You look like a lost nymph.”

Olga giggled at the word ‘lost nymph’; she also almost shrieked in excitement when the person talking smiled, showing a set of white teeth under the dim flashlight.

“Come. I’ll accompany you to your friend’s house before someone gets ravenous over you.”