The Old Lady in the Mysterious House

Author's note: Please read Part I

It was one Sunday morning right before the start of the mass. I had pretended to Mother that I was not feeling well. That alibi was also my suggestion to the brothers, but I thought they would have difficulty in convincing their parents that they were both sick. I had faith in Lolito. He would find a way. He was good at it and the naughtiest among us.

When Father and Mother left the house, I fleetly crept through the backdoor and dashed out to the rice fields. I stayed down the irrigation channel to wait for the brothers, never minding the sluggish flow of water in my ankle. I looked at the mysterious house through the blades of rice plants that were dancing in the gentle morning breeze. It stood like the house in the movie “Psycho”. I felt blood crept at my back, but I had already told myself to conquer that fear. I glimpsed to my right. Here came Collette and Lolito, running like matchsticks.

We waited. Our eyes fastened on the gates of the mysterious house. After the bell’s last clang, the gates opened. The old lady moved out and closed the gates. She hurried. I was curious about it because the way she walked didn’t prove her age. I didn’t know if the brothers shared the same observation.

And so, my plan was becoming real.

Lolito complained we were too heavy. I could feel Collette was trembling while holding my feet over his shoulders. His back pressed against the dusty wall. I reached the windowsill, my right cheek touching the dusty wall.

“I’m going to drop you now,” Lolito grumbled.

“Wait till I hold on to the window,” I said.

Right after I clutched the windowsill, Collette slid down. I knew his crotch hit hard on Lolito’s neck. They fell to the ground. Collette held his groin in pain. Lolito laughed at his brother, but he still helped Collette up.

“I’m done with my job,” declared Lolito. He trudged to the gates. “Are you coming, Collette? If you stay here, you can never go home.” He tried to scare Collette.

Collette froze in a moment. He looked up at me. “I’m sorry, Matt.” He traced Lolito’s steps unwillingly. They left me hanging in the window.

A pool of sweat was dripping onto my face. My arms were shaking arduously. I inhaled enough air and relaxed. After a minute, I struggled to haul myself up.

I had thought that the mysterious house had a second level. I had also expected to see a wooden floor on that second level. But I found myself staring down at various well-grown plants and young trees piled on the ground inside. The mysterious house had no floor. No furnishings. No furniture and fixtures. No appliances. Nothing but plants. The mysterious house was a plant warehouse.

I looked at every corner of the house. I noticed that there was a huge rectangular plane covered with a plain gray tarpaulin set against the wall to my left. At a glance, it appeared to be a wide flat-screen, like that in movie theatres. Father and mother had taken me several times to watch Enteng Kabisote series and other Filipino movies, so I knew it was as wide as the one in the theatre.

I looked down at the ground that would receive my feet. Luckily, it was cleared of plants. I let myself hang for a moment and let go of my hold. I moved warily to the concealed rectangular plane. I gently tucked the tarpaulin open. My heart jumped to see a pale kid with sunken-eyes. I thought it was the old lady. I covered it back. It was a vast mirror. I wondered what it was for.

I went around the house trying to find something that interests me. I thought if the old lady lives here, where does she sleep? How does she live in a house like this? Maybe she’s not really staying here. Maybe she just came here on weekends to take care of the plants. Maybe she has a house somewhere else. While moving through a passageway leading to the mirror, I noticed that there were shoe prints on the ground. Prints of military combat boots. Soldiers could have been there sometime that week. Or the prints could be from a friend who wore combat boots and had visited her that week.

I gave up thinking nonsense assumptions about the old lady. So, I went out. Before I unlocked the bolted door, I noticed something glistened underneath the vase of a cacao plant by the door. It was a half-foot silver tube, bigger than my index finger. I picked it up. It resembled the aluminum tube father had used for our TV antenna. I pocketed it. I unbolted the door by gliding out the bar from the socket, and then I moved off.

Striding along the dikes towards home, I realized something. It made my heart galloped, and I chilled. The old lady had been able to go out of the mysterious house even if the door was bolted inside. I remembered the door didn’t have a knob, a lock, or a chain on the outside. I thought that the lock inside was automatic. But I suppose it was not. She couldn’t go out through the windows. There might have been someone, her companion, hiding among the plants, monitoring every move I had made. If that was it, then I should have been caught and reprimanded. The thought made me chill more.

When I arrived home, I hid the silver tube under my clothes in a carton box. I forgot about it.

The next morning I helped father in the rice fields. Collette and Lolito showed up over the irrigation channel. They called me to play tops. I looked at Father with pleading eyes. He grimaced and nudged his head for me to go.

Collette and Lolito were eager to know what had happened to me in the mysterious house. I told them everything except for the silver tube.

After my story, Lolito bragged. “I can go alone without your help.”

“Really?” I said. “Why you were the first to leave last Sunday?”

“I was just making fun of you,” he stammered. It was his alibi to cover fear. He feared the house. I knew it.

“You were afraid,” Collette said.

“Enough!” he snarled, casting an angry look at Collette. He faced me. “If you like I can go there now.” He stretched up like an athlete and looked across the field to the mysterious house. “Alone.”

Lolito wouldn’t be able to go inside without our help, so we followed him. It was a risk because we did not know whether the old lady was there. I inclined my assumption to the idea that she was not there. She couldn’t be seen on weekdays. And I thought she wouldn’t stay inside for five days doing anything but propagating plants or combing her gray hair in front of a big mirror.

We were cautious as we snooped about the backyard. I felt something strange. The backyard now had only a few containers of plant seedlings. We sprinted like Tom and Jerry to the door. Lolito pushed the door, but it was locked. We then moved to the other side of the house and began climbing the windows. It was Lolito on top, Collette in the middle, and then me at the bottom, supporting their weight. I gritted my teeth as I held Collette’s legs over my shoulder. When Lolito was able to perch on the window, Collette jumped down.

Lolito frowned as he looked down inside. “There’s nothing in here.”

“Really?” I said.

“I see nothing,” said Lolito. “Just a big mirror.”

“What about plants?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Only mirror, no plants.” He leaped down and landed like a monkey in front of us.

“Why didn’t you go inside?” asked Collette.

“There’s nothing to prove you at. The house is empty,” said Lolito. “I’m not scared of going inside, but I wouldn’t waste my time anymore. The old lady isn’t there.” He shrugged as if dismayed there was no more challenge.

“I accept you are brave,” I said. “Help me up. I want to see inside.”

He knitted his eyebrows, but still agreed.

The house was indeed empty, saved for the naked vast mirror. I couldn’t believe it. I had seen the plants, clear as daylight, before that day. I hadn’t known a truck went there to take them out of the village. Every vehicle that was headed to the mysterious house would pass by our house. Or maybe they were taken at dawn. But I couldn’t put away the fact that, if that was it, the rolling wheels of the trucks could have awakened us. Last night had been silent except for the chants of cicadas and creaking of bamboos. Besides, no truck that fits in the narrow road could take them on only one trip. I supposed it would take three trucks in one trip or one truck in three back-and-forth trips to empty the house.

Early in the morning of the next day, I went to the brothers to invite them to hunt wild ducks. Lolito was not around. He had some errands in town. So, it was only Collette and me.

We ran to the creek twenty meters off from Collette’s house. The creek was normally the place where wild ducks take a bath before the sunlight could shine on it. We hid behind the bushes, preparing our slingshots. We crawled stealthily to the clearing to take a better view and to have the best shots we could have. There were many of them, the wild ducks. I thought, even though we would not focus on one bird, we could casually hit one.

We shot the wild ducks simultaneously. They scrambled and darted away. Some of them dipped and swam with the current. We hit one bird, unsure if it was Collette’s or my pebble that did it. We rushed to capture the wounded duck, but it limply hopped from rock to rock. With difficulty, it flapped its wings and flew up. We followed it, up the slope, and to the rice field, leaving traces of footsteps that quickly vanished in the watery mud. The wild duck escaped.

Then, I heard more flapping to my left. I stopped and looked to where a group of wild ducks fluttered above the rice plants. “We go for them!” I shouted. We pursued the group as they flew, heading toward the mysterious house. Preoccupied with the impulse of hitting one, we aimed up at them and released our pebbles.

A glass broke loud and clear. We froze, dead as a stone, looking at each other. My eyes widened more than Collette’s. I was sure of it.

“What shall we do?” Collette broke our silence. His pale face turned white.

I considered before we took the move. “Let’s go to the irrigation channel,” I said.

Our slingshots were swinging in the air as we raced fast to the irrigation channel. We jumped down onto it, splashing in the slow-running water.

“Get down,” I whispered in between gasps. Our position reminded me of the movie “The Great Raid”. We were like Filipino guerillas hiding from Japanese soldiers.

“What are we doing here?” Collette said in between pants.

“We hide until we’re sure she is not there,” I said while overlooking the gates.

“And, if she’s in there?” he snapped.

“Then, we’re done.”

“Oh Jesus, Mary, Joseph! I’ll get a hot spanking from Father.” His white face became sour.

“Don’t worry, Collette. Nobody has seen it’s us.” I assured him to relieve his worries.

“We will lie?”

“Of course. Nobody talks to her about anything. She also does not speak with the villagers.” It was a reasonable statement, but deep inside I also feared she would learn about our unintentional mistake.

We lingered for half an hour, waiting for the old lady to come out. But she didn’t.

“We go there,” I suggested.

“What?” Collette’s eyes fell out, his mouth hung open.

“We’ll check the mirror. Maybe it’s not the one we broke.”

“Are you crazy, Matt?” His words echoed in the rice field.

I put my index finger across my lips. “You might want to get a hot spanking.” I blackmailed him.

He looked across the rice field to the mysterious house. I knew he was considering my suggestion. He nodded slowly, reluctantly.

“Good,” I muttered. “We need a rope. Stay here.” I raced home, rummaged into Father’s farming toolkit, and got a rope.

Author's note: Please continue in Part II