Whoosh! The frigid sea wind whooshed behind the awkward girl’s back. Maria caught the scent of a mossy redolence and a sweet perfume perfused as the sea wind passed through the overhanging wild white jasmines at the entrance of the secret chamber and brushed its mossy walls and up the slippery, mossy staircase as she made a step from the dim into the luminous cavern kitchen.
Maria had followed one of the swollen fingers which she had believed had gone ahead of her. She had climbed the staircase and had stood in front of the trapdoor. The kip had been pushed aside to make a way of the trapdoor that opens to the secret chamber downstairs. The awkward girl wondered where the witch’s lookout went. She was startled when something pulled her lengthy, red gingham skirt that made her almost jump as she had belie
Not so long ago, in a small fishing town that lied between at the foot of a looming craggy hill of numerous precipices and caves with caverns and a shoreline beside the sea, there lived a good fisherman who became a prosperous merchant and his once-loving wife who became an arguing and scrutinizing mistress as the couple's fortune flourished. Three daughters they had. The eldest was the prettiest of all their daughters. All set on a perfect heart-shaped face, her deep-set, light brown eyes
Benedicto Laom Bantoc was a young fisherman who had very dark short hair and a round face with an arched nose, bright dark brown eyes, and bushy eyebrows. His father Mr. Ernesto Alon Bantoc was a poor fisherman and his family was poor. His mother Mrs. Milia Laom Bantoc gathered edible seaweeds to sell at the fish market. Ben had made a fortune out of fishing. He was an astute fisher and the time being at the age of twenty-five, he had already owned ten lashed-lug wooden plank canoes with riggers on both sides and two large also lashed-lug wooden plank ships. There were thirty fishermen engaged in dragging the line and trawling with his fishing vessels at sea.
“I’m happy Josefina that our eldest daughter is finally going to get married.” Mr. Ben had been talking to his wife Josefina all day on the day of their daughter Celeste's wedding. He approved of anything his daughters would want as long as they would be well received. “He is a son of grocer— no— well, I hope Celeste would have enough to live with,” Ben and his family had been getting dressed for the wedding.
The wedding celebration had been a happy affair with laughter and polite stories–––stories of the craggy hill and beyond it–––shared inside the enclosed wedding canopy–––the men in their formal sheer long-sleeved garments, tailcoats, vests, and suits and the women in their best dresses. “Josie, thank you for the lovely party, dear.” Macario Balat's wife, Epifania Balat, had been enjoying the nuptial celebration. Josefina and Ben waved and approached the table to where a couple of guests had been seated. “Good evening, Epifania–– you're looking lovely with your long red dress, dear,” the women exchanged pleasantries and the men shook hands, a friend and an adversary in the trade of angling–– but more surel
“Shoo...pesky little vermin!” said an old woman chasing away a murder of crows huddling all over her garden in the crag. At the front left side of her hut close to her whitewashed and straight spaced picket fence, the pesky loud birds had been munching and uprooting her germinating seeds of gold nugget squash and had scattered it all over the precipice. “Siegfried!” shouted the old woman, her voice croaky and angry– muttering, “I'm going to eat you whole if you were not a goat-head demon....” She swayed her broomstick of tied up flimsy twigs violently, shaking and clobbering, missing miserably at every crow that flew past and swerved over and near her head. Even more, her broom was not long enough to reach the crows that squawked and flew over in circles around the highest pinnacle of the triangular thatched roof of her little hut made o
A light-hearted spirit and free of affectation, a burst of bright beaming sunshine to herself, Maria treaded alone down the side of the long and wide bituminous-paved thoroughfare traversing the broad and unpaved craggy hill road to the bustling south-east part of the town at the foot of the hillside. A frumpy girl in her shirtwaist ensemble with layers of petticoats, she had been careful not to step out of the curb of the sidewalk to avoid the few passing coaches flogging their horses toward the roadstead to carry anxious passengers in a hurry to get to their employment. Strolling the uncluttered, ample, and shady sidewalk, along the old-fashioned kerosene lampposts, and the rows of delightful little shops with some dwarfed, nitid green and coriaceous weeping figs and fragrant and colorful geraniums or storksbills in large terracotta pots placed at the edge of the walkway, and with ornate door and high rainbow-colored window awnings
“Forgive me, Nicola– I'd be– are we now okay?” begged Maria and relieved that Nicola had reconsidered to take the available merchandise. “Yes– your sister said to be quick with you– have you got more to do?” said the shop attendant, glad that her fourberie not yet done had been ignored by the idiotic homely girl. “Mother asked me to get some oranges, would you mind me picking some fresh ones?” asked Maria. “No– the oranges are at the front,” answered Nicola back sharply over Maria's remark. “I'd be– thank you–,” blu
“I didn’t do it,” mumbled Maria, low and confused, cares to the hot air that had filled her in her lungs. Smoke rose from her nostrils. She rubbed and blew her nose against her forearm. The inner and outer canthi of her eyes bursting up with water and cool salty tears streamed down. Last night, a very upset Celeste had reprehended their mother, Josefina. “Someone – our cashier – saw her,” cried Celeste, believing Nicola’s side of the story. “Lord Jesus! She was normal when she got home this morning!” observed Josefina. They were in the Bantoc’s open, light, and airy living room. Celeste in her peachy shirtwaist garment had been resting her buttocks on their family’s thickly padded homey nuptial couch with laidback floral tapestry covering. Her legs had be