“No,” Kapre said. Tikbalang was strong, but Kapre was relentless, unmoving as mountains, enduring as the crash of tides. His gangly legs mimicked the obstinacy of woodland, sinking into soil with the temerity of twisted roots. Arms wrapped around and held together. Tikbalang’s curses did no damage to old skin.
“Swear you will not harm her,” Kapre said.
Tikbalang pummeled him like waves against rock, shook like an earthquake, thundered like an avalanche. Against each attack Kapre was unyielding, unbending stone. Solid fury and grim purpose.
“Why do you spare her?” Tikbalang asked, but nothing broke Kapre’s grip. Freedom denied. “She only lives so that we may feed!”
“No,” Kapre said. “Swear to me you will not harm her.”
“You have betrayed us!”
“Swear to me.”
“She is food!”
“She is mine.”
* * *
The years passed, and Nina began to change.
Her waist lengthened to compliment arms and legs, her hips expanded. Long black hair cascaded over rounded shoulders, puddling down the small of her back. Her face grew fuller, lips thick and soft, a pattern of blush gracing her cheeks. Kapre noticed the change, and so did others. Humans walked out with her frequently, and Kapre was forced to retreat further into the woods; sullen, beaten back by new strangers and the passage of time.
Nina’s trips to the forest gradually lessened, disappeared entirely. Memories of her childhood companion ebbed away, dissipating in summer light.
And still Kapre waited, bated, hopeful. Uncomprehending, in his immortality, of the years passed, and the distance that remained between.
* * *
There was a celebration, in the village.
His beautiful Nina emerged into sunlight, laughing—always the way he would remember. Her dress flashed white, dancing around her graceful calves. Her feet, small and hidden. There were flowers in her hair, petals in her path.
Her hand was clasped with another’s. A man by her side, smiling down at her, his laughter a lower counterpoint. A crowd surrounded them, showered them with rice and other natural benedictions.
For the first time in a very long time Kapre felt rage, felt unspeakable grief. At being forgotten. That Nina’s hands had betrayed him for the texture of someone else’s.
“She is no longer yours,” Aswang told him that night as they watched the village. “She belongs to another now. It is a human custom.”
Kapre said nothing.
“They will mate tonight.” Aswang was smiling; cruelty suited her well. “I know these humans. She shall spread her legs and encourage him, let him violate her in her softest places, and she will like it, shall beg him for more. The sweet innocence of her, gone. And she will love him and forget you. She has forgotten you already.”
The celebration quieted, gave way to the glimmer of stars. Kapre watched as the candles flickered out inside distant houses. One by one, winking up at him until the last eye closed, and only darkness remained.
That night, Kapre allowed fury to take control. He could hear his voice, shouting from a place that shared no parts of him. Barks of wood scraped his stunted fingers as trees split and bits of mountain fell. Blood pooled down his arms, wounds gouged under leathered flesh. He was weaker than he once was, but Kapre felt no pain. And from far away people in the villages heard rolling thunder, whispered of impending rockslides and rainstorms and demons, waited for tragedy.
And for the briefest of moments Kapre hated her. Hated Nina, for letting someone else touch her, for letting him experience the unrelenting joy of extinguished love realized far too late.
When the worst was over, Aswang found Kapre on his knees in the small clearing, remnants of his pain strewn around, a fleeting eruption of fallen trees and dissipated anguish.
“You can have your revenge,” Aswang said. “We can catch them unawares, when they walk the forests next. When the lights have burned down low, and when little of the moon remains, and when the crickets fall silent.” She drew nearer, her eyes burning colors of blood. Her wings lifted. “I can fly, and find my way into their houses, into the small spider holes in their rooftops. I shall take their babies, enjoy succulent flesh. You shall take her, while I shall take her husband. We shall feast together.”
He said nothing.
“Will you feast with me, old man?”
A lifetime must have passed, before he finally spoke.
“No,” Kapre said. “You will not harm her.”
* * *
More years passed.
Kapre waited until the throng of people had left for the night, until the vigils had ended. Despite the discomfort of people and nearby houses, he crept down rooftops, disentangling from the shingles. His arms were leaner, dark face gaunter than earlier, happier times, but his yellow eyes remained alive, watchful. The last of those who mourned had left the room, finally repelled by the impending death that beckoned, but Kapre felt little disgust or horror for what was to come, only differing shades of regret.
She was older now; much older than he had seen her last. Wisps of white hair clung to her scalp, and the firmness of bone seeped out from underneath wounded skin. In a matter of decades she had grown so frail and small, but in her face Kapre saw none of what old age had cast down, could brush it away to see the beauty he had always known, since she was but a baby in a heated room of candlelight.
The old woman opened her eyes. She showed neither fear nor surprise at the sight of him “Hello,” she whispered.
Kapre said nothing but crouched by her bedside.
“I remember you,” the old woman whispered. “You used to play with me when I was a young girl.”
Kapre nodded. He did not trust speech.
“My parents said you were a figment of my imagination,” the woman continued. “But as I grew older and continued to see you in the woods, they grew worried. They brought me to the albularyo, the medicine woman, who said I mustn’t ever go back into the woods again, to free me of the evil spirit that clung to me. I knew you were no evil spirit, tried to tell them so, but children are rarely believed.” She smiled then, and the years seemed to fall away.
“I am sorry,” she said. “I am sorry, for leaving you alone for so long.”
Kapre’s spindly fingers reached out. Nina’s hand was brittle, a patchwork of veins and loose skin, but within her touch remained the memories of a girl he had loved.
* * *
“Lola’s gone,” the little girl told him, sniffling, hugging a small ratty doll in her tiny grip.
The house on the edge of the forest had long been abandoned, and there was talk of tearing it down. A few people arrived to discuss the matter, brown-skinned and dark-eyed, with the threat of light and fire. The girl had wandered away, touching against the corners of forest where Kapre lived.
“This used to be Lola’s doll,” she confided to him, careful to brush delicate strings of hair away from its upturned face. “She gave it to me last year. It was her favorite doll.” She sniffed again. “I miss Lola.”
“Remember her always,” Kapre told her. “And she will always be with you, will never be gone.”
“Nanay says that Lola’s in heaven now,” the little girl said. “And that I’ll see her in heaven one day. But I do not know how to get to heaven.”