Chapter 3

Shaky Ladder, Burned Hand

Dalon climbed the long ladder up to the landing of his stilt house. The wood wiggled and his grip hardened. He ought to have reinforced the ladder by now, but he somehow kept forgetting. He really must find the time to do it before one of his parents or his little brother lost their balance on it.

On the landing just before the door, Dalon washed his feet with water from a small jug. Then he entered the hut, careful not to wake his family. Soft moonlight streamed in from the window and a hole in the roof — another thing he kept forgetting to fix. His family’s hut was a simple cube, just large enough to fit the bamboo cot on which his parents and little brother slept. In the slim space beside it, he found his straw mat straightened out on the floor. Wooden chests and crates lined the left wall, holding all their possessions. Next to the door were baskets of dried food and leftovers, a big jar of water for drinking, and another one for washing.

Someone stirred on the cot, and the thin, bent figure of Dalon’s father lifted himself from it. He reached for his cane and stood.

Dalon stepped towards him. “What is it, Pa? I’ll take care of it,” he whispered.

His father patted his shoulder, a quiet smile playing on his lips. He limped towards the crate beside the door that they used as a dining table and unwrapped a banana leaf. Inside was a skewer of squid, two shells of mussels, a boiled yam and a banana.

“We left you some food from your mother’s birthday dinner,” his Pa said.

A stone sunk in Dalon’s stomach, his mind blanking in a desperate attempt to adjust his sense of time. Weren’t there a few more days? There should still be... wait, no. His father was correct. Today was his mother’s birthday.

Dalon buried his face in his hands, muffling his groan. His family had only been talking about it a few days ago. His mother’s birthdays were cause for celebration, because for a long time, they’d been so afraid she wouldn’t have another one. But somehow Dalon had lost count of the days.

The smile remained on his father’s lips. While it was partly amused, it was mostly sad. “We tried waiting for you. She was hoping we could all eat together.”

“I am so, so sorry.” Dalon had been preoccupied by his story all day that too many things had slipped from his mind. He fumbled with the pouch on his hip, anxious to prove that his forgetfulness wasn’t because he was fooling around. Shaking the copper beads from his pouch, he showed them to his father. “I made a lot of extra money tonight, though. From storytelling.”

His father’s smile deepened, and so did the wrinkles around his eyes as he rubbed Dalon’s back. “You must be very tired, then. Eat something, then get some rest, all right?” He hobbled back to the cot, set his cane beside it, and rolled stiffly onto his back. Dalon’s mother and brother, Toba, didn’t stir from their sleep.

Sighing, Dalon stepped to one of the shelves and deposited his new beads in his savings jar. The clinks of the metal came faster now that the jar was nearly full. Behind him, the tangy scent of calamansi emanating from the squid and the mussels beckoned him to the crate.

Although Dalon missed their dinner, maybe his mother’s celebration wasn’t such a disappointing affair. That they could now afford food that wasn’t dried or smoked was a sign of progress, wasn’t it? Perhaps for her birthday next year they might even afford mung bean noodles, a symbol of longevity. Surely, this more scrumptious food did more for his mother than him being home early.

Dalon allowed that thought to ease a bit of the guilt churning in his chest as he sat down and ate.


The splash of waves against the hut’s stilts woke Dalon up before the sunrise, as it did every day. The tide had come in, and Aunt Nigo’s husband would be coming back from fishing. If Dalon could help haul in the catch, he might earn a few more beads this morning. A pulse of energy drove him to sit up.

To his surprise, his mother was already awake. Dalon’s schedule at the fish market spurred him to get up earlier than his family, but there she was, pouring the remaining washing water into a bowl.

People said that Dalon took after his mother more than his father. Thin, dull hair fell straight down her back. Her slim face tapered to a pointed chin. She had big, dark eyes, and although they weren’t as bright as they had been in Dalon’s earliest memories, they were now more full of life than just a few years ago.

Unease crawled over Dalon’s chest as his mistake last night came back to him. He stood from the mat and approached his mother.

“Ma, about last night,” he began in hushed tones, as not to wake his father and Toba. “I’m so sorry I missed your dinner. I don’t know how I could have forgotten your birthday. But I promise, I already planned what to get you and it is really nice.”

She sent him a small smile, setting the empty jug near the door. “You know I’m not asking for pretty gifts. You already bring so much home every day.”

“Why are you up so early, anyway?” Dalon sat by the crate and took a few strips of dried mango from the stash they kept wrapped up. Dipping the slices in a bit of salt, he began his breakfast.

“I know that if I didn’t give you an opportunity to apologize, it would bother you all day,” she remarked without reproach. She sprinkled a bit of the washing water from the bowl onto his hair.

“I feel awful that I forgot.”

“I know. And I’m not angry.” His mother began combing through the strands. “Do you remember when you were little and I would do this every morning? I miss that.”

Dalon missed it, too. His hair had been shorter then. But ever since tasks, chores, and odd jobs began to crowd his days, he decided to grow it long. He much preferred to tie his hair up out of the way, rather than have it grow over his eyes every month.

He continued to eat while his mother loosened the tangles from his hair. Her tugs were gentle, almost coaxing him back to sleep. But she had always been tender, even in the throes of illness.

One of Dalon’s sharpest childhood memories was first learning how to boil yams when he was six. It had been the first time his mother got sick, and a neighbour offered to teach him how to make a small lunch of purple yam for himself and his mother. His father had been a hale fisherman then, braving the sea every day.

Dalon had been squatting near a small fire inland, watching the elderly aunt lift the lid of the boiling pot. He had leaned forward eagerly to see through the steam, resting one of his hands on the rim. The aunt had yelped a warning too late. He’d snatched his hand back, while a sharp, piercing pain spread across his palm. The aunt would later tell his father that Dalon had shrieked like a hog caught in a trap.

The aunt had tended to him quickly and had brought him and the boiled yams back home. Even though Dalon’s mother was weak with a wet, bloody cough that had confined her to bed, she’d tucked him in beside her and kissed his injured palm. “My poor little egg,” she’d cooed. And though in the coming days she had found it difficult to get up and eat, she’d somehow always known when his bandages needed changing.

One of the village’s katalonans, healers of body and spirit, had traced the root of his mother’s illnesses to his grandmother. “She misses her daughter,” the katalonan had told them. “She tries to lure your mother’s spirit away. That’s why your Ma’s body is weak and prone to sickness.” Some months it was a bad case of cold. Others, it was an infection of the lungs or the stomach. For years, his mother was almost always bedridden with a fever caused by something. Half of their food and money became offerings to appease his grandmother’s spirit and to entreat the goddess Lakimpalad to turn their ill luck around. Only recently did his mother get well enough to bear Toba, and the fourteen-year difference between him and Dalon spoke much about their mother’s health.

A muffled holler came from one of the other stilt houses outside, along with the distinct slap of a bamboo pole periodically thrusting into the water. Dalon pushed the rest of the mango slice he’d been nibbling into his mouth, disappointed that he must cut short this rare moment with his mother.

“That sounds like a raft. I better go catch it.”

His mother finished braiding his hair. “Get ready, then. I’ll flag down the rower.”

Dalon changed his clothes, looped the amulet’s twine around his neck, transferred some beads from his jar to his pouch, and shot out from the doorway just as the rower was steadying his raft by the ladder. There were two other passengers.

“Take care, Ma,” Dalon said. The ladder wobbled a little in his descent. “Get lots of rest after you refill the jug.”

“Be careful out there,” she replied. “Remember to drink plenty.”

Dalon handed over copper beads to the raft-rower. He gave his mother one last wave as the raft pulled away.


Dalon worked for Aunt Nigo, a fish vendor whose own children were still too young to help prepare and cook the blue mackerels her husband caught. It was a reliable job for Dalon, and one that didn’t take him too far should his family need him immediately. When he was younger, he’d always thought he’d be a fisherman like his father, but ever since his father’s accident, it seemed risky to follow that path.

The fish market where Aunt Nigo set up her stall was farther east along the coast, almost near the Little River where the villagers of Lurit discarded waste. The raft wound through the maze of ratty stilt huts that hovered on the coast like a school of fish by some coral. It didn’t take long before the raft was filled with the familiar faces of other market workers. They gave Dalon perfunctory nods, acknowledging a shared start to a busy day.

Sometimes other rafts passed by them, but it wasn’t until they arrived at the docks of the fish market that they spotted boats. Sturdier, swifter, and able to tackle the ocean waves, Lurit’s boats were mostly reserved for the fisherfolk and the datu.

Dalon approached Aunt Nigo’s stall just as her husband and three strapping lads set down several large barrels filled with fish. They were early today. He thought he might have time to wait for them at the docks.

“Good morning!” he greeted. They gave him friendly but weary smiles, before trudging off to make an offering to Kawalanlunod, the slumbering god of the near sea, whose tossings and turnings gave them their bounty that morning.

Well, nothing more Dalon could do about that. Might as well start cooking. Aunt Nigo was already starting a fire in the dry patch of ground behind her stall. A large cauldron of water sat beside her. Strapped on her back was her youngest, a baby not yet a year old. Her three other kids sat on a mat a few steps away, drowsily munching on some dried fruit.

“I see you caught one of the early rafts,” Aunt Nigo said as he approached.

“Yes, ma’am. I thought I’d help bring in the fish.”

“My husband got his nephews to help him. They weren’t much good at his sister’s stall, so he figured he’d test them out on the sea.” Aunt Nigo pointed her lips to the barrels of mackerels. “Those are ready for you. I’ll get the salt broth boiling.”

Heaped in the barrels, the fish looked like plump blades of short knives, blue and gray in the burgeoning light of an overcast morning. Dalon sat on a wooden stool and sorted through them, separating the good fish from the tattered ones or other sea creatures that got caught in the net. Some of the good fish had bloated guts, which he ended up pulling out.

Once Dalon had settled into the rhythm of the rote work, he allowed his mind to wander to the tale he and Karí needed to finish. ‘Utaw and Princess Maya’ had a simple premise. It started with King Luyong of a faraway land who had a daughter, Maya. He treasured her so much he didn’t want anyone else to see her, terrified they’d steal her away. He built a secret underground home for her, and there she lived, visited only by her parents and servants. Dalon had always thought that was a poor gesture of affection, but the inhabitants of the kingdom somehow never questioned this decision.

But the tale was truly about a poor boy named Utaw, who ended up outwitting the king by discovering Maya in her hidden lair. There was one major change that Dalon and Karí had made so far to the original tale: while Utaw and his father lived in poverty in the wilds outside of the city, Karí had decided that Utaw would discover a small chink in the ground that opened into Princess Maya’s cave. This never happened in the original. Utaw didn’t meet her until much later, after he devised a clever plan to infiltrate the cave. Dalon had always wondered why Utaw would have done this had he not known that Maya lived there beforehand.

Karí’s change made a lot of sense; however, Dalon now faced a conundrum as the narrator. Utaw and Maya’s eventual meeting was a pivotal moment near the end of the story, piquing the audience’s anticipation. With them meeting much earlier in the story, there was nothing he could work up to. No big revelation, no exciting surprise.

There was only one thread that could provide them with a new concept to explore. Why was Princess Maya there in the first place? There must be a more compelling reason than the one the king had provided. Real subjects simply wouldn’t accept it. If Dalon and Karí could find something interesting to reveal at this point, it would help rebalance the story.

Something soft and fibrous slapped Dalon’s leg. One of Aunt Nigo’s children, the oldest one named Lika, stared at him with big, nervous eyes. “There was a fly!” she said, pointing near his ankle with one hand, the other gripping a fly swatter. Her hair was tied up at the top of her head, and locks of it fell like squid tentacles over her forehead.

“Was there now?” Dalon studiously inspected his leg. “Well, you must have gotten it good, because it’s not there anymore.”

“Yay! Mama, I killed a fly!” Lika giggled and ran off.

“Hey, Lika,” he called, and she tottered back to him, the fly swatter swishing. He’d been around her age when he first began to immerse himself in stories. Mostly because it was the one form of amusement that his mother could provide while resting in bed. And whenever she’d been too tired or her voice too hoarse, he had told the stories back to her. It had been like a game back then. “Do you enjoy listening to tales?”

“Yes!” she hopped on the spot. “I like the one about the monkey and the turtle, where the monkey throws all the bananas at the turtle, but now he’s all hungry! And I like the one about the giant and the people carrying the sacks of salt, and that’s why we have salty sea!”

“Whoa, you know so many already! What a clever girl. Say, what’s the best part of a story for you?”

Lika blinked up at the sky, mouth stretched in an amused smile. “Umm.... when something funny happens!”

“Oh? Like what?”

“Like when somebody falls out of a tree or gets knocked on the head!”

Dalon laughed. “Is that so? Remind me never to trip in front of you!”

Lika laughed and wandered off to her mother again. Dalon had hoped he could glean something useful regarding what made for an appealing story, but perhaps she was too young. It wasn’t that her answer was wrong or bad. Comedic accidents could be entertaining, but hardly one that he could apply to his problem.

Once Dalon had arranged enough fish on three winnowers and sprinkled salt over them, he stacked the winnowers on a metal frame. He went over to the now boiling salt broth and submerged the frame into the water with a heavy rock on top to keep them below the surface.

Dalon prepared several more winnowers of cleaned, salted fish. When the first batch was done boiling, he lifted the first frame out of the cauldron, then replaced it with the second batch. By now, Aunt Nigo had a second cauldron fired up to speed up the cooking, and he placed a third batch there. As for the first, they needed to be air-dried before smoking.

While the work stalled, Dalon excused himself for a break to purchase the gift for his mother from a different sector of the market. He’d noticed a bolt of cloth a few days back. It was cotton of a soft green tone that his mother could tailor into a new overskirt or tunic, or even smaller pieces of sashes and headscarves. It was the perfect gift; if only she had received it on time.


“Is that Ángsulo heading here?”

It was a little past midday, although one could hardly tell by the position of the sun. The sky remained misty, and only the ebb and flow of the market-goers marked the passage of time. Dalon had been seasoning, smoking, and packing fish repeatedly after buying his mother’s gift.

At the mention of his father’s name, Dalon stood up from the stool. He peered over the stall, and someone with close-cropped hair trekked on the path towards them, leaning on a cane to offset a familiar limp. Once a broad-shouldered man that could cast a heavy woven net over bulging waves, the coming figure was now a shrunken version of his previous self.

Heavy anxiety pooled in Dalon’s stomach. Something must have happened. His father’s limp prevented him from leaving the hut often, and whenever he did, it was only to take a languid walk on the beach. Why would he come all the way east and trek from the coast to the market?

With palms now drenched in sweat that had nothing to do with the heat of cooking, he braced himself for his father’s approach.

Dalon was surprised when his father’s gaze fell on him, eyes crinkling with a smile. There was a package tucked in the hand not holding a cane. Dalon’s heart pounded as he searched his father for anything that could indicate a problem, but his father’s face remained clear of any concern, only mild tiredness.

“Is everything all right?” Dalon said. He stepped past the stall where packages of smoked fish were neatly arrayed. “How is Ma? Toba?”

“They’re fine,” his father answered, a line forming between his brows in confusion. “Your Ma is trying to teach Toba some words, get him to say a few things.” Although already three years of age, Dalon’s little brother barely spoke at all. He could understand complex instructions, and nod or shake his head and point to things. But he said little other than “Ma,” “Pa,” or “Ya,” an attempt to call Dalon his big brother.

Dalon’s father handed him the leaf-wrapped package. “I brought you lunch. Payment came for the net your mother fixed a few days ago, and we decided to get some more grilled squid.”

Dalon opened the package, and sure enough, the tantalizing scent of squid marinated in soy sauce and calamansi wafted from the leaves. “Thank you,” he barely managed to say. The acrid apprehension melted away, and his heart returned to its normal pace. “You didn’t have to come all the way out here. I usually get lunch from one of the other stalls.”

“Oh, I know. But I thought it would be good to give you your share now while it’s fresh off the coals, rather than have it waiting at home till nightfall.” He looked at the fish stall and the cooking area behind it. “So, this is where the magic happens, huh?”

“Magic?” Dalon’s hand almost flew to the amulet hanging from his neck. Although it had been in his father’s possession before, he doubted his father knew of its power. His family didn’t even know he was now working with someone to craft the stories he narrated at night.

“You come here in the morning and come back with money and food at night. Magic!” His father chuckled, then shrugged. “My attempt at a poor joke.”

Dalon laughed, relieved. “It’s all right. I understand now. But it’s mostly Aunt Nigo who works the magic here. I am just a humble minion.”

Aunt Nigo let out an amused, “Ha!” She and his father were soon absorbed in a light-hearted conversation.

Dalon fetched his mother’s present from his spot behind the stall. He handed over the cloth neatly wrapped in abaca. “Could you give this to Ma? It would be good to get it out of all this smoke.”

After a brief farewell, his father trudged back down the path to the coast. Dalon’s gaze lingered on his father’s figure. Was his sight blurred by hope, or was his Pa’s limp not as bad as it used to be?

Dalon sat back on his stool and started on the squid. Savoury flavours burst in his mouth, but dulled away as his thoughts deepened. If his father now had an inclination to roam farther than he used to, then they really needed a raft of their own. He and his father could take turns with it. They would save money paying for fare, and it would give his father more freedom, the loss of which his Pa had spent over a year lamenting.

Two years ago, Dalon’s father had accepted a rare opportunity to train as a sailor on a vessel heading north to a trading entrepot. They hadn’t gotten far. A sudden storm had shattered their ship among sea rocks, and his father’s left leg had been broken in the impact. Trading crews were reluctant to hire a man with a lame leg and little experience outside of fishing. Dashed along with his leg was his dream of joining a merchant’s crew and earning more income that would have allowed him to secure their family’s welfare.

What little money Dalon’s family had managed to save had disappeared in a blink to restore his father’s leg to a semblance of its former use. They ended up selling most their possessions. Dalon had laboured from dawn to dusk, and at one point, had almost indentured himself for a loan.

One day, while he’d been unearthing old clothes and whatever else he could sell, he’d found a little box tucked in one of their crates. Inside was a pendant, a matte metal etched with some symbols he didn’t know. He couldn’t read, but even he’d recognized they were not among the abugida the literates used in the village.

It was an heirloom, his father had said. The symbols read 'King Eyes,' or so a travelling scholar had once told his grandfather. A soft fondness had come upon Dalon, and he’d decided he would sell it last.

He never did, and it was only a few months ago when he’d found out it was no ordinary pendant.