Before I tell you about my dear friend, you need to know a few things about my town. The first: they call us the murder capital of the south.
We weren’t always called that, but the charming little nickname cropped up during a slew of vigilante killings when I was in elementary school. People would be found dead in ditches, in their beds, on the side of the streets - it was hunting season everywhere.
The second thing you need to know about my town: these murders happened because people felt the police were incompetent.
We’re a small town, tucked away in the countryside of the Cebu province - rural Philippines. Here, the fields sprawl, and the landscape dips and rises. There are plenty of places to do unsavory things and have no one around to see or stop you. People would find dead and violated bodies in chasms, and our cops might as well have been town decor with how useless they were. So, since no one was helping us, no one was defending us, people decided to live by the age-old adage of if you want it done right, you should just do it yourself.
It was a cycle of violence. People killed to get revenge on the violence done to them, and the number of murderers in town rose with every bit of blood soaking into our lands.
Someone hacked someone’s spine out right in front of my house’s gates. The blood congealed on the pavement during the sunny afternoon because my family wasn’t stupid enough to go out and wash it off when some guy was walking around with a machete. You can imagine what it was like to be ten years old, walking out your house’s gates, knowing what the faint, dark, stain people couldn’t quite get out was - even after a few days of it drying and flaking in the heat.
The third thing you need to know: people’s mental states were strained.
I’m being generous when I say that, and I am aware of it. It would be more accurate to say that our sanity was a ball of dough and God was going ham with us on the pasta machine. We were paranoid. We were on edge. And worse, the pressure had gotten to the police department, so they were trying to show the public they were doing something, even if that something was unfounded. They were desperate to show they were making progress, after all. And cops under pressure desperate to salvage a nonexistent outstanding reputation…we’ve seen where that goes.
People can survive a lot of things. Natural disasters. Family trauma. Even a whole town cannibalizing itself in a cycle of violence and shoddy police work. Sometimes, though, you survive, but you don’t survive intact. Sometimes it’s the little things that push you over.
Let’s call her Magdalena, for the purposes of this story. Miss Magdalena lived with her husband in a small hut far behind our house, a cozy little kubo - a traditional wooden hut mostly made of bamboo – in the middle of a forest clearing, isolated from the neighborhood. Even as a child, I thought Miss Magdalena was a beautiful woman. She was patient with us kids even when we got too loud daring each other to climb trees around her forest. When one of us inevitably fell and hurt ourselves, she was always there to help, after gently scolding us about being reckless for the third time that week, before walking us out of the woods.
Miss Magdalena loved kids. She was one of those people who really cared about them, who one day wanted to start a family of their own and was excited about having a kid. She and her husband went to church regularly, went to the appropriate shrines on the right holidays, and I would catch glimpses of her sitting in our neighborhood’s little chapel praying by herself for a child.
She was ecstatic the day she found out she was pregnant. Ecstatic enough that the news of her pregnancy spread around the neighborhood within a week of the confirmation. Some of the older folk in town began telling us to stop playing in the woods by her house, in case we stressed her out and affected the pregnancy. She was our friend, and we might have been shitty little snot-nosed kids, but we were good to our friends, so we found other trees to climb and fall out of, and we visited Miss Magdalena while trying our best not to cause problems for her.
My town was dangerous, but that danger made my neighborhood tight-knit. Since Miss Magdalena’s husband worked early and came home late, we volunteered to go down to the springs to fetch water whenever the water lines malfunctioned. We carried groceries whenever we caught her on the way home with them. It was nice, helping Miss Magdalena around. She was excited, and people around the neighborhood were excited for her in turn. Perhaps it was because the birth of a child put us far away from the thought of the deaths that swarmed us every day.
Some time into her third trimester, Miss Magdalena’s husband was shot dead in an altercation with the cops; suspected of connections with the vigilante killings, resisted arrest, and shot after he got violent. At least, it was what the official statement said. Behind closed doors, we agreed the official statement was shit. They shot him dead in front of the chapel while he was running away from them.
I remember visiting that chapel out of curiosity the next day. I remember the small dark red specks on the walls, on the portraits at the front doors; the one of Jesus had long faded from sun exposure but the portrait of the Virgin Mary was still slightly visible. I remember looking up at her, a little boy looking up at a saint I didn’t believe in, and seeing her face speckled with dried blood. Hail Mary, full of grace; gore and carnage on her face.
But what were we going to do? We were a town of farmers and fisherfolk. We could hack their spines out with our machetes, but their bullets would be faster. We could tell them he sold local delicacies to tourists and that was all he did, but their gunshots would have rung louder than our words ever would have. The only thing we could do was pay our respects.
Magdalena insisted to the rest of the neighborhood that she was fine. She plastered a smile on her face that never quite reached her eyes and said that it was tough, but she needed to do her best, for her baby’s sake. We were happy to see her be so determined. Loss takes a lot from you, and sometimes it’s easier to lay down and just stop, but our Magdalena wasn’t taking shit lying down.
The weeks rolled on, the grief ebbed and flowed with the days, until finally, one slow morning, our neighborhood sprung into action when we heard shouting from the woods. Excited shouting. Miss Magdalena’s water had broken.
She was going into labor.
The whole neighborhood was abuzz. Miss Magdalena was finally having her baby. Maybe, we collectively thought, this would be a spot of good news for her. Maybe the joy of a child would dwarf the grief of losing her husband. She was having a baby boy, according to the doctor. Maybe a son would return happiness to her life.
Us kids, who understood the labor process about as much as a goldfish did, didn’t understand that mothers didn’t just pop kids out like a candy dispenser. We kept asking if the kid had been born yet, and we had to be told over and over that no, he hadn’t, and that we should run our stubby little legs along to school. The kid would be around by the time we got back.
We toddled along, begrudgingly. Our parents thought it was funny.
By the afternoon, we were back and excitedly asked our folks if Miss Magdalena’s son was finally here. I remember asking my parents. My father didn’t answer, instead keeping his eyes glued to the news blaring from the television screen. I went to look for my mother in the kitchen, and when I asked her, she stiffened.
“Yes,” she told me, but before I could say anything else, she said, “Don’t go visit her yet, though, it probably isn’t the best time.”
I frowned. “Why?”
“She’s tired,” she said. “You remember what I said when I gave birth to you?”
“That there was a lot of blood?”
“Yes.”
“Oh,” I said and nodded with understanding. My mother got knocked out for hours after she gave birth to me. Even worse was that I was a weird case, a weird miracle, as hospital staff told my mother that I should have been born dead, and yet I came out feet-first, kicking and screaming like the little demon I was.
It must have been the same case for Miss Magdalena. So I went to bed, I thought nothing of it, and I wondered how long it would take until her new son was to be our new playmate.
The next day was a school day, so I couldn’t visit Miss Magdalena until the afternoon. Once I got back home, I did my homework in a rush, and I told my parents I would be off to the little hut in the woods.
My mother stopped me before I could get a foot out of the door.
“Not yet, she’s still tired,” my mother said. “Visit her next week.”
And before I could protest that I would only be stopping by for a few minutes, she handed me a list and a coin purse and told me to make myself useful. I didn’t want to get whacked for disobeying, so I ran to the nearby store and bought what she asked me to.
I passed by the chapel on my way home. Miss Magdalena was sitting at the very back when I passed by the chapel that afternoon. It was already beginning to dim out, then, and the only reason I did notice her was because she was holding a lit candle as she sat at the pew. For her husband, I supposed.
After a few seconds of silence, she got up from her seat and slowly made her way towards the altar. I winced as I watched her, my mother’s words on how arduous labor was surfacing in my mind. I wasn’t even sure if she should have been walking around so soon, but she was trudging towards the altar. Taking pity on her, I ran inside, tugging her shawl gently to get her attention.
“Ate Magdalena,” I said. I was a child, and she was an adult, and you had to pay your respects to people older than you by calling them the right honorific.
She turned to me, still very slowly, and as her face came into view, lit only by the candle in her hand, I could see that her lips looked pale and were trembling. The shadows around her eyes looked deep as if she hadn’t had any sleep.
“Ryan,” she said. “Hello.”
“Did you want to light the altar?” I asked. “I can help you with that.”
“Oh, no,” she said, her voice raspy. She looked between me and the unlit candles on the altar. “I’m just praying, don’t worry.”
“Okay,” I said, watching the candle wax slowly melting down towards her fingers. She didn’t flinch, fixing her gaze towards the statue of the Virgin Mary up at the altar without fuss.
“You aren’t Catholic, right, Ryan?”
“No.”
“You don’t believe in her?”
She kept her eyes on the statue. I turned towards it, studying its face, which seemed to warp and shift with every waver of the candle’s flame. Birhen Maria’s eyes were as flat and empty as they were in her portrait. Every part of her face was sculpted to look sympathetic, and yet to me, there was nothing behind those eyes. Not an inch of emotion sculpted into her irises.
They were flat. Empty. Hollow. I knew the look because when I was even younger - maybe about six years old - I’d gotten called into the principal’s office for stabbing a classmate with a pencil; they’d let me walk away with a slap on the wrist because I was at the top of my class and they’d chalked it up to a child’s natural underdeveloped empathy, but as I walked back to the classroom to collect my things, I’d overheard two of my teachers talking. I was a bright kid, they said, but there was nothing behind my eyes.
Flat. Empty. Hollow. That was how Birhen Maria looked down at Miss Magdalena.
“She’s given me the most marvelous news,” Miss Magdalena said, “She’s going to give me a miracle.”
I didn’t believe in miracles, not from something like that. Something empty cannot pour something out for someone else.
“What kind of miracle?” I still asked, to be polite.
Miss Magdalena laughed softly, placing her free hand on her belly, way less rounder now that she had given birth. She smiled at me.
“Ate,” I said. “I think you’re coming down with something.”
“Oh, don’t worry about me. I’m just a little cold,” she said.
“You should get home,” I said. “If you get sick, who’s going to take care of the baby?”
Her smile widened.
“Yes,” she said. “Right.”
“How is he, by the way?” I asked. “Can we see him?”
Miss Magdalena paused, and then after another moment, she said, “Tomorrow. You can see him tomorrow.”
She followed me as I tugged on her sleeve and led her out of the chapel. We parted ways as she continued on to her forest, and I came home to my mother furious that I’d gotten home late. I didn’t get the chance to tell her I’d run into Miss Magdalena since she was too busy being mad, but I resolved to tell her tomorrow. Besides, I’d have more to tell once I’d met Miss Magdalena’s son.
The next day couldn’t come any faster. This time, when I got home from school, I didn’t bother telling my parents where I was going. I did my homework, got out of the house, and ran straight into the woods. Miss Magdalena’s little kubo sat in a small clearing, and I ran to it with the excitement of a little boy about to meet a new playmate.
“Ate?” I called out as I stopped in front of the house. The windows were closed, a usual sign that the owner was out, but the door was ajar. I didn’t want to be rude and come in uninvited, so I called out again. “Ate Magdalena. Are you home?”
No answer. A small breeze blew by then, and when the faint smell of rot hit my nose, I hurriedly hiked the collar of my shirt up to cover it. A rat had probably died somewhere in the back of the house.
“Ate Magdalena,” I tried again. “You here?”
The breeze made the door creak, slightly; my gaze snapped to it, curiosity taking hold of me, and when another gust of wind made it sway a bit again, that curiosity tightened in a vice grip.
I climbed up the small ladder, still with my shirt collar over my nose, and I pulled the door open. The sitting room was empty, and Miss Magdalena’s bedroom door was open, faint light spilling through.
I frowned. Quiet house, front door ajar, bedroom door open but clearly someone had been in the room. Had someone broken in? Had someone attacked Miss Magdalena and her baby?
Quietly, I crept into the space, crossing the small distance between the front of the house and the bedroom door. I situated myself behind a wall, and carefully, peeked into the room. There was a small candle on a desk, almost burnt down to the wick, its light so faint it barely illuminated the room.
But it illuminated enough.
Clumps of dirt were all over the bedroom floor, mixing with the steadily-growing pool of blood coming from the corner of the room. In that corner of the room was my friend, Magdalena, her face damp with sweat, her hair sticking to her skin. By her side was a large kitchen knife, slick with blood. Her hands were both coated red, glistening in the candlelight, one of which held a staple gun.
“Hello…Ryan,” she said, haltingly, her voice so faint I nearly didn’t hear it.
I didn’t answer. Instead looking at the blood all over her thighs, her legs, her arms. She looked down.
“Oh,” she said. “Don’t…w-worry.” She lowered the staple gun onto the floor, immediately staining it further with the growing puddle of red, and patted her round, full stomach. “I’m just doing what the Birhen told me.”
“The…” I started, staring at her belly. “What - what did she tell you?”
“For one to live again,” she said, “One has to be born again, yes?”
She smiled, serene, and looked down proudly at her belly. Her belly, swollen as if she were pregnant, an angry, jagged cut going across it, held together only by staples. Blood leaked out of it in places, and her skin was smeared with dirt all over - I let my shirt collar down and the smell of rot hit me in full force.
“Ate,” I said. “Where’s your baby?”
Miss Magdalena patted her stomach. “Right here,” my friend said. “She told me that it’d been a mistake, that my baby wasn’t born dead, he just needed some more time. So I did as she told me.”
I eyed the knife. I eyed the staple gun.
“She’s giving me such a marvelous gift, Ryan,” Miss Magdalena said. “She’s giving me my baby boy back.”
I remember running out of there and into the woods, out of that little hut that was isolated from everything else in town, out of that little place where a woman could lose her mind and no one would even know what she’d done. I remember running back to my house, screaming at my parents to call an ambulance, call for help, call for anything. I remember sirens as first responders finally arrived, aided by neighbors who at this point had been alerted by my parents and my hysterics.
I remember following as they took Miss Magdalena away on a gurney, and I remember standing in front of the chapel not knowing when I’d stopped or why I’d stopped, just that I knew I was following the gurney and then the next second, I was standing with my neighbors watching the ambulance disappear into the distance. One of them was patting my back soothingly, but I didn’t know who it was. Someone was crying. Several were whispering. In the thick of the murmuring crowd, I slipped past the adults and went into the chapel’s ever-open doors and walked to the altar, staring up at the Virgin Mary’s face.
Her eyes were still as they were: flat, empty, and hollow, and she looked down at me with a smile on her face. I looked back up at her, the impossibility of a visitation present in my mind, and yet wondering, somehow, if this empty-gazed thing had driven my friend to do what she’d done. I knew - and I still know - logically, that it was stress. Of course it was. This stupid, bloodthirsty town, with our stupid, incompetent cops, and our shitty little government that was barely able to do its job. We were left to fend for ourselves - Miss Magdalena was left to fend for herself, and under all that strain, she’d broken.
But I remember staring at Maria, hollow-eyed gazing at the hollow-eyed, wondering if she’d somehow decided to take advantage of the situation. Where there are carcasses, vultures abound, after all. I wondered then if she was our little blood-stained saint, watching over the murder capital of the south with her soulless eyes and her serene smile.
I got the full story from my mother a week later. Miss Magdalena’s son had been stillborn - she’d broken once she’d been told, inconsolable in the hospital after the staff told her. That was why my parents didn’t let me visit her after she’d given birth. That was why they kept stopping me. Her baby’s grave was later found desecrated, but they didn’t have to look for where he was for long. She’d shoved him back into her womb herself, stapling it closed in some maddened ritual of rebirth by dirt and blood and desperation.
Miss Magdalena was taken away to the city to a psychiatric ward to get help. Her little house at the back of the woods sat empty for years until it was destroyed in a typhoon last December 16, 2021. You’ve probably heard of that.
I’m still here in this town. I don’t know if I’m ever getting out, honestly. The murders have slowed over the years, slowing significantly over the lockdowns, but truth be told, I can’t say recent events have been better. I’ve lost count of the number of people I know who’ve passed in the pandemic. Those who weren’t taken by disease have instead been beaten down by the typhoon last year.
The chapel got torn down by the storm but they salvaged Maria. Somehow, by some miracle (hah), though her altar had gotten destroyed and her whole chapel wrecked, she’d gotten through the night just fine. A little waterlogged, but whole and intact. They haven’t rebuilt her chapel yet, but they do have a little shrine for her. Sometimes I pass by and sometimes I sit there. I don’t believe in her, but I like the peace. My little sister thinks it’s weird because she knows the story of how I found Miss Magdalena stuffing her dead son back into her womb after supposedly hearing from the Birhen, but I tell her I like the quiet. I need the quiet.
Besides, I don’t think she’s going to hurt me. As unlucky as this stupid little town is, for some goddamn reason all that misfortune seems to always slide by me. Never me. I’ve survived a car crash that wrecked one side of the bus but not mine. I’ve survived a fire that took out a good chunk of my neighborhood, but even though the flames were right outside my window, dumb luck kicked in and a burst of wind changed the direction of the flames. It’s like I can’t even be unlucky right. Like misfortune can look at me but can never touch. Like how I should have been dead from the womb but came out alive.
Maybe it’s because we’re the same. Nothing behind our eyes. Likeness recognizing likeness. Maybe I’m going insane and finding connections where there are none, because I know she’s not real. I know there’s nothing there.
Recently, though, my best friend’s wife had a miscarriage. Since their house had collapsed during the typhoon, they’re staying with us, and unfortunately, the wife miscarried just a few days ago.
I found her in the kitchen late last night with a knife in one hand, and a staple gun in the other.
“Oh, Ryan,” she told me. “She’s given me the most marvelous news. She’s going to give me a miracle.”