I backed up, heart pounding, and wiped the tears from my cheeks.
I would not let this be a death sentence. I was going to find out what was going on, and I was going to stop it.
The only placeI could think of to find any information on manananggals was the palace library. It was so massive, it was practically an institution. It had one of the largest collections of books, official papers, and treaties on this side of the world, let alone Biringan City, as well as all historic, scientific, and ecological records. Academics from BANA often came here to complete dissertations or find articles for research.
The size of the library rivaled the ballroom, with which it shared a wall. Grand oak shelves stood like monuments under circular stained-glass windows, cutting the stormy daylight into color. An encanto had hundreds of years to live, and still I didn’t think it was possible for anyone to read all the books that were housed here. One would need a ladder to reach the very top shelves bythe ceiling, high as a cathedral’s. But everything was quiet, and the echoes of my heels clacking on the marble floor seemed to stretch for miles. I got the sense that I was the only person here. Good. I didn’t want anyone to ask what I was doing.
Toward the rear of the library was the natural sciences wing. Inside, hundreds of animals of Biringan that had been stuffed and mounted leered at me from pedestals and walls. I tried not to look at them because they gave me the creeps. Everything here smelled musty and old. I didn’t want to linger any longer than I had to, so I found the book as quickly as I could.
The tome was on a high shelf. It was large and heavy, and a thin layer of dust coated the cover. I gently blew on it and wiped the spine with my thumb, clearing the title:Monsters of the Hidden World. The author was a renowned naturalist I’d learned about at BANA. It was the first place I thought to look.
I carried the book to a nearby podium and flipped it open. It was an encyclopedia of sorts, a record of all known creatures in the fae and encanto realms across the world. It included detailed analyses of each creature, subspecies, and known population. Most of them had been rendered extinct, largely due to habitat destruction or by encanto hands. Included with the thorough descriptions were some detailed drawings of monster anatomy and eyewitness accounts. Some of the records I recognized, and I realized that some of these monsters, like fire-breathing dragons, trolls, and yetis, had breached the hidden realm and encountered humans, but the moment I flipped the page and found the manananggal, my heart dropped.
My throat tightened when I gazed upon the ink drawing.It snarled at me from the page, a mouth full of sharp fangs, a long, snakelike tongue curling into the air, eyes bulging and hungry. Long, stringy hair, slits for nostrils, tattered shirt that had been slashed to pieces. Ten-foot-long wings, veiny and demonic, stretched wide, lifting the torso to the sky, its intestines hanging like vines from its halved body. Even though it was just a drawing, I could tell it was howling, curling its long black claws toward me, startlingly looking both hungry and in agony. I forced myself to tear my gaze away from its horrible face and read the entry.
Manananggal, also known as “The Separator”
A bloodsucking aswang of the Biringan region. By day the manananggal assumes a human form, but at night it separates its upper body from its lower half, leaving it behind, to hunt. Favored targets include pregnant women, newlyweds, and bridegrooms.
Potential weaknesses include iron, garlic, and ash.
Garlic. So that explained why I didn’t want to eat the garlic rice that Jinky brought for breakfast. My stomach churned thinking about it, but I kept reading.
Population: unknown. Last known attack during the reign of King Manolito.
Little is understood about this elusive species, especially those in the wild, and numerous theories abound. Manananggals are rare, so eyewitness accounts and scientific documentation are often contradicting or unfortunately lacking. Some scholars theorize that themanananggal is created after a bride is left at the altar, while others believe they are born with the affliction or are the dead returned, but the prevailing theory is that the manananggal is a result of a curse. However, some manananggals may not even realize they are one.
That caught my attention. I leaned closer to the page, heart in my throat.
Unfortunately, the manananggal turns to ash upon its death, which makes it difficult to study. Information about the species is conflicting at best. Regardless of its origins, precautions can be taken to ward off manananggals, including hanging garlic above all windows and doors and sleeping with salt and ash under one’s pillow, but sources are few and far between to determine if any protection is more effective than the other. The manananggal is nocturnal, leading most scholars to believe it transforms with the setting sun. Therefore, a suspected manananggal must be locked away with iron before sunset to prevent them from harming themselves or anyone else.
My heartbeat roared in my ears after I read the page in its entirety three times, hoping that maybe I’d find some answer or cure. Instead, there was none. Only more questions. I looked at my own hands, imagined them turning into claws, and I squeezed them into fists.
Maybe I really was cursed.
I needed to find more information about the last manananggal sighting. The records said it was during the reign of King Manolito,so my next stop was the records room. It was where all the documents, decrees, and decisions made by the royal family were stored for historical reference, along with books detailing the biographies of all of Biringan’s rulers. The second I took the throne, even my most mundane days were logged and catalogued by an archivist. The books were nested into thousands of cubbies. Recordkeeping was an important process in the history of Biringan, so it was only natural to assume that there would be documentation of a manananggal attack. It would have been important enough.
My eyes bounced over all the names on polished brass plaques before I found King Manolito’s section and took his tome to a reading chair. King Manolito had ruled over Biringan for two thousand years with his daughters—Devera and Soledad.
King Manolito’s tome was as thick as my hand, but there was no mention of a manananggal. I checked his daughters’ records next. Princess Devera, who married into a djinn royal family, had officially incorporated algebra into encanto academia, calling it a universal language. And Princess Soledad struck up a trade agreement with Avalon that still continued today. But for the life of me, I couldn’t find any information about a manananggal.
After King Manolito died, the crown passed on to his brother, King Rio.
My eyes ached, and the words on the page started to blur together. The heart of the storm raged against the window, rapping like fingers on the stained glass, throwing shadows across the page. Thunder rolled overhead and the sky darkened. It was as if the weather was mirroring my own thoughts, tumultuous and fearsome.
One thing stood out to me: If King Manolito had twodaughters, princesses in their own rights, why hadn’t either of them become queen? Why had the crown passed to his brother?
There was something I was missing. There had to be. And why wasn’t there any sign of a manananggal encounter in these records? The book of monsters couldn’t have gotten it wrong, could it? It didn’t make any sense.
When I went to put away Devara’s book, ready to give up, another book caught my eye. It had been shoved into the back of the shelf, originally obscured by the others. I reached in and pulled it out, finding it surprisingly light.
A name had been etched into the hard leather: Yara Liliana. Below her name was a triangle symbol and her date of birth but no date of death. Inside, the book was completely empty, but not because it was blank. The pages had been torn out, leaving nothing but ragged remnants in the spine.
I returned to the other records of King Manolito’s family, flipping back and forth between pages just to be sure, looking for her name, but there was no mention of her.
That couldn’t be right. Any royal, regardless of standing, should have been recorded and documented. Why else did she have a book in the first place? The archivists kept detailed records of every royal, every marriage, every failure, every success, practically every meal they ate on every day.
And yet Yara Liliana’s book was the only proof she had ever existed. But then why keep it? Unless…unless it was left here as a reminder.
