“Rest, Linang,” he murmured, his voice a low, soothing current that washed over her panic. He raised his hand, the one that hadtouched her bruise, and it hovered in the air just above her forehead, not making contact but projecting a palpable sense of sanctuary. A shield against nightmares and the coming storm.
The ancestor’s warning still troubled her, a seed of doubt planted in the fertile ground of her fear. But under his watchful gaze, beneath the shelter of his un-given touch, a deeper feeling took root: a sense of safety so absolute it was a revelation. She was not alone. For the first time since she was a girl, she was not alone. She let her eyes drift shut, her body sinking back into the cushions. She fell back into a deep, dreamless sleep, her hand resting on her chest, where the blood-dark talisman lay against her skin, a warm, solid promise.
The Husband's Return
The sound came from the stairwell first, a heavy, rhythmic tread that her body knew before her mind did. Each footfall was a punctuation mark in the story of her dread, a sound that vibrated up through the concrete and into the soles of her feet. Ramon was home. Lina stood frozen in the center of the living room, a statue carved from anxiety. Her heart did not pound; it seized, a painful, stuttering contraction in her chest. The blood-dark talisman, tucked deep beneath the simple cotton of her dress,answered with a slow, deliberate pulse of heat against her sternum. A steady, living warmth in the cold ocean of her fear.
*I am here, Linang.*
The voice was not a sound, but a thought that was not her own, a resonant chord struck deep within her skull. It was Maruz. His presence, which had been a quiet weight at the edge of her perception all day, now coalesced, a column of invisible pressure beside her. She could feel him, a profound density in the air, a cool shadow in the humid room. The promise of his protection was the only thing that kept her from bolting the door and pretending the world outside did not exist.
The jangle of keys at the lock was a familiar torture. Lina squeezed her eyes shut, her hands clenched into fists at her sides, nails digging into her palms. She forced them to relax, finger by agonizing finger. The door swung inward.
He was not the monster she had braced for. Ramon stood framed in the doorway, his broad shoulders slumped with a weariness that seemed to bone-deep. His face, usually set in hard, suspicious lines when he returned, was softened by travel-fatigue. There was no rage in his eyes, only a sort of hollowed-out sadness. He carried a small duffel bag slung over one shoulder and, in his other hand, a paper bag from a department store in the city, its logo crisp and expensive.
He dropped the duffel with a heavy thud and his gaze found her. He offered a small, crooked smile that was a ghost of the man she had married. “Lina,” he said, his voice rough with disuse.
She could only manage a nod, her throat closed tight.
He crossed the room in three long strides, and she flinched, a Pavlovian response she could not suppress. He saw it. His face fell, a flicker of something that looked like genuine hurt crossing his features.He stopped just before her, his hands raised in a gesture of placating surrender.
“I know,” he said softly. “The phone call… I was drinking, mahal. I get… stupid. I’m sorry.”
He held out the paper bag. It rustled as she took it from him, her fingers brushing his. His skin was warm, calloused, familiar. Inside, nestled in layers of tissue paper, was a box of imported chocolates and a dress. She pulled the garment out. It was silk, the color of a sunset, a cascade of fiery orange and deep violet. It was beautiful. It was something she would never have bought for herself. It was a lie.
“For you,” he said. “To make up for it. I missed you.”
He stepped closer then and wrapped his arms around her. Lina went rigid, her body a ramrod of tension as he pulled her against his chest. She was enveloped in his scent - the sea, engine oil, male sweat, and the faint, lingering sourness of stale beer. It was the smell of her life. He buried his face in her hair, his embrace tight, possessive. “I missed you so much, mahal,” he murmured into her scalp.
This was the most dangerous version of him. Not the raging drunk or the cold accuser, but this man, the contrite husband who brought gifts and whispered apologies. This was the man who made her doubt her own memory, who made her question if the pain was real or just something she exaggerated in her own fragile mind. For a treacherous, gut-wrenching moment, she felt a pang of profound guilt. She had summoned a demon to destroy this man, this tired husband who bought her silk dresses and held her as if she were precious. The talisman pulsed against her skin, a hot, sharp warning. A reminder.
She pulled back gently, forcing a smile that felt like broken glass on her lips. “Thank you, Monching,” she said, using his childhood name, a peace offering of her own. “It’s beautiful.”
His eyes roamed her face, searching. “You look… different. Did you change your hair?”
“No,” she said, her voice too quick. “Just tired.”
He seemed to accept it, his exhaustion overriding the first flicker of his innate suspicion. He grunted and moved toward the kitchen, pulling a bottle of water from the clean, empty refrigerator. Lina’s eyes darted around the apartment, seeing it now through his lens. Had she hidden the evidence well enough? The small woven rug she’d bought at the market now covered the spot on the floor where the wood was slightly discolored, a faint, dark ring where the salt had burned its way into the varnish. The air still carried a phantom scent, a strange mix of camphor and something else, something metallic and sweet that she could smell even now. She prayed it was lost beneath the lingering chemical sharpness of the bleach she’d used to scour the life from their home.
Ramon drank deeply from the bottle, his back to her. He did not seem to notice. Not yet. He was home, and he was playing the part of the man she had once loved. Lina stood clutching the silk dress, the fabric a cool, slippery accusation in her trembling hands. The warmth of the talisman was the only honest thing left in the room.
Evening bled into the room, staining the corners with a deep, bruised purple. The single lamp cast a weak yellow circle of light that seemed to shrink as the world outside darkened. Ramon had not touched the silk dress again. It lay draped over a chair, a splash of sunset color in thegrowing gloom, a promise already broken. The chocolates remained unopened on the counter. His performance of the penitent husband had lasted exactly four hours.
Now, he paced. He moved from the kitchen to the living room and back again, his heavy frame seeming to suck the air from the small apartment. The floorboards complained under his restless weight. He had said little, but his silence was a gathering storm. Lina sat on the edge of the sofa, her hands folded in her lap, her spine a rigid pole. She followed his movements with her eyes, a tiny, frightened animal tracking the circuits of a predator in its cage. Every muscle in her body was coiled, ready to placate, to apologize, to absorb.
He stopped abruptly in the middle of the room and sniffed the air, his head tilted like a dog catching a strange scent on the wind. “What is that smell?” he asked, his voice low and guttural.
Lina’s heart stuttered. “It’s the bleach, Ramon. I cleaned today.” The lie was thin, brittle.
“No.” He shook his head, sniffing again, more deliberately this time. His gaze swept the room, no longer tired, but sharp with a familiar, manic intensity. “It’s not bleach. It’s… sweet. Like something burning.” His eyes landed on the small woven rug she’d placed over the discolored patch of floor. He stared at it, his focus narrowing. “Something’s different in here.”
“Nothing is different,” she said, her own voice a useless whisper against the growing tide of his suspicion. “You’re just tired from the ship.”
He ignored her. He began muttering to himself, a running commentary of paranoia. “The place feels wrong. You feel wrong.” He turned on her then, his eyes dark holes in his face. “Who was here, Lina?”
“No one was here,” she pleaded, rising slowly from the sofa, her hands held up in a gesture of peace. “I was here, waiting for you. That’s all.”
“Liar.” The word was a whip crack in the quiet room. He advanced on her, and the last of the soft, contrite man from the afternoon vanished, burned away by the raw fury that now contorted his features. “You think I’m stupid? You think I don’t know? I could smell him on you the minute I walked in. I can smell him now.”
