“Melvie! Melvie!”

Mommy grabbed Ate (sister) Melvie by the shoulders and shook her.

“Mommy,” I said, gently pulling her away. 

Just as Mommy raised her hand to strike, Ate Melvie turned her head slowly toward her like a mechanical doll. The dark brown of Ate Melvie’s eyes deepened into inky blackness.

Mommy’s hand went limp, and she gasped, stepping back and losing her footing. She would’ve dropped onto the floor had I not caught her.

“Are you okay?” I whispered.

It took a second for Mommy to regain her composure. She stood up abruptly and straightened her clothes. “I’m getting tired of this,” she said, jerking her head and pointing her lips toward Ate Melvie, who stood perfectly still, as if in a trance. “We have to do something! She’s supposed to be our helper. I can’t have her staring at that damn thing all day!”

That damn thing, the object holding Ate Melvie mesmerized, was an antique stone rice grinder recently passed on to Daddy by a distant relative.

* * *

Daddy barely knew his Impong Itang, a great-aunt who lived out in the countryside—in the back of beyond, as they would say. As a child, he had only ever heard about her a few times in passing from his parents.

But out of the blue, she appeared like some bizarre ghost and gifted this family object to him. She hadn’t exactly been on her deathbed when she placed the curious object in his hands. In fact, she looked almost eerily young for a ninety-eight-year old. Her long, gray hair flowed down her back like a silver veil. Although her face was wrinkled, her posture was cold and majestic, as if she’d ruled an empire or two and could still dominate more.

Still, she'd hinted that she would be leaving this world soon and that she wished for Daddy to have this family treasure. She said he was the most deserving. "It brings fortune to whoever has it."

For some reason, the words had made us all shiver. 

“Leave an offering,” she'd also instructed both my parents before departing. At that time, we had laughed at this strange old woman and her cryptic message.

Daddy had  wanted to get rid of it discreetly. But Mommy, despite being a devout Catholic who dismissed superstition, decided she might as well display this present by the entrance to our home. She lay it on top of a short, raw wood podium, and, to Daddy’s dismay, it looked right at home. 

“It’s got…shall we say, charm?” Mommy had said.

To fourteen-year-old me, it had looked like nothing more than a boring, flat, circular stone with an off-center hole the first time I looked at it.

Ate Melvie arrived in our house ten months before the rice grinder. Like it, she came from a rural area, but unlike it, she was young—only four years older than me. Fresh-faced and childlike, she seemed younger than her age. I immediately felt close to her. She was like an Ate, which is what I came to call her. It means older sister, something I'd never had. Before her, it had been a lonely house with just Daddy, Mommy and me, plus a string of middle-aged helpers who found the house too big and quiet and didn’t stay long.

Ate Melvie and I immediately developed a nightly ritual. While she brushed my long hair, she would tell me stories of enchantment from her province. “Nica, you must be careful when you’re walking in the woods. There are creatures living on the mounds of earth and in the trees.”

“What sort of creatures, Ate Melvie?”

“Magical ones,” she would say, her voice tinkling.

We would giggle over these tales, embellishing them as we went.

“Sometimes they live in old objects and move into houses. And they like pretty girls like you,” Ate Melvie would tease. “Slim and petite, so you can fit inside their tiny kingdoms.”

“What do they look like, Ate Melv?”

“They’re little…about the size of my thumb. And they wear pointed hats.”

“Like witches?”

“No, these are floppy hats…more like Santa Claus’s.”

“Tiny Santas,” I’d laughed.

“Watch out for the ones in red.”

“Because it’s Christmas, you’ve been naughty, and they’re coming to town?”

“Because they’re evil.”

According to Ate Melvie, these other-worldly beings - she called them dwende - come color-coded. The ones in white are kind. The ones in green are playful and mischievous. The ones in black bring good luck but are unpredictable. And then there are the red ones.

“Call an albularyo (a folk doctor) immediately to banish it!” she warned.

Sometimes, we talked about my crush in school. A boy called Ethan who also seemed to like me. He had unruly hair that curled around his soft face and a devilish smile. I would confide in Ate Melvie about how my heart flutters when I’m near him, and how he makes me feel like I’m floating on air when he talks to me.

“Is he cute?” she asked.

“Of course! I think so anyway.”

“Is he nice? Kind? Intelligent?”

“All that and more!”

“Rich?"

“I don’t know, Ate Melvie, and I don’t care!”

“You wouldn’t because you’re already rich, but I would! I want to be treated like a princess and lavished with gold and jewelry,” she sighed.

“I’m not rich, Ate Melvie. We’re middle class,” I said, suddenly embarrassed by our social status.

“Ay, Nica, but you are!” she insisted.

Ate Melvie didn’t talk much about her family. Except to say they were poor countryfolk, she had a lot of siblings, and that she was somewhere in the middle. When I asked why she wanted to work for us when she should be studying, she said she didn’t have much choice.

“I didn’t even graduate elementary school. I only finished up to fifth grade. When you’re like me, Nica, you have to work to help out. So here I am in the city.”

I didn’t understand then why I was bothered, but I felt a heavy sadness when she told me, and I went quiet.

“Don’t worry, Nica. One day, I’ll meet a rich man who’ll marry me, a prince charming,” she smiled. Then she brightened up as she described this marvelous life that she would have.

“A big house, like this, with a big room, like yours,” she said, her eyes gleaming as she envisioned it. “And lovely dresses and glittering gowns and shoes, and a feast on the table. Everything I could ever desire.”

“And can I visit you?”

“Of course! My sweet Nica will always be welcome in my mansion,” she chuckled.

Mommy had been clear in her disapproval when Ethan started calling me at home. “You’re too young for boyfriends, Nica.”

“Nica’s doing well in school," Daddy told her. "Her teachers have been giving us glowing reports. Cut her some slack."

On our nightly ritual, as she brushed my hair, Ate Melvie listened with excitement as I recounted how Ethan told me that he wanted to spend more time with me.

“Is he coming here to meet your parents?”

“That’s so old fashioned, Ate Melv. We’re just going to hang out at the mall.”

“Is it a date?”

“Well…” I giggled. “Kind of.”

“Did you tell your mommy and daddy?”

“I told Daddy. I haven’t told Mommy yet,” I said, winking at her.

She playfully slapped my shoulder. “Naughty girl!”

Then we collapsed on the bed laughing.

* * *

It had been Mommy’s idea for me to have a chaperone on our first kind-of date. “Melvie will look out for you. Remember, we don’t know who this Ethan is,” she said.

“What could Ethan possibly do to our Nica? He’s an Echeverria. They’re a buena familia,” daddy said. A good family.

“He might be an Echeverria, but he’s still a teenage boy.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure he behaves around our Nica,” Ate Melvie promised.

At the mall café, I was surprised when Ate Melvie sat herself between me and Ethan.

“Ate Melv, don’t you want to go shopping?” I asked, handing her some cash. But she didn’t seem to catch on. She was hatching a scheme.

“We can shop later, Nica. I promised your parents I won’t leave you alone.”

“But I won’t be alone. Ethan’s here, and we’re not going anywhere,” I asserted.

Instead of going along with my suggestion, she ordered more snacks and asked Ethan pointed questions about his family.

“So, Ethan, Nica tells me your brother’s a councillor. How about you? Do you have plans of being a politician too? Or maybe you want to be an actor first?”

Ethan’s face flushed. “Umm, I don’t know.”

“How about your father? Is he a politician too?”

“Uh, not anymore. He works in the private sector now.”

“And your mother, does she work or is she a housewife?”

“She helps out campaigning for my brother,” he blurted.

Ate Melvie watched him closely as she fired her questions.

Ethan squirmed in his seat, and I simmered, annoyed that our hangout turned into an interrogation.

That night, I told Ate Melvie I was going to skip our ritual because I was tired and going to bed early.