Me Without You (8 page)

"Let the dead bury the dead, remember?
Or something like don't pity the dead but pity the living," Jonah
said. "And I thought you've heard about—"

Just then, the door opened and Jane
appeared together with the manager of the funeral house. She looked
at Jonah forlornly.

"What?" Hugh asked.

"Hey, I can't talk now," Jonah uttered.
"Later?"

"Okay, later, " Hugh answered. "But
later, right?"

"Definitely!" Jonah told him and hanged
up.

Jane reached out towards Jonah as she
sat next to her and whispered, "The coroner’s has requested an
independent autopsy. They also want to extract a part of your
mother’s brain to see if the drugs they found in that vial matched
whatever they’re going to find out in her body. And how much was
taken for her to die." Jane let out a long sigh. "They are so
positive, she was killed."

Jonah squirmed a bit. She felt
uncomfortable when the manager cast them a watchful eye. He
probably learned about the rumors and believed them to be
true.

There was no doubt that everybody in
town was already salivating on the rumors about the seven deadly
sinners Rebecca produced."Who cares?" Jonah said out loud still
absorbed in her own thoughts.

"What did you just say?" Jane asked
looking confused.

Jonah dismissed the subject
immediately."So how long are they going to keep her here?" she
asked clearing her throat as the manager looked away
instantly.

"Would you believe it?" Jane shook her
head. "It can take a month."

"A month?" Jonah shivered. "Can’t we do
something about this?"

"We can go ahead and bury her without a
part of her brain. Would we like that?" Jane said.

The thought of Rebecca’s body still so
much a part of the world instead of being laid to rest felt like
Rebecca was still very much alive and present.

With a part of the brain…the
monstrous concrete body part which controlled the body of a
cold-hearted individual…still very much present and
corporeal…Silly…she is dead.
Jonah chided
herself silently.

"Can the brain live apart from the dead
body?" Jonah blurted out. She just couldn’t help herself. "I mean…
do we have some kind of tradition or belief about it?"

Jane smiled sweetly. It was the first
time Jonah had seen her smiled an authentic smile for the longest
time. Jane gathered Jonah in her arms and said, "Silly girl, are
you scared of your own mother? What can she do to you now? She is
dead."

Chills ran through Jonah’s spine. Her
gut feeling told her Rebecca was more powerful than she was alive
because she was dead. And Jonah dared not encounter Rebecca at her
spiritual state when no corporeal entity can hinder her.

"I can still feel her, Jane!" Jonah
told her older sister.

Jane watched the manager as he went
through a few papers in his hands and lowered her voice. She told
Jonah, "Worse, her eyes won't close no matter what. They had to do
a few stitching to get it done nicely. Aunt Judith said, it could
only mean one thing—"

"What?" Jonah asked, sweeping the place
with her eyes.

"Unfinished business!" Jane replied
matter-of-factly.

The Broken
Habak

Hugh was standing near the window, his
curiosity still piqued after Jonah suddenly ended their phone
conversation. Hugh looked towards Xavier who was also standing a
few feet away from him. He had wanted to talk to Jonah on the phone
privately, but Gilda insisted he called her right there and then.
He had never felt so uncomfortable with Xavier within earshot,
listening to every word he said. For Hugh, it was one thing to put
him on the spot. It was another thing to have others witnessed such
a compromising moment.

Hugh playfully threw the phone towards
Xavier who looked like he was enjoying himself catching Hugh at
such an awkward state with Jonah.

"You should have talked to her. I
didn't know what to tell her," Hugh told him. His mood suddenly
changed and became somber. "I think hearing from you would make a
huge difference. After all, she just lost a mother."

"You did well on my behalf," Xavier
said, staring longingly at the phone. "It would have been what I
would say, no more, no less. You did even better." Xavier passed
the phone back to Hugh and took a seat across Gilda.

Gilda was silently examining
in her hand what was once a whole ancient belly chain they
called
habak
at one
point. It was almost half a meter long with little dime-like
trinkets with bizarre markings on them hanging on its
chain.

Gilda had felt so triumphant
when she discovered that Rebecca was holding the piece of jewelry
in her deathbed. Gilda had to pry it away from Rebecca who had been
clutching the
habak
when she died. Unfortunately though, Rebecca's hand had
gripped around the
habak
so hard, that only a few minutes after her death,
her fist had toughened like a ball of steel around it.

Gilda had found it too
difficult to remove the
habak
and broke it when one of Rebecca's daughters
suddenly entered the room.

The half's good enough for
now…
Gilda was thinking.
The other piece will find its way back when the new greatest
healer surfaces.

She ran her thumb through
each trinket like a blind person would go through Braille,
occasionally mumbling to herself. It has been said that the mystery
of creation and destruction of all the material and immaterial
component in the universe was written in the little trinkets which
the greatest healer can only discover. Fingering her own
habak
around her waist
which sent out ticklish sounds of bells ringing to her ears, Gilda
had yearned at one point in her life to claim the greatest
healer's
habak
and
to reveal its secrets to her.

"It has been claimed," Gilda
said out loud for the two boys to hear. She paused for awhile, then
continued, "Unfortunately, we seemed to have half of the
habak
which explains about
destruction. We need to find the other half which will teach the
greatest healer about healing."

Both Hugh and Xavier stared at each
other, obviously at a loss with what Gilda just said. The woman had
mysteriously summoned Hugh to her room that day and urged him to
call Jonah to specifically ask how she was feeling. Aside from
telling him the fact that Rebecca was dead, she had not explained
the reason for the call.

"How is the girl?" Gilda
asked.

"I think she's taking it cool. But I
don't know—we were interrupted," Hugh answered. "Why do you want to
know?"

"Why such
naiveté
? The greatest
healer is dead. And haven't you heard that the seven children
conspired to kill their own mother?" Gilda chided.

"What's it to me?" Hugh asked. He moved
away from the window and crossed the room. He tapped Xavier
slightly on the shoulder and motioned for him to follow.

"Come back here," Gilda scolded before
Hugh could reach the door. "I am not done yet."

"If this is about your eternal warfare
with Rebecca Blood—" Hugh started saying.

"This is about our dear boy, Xavier!"
Gilda cut in.

Hugh heaved in a deep breath and paused
near the door, his brows in a scowl and both hands on his
hips.

"Sit down! Let me explain," Gilda said.
Seeing that Hugh was not moving from his place, Gilda continued, "I
want you to find who the next greatest healer is. I don't believe
that the seven children killed Rebecca. But I do believe one of
them did. And whoever did it is now the greatest
healer."

"This is a job for the police," Xavier
said.

At which point, Hugh, raising both
hands heavenward, then pointing towards Xavier gestured his
approval. "Precisely," he said.

"The police are in it for the murderer.
Leave them to their jobs. They may or may not close this case in
their lifetime, it is not our concern," Gilda reasoned. "You're in
it for the greatest healer. And you need to get into the bottom of
this to heal our dear boy, Xavier for good."

"How?" Hugh asked.

"This
habak
will help you. It will summon
the healer and reveal its secrets to her the way it won't to me, to
you or to any other person alive. Start with the seventh child.
Give this to her and see what happens when she wears it," Gilda
replied.

"Why Jonah?" Xavier blurted out. "She
couldn't have killed her own mother."

"She has every reason to—" Gilda
answered.

"What?" Xavier said,
perplexed.

"You!" Both Gilda and Hugh said in
unison.

"No way!" Xavier said strongly. "She
won't resort to such heinous thing—even for me. It doesn't make any
sense at all."

"I have to agree with X!" Hugh said.
"Jonah isn't the type."

Gilda watched the two boys from beneath
her lashes. They had been foolishly smitten by a girl. Wasn't it
only a thousand years ago when she thought Rebecca wasn't the type
to kill her own family for the sake of power? And wasn't it only a
thousand years ago when she herself was tempted to end her own
sister's life?

"A healer thinks differently," Gilda
said. "We don't think in line with what people call now a days
morality. We kill for blood. For power. And yes, for love. It is
neither good nor evil. It is just the healer's way."

Gilda proceeded to tell Hugh and Xavier
the story of her own family. It was the first time Hugh heard about
his mother's ancestry.

Rebecca, Gilda and Judith were
originally sisters before they were borne out of their different
families as they went through numerous lifetimes as
healers.

Zadok had taken Tali, the chief
priestess, as his wife. But Tali died giving birth to their
daughter, Rebecca. It was believed that when a woman died during
childbirth, the child had overcome the mother and the power to heal
or destroy will be passed on to the newborn baby. On that day, the
mark of the greatest healer was bestowed upon Rebecca.

Zadok, broken and devastated over the
death of his wife, laid to waste himself in labor and totally
forgot about his child. However, Tali's slave, Ivka, out of loyalty
to her mistress, had loved the girl like her own and took care of
the child.

Ivka was the only notion of a mother
Rebecca had and the child loved the woman dearly. Upon seeing
Ivka's ways with his child, Zadok made her his wife to take care of
him as well. The union produced two children, Gilda and
Judith.

However, Rebecca was not at all pleased
with the birth of her two sisters. She had become possessive of
Ivka and aloof with Gilda and Judith. It had become worse when
Rebecca discovered her abilities to heal at a young age. She became
guarded and self-centered. Even when Gilda and Judith began
discovering their own abilities to heal, Rebecca had not wanted to
take part of it.

When it was time for Ivka to pass on to
another world to die temporarily before she awakened again as a
healer, Rebecca took her life and killed her. Rebecca had thought
once Ivka awakened again, she will have a new set of family and
children to rear as her own and Rebecca would lose her place in
Ivka's life. Killing Ivka and owning the power she had was
Rebecca's way of keeping Ivka a part of her forever.

However, the taste of another healer's
power in communion with one's own had a different effect on
Rebecca. She had hungered for more of a healer's blood. She had
planned to kill Gilda and Judith as well.

"God, I had wanted to kill her myself
when I found out," Gilda said. "And yes, it entered my mind that
when I succeed, I shall be the greatest healer. Now, now—there's no
shame or guilt about it. It's just the healer's way."

Gilda fingered the trinkets
of the
habak
again.
Then, she held it up high, dangling the jewelry like a bait on a
hook. "Lure the girl to wear this the way you lure women to your
bed. A heart so in love will wear a garland of poison to her
deathbed. This is nothing deadly. I am pretty sure, one of you will
be able to pull it off. Then, tell me how she will react to this
and I will know for sure."

Hugh approached Gilda and
took the broken
habak
from her fingers. He turned to Xavier and said, "Let's get out
of here, man!" Then, he headed towards the door without looking
back at Gilda.

Xavier nonchalantly shrugged his
shoulders off and stood up. But Gilda stopped him and said, "Let me
bless you first, my dear boy Xavier!"

Xavier threw Hugh a helpless look
pleading for him to stay until the whole thing was over. But Hugh
turned his back and went for the door.

As Hugh closed the door
behind him, he saw Xavier lowered himself on one knee in front of
Gilda as she laid her hands just a few inches above his head and
muttered a prayer. Hugh turned the
habak
in his hands and ran his fingers
through the little trinkets the way he had seen Gilda did it. He
felt nothing. He had expected something unusual to happen since he
was also a healer. But there was none.