Albrecht covered her with the thickest sweater and carried her bag too. " Your bag seems heavy, what"s inside this one?" Albrecht broke the silence.
She never replied anything but was curiously looking to a certain direction nearby.
" Are you okay?" George asked her.
" There"s a light. There are people in the area we are heading to. Even if its tremendously foggy but I felt those are the enemies around." Magee whispered while she"s blowing her breath on both palms to make her hands warmer.
"Albrecht, did you bring the bow and arrow?" George asked.
" Yes, I had it."
" I"ll deceive them to another direction so we can go across that area going to Kabang.
" I"ll do it. I"ll climb a little on that tree." Albrecht volunteered as he added his own sweater on her shoulders.
The wilderness was filled of cricket cicadas producing hubbubs and thousands of fireflies dazzling around. While George and Magee were sitting on a dead branch filled with firelies, he spoke to pacify her chills.
" Do you know that male fireflies are the ones that can fly while females just await for their light signals. A lot of experts on it tried to decode the light frequency of their conversational signals but mostly, the light signals are posing strangely different from one another. And usually, according to observations, female fireflies usually await signals from the male fireflies whether its feeding time, battle time and pollinating time. Its interesting, right?" He wanted to hold her hands to keep her warmer but she was too defensive to shrug and shrug her shoulders while being irritated to mosquitoes on her.
" There are so many mosquitoes." Her smiles on him was dryly.
" Magee, there are no mosquitoes, you"re thickly covered by your brother from head to toes, haha, its okay, no worries." He shamefacedly stood up and went closer to Albrecht who, that time was done releasing the arrow. Expectedly, the enemies lambasting the trail they"re heading have evaporated and went to the place where the arrow had targeted.
" We"re safe now, let"s head on to the trail going down." Albrecht said.
They started to trudge the area and found some traces of smokes left and empty cans. There was a dead body of a woman meters away. Magee was teary eyed and covered her body with some dried leaves around. She knelt and recited a short prayer. When they left she still looked back and sighed over her soul to have peace.
" They were insane of raping and killing her that way. Why?" She kicked everything she pa.s.ses by and when one of the branches bounced at her strongly so she was seemingly blown by its force that made her roll a little.
" Hey, hey...shhh...quiet...don"t shout...I"ll pick you up." George picked her a meter away and he found her awkwardly smiling.
" There might be some encantations here, are we now in Kabang?"
" Haha...quiet, we"re almost there, Albrecht is now looking at us, c"mon! quick!" He whispered on her as he was still unknowingly holding her chilling hand. The moonlight still shines at its best so Albrecht could clearly see them both.
" Albrecht, we"re here."
" Yes Sir! I saw you holding my sister"s hand." Albrecht was smiling.
" Oh sorry."
He then slowly removed his hand while looking at Magee and felt himself a little naughty.
" Uhm! its almost dawn." George looked up the skies.
They continually walked and crossed some daffodils.
" Wow! daffodils with so many flowerettes around. Based from the description of the place, we"re almost in Kabang, right?" She sn.i.g.g.e.red jokily.
" Haha, yes, you"ll almost see our little house inside. See that rocky door? Dad and grandpa Sibal made that for us and as they also covered the old entrance in front of the river with so many leeches and slaying wild dogs."
" Is that the entrance? I couldn"t see any pa.s.sage but just a mere rock."
" Okay, we"re here."
" Albrecht knocked a plain rock for three times when it moved slowly. He then signaled both of them to follow him inside. Baldur was behind the wall and when they"re all inside he properly closed it using some rocks to support it.
" Wow, there are also two big rocks horizontally locked and protecting the wall from bending. Its maybe created for years." George was amazed.
" Yes, Dad and grandpa Sibal made this for eight years. While me and Albrecht grew up inside, they engineered these locks and made it as their pastime." Baldur smiled and gave to Albrecht the lighted candle as they walked a little and finally got out from the secret cave in a foggy beautiful morning in the paradise.
" My G.o.d!" George astoundingly appreciated what he just saw.
" Lovely! wonderful!" Magee was speechless as they followed Baldur and Albrecht on a small path beside a small river till they reached a two-storey house with a balcony upstairs. Magee ran inside and even checked upstairs. Noticeably, the floor was slippery due to the evening fogs. She saw her mother"s picture on a frame, Albrecht and Baldur"s biological German Dad and the Captain, her father. He saw Lolo Sibal"s picture as a teenager on a separate shelf too. Indeed, the house was filled with unseen history that mimicked a beautiful story of love, friendship and trust.
" You looked like a little of our mother but you were after Dad"s the most. By the way, do you like it here?"
" Yes, yes, I loved to stay here. I can live here till I grow old."
" Albrecht went closer to her and pinched her ear again."
" Ay! there you go again, this is your third time pinching my ear."
" How can"t I? when you said you"d love to stay here? Our mother even died after giving birth for you then you"d like to grow old in here?"
" Hmm...giving birth is not a problem anymore these days. Magee maybe just said it here because she likes to stay here for the memories or maybe wants to feel the breath of life here with this beautiful nature. Hmm, sounds nutty, but I favored this place very much too." George smirked in agreement with her.
She left the men from chatting as Magee roamed around the house. She visited the third room upstairs and she saw a diagonally-shaped map of the place that filled out the entire wall.
" There were red dots on the former entrance, eastern part, one beside the river, other dots on both sides of the river again. Geez! but wait, there"s one more exit going to the sea, southern part. Its maybe a dangerous exit point due to the skull sign. Hmm...its diagonal. The place deceives people, it franticaly looks like that this is a dead end steep mountain with no island inside. I see, that"s why its foggy up there too and there"s a little sunlight that gets around. Wow."
" When she went down she noticed Baldur was the one preparing for their breakfast. Fish, you"re frying a fish, Wow!" So this is the kitchen where Albrecht first learned on how to cook, right?"
" Exactly, both of us." Baldur smiled at her.
" Baldur, this house and place is beautiful, can"t wait to stay here for good and the place seems erases my dream to become a combatant."
" Combatant? haha, no! you shouldn"t be. Just enjoy your youth, be who you are and ignore the bombs outside. Better you learn on how to swim than being a combatant like us, understand?"
" Why can"t I?"
" Dad, Albrecht and I agreed that you may raise a family of your own here, even if the war continues. Dad said he will not compromise your life just because you can"t get out to Indonesia. It"s one of the options, but its negative. The seaport there was also infested with our enemies."
" Ow? how can I marry when I escaped from my fiancee?" She smiled sarcastically.
" You"ll never know, there might be blurry-eyed souls of this war who would find you attractive around. If not, we"ll adapt the match-maker arrangements of the Filipino ways, its not a problem."
" I shouldn"t be saying this but, I"m still very young and besides I need to work hard for something I don"t know yet. If I wouldn"t be a combatant, what would I be? Well that"s my big problem, haha!"
The siblings never knew that George was just hiding behind the door. But Albrecht caught him eavesdropping.
" Hey George, come let"s join with them, I guess the breakfast is ready too. When they were in the kitchen George saw several kitchen utensils and all"s made of hard woods.
" A drainer made of hard wood?"
" Yes, our Dad made it for us, its a red wood hardwood actually."
" I feel honored to reach this place and see these things around. I guess, I"m the only and first visitor around."
" Yes, exactly."
Baldur placed the three pieces of fish, fried rice and tinolang manok in front of them. A little while, Magee recited a short prayer and Baldur invited them to enjoy their first breakfast in the place the family called - Malapague.