Hey folks! This year I had the opportunity to participate in the Inkling's Challenge over on Tumblr. If you don't know what this is, it's an annual challenge to write a Christian fantasy story. Participants get split into three teams, and based on those teams, they have a choice of two pre-assigned genres. I got sorted into Team Chesterton, and I decided to write an Intrustive Fantasy.

I have a lot to say about my thoughts on this story, but this is going to be a hefty post, so I'll leave those musings for another day. I hope you enjoy my entry!

Let the Sun Set, Let the Day End

Paolo's parents rarely ever talked about the Catindig family, but when they did, it was always with a touch of soft pity. He could detect it in the, "Of course we must be kind to them," and the "Your grandfather never forgave himself for what happened to Edgar Catindig."

There was also an undercurrent of wry humour in the ways Paolo's parents whispered of sumpa. It meant curse or oath, if one used the ratty old Tagalog-English dictionary they brought along from Caloocan five years ago, but from his parents' tone he was sure it wasn't the latter. And while it was a word one could freely ponder in the streets of the Philippines, even among crowds in front of San Roque Cathedral, it wasn't a concept that sat comfortably in his mind as his family rode down the neat, disciplined streets of North York, Ontario.

The apartment building they stopped at was a few minutes' drive from the intersection of Don Mills and Eglinton, not too far from the Science Centre that Paolo visited once on a school trip. The apartment building had seen better days. Dark smudges trailed beneath the balconies, paint chipped in patches the way the skin on his fingers did during winter, and rust bloomed on the railing of the stairs up to the entrance.

Paolo and his family filed inside the building and into the rickety elevator, dim yellow light pulsing with the threat of going out. His ten-year-old sister, Marielle, sidled up to him, nervous despite her neon green shirt emblazoned with Buttercup from Powerpuff Girls shouting, "Fearless!" Paolo's older sister, Ate Hannah, was poised in a blue dress that he thought was too formal for a friendly visit. But all of her older, more casual dresses had been packed away in a box last week for the Catindigs' daughter, part of a welcoming donation to ease the Catindig family's adjustment to their new home.

What if they found that same daughter wearing one of Hannah's dresses today? That would be awkward.

The elevator pinged on the seventh floor and the doors shabbily slid open. Paolo's mother, holding an aluminum tray of homemade pancit, turned to the children before exiting. "Don't forget to mano," she said. "Mr. and Mrs. Catindig won't be the only adults there. Some of our church friends are coming, and a few other acquaintances."

The three of them nodded, and they followed their parents down the hallway. Paolo's father wore a light-coloured dress shirt, which seemed to be a mistake, as sweat was already darkening its collars. Still, he held his chin up, and his shoulders were relaxed even as he gripped a large watermelon between his hands. His beard was neatly clipped, his hair cropped close to the scalp. Paolo brushed back his own floppy hair, second-guessing whether he ought to have made the trip to the barber's.

It didn't matter. Who were the Catindigs, anyway? Just distant family friends, and although his father may harbour some charity towards them due to unfortunate events a generation ago, it was clear they weren't here to impress. If that were so, Paolo's mother would have worn her pearl necklace and her high-heels, the way she did when she went to work.

Hannah knocked on door 704. Two blinks later, the door swung open, and a short woman with a round face and chin-length hair grinned at them. "Oh, you're here!" she said in Tagalog. "Come in, come in. I'm so glad you made it."

"Welcome to Canada, Joyce!" Paolo's mom laughed with excited glee, and leaned in for a hug, awkward though it was with the tray of pancit between the two women. "I can't believe you made it here! Kids, greet your Tita Joyce."

Obedient to their mother's reminder, Hannah reached for Joyce Catindig's hand and gently lowered her forehead to it. Paolo followed her example, and then Marielle, all three of them greeting the woman with demure, respectful hellos. Their father stepped inside the apartment last, just as a broad-shouldered man not much taller than Paolo appeared behind Joyce, smiling gently. Light bounced off his shiny, bald head.

"Long time no see," the man said, taking the watermelon from Paolo's father. "Rahul, you're looking good! Life in Canada is treating you well, I see. Hello there, Nora, it's very nice to see you again."

Pleasantries were exchanged, along with more mano, until Joyce stepped aside to let a young woman through. This must be the Catindigs' daughter. She grasped Paolo's parents' hands to her forehead to mano, and it wasn't until she straightened that he realized she wasn't wearing Hannah's clothes after all.

No, she was wearing his.

It was one of Paolo's old Dragonball Z shirts. His mother had told him he might as well donate it even if the Catindig had a daughter, not a son, because he'd grown out of it, and surely she could still wear it as home-clothes. Now, Piccolo's scowling face stared back at him.

"This is our daughter, Sharmaine," Joyce said. "I don't think you've met before, we already moved towns by the time she was born. But I believe she's the same age as your son. Fifteen."

"Hello, po." The girl, Sharmaine, gave them a wide, contagious smile. She had straight hair that fell to her waist, wide dark eyes, and her mother's rounded face. She was pretty, but not in the artistahin way of Filipino celebrities. Not with the low nose bridge and deeply tanned skin.

"Sharmaine, why don't you and the kids talk for a bit, while I go set the table for lunch?" Joyce stated, taking the tray from Paolo's mother, and ushering the adults to the dining area. Paolo only now noticed that Aunt Evangeline, a woman in her sixties who often volunteered at church, was already there, as well as another middle-aged woman whose name he couldn't quite recall, but whom he knew his mother gossiped with.

"Come along," Sharmaine waved, and Paolo and his siblings tailed her down the hallway, past the sparsely furnished living room. The section of it closest to the kitchen was taken up by a black foldable table, and the plain ceramic plates already set out on it used to belong to Paolo's family. They had also sent those as part of the welcoming donation.

The adults had dissolved into chatter about work, with Paolo's father proudly announcing that he worked for Deloitte and that his wife was a receptionist at a fancy event hall. Aunt Joyce congratulated them with sincerity, though her voice was a little less energetic when she said, "I got hired as a cashier at Tim Hortons. And Martin here is a security guard at Pearson. We're grateful, of course, they're excellent starting points."

The room Sharmaine led them to was small and windowless. A low twin mattress crouched in a corner, no box or frame beneath it yet. Luggage and backpacks lined the walls, as well as boxes with broad masking tapes securing their sides.

"Well, as you can see, we're still settling in," Sharmaine waved about the room. Her smile remained steady and friendly. "But once everything is cleared up, this would be my room."

"You're wearing Kuya Paolo's shirt!" Marielle pointed at the hard-faced Piccolo, as if noticing Sharmaine's clothes for the first time.

"Am I, now?" Sharmaine narrowed her eyes playfully. "I thought this was yours!"

"No!" Marielle gave a hearty shake of her head, looking horrified to have been accused of the crime.

Sharmaine only laughed and turned to Paolo. "Thanks for the shirt. I do love Piccolo."

Paolo didn't know what he was expecting her to say about his clothes. He figured she'd be embarrassed to be seen wearing it, or perhaps she'd think it was beneath someone of their age to still be wearing anime shirts. He made a series of stutters, uncertain how to reply, until he managed to grip one comment and rolled with it. "Piccolo's all right. I prefer Vegeta."

Sharmaine's brows raised. "Oh, well, of course you do. All the boys love Vegeta."

Heat seared Paolo's neck, though he didn't know why. Only that, she made him sound so... so... predictable.

"What are these?" Marielle asked. They turned their attention to her, and Paolo was both relieved and peeved that he didn't get to respond. His little sister had pushed aside the flaps of one of the boxes and was peering inside. In her left hand was a wooden crucifix, and in the other a statue of Mama Mary. Inside the box, Paolo could glimpse more religious statues: baby Jesus in his straw cradle, San Pedro with a rooster tucked into his elbow, another crucifix, and even a poorly constructed miniature replica of the Black Nazarene.

"Why do you have so many of these things?" his sister chirped again. "Is it to ward off that curse your family has?"

Hannah gasped and pulled Marielle away from the box. She grabbed the artifacts from her sister's hands and stowed them back inside. "Careful with these!" she reprimanded. "These are all blessed. Show them some respect." Over Marielle's head, Hannah mouthed "I'm so sorry" to Sharmaine, before saying out loud, "You know what? I think you and I need to help get lunch ready. Come on."

The silence in the room after they left was palpable. Paolo grasped for something to say, but once again, proved to be the slower one in the race.

"Do you no longer speak Tagalog?" Sharmaine asked, almost as if the last minute hadn't transpired. "I'm still getting used to conversing only in English, so things might get a bit awkward." She sat on the mattress, and Paolo felt a compulsion to join her. He settled at the edge of it.

"Your English is fine," he reassured her. At the very least, she wasn't the source of the awkwardness in their conversations. "Ate Hannah and I can still speak it, but we're not really supposed to anymore. It's for Marielle. She was only five when we came here, and Mama and Papa don't want her to develop an accent."

They were quiet for a few more moments. Paolo wished his mother would announce that lunch was ready.

"So you heard about the curse, huh?" Sharmaine's voice was low, as if testing the waters. As if testing him.

"What curse?" Paolo decided to play dumb. "I don't believe in curses."

Her eyes lit up as if he'd said something amusing, not truthful. She reached for one of the backpacks and pulled out a pad of paper and a pen. "Here, why don't we play a game? Let's write a story together, one line by you, and the next line by me, until we fill up this page."

Paolo watched as she etched in the first line, unsure whether this had anything to do with the curse, or if they were switching subjects yet again. When she handed him the pad of paper, he read, "Once upon a time, there lived a witch in the middle of the woods" inked at the top. He glanced back at her, gauging what she was trying to do, but her face gave nothing away. Just that small consistent smile, as if this was just normal things that friends did. As if they were already friends.

By the time Aunt Joyce called everybody out to the dining area, Sharmaine was just finishing off the last sentence on the page. She ripped the paper from the pad, and folded it into a small square. She leaned over to him and tucked the piece of paper into the breast pocket of his shirt.

"Don't look at this until later tonight. Maybe 7 or 8." She stood and offered him a hand up from the mattress. "Then see what you think of our little story."

---

Returning back to his family's apartment, Paolo couldn't help but compare how much cozier their space is. They were lucky to have secured a unit in a larger building, one that came with three bedrooms. Apparently it was illegal in Ontario to have siblings of different genders to share a single room, and so he ended up with his own. It was the smallest, but it was still his own.

He'd spent the afternoon slumped in the chair in front of his desk, feet propped up on his bed. He'd shuffled endlessly through the forms scattered on his table. He would be entering Grade 10 in a few weeks and his high school offered several different programs tailored to certain interests. Hannah never applied for a program, but she had taken lots of AB courses. Paolo's grades were good, but AB courses would deflate them, so his parents told him to enter a program instead.

There was a music program, an art program, a multimedia program, social sciences, robotics, and math. Each program had a list of compulsory courses that supposedly gave you the fundamentals, which would somehow impress upon the Universities how serious you were about your passion.

But Paolo didn't know which one he wanted to apply to. The deadline for the application was August 31, so that those who were accepted in the programs could be slotted into the right courses before non-participants.

Music was a no-go. Despite the rampant stereotype that all Filipinos could sing, the only rhythm Paolo could produce came from the knuckles he could crack. Perhaps the art program? He did like to draw from time to time. But he also knew his parents would be less impressed by that choice, and he didn't like art theory; only art for specific cases. Multimedia then. Though he wasn't sure how he'd fare in the web programming course.

Paolo hung his head over the back of his chair, then caught the time on the wall clock. 7:45. He rushed from his seat and grabbed the dress shirt he'd worn to the Catindigs. He slipped his fingers into the pocket and pulled out the sheet. He unfolded it with hurried fingers, then laid it on top of his desk.

The bottom half of the page faded into nothing. While the ink was crisp and clear in the first half, it began to seemingly evaporate until the last quarter of the story was completely gone. Paolo lifted the sheet and inspected the page. This must be a trick. There must have been something on the paper, some substance Sharmaine wiped on it. Or perhaps it was the pen. Some kind of invisibility ink, like those in the books that Marielle loved to read.

Paolo huffed, adrenline whooshing out of his muscles. Had he actually believed her for a moment there? That this was related to a curse? No, she was just pulling his leg!

All the work he did coming up with those stupid lines, too. The witch turning out to be a good one and meeting the princess who turned out to be evil. They had switched roles, only for the witch to... to go to... where did she go again? What did she do?

Cold spread over Paolo's hands. What happened to the witch? Why couldn't he remember what they'd written? He could clearly see in his mind's eye sitting on Sharmaine's mattress, chuckling over something she wrote. He could still feel the energy that coursed through him after coming up with an idea just as funny. He was sure it had been funny. He recalled the feel of the pen in his fingers, the way they formed the letters, but what words did he spell? What sentences did he write?

Paolo almost jumped out of his skin when Hannah banged on his door. "Dinner's ready!" He didn't know how he made it to their large wooden table, but he was suddenly facing a plate full of rice and a piece of juicy, roasted chicken. The clack of silverware and eager conversation rang in his ears. He took a bite of the food, but didn't taste anything.

"Who was Edgar Catindig?" he asked, and the talk around him halted. "What happened to him?"

His parents blinked at each other for a moment, before his father shrugged. "He passed away in the 80s." He drank a bit of water, before continuing. "He was Martin's father, and your Lolo Olivares was good friends with him. Always humoured him when he said he believed he'd inherited a family curse."

"What did he believe it was?"

Paolo's father smiled a little as if embarrassed to be parting such information. "Edgar Catindig believed he was unable to send or receive letters."

"Why?"

His father shrugged eloquently. "A series of coincidences that followed him his entire life. Letters he attempted to send always got lost somehow, or ripped, or sent to the wrong address. Same with the ones that people send him. Apparently the only way to get a message to him was to either call or meet him face to face."

Paolo blinked at the rice on his plate. "So why would Lolo feel guilty over that?"

"Well, one day your Lolo got annoyed with Edgar going on and on about the curse. He convinced Edgar to simply write a letter to someone down the block, deliver it himself to the house, and prove once and for all that the curse isn't true. But on the way there, a reckless driver sped through the corner they were turning into, and hit Edgar."

Marielle gasped. "And he died?"

Their father nodded sagely. "And he died, the letter still clutched in his hand. Father couldn't shake off the feeling that perhaps the curse was true after all, and forcing Edgar to go against it cost him his life."

A somber silence blanketed the dinner table, until their mother waved her hand as if shooing away a persistent fly. "But it could have all been just a coincidence. Filipinos love a good story about witches and dark magic, because it's more interesting than the reality."

Their father nodded. "That's right, don't let old superstitions rule your life. Your have more control over your future than these types of stories would have you believe. The only thing they're good for is excusing personal responsibility. That's why our country never makes progress. Filipinos always like to blame something else."

Paolo's parents probably wanted to lift the gloomy mood from the dinner table, so they doubled down on their usual admonitions about the importance of having good discipline and education.

"Focus on your goals and don't get distracted," the mother pressed. "Especially you, Hannah. You're entering University, and there will be all sorts of new freedoms and distractions."

Paolo didn't know why it was Hannah she picked on. Hannah had never done a single wrong in her life. Even now, she didn't even have the audacity to look annoyed, as she obediently nodded her head along with their mother's reminders. Hannah, the straight A student. Hannah, the kindly sister who had taken the sword for Paolo and Marielle, by granting their parents the one wish all Asian parents had: a child becoming a doctor. And not just any doctor. Hannah had chosen the route to being an anesthesiologist, one of the highest paid profession in the industry.

"So don't think about boys and dating until you've finished undergrad," their mother went on, as if Hannah had shown any kind of propensity towards boys or dating. "Boys just like to play around at your age. Wait until you're older and you find someone serious. Be like your Aunt Gabriella. She finished dentistry and found an American husband. Oh!" their mother clapped her hands at this, and turned to their father with eagerness. "Wouldn't it be just nice if Hannah marries a white man? Their kids will look imported! Imagine what our families back home would say!"

Paolo couldn't get Edgar's story out of his head even as he got ready for bed. He stared at the bathroom mirror, dabbing away stray toothpaste bubbles from the side of his lips.

For a moment, his mind ground to a halt. He looked closely at his face. The dark eyes, the flared nostrils, the thick lips. Skin so tanned neither Likas soap nor Bello Essentials lotion made him any paler. Were there other Filipino parents in the city tonight who had advised their daughter over dinner not to marry anyone who looked anything like him? Were there other Filipino parents for whom he would be a disappointing son-in-law, unable to give them grandchildren who looked imported?

He snapped out of the sudden thought, embarrassed and annoyed that he was even ruminating over this. No, that wasn't what he should be thinking about, wasn't what was important right now.

Paolo went to his room and grabbed the hand-me-down Nokia phone that once belonged to Hannah. He'd gotten Sharmaine's number before leaving, biting down the surprise that her family had managed to get her a cell phone already.

Can u meet me tmrw? Library @10? He texted.

If the Catindig family curse truly manifested in Sharmaine, he'd need more proof.

---

Paolo told his parents before they left for work that he would show Sharmaine the library and get her a card. Afraid they'd be suspicious why he wanted to take a girl out alone, he threw in that he would be taking his friend, Sean, with them.

Initially, Paolo wanted to reach out to Andy, but remembered that Andy was in math camp until the end of the week. (Andy loved to remind him he wasn't in math camp because he was any good at it, but because he was actually in desperate need of improvement. Defying stereotypes, and all that.)

Paolo hadn't been in contact with Sean for two weeks ever since they ran into each other at the afternoon sacrament of reconciliation in St. Edith Stein. It wasn't even their home parish. In fact, it was a thirty minute walk from their neighbourhood, which showed how both boys had desperately wanted to avoid anyone they knew. But just as Paolo had exited the confessional, he found Sean standing just outside, pale and sweating profusely. They had shared an awkward greeting, before Sean had launched himself into the cabinet, as if he couldn't repent fast enough.

The good thing about picking Sean, however, was that Paolo's mother really liked him. Hailing from an Irish immigrant family, Sean's parents had worked two jobs each when he was young, and they had hired a Filipina nanny to look after him. He'd grown up eating adobo and sinigang, and whenever he came over for dinner, he could say salamat and masarap to thank Paolo's mother for the delicious cooking.

A little after Paolo's parents went to work, he met Sean at the park, and they walked towards the library. The zealous sun blasted its full August heat upon them, but there was a slight breeze that tugged at Sean's brown hair every now and then. The tension from their last meeting hung heavy in the air between them, an elephant doubling in size in a shrinking room.

"It was an accident!" Sean blurted at the same time that Paolo said, "I was stealing!"

Paolo stared at Sean's wide, gray eyes, and motioned for him to go first. His friend buried his face in his hands, the skin on his neck turning bright pink.

"Ugh, so I was on this website, right?" Sean said, his voice pained. "It was a game website, and it had, like, a bazillion 'Play Now' buttons. I don't know what happened, I must have clicked on the wrong one, because the next thing I knew, all these pictures popped up on the screen. Bad pictures!" In an agonized whisper, "Dirty pictures."

"Oh, heck no."

"Then my Mom walked in!" Sean's voice went one octave higher, and Paolo couldn't help but burst out laughing.

"Sean! The way you looked, I thought you must have killed somebody!"

"No, no!" Sean tapped his chest. "I was the one getting killed."

Paolo rubbed away a tear leaking from his eye. "What did the priest say?"

"Three Hail Mary's and an anti-virus software." Sean shrugged, but he must have been eager to get the focus off of him. "And you? You were stealing? You don't even like switching price stickers at Dollar Tree."

Paolo sighed. "I pirated Freddy vs. Jason."

"Oh, was it good?"

"It was all right. But, see, I also taught Ma how to use Limewire for her Filipino dramas."

"Ha! How come she wasn't with you to confess, then?"

"She doesn't think it's a crime. The shows were too low budget to feel bad about it, she says."

They reached the library and relished the cool airconditioned environment they walked in. It was easy to spot Sharmaine, as she was simply sitting by the row of tables in front of the Information Centre. She noticed him quickly too and waved.

"Wait, you're meeting with a girl?" Sean leaned in to whisper. "You told me you're after the new Naruto volumes."

"Those too," Paolo said.

"Why do I feel like I just got cheated on?"

Paolo sent him a flat look as they approached Sharmaine. He gave brisk introductions, and was quite relieved that Sean gave Sharmaine a perky smile and handshake. His expression only turned mockingly put-off when he swiveled back to Paolo.

"All right, I can take a hint. Why don't I grab us some iced caps and timbits, and you two quickly do whatever you met here to do. But!" he raised an accusing finger at Paolo. "Behave yourself, young man! I better not see you at confession again this week."

"Then don't be there yourself!" But Sean was already ambling away, and Paolo's raised tone earned him a disapproving frown from the woman sitting at the Information Centre.

Sharmaine was holding back an amused smile as Paolo slid into the seat beside her. A heavy-looking backpack was tucked underneath her chair. "What's that?"

"I figured you wanted to meet about the story," she said. She pulled the bag up to her lap and opened it, revealing about a dozen notebooks and folders. "You probably have lots of questions, so I came with answers."

Paolo looked around, but the other tables were empty, and the only people nearby were young kids browsing through picture books. Still, he pitched his voice even lower. "What happened to the story we wrote yesterday? You're not playing any tricks on me, are you?"

"Do you remember the ending we wrote?" He didn't. She accepted his silence as an answer and took several notebooks from her bag. She flipped through them, hundreds of pages covered in ink and pencil. "Ever since I can remember, I loved to write stories, but I can never seem to finish any of them. When I was young, I just assumed that I lost interest or that I forgot to write the ending. But six or seven years ago, I started paying more attention, and I know that no matter how hard I try to write endings, they just disappear."

Paolo slid one of the notebooks towards himself. The stories across the pages were clearly demarcated with breaks, so it was easy to see when a new one started. Except the preceding stories were always abruptly cut off. Sentences faded away. Letters halted mid-curl. Words were sliced three quarters of the way through. It happened consistently. Even if Sharmaine happened to be one of the many writers who just didn't have the stamina to finish a story, why break it off like this?

"At one point I thought I was going crazy," she continued. "But the experiment we did yesterday? I tried those on my parents, on my cousins, on my friends. None of them remember how we ended the stories either. I can't even ask other people to help me."

Sharmaine opened up a small pocket on the bag and lifted a bundle of floppy disks tied with elastic. "It's not just pen and paper. It's digital too. All of these contain files of stories that I tried to write and finish. If you want, you can check out how they ended up too."

Paolo didn't need to hop over to one of the computer stations to know what Sharmaine meant. He could guess. Corrupted files perhaps, ascii turning into binary code like she had used the funky Webdings font.

"How about essays and term papers? How are you able to write your assignments?" he asked.

"Those seem to be fine," Sharmaine admitted with a helplessly confused shrug. "It's any form of fictional writing that seems to affect me."

"I heard about your grandfather," Paolo stated. "He believed he was also cursed. Except it wasn't like yours."

Sharmaine nodded, her dark eyes hooded in somber recollection. "The family curse manifests differently for those who are affected. It doesn't affect everyone, but we don't know why some people get it while others don't. Lolo Edgar had problems with letters. I have a great uncle whose voice gives out before he can finish singing a song. And it's not just a matter of getting tired or being unable to go past a certain time. He can't finish Happy Birthday, but he can sing up until the fifth verse of Don McLean's American Pie."

Paolo frowned, unable to wrap his head around the phenomena she was describing. Surely if Sharmaine was making this up, she would choose a more effective curse, a more sinister curse. But what kind of curses are these? They were ludicrously specific.

"Why is your family cursed? Who cursed you?"

Sharmaine sighed, this time pulling out a thin binder. She opened it to news clippings and photographs. "My grandfather's youngest uncle tried his luck in the burgeoning archeological movement of the Philippines in the mid-twentieth century. A lot of the most successful archeological projects at that time were headed by Americans. But Alberto Catindig believed that Filipinos deserved to participate in the discovery of our heritage too. I mean, it's our heritage."

She pushed towards him a faded black-and-white picture of a middle-aged man garbed in soiled work clothes, standing by a shabby stilt hut. He was flanked with younger men and women, all Filipinos, each holding shovels or pick-axes. There was a wide hole on the other side of the hut, falling off the frame of the picture.

"His projects mostly failed for lack of both funding and interest among fellow Filipinos. But he did make one discovery." Sharmaine showed a photograph of several large jars filled with gold jewellery and precious stones, finely crafted knives and combs, bundles of textiles, and...

"Are those bones?" Paolo was hardly able to keep his voice low.

"In pre-colonial times, the bones of the deceased, especially those of high status, were exhumed and stored in jars with their precious possessions, before being buried. These aren't simply 'bones.' They make up an entire skeleton."

Although the air-conditioned interior of the library had been refreshing when he and Sean had first stepped in, Paolo now found it to be uncomfortably cold. Goosebumps rose on his arms and neck. "Are you saying whoever this person was, that they were the one who cursed your family?"

"It's very likely, though not definitive. Great-uncle Alberto disappeared soon after. Nobody knows what happened to him. But," she leaned closer to Paolo and softened her voice even more. "There's a story in my family that Lolo Edgar's wife, Lola Honora, went to an albularyo. You know what that is?"

Paolo did, as he'd been to one himself. Back when he was a kid and had suffered consistent nightmares for unknown reasons, his parents had sent him to a traditional faith healer. He remembered most the darkened room he sat in, the myriad of crucifixes attached to the walls, the low-burning candles, the jar filled with hot oil, and the whites of the egg swimming in it. The older woman, the albularyo, had stared at the jar and deduced a reason for his nightmares by the shape of the slowly cooking egg.

Religiosity may be widespread in the Philippines, but even though the Catholic church deemed divination a heresy, these practices continued to proliferate. Not even Paolo's own father, a smart and educated accountant, had fully suspended his belief in these traditional modes of healing despite deriding old "superstitions" and "magic" just the previous night. When push came to shove, many Filipinos still turned to folk healing as a last -- or oftentimes, the more affordable -- resort.

"Lola Honora asked her what was wrong with her husband's letters. The albularyo had a vision of a great, ancient entity. It was wailing with sorrow and agitation, and kept saying something. In English, it's like, 'You who disturbed me, let the sun set, let the day end.'"

Sharmaine sat back again in her chair, while Paolo crossed his arms and allowed the words to sink into his mind. It was easy to make a connection between this entity and the person that had been uncovered by the archeological dig. Supposing they were one and the same, the words the albularyo heard very likely meant that the spirit wanted to have the lid back over their burial jar, to have the soil cover their remains once again. It wanted to be laid back to rest.

Then Paolo's mind offered a new realization, a stark pattern. What he once assumed were strange, unrelated phenomena, the curses resolved themselves into a single, overarching theme of punishment. Discontinuity. Endings perpetually lost to space and time, closures forever withheld. Nobody knew of Alberto's fate. Letters to and from Edgar never reached their destinations. Sharmaine's uncle never hit the final notes of his songs, and Sharmaine herself could never write 'the end.'

Paolo heaved a weighty exhale. Sumpa, a curse. A real one, present here in modern day Canada. He could hardly believe it.

"What are you gonna do?"

Of all the near-impossible questions he had asked the past few minutes, this one seemed to take Sharmaine by surprise.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"How will you break the curse?"

She waved her hand as if that possibility didn't even exist. As if it, too, had been lost to the curse. "There's nothing we can do. The box that stored the skeleton fell in the Pasig River during transportation. Those bones must be at the bottom of the ocean by now. And the rest of the artifacts were sold off to a wealthy family who owned a steel manufacturing company in Manila."

Sharmaine brought out a scan of a pamphlet from the 60s and pointed to a surname there. "The Viray family used to fancy themselves as private collectors. Their fortunes crashed during the Marcos dictatorship and there's no way to contact them anymore. They have likely sold off their private collections too."

"So... what about your stories?"

"It doesn't really matter much to me," Sharmaine admitted, though Paolo wasn't sure she was all that convinced. She gave him a small smile. "There are so many things that are unattainable for so many people. I can hardly complain about not being able to pursue a... what, middling career in fiction? There are other futures for me. I'm thinking about being a chef, maybe starting my own restaurant chain here."

Her words held truth, but Paolo couldn't shrug the feeling that this couldn't be it. Surely there was something more to be done. But just as he was settling in for some good, deep thinking, Sean walked through the doors of the library, a tray of iced cappucinos in one hand, and a basket of timbits in the other.

---

Paolo was occupied by the thought of the curse for the next few days, though he wasn't sure why. Sharmaine and her family seemed inured to it, taking it in stride and finding a way to live their lives around it. If she wasn't bothered, why should he be?

And yet he was. Paolo couldn't deny that. Especially when he stared at the mess of unfilled application forms on his desk that seemed to taunt him. They posed a question, and the fact that he didn't have an answer made him feel as if his fate too was suspended by the Catindig curse, as if it had rubbed off on him when he met Sharmaine. The days passed with the promise of a thousand possibilities, but with an omen that none of them would change his life for the better.

One day, Paolo found himself rummaging through the basket of junk mail his family stored, trying to find coupons for Pizza Hut. His fingers hit a stack of hard paper, thicker than the others, and he pulled out a bound collection of passes for downtown Toronto attractions. They were family passes for the summer, and included free entrances for children, and discounted tickets for those above the age of 12. CN Tower, Casa Loma, The Art Gallery of Ontario, The Royal Ontario Museum, and Toronto Zoo.

Tossed in the basket just below where he found the passes were glossy pamphlets detailing each of the attractions. Paolo was about to toss the bundle of papers back, when something caught his eye. A word. A name.

He lifted one of the pamphlets, and there, written in small font for the ad for the ROM was the line, "The new Southeast Asian exhibition features one-of-a-kind 15th century Philippine artifacts from the personal collection of Juanita Viray."

Viray. Wasn't that the name of the family who bought Alberto Catindig's archeological findings? But there were plenty of Virays from the Philippines. How was he sure this Juanita was even related to them?

Paolo browsed through the pamphlet and landed on a section that displayed some of the artifacts one could find in the new Southeast Asian exhibition. His stomach fell away when he recognized one of the jars sitting in a glass case in the photograph. It was of the same shape, held the same swirls near its mouth as the one he'd seen from Sharmaine's picture. It was possible that 15th-century burials jars were all the same, but the other thing that he recognized was the bejewelled knife sitting beside the jar. It was also the same one as he saw in her picture.

There were three coincidences now: the name of the collector, the burial jar, and the knife. What were the chances that some other unrelated Viray was able to get a hold of a jar and a knife that looked the same as the ones Alberto Catindig had dug up?

Paolo rushed back to his room and called Sharmaine. He explained what he'd discovered, and the discounted passes that could lead them there.

"But what are we going to do in the museum?" she asked.

"I... I don't know," he admitted. His brain hadn't absorbed the situation enough to actually form a plan. "Pray over them?"

She agreed it was worth a try. Paolo asked his sisters if they wanted to go to the museum and, relieved that neither did, he tore out two passes for The ROM for himself and Sharmaine. Once again uneasy that his parents might be suspicious that he was going out alone with a girl, he pulled out a third pass and called his friend, Andy, who had now finished with math camp.

The three of them hopped onto a southbound bus that took them down to Pape Station, which was along the Bloor-Danforth subway line. From there, it was just a matter of switching subways a few times until they came up from Museum station, and the old, gothic style architecture of The ROM was just outside.

"What's the sudden interest?" Andy asked. He was a tall boy with the kind of presence that took up the breathable air in a room. He probably knew that and used it to his advantage, which was why the debate team in their junior high school loved him so much. It had left him so little time for math, however, that it made his parents, in turn, not love him as much. Or so he joked. But although he was willing to humour his parents' over-zealousness for the subject, it was baffling to Andy why they seemed intent to pit him against the other Chinese boys in the neighbourhood, when most of them were recent immigrants, while his family had arrived from Shanghai in the late 1800s.

"I just thought it would be good to see the Southeast Asian exhibit. You know, get in touch with my roots and all that," Paolo equivocated. He wished he could share what he knew about the Catindig curse with Andy and Sean, but it wasn't his secret to tell. And he wasn't sure if they would even believe him.

Andy turned to Sharmaine, "If you miss the Philippines, Little Manila is a bit northwest of here. And I hear you can now get The Filipino Channel on satellite, if that's your thing. How are you adjusting, anyway?"

Sharmaine gave a shy smile. "They say it's hot here in August, but I wear long-sleeves when I go to sleep."

"No way! It's been 25 the past few nights!"

"That's typically what we consider cold weather in my hometown," she chuckled.

Andy barked a laugh. "I can't wait to hear what you think when it dips below 10."

The three of them entered The ROM. The building was actually under construction, huge swaths of it being renovated to have a more modern look, but the remaining parts in the old building were still open for visitors. They approached the counter where a young man waited, looking bored. It didn't take long for Paolo to find out why. As they exchanged their passes for tickets inside, he discovered that the ROM was probably the least visited attraction in the family pass bundle. Hardly anyone was there with them.

They wandered around the museum at a leisurely pace, although there was an itch beneath Paolo's feet that was hurrying him along to the Philippine exhibit. Still, he tamped it down, and allowed Andy ample of time to browse through the indigenous clothes and boats and household items, and then the western European paraphernalia of the early pioneers, and then on the next level, a plethora of fossils of prehistoric animals.

Sharmaine seemed to be enjoying herself too. She read the printed texts on every wall and counter with rapt attention. And while Paolo tried to do the same, he knew he would hardly remember any of it by the time they exited the building.

It was some time later when they arrived at the world section of the museum, and they found the Southeast Asian exhibit tucked into a little corner. It reminded Paolo, ironically, of the national bookstores in the Philippines that would display Filipino material in a little shelf, surrounded by larger shelves filled with books that hailed from other corners of the world.

Paolo and Sharmaine gravitated towards the glass case enshrining the burial jar. With her wide-eyed stare and lips slightly apart, he knew that she recognized the artifacts too. She leaned her face close to the glass, then pulled out the same picture she showed him the other day from a pocket on her sling bag.

"It's the same, isn't it?" Paolo asked.

She nodded.

"What are the chances that all burial jars looked the same back then?"

Sharmaine's head snapped up. "Very, very slim. They didn't mass produce those jars, you know. Each one had to be sculpted by hand, and if the person being buried is nobility, it will likely have symbols that represented the kind of life this person lived." She tapped the glass case close to the knife. "And the knife is exactly the same too. Not even a missing pearl from the handle."

Paolo looked about him, but other than Andy, there was nobody else in this section. He slid his backpack off his shoulders, and took out a bottle of Holy Water and two rosaries. The Holy Water was from a house blessing kit provided by St. John's parish. With only an apartment to bless, his family had never finished a single bottle, much less the five they now owned. The kit also came with little tea candles, but Paolo had figured it would be much too dangerous to light one in a museum, so he brought along a battery-operated one.

"Here," he passed Sharmaine one of the rosaries. "Maybe one full round?"

She nodded, and he flicked open the tea candle. He twisted the cap off of the Holy Water bottle, and before he could second-guess himself too much, he sprinkled a few drops on top of the case.

"What the heck are you guys doing?" Andy squeaked, suddenly appearing beside Paolo, when just a few moments ago, he was checking out the Japanese swords at the opposite side of the section. "Wh-what is this?"

"We're praying," Paolo said, showing the rosary. "We... well, this is actually a burial jar, so we thought it was fitting."

Andy's eyes narrowed, squinting at the bottle of Holy Water, the fake candle, and the rosaries. "Hey, you brought those along with you. You were intending to do this all along. What's the deal? Why didn't you tell me? And what is it for?"

Paolo was saved from answering, when Sharmaine herself handed Andy the pictures from Alberto Catindig's dig. "My great grand-uncle was actually the first one to dig these artifacts up, see?" Andy took the pictures and his eyes grew round. "Paolo's just helping me to pay my respects, so to speak."

"Oh crap, your ancestor was a tomb raider," Andy said. He glanced at the drops of water on the glass case and grimaced. "That's not gonna melt the glass, is it?"

"Only if the glass was crafted by the devil," Paolo said.

"Okay, okay, do your cross-thingy. I'll go stand watch before anyone interrupts your exorcism. But hurry up! This might be more fun than math camp, but I don't wanna get into trouble!"

Paolo exchanged a glance with Sharmaine, and with an almost imperceptible nod from her, they crossed themselves and began their prayers silently.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. I believe in God, the Father Almighty...

Then the Lord's Prayer. Three Hail Mary's. Glory Be. The Lord's Prayer again. The first decade. And on and on they went, following the beads on the rosary, until they circled back to the crucifix, and ended with the Hail Holy Queen.

After crossing themselves again, they stood there in the stillness. Paolo waited for some sign, some intuition that something had changed. But nothing felt different. Slowly, he pulled from his bag the story that he and Sharmaine worked on the first time they met. He unfolded the piece of paper, and he couldn't help the stab of disappointment when he saw that half the page was still faded away. Had he truly expected for the ending to return? Perhaps the old stories would never get their endings back, but the new ones wouldn't disappear.

Paolo looked up at Sharmaine and found her wiping away the beads of Holy Water on the case with her handkerchief. "We'll see if anything changes," she said, handing him back his bottle, candle and rosary. "It was worth a try anyway. Thanks for helping me."

He turned around only to find Andy squatting at the very end of the rectangular case, peering at a plaque.

"Juanita Viray," he mumbled. "Where have I heard of that?"

Paolo ambled over to him. "She's the private collector who donated these."

"Well, yes, of course, but I feel like I've heard of it somewhere else."

"Not math camp, though, right? That would be weird."

"No, no, not there. I think--" he gasped and snapped his fingers. His eyes gleamed when he looked at Paolo and Sharmaine. "Want a detour at Chapters?"

---

The closest Chapters Indigo was only a few blocks away, and the three teens headed there after finishing their circuit of the museum. It was a little past 1pm, and the sun was shining fiercely. Paolo and Andy treated Sharmaine to hotdogs from a little stall on the sidewalk and a large styrofoam container of poutine from a bright orange food truck parked just at the corner of Bloor.

"What wizardry is this?" Sharmaine gasped as she gobbled down strands of french fries oozing with melted cheese curds and hot gravy.

"Lo and behold, the pride and joy of French Canadians," Andy said, twisting his own fork with a healthy helping of fries.

By the time they entered the large two-floored bookstore, all three were full and satiated and could fully appreciate the blast of cold air-conditioning inside the building. Andy wove through the shelves, leading Paolo and Sharmaine to the non-fiction section. On one of the display tables was a stack of books. The cover was shiny, and Paolo could tell that the interior would be filled with glossy, expensive pages.

"Juanita Viray," Andy declared, pointing to the name written near the bottom. "I knew it was familiar! The author was doing a signing for her book in Scarborough Town Center a couple of months ago."

Paolo browsed through the topmost book on the stack. The interior was formatted like a magazine, with every other page featuring stunning full-paged images of lakes and mountains, while the opposite only had small sections of texts with lots of negative space. "She's a photographer," he noted.

"Even better," Andy said, flipping to the back page where a short author biography was written. "She's a Canadian. Has been for some time, it seems."

Paolo looked at the back page too. There was a picture of Juanita Viray, an old woman with only white in her hair. Wrinkles crowded the edges of her eyes and her smile. She came to Canada in the early 90s and spent the last decade traveling and photographing Canadian nature. Now, she lived in quiet retirement in Liberty Village, Toronto.

"It's not far from here, maybe 30, 40 minutes if you ride the streetcar," Andy said. "Just in case, you know, you want to ask her about what you saw in the museum."

---

Going to a museum was one thing, trying to meet a retired photographer an entirely different thing. Paolo was on the fence about pursuing the lead with Juanita Viray, but after a few days of checking to see if the curse had lifted after their prayer at the museum, Paolo and Sharmaine discovered that it was still very much in tact.

He didn't know why, but he was also besieged with the irrational fear that because Juanita Viray was old, there was a chance she might pass away before they could meet her. Although she lived just downtown, it didn't seem likely that they would have the opportunity to visit her once school started next week. And a lot could happen in ten months.

Paolo found the perfect excuse to visit Juanita when his older sister, Hannah, decided she wanted to spend a day exploring the University of Toronto downtown campus. She wanted to see how far her classes were from each other, where she could get lunch, which subway stations and streetcar stops were closest, and knowing her, she probably wanted to bask in the smell of higher education.

But he told his parents he wanted to go with her. He broached the idea that he could bring Sharmaine along, bracing himself for a certain reprimand that he was hanging out too much with this new girl, but Hannah actually approved of the idea and said she also wanted to spend some time with Sharmaine.

In typical Hannah fashion, spending time meant doing their own thing together. She generously paid for a grande-sized frapuccino for each of them, and she spent their downtown commute reading a new manga called Tsubasa. She did, however, scribble down in a notepad when they got on and off each bus and subway transfer.

"I was thinking Sharmaine and I could explore a bit on our own too," Paolo said as they climbed up the stairs of St. George subway station, and found themselves at the southern edge of the bustling UofT campus.

"Sure, just keep your phone open," Hannah said, already unfolding her map. "Let's meet up back here at, say... 1:30 for a late lunch?"

"Sounds good to me."

"Thanks so much for taking us downtown, Ate Hannah," Sharmaine said. Hannah smiled, and waved farewell to them, before cutting through the yard between two large buildings.

Paolo and Sharmaine couldn't use the public transit transfers to re-enter the same station they got the transfers from, so they walked a bit to Spadina, took the streetcar south to Queen Street, switched to a westbound streetcar and remained there until it curved around Roncesvalles.

Juanita Viray lived in an old, narrow townhouse with vines creeping up the walls. But the front yard was well swept and potted plants with colourful blooms brightened up the space.

Before they had set the date for the visit, Paolo had managed to find Juanita's phone number from the Yellow Pages, as it seemed she still offered photography services from time to time. They had conversed on the phone, with Paolo being quite upfront that he wanted to speak about the artifacts she had donated to the ROM specifically. Juanita had seemed reluctant at first, but as soon as Paolo mentioned he had a friend named Sharmaine Catindig, she had a change of heart and agreed to meet with them.

Paolo knocked on the door, and a few moments later it opened. A short woman, less than five feet tall, peered up at them through round thick-lensed glasses. Her white hair was swooped up into a bun. She was garbed in a loose plaid blouse and a matching knee-length pants. She had the slight bearing someone could expect of a person nearing 70, but her clear and direct approach to them gave her an air of someone younger.

"Paolo and Sharmaine, I take it?" she asked. Her voice held the softened Tagalog accent of Filipinos still fluent in the language, but now mostly spoke English. At their nods, she widened the door and waved them inside. "It's so nice to meet you, please come inside!"

"Good day po, Mrs. Viray," Paolo greeted, reaching for her hand.

But she laughed and fluttered her hands. "Oh, no need for mano. How polite of you both. In any case, you already have my blessing to come, that's good enough for me."

Her house was dim, given the narrow space for sunlight to filter in, but somehow it didn't lack coziness. The walls were painted a warm beige, and the curtains were a jolly floral pattern. The scent of pastry permeated the air, only mildly masking the scent of cheap drug-store perfume, which only made the house feel even more lived in.

Paolo and Sharmaine took their shoes off at the foyer, and he couldn't help noticing that there were only two pairs of footwear on the rack. One pair of sandals and one pair of loafers, both the same size.

"You live by yourself, Mrs. Viray?" he asked.

"Yes, I prefer the quiet. But no need to worry, my son and his family live just an hour away in Ajax, and they come by every weekend." Juanita ushered them into the living room, inviting them to take a seat. "I'm warming up some apple turnovers for us. What would you like to drink? Coke? Water?"

"Water's fine for me," Sharmaine answered, and Paolo said the same, the sweetness of the frapuccino he'd ordered still lingering on his tongue.

Juanita came back with a plate of apple turnovers and some paper towels, then made another trip to the kitchen for a couple glasses of water. Once she'd settled herself on the seat opposite the couch, she began, "Sharmaine Catindig, I'm assuming that you're related to Alberto Catindig? The man who led the dig for the artifacts that ended up in my family's possession?"

"That's correct," Sharmaine said, politely taking one of the turnovers. "Paolo and I wanted to ask for more information about them."

"Ah, I'm happy to share what I know, but I'm afraid that it isn't much," Juanita admitted. "I married into the family, you see, and my husband was only a distant cousin of the main Viray branch who bought the artifacts. I only inherited them quite recently, and only what was left in the family's possessions. I heard that they pawned off much of the gold and other jewelleries during hard times." She heaved a sigh, as if reluctant to continue. "To be honest, I was unsure whether I wanted to accept. I've heard that bad luck falls upon the family who keeps the artifacts."

"Bad luck?" Sharmaine echoed.

Juanita nodded. "Thieves breaking into houses and stealing. Someone's bank account got accessed by a conman and their lifesavings were withdrawn. And of course, there was the case of poor Felipe. After being a bachelor for so long, he finally secured an engagement, only for someone to reveal that he was secretly... what's the word young ones use these days, 'gay'?" Juanita shook her head. "You might see a lot of gay celebrities now in the Philippines, but back then it was such a scandal. And I say, even now, although Filipino society is more tolerant of them, they're still not quite accepted."

The circumstances she described wasn't quite the same as the curses that the Catindigs experienced, but it dawned on Paolo that the nature of this bad luck still reflected what happened to the disturbed soul. These misfortunes were all about breaches in privacy. The Virays' personal lives were unearthed for somebody else to take advantage of.

"My family has endured a lot of misfortune too," Sharmaine shared. "I'm curious if you know of a way to stop this from continuing."

"Honestly, the family has thought of destroying the artifacts, but a lot of us have had misgivings about it. It seemed like the wrong solution. Or not a solution at all. And, of course, some of them held enough value to keep the family afloat after being pawned off."

Sharmaine glanced at Paolo, before venturing on. "Actually, I think you're correct. Destroying them might be the wrong move. See, my grandmother consulted an albularyo once." She proceeded to tell Juanita about the vision of the albularyo, and the instructions of the entity to 'let the sun set, let the day end.' "I was actually thinking if you had ever tried to re-bury the artifacts."

"Re-bury them..." Juanita mused. She seemed a bit disturbed by the morbid news, but didn't appear to disbelieve Sharmaine. "I have not tried that, though I admit that this is the first time I've heard about the spirit and that message. A few months after I received the artifacts, I decided to donate them to the ROM. I figured, I'm in a new country, a country that's advanced and secular. Surely, if there was something supernatural about those artifacts, it wouldn't work here."

"Did you donate all the pieces?" Paolo asked. "Perhaps we can just try Sharmaine's idea. See if it works."

Juanita lifted a finger. "I do have something that the ROM declined. Wait a moment." She shuffled off upstairs to her room, but returned not even a minute later with a bundle wrapped in fine, shiny abaca. She placed it on the chair and unwrapped the abaca slowly. Inside was something gray and tattered, and it took a while for Paolo to guess that it must have been one of the textiles he'd seen from Sharmaine's pictures of the contents of the jars.

"This wasn't well-maintained," Juanita said. "The ROM told me that it wouldn't look good in the display shelves, and they could use the space for something else."

"Would it be all right with you to bury it?" Sharmaine asked.

Juanita tilted her head, pondering. "I don't know if any cemetery will accept this. But there is a shallow pit in my backyard. The previous owners probably wanted to install a fairy pond of some sort, but the only thing they placed in there was a steel basin of water. By the time I came, it only attracted flies. We could use that."

Much like her frontyard, Juanita's backyard was also small but neat. It was bordered on all three sides with a tall wooden fence. Along the eastern fence, a line of pink and purple flowers grew, the names of which Paolo didn't know. There was a maple tree on the far corner, and a little off to its side was the pit that Juanita was talking about.

"There's a bag of gardening soil in the closet just beside the door to the backyard," Juanita informed them. Paolo went to fetch it, and by the time he joined Juanita and Sharmaine by the pit, they had already lowered the abaca wrapper and the old textile it contained into it. The only thing left for him to do was cover the hole with soil.

They stood back, watching the makeshift grave. Leaves rustled in the late summer wind, and playful shrieks and shouts emanated from the other townhouse units further down.

"Maybe we should say a prayer?" Juanita suggested. "Give me a moment, I have a prayer book in my room."

She returned with a little book the size of her palm, and Paolo recognized it as one of those bound collections women usually sold near churches in the Philippines. Juanita rifled through it until she found the prayer she was looking for.

"Lord Jesus Christ, by your own three days in the tomb, you hallowed the graves of all who believe in you and so made the grave a sign of hope that promises resurrection even as it claims our mortal bodies. Grant that our sibling may sleep here in peace until you awake them to glory, for you are the resurrection and the life. Then they will see you face-to-face and in your light will see light and know the splendor of God, for you live and reign for ever and ever."

The three of them finished with "Amen."

There was no sudden rush of wind, no clapping lightning or thunder, but the void stillness Paolo had felt back in the museum was not the same atmosphere that greeted him this time. There was... something. Like a tickle at the back of his awareness, a subtle shifting of the ground that he couldn't quite put into words. He patted his pants pocket and pulled out the same story he and Sharmaine had worked on.

With trembling fingers, he unfolded the paper, and his breath rushed out of him.

The story was still not complete, not yet anyway, but it was beginning to. Ink was bleeding back into the lines that a few days ago were completely blank. Seeing those words, the ending bloomed back into his mind, as if it had always been there and had been merely covered by a veil.

"I think it's working," he whispered, voice wobbly with awe.

Sharmaine sidled up to him, watching as the words slowly, but surely, appeared on the page. Her eyes were misty, her voice hoarse when she replied, "I should go check all my other notebooks. I think I... I think I'm remembering all the endings I wrote."

Juanita hadn't known about the curse, but seeing what was happening on the piece of paper, she probably concluded that their burial triggered an end to some long struggle. Her face settled into a peaceful understanding.

"I think your hunch about re-burying the artifacts is right all along," she said. "I can apply to retrieve the others from the museum, and I'll see to it that they get properly buried as well. I don't know if we'll ever be able to gather all of the other items from the burial jars, but I'll talk to my son and see what we can do."

"Mrs. Viray, I can't thank you enough." Sharmaine reached for the old woman's hands and clasped them tight. "Thank you for granting us this opportunity. Thank you for holding on to at least one of the artifacts. At least we got our answer."

Their departure from Juanita's home was a heartfelt one, and as Paolo and Sharmaine rode back up to campus, she repeated the same words to him.

"You didn't have to get yourself involved," she told him. "And that's why I'm doubly thankful to you. Because you didn't have to do anything, but you did. Thanks, Paolo."

And just like the first time she ever thanked him, Paolo could only shyly mumble a stupid response. "It's nothing."

---

It wasn't nothing, as the passing days proved. Every day, he would get a short text from Sharmaine, updating him which of her stories' endings re-appeared. True, they were illegible, since the stories in her notebooks were packed so close together, that the space where the endings reappeared overlapped the beginnings of the newer ones. But Sharmaine didn't particularly care about a single story she had written when she was 11 or 12. The fact that she could now finish writing any story was the real triumph.

Paolo couldn't help but marvel at how the curse had unraveled here, of all places. This little Toronto district didn't feel like the kind of place where magical things happened, where people discovered and broke curses several generations old. He couldn't believe he even had a hand in it at all, him who was listless and lacking in curiosity.

"I suppose you're going to take a creative writing class this year," Paolo said, talking on the phone with Sharmaine.

"Is it strange to say I'm scared?" Sharmaine chuckled. "What if I still can't finish stories, and I don't have the curse to blame this time?"

Paolo laughed, and just for the fun of it, he switched to Tagalog. "You'll learn. You've had more practice writing endings than most writers, I imagine."

She seemed taken aback by his switch. "Not worried about Marielle anymore?"

Paolo considered, and found that he truly wasn't. After a couple of weeks preoccupied with a curse that engendered loss and incapabilities, it seemed laughable to him that he would purposely degrade a skill that so many other people spent hours and money just to learn.

"No, not worried at all."

"How about you? Have you thought of which electives you're going to take?"

Paolo glanced at his tidy desk, a single application form sitting on it. It was all filled out now, and he would be submitting it to the office tomorrow. "Actually, I won't have any electives. I've applied to the multimedia program, so my timetable will be pretty much set for me."

"Look at you! Multimedia program, huh? Perhaps I'll take one of the graphics courses then. We could be partners for a project, or something."

"Yeah, we could be." He smiled. "Recent experience tells me we'll be good at it."

The End