It was Jazer again.
This time it was while we were playing by the river. He told me I was an orphan and that my real parents hated me and I was better off dead.
He pushed me down the rocks and laughed as I tried to get up.
I took my bruised body after I was sure he left.
My parents tried to comfort me as best they could but I left out the part where he called me an orphan.
I didn’t want to see that look on their faces.
The one where they knew.
They never told me where I came from, but my blue eyes and light skin were testaments to how
different I was.
I was crying in my room when I heard them.
The hoofbeats.
Every person in Barrio Calindagan knows about the Lindag-lindag, the spirits that ride on white horses.
They were why the whole barangay was quiet.
I have seen them when they do their gallop around the area but I was too scared to go close.
But not this night.
I dried my tears and waited until my parents fell asleep.
I could still hear the hoofbeats outside and I took my chance.
They were smaller than I expected. The spirits guiding the horse pouring out like a mish mashed amalgamation of souls.
They stopped their trotting and looked me straight in the yes, the horses did at least.
I knew what I wanted.
There were rumors around town said by the Marites how you could ask a boon from the spirits but the price was steep.
You would have to be their eternal rider.
I didn’t care, no one would miss me.
The horse nodded at me, as if asking why I was there.
And everything spilled out.
I told them about Jazer, about being adopted, about revenge.
Jazer would be the first but definitely not the last.
The horses bowed to me and beckoned me to ride.
It was then I felt my very soul pulled in all imaginable directions.
I could hear the previous souls bound to the Lindag-lindag.
There was Reyna, beaten by her husband. After the miscarriage her cries to the horses were heard.
Felipe did not realize what he was asking. He just wanted to find his missing fiancé.
The horses lead him to her broken body, having fallen down a cliff.
What surprised me the most was the priest.
From what I could glean he was full of righteous fury.
Or at least he thought so.
He would listen to people’s confessions and he believed the only way to cleanse his flock from sin was to hand out retribution on his terms.
The man of God now rested silently on the side of the horse.
These stories meant nothing to me. I knew what I wanted.
My spirit fully coalesced into the next rider of the horses.
They could feel I was different, that I could direct their spirits stronger than other mortals they
bargained with.
The horses neighed as we rode to Jazer’s house.
It was the first step of my reckoning.
My soul be damned.
=——————————–=
Written by Karl Gaverza
Copyright © Karl Gaverza
Inspired by the Lindag-Lindag description in Negros Oriental and Siquijor Island Legends, Beliefs and Folkways. Aldecoa-Rodriguez. 2000.
Dawinde illustration by Marko Mikhal Gomez Deposoy