The Enchanted Forest of Mangga

14. Around the termite hill not through...

"I wished I could help you on your way home, but I still need to tend to some of my plants that I didn't get to earlier," Alonzo the kapre said. "Who knows what Mystica would do while I'm gone."

Bea, Ali, and Sez busied themselves chewing the saba the kapre grew from his own garden. If Alonzo had put more effort into cooking, he could have succeeded in making delicious food, but what he said, "Naw, I like eating my food by itself and raw."

Kaloy nodded. "It's much juicier that way, ain't it?"

Danaya rolled her eyes. "Good for the both of you. You two have found something common."

They have already finished eating their bananas, leaving the leftover banana peels. Alonzo insisted on giving him the banana peels for compost for his plants in the garden. Hearing his gardening skills, Sez expressed that he wanted to learn more from him.

"You can be my apprentice then," Alonzo said. "My back has been very stiff and I've been forgetting things a lot.

Sez and Ali had shared their stories from coming from a different country to arriving in the Philippines so that they could live with their grandfather and help him with his mango farm. They also explained how Danaya injured her wings, met Kaloy, and how he saved them from the mosquitoes from the tall grass. They didn't forget to plan their next adventure with Izzy, the water sprite. Alonzo also shared stories of other enkantos in the forest and the different factors of each of his flowers and plants in his Guiting Guiting garden. Danaya and Kaloy seemed to have a staring or glaring contest. While all of them were busy, Bea was lost in her thoughts. She was the odd one among her brothers. She wasn't as bright and brave as Ali or excited about the world as Sez. Bea was only known for being the only granddaughter of the family and the oldest who should take care of her brothers. Sometimes, she thinks she didn't have any to offer to her family. Moving away from her birthplace and into a country she hardly knows made it hard for her to fit in. How did her brothers go past that change?

"Bea, are you all right?" Danaya sensed the older girl's silence.

"Hm, yeah. I'm just full from eating bananas." Bea changed the subject. "Hey Alonzo, if you want to, do you want to try cooking? I don't know how to cook, but we could all learn."

Sez's face lit up. "Yeah! That would be fun! So fun!"

Alonzo smiled. "I would be delighted! Ah, it's so nice to have more friends to talk to instead of plants."

The sky was still gray, but it had not rained yet.

"Be careful on your way!" Alonzo waved at the group.

"Thanks for the bananas!" Ali shouted. He was in charge of carrying a sack of sabas in a sack behind his back. "Now we don't have to worry about snacks!"

"We'll come back next time!" Sez yelled.

Quietly, the group continued on to their journey. Danaya rubbed a tiny amount of the algae gel from the clam shell that Izzy gave to Bea onto her wings. Some of the itch on Bea's skin felt cool to the touch, and it didn't bother Bea as much. Bea had repeated to warn Sez not to let go of her hand, and Sez nodded. Ali just shook his head and led the way together with Kaloy.

"Okay, our next stop is the termite hill," Danaya said. "We should be near it."

"Oh why do I feel scared already at the mention of termites!" Kaloy said.

Ali laughed. "Kaloy why should you be scared. Just earlier, you gobbled hundreds of mosquitos in front of our eyes. I'm pretty sure termites would be a tasty treat for you."

Kaloy thought for a minute. "Yes, but a termite hill? It sounds very scary when you come face to face in front of their territory. They have a whole army underground!"

"If that happens, then we'll just have to run and you can eat all of them until you get full!" Ali teased the frog.

The frog chased after Ali.

"Hey don't go too far!" Bea said. She turned around and noticed Sez carried a thin tree branch and made a trail on the dirt. He was humming and feeling like being watched. "What?"

"Nothing," Bea said and squeezed her brother's hand softly.

Sez sniffed. "Your hand is sweaty."

"I'm still not letting go."

Sez pouted.

Danaya chuckled. After applying the algae onto her wings, Danaya returned the clam shell to Bea and hopped onto Sez's shoulder to perch. Sez looked sad.

"Will your wings heal?"

Danaya could only manage to move her wings a little bit, but a sharp pain came after that. "It will take some time, but it will heal once the mangoes do their magic." She patted Sez's ears for assurance, but it tickled Sez.

"I never knew mangoes have magic," Bea said. "I thought pixie dust was the source of your existence."

"Think that pixie dust is the mango's magic. The fruit glows brighter and when it does, the mango fairies glow and become as what we are now. It gives us life. Someday, when I become queen of Mangga, I hope to protect them more than my life."

"Your mother, Reyna Sampaguita? Do you think that your mother and my Lolo knew each other?"

Danaya smiled. "I think so. Like I said before, my mother told me stories about the human realm. As adventurous and reckless she is like me, I'm pretty sure your Lolo were good friends. I didn't know, but when I visited your Lolo's room, I left him a souvenir."

"A souvenir?"

"Yes. It was a mango from our enchanted forest and a sampaguita in remembrance of my mother."

Kaloy interrupted. "If you're a fairy princess, how come you came all the way out here instead of helping out in the enchanted forest?" They had met Kaloy and Ali who both had stopped to catch their breaths.

"Adventure!"

"Adventure, but you got yourself hurt. Serves you right," Kaloy said.

The mango fairy blew a raspberry.

"Anyway, I think we made it," Bea said as she pointed at the termite hill. The largest termite hill she had ever seen. The termite hill stood tall around twenty feet and its mound was wide like an enormous boulder and surrounding the termite hill was some sort of mud lake that bubbled. The termite hill had a form of an archway leading a tunnel inside.

"Do we go around it?" Bea said.

"It's faster if we go through it," Danaya said.

"No, no, no. We are not going through it. What if termites start to fall on us," Kaloy said, trembling at the thought.

"Then you can just eat them," Ali said. "Like what you did with the mosquitos."

"Halt! Who goes there?" an old voice called out from inside the termite hill. The group heard footsteps walking toward them with a crane. The figure had a hood over their head and their posture bent. The hood looked up at the group. A strand of silver-like threads escaped from the hood and fell to the person's waist. Her dark, crooked nose wiggled at the sight before her.

"Well, well, well," the witch cackled.

1235 words

13,301 words total

May 2, 2021