Tamawo

Nadula is a boy living as a Timawa in the Visayan region of the Pre-Colonial Philippines. His father has been exiled by the new ruler of the Kedatuan, Datu Kalantiaw. Without his father, his mother is disgraced, and the loss weighs heavy on her heart. Nadula has never felt as alone as he does now, in the absence of his father and as his mother ceases to act like one. In his distraction, he makes a dreadful mistake that causes the Datu to banish him from the Kedatuan. He flees to the Kagulangan, an enchanted forest rumored to have menacing denizens. He expects to encounter the
monsters of myths, to be devoured by creatures of the dark. What he doesn't expect is to find a mysterious, shabby-looking girl who asks too many questions. As they converse, he suspects she is not as human as she seems. He thinks she may be a tamawo, one of the magical inhabitants of the forest. Ignoring the warnings his mother used to impose about tamawo, he finds himself confiding in the serene child. As they lie beneath the stars, he realizes that he had found what he least expected to find in the Kagulangan: a friend.