AtelierEos
【Written for the 8Letters June Writing Challenge】
Solaira "Soli" Saldarriega has come home three times. She never stayed.
The first two times, she had reasons. This time, her lola is in the ground, the house is full of relatives who keep asking when she's going back to Manila, and the ache in her hands hasn't stopped since the bus climbed past Baguio.
Aven "Ven" Ragasa is still here. Still rooted. Still the person the whole barangay calls when something needs fixing. She's watched Soli leave twice and she has no intention of watching it a third time.
There is a three at the edge of the Saldarriega property. It's old, older than the town, older than the family that's tended it, and something is wrong with it. Soli knows exactly what it is. She has known since she was seven-years-old, in the same way she has always known what she feels when Ven is in the room.
Two hundred years in a mountain town an hour past Baguio. Three generations of women who loved someone society said they couldn't. One debt that has been waiting a very long time to be paid, and only one way left to pay it.
Some things you inherit. Some things you have to come home and claim.