Ligaya said she had a bad feeling about the three unmarked packages they found outside their rickety shanty on the outskirts of Manila. Her husband Poloy, however, had already made up his mind.
“If they cut our power next month, I’ll blame your delusions here, you pig!”
Despite her protests, Poloy still brought them inside—three more boxes of fuel to add to the fire she already lit up earlier by wanting to see a dentist.
“Here are your tributes, Princess Ligaya!” he dumped the packages in their prison cell of a living room, already a luxury in their impoverished compound.
Still sitting there was the mess of the half-excavated box of treats from their son Roddy, now a Canadian citizen. That one arrived last night, two months too late for Christmas, but nevertheless delighted Ligaya with its feast of new clothes, canned goods, and sweets.
They all just disappointed Poloy, however, none of them as satisfying as the crisp Canadian dollar bills their son didn’t send much of this time.
“Probably saving up for his fifth car,” he scoffed.
Ligaya called him an ingrate. Poloy called her a bitch. Then they fought the rest of the night away, a tradition they’ve had since drinking their way into parenthood in highschool.
“You even bought all that makeup last month!” he ripped into her as he ripped open one of the dreadful new arrivals, much to her horror. “And for what? You know that face is unfixable, you old hag!”
The first box contained a hammer. The couple was stumped.
Ligaya felt the mockery of fate, a shrill laughter that rattled her bones.
“What the hell is this?” her husband turned over the stained hammer.
“Well—” she stammered thinking of a bright spot, “—our roof does need some repairs.”
“And you want my rheumatic ass to get up there? If you can afford these delusions, then you can afford paying some of the bums around the neighborhood to do it!”
“I told you I didn’t buy these!”
“Well, if not you or Roddy, then where else would all these junk come from? The tooth fairy?”
Poloy snorted at his own wit. He began to say never mind, his witch of a wife was too old to grow new teeth anyway, but stopped mid-sentence after getting the second box open.
Inside was a handheld mirror.
“You vain, wrinkly bitch!”
Ligaya flinched as Poloy threw the empty box at her face.
The distant snickering turned into a hiss.
“Wake me up when lunch is ready,” Poloy spat, slamming the door to the bedroom. It was like clockwork, this lifelong routine of his—these morning outbursts before taking their taxi out by noon, then taking his frustrations out on her at night.
Ligaya cursed her long-gone in-laws for their terrible parenting, her own daily routine.
She surveyed the filthy jungle that was their shack, and the random gifts from nowhere still at her feet. She could hear them calling out to her: giggling, hissing, murmuring.
Overcome with curiosity, Ligaya tore the last box open. It had a passport, with visa and a plane ticket to Canada, departing tonight.
Her name was on all of them.
Ligaya lowered herself to the floor, her mind foggy.
Surely, these were from Roddy, right? But why not call first to mention it?
And… a hammer?
Amid the bewilderment, Ligaya ended up fixating on her new dingy mirror.
It showed her that the swelling Poloy gave her right eye last night didn’t look so bad after all. Nothing a little makeup couldn’t hide, no big deal; stung a lot less than usual, too.
Maybe the grumpy bastard was finally getting older.
Her teeth were not as fortunate, though, the yellowing one in the middle nearly cracked in half. She’d have to keep her face down while haggling with fish vendors later.
Or—if Poloy actually lets her go to Canada—at least until her son treats her to the magic of their healthcare.
Of course once he sees his mother’s teeth, Roddy might just fly all the way back home first to kill his father.
The thought made Ligaya smile her fractured smile.
Then she noticed veiny, wrinkly hands crawling over her shoulders.
Her body went cold.
Ligaya ran for the bedroom but her legs dropped her to the floor, stiff and numb and recoiling from the bony fingers grasping at them from below.
A scream rose out of her throat; it came out a whimper.
Little by little, her new mirror rose in front of her, guided by her own left hand convulsing out of control. Reflected on it was her sweaty face, wide-eyed and aghast, next to that of a disheveled old woman pressing up against her cheek.
The hag’s mouth stretched open, swarms and swarms of teeth peeking from behind crinkly black lips.
Ligaya felt sweat trickling down her temple.
The elderly ghoul wiped it off with one skinless finger, then cheerfully buried it inside Ligaya’s mouth.
Vomit flooded the back of her throat.
Her body as cold as a corpse, Ligaya could only close her eyes and grimace as the bony maggot wriggled around her tongue, her teeth, and the wobbly crack in the middle. The taste of decay stained every spot it touched.
Goosebumps spread across her face.
Then one finger at a time, she felt her hand wrapping around something solid and heavy on the floor.
It was that damn hammer.
Ligaya steeled herself; her lips to the lord and all the angels, she imagined swinging at the thing on her back, then running to the bedroom like mad to wake her husband up.
But those thoughts were drowned out by a musky breath gurgling into her ears:
“You’re welcome.”
The finger slithered out of Ligaya’s mouth, then nudged her chin toward the door.
Snores leaked out from the other side; adorable music when she was a lovestruck teenager, now an irritation as if nothing was wrong in their world.
She felt heat creeping back into her.
Ligaya glanced at the mirror. The hairy grandmother was now floating near the ceiling, beaming, holding out a tiny yellow bead.
The tooth that Poloy broke off with his fist last night.
The hag snickered.
Then her entire head split open like a wound. Thousands and thousands of teeth blossomed out—spiky ones, dull ones, cracked, yellowing, blackened—a rotting pumpkin riddled with seeds.
She pressed her newest tooth among them, giggling like a goat.
Then, squishing and squelching, her head glued itself back whole again, ripped skin on top of torn flesh, until only a single wrinkly scar ran down her hideous face.
The hag’s reflection stared back at Ligaya and smiled her fractured smile.
A lump went down Ligaya’s throat. She was still shivering but now, a lot less from fear. She nodded back.
“You’re welcome.”
She tiptoed to the door and tipped it open. Poloy was sprawled all over the bed, deep in slumber. Her eyes darted back to the mirror.
Her guest was gone.
Poloy burst out laughing in her head, how she imagined he would react once told of everything that had happened.
“You’ve totally lost it!”
Ligaya wondered if he might be right. Like her fondness for cosmetics, or her dreams of a nicer house in the slums, her tooth fairy could have been just another one of her delusions.
She ran her tongue over her teeth and felt the disquieting gap in the middle—every bit as surreal as the idea of going to Canada and seeing her son again after so long.
“Another delusion of Princess Ligaya!”
She gripped the hammer tighter and stepped into the bedroom.
Well, even if he was right, she might as well enjoy this one.
Arvee Fantilagan grew up in the Philippines, lives in Japan, and has more of his works at sites.google.com/view/arveef. He hopes to write a better bio someday.
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