Granny's lightsabre quickly cut through the cement. Kashmira's Japanese friends removed enough cement for El Patrón to open the door and wriggle through. So did some rats. Apparently, they didn't approve of the patronic diet they were receiving. Kashmira's father looked terrible. He was wearing multiple layers of clothing, but still, bite marks on his hands, neck and face were visible.
"I need something for these bites."
"No, let them abscess," Kashmira replied.
# # # # # # # #
"She did what?" Melissa asked.
"Her father has capitulated," Stu began. "She put rats into the vault and they have been eating him when he slept. He has signed over his wealth to her and is ready to confess everything."
"She did what?" Melissa repeated.
"Kashmira wants to start interrogating her father before he changes his mind. She wondered if we had anybody who could do the job."
"She wants what?"
"Melissa, I can handle most of what Kashmira needs from here. We should be ready to celebrate her victory in about a week. Can you take care of getting everybody here?"
"We had a plan. What happened to the plan?"
Back to the Table of Contents
Chapter 51
Marie and Nary conducted El Patrón's interrogation that very afternoon. Both appeared with rats sitting on their shoulders and heads – Voodoo queens apparently have control over a number of different species. El Patrón couldn't give his interrogators enough help. Everything he said was taped. That evening he was sleeping in the jungle, restrained, and watched over by a pair of what he thought were large dogs. El Pervertido joined El Patrón in that outdoor prison camp that Monday evening. The wolves would continue to share in the guard duty up to the trial: one on guard, the other enjoying what nutritious goodies the Philippine jungle had to offer.
On Monday and Tuesday, the wealthy people that El Patrón had implicated in his crimes were taken under guard to the local police station. The Wilizy's Manila lawyer had arranged for a delegation of judges, prosecutors, and city bureaucrats from other cities in Southern Leyte to take over the city's government while justice was administered. Stu handled all of this behind the scenes. Some criminals did escape but that was because the area was too broad, and too jungle-dominated, for The Guardia to catch everybody.
Melissa arranged for the Wilizy/Europe to be positioned above Maasin City so that the Wilizy family could come and help Kashmira celebrate her victory. They also came so that they could hear her sing at a church service next Tuesday. El Patrón and El Pervertido would also attend the service as featured guests.
# # # # # # # #
With the Wilizy family starting to congregate above the skies of Maasin City, Doc decreed that the Wilizy/Asia was off limits to visitors in order to reduce the stress on Kashmira's body and emotions. She had been an energetic presence at the vault, but she paid a price for that the following two days. She remained in her bedroom, mostly sleeping. She came out of seclusion on Thursday, wearing her deerskin clothes and moving with the help of her sling. She had a small breakfast and retired to the sofa. Doc joined her there.
"Feeling better?"
"Yes. I was very angry with my father for what he did. Is he ready to be punished?"
"The interrogation is over. He has confessed. A judge will put him on trial."
"I need to confess for the hatred I was feeling. Is Isadoro in the city?"
"Yes. She is living in the church now that El Pervertido has been imprisoned."
"Can you take me to her? Do you mind flying around with nothing to do while you wait for me to finish my meetings?"
"You knew I was there?"
"I knew you wouldn't let me come to any harm. It'll be over soon. You won't have to guard me much longer."
# # # # # # # #
By Saturday, November 16, Kashmira was showing definite signs of improvement. She was still slinging everywhere, but her mood was up as was her appetite. She and Mathias made plans for another excursion for the Sunday.
That afternoon, Winnie came to the ship with a cryptic message to Kashmira from Isadoro. "Isadoro says that Tuesday's special church service will start at 10:00 a.m."
"Tell her that I will be there."
"Do you have to go to the church?" Doc asked. "You're barely mobile here in the ship."
"Yes, I need to be there. I have to sing."
On Sunday afternoon, Kashmira took a turn for the worse.
Back to the Table of Contents
Chapter 52
Sunday evening. Kashmira was sleeping in her bed. Doc and Granny were taking nursing shifts and Doc was summarizing Kashmira's status for Granny. "She's unconscious. Something in her body is failing. I don't know if I could rouse her if we needed her awake."
"Continue with the drip?"
"Yes, I've increased the strength. I don't know which bodily system is failing. I don't have the equipment to tell."
"Perhaps she's still recovering from her exertions at the vault?"
"I don't believe so. She had recovered from that. This is new. She's done nothing physical to bring this on. I don't understand it."
"Get some rest, Doc."
"The family?"
"They're all here and everybody knows about her health. Winnie will stay here with Mathias."
"God works in mysterious ways."
"We need one more mysterious way," Granny said.
# # # # # # #
Monday morning and afternoon. No change. Doc and Granny were still working two-hour shifts. Neither of them was sleeping in between. Doc used his time to search the Internet. Granny used hers to pray.
# # # # # # #
Late Monday evening.
"Does she feel cold to you?"
Doc felt Kashmira's forehead and then found a thermometer. "Body temperature is down." A moment later. "Heart is slow."
"Do you have any adrenaline?"
"Injecting it now. We need to keep her warm."
"Wrap her in blankets? We snuggle in too?"
"Yes."
# # # # # # #
At 3:10 early Tuesday morning, Kashmira's body shuddered briefly.
"She's gone, Doc. I felt her go."
"Her body shuddered. That's all. We can revive her." Doc ripped all the blankets off Kashmira's body and positioned the stethoscope over her heart. He repositioned it. And he repositioned it again.
"Doc, I felt her soul go. She's gone."
Doc threw the stethoscope to the floor. "It was as if all of her bodily systems went into failure at the same time. I couldn't do anything."
"Nobody could have saved her from this."
"We should cover her face."
...
"What's this thing in her hand?"
Doc pulled Kashmira's fingers open. "Piece of rock?"
Granny pulled it out and looked at it closely. "A small gargoyle. I wonder why she was holding it."
"We should put it back inside her hand. It obviously had some meaning to her."
...
Doc and Granny had left Kashmira in her bedroom, the white sheet covering her body. They were now outside in the hallway.
"What do we do now?" Granny asked.
"Kashmira's church is having a special service this morning at 10. Her father and her paterfamilias will be in attendance – I'm not sure why. Both go on trial Wednesday. Everybody knows that El Patrón is guilty. He confessed. The same for the paterfamilias. They don't need any of us at their trial. This woman Isadoro is in charge of everything at the church. She'll know what to do this morning."
"Should we tell the family about Kashmira's death at breakfast?"
"Not now, that's for sure." Doc sounded certain about that. He turned down the hall and headed for their bedroom. Every movement showed his age.
"What should we do about Mathias?" Granny asked. And what am I going to do about you, Doc?
"I need to sleep, Granny. I can't think." Doc was at the side of the bed and rolli
ng onto it.
That's called grief, Doc. Massive amounts of grief mixed with guilt. "Me too. Shall I set the alarm for 9?"
Doc was already asleep. Moments later, so was Granny.
Back to the Table of Contents
Chapter 53
At 9:00 on Tuesday, November 17, the visiting Wilizy were in their ship finishing breakfast. "The others will meet us at the church, right?" Yolanda asked Momaka.
"Yes. Winnie will help Kashmira enter the church in her wheelchair and then she'll leave. Mathias found a place outside the church where we should be able to hear her song. I'm looking forward to hearing her again. I hope she's strong enough to sing."
"She was very ill yesterday. She may not be able to go."
"Winnie would have let us know by now if she had changed her mind."
"Do you know what else is happening this morning?"
"No. Some church stuff, I believe."
# # # # # # #
At 9:15, Winnie came up to the galley. "Doc and Granny are sound asleep, Mathias," she said. "Do you want to get Kashmira?"
"I better not. She could be dressing. You should get her."
"OK. In a minute. What do we do about Granny and Doc?"
"They must have had a hard night with Kashmira. If they wanted to be at the church with us, they would have set an alarm."
# # # # # # #
At 9:55, Winnie pushed the wheelchair into the church and Kashmira said that she'd take it from there.
Kashmira was wearing a white dress. It was wrapped around her like a toga and she had a red belt cinching it tight. Winnie hadn't seen this kind of puffy, all-white fashion statement on her before. "You look very nice," she complimented.
"Thank you. I've never worn all white before."
"Do you want me to hang around inside?"
"That's OK. I know what I'm going to sing and that's all I have to do."
"Knock'em dead."
Kashmira stopped the push on the wheel chair that she was about to make. "What is this knock'em dead thing?"
"When somebody is giving a performance in front of a large crowd, a friend might say knock'em dead to her. It means, Have a good performance. I'm encouraging you to make a big impression on the audience."
"Oh. You have strange expressions."
"Better than shaky puddings."
"I admit I'm a shaky pudding right now."
# # # # # # #
"That's Kashmira talking now," Mathias stated. The family was gathered around a vent on the roof of the church. All were invisible, of course, and the size of the crowd around a small vent made for difficult hearing. Mathias was the closest to the vent; he'd make sure everybody knew what was happening below.
"What is she saying?"
"She's introducing her song. It's intended for the paterfamilias and her father. She's telling the women all the bad things that the two of them did."
"That'll take an hour or two."
"All the women?"
"Yes," Mathias said. "Only women are in the building. No men were allowed to come in."
"That's... Oh my God. What's that?"
...
"I've never her heard her sing like that before," Mathias admitted.
"I feel filthy. I want to take a bath."
"I want to cut my wrists."
"Holy crap," Wolf contributed. [Narrator: I haven't quoted Wolf precisely.] "I wouldn't want to meet that in a dark alley."
"Can you hear what's happening behind her song?"
"The women are wailing."
"What's going on, Mathias?"
"She's singing what she feels. That's all I know."
"I wouldn't want to be one of those two men right now."
"Can you imagine what this would be like inside the church? We're hearing her song after it has passed through rock. Inside the church, and under that big cupola, anybody hearing that song would..."
"...want to die, right now."
"What did the women of the church do that was so bad, Mathias?"
"The church women wouldn't let fallen women into the building. These were the women who had been thrown out of their house by their husbands after they had been raped. With nobody to help them, and no family, they had to live as prostitutes. The women of the church wouldn't talk to them or help them. Kashmira thought that they should have helped them."
"Remind me never to make Kashmira mad at me."
"She's not like this song. I've never heard this kind of ... fury before."
"I watched her entering the church," Reese said. "Her colours were flickering red and orange. Usually she's all white. Bright white. This morning her colours were like flames. I've never seen anything like it."
"Flames of hell?"
# # # # # # #
"What's happening now? I can't hear."
"If it's what I think, Kashmira is explaining that she has used some of her father's money to buy the church building," Stu said. "I worked on all the legalities but couldn't say anything about it before. Now what she wants can be made public. She even made her wishes part of her will in case she died."
"She was that sick?"
"Doc thought so. So did I."
"Where is he?"
"Doc and Granny were sleeping when we left."
"She has also bought a lot of land and leases around the church. The ones that we had pretended to purchase as part of the Japanese mob. She'll build a big apartment complex for fallen women to live in. Another building will be a school for the women of the church and for their children. Another building will have a nursery for women who work along with a family planning clinic complete with free midwifery. Free condoms for any woman who wants them too. She'll set aside enough money to pay salaries for all the people working in her buildings. "
"Her father was that rich?"
"He was. She still has lots of money left. She wants to have a ferry running from Maasin City to Cebu city again. She said she'll do more but has to talk to Doc first."
"Why aren't Doc and Granny here?"
# # # # # # #
"That's a different voice now."
"That the lady priest. She's calling herself the Materfamilias. She wasn't allowed to be a priest in her former church because she was a woman."
"What's going on, Mathias?"
"I don't know. Kashmira said that this church had done everything wrong for women. She wanted the women of the church to decide if they would have a church only for women. Kashmira didn't know what to do to help solve all the problems of poverty and women abuse. But she did know that the women in the city needed to have their own church to protect them and to help them."
"What are they doing now?"
"Sounds like a lot of women are voting yes."
# # # # # # #
"That was Kashmira singing again?"
"Yes. That's more like the songs she usually sings. Not angry this time."
"What do you think she was telling them?"
"There's always hope," Winnie said.
Back to the Table of Contents
Chapter 54
The church service had just ended. The galley's slamming door woke Doc and Granny and prompted them to come up to the galley to see who had come into the ship. Both were half asleep and still in the clothes they had worn yesterday.
"Kashmira?" Granny asked.
Doc was a heartbeat behind her. "Kashmira?"
"Yeah." Kashmira was in front of the fridge and peering inside.
She was dead! I felt her go!
She had no heartbeat. She wasn't breathing. She was dead!
But there she was. As large as life. Holding the fridge door open and cooling off the ship in the process.
"What are you doing?" Granny asked.
"Looking for something to eat. I'm starving."
"What are you wearing? Is that a bed sheet?"
That was indeed what Kashmira was wearing. A toga-fied bed sheet with a red belt keeping it from coming undone. Seeing as how it was coveri
ng her face at the time, the sheet was the first thing that had come to mind, and to hand, when she woke up that morning.
"What if it is? Am I supposed to ask for permission every time I wear something a little different?"
"No, but it's a bed sheet. They go on beds."
"Winnie liked it. Why don't you?"
"Are you wearing underwear under that thing?"
Now, it is actually possible that Kashmira may have dressed quickly and had forgotten one or both vital undergarments. Or perhaps it was intentional. We'll never know.
"Do you want me to take my dress off so that you can check?" Kashmira was now on her hands and knees and was digging through the bins at the bottom of the fridge. "I thought you didn't want me to agitate a poor elderly wreck of a man."
"No, but isn't it a bit ... breezy underneath?"
"I didn't know this family had rules about being breezy." Kashmira had now turned to the cupboards next to the fridge. At that point, the Wilizy from the church bustled in and a great deal of commotion ensued. Kashmira turned away from her search through the cupboards while receiving hugs and congratulations. Yolanda not only hugged and congratulated her, but added a comment and question as well. "What an interesting dress. Isn't it a little... breezy underneath?"
Kashmira rolled her eyes. But she brightened when she saw Mathias approaching her, his hands behind his back.
"Mathias. Did you like my songs?"
"They were great. I brought you something."
"What?"
"These." Mathias brought his hands to his front and showed her what he was holding. "You left the church so fast that you must have forgotten them."
"What are these?"
[Climate change warning, Mathias.]
"They're your wheelchair moccasins. I also brought your wheelchair home but left it on the deck."
Mathias must have thought that there'd be a little reward for his attention to detail because he approached her, put the moccasins in her hands, and proceeded to get into position for a little smooch.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! No kissing. I told you that. I'm not a kissing girl. At least not yet. Holding hands is all we're doing."
Well, that came somewhat of a surprise to Mathias, as well as to all the other Wilizy who had observed them on the sofa recently. If what they had been doing there wasn't kissing, then somebody had changed the definition without sending out a notice first.
"Why did you give me these... things?"
[Let's see you get out of this, Mathias.]
"They're your wheelchair moccasins. Your feet were sore from resting them on the pedals of the wheelchair, so Granny gave them to you. These have extra padding. You liked them."