“What’s gotten into you?” Straw Hat asks crabbily. Neither he nor Melissa have seen it.

Hawaiian Shirt points a finger at the monitor, his hand trembling. “You see that?” He cries. “It’s looking at me. It’s goddamn, fucking looking at me!”

But the corpse tree has already turned away, as if it has been that way this whole time.

***

Something’s wrong.

I exit the mess hall with two plates of food, and I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being watched. I turn slowly, watching the trees, watching the shore, watching for anything that moves.

I see it soon enough. It stands just beyond the circle of comfort the electric lanterns provide, but there is no mistaking its bent form, the wet spindles of branches of its body, glossy against the brightness. It’s half obscured by shadows, but I know that it’s looking at me.

It’s the same tangled hair and the same pale absence of face. It’s the same jittered shape. It’s slightly hunched, the way Lindsay Watson must have crouched, prostrated on the ground when the roots had first taken hold of her, dragged her into the soil while the old grandmother bore witness.

Something at the center of its face opens—a long tongue snakes out from a row of tiny, thorn-like teeth within its flytrap mouth.

Forgive me, the thing says, distinctly. Forgive me.

We stare at each other, neither of us moving. Then I see the balete shift and twist, until they become other faceless women borne of a similarly twisted seed, all with the same elongated, hollow maws. Crooked against the unyielding straightness of the trees, they lurk, gathering behind the pale, broken form.

Slowly, the first creature takes half a step toward Gries and Chase’s cabin.

I’m surprised at my anger. “Huwag,” I say, my voice loud in the dim. “Hayaan mo siya.”

The spindles withdraw, but only briefly. The mouth opens and closes.

Gusto mo siya? it asks. Do you like him?

The Diwata is curious about Chase. Curious about what I think about him. Wary. Suspicious. Possessive.

“He’s not like the others,” I say.

It doesn’t believe me. The pale thing takes another step toward the bungalows—still keeping out of the light, its movements deliberate. It tenses, as if about to run.

“’Wag!” I shout.

I throw our dinner at it. It disappears, and the plates crash to the ground, shattering upon impact.

Melissa and Hawaiian Shirt run out of the mess hall. A few other crew members poke their heads out of their tents.

But Lindsay Watson is already gone, and the withered forests with her.

“I saw,” Melissa said, visibly shaking. “Those things. You told them to stay back, like in the footage—”

“You saw it, Melissa?” Hawaiian Shirt asks, placing his hand on my shoulder. I spin at the touch, ready to fight, and he jumps back. “Hey, whoa, whoa. It’s me. We’ve got a few cameras trained on those woods. We can—” He breaks off, starts laughing, a little hysterically.