Lethal Identities

“Thalia... wake up, Thalia...!”

Fernand’s eyes welled up as he stared at his niece’s pale face. The suffering she’d endured for so long from her heartless aunt hadn’t diminished even slightly the beauty she possessed, a beauty inherited from her late mother—his beloved Crisel. Though they shared no blood, his concern for her welfare equaled what a true father would give his own child. And he was all she had left. He was the only one his orphaned niece could count on, since her father had also perished in the same tragedy that took her mother from them.

Fernand knew that Crisel, wherever she was, expected him to do everything to protect her most beloved only daughter. And he wouldn’t fail Thalia. This child was the one person left who loved him. She was all she had in those moments.

He knew he didn’t have the capacity to do everything for her... to save her completely and give her the happy, peaceful, and unburdened life she deserved.

But there was one other person he knew who could do that in his place. Especially when he was gone.

That person might not have forgiven him yet despite the many years they hadn’t seen or spoken to each other, but Fernand was certain he could entrust his life to him if necessary. How much more the life of an innocent child he was sending to him?

He needed to act now. There was no more time. Everything depended on this night...

And again, he called the name of the niece who wasn’t his by blood but was the only child of his heart...

“THALIA? Thalia? Wake up, child. Thalia?”

Thalia stirred at the urgent, repeated calling of her name and the shaking of her shoulder. She opened her heavy eyelids.

In the dim light coming through the single curtainless window, the young woman lying there saw her Tito Fernand leaning over her. In her exhaustion earlier, she hadn’t closed it before falling asleep. She blinked and her vision cleared in the faint light. She could now see the shadows playing across his familiar, kind face.

A face etched with worry.

“Tito Fernand...?”

“Sshh!” he immediately silenced her. “Don’t make noise, hija.”

Something in that desperate plea was more effective at waking her than anything else. The months she’d spent here were enough to make her alert—and anxious—at every sign of danger.

Tito Fernand’s face showed a mixture of intense worry and nervousness. Whatever the reason he’d rushed here, it was important because he was still in his sleeping pajamas. He hadn’t changed clothes before coming to her from the mansion. Her heart immediately pounded. She sat up in her bed despite the heaviness of her exhausted body.

“Why, tito?” she whispered in confusion.

“Thalia, hija, you need to leave,” he said urgently. “You need to escape. Come on!”

Her eyes widened in alarm. “N-Now? Why?”

He briefly closed his eyes. Then he opened them and seemed to gather his determination to move quickly. His body rarely showed such energy in the two years she’d lived here at Hacienda Romano, and not because he was sick or anything. Thalia had a feeling it was brought on by intense sadness and longing for those lost in his life who could never be brought back.

And she understood. She, too, was grieving.

And she, too, like her Tito Fernand, was under the brutal power of his wife.

They were both imprisoned in the invisible cell of Tita Beatrice’s shamelessness.

In moments when no one could hear and report them, she and her uncle would talk about her late parents, especially her mother who was Tita Beatrice’s stepsister. Only then did she see energy in her uncle. She, too, was happy in those moments. She too forgot the cruel state of her life since her parents died.

She knew he still loved her mama. That could never be hidden by his embarrassed blushing or nervousness when she teased him about it. It was common knowledge even to her parents that her Tito Fernand was soft on her mother in spite of the fact that he was married to her stepsister, whom Thalia had never been comfortable with because she had always been nasty to her and to her mama when Lolo Apollo, her Papa or Tito Fernand wasn’t around. Her papa respected him as an honorable man did an equally honorable man. Her mama trusted him as a friend did a dear friend. Having known each other since her mother was very young, Tito Fernand and she were friends. But the three of them became close friends when her Papa met Tito Fernand, having felt an affinity with the older man. She was spoiled by her Tito Fernand even when she was young, too. Her parents were pleased by their closeness.

And when her parents died and she was imprisoned here at the hacienda, Tito Fernand became her only refuge instead of her mama’s stepsister. He was the only person she’d relied on since she was orphaned, the only one who defended her in every way he could without putting himself in complete danger from his cruel wife.

But never before had Thalia seen that kind of worry on her uncle’s face. Her fear only worsened. What could have happened now? What sin had she committed against her Tita Beatrice this time?

She tried to remember the work she’d finished before falling asleep. Surely she hadn’t burned any clothes while ironing, or left unfolded pieces in the laundry room before being brought back here to the bodega where she lived?

She hadn’t gone to sleep hungry. Her uncle had snuck her dinner while she was working and watched over her until she finished eating. There was always the chance his wife might check on her and scold her for eating without permission.

But the exhaustion was clearer... exhaustion that reached deep into her bones. Maybe because of that, she’d made a mistake she hadn’t even noticed.

In panic, she clutched her uncle’s arm. She couldn’t bear the pain of the whip on her back anymore. Her wounds there hadn’t even healed yet, which was why she couldn’t sleep properly at night. She couldn’t sleep unless she was exhausted down to her bones.

“Tito Fernand, why? What did I do?” she asked tearfully.

Pity crossed his eyes. “Child...” he began, but didn’t continue, and instead pulled her to her feet, then guided her toward the old trunk where she hid her few belongings. “Get dressed, Thalia,” he ordered. “Hurry up. This can’t continue. There’s another way. I’m getting you out of here.”

She tried to pull free from his grip to turn to him. “But, Tito Fernand, Tita Beatrice will kill me if—”

“Listen to me!” His grip on her shoulders tightened, enough to hurt, making her wince. But it didn’t loosen. After staring into his eyes that burned with emotion, she forgot the pain. Even the cold from the uninsulated floor seeping into her bare feet and penetrating her thin, long white nightgown was pushed from her awareness.

Again, between them, his desperate voice prevailed, so desperate it was trembling.

“Listen, Thalia. Listen carefully. If you don’t escape now, you’ll be her slave forever. Do you understand? She’ll abuse and hurt you forever! We both know she has no right to do that. She has no right!”

His voice trembled with emotion, but she didn’t hear anything else he said because, above all, only the word ‘slave’ stuck in her mind.

“W-What? T-Tito Fernand...!”

“Even if you’ll be far from me, it doesn’t matter. This is all I can do to save you, hija—” His voice shook slightly in his attempt to convince her. “And we’re running out of time. Get dressed now. Hurry up!”

Again he turned her toward the old trunk.

She knelt before it, dazed. Her hands trembled slightly as she lifted the lid of the trunk that held her remaining clothes and few treasured possessions—some sentimental letters, an old wallet still containing the last cash and cards when she arrived.

There was her most hidden treasure, a necklace her parents had given her when she turned eighteen... a time two years ago borrowed from a world so far away. Her former world that she wouldn’t even believe she’d inhabited if not for the happy memories.

That world began to drift away when her parents died in a terrible accident.

From then on, her life completely changed.

And what a change it was! Drastic changes and experiences she wouldn’t wish to happen even to an enemy.

Her thoughts were interrupted when they heard noise from outside the bodega coming from a distance, far enough to be heard. That noise was different from the familiar sounds that accompanied the night.

She looked fearfully at her uncle. She froze at the alarm she read on his grief-stricken face.

The noise came from an approaching horse. Hoofbeats and the breathing of a horse they both recognized.

Berdugo, Zardo Zalameda’s horse.

Automatically, her grip tightened on the small pouch containing her necklace. “Tito—”

“There’s no more time.” As if with those words, her uncle made a decision.

He grabbed her arm and immediately pulled her to her feet. In her panic, she didn’t feel the pain caused by the pulling on still-healing wounds upon her back. His gaze swept around the simple room until it stopped at the open window facing west, and the forest behind the bodega.

“Come on. We’ll jump out the window.”

Her eyes widened. “But, Tito Fernand, that’s too high!” she protested.

His head snapped back toward her like the crack of a whip. “What do you want, to meet Zardo on the stairs?” Again, he seemed on the verge of tears from anger or pain, she couldn’t tell immediately. He had been unhealthy the last months but hew would only say it was the weather whenever she asked. She sensed he knew something she didn’t yet know. “Please, Thalia, just do everything I tell you. Believe me, death is something you’d be more grateful for than what will happen to you in that animal’s hands.” Then he pulled her toward the window.

When they got close, Thalia looked down with trembling limbs. Strands of her long hair whipped across her face as the strong wind from outside mercilessly played with it. During the day, her hair was up and tightly bound like an old woman’s for fear that Tita Beatrice would notice it had grown back to its former length and cut it short again. She’d cut Thalia’s hair when she first arrived, a week after her parents’ burial.

She discovered the reason a few days later, when her uncle comforted her in her crying. She was still crying over what happened to her hair because her parents wanted it long. It was as if she’d defied their memory even though she hadn’t wanted what Tita Beatrice did.

But it wasn’t for any other reason except that Tita Beatrice hated her hair because it reminded her of her mama. Her mother Criselda’s long, thick, and beautiful crown of hair reached down to her seat and was one of the things most admired about her. She knew her mother and Tita Beatrice had never been close. But she quickly learned from the time her aunt took charge of her as her legal guardian just how deep was her hatred and envy of her mama.

At first, she thought she would find peace and freedom from grief and longing for her parents by living here at Villa Romano where her mama was born, grew up, and had lived before she married her father—here in the place she had loved so much. That was when they told her she would live at the hacienda and just be homeschooled for now because her aunt and uncle supposedly couldn’t care for her in Manila. When the older woman still showed kindness and rational thinking. When she still hid her true colors because others could see.

But the moment her feet touched the hacienda, far from the reach of the Romano family lawyers, Thalia immediately experienced her aunt’s cruel treatment—as if she’d been eager to begin.

And one night after months of cruelty in moments when no one could see, she found herself imprisoned in this dark and dirty room above the old bodega in the corner of the hacienda, far from anyone who might witness the other torments.

Here, she was forcibly imprisoned and made to accept all the punishment Tita Beatrice reserved for Familia Romano, whom she had secretly hated for years. Thalia alone represented the clan now. She was the only grandchild of Don Apollo Romano through his only daughter from his first wife, her mama—all of them now deceased.

She wanted to fight, but she was completely weakened by fear from the moment she was imprisoned, fear that grew with the cruelties freely inflicted now that there were no witnesses.

And that fear was what Tita Beatrice used to completely control her for a long time.