The Kapre’s Wife

            Maria went into the forest one day, and she did not come back. No one really looked for her.

            It was almost as if the forest had swallowed her whole, had shielded her beneath its verdant leaves and bowed branches. In another life, in another story, a prince would have gone to look for her. But all of the princes at that time were occupied.

            Maria entered the woods for the reason most young girls enter the woods: her father was sick and needed medicine. So, when she disappeared, so did he. The day the forest took her, she carried with her a robe embroidered with flowers, an empty basket, and three ribbons tied into her long black hair. It was these ribbons, yellow, pink and purple, that caught the kapre's eyes.

            As she was crossing in front of the balete tree, its leaves drooping down to meet her and tickling the top of her head, the kapre revealed himself. His feet came first, large and hairy; his spindly legs next. His gnarled knees, his rainbow-hued loincloth, his white torso and giant hands. Last was his face, grinning and ape-like, and his black eyes staring straight at her.

            He scooped her into his hands and pulled her very close to his face and he breathed his musty breath on her and he said, "Beautiful."

            "Thank you," Maria replied.

            "Stay with me," he said, and she did.

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