The Marks of the Engkanto

⋆༒⋆*༺༽ 𝟜 ༼༻*⋆༒⋆

Akali brushed the floor quietly. The bristles of the coconut scrub scratched the surface of the wood as she guided it with her feet, stroking back and forth, back and forth. She kept her head down, eyes focused on the shiny floorboards of the tattoo room.

Akali had felt bad for days for running away from ma'am Nyan, though surprisingly, the nuno hadn't spoken about it since. She thought it was the nuno's way of punishing her--not talking to her, not even giving her a second because she was that unimportant.

This would ruin her career even before it started. How could she become a tattoo artist now when the manager of Pinta hated her?

"You'll scrub a hole on the floor if you don't stop soon. Oh, yes, you will. Yes, you will. Yes, you will," Makka said, squeezing out the last drops of water from a washcloth and hanging it on a rod over a floor drain.

Akali sighed but continued to scrub. "What am I going to do, Makka? Ma'am Nyan hates me." She looked up, and it was the first time in over a week that she'd admitted how she felt--worried and anxious.

Makka patted the skirt of her sarong and said, "You've never told me why you cared so much about this work. You're a diwata, I don't understand. I don't, I don't, I don't."

Akali paused and stared at her feet, the half-cut coconut fruit under her sole. She grimaced at it. This was not what she wanted to do. "I came here to be a tattoo artist, not a cleaner."

"Oh?" Makka said. "Now, that's even more confusing for me. Yes, yes, yes. Very confusing."

Akali looked up at Makka and sighed again. "I'm not just a diwata," she said, her shoulders slumping, defeated. "I'm part mangkukulam. My grandmother was a tattoo artist, and I just wanted to be like her."

"I see, that makes much more sense," Makka said. "Yes, very, very senseful."

Akali didn't mention her human side. "I've been here for almost two weeks now, and I still haven't gotten any chance to be a tattoo artist."

Makka stepped up to her and patted her elbow. "Well, scrubbing is not going to get you there either. No, no, no, it won't. Why don't you rest? We have a bit more time before our next customer arrives."

Akali breathed in deep. "Alright, fine." She kicked the coconut scrub, and it slid to the corner of the room.

She made her way out and into the hallway, pacing over the wooden floors. She looked down the corridor, wondering what it would be like to finally get her own station--to have her own chair with a table filled with ink made from the manure of sarimanok.

She tapped her finger on her hips, the same familiar rhythm she'd used to create tattoos. She missed it--the feel of the bamboo stick in her hand and the inks that stained her fingernails. She missed the dancing swirls, the jagged edges, and the sharp lines that appeared under the point of a pomelo thorn. She had barely drawn any new tattoo designs on her pad since she started working in Pinta.

"Right," Akali said to herself. She worked here now. She was allowed to go into any room on this floor, and she allowed her feet to drag herself.

It was like the first day. Though she wasn't as giddy and excited, this level had given her a sense of belongingness--a desperate desire to stay.

She walked down the hall, glancing into every door she passed and watching the artists create their masterpieces.

She saw a butterfly tattoo on the arm of female bungisngis, a one-eyed giant.

She saw a serpent tattoo splayed on the belly of a manananggal--a human-looking creature that can cut itself in half. Akali supposed that the tattoo was the creature's guide to making sure the other half of the body was hers. She laughed to herself at the thought.