

I drew closer to our housemaids, whose nostrils flared wider at the sudden and delicious turn of her tale. “And you know what she does to the bones of our children?” “It’s because she keeps the children inside her house,” she continued, “and then she would stab them in the chest, drain their blood, and drink it.” Gooseflesh crawled on our skin.

She has closed her windows,” she added, and before us rose the image of her windows tightly shuttered even in the hottest days.

“Aling Barang,” she said, referring to the woman living in the house, “kidnaps children and keeps them in her house. Our housemaid told us to avoid this house. A block away from our house stood a wood-and-stone house beside the river.
