Rosariel didn’t understand her brother. Perhaps that was the point. He was being a selfish and uncaring prick towards their parents. Though she could understand Rosaldo’s alienated feelings towards them, how could he abandon them so lightly? Sure, they didn’t tell him his visions were actually magical and probably real at some point in time, and perhaps he wasn’t crazy after all. The more she tried to see it in his perspective, the more she realized the outside world was something that couldn’t understand him at all. Maybe this place was something that understood him too well. Still, she had to find a way out of this place. Except perhaps the point of the paper they’d signed was locked and kept with a magically binding agreement that prevented them from acting otherwise, including trying to escape the Academy.

Didn’t her brother realize that this place was a prison? Kept in its own world, its own rules and rulers who enforced them. As Rosariel stared blankly at the self proclaimed Professor who was more interested in theatrical gestures than straight forward teaching, she wondered if this world was so different after all.

“Magic,” Bartholomew intoned, “is change through mythological belief. This can be through the fire of the Holy Spirit.” He held up his hand, a wavering ball of flame emanating over his palm. It vanished once he held his hands out of sight behind him. With a flourish, he held up a wine glass of water, stirring it with his finger. The water darkened into a deep red liquid. “Or a miracle believed to be so divine made real, like water to wine.” He drank from the glass goblet, smacking his lips together. “You are all capable of these miracles, passed down from your own unique cultures, ingrained into your psyches of what can be possible. I am going to break down the walls of disbelief which hold you back from channeling your inner belief. First, you must be your truest self, and that was before you were even born. What is a culture? A series of traditions and beliefs passed down from generation to generation. You must remember the people who came before you, and to do that you must first call upon your ancestor spirits.”

The professor waved his hand, the wineglass floating to the nearest student’s desk. “Drink from this goblet. Just a sip will do.”

Rosariel crossed her arms and stated out loud so all could hear her, “I’m not drinking that.”

Bartholomew nodded. “You should know from your agreement of admission, if you fail your studies, you will be forced to return to the ordinary world, and cannot return. Is that your choice?”

Rosariel didn’t answer. She looked at Rosaldo, who didn’t meet her gaze as he drank from the goblet passed to him.

She scowled. “Fine.” She snatched the goblet from Rosaldo and drank. Sure enough, it tasted like cheap and bitter wine. After she handed the glass to Lorne, and someone had finished the last of the drink, Rosariel noticed the students who had drunk the wine before them were dozing off, heads down. Soon, she too felt a tired haze wash over her senses, clouding her, until she closed her eyes and surrendered into blackness.

The first thing Rosariel noticed was that they were standing in a circle, and that there was nothing around them, a soundless and unmoving blankness, a formless vast whiteness only cut out by a singular closed door.

Bartholomew stood beside the door, which looked just like the classroom’s. He gestured to the blank world they stood in. “Welcome to the Veil. It has many names. Limbo, Purgatory, the place between worlds. Here, this is where all worlds connect. It is easiest to access this plane while you dream, when you’re asleep. We created this version of the Veil as a focused point to where we need to go today, your ancestral planes. You will meet your ancestor spirit, who will choose to commune with you, and you will keep that connection back with you to the Academy. They will teach you the knowledge of your culture, your magic. All you have to do is go through the door.”

Rosaldo’s friend, a young man with spiky black hair, grimaced, and whispered to Rosaldo, though not softly enough that Rosariel couldn’t hear beside them, “My great-great grandmother gives me the creeps. She’s all about evil spirits and consuming souls… was a bà đồng, a witch in her time. Guess that’s why she was buried alive?”

The other students formed a line behind the door, closing it when they entered. When the first student had opened the door, its shadow the only thing showing that there was a ground they stood on, there was no light that revealed the other side, just an unfathomable darkness.

Rosaldo’s friend entered, and Rosaldo was next.

“I wonder who I’m going to meet?” Lorne said behind Rosariel. “Maybe some badass Granny or Grandad?”

“It probably won’t be a happy family reunion,” Rosariel said. “You seem real happy with all… this.”

Lorne pouted. “You know we’re becoming wizards, right? This is the coolest shit ever. Might as well enjoy the journey.”

When it was Rosariel’s turn to enter the door, she asked the professor standing beside her, “How would I get back once I enter?”

Bartholomew smiled. “That’s up to you to decide.”

Rosariel stared back at the man. “What the hell does that mean?”

He motioned to the door. “It means exactly what it means. You decide whether you stay or leave.”

Rosariel stood there, thinking of her options. There wasn’t really much, or anything else to do. So she turned the door knob, passed through the door, and closed it.

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She stood on a beach. The door was gone. It was nighttime, the moon soft over the indigo starry sky, the waves rustling over the white sands. There was a warm breeze that carried the salt tang of seawater. A jungle, dark and thick with leafy trees covered the other side. Rosariel wasn’t sure where to go, but she heard someone weeping. It was a woman’s sob, breathless and close by.

Rosariel walked towards the sound, careful to not make any noise of her own. She squatted down, peeked past the cover of underbrush.

A woman sat over the sands, head pressed to her knees, hugging her own legs. She wore a dark blue dress, lines of silvery seashells and pearls curtaining her bare arms and back. She was tan, sun beaten brown, her flowing black hair hiding her face.

Rosariel walked to her, hesitant. The woman kept on sobbing, her sound so unforgivably broken-hearted, it made Rosariel want to cry too.

The woman paused, looking sideways at Rosariel. “You’ve finally come.”

Rosariel stopped a few feet away from her. “What?”

The woman turned to face her and stood, sniffling. She looked like she’d swam in the sea, her dress damp and clinging to her petite figure. More beaded seashells and pearls covered her front. There was a luminous aura to her, like the moonlight stuck to her hair, her form, her eyes. One iris was white and glowing like the moon, the other an ordinary brown.

Rosariel blinked. “Who are you?”

The woman said, “I am you. I am all the women, left alone and forgotten, who tried to leave this desolate island, but will never escape this place, not truly. Until you face it, the sun will never rise again. You may call me Mayari.”

“Why were you crying?” Rosariel asked.

“I wasn’t crying for myself. I was crying for you.” Mayari pointed to the jungle behind them, dark and twisted. “What do you see?”

Rosariel looked around. “An island. A lot of trees.”

Mayari shook her head. “This was once your home. It was all of ours, until you all left, and you all wonder why you feel alone. You abandoned your birthright. You are a child of the sea, the sun and the stars, just as you are part of the new land you call home. Your blood comes from mine, but you have become ignorant of where you came from. You have replaced me, child, for something that does not know you, not truly.”

Rosariel took a step back. “Ma’am, I’m just trying to get out of here. Are we in the Philippines?”

Mayari turned away. “That name was given to us by a people who took our names, replaced them with their own. Then another people came, and another, a lineage of conquest that made you forget what was sacred. I am here to make you remember who we were, once.”

The woman sat down on the sandy shore, still. Rosariel eventually sat down beside her, looking past the ocean’s dark horizon. The waves lapped over the beach, almost touching their feet.

“Why do I need to remember?” Rosariel said. “I know who I am. I’m not really Filipino. I don’t even speak Tagalog. I grew up my whole life in Canada, and never left it. What’s so wrong with that?”

Mayari stirred. “Ignorance is not virtuous. Denying who you are won’t change who you are. I sense the spirits of your forebears in your anting-anting.”

“Who?”

“The amulet you hide around your neck, child. Your ancestors watch over you. They never turned their back to you. Don’t turn away from them.”

“I think I know what you mean,” Rosariel began, uncertain of what she was to say, or who she was saying this to. “I know of my culture. I never knew my grandparents. Dad said they died before I was born, when he was younger than me. I’m just starting to understand all… this. Magic.”

The woman looked at Rosariel. “Do you think I’m not real?”

“I don’t know what to think.”

“I’m real,” Mayari said, “because you and your ancestors made me real. Your belief, however faint of an echo it may be, is what keeps this world alive. Perhaps we have lost our way, or you have found a new path, but there is wisdom in what was once traveled. Let me show it to you.”

The woman stood and walked towards the shade of the jungle, soundless of any animal calls. Rosariel felt no choice but to follow her. Vegetation and fanning shrubs withdrew from their path, deeper into the undergrowth.

Still Mayari shone with her divine light, a soft blue glow that guided Rosariel to an open grove, a lone tree of thick, fanning vine-like branches that formed from a twisted root-like trunk. It was strange in its squat form, the widest tree that Rosariel had ever seen, and also undoubtedly the creepiest.

Mayari pointed to the tree. “This is the Balete tree. It was the first thing to rise from this island, and where all spirits came from, including myself.”

“That’s… nice,” Rosariel said, meaning anything but. “So are you supposed to teach me the magic of my ancestors?”

“No,” Mayari said. “I want you to burn the Balete tree.”

“What?”

The woman smiled with a sad conviction, as if this was all destined from the start. “I’ve waited a long time for someone like you. This place is rotting. Dying. The tree hasn’t seen sunlight since ages past. If you were to burn it with the fire of your ancestor spirits, perhaps it could be a new age. Rebirth, renewal. With your help, perhaps there is a way for this place to live on. The Balete can only be brought down by what came from within. All you have to do is place your hand on the tree, and feel the spirits bound to your anting-anting.”

Rosariel stepped towards the tree, hesitant. Vines wilted down from its bare branches, gray and airy, like long strands of webbing from a giant spider. Rosariel thought best not to think too much on it and moved around and through the vines, finally in arm’s reach of the tree’s trunk.

Somehow Mayari was waiting beside her, though Rosariel hadn’t seen the strange woman move.

“Now,” Mayari said, “Hold your anting-anting. Feel the power from your guardian spirits. Channel their warmth, their love, their fire. Feel it radiate from their hearts into yours. Now, touch the Balete tree. What do you feel?”

Rosariel felt nothing but cold, hard and knotted bark. There was no warmth. There was no life like the heat she felt within her amulet, calling out to her, reassuring her she was safe. Her touch charred the tree, smoking into a kindling that spread over its twisted form.

Rosariel reeled back, but she didn’t feel any heat from the sudden flames that wreathed the Balete tree, and the inferno didn’t hurt her eyes with its radiance.

Mayari bowed her head, still close to its trunk, its knots of wood writhing open, a dark gateway that was brightened by the orange flickering flames. “Thank you,” she called out, then stepped into the tree, disappearing into the inferno.

Rosariel opened her eyes.