Read Online Ghosts of Infinity: and Nine More Stories of the Supernatural by Lara Saguisag, April Yap - Free Book Online

their way slowly past the little guardhouse, with Dennis’s cousin guiding Sarah’s blind steps. Dennis walked behind them, staring into the darkness of the guardhouse, at the fading, crumbling paint. He saw nothing, and his forehead creased in amused curiosity.
    When they turned a corner, Dennis’s cousin relaxed and released Sarah’s arm. “You can open your eyes now,” she said.
    “Thanks,” Sarah said, looking short of breath.
    He stopped himself from laughing and fell into step with her, asking, “What in the world was that?”
    She blushed, he saw by the light of the crowded houses. His cousin signaled to him sharply, and he put up his hands in surrender, smiling. Sarah steered the conversation towards the conference she had attended with Dennis’s cousin, until they reached the two-story apartment that she shared with some college students. She stood behind the gate as the cousins turned to go, but all of a sudden she said his name, and, puzzled, he faced her again.
    A light bulb cast a dull glow from one of the upstairs windows, and he could see the smooth curves of her face outlined in the gloom. She bit her lip as she looked up at him, as if she could not make up her mind what to say. Finally she averted her eyes and waved her hand towards something behind him.
    Fireflies hovered by a neighbor’s bushes. They were delicate dots of light, looking as if the slightest wind could put them out. He turned back to her, shrugging. “It must be the season. I see them almost every night.”
    She cupped her hand under his elbow, very hesitantly, and asked, “Do you see her, too?”
    He knew that she did not mean his cousin. Nonetheless, he glanced back at his cousin, who in turn glanced behind her. But there was no one there.
    He would find out more about Sarah later, from his cousin who continued to befriend her, and from Sarah herself, who he would later seek out of morbid interest. He had to admit that he had been bored with work that time, weary of the monotony of business and negotiations, so that the thought of Sarah gave him something new to occupy himself with. Thanks in part to his cousin’s urging, he invited Sarah out often—to the malls, to amusement parks, to picnic groves, to dinner—and always she accepted the invitation, laughingly ignoring his questions about that first night they met, about the empty guardhouse and the fireflies.
    He was a little disappointed by her refusal to confide in him, but he had the patience of a rock, and soon he knew enough about her to gather together a list of her quirks and qualities in his head: her large eyes disappearing into merry slits whenever she laughed; her love for comedy movies and hatred for films that made her cry; her reasons for majoring in studies on folk literature, and on and on and on. She was his cousin’s co-teacher in the university, and she was drawn to structuralist theories because, she said, they gave her the chance to systematize, to place phenomena and beliefs in a scientific order. She was always vague about which phenomena or beliefs, though, always shuffling topics, talking about her favorite film directors, her small collection of books at home, or anything else that had no relation to what had intrigued him about her in the first place.
    Among other habits she had the tendency, whenever the two of them walked together, to cup one hand under his elbow, as if she were helping an old woman cross the street, and at first it annoyed him because her hand, brushing repeatedly against his waist, tickled him no end. But eventually he grew accustomed to her touch, to her peculiarities, to her, and soon they were inseparable.
    It must be noted that all this time, almost every night that he was outdoors, the fireflies hovered wherever he went. Always they followed from a distance, so that for the better part of the evening he would forget about them, until he’d turn around and see them lingering several paces away, as nonchalantly as if