PREVIOUSLY: After the death of her parents-in-law in a drowning accident attributed by eyewitnesses to the siokoy, Conchita’s life was uneventful and tranquil. She bore herhusband two more healthy boys and their three children grew up to be a great source ofhappiness for the couple. The boys went to the local elementary and secondary schools but eventually had to travel to Manila to do their college degrees. Rico chose to studybusiness administration and Andy, the second son, took accounting, but when the youngest,Manuel Jr., wanted to study to be a seaman like most of his childhood friends in their town, Conchita strongly objected to his career choice. Conchita was scared for her own son tobe near a body of water.

When Manuel Jr., asked his mother why she objected to his plan to become a seaman so that like many young men in their town he too could earn dollars, he didn’t get a clear explanation. Conchita didn’t really believe in the existence of the siokoy but her motherly instinct told her to keep her children away from the sea. The drowning accidents that had beset her through the years couldn’t be mere coincidences for their frequency. The consistent involvement of the siokoy in all the sworn statements from eye witnesses had always disturbed her, even if she brushed them aside as the product of the imagination of the gullible and ill-educated locals.

Manuel Jr., did as he was told and went to study computer science and nothing was said about Conchita’s objection to a career involving the sea until one summer break her three children came home with a set of photographs that was given to them by a stranger at the airport in Manila. Conchita was at first only mystified when she saw the photographs. They were vivid images of the mythical siokoy that were, even for a fake that she believed them to be, looked not only very realistic but very frightening. But when her children further explained that they were handed to them at the waiting area by an old lady completely dressed in red, Conchita went pale and fainted.

After the commotion caused by her sudden lose of consciousness, Conchita struggled to explain her reaction to the pictures even if they were unanimous that the photographs were clever fakes. Rico pointed out that the tail and dorsal fins of the siokoy were in the wrong angle for they should be in line with the spine for the siokoy to be able to swim efficiently.

Andy added with a giggle that according to myths, unlike the mermaids, the siokoy have legs that enabled them to move conveniently over ground to do what they were known to do to the local virgins. Manuel also noticed that the siokoy had no sexual organs.

Conchita agreed with the logic of her three boys but nevertheless told them to get rid of the pictures.

That evening Conchita thought of the lady in red. Even as a very young child, she heard a lot of stories from their maids at the Mayor’s house about the lady in red and that she was in fact her biological mother. There were two theories about her biological father — that it was either the Mayor or a siokoy. Conchita never confronted her adoptive parents about these two suppositions fearing that she might actually be a daughter of a siokoy. She was very happy in her childhood and all that mattered then was that she was very well taken cared of in a home that was comfortable and safe.

When the Mayor died, however, at the height of her mourning, the first lady told Conchita about the lady in red, the lady’s clandestine relationship with the Mayor and her birth and eventual adoption. She didn’t love her adoptive mother less for that, in fact it even strengthened their bond. On the other hand, the revelation didn’t start any kind of longing for Conchita to seek for her biological mother, the mysterious lady in red, because for some unexplained reason, Conchita believed that the lady in red was always around her, watching over her like a guardian angel, never leaving her out of her sight like a true doting mother. It was in her moments of great despair that Conchita could feel the presence of the lady in red most.

To be continued