tamara reyes is a seer, a person gifted with the ability to see the dead. of course, for tamara, this is not actually a gift. not that she considers it as a curse, but the ability to see the dead did not exactly come to her gift-wrapped with matching bow.

it came to her on the day her grandmother, lola ising, died.

looking back, tamara always found her grandmother weird. ever since she was a little girl, tamara remembered lola ising would call her to visit on the first fridays of every month; and for a whole afternoon, lola ising would tell her stories of malignos and enkantos.

as a child, tamara loved the vivid imagination of her grandmother. as she grew older, she began to resent these afternoons that her grandmother would take away from her.

of course, as she grew older, lola ising’s stories also matured. tamara actually admitted to her mother once that her grandmother sometimes scare her with her tales of vengeful ghosts and dark creatures who eat spirits. but tamara’s mother would just shake her head and tell tamara, “just let your lola tell you these stories. you’re her only entertainment nowadays.”

and then lola ising died, and tamara’s world changed.

september 24th, 9 in the evening; tamara didn’t know lola ising had already died. but she remembered waking up, looking around her room knowing something wasn’t right, and seeing her grandmother sitting on her favorite spot in tamara’s room.

“good, you’re awake.” that statement definitely woke tamara up. it wasn’t something she expected her grandmother to say. “i have something very important to say to you.”

tamara switched on her room’s overhead light, looked at the very solid figure of her grandmother and wondered aloud: “when were you released from the hospital?”

“i wasn’t.” her grandmother replied. “i’m dead. and i have very important matters to discuss with you before i go over to the light.”

that definitely stunned tamara. before she could recover, lola ising had already launched into her speech:

“tamara, you are the latest in a line of seers. it has skipped a generation already, your mother’s, and no one expected me to stay alive this long. but i have, and i have already chosen you to replace me.”

the old woman focused her gaze on tamara. “remember all the stories i told you? all of them were true. and now you’re about to face a lot of the monsters i told you about. and you will not have the power to stop them.”

tamara was flabbergasted. she didn’t know what to reply; she didn’t even know how to respond to that fact that her grandmother’s spirit was in the same room as her, telling her all these impossible things.

“child, i have given you everything you can do in the stories i have told you.” lola ising’s eyes gleamed. “a very ingenious feat for an old woman whose time was running out. now, all i ask is that you remember all the stories. because it will save your life.”

with that, tamara’s doors flew open with her mother barging in. eyes flowing with tears, tamara’s mother hugged her with all her might. “tamara, your lola ising is dead.”

tamara didn’t know how else to respond, but with an “i know,” making her mother cry all the more.

and that’s when tamara decided that the gift she was given, to talk to the dead, was not a gift at all.