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Chapter Text

The wheel hums, low and steady, a pulse older than thought. Isla leans forward, elbows braced against her thighs, fingers slick with water and clay. The lump she pressed down earlier begins to soften beneath her hands, pliant but stubborn, trembling as it spins. She works with patience, left palm steadying the curve, right thumb easing into the center, coaxing space into being.

The clay resists, as it always does. Uneven, willful, testing her steadiness. She breathes through her nose, pressing in until it centers, until the wobble fades. Wet earth streaks her apron, smudges her wrists, clings beneath her nails. She doesn’t mind. The mess is half the point.

Through the open window, the sea drifts into the room—salt brine and drying kelp, the chatter of children running barefoot down the road. Warm air lies heavy, but the trickle of water at her side keeps her skin cool. The studio, once her grandmother’s, carries its own weather—the musk of clay, faint woodsmoke from the old kiln, the hush of work unfolding.

There is no music. Only the wheel’s quiet whir, the steady whisper of her hands pulling the clay upward. A vessel takes shape, thick-walled at first, then narrowing into a neck that leans toward grace. She pinches gently, feeling every tremor through her fingertips. A wrong move could collapse it. Her shoulders ache, but she doesn’t let go until the rim settles smooth. Imperfect, yes, but sturdy. Honest. She imagines it glazed sea-green, the color of tide pools before dawn, when fishermen are just setting out.

She slices the pot free with wire and sets it beside the others on the shelf. Bowls, cups, jars—each with its own patience, its own flaw hidden or unhidden. Some squat and practical, others fragile as shells. Most will make their way to the display shelves, carried off by tourists still damp with seawater, sand clinging to their skin. A few will remain unsold, and those she will keep, until every meal in her home is served in the shape of her own hands.

Her palms itch to keep working, but she forces herself to stop. Too many at once and tomorrow will feel empty. She rinses her hands, water clouding with clay, and dries them against her threadbare apron. Her eyes shift to the kiln, brick-dark, older than she is. It waits for fire, but not until the heat outside softens and dusk takes the edge off the day.

For now, she tidies. She wipes down the wheel, sweeps the stray flecks into a small pile, stacks the wooden boards with care. These gestures—simple, ordinary—are part of the craft too, as though the work would be incomplete without them. The studio settles into stillness again, as if it were breathing with her.

She lingers in that quiet before the pull of the world tugs her outward. Sunlight blinds her as she steps into it, the sea glittering past the trees like a sheet of silver too bright to meet. Gravel crunches under her sandals as she makes her way down the road.

The mini-mart waits nearby, its air thick with dried fish and rice grains in open sacks. Behind the counter, Aling Berta waves, her smile wide and knowing.

“Isla! Clay again all morning?”

Isla nods, smiling faintly in return. She lays her list on the counter—rice, eggs, soap, powdered glaze she orders through the store. Aling Berta scans it, then glances at her.

“You work too hard, hija. No time to gossip with us?”

“The pots won’t shape themselves,” Isla answers lightly, though the truth sits beneath the words.

Outside, neighbors laugh, Coke bottles sweating in their hands. Someone calls out, “All you do is clay, Isla! When will you shape a husband instead?” The laughter follows, teasing but familiar, worn smooth from repetition. Isla lets it pass, neither hurt nor amused. She pays, thanks Aling Berta, and steps back into the sun.

The heat presses down, heavy. She walks home with the slow rhythm of someone already thinking ahead to evening. By dusk, jar in hand, she climbs the clifftop near her house. She sets it on a flat stone as though placing an offering, then folds herself cross-legged beside it, watching the horizon bleed orange into violet.

Below, waves break against limestone, scattering salt into the air. The sky dims, colors fading until only shadow and the breath of the sea remain. Then, almost on cue, the fireflies rise. First a handful, then dozens, then hundreds, pulsing like fallen stars that have chosen to settle close to the earth.

Isla rests her chin on her knees, watching their constellations spark alive in the brush. This island has always carried fire—in insects glowing, in the stories of healers, in the stubbornness of those who stayed when everything urged them to leave.

Far down the coast, scaffolding rises against the palms. The clang of hammers, the thrum of voices—an intruding future. A resort, no doubt. The sound scrapes the air, foreign and insistent, threading itself into the island’s present. Isla narrows her eyes, breath catching, then turns back to the jar at her side.

Her fingers graze the rim, gentle, almost tender, before she lifts her gaze to the fireflies, their rhythms steadying the dark.

Chapter Text

The airport is the same—cold, sterile, its voices droning from overhead speakers as though they could go on forever without her. Millie moves quickly through NAIA, carry-on tugging at her wrist, laptop bag biting into her shoulder. Outside, Manila presses humid and heavy, but here the air conditioning hums so aggressively that for a brief moment she almost welcomes it. Almost.

The flight to Dumaguete boards without fuss. The plane feels less like a commercial liner than a commuter bus with wings, its aisles narrow, its passengers laden with hand-carried parcels and shopping bags. Millie slides into a window seat, buckles in, rests her folder across her lap. She props it open, notes highlighted and tabbed in careful order, but the window keeps pulling her gaze away.

Manila spreads out beneath her, a sprawl of rooftops packed tight as scales, traffic crawling through like blocked arteries. Then, without warning, the ground falls away and cloud swallows the city whole. Above, the sky stretches wide, as though someone had peeled the ceiling back to expose something too vast to measure.

She tries again with her survey notes—eco-conscious resorts, sustainable development, all the buzzwords rehearsed until they feel brittle. Below, the sea glimmers a sharp blue-green, and the words blur, losing shape.

An hour later, the plane descends. Heat surges in as soon as the doors open—thicker now, saltier, tinged with exhaust. Millie strides across the tarmac, head high, bag wheels rattling behind her.

The van that collects her rattles toward the pier, Dumaguete sliding by her window—storefronts painted in bright shades, tricycles weaving between jeepneys, stalls spilling green mangoes across tables. Smaller than Manila, slower but noisier, thick with color. By the time they reach the pier, the concrete wavers under a punishing sun. The fast craft waits with speakers crackling, and families queue with boxes at their feet, while tourists film each other boarding as though the highlight reel has already begun. Millie joins the line, pressed blouse and slacks setting her apart like a crease through fabric.

The cabin hums with chatter, the tang of instant noodles, the cry of a restless baby. Oil lingers in the air. Millie balances her laptop bag on her lap, smoothing her blouse, ignoring the sweat already beading at her temples.

When the boat lurches free, Dumaguete shrinks behind them, and the sea spreads open—deep, restless, endless. Spray freckles the glass windows, flying fish break the surface in silver arcs, vanishing as quickly as they appear. Millie grips her bag tighter, unsettled by how completely the land disappears.

And then, slowly, Siquijor rises. At first it’s a smudge, then a darkening line, then cliffs and palms, streaks of white sand flaring in sunlight. Up close, the island seems impossibly lush, a postcard that insists on hardening into stone and water. At the dock, it isn’t the bustle of tricycles or waiting families that startles her, but the water itself—clear as glass, so sharp she can see the seabed rippling with darting fish. She stares longer than she means to, undone by how quickly her city-trained eyes misjudge.

After a while, the moment breaks. She steps onto the gangway, light glaring off the sea, salt clinging to her blouse. Her shoes clack too sharply among slippers and sandals. She shades her eyes. This is Siquijor. Her assignment. Her problem.

At the exit gate, drivers crowd with their loud voices and bright shirts. “San Juan, Ma’am! San Juan?”

She lifts her chin. “San Juan.”

The suitcase barely fits, but she squeezes into the sidecar, knees tight, laptop pressed against her chest. The tricycle sputters along the coastal road.

On her right, the sea shimmers, dotted with boats and children splashing. On her left, palms bend over wooden houses, laundry stretches like flags between trees, sari-sari stores lean against one another, painted in cola ads now faded by years of sun. The air presses in, thick with salt, smoke, and greenness. Tourists on rented motorbikes roar past, shoulders red with sunburn, dresses fluttering like banners. Millie tilts her chin higher, ignoring the driver’s quick glance in the mirror.

After half an hour, a weathered sign that reads Casa Solana appears. The gates open onto a gravel drive lined with bougainvillea, leading to a house caught between centuries—stone bones at its base, timber rising above, capiz windows glinting beside a fresh terracotta roof.

Millie steps out, legs stiff, the rumble of the tricycle still in her body. Inside, polished tiled floors glow faintly under the sharp scent of lemon polish. Photographs of fishermen and sunsets line the walls. Rattan furniture softens under more modern lines, the building caught in balance between history and reinvention.

“Welcome, ma’am. First time in Siquijor?” the receptionist beams.

Millie nods, signs her name. Her gaze catches glossy brochures on the counter—scuba dives, waterfalls, tours. Enchantments for visitors. For her, only work.

Upstairs, her room overlooks the sea, its windows opening to light that scatters across decades old floorboards and a bedspread crisp enough to remind her of hotel rooms in other cities. The ceiling fan whirs a steady counterpoint to the heat pressing at the glass door to the balcony, and this, at least, she understands—order, polish, a barrier against the world outside. She slips off her shoes, stretching her toes into the cool wood, letting the quiet settle.

And then the phone buzzes, cutting across it. Manila office. She walks to the balcony before answering.

“Mills,” her boss’s clipped voice. “You’ve landed?”

“Yes. Just checked in.”

“Good. Don’t get too comfortable. Resorts are circling. Lock things down before competition does.”

“I’ll start meetings this week.”

“Perfect. Remember, the locals can be stubborn. Convince them. Don’t come home empty-handed.”

The line dies. Millie sets the phone aside, palms braced on the balcony rail. In the distance, the water glitters, impossibly clear, as though the island has nothing to hide. The heat presses from outside, expectation pressing harder from within.

When she walks back inside, fatigue overtakes her. She means only to close her eyes on the bed, but when she opens them again the room is already dim, and outside the sea bruises orange with sunset.

She moves from the bed, hunger drawing her downstairs.

Casa Solana’s veranda is adorned with lantern lights and sturdy mahogany tables. Tourists laugh over cold drinks, linen shirts loosened by heat. Millie sits straighter, pressed slacks sharp, laptop bag beside her chair like a badge. She orders grilled fish and watermelon juice. The first bite startles her—firm flesh smoky from the grill, lemon slicing through butter. It tastes of sea and something older, a memory she didn’t know she had forgotten. She eats slowly, steadying herself against the newness.

Outside, the night thickens with stars. Crickets drone, frogs croak, waves breathe against the cliffs somewhere far off. Millie leans on the railing after dinner, arms folded across her chest. The sound isn’t silence, not quite—it’s too alive—but it carries a balance she hasn’t known in years.

Lights flicker in the trees. At first she thinks of embers, but then they scatter and pulse. Fireflies. Dozens, then more. She laughs softly, surprised by the sound, a laugh that slips free before she catches it. Even the insects here glow. For a while, she lingers, letting their light hold her still, deadlines forgotten.

Later, she pulls herself back upstairs as goosebumps rise from the cool air. The room greets her in perfect order—the bed smoothed, the curtains drawn, the air steady. She opens her laptop, its glow harsh but anchoring.

Her inbox is already thick with surveys and maps. Notes trail beside names in shorthand—obstinate, reasonable, potential influencer to secure early.

She clicks open the file marked San Juan Priority Lots. A map blossoms on the screen, pins clustered where the sea meets the cliffs. One parcel shaded differently, a note in the margin reads independent artisan, refuses meetings, holds a key parcel by the western beach.

Millie exhales, slow. Challenge, clear as ink.

Outside, the island hums with crickets and waves. She spares the window a glance before turning back to the glowing map. The island may have welcomed her with fish and fireflies, but she reminds herself of her purpose.

Tomorrow, the real work begins.

Chapter Text

The house still creaks as if her grandmother lingers in the beams. Morning light pours through the open windows, scattering across clay-dusted floors, catching in air that holds both salt and smoke. Out front, the coral paint has long since faded and peeled, but the frame holds steady. Stubborn, like the women who kept it standing.

Isla settles at the wide table in the studio, once the living room before clay claimed it. Bowls and mugs crowd the shelves in uneven ranks, some finished, some cracked, some waiting. The kiln her father built rests in its corner, smoke-stained but serviceable, his handprint pressed into every brick. Outside, a mango tree leans toward the bluff, branches heavy with fruit. Children’s voices rise along the slope as they pause to peer through the open shutters, just as they always do.

This is her rhythm. Clay under her nails, the wheel turning, the sponge smoothing. The quiet that never quite reaches silence—the sea murmuring below, tricycles passing faint in the distance, sparrows shifting on the roof. The smell of earth, woodsmoke, and salt. A world she can claim as hers.

The bell above the studio door—a relic from her grandmother’s store—jingles, breaking the quiet.

Isla looks up.

The woman who enters doesn’t belong. Pressed slacks, a blouse too neat for this heat, a bag sleek enough to have never brushed against anything rougher than a glass table. A face careful and polite, arranged in the kind of expression that expects to be heard.

“Good morning,” Isla says evenly.

The stranger smiles, perfume drifting ahead of her, vanilla and floral, jarring against clay and smoke. Her gaze sweeps the shelves too quickly to be appreciation. What lingers feels like calculation.

“I heard you make everything yourself,” she says, voice smooth, practiced. “Impressive. Must take a lot of time.”

“Time is what makes them worth anything,” Isla answers, wiping her hands against a rag.

The woman tilts her chin. “I suppose. But maybe time could be better spent elsewhere. You’ve heard about the resort project? Opportunities like that don’t come twice.”

Isla’s stomach hardens. There it is.

“This land isn’t for sale,” she says. Not sharp, not raised, just steady.

The woman doesn’t flinch. If anything, her eyes sharpen, measuring her.

Isla notices the perfume first, still faint in the air. Then the details surface one by one—the careful hair, the smile stretched just enough to reveal its strain, the sweat gathering at her temple. Polished, yes. But not untouchable.

It unsettles her. She wants to dismiss this woman as she has dismissed others before, but the image lingers. A stranger too composed for the island’s rhythm. Striking, and wrong here, yet impossible to ignore.

“Sorry,” the woman softens, recalling civility. “Where are my manners. Millie Larenzana.” A flick of her hand, words rolling as though rehearsed. “Aurora Urban Development.” The name lands like something intended to feel inevitable.

Of course. Isla doesn’t move from behind her table. The rag is still in her grip, clay dust smudged across its weave.

“You’re Ms. Isla Arevalo, right?” Millie asks, her smile still polite but her tone betraying what Isla already knows. This is no question.

“That’s what it says on the deed,” Isla replies, setting the rag aside with deliberate calm, as if this woman were no more than a bird flown in by mistake.

Millie steps closer, heels striking the floor too sharply. “Then maybe you’d consider—”

“No.” The word falls with the weight of stone.

The silence that follows is thick. Waves strike the rock below, sparrows shuffle on the roof, the kiln breathes faintly. Isla doesn’t look up, though she can feel Millie’s gaze searching for the smallest give in her stance.

She presses the sponge to the clay, willing herself back into the rhythm of work. Outsiders always push, always believe words can loosen stone. Yet Millie doesn’t retreat. Her voice remains steady, her posture unbent by heat.

At last Isla lifts her gaze and meets her directly.

“If you’re not here for ceramics, you can go.”

Millie holds her ground for a moment too long, words hovering unsaid. Then, with a flick of her hand, she smooths her blouse.

“Understood.” Her smile thins. “I’ll see myself out.”

The bell jingles as the door closes, and the house exhales.

Isla waits, listening. The sea, the sparrows, the kiln’s faint hiss—all sounds returning, as if they had been held at bay while the stranger stood here.

She looks back at the vessel beneath her palms and finds its walls slumped. With a quiet curse, she presses it flat, collapsing it so she can begin again. Clay remembers every tremor, every hesitation. The work demands presence.

But her thoughts wander.

Millie Larenzana. The name is smooth and heavy, impossible to shake. Even with the door closed, the faint edge of perfume seems to hang in the air. She presses her thumb into the clay as if that alone could drive the thought out.

Cracks, she tells herself. Just cracks.

She centers the clay once more, grounding herself in earth, water, fire, air—the only elements that matter.

Outside, the children’s voices rise again, chasing one another through the grass. Life falls back into its rhythm.

Isla doesn’t look at the door. She knows the woman is gone.

And she tells herself she is glad for it.

Chapter Text

Morning in Casa Solana arrives brighter than she wants it to.

Light filters through the wooden shutters, brushing across the floorboards and catching on the framed seashells strung along the hallway. Millie sits at the small desk by her window, smoothing the folds of a white button down she had ironed the night before. The air never feels cool enough, no matter how low the ceiling fan hums, but the familiar routine of buttons, collar, cuffs gives her something solid to hold on to.

Pressed shirt and tailored slacks. Hair drawn neatly into a bun at the back of her head, not a strand loose. This is how she enters a room—measured, seamless, invulnerable. She has learned that polish is armor, that people listen more closely when there is no crease for them to press into.

On the desk waits a neat stack of printouts and brochures from her company, their glossy surfaces showing the future as someone imagines it—villas perched above limestone cliffs, infinity pools carved like mirrors into stone, a conference hall shaped in the suggestion of a wave. She straightens them once, then again, pressing their edges until they line up in a perfect block.

Downstairs, breakfast had been bread and eggs, instant coffee poured into a ceramic mug. She had eaten quickly, hardly tasting, her mind already at the barangay hall where the community agreed to meet her. That would be the first true test—the first time her words would be measured not against paper but against people.

Now she slips the brochures into a leather folder and checks the mirror one last time. Not a crease out of place. Not a hair. Not a doubt she’ll allow herself to show.

The tricycle ride jolts against all of that. The seat rattles beneath her, warm wind slipping its fingers under her collar. By the time she arrives, the folder is no longer pristine but faintly marked by the dampness of her palms.

The barangay hall smells of salt and woodsmoke. The walls are patched with old paint, calendars from last year still tacked beside the windows. Electric fans groan in the corners, pushing warm air more than cooling it. Plastic chairs scrape against concrete as people settle. Fishermen in shirts worn thin with sea-salt. Mothers with children balanced on their laps. Elders leaning forward on canes.

Millie straightens the folder again, aligning the glossy sheets inside. She knows how she looks here, pressed blouse and drawn hair, a figure cut sharper than the air around her. She has never believed in blending in.

When the murmurs fade, she steps forward. Her voice is clear without rising.

“Thank you for welcoming me this morning,” she begins with a small, deliberate smile. “I know time here is time away from the sea, from your families. I don’t take that lightly.”

She lets the pause settle before continuing. Respect, then persuasion. Always.

“I came here because this island holds promise. You already know that—you live it every day. But promise that isn’t shaped can slip away, like a tide pulling back too soon. What we’re offering is a chance to hold on to it, to shape it before someone else does.”

A man near the front shifts in his chair, arms crossing. Millie directs her next words toward him.

“Imagine a resort that draws guests from all over. Guests who don’t just stay in their rooms but hire boats, buy fish fresh from the water, eat in your eateries, bring your woven crafts back to their families abroad. Jobs in guiding, construction, management. Children who can go to better schools because of it. This isn’t about taking the sea away from you. It’s about letting the sea work for you.”

She lays one of the brochures flat on the nearest table. Renderings gleam—white sand, neat cottages with nipa roofs, tourists raising glasses of coconut water as though toasting the sky.

“In Bohol,” she continues, “fishers who once scraped by now earn double, even triple. In Palawan, women weaving mats by hand turned their skill into full shops. Communities that once lived only on what the sea offered now have choice. Stability. A dignity that lasts.”

She softens her tone. “I know what it means to want better for your children. This project can give you that.”

A ripple moves through the hall, uneven as waves against rock. Some eyes linger on the glossy paper, others slide away, wary.

A young mother shifts the baby in her lap, frowning at the paper Millie had placed in her hand. “And when the tourists don’t come? What then? Prices are still high. We are still hungry.”

Millie doesn’t flinch. She has faced harder rooms than this. “That is why we add, not take. You will still fish, still farm. Nothing lost. But you will also have another stream, so that when the sea runs lean, you won’t be left with nothing.”

Silence follows. Not agreement, not refusal. The silence of weighing, of waiting.

Millie lets it stretch, the sweat tracing her back under the pressed blouse, the folder growing heavy in her hands. When she closes, it is with deliberate calm. “All I ask is that you keep an open mind. Talk with your families. Imagine what tomorrow might look like if you say yes.”

The chairs scrape, the hall filling again with the shuffle of slippers and the murmur of voices in the local tongue she can only half-follow. Some keep the brochures, folding them into bags. Others leave them behind on the plastic seats.

Millie gathers her papers slowly, a smile still fixed though her throat tightens around it. She knows a partial victory when she sees one. The door isn’t open, but it hasn’t closed. And still—she cannot shake it. That Isla Arevalo, alone in her faded shop, had refused her with more certainty than an entire hall could muster.

The thought clings as she steps back into the brightness outside, the sunlight sharp against her eyes. Her smile holds until she rounds the corner and the tricycle drivers no longer watch her. Only then does she let it fall, her shoulders loosening as if she has been carrying a weight that wasn’t only the folder.

The island hasn’t chewed her up—not yet. But it hasn’t opened either.

She walks without direction, letting the road lead. The village hums around her—tricycles rattling past, children darting barefoot, women laughing over laundry strung between palms. Normal rhythms, unbothered by brochures and polished words.

She tells herself she should head back to Casa Solana, review notes, draft follow-ups. That would be the sensible choice. The professional choice. But her feet slow on the gravel, her gaze catching on the slope that leads toward the bluff.

She knows where it ends. She doesn’t want to admit that’s where she’s going. And still, step by step, the road pulls her there.

The bell jingles when she pushes the shop door open. The air is heavy with salt and clay, the shelves crowded with bowls and jars that catch the light in quiet gleams. Isla looks up from the wheel, her brow tightening—not surprise, not annoyance, something more guarded.

“If you’re here about the land again—”

Millie lifts her hand quickly, almost disarming. “I’m not. Promise.” A smile edges across her mouth, softer than the one she had worn at the hall. “Just a customer today.”

She lets her eyes move across the shelves, buying herself time. Most of the pieces are patient and symmetrical, their colors catching the light. But in the corner, half-hidden on a low shelf, sits a small cup—lopsided, uneven, the kind of piece most would overlook. She crouches, brushing its rim with her fingertips.

“This one,” she says. “How much?”

Isla wipes her hands on a rag, steps closer. “That’s a test piece. Not for sale.”

Millie lifts it carefully, turning it in her hands. “Which means it has been here long enough to collect dust. Humor me.”

Their eyes meet, and for a moment Isla seems to weigh whether this argument is worth the effort. Finally, her answer lands flat. “Fifty pesos.”

Millie lays a crisp bill on the counter. “Done.”

The cup is crooked, glaze pooled unevenly at its base, but it feels alive in her hands, as if it had shaped itself differently than intended. “I like it,” she says.

Isla shrugs, though something flickers in her gaze. “It’s crooked.”

“Maybe,” Millie replies. “But not everything has to be perfect to have value.”

A silence settles—waves distantly against the cliffs, the wheel behind them still humming faintly.

“You’ve kept this shop a long time,” Millie says.

“My grandmother kept it. My father built the kiln. I only try not to let it fall apart.”

The words are simple fact, as solid as the clay stacked on the shelves.

Millie nods once. She could press here, pivot back to persuasion, but Isla’s steadiness warns her off. Instead, she says lightly, “Then I’ll be back when I chip this cup. Which, considering my luck, will be soon.”

The corner of Isla’s mouth softens, almost but not quite a smile. “Don’t expect a discount.”

The bell jingles again when Millie steps back into the road, the uneven cup cushioned in her bag. The tricycle rattles her bones on the ride back to Casa Solana, the cup knocking softly with each bump. She finds her hand drifting to check it hasn’t cracked.

By the time she returns, the sun presses high and heavy, the lobby smelling faintly of polish and citronella. She climbs the stairs, slower this time, her body dragging with the day. In her room she sets the cup on the desk, where the sea gleams bright through the window.

It looks out of place among her things—laptop, chargers, folders, the stack of brochures squared like a block. The cup tilts slightly, one side gleaming, the other dulled, as if it has no interest in choosing between them.

She orders lunch and carries the tray to her balcony. Grilled pork, rice, iced calamansi juice. She eats slowly, the cup set in front of her like a quiet companion. She turns it between bites, fingers brushing the ridge where glaze thins to raw clay.

For the first time since she arrived, she doesn’t rehearse lines in her head. Doesn’t run strategies like a litany. Instead she remembers Isla at the wheel, hands steady, face calm, her gaze holding firm without needing to harden. That quiet certainty had closed the door on her more effectively than a slammed lock. And yet here she is, carrying home a piece of it.

When her glass is empty, ice melted to water, Millie sets the cup back on the table. It catches the light strangely—half-shadowed, half-bright, undecided.

She leans back in her chair, the salt wind teasing the edges of her hair, and tells herself it is only clay. A souvenir. Nothing more.

But when she goes inside, she leaves it where it can be seen. Waiting.

Chapter Text

The sun has already swung past its zenith by the time Isla takes the broom to the back yard. The slope behind the house is scattered with mango leaves, clay dust, and the fine ash that drifts on the wind from the kiln. She sweeps in long, deliberate arcs, the rasp of bristles against stone filling the silence, her body falling into rhythm while her mind refuses to.

Inside, the wheel waits, its basin rimmed with drying slip. Shelves lean under the weight of bowls and jars, both finished and flawed. Later she will scrub the wheel, sort through the shelves, maybe coat a few pieces in glaze before the light disappears. But for now she chooses the sun, harsh and insistent, pressing against her shoulders as though daring her to stop.

Her grandmother once swept this same yard. Isla remembers thin arms moving with unexpected strength, remembers the steady swish of broom against stone stitched into every morning. Back then she would fidget beside her, eager to race down to the bluff, impatient for the sea. Now the broom belongs only to her. If she doesn’t lift it, the house will drown in neglect.

Her gaze slips, uninvited, to the shelf near the window. She remembers the stranger who stood there that morning—the neat blouse, the pressed slacks, the smile too sharp to be soft. She had thought the memory would vanish the moment the bell jingled shut. Instead it lingers, as if the air itself held on to it. Perfume too sweet against clay and smoke. Hands held carefully at her sides, as though to touch the pottery would be surrender.

Isla shakes her head and sweeps harder.

Children’s laughter rises faint from the bluff, the slap of slippers on stone carried by the breeze. Beneath it all, the steady breathing of the sea. Life as it has always been. She tells herself it’s enough. The work. The house. The kiln. The mango tree leaning stubbornly toward the coast. Enough.

Still, when the breeze shifts and the faint rumble of a tricycle carries up the hill, her pulse flickers, absurdly expectant, though she doesn’t know what she’s waiting for.

By late afternoon, the worst of the heat has softened. The broom rests against the wall, leaves gathered into neat piles. Isla ties her hair back and takes the narrow path down the bluff, sandals hooked in her hand. The trail is steep, but her feet know each stone, each curve. Her grandmother once took this walk slower, careful of her knees, while Isla ran ahead, convinced the sea would wait.

The shore greets her with foam and salt. The tide is low, the children gone, the gulls circling in their place. She sets her sandals on a dry rock and steps barefoot into the water. Coolness folds around her ankles, tugging gently, as though the sea wants to hold her. She stays there, toes sinking deeper into sand, gaze stretched wide to the horizon.

The sea is always moving, but never different. It can rage or soothe, turn violent or kind, yet its rhythm remains. Her days follow the same beat—wheel in the morning, clay under her nails, the broom in her hands, this trail to this same shore.

She lowers herself onto a flat rock, knees drawn close. The horizon burns orange, thinning to pale blue as the sun begins its descent. She wonders, not for the first time, if this is all her life will be—clay and sea and silence, day after day, until her hands lose the strength to shape anything at all.

It should be enough. The house, the studio, the sea. They are hers, stitched into her blood by those who came before. And yet the question returns, persistent as tide—if it’s enough, why does she keep asking?

From the village above, smoke rises with the faint scent of garlic and wood, someone starting supper. Isla closes her eyes and lets the sound of the waves press against her chest, steady, relentless.

The sun lowers, bleeding gold into the water until it looks like a path leading away from the world. She stays until the horizon swallows the last of it, until stars prick through the sky. That is when she notices the fireflies.

At first only a few, their glow blinking as though shy of being seen. Then more, drifting out from the brush that clings to the bluff. Their lights pulse in uneven rhythm, scattering like embers on a wind that never burns them out. Isla watches, remembering the nights she sat here with another body beside her, constellations overhead and constellations beneath, the world alight in every direction.

Now there is only the sea, the stars, the fireflies—and herself.

When the tide creeps high enough to wet her rock, she rises, brushes sand from her calves, and climbs the path back before it disappears in the dark.

The house greets her with its familiar creak. She flicks the lights on one by one, shadows swelling in corners she has long stopped fearing. In the kitchen she moves through motions she could do without thought. Rice steaming, sauce boiling in the pan, a little dried fish crisping in oil. Simple food, enough for one. Always for one.

At the table she eats slowly, the light catching uneven curves of bowls and cups her hands had shaped. The quiet is complete—distant waves, the bark of a dog, the scrape of her own spoon.

After, she rinses the plate, sets it by the sink to dry, flicks off the lights one after another until their last breath vanishes, and walks upstairs to her room.

The narrow space greets her with its familiar weight—the mosquito net draped loose over her bed, the shelf sagging under old architecture books and sketchpads, the wall adorned with rulers in their cases.

Outside, fireflies still spark beyond the window, questions glowing and fading without answer. Isla lingers at the sill, palms pressed against the cool wood. Their rhythm reminds her of the stranger, the one too polished for this island, who stood in her shop that morning.

She exhales, sharp with annoyance. She doesn’t want to think of pressed slacks and clipped words here, where the air still smells of smoke and clay. But the memory of that gaze—steady, unflinching—returns.

The fireflies drift farther into the trees, thinning against the night. Isla shuts the window firmly, as if the thought could be shut out with it.

And yet when she lies down, the image lingers. Dark hair, lifted chin, eyes that didn’t look away. A flicker at the edge of sight, refusing to go out.

Chapter Text

Morning settles softly over Casa Solana, the veranda washed in a buttery light that makes even the scuffed floor look gilded. Millie sits at one of the mahogany tables near the edge, breakfast spread neatly before her—two fried eggs, a slice of dried fish crisped to salt and smoke, a mound of garlic rice. A small pot of brewed coffee steams gently beside a platter of mango slices, bright as jewels.

She eats with the discipline of someone trained never to linger too long over a meal, though here the pace is slower, unhurried. Couples drift in late, still damp-haired from the pool or the sea. A family laughs in bursts, their child clattering a spoon against the edge of a plate. The air smells of roasted beans and sea breeze.

As she folds her napkin, the receptionist approaches, a young woman with her hair pinned back and a polite brightness in her tone. “Ma’am, if you’re looking for something to do today, there’s a flea market in town. Just by the plaza. Happens once a month.”

Millie’s brows lift, a flicker of interest breaking the careful neutrality of her face. “A flea market?”

“Yes, ma’am. Locals sell crafts, food, clothes, sometimes antiques. Some tourists go for the atmosphere, but it’s mostly the community.”

Community. That word hooks something in Millie’s mind. She thinks of yesterday’s meeting—the wary eyes, the careful deflections—and then of Isla Arevalo’s firm dismissal. If she is to win them over, she needs to be seen, not just as the woman in slacks with brochures in hand, but as someone willing to stand among them.

She thanks the receptionist, returns upstairs to gather her things.

But when she comes down again, changed and ready, the mirror has betrayed her. The white button down, pressed smooth. The dark slacks, crisp pleats. Her hair tied back in a no-nonsense knot. The laptop bag left behind this time, yes, but in its place a slim leather satchel, equally deliberate. Only the shoes are different—sneakers, plain white, chosen in concession to the island’s uneven streets.

Millie doesn’t think twice about these choices until she arrives.

The plaza is alive with sound and color. Stalls shaded by tarpaulin bloom like makeshift tents. Tables groan under kilos of mangoes, woven fans, embroidered blouses, bottles of local vinegar and raw honey. The air is thick with smells—freshly fried twisted doughnuts with sugar and roasted corn. Children dart between stalls, giggling as they chase each other through the crowd. Tourists meander in sandals and flowy sundresses, cameras bobbing at their chests, already sun-flushed but blending easily with the rhythm.

And Millie—a crease of formality in the middle of it all. The blouse clings to her shoulders in the heat, the slacks cut too sharp against dust and concrete. She feels eyes turn as she passes, not hostile but curious. Even the tourists seem to fold into the picture better than she does.

She adjusts the strap of her satchel and steadies her step. This is still a kind of negotiation, she tells herself. Every glance, every stall visited, every polite exchange—it all adds up to something. If she can’t win their trust yet, perhaps she can at least earn their attention.

Millie starts with the nearest stall, where a woman sells handwoven abaniko fans dyed in soft pinks and greens. She picks one up, feels the cool snap of woven palm against her palm, and offers a polite smile.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” the vendor says, her voice warm, gesturing toward the spread of fans.

Millie nods. “Very.” Her Tagalog is precise, Manila-accented, the sort that never quite softens into the lilting tones of the Visayas. She asks the price, listens as the vendor explains, buys one without haggling. It’s easier that way—quicker, less chance of offense.

The woman beams at her, slips the fan into a paper bag, and Millie feels the first thread of connection, however thin.

She moves on.

At another stall, rows of glass bottles catch the sun—filled with honey, vinegar, and the dark, smoky liquid of fermented coconut sap. The vendor, an older man in a threadbare camisa de chino, waves her closer. “Try it,” he says, offering her a tiny plastic cup.

Millie hesitates only a moment before sipping. The vinegar hits sharp, then rounds into sweetness. She coughs lightly, surprised, and the man chuckles. “Good, right? For paksiw, for dipping.”

“It’s good,” Millie admits, and this time her smile isn’t the polished kind. She buys a small bottle, tucks it carefully into her satchel.

Further along, she passes a stall of secondhand books, their pages swollen from humidity. A young girl behind the table peers at her curiously, head tilted, before ducking back behind a paperback. Another table offers hand-stitched blouses, a few with uneven hems but bright, proud colors.

Everywhere, people move in easy rhythm. Coins clink, laughter rises, bargaining plays out like ritual. Millie’s steps feel sharper, too measured, as though she’s counting them against the dirt.

Still, she keeps going, forcing herself to linger instead of rushing through. She asks questions—about a weaving pattern, about how long it takes to ferment vinegar, about the sweet sticky rice laid out in banana leaves. She listens, nods, buys here and there. She knows she can’t erase the polished image she carries with her, but maybe she can soften its edges.

And yet, as she pauses near the center of the plaza, fanning herself with the abaniko she just bought, the contrast sharpens again. Sunburned tourists, messy hair and hanging cameras, fade into the crowd. Millie remains an underline.

But she squares her shoulders and reminds herself why she came. If she is to win anything here, it won’t be through boardrooms polished in glass. It will be in places like this, among the stalls that smell of heat and barter, where lives are measured in small exchanges.

As she threads deeper into the market, the air shifts. A briny sharpness rises above the sweet smoke of corn and fried dough—the kind of smell that tethers a place to the sea. Millie follows it without meaning to, and soon she finds him seated behind a wooden table, neat rows of dried danggit and squid catching the light like brittle coins.

Efren Sanchez, owner of the beachside lot where the mangroves are.

He looks different here than in the barangay hall the day before—less weatherworn, maybe, or simply more at ease. A towel rests on his shoulder, ready to swipe at sweat, and his hands move with practiced rhythm as he folds newspaper around each purchase.

“Good morning, Mang Efren,” she says.

His head lifts, surprise flickering before recognition softens his features. “Ah. You again.” His mouth quirks. “Businesswoman in the market now?”

The words could sting, but his tone is more amused than mocking. Millie offers a polite smile. “Trying to learn.”

“Hmm.” He gestures toward the spread. “Try it.” He picks up a sliver of dried fish, passes it across on a scrap of paper.

Millie hesitates, then takes it, the salt rough on her tongue, the flavor hitting strong and immediate. She coughs lightly, earning a low chuckle from him.

“City tastebuds,” he says. “You’d be tough if you could eat that every day.”

“I could try,” Millie says lightly, though she half-means it.

Mang Efren studies her a moment, his gaze not unkind but direct. “So. Have you convinced the people yet?”

Millie presses her lips together, then shakes her head. “Not yet.”

“Hmm. That’s not the way.” He gestures at her outfit—the pressed shirt, the tidy slacks. “You come dressed like you’re stealing our futures, not building it with us. People here, they listen with their ears, but they see before they hear.”

Millie swallows, the words landing heavier than she expects. She wants to argue, to say she knows how to talk to people, that she’s built her career on it. But here, in the press of voices and colors and smells, she feels like a statue among moving water.

“You want them to believe you?” Mang Efren continues, folding another packet of fish for a waiting customer. “Then sit with them. Sweat with them. Don’t just hand them brochures. Let them see you eat our food with your hands. Let them see you walk in slippers on the same hot ground.”

His words are not harsh, but steady, like advice given more than once.

Millie nods, quiet. “I’ll remember that.”

Mang Efren shrugs, passes the parcel to the waiting customer, then glances back at her. “Good. And next time—eat more than a sliver.”

This time, she laughs, unexpected but real, the sound surprising her as much as him.

She thanks Mang Efren, tucks the lingering salt of dried fish at the back of her tongue, and drifts deeper into the market. The stalls grow denser, narrower aisles threaded with voices calling out prices, with hands brushing past her shoulders. She adjusts her bag tighter against her side, heat collecting at the back of her neck.

And then she sees it.

Ceramics—rows of them, sun catching on glazed rims and pooling in the subtle dips of bowls. Cups the color of wet earth, plates edged in seafoam blue, jars with small flaws that make them ache with charm. In the middle of so much fabric and produce and noise, the table seems to hum with stillness.

Behind it sits Isla Arevalo.

She isn’t calling to customers like the others. She doesn’t need to. She sits with her elbows on the table, a cloth draped in one hand, rubbing the rim of a cup in slow, absent circles. Her hair is tied back loosely, a few strands falling around her face. Around her the market clatters, but she seems untouched, self-contained, like the eye of a storm.

Millie’s breath catches before she can help it. She forces herself to move forward, sneakers whispering against dusted concrete.

Isla notices her only when the shadow falls across the table. Her eyes lift, dark and clear, unreadable.

“Ms. Larenzana,” she says. Not a greeting. An acknowledgment.

Millie feels the words land like a stone in still water. “Good morning,” she manages, glancing over the spread of ceramics as if she’s just another customer.

Isla doesn’t press. She goes back to her cup, cloth moving steady. The silence is deliberate, thick, the kind that demands Millie to make the next move.

So she does. She picks up a small bowl, thumb brushing the uneven lip. “This one’s beautiful. You made it?”

“Of course,” Isla says.

There’s no arrogance in it, just fact. But it makes Millie feel suddenly transparent, like her attempt at casual curiosity is exactly what it is—a cover.

She sets the bowl down carefully. Between them, the market is strangely quiet.

“You come here often?” she asks, eyes still on the array of bowls as if that makes the question less direct.

Isla doesn’t look up. “When I have pieces to sell.”

Millie nods, running her fingers along the rim of another cup—this one a deep sea-green, the glaze shining wet in the sun. “They stand out,” she says. “In the middle of all this—fish, fruit, cloth—you’d think clay wouldn’t draw the eye. But it does.”

This time Isla glances at her, brief but sharp, as though weighing whether the words are flattery or truth. She says nothing, just returns to polishing the cup in her hands.

Millie presses on, softer. “I suppose that’s what good craft does. It… stills a person. Makes them look closer.”

The words surprise even her. She hadn’t planned to say them, hadn’t meant to sound like anything but polite. But it’s true—something about the quiet order of Isla’s stall, the deliberate shapes, the imperfections baked into permanence, had stopped her mid-step.

For a moment, Isla’s hand stills on the cloth. Her gaze flicks to the table, then back to Millie. “Clay doesn’t care if it stands out,” she says finally. “It only takes the shape you give it.”

Millie lets out a breath of a laugh, though it comes more from nerves than amusement. “Maybe. But not everyone can give it shape the way you do.”

That earns her another look, longer this time. Not warm, not welcoming—but not dismissive either. As if Isla is testing the edges of her words, checking them for cracks.

A customer approaches then, a young woman in a sunhat who picks up a pair of mugs with eager hands. Isla turns to her smoothly, naming the price, wrapping the mugs in used paper. Millie steps aside, pulse steadying, unsure whether she’s been given ground or simply ignored.

But when the sale is done and the customer walks off, Isla glances back once more, the smallest acknowledgment that she’s still listening.

Millie lingers, pretending to browse, though her attention keeps circling back to one small bowl tucked near the edge of the display. It isn’t flawless—the glaze has pooled unevenly on one side, leaving a pale streak like the sea pulling back from the sand. But there’s something about it, the way it looks both deliberate and accidental, that holds her still.

She picks it up carefully. “This one,” she says, not looking at Isla right away. “It reminds me of tide marks.”

Isla’s eyes flick to the bowl. “It didn’t fire evenly,” she says. Matter-of-fact, almost dismissive. “Most people prefer the clean finishes.”

Millie turns it in her hand, running a thumb along the faint ridge inside. “I think that’s what makes it interesting. It looks… alive.”

For a breath, Isla studies her, unreadable. Then she names the price—short and clipped.

Millie doesn’t haggle, doesn’t even hesitate. She reaches for her wallet, smoothing out a bill as though the act itself were a statement. Isla wraps the bowl in brown paper, sliding it across the table. Their fingers don’t touch, but Millie feels the absence of it as keenly as if they had.

“Thank you,” Millie says, quieter than she intended.

Isla nods once, already turning to rearrange the cups beside her. But there’s a flicker, the faintest pause in her hands, like something unspoken had pressed against her ribs and stayed there.

Millie tucks the bundle carefully into her bag. The crowd flows around her—the smell of fried dough, the laughter of children tugging at kites, a dog nosing through discarded husks. She steps away from the stall slowly, resisting the urge to glance back.

The weight of the bowl is small, almost nothing. Yet she feels it anchor her, a reminder she isn’t ready to shake.

By the time Millie walks the steps of Casa Solana, the sun has sharpened overhead, burning the roofs into a dazzle of light. The cool shade of the lobby greets her, the faint hum of ceiling fans barely stirring the heavy air. She nods absently at the receptionist, who is mid-conversation with a pair of German tourists, and takes the stairs two at a time, her bag pressed against her side like something fragile.

Inside her room, she closes the door and exhales, letting the hush settle. She sets the bundle on the desk, unwrapping the crinkled paper with more care than she expected to give it. The small bowl emerges, uneven glaze catching the muted light like a shoreline under cloud.

She places it in front of her, beside the ceramic cup she bought yesterday. Together, they look almost like they belong—a mismatched pair, flawed but steady.

Millie sinks into the chair, tugging loose the knot of her hair until it falls around her shoulders. The pressed shirt feels stiff against her skin, so she slips it off too, leaving only the tank beneath. Sweat still clings to her collarbone, but the relief of being unbuttoned, unarmored, is enough.

Her lunch arrives a few moments later—rice, beef soup, iced lemonade—the warmth filling the room. She eats slowly on the balcony table, eyes drifting back to the bowl and cup as though she isn’t dining alone. A ridiculous thought, but the ceramics seem to hold something the glossy brochures on her desk never could. Time, weight, touch.

She catches herself tracing the rim of the bowl with one finger, careful not to spill her rice. For a woman who had once measured her days in contracts signed and projects completed, it’s unnerving how much gravity two small, imperfect pieces of clay can have.

The murmur of the sea filters in through the coconut trees. She leans back, the chair creaking, and lets her gaze rest on the horizon. Isla Arevalo’s voice lingers in her mind—not the words, sharp and certain as they were, but the quiet behind them.

For the first time since arriving, Millie doesn’t reach for her planner. She just sits there, caught in the slow tide of a day that seems to ask nothing of her but to notice it.

Chapter Text

The light shifts golden as the day leans toward evening, brushing the market in a softened haze. Stalls begin to thin; vendors fold tarps, stack crates, call after lingering customers with last prices of the day. The air smells of grilled corn, fish brine, and the faint sweetness of overripe fruit.

Isla gathers her wares slowly, brushing dust from the table, stacking the pieces that remain—just a handful now, the day’s work pared down to a few bowls, a vase, a platter that has resisted every hand that passed it. Most of her stock has already found its way into the bags of tourists and locals alike. Enough to ease tomorrow’s worries, but not enough to stop them from returning.

She wraps each piece in old newspaper, the printed ink smudging faintly onto her fingers. When she reaches for the uneven bowl that had sat too long on the far edge of the table, she pauses. Gone now.

Her gaze flicks over the stall as if the piece might have slipped beneath the cloth, but she knows better. It was purchased—lifted from her table by the same woman who had already carried one of her cups away days earlier.

The thought lodges itself, unwanted. Of all the bowls, of all the hands that could have claimed it, why hers?

Isla exhales and shakes her head, folding the stall cloth with brisk precision. She tucks the day’s earnings into the canvas pouch at her waist, the bills creased and damp from passing so many palms. The market noise thins around her, settling into something quieter: children tugging their mothers toward the tricycle stop, vendors exchanging leftovers, the scrape of wooden tables pulled back into storage.

Behind the noise, the sea keeps its own rhythm. Isla hears it even here, steady against the bluff. She lingers a moment, letting the breeze carry the last of the sun to her skin before she finishes packing.

The market has given her a good day. Still, the absence of that bowl trails after her like a shadow, one she can’t quite name.

As Isla ties the last knot on her bundle of cloth, a voice calls out from across the row.

“Isla! Don’t go home yet. Come eat with us.”

The call comes from her Ninang Ester, who sells rice cakes a few stalls down. She has been calling her over like this since she was a child trailing after her grandmother—back then it was for sweet rice wrapped in banana leaves, now it’s for a place at a shared table.

Isla straightens, shading her eyes against the low sun. A cluster has already formed near the end of the lane—vendors dragging stools into a loose circle, dishes laid out on a patched tablecloth spread over crates. Fish grilled till their skin blisters, rice steaming in an enamel pot, a small mound of tomatoes glistening with salt. The air hums with laughter, with the tired satisfaction of people who’ve survived another market day.

She hesitates only a moment before slinging her basket to the crook of her arm and walking toward them.

“You thought you’d escape us, didn’t you?” her Ninong Rudy teases as she arrives, his voice rough from years in the field. “Sit down, Ai. We never see you anymore.”

Isla smiles faintly—small, but real—and lowers herself onto a low stool. The familiarity warms her in ways she’ll never say aloud. She accepts the tin plate handed to her, lets Ninang Ester heap rice on it before she can protest, then takes a slice of tomato and a piece of fish with char clinging to her fingers.

The food is ordinary, humble, but here it carries more weight. Each bite is softened by conversation—jokes about the stubborn tourists, sighs over the rising price of gas, laughter at a child’s mangled attempt at a tongue-twister. Isla eats and listens, letting their voices fold around her like a blanket she didn’t know she was waiting for all week.

She doesn’t speak much, but no one expects her to. They’ve known her too long, seen her grow from the girl who once chased after her grandmother’s skirts to the woman sitting here now. Their eyes hold the same gentleness, the unspoken recognition of belonging.

For this hour, at least, she isn’t eating alone.

The rice is nearly gone, the pot scraped clean. Someone passes a bottle of soda, sweating from the cooler, and another waves a hand fan made of woven palm. The air is heavy but softened by laughter, by the small relief of not eating alone. Isla lets the noise wash over her, a faint smile tugging when Ninang Ester scolds Ninong Rudy for taking too much tomato.

Then she notices movement at the edge of the lane.

A woman walking past, head lowered as if to map her way. Cotton T-shirt loose against her shoulders, gray sweatpants almost swallowing a pair of slippers that looks barely worn. Not the armor of pressed slacks and stiff blouse. Different, almost ordinary, but Isla recognizes her instantly.

Millie.

Before Isla can look away, her Tatay Efren’s voice cuts through.

“Hey, Ma’am Millie!” he calls, cheerful, teasing. “Where are you going? No dinner plans yet?”

Millie blinks, caught. “Just—uh, the mini-mart,” she answers, voice careful.

“Mini-mart later. Come here,” he waves her closer, grinning. “You’ll buy our lands, maybe, but first you eat our fish.”

The group chuckles. Jokes pile on—“Sit down before it gets cold,” “Don’t be shy, ma’am, it’s not city food but it’s better,”—until refusing would feel like offense.

And Millie, to Isla’s surprise, doesn’t fight it. She gives a small laugh, more breath than sound, and steps toward them.

Someone pulls up another stool. The circle widens. And in the shuffle, Millie ends up lowering herself beside Isla.

Isla doesn’t shift away, though every muscle suggests she wants to. She keeps her gaze on her plate, though she can feel the warmth of another body too close, hear the faint catch of Millie’s breath as she accepts a tin plate piled high before she can protest.

“Thank you,” Millie says softly—to the group, but her shoulder brushes Isla’s sleeve as she speaks.

Isla chews slowly, steady, pretending it doesn’t register. But her pulse betrays her, quickening against the quiet that suddenly exists only between them.

Around them, conversation flows on—arguments over the best way to salt fish, children tugging at their mothers’ arms, laughter that carries into the night. Yet Isla is caught in the strangeness of this new shape at their table. Millie doesn’t belong here. And yet, here she is.

Millie balances her plate carefully, the way outsiders always do with food that isn’t theirs. She tastes the rice, then a bite of fish roasted over charcoal.

Her brows lift. “This is… incredible.” She glances around, almost shy. “I don’t think I’ve ever had fish this fresh. Not even in the city restaurants.”

Laughter erupts. Tatay Efren slaps his thigh, delighted. “Of course not! That one was swimming this morning. Caught by my nephew just there—” he jerks a thumb toward the dark line of sea beyond the trees. “Still half-asleep when we pulled it in.”

Millie smiles, earnest, leaning forward a little. “Really? That makes sense. You can taste the sea in it. Like…” She hesitates, then shrugs, voice lighter. “Like the ocean never left.”

It isn’t polished. Not the smooth persuasion of a pitch deck or the precise charm Isla braced herself against. It’s plain, almost guileless. The curiosity of someone who isn’t above being surprised.

The group answer her easily. Someone explains how the banana leaves were used to keep the fish moist. Someone else offers her a chunk of tomato with salted fish. She listens, actually listens, nodding, laughing when Ninong Rudy jokes about charging her extra for every question.

And Isla watches—silent, guarded, but watching.

This is not the woman who walked into her shop with perfume clashing against the smell of clay. Not the woman who spoke of opportunities like she already owned them. This Millie has her sleeves pulled up, shoulders loosened, hair coming loose from its tie. And when she eats another bite, the joy is unstudied, unperformed.

Still, Isla doesn’t let herself soften. She eats, keeps her eyes on her plate. But when Millie says, “Thank you—for letting me sit, for sharing this,” the words are directed to the group, and yet somehow land closer. Too close.

The others wave it off, teasing her that she’ll have to earn her keep by singing next time. The circle folds her in, just for tonight.

And Isla feels the old ache of contradiction. Wanting the table to remain hers, familiar and untouched—and noticing, against her better judgment, how the stranger’s presence shifts it, brightens it, even if just slightly.

Later, the meal winds down the way community dinners always do—slowly, reluctantly. Plates empty, voices soften, and the night air thickens with the mingled scents of grilled fish and cooling charcoal. One by one, neighbors rise, gathering containers, folding chairs, promising to do it all again next time.

Isla helps stack the used banana leaves, brushes rice grains from her lap. Her basket waits at her feet. She tucks them inside, cloth wrapping dull against the gleam of ceramic.

When she lifts the basket, Millie rises too. For once, she doesn’t speak first. She only nods politely to the others, thanks them again, then falls into step beside Isla as the group disperses.

The road is quiet. Gravel crunches underfoot. The air smells faintly of ripening mangoes, of woodsmoke lingering in clothes. Crickets drone.

They don’t talk. Their shoulders nearly brush, but don’t.

At some point, Millie’s gaze drops to the basket swaying from Isla’s hand. “That looks heavy,” she says finally. Not polished, not strategic—just said. She gestures lightly. “Can I…?”

Isla almost laughs. The woman who carried glossy brochures and promises like armor now wants to carry uneven bowls and unclaimed platter. She shakes her head. “It’s fine. I’ve carried heavier.”

But Millie doesn’t retreat. She holds out her hand, waiting, patient in a way that unnerves more than any speech could.

For a moment, Isla hesitates. Then she lets go. The basket transfers between them, weightless for Isla’s arm now, but strange in a way she can’t name.

Millie steadies it easily, adjusts her grip. “Not so bad,” she murmurs. And then silence falls again—except it feels different this time, less like distance, more like something suspended, held carefully between them.

Ahead, the road splits. One path leads back to Isla’s house and shop, the other to the bright windows of Casa Solana. The choice waits, close as the sound of their steps.

Chapter Text

Millie adjusts the basket in her grip, surprised by its weight. Not heavy, exactly. Just solid in a way that grounds her. The clay sits with its history—heat, hands, fire. It’s nothing like the crisp brochures tucked in her bag in Casa Solana.

Beside her, Isla walks with her arms free now, hands brushing her jeans. She doesn’t rush, doesn’t fill the silence, doesn’t need to. Millie’s used to filling gaps, smoothing rough edges with words. But here, the crunch of gravel and the ocean’s breath below feel like enough.

She watches Isla from the corner of her eye. The low light sharpens her features—cheekbones catching the faint glow of a streetlamp, hair slipping loose from its knot, shoulders shaped by labor that can’t be faked. There’s a steadiness to her, the kind Millie has only ever seen in people who know exactly where they belong.

It unsettles her more than rejection ever could.

The path curves toward the bluff. Without realizing it, she’s followed Isla past her own turn. Her hotel lies in the opposite direction. A mango tree looms above them now, its branches heavy, shadows falling across the road like curtains. Isla slows.

“You didn’t have to come all the way,” she says, her voice low, not unkind.

Millie shifts the basket against her hip, fingertips brushing the uneven lip of a bowl inside. “I know,” she says. Then, quieter, “I should also say… sorry. For that day. At your shop.”

Isla glances at her, unreadable in the dim light.

“I came in with a plan,” Millie admits. “I should’ve respected the space. Instead I treated it like a pitch room.”

She lets out a breath—half laugh, half exhale. “It wasn’t the impression I wanted to leave.”

The silence stretches, not as dismissal, but as thought.

Finally, Isla looks forward again. “The shop is what it is,” she says simply. Not forgiveness, but not a closed door either.

Millie nods, accepting the line for what it is. It’s more than she expected.

The house appears ahead—sun-faded coral even in the dark, shutters pale against the walls, its silhouette stubborn against the cliff’s edge. She takes it in quietly. There’s life pressed into its beams, its windows, its very tilt. Not a brochure. Not a project. A home.

At the gate, Isla reaches for the basket. Millie hands it over slowly, her fingers brushing Isla’s in the trade. A brief contact—warm, fleeting, gone too fast.

“Good night,” Isla says. Certain, like the closing of a door.

Millie nods, throat tighter than expected. “Good night.”

The walk back feels longer without Isla beside her. The road hasn’t changed—the same low eaves strung with lanterns, the same sea murmuring in the dark—but her steps feel slower now. Her hands, empty, brush against her sweatpants, trying to smooth out wrinkles that aren’t there.

Casa Solana greets her in its usual hush. The front desk is empty. Lights have dimmed to their final switches. The air carries traces of someone else’s dinner—ginger, rice, the smoke of something grilled. She climbs the stairs and lets herself into her room.

The desk by the window holds the things she’s gathered—the cup from yesterday, the bowl from this morning. They sit in the pale pool of lamplight like familiar faces, uneven but deliberate. Steady in their imperfections.

She drops into the chair and draws them closer. Her fingers trace the rim of the bowl. “Well,” she says softly, “it’s the three of us now.”

Her voice snags on the edge of a laugh, but it never quite forms. She rests her chin on her hand, studying the clay like it might shift, offer an answer.

The cup stares back, mute and solid. The bowl keeps its silence too—no comfort, only weight.

Millie exhales and leans back. “What am I supposed to make of her?” she murmurs. “She doesn’t give me anything to work with. Just… herself.”

Her eyes close briefly. And then Isla returns—not the whole of her, but in fragments. The brush of her hand when the basket passed between them, the strands of hair that refused to stay in place, the way her voice carried calm without ever trying to command it.

They surface like details in a report she didn’t mean to reread—small, irrelevant at first glance, but refusing to leave her alone.

Millie shifts, restless. She knows this kind of pull, the mind trying to name something the body already recognizes. It isn’t new, but it feels different. Heavier, maybe. Less spark, more gravity.

She opens her eyes again, gaze catching on the ceramics. The light glances off their curves, familiar and foreign all at once.
“I think…” she whispers, not quite meaning to, “I’d like to understand her.”

She traces the cup’s rim, the bowl’s edge, her fingers finding the places where human touch turned earth into form. For now, it’s enough—to look, to wonder, to stay just outside whatever this is.

Outside, the sea breathes against the shore. Steady. Indifferent. Carrying away everything she’s still not ready to say out loud.

The next day, Millie dresses differently.

No pressed slacks. No starched blouse. Just a plain white T-shirt tucked into jeans, sneakers clean but not spotless. She pauses in front of the mirror, loosens her hair from its tight knot, lets it fall straighter. The change feels small. But in her chest, there’s a flicker of unease, like stepping out of armor she’s worn too long.

She leaves Casa Solana after a quick breakfast, a folder of notes tucked under her arm. The receptionist had marked names for her—landowners the developers have their eyes on. Fishermen. Farmers. Families with a few hectares each.

She repeats the names in her head like a litany as she walks the village road. The sun is already climbing, the heat pressing close.

The first man she meets is sitting in the shade of a nipa hut, threading line through a fishing net. His hands move with the ease of repetition—calloused, steady, the nylon cutting faint grooves into his fingers.

Millie lowers herself a bit, not quite crouching but enough to meet him at eye level. “Mang Tonyo?”

He glances up, eyes narrowing against the sun. He clocks her shoes, her face, the folder under her arm. Then he nods.

“I’m here to ask about your land,” she begins, voice soft, careful. “Just to understand where things stand. No decisions yet.”

His mouth twitches like he’s heard that before. Still, he gestures for her to sit on the edge of the bamboo platform beside him.

“You’ve fished here your whole life?” she asks, shifting her weight as she lowers herself.

He chuckles, dry and low. “And my father before me. My son too. Though lately, he talks more about Manila than the sea.”

Millie nods, taking it in. “That pull is strong,” she says, glancing out toward the water. Then, before she can stop herself, she adds, “If the resort happens… is there anything that would help him? A scholarship maybe? Or newer boats, for those who stay?”

Tonyo leans back, the net resting in his lap now. His gaze sharpens, but not unkindly. “Scholarships sound nice. Boats too. But that’s paper, ma’am. Pretty promises. Developers talk, and talk, but the sea doesn’t change. And our nets stay torn.”

Millie says nothing for a moment. The air feels heavier. She presses the folder to her side, suddenly aware of how thin it is next to his words.

“I understand,” she says finally, though she knows she doesn’t. Not fully. Not yet.

She spends the day in a slow rhythm—moving from one household to the next. Huts made of bamboo, small cement homes with rusted roofs, sari-sari stores tucked under awnings. She introduces herself, folder in hand, always the same opening, just gathering information. Nothing final. Just understanding the lay of the land.

People are cautious. Some more than others. Most remember other promises—other faces.

Under a tree behind a roadside stand, she speaks with an older woman selling vegetables. The woman’s hands are stained with soil, her voice rough with disuse.

“If tourists come, prices will rise,” she says, not unkindly. “Good for the rich. Not for us.”

Millie nods, writing. “The company’s looking at improving transport routes,” she offers. “Better roads, maybe refrigerated storage. It could mean higher profit margins, if it’s done right.”

The woman shrugs. “If.”

Millie doesn’t argue. She just writes it down.

At another home, a man in his forties leans against a porch post, his young daughter playing nearby.

“If you buy the land, we’ll have to leave,” he says simply.

“We’re not forcing anything,” Millie replies. “Nothing moves unless you agree. But if you were open to selling… would relocation assistance make a difference? It’s part of what we can propose.”

He squints at her. “People always say there’s help. But it dries up. And what do we get after?”

Millie has no answer for that. Not one that would sound like more than another pitch. She only writes it down—suspicion of follow-through.

She meets with five more families. Some invite her in. Some keep their distance, speaking through doors or from porches. She listens more than she speaks. The questions shift subtly with each stop—less about profit, more about permanence.

The folder begins to fatten, not with numbers, but with notes scrawled in the margins. Market access, typhoon-resistant homes, wage floors for local hires. They’re not promises. Not yet. Just pieces of a conversation that wasn’t in her original plan.

Some landowners are curious. A few ask about job training, or how the resort might hire locals instead of bringing in staff from Manila.

Others end the conversation before it begins. Not rudely. Just tired of it all.

One man gestures toward his land with a tilt of his chin. “This farm fed my father. Feeds my children now. How much is that worth to you?”

Millie looks out at the field—uneven rows of eggplant and sweet potato, a carabao dozing in the distance. The sun sits hot on her neck. She doesn't have a number that would satisfy him. She doesn’t try to give one.

By late afternoon, her shirt clings to her back, her hair damp from sweat. Her voice is hoarse—not from talking too much, but from keeping it level. Professional. Measured.

She hasn’t pitched a single ROI today.

And that unsettles her more than she expected.

She should go back. Review, prepare.

Instead, her feet turn without asking. Down the familiar road, past the leaning mango tree, toward the coral-colored house on the bluff.

The bell over the shop door jingles as she pushes it open.

Inside, the air smells the same—clay, faint smoke, salt riding in on the breeze. Light pours in through open windows, striking shelves lined with pottery in every stage of becoming. Some pieces are glazed and gleaming. Others still bare, soft-looking but solid. Earth, waiting.

Isla looks up from her worktable. She’s bent over a shallow dish, brush in hand, smoothing something pale along the rim. Her hair is pulled back loosely, a few strands stuck to her temple with sweat.

Millie clears her throat. “I was nearby,” she says. “Thought I’d stop in.”

She doesn’t offer more than that.

Isla sets the brush aside, eyes steady on her. “You’re persistent,” she says. Not cold. Not amused. Just observant.

Millie steps closer, her eyes drawn to the dish. The pale coating gleams faintly, like skin before a sunburn. “What’s that?”

“Glaze,” Isla answers. “It melts in the kiln. Turns to glass. Seals the surface. Adds color.”

Millie leans in a little. “Doesn’t look like much now.”

“What you see now is only the promise of it.” Isla wipes her hands on a rag. “Clay doesn’t show its truth until the fire. You have to trust it first.”

The words hit deeper than they should. Millie nods, unsure what to say.

“The clay,” she says after a moment, “you get it from here?”

Isla gestures vaguely inland. “Riverbeds. Coarse stuff. Not like the processed bags from the city. But if you know how to work it, it holds.”

Millie looks at the shelves again. “So these… they all came from right here. Ground. Water. Fire.”

Isla gives the smallest nod. “Nothing that isn’t already ours.”

Millie doesn’t touch anything. She doesn’t even move much, just stands among the pieces, letting the air settle around her. For once, she’s not thinking about leverage or timing. She's just… here.

She lets the quiet stretch between them. Not awkward. Not waiting.

Isla picks the brush back up, turns the dish slowly in her hands. She doesn’t tell Millie to leave. Doesn’t invite her to stay either.

But something in the silence feels like permission.

Chapter Text

Their words have barely settled when the sky turns. One moment, it’s all blue and glare; the next, clouds spill in, thick as ink. Isla barely has time to move the unfired dish aside before the first drops slam against the roof in sharp, staccato bursts.

The storm arrives hard and fast. Wind slams the shutters, rattles the door. Rain pounds in sheets so dense it erases the view outside.

Isla turns—and sees Millie flinch.

Not a startle. Not a momentary jolt. It’s sharper, embedded deep—shoulders tightening, eyes darting as though tracking exits. Her hand closes around the strap of her bag.

“I should go,” Millie says, too brightly. “It’s… just rain.”

Isla watches her, steady. Rain isn’t just rain to everyone. She remembers storms from her childhood—roofs torn like tin foil, huddled nights lit by candles, the air swollen with dread. Some things never leave the body.

“You won’t get far,” Isla says evenly. “Road floods easy. Best to wait it out. It’ll break in a few moments.”

Millie looks at her, caught between resistance and relief.

Isla lifts a shoulder, wipes her hands on a rag. “Stay. No one chases a storm. Let it pass.”

For a long moment, Millie stays frozen. Then slowly, she releases her grip on the strap and lowers herself onto the stool near the counter.

Isla returns to the table, though her hands can’t settle. Clay work is out of the question now. Thunder rolls overhead, deep and close. From the corner of her eye, she sees Millie watching the shelves—not with the cool calculation of yesterday, but something quieter. Something exposed.

It makes Isla’s own breath hitch, just slightly.

Rain continues to hammer the roof, leaks down the warped edge of the doorframe. The shop smells of wet earth, smoke, and salt. Isla lays an old towel beneath the leak, movements steady from practice.

Millie sits too still. That kind of stillness that hums at the edges. Her gaze lifts every time the beams creak. When thunder cracks nearby, her eyes squeeze shut, jaw clenched like she’s waiting for something to snap.

Not discomfort. Fear.

Isla lowers herself into the chair behind the table, careful not to startle her. She busies her hands with a half-dried shard, fingers moving out of habit. But her focus is elsewhere—on the line of Millie’s shoulders, the quiet tremor in her hands.

Storms have always been background noise to Isla. Disruptive, yes, but part of life. Watching Millie brace beneath it, she feels something shift. Not pity. Something gentler. The gravity of being trusted with a truth no one names.

So she doesn’t speak. She lets the silence hold. Her presence steady, a counterweight. Outside, the wind howls through the mango tree. Inside, the quiet thickens, woven with clay and rain.

Eventually, she rises and crosses to the kitchen. Turns the stove knobs, sets water to boil.

When she returns, she places a mug in front of Millie—plain, warm between the palms. “It helps,” Isla says.

Millie blinks down at it, like the heat startles her more than the storm. But she doesn’t let go. Her shoulders ease, just a little.

“When I was a kid,” she says finally, “the roof leaked in three places. Storms felt like they were trying to tear the house apart.” She lets out a humorless breath. “We used every pot we had to catch the water. Slept to the sound of dripping and wind.”

Isla says nothing. Just lets the story settle into the space between them.

Thunder growls, softer now.

Isla hadn’t expected Millie—the poised outsider, the polished pitchwoman—to come undone here. And yet, here she is. Braced and unraveling, all in the same breath.

“You’re safe here,” Isla says, quiet and certain.

Millie doesn’t argue.

Time moves in the rhythm of rain. Shadows gather. Isla lights a second lamp, the glow soft against the clay-dusted walls.

Millie hasn’t shifted much, her hands still wrapped around the now-cooling mug. She looks toward the windows occasionally, but the storm hasn’t softened. Isla checks the clock, then the door. It’ll be night before the road clears.

She ignores the hunger settling low in her gut—an ache long familiar—but silence presses differently when you’re not alone.

“You’ll need dinner,” Isla says.

Millie looks up, blinking like she’s surfaced from somewhere else. A crease appears between her brows, as if calculating whether to refuse.

Isla doesn’t wait. She moves back to the kitchen, pulling out rice, the last of the morning’s fish, and a handful of vegetables she’d bought at market. Her motions are practiced, unhurried, the rhythm of feeding one. Tonight, it stretches to two.

The knife taps against the board, the sound of boiling water fills the space. Rain beats its relentless tempo on the roof. Isla stirs, adds vegetable and fish to the broth, sets the rice to steam. It’s simple food, but whole.

When she sets the table—a small one by the kitchen window, usually half cluttered with tools—she clears it with an absent sweep of her hand. Two plates. Two cups.

Millie hesitates before joining her, as though unsure if she belongs in this circle of light. Then she lowers herself into the chair opposite. Her hair is damp from the humidity, strands of baby hair clinging to her temple. Out of place in pressed lines and city polish, she looks more human now, and somehow more striking for it.

Isla serves without comment. Fish soup, steaming rice. The kind of meal meant to quiet the body rather than impress.

Millie lifts her spoon slowly, as though memorizing the motions of a life not her own. “This is…” She stops, catches herself, shakes her head faintly. “Better than I deserve, probably.”

Isla arches a brow, not sure what she means, but doesn’t press. Instead, she takes her own first bite, savoring the heat, the salt. She eats with the same ease she always does, but tonight her awareness tilts sideways—toward the sound of Millie’s spoon against the bowl, the soft exhale she makes after swallowing.

They eat in near silence at first, the sound of rain filling the spaces words might.

“It’s good,” Millie says at last, her voice quiet but certain. “Better than anything I’ve eaten since I arrived.”

“It’s just fish and rice,” Isla answers.

“Maybe.” Millie’s mouth curves faintly. “But it’s different when it’s made like this. Not for selling. Just… for eating.”

Isla pauses, her spoon midway to her mouth. She studies Millie. There’s no performance in her words, not patronizing. Just truth, plain and a little raw.

“You grew up with food like this?” Millie asks then, as though afraid the question might be too personal.

Isla nods. “Always.”

Millie exhales, something softer threading through it. “We didn’t. My mother worked late most nights. Dinner was whatever we could put together. Cans, mostly. Sometimes noodles if the power hadn’t gone out.” She shakes her head lightly, as if pushing away the memory. “It felt like the storms ate first, and we just scrape what was left.”

The words hang there, delicate, like a thread neither of them pulls too hard. Isla lets them be.

“You’ll sleep easier once the storm passes,” she says instead.

Millie looks across the table, eyes catching on hers. There’s something unguarded in them now, stripped of polish and practiced ease. “I think I already am,” she admits.

The storm crashes again once, wind tearing at the eaves, rain pounding against the roof. But in here, there’s warmth—steam rising from bowls, the low glow of the lamp, the quiet recognition passing between them like another kind of refuge.

When they finish, Millie sets her spoon down with the careful finality of someone unused to being fed without anything in return. For a while neither of them moves, the storm slows beyond the walls. Then Millie clears her throat.

“Let me wash the dishes,” she says.

Isla shakes her head automatically. “Guests don’t.”

Millie stands anyway, gathering her plate and spoon, then Isla’s before she can stop her. She carries them to the basin in the sink, sleeves pulled to her shoulders. Her movements are deliberate, as though this simple act requires as much focus as a presentation.

Isla leans back, watching. The storm has bent her edges, yes, but it hasn’t erased that strange precision—the way Millie holds the ceramics, not like something fragile, but with a respect she probably doesn’t even notice.

“You made these too,” Millie says after a moment, glancing at the plates stacked by the sink.

Isla nods. “All of them.”

Millie runs a thumb along the rim of the bowl in her hand.

“They’re not perfect,” she says, though it sounds less like judgment and more like wonder.

“No,” Isla answers evenly. “They’re not meant to be.”

That earns the faintest smile, hidden half in the shadow. She rinses the last bowl, sets it on the rack, then dries her hands slowly as if reluctant to break the motion.

By the time they settle back in the studio, the storm has begun to shift. The thunder rolls further off, longer between strikes. Rain softens to a steady patter, the kind that whispers instead of roars. The air inside grows cooler, almost tender in its quiet.

Isla cracks the shutters an inch, enough to smell the rain-washed earth, the sharpness of salt carried from the bluff. The island has the feel of an exhale—like something held too long is finally let go.

Millie lingers near the door, bag strap loose in her hand now, strands falling around her face. She looks out into the clearing night, then back at Isla. For a moment she seems about to say something more, something weightier. But instead, she simply nods.

“Thank you,” she says. The words are soft, almost lost to the dripping eaves.

Isla only inclines her head. She doesn’t ask what for—the meal, the roof, the silence shared. Maybe all of it.

Millie steps out into the damp air, her figure retreating into the softened dark. The storm has passed, leaving behind the hush of wet ground, the faint chorus of frogs awakening. Isla stays at the doorway, watching until Millie disappears down the path toward Casa Solana.

The house creaks in the stillness. A bowl remains on the rack, water sliding off its curve in thin rivulets, catching the last echo of thunder. Isla closes the door and lets the night fold back around her, alone again—but not untouched.

Chapter Text

Morning breaks clean over San Juan.

Millie wakes to a light so sharp it feels rinsed—the sea beyond her balcony glittering in the distance as if polished overnight. The storm has left its mark. Puddles pooling in the hotel’s garden path, coconut fronds bent low, the air tasting new and salt-bright.

She sits at the small balcony table, breakfast laid out before her—garlic rice, eggs, a slice of mango so golden it seems lit from within. Her laptop stays closed. Instead, her fingers curl around the ceramic cup she bought days ago, the uneven rim now familiar against her hand.

She thinks of last night—the hammering rain, the way her shoulders refused to unclench until Isla set the warm mug before her. The quiet meal. The handmade plates. The calm certainty in Isla’s voice when she said, You’re safe here.

Millie exhales slowly. She’s not sure if it’s the storm’s echo or Isla’s steadiness that lingers sharper in her chest.

Down in the garden, the staff laugh as they sweep the path clear of fallen leaves. A tricycle hums faintly on the road beyond the gate, its engine thin against the morning’s stillness. The island feels changed—cleaned out, tightened somehow, like it’s shaken loose a fear she hadn’t realized she’d shown.

Then her phone buzzes. A message from her boss— Progress update? Investors want movement this week.

She doesn’t open the laptop. She drains the last of her coffee instead, sets the cup down carefully, and looks out toward the horizon where sea and sky blur into one endless blue.

For the first time since she arrived, she doesn’t feel the pull to hurry.

Not yet.

When breakfast is finished, she decides to walk before she can talk herself out of it.

The path to the shore is still damp, her shoes darkening with each step. Fishermen are already at work, calling to one another as they drag nets and coax boats back into readiness. Salt thickens the air, sharper after the storm.

Millie spots Mang Efren near his boat, bent over a coil of rope. His shirt clings with sea spray, hair plastered to his forehead, but his hands move steady and sure.

“Maayong buntag,” she says, the local greeting careful on her tongue.

He looks up, squints against the sun—then grins, wide and amused.

“Ah, the city girl survived the unos.”

Millie laughs softly, lifting her palms. “Barely. But someone offered refuge.”

“You should’ve come here. Strong winds, but the sea teaches patience.” He nods toward the horizon. The water gleams flat and forgiving.

She steps closer, watching him test the net’s knots. “You’re going out today?”

“Always.” He doesn’t look up. “Storm or no storm, life keeps asking.”

She crouches a little to see better. The fibers are coarse under his fingers, frayed but repaired with neat, careful ties. “You mend it yourself?”

“Of course. Boat, net, house—same rule. If you don’t learn to fix what breaks, you won’t last.” He gives her a sideways glance. “Different from the city, right?”

“Not really,” she says, smiling. “But it doesn’t work the same way, either.”

Silence falls, softened by the cries of gulls overhead. Millie looks toward the strip of land beyond the boats—mangroves knotted thick, soil still dark from the rain. She knows that parcel is his. One she’s supposed to talk him into selling.

But instead she hears herself ask, “What do you want most, Mang Efren? For your land, your family. If it weren’t about money—what would help you?”

He chuckles, rubbing his jaw. “Ay, ma’am. That’s a big question for the morning.”

“Maybe.” She smiles faintly. “But I’d like to know.”

He studies the horizon before answering. “A steady catch. A roof that doesn’t leak. A place my daughter can still call home.” His eyes crinkle. “Not much more than that.”

Millie nods, something tightening behind her ribs. She wonders if her investors would understand an answer like that.

Mang Efren ties off the last knot, then wipes his palms on his shorts. “Come,” he says suddenly, jerking his chin toward the boat. “The sea’s calm. You can catch your first fish, Ma’am Millie.”

Millie blinks. “Me?”

“Why not? The best way to know a place is to ride with it. Besides”—he grins—“boat’s got space.”

She glances at the boat, its hull streaked with salt, paint flaking from sun and years. Two other men are already aboard, laughing quietly as they sort ropes.

Her refusal forms, tidy and automatic—the kind she’s spent years perfecting in meetings. But something catches in her throat.

The echo of last night. Isla’s voice. You’re safe here.

Instead she asks, “What if I fall in?”

Mang Efren laughs, teeth flashing. “Then we fish you out too. No one’s left behind.”

The ease of it disarms her. She finds herself smiling back.

“Alright,” she says. “But if I make a fool of myself, it’s on you.”

“That’s the spirit.” He steadies the boat as she climbs aboard. The wood rocks beneath her weight—alive—and she grips the edge, heart thudding. The men exchange amused looks but say nothing, hands working the nets with unthinking rhythm.

Millie settles onto a narrow bench. Salt spray kisses her arms; the air out here feels sharper, cleaner somehow. Mang Efren pushes them off with a pole, and the shoreline begins to slip away, the water deepening to a steadier blue.

She has no idea what she’s doing—but for once, she doesn’t need to.

The boat noses farther out, the sea darkening beneath them. She keeps her fingers wrapped around the gunwale until Mang Efren’s voice cuts through the wind.

“Don’t grip it like it’s going to bite you. Boat’s kinder than she looks.”

Millie exhales, loosens her hold. The others move easily—nets unspooling, ropes tugging taut. Mang Efren hands her a smaller line, bait already fixed.

“Here. Just drop it, feel it sink. Then wait.”

She mimics his motion, awkward but willing. The line slips into the water, the pull soft but insistent. The sea is restless, not hostile—breathing around them.

Minutes drift. The sun climbs. Her shoulders begin to unclench, the steady sway of the boat syncing with her pulse.

Then— a sudden tug.

She startles. “Something’s—”

“Steady!” Mang Efren laughs, bracing her elbow. “That one’s yours. Hold the line.”

She fumbles, then adjusts under his direction. The tension jerks, then gives—a flash of silver breaking through the surface, writhing in sunlight. The men cheer, teasing and warm.

Millie stares, breathless, at the small fish thrashing in her hands. Then laughter spills out of her, unguarded and bright.

“Your first catch,” Mang Efren declares, dropping it into a basin of seawater. It flickers among others, a quick streak of light. He covers the basin with a woven lid. “Some of these I’ll take to market. Some”—he glances at her, conspiratorial—“for Isla.”

Millie blinks. “For Isla?”

“That girl forgets to eat when she’s working clay. Always has. I save her share so she won’t waste away.”

Millie looks down at the basin—the shimmer beneath the water. For Isla.

The words warm her in a way she can’t explain.

She says nothing. Just lets the boat rock her as the sun climbs higher, the sea stretching open and endless around them.

The men chat easily, voices blending with wind and water. Millie sits with the line loose in her palm, gaze lost on the horizon but thoughts somewhere else.

“You’ve known Isla a long time?” she finally asks, curiosity getting the best of her.

Mang Efren chuckles, eyes narrowing against the glare. “All her life. I knew her when she was still running barefoot, climbing trees she wasn’t supposed to.”

Millie smiles at the image, though it clashes with the composed woman in the pottery shop. “Did she always live here?”

“Mm. Except college. Silliman—Dumaguete. Architecture.” His voice carries a small pride. “Could’ve built towers if she’d wanted. But her grandmother passed when she was finishing. Shop needed hands.”

Millie hesitates. “Her grandmother raised her?”

He nods. “After her father—heart attack, quick. She was barely in high school. Her mother left after, chasing something else. Cebu first, then Manila. Never looked back.”

The words hang between them, the wind folding around their quiet.

“And the house? The studio?”

“All that’s left now. Every cup, every bowl—from the ground here. She shapes it like it’s her own ribs she’s firing.” His smile softens. “Girl’s stubborn. Quiet kind of strong.”

Millie feels something twist in her chest. She looks down at the basin, at the flicker of life beneath the surface. “You care about her a lot.”

“Of course. She grew up with my daughter—same class, same trouble.” His grin deepens, lines etching his face. “My girl’s a dentist now in Camiguin. I worked every tide to send her to a university in Cebu. Worth it. But Isla… she came back. Chose to. That takes its own kind of grit.”

They fall quiet again. Only the rhythm of the oars, the slap of waves.

After a while, Mang Efren laughs—a rich, belly-deep sound. “Look at me talking too much. Sea makes old men sentimental.”

Millie shakes her head, smiling softly. “Not too much,” she says. “Not at all.”

The boat rocks on, sunlight scattering across the water like broken glass. Another net comes up, silver flashing. Millie watches, still holding her line, wondering how much of Isla’s story the sea already knows—and how much more it’s willing to tell.

Chapter Text

Isla is wiping down the shop counter when the bell above the door jangles. She expects a neighbor—maybe one of the children sent for errands.

Instead, it’s Millie.

Her hair is wind-tossed, the cuffs of her jeans dark with water, cheeks flushed a raw pink from the sun. She looks less like the polished woman carrying brochures and more like someone the day itself has claimed.

In her arms, she carries a basin heavy with something that shifts and glints inside. The smell reaches Isla before the words do—brine, salt, the faint metallic tang of fresh catch.

“From Mang Efren,” Millie says, holding it like an offering. “He insisted I bring it here. Said you’d… know what to do with it.”

Her tone carries a softness that doesn’t sound like her usual composure. Isla glances at the fish, their scales slick with silver light, then back at Millie. The sun has left a pale line at her throat where her collar opened. Sand still clinging to her hands.

“You went out with them?” Isla asks, taking the basin from Millie.

Millie nods, a quick pull at her mouth that might almost be pride. “He asked if I wanted to try. I didn’t think he meant it.” She lifts her palms—faint red grooves cutting across them. “Turns out I’m terrible with lines.”

Isla feels a smile tug at her. She looks down quickly, fussing with the basin. The fish flick once, then go still.

She doesn’t ask why Millie brought them herself instead of leaving them at Tatay Efren’s. The answer sits quietly in the space between them.

She draws the basin closer, sorting by instinct—bigger fish for grilling, smaller for frying. Scales catch the light, flashing quick before they settle into her hands.

“You can wash off there,” she says, nodding to the small bathroom near the kitchen. “Salt sticks if you leave it.”

Millie hesitates, then nods. She sets her bag down and disappears through the doorway. Water runs, the faucet creaks, a soft splash echoes. Isla guts the first fish in the kitchen, blade steady through the motion, but her ear tilts toward the bathroom despite herself.

When Millie returns, her hair is darker from the rinse, her face fresh but still pink from sun. She lingers at the edge of the table, not intruding—just there.

“You’ve done this a lot?” Millie asks, watching the knife work, the clean slide of blade against bone.

“All my life,” Isla answers. “Tatay Efren’s wife, Nanay Tess, taught us when we were small. Everyone learned, one way or another. You don’t waste what the sea gives.”

Millie hums, low in her throat. She crosses her arms, then uncrosses them, fingertips brushing the table like she’s trying not to touch. Isla can feel her gaze—less on the fish, more on the rhythm of her hands.

“You make it look simple,” Millie says.

“It is, if you grew up with it.” Isla rinses her hands, starts on another. “Most things are, when you’ve done them long enough.”

When she glances up, Millie is watching her—not the work, but her. The look lingers a moment too long before Isla turns away again, heat rising faintly at her neck.

She lays the last fish in a plate, washes her hands, and nods toward the table.

“You should stay for lunch. You brought them, after all.”

This time, Millie doesn’t hesitate. She’s already looking toward the rack where the rice pot waits. “Where do you keep the rice?”

Isla blinks, caught off guard, but gestures toward the ceramic container in the corner. Millie crosses the room easily, measures the grains, rinses them with practiced motions. The faucet splashes, the stove clicks alive.

“Not your first time,” Isla says.

Millie glances back, smiling faintly. “Rice is rice. Even boardrooms don’t save you from cooking sometimes.”

Isla huffs a laugh, quiet but real, and moves to the hearth outside. She lays the fish over coals, smoke curling up into the air. Millie joins her a moment later, sleeves pushed up, crouching to fan the embers until they glow hotter. The scent—salt, char, the faint sweetness of sea flesh—wraps around them.

There’s no need to speak. The rhythm forms naturally—one tending fire, the other setting the table. Plates, cups, a pitcher of water. Small motions weaving together until the meal takes shape.

When they finally sit, the table feels too full for two. The grilled fish flakes open under the squeeze of calamansi, the rice steaming between them. Millie takes her first bite, eyes closing briefly.

“You eat like you’ve been hungry for a while,” Isla says, half-teasing.

Millie looks up, startled—then laughs, low, self-deprecating. “I think I have.”

The sound softens the room. The air hums with it.

Isla eats slowly. Smoke clings faintly to her skin and hair, but it feels less like residue and more like something shared. Across the table, Millie eats with calm focus—no rush, no distraction. Just presence.

Between bites, she glances up. “Mang Efren mentioned something earlier.”

Isla hums, wary. “He mentions many things.”

“Architecture,” Millie says. “He said you studied it.”

The fork pauses briefly in Isla’s hand. She sets it down. “I did.”

“Did you take the board yet?” Millie’s tone is light, curious, not pressing.

“No.” Isla sips her water. “Haven’t apprenticed either. Just graduated.”

“That’s still something,” Millie says. “Architecture isn’t easy.”

“Neither is pottery,” Isla replies. “But one keeps the roof from leaking.”

Millie’s smile flickers. Her gaze stays steady, though—searching, thoughtful. “Do you ever think about picking it up again?”

Isla looks toward the window, where the light spills across the floor.

For a moment, her mind drifts—back to the long nights bent over tracing paper, eyes stinging from sleeplessness; the smell of ammonia from blueprints; the sound of graphite breaking mid-line. She remembers the panic of chasing plates deadlines, the thesis she thought would undo her, the quiet humiliation of mistakes that made her start over from nothing.

But also the rush—the way a line would finally click, a space would breathe right, and she’d sit back, surprised that her hands had built something her mind almost didn’t believe possible. The exhaustion and pride had lived side by side, both proof that she’d made something that might stand.

The memory fades with the sound of waves below the bluff.

“Sometimes,” she admits. “But the house came first. The studio. They always come first.”

Silence folds gently between them. Not heavy—just understood.

Millie nods, returns to her food. Isla watches her a moment longer than she means to. The sunlight touches Millie’s hair, glints off the rim of the similar clay bowl she bought days ago. For once, Isla doesn’t look away too quickly.

When the fish is stripped clean and the last of the rice gone, the room hums with cicadas and heat. The air feels thick, holding something quiet and unspoken between them.

Millie runs her thumb along the rim of her plate, reluctant. “That was the best fish I’ve had in a long time,” she says softly.

“Fresh makes the difference,” Isla replies. “The sea doesn’t let you forget where things come from.”

Millie lingers on the words, as if something in them catches and holds. After a moment, she rises—slowly this time. She gathers the plates, moving with quiet ease, like she’s being careful not to break the rhythm of the space Isla has built around her. At the sink, she ties her hair back, sleeves rolled, and begins rinsing. Not out of politeness, but something simpler—habit, maybe, or care.

Isla joins her, drying each dish as it’s passed over. Their hands brush once, the contact brief but electric. Neither remarks on it, though Isla’s pulse stumbles for a beat.

The rhythm between them—wash, dry, stack—feels easy, inevitable. For a moment, the house doesn’t sound like it’s meant for one.

When the last plate is put away, Millie dries her hands on a towel and lingers by the shop counter. She steadies herself with one palm against the wood, eyes soft, expression unreadable except for the faint curve of her mouth.

“Thank you,” she says.

Isla inclines her head. “You brought the catch. Fair trade.”

Millie smiles at that—small, genuine—and reaches for her bag. She straightens, pulling her neatness back into place, though something in her gaze lingers when she looks toward the shop door.

She pauses at the door, then glances back once more. “See you,” she says, quiet, like a promise.

The door closes behind her, soft but final. The silence that follows is familiar, yet not the same. It settles differently—warmer, heavier.

Isla stands by the counter, listening to the hum of cicadas and the sea. The house has always returned to quiet after company, but today it feels reluctant to.

She tries to let it go. The meal, the brush of a hand, the easy rhythm of shared work. But as the afternoon light shifts across the walls, she realizes she’s still holding every bit of it.

And doesn’t quite want to stop.

Chapter Text

Steam still clings to her skin when Millie steps out onto the balcony, hair damp, falling loose against her shoulders. The late sun has turned liquid—gold glazing the sea below, softening the edges of the world. She sets her towel aside, sits, and pulls a small paper bag closer.

Inside, the bowl and cup rest together, still faintly smelling of glaze and kiln. She takes them out one by one, setting them on the narrow balcony table like old companions—or perhaps, quiet witnesses.

Her fingers trace the rim of the cup, following its slight irregularity, the deepening blue where the glaze has pooled. Not flawless, but certain. When she turns it, she notices what she somehow missed before—a name pressed into the base before firing.

Isla.

Not painted, not stamped—carved. A mark that stays.

Millie runs her thumb across the shallow grooves, startled by how personal it feels. Not a logo, not a brand—but a fragment of the woman herself. Every cup and bowl leaving that small shop carries her name, her hands, her history.

She turns the bowl over. The same mark.

The thought lingers—not just about Isla, but about herself. How little of her own life leaves a trace. How much of what she’s built could vanish tomorrow and no one would know her hands were ever there.

Her thumb rests on the carved letters, tracing their edges. She imagines Isla bent over the wheel, steady hands working clay, signing the bottom before letting it go. Each piece, a small release—something of herself the world can keep.

Absurd, Millie thinks, to be staring at ceramics for meaning. But they hold it anyway. In their silence, they carry her.

The horizon rocks with the tide. A lone fishing boat cuts across the glare. Millie holds the bowl a little longer, thumb on the carved name. What begins as thought softens into ache, the kind that carries both wonder and want.

She sets the bowl back carefully, as though the name might fade if she looks too long. The room feels too small afterward, her thoughts too loud.

When she steps out a few minutes later, the streets are half asleep under the weight of the sun. Heat lies over town like a thick quilt; even the tricycles idle in the shade, drivers dozing beneath their hats. Somewhere, a dog barks once, then gives up.

Millie walks slowly—the pace the weather demands. Sneakers scuffing dust, shirt sticking to her spine. She tells herself she’s only walking to shake the quiet of her room, just wandering because the hours between noon and dusk feel too long to waste.

But her feet lead her back toward Isla’s shop.

Inside, it’s cooler. Shadows stretch long across the shelves, light pouring through the open windows. The scent of earth and ash lingers faintly, softened by air that still hums from the kiln.

Isla sits at the wheel. Her hair’s pinned up loosely, a few strands plastered to her neck, forearms streaked with clay. The wheel hums steady under her foot, a soft whirr like breath. Clay spins and rises between her hands—walls thinning, shape emerging.

Millie stops near the door, caught. Watching her feels like intruding on a prayer. The sun stripes Isla’s cheek, glints at the sweat on her temple. Her fingers move sure and gentle; the clay listens.

Only when Millie clears her throat does Isla glance up. Recognition flickers.

“You’re back,” Isla says. Not a question, not quite a welcome—just fact.

Millie steps further in, letting the bell jingle behind her. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”

“You are,” Isla says, wiping her hands on a rag, mouth twitching faintly. “But it’s fine.”

Millie laughs under her breath and drifts toward the shelves. Afternoon light turns the glazes into constellations—blue, green, white. She runs her hand close to them, careful not to touch. The air hums with quiet, the kind that makes the rest of the world feel far away.

She doesn’t have a reason for being here except that she wanted to be.

“Have you ever thought about selling these online?” she asks before she can stop herself. The question sounds too sharp in the stillness, too businesslike.

Isla looks up, steady. “Online?”

“People in the city would love these,” Millie says quickly. “You’d sell out fast.”

Isla wipes her palms again, gaze sliding back to the turning clay. “Maybe,” she says simply.

No pitch, no follow-up. Just that.

To Isla, the making seems enough. To Millie, used to every effort being measured by return, it feels like standing before a map with no lines drawn.

Silence folds back between them. The thick kind, but not heavy. Not uncomfortable. Just full.

The wheel turns. Clay shifts. A mango leaf taps against the roof.

Millie exhales, tries to unclench her shoulders. In her world, pauses mean weakness—space to lose ground. Here, it feels like breath.

Then Isla looks up again.

“Do you want to try glazing?”

Millie blinks. “Me?”

“You’re already here.”

She hesitates. “I’ll ruin it.”

“You won’t,” Isla says, already setting a shallow bowl on the table. She lifts a small jar from the shelf; a faint metallic scent rises when she opens it.

“Glaze,” she explains. “It looks dull now, but fire wakes the color. This one—” she stirs gently “—turns sea-glass green.”

Millie peers into the jar. The liquid looks like cloudy mud. “If you say so.”

Isla only dips the brush, gestures for her to take it. “Even strokes. Not too thick. Try.”

Millie takes the brush. Her first line drags unevenly. “See? Disaster.”

“Keep going.”

She does. Slowly, the second line steadies. Her hand learns the weight of it, the way the brush resists and then yields. Isla leans closer, pointing. “Don’t forget the rim. It’s what the eye catches first.”

Millie fills it in, careful now. The work feels strangely grounding—repetitive, quiet, requiring nothing but attention. When she finally sets the brush down, she realizes she’s been holding her breath.

“I think I just painted mud on a plate.”

“That’s how it always starts,” Isla says.

Millie looks at the bowl—messy, imperfect, real—and smiles.

Isla closes the jar, rinses the brush. “Come.”

The kiln waits in the corner, brick-dark and smoke-stained. The air smells faintly of heat and ash. Isla opens the small iron door; the chamber inside is black, waiting.

“Careful,” she says, guiding her. “Set it in the middle. Give it room.”

Millie crouches, slides the bowl in, her fingers brushing the rough brick edge. She pulls back, palms dusted gray, oddly light in her chest.

“Firing takes hours,” Isla says, latching the door. “We won’t see the result until later.”

“So—patience,” Millie murmurs.

“That’s most of it.”

They tidy in silence, resetting tools and jars. The quiet hums with something alive, unspoken.

Millie catches herself thinking—pottery doesn’t reward haste. It demands faith. The slow trust that heat will reveal what effort hides.

Patience, she realizes, lives in Isla too. In the steadiness of her hands. The calm that asks nothing. The way she moves like time is hers to spend.

For once, Millie doesn’t mind waiting.

The kiln clicks faintly as it heats, a low pulse beneath the drone of insects outside. Millie lingers, tracing a finished cup’s rim, watching the glaze shift in the light. Isla rinses the last brush, sets it aside, then looks over—not directly, but enough.

“You’ve got hours to wait,” she says. “Unless you plan to sit here and watch bricks warm up.”

Millie gives a quiet laugh. “Maybe I’ll wait nearby.”

Isla hesitates, then reaches for a faded cap hanging by the door. “I was heading down the bluff. To the shore. You can come.”

The offer lands softly. Millie feels it somewhere deep, where her practiced detachment can’t quite reach. “Yeah,” she says, quieter than she means to. “I’d like that.”

They step outside together. The afternoon sun presses hard on their shoulders. Isla walks ahead, sure-footed on the worn path; Millie follows, her steps more tentative.

Below, the waves breathe against the rocks, steady and rhythmic—as if yesterday’s storm belonged to another lifetime. Isla slips off her sandals and steps into the shallows. Millie watches her for a moment before untying her sneakers and following.

The water is warm, curling around her ankles. Isla walks ahead, leaving half-moon footprints that the tide erases. The silence stretches, soft and companionable.

And then Millie’s mind drifts.

The last beach she remembers was months ago. A work retreat, though everyone called it a break. It ended with her girlfriend of two years sitting across from her under a yellow umbrella, saying she was pregnant. By their boss.

She can still feel the hollow collapse of it—the air gone but her body still upright.

They’d both been chasing the same promotion, the same recognition. Now her ex is marrying their boss. The same man who still signs her paychecks, walks past her desk pretending he doesn’t know the history.

She tells herself she’s fine. Every morning, she puts on her armor—competence, control, composure. But each meeting feels like sitting beside her own humiliation, polished and permanent.

A gull cries overhead. The sound pulls her back. Isla has stopped a few steps ahead, waiting.

Millie catches up, brushing damp hair from her face. Isla studies her quietly. “Everything okay?”

Millie almost says yes. Reflex. But something about Isla’s gaze—patient, unsparing, unafraid of silence—undoes her.

“No,” Millie says finally, voice low, almost lost to the surf. “Last time I took a trip like this, I came back to everything falling apart. My girlfriend then—she got pregnant. By my boss.” She forces a laugh, brittle. “They’re getting married this year.”

She looks out to the horizon, eyes narrowing against the glare. “He’s still my boss. Every day I sit in the same meetings, pretending none of it touches me. I don’t even care about her anymore—not really. It’s just... the situation. That I fought so hard to get here, and now the biggest humiliation of my life sits two chairs away. I feel so small sometimes.”

Isla doesn’t interrupt. She just walks beside her, the tide brushing their ankles, silence steady and whole.

When she finally speaks, her voice is even. “That sounds hard. To keep standing in the middle of all that.”

Millie swallows, her throat tight. The way Isla says it—without pity, without analysis—lands deeper than any sympathy could.

Isla’s gaze drifts toward the water, her voice quiet but certain when she speaks again. “But it’s not your humiliation to carry.” She looks back at Millie, eyes steady. “You didn’t do the betraying.”

The words hit with simple precision, cutting through the noise of everything Millie has told herself to endure.

It sounds, Millie realizes, like recognition.

And for the first time in months, maybe years, she lets herself breathe.

Chapter Text

The walk back is quiet. The tide keeps its own rhythm below—soft breaks against the rocks, the occasional rush that carries higher. Isla walks at an even pace, not too far ahead, not too close. Millie’s words linger between them like something half-spoken, still echoing—a wound carried carefully forward.

Isla knows silence. She’s made her home in it.

But this one feels different—heavier, not the peaceful kind that follows work well done. She glances sideways once, catching Millie’s expression in the fading light. Jaw set, gaze fixed somewhere past the horizon, as if she can outwalk the memory she’s just let slip.

There’s weight in being trusted with someone’s past, Isla thinks. She hadn’t asked, hadn’t needed to—but Millie offered it anyway, like setting something weighted down between them.

She grips tighter the sandal in her hands, clay still faintly rough under her nails. The sky deepens from gold to bruised violet. She thinks of storms—the way Millie flinched beneath thunder. Thinks of a house that rattled in the wind. Thinks now of a woman who stands composed before men in suits and yet admits, in fragments, to being undone by love and betrayal.

When the path climbs toward the bluff, Isla slows enough for Millie to fall in step beside her. No words pass, but their shoulders nearly brush, and something in the silence eases as the coral-colored house comes into view.

The studio waits—unfinished work on the shelves, the kiln still cooling. Familiar. Steady. And now, Isla realizes, threaded with the echo of another’s footsteps—a presence she hasn’t yet decided what to do with.

Inside, the house greets them with its usual hush. The open windows catch the last of the sun, and the air is still warm from the kiln’s slow burning. Isla sets her cap back to its hook, movements automatic. Millie lingers near the doorway, hands tucked into her pockets as though unsure whether she’s a guest or a ghost.

Isla doesn’t push her. Some silences are meant to hold. She busies herself instead with the small things—stacking tools, wiping dust from the table, checking the fire through the kiln’s peephole. The glow inside is steady, patient. Hours yet before it cools enough to open.

Behind her, Millie moves once—to sit on a stool—then stills again. Her gaze drifts from the shelves to the beams above, to the slow-thickening dark. Not restless. Not at ease either.

The quiet shifts, becoming something companionable. Outside, crickets begin their chorus, tentative at first, then sure. Isla turns on the light; its glow sharpen the clay-dusted walls, but folds the edges of the room into warmth.

Time loosens here. Waiting has its own rhythm—clay, heat, air, patience.

Tonight, though, it feels different. As though she isn’t waiting for the kiln alone.

She glances toward Millie. Their eyes meet, just for a breath. Millie offers the faintest curve of a smile—small, unguarded, costly. Isla returns to her tools, though the warmth that flickers in her chest stays long after she looks away.

The night settles fully, thick with crickets and the far hiss of waves. The kiln hums its low, steady pulse in the corner. Without a word, Isla moves to the kitchen. Her hands find the rhythm by memory—garlic, onion, vinegar, a thumb of ginger. The fish from earlier waits in its basin.

She doesn’t ask if Millie is staying. She just cooks.

The knife against the board. The hiss as vinegar meets heat. The tang rising through the air. The sound and scent fill the house with certainty.

Millie drifts closer, drawn by it. She doesn’t speak, only stands near the counter’s edge, her face caught in the light’s glow, her hair still wind-tossed from the walk. There’s a softness in her Isla hasn’t seen before—a quiet surrender.

When Isla sets the clay pot on the table, steam curling from its lip, there’s no need for invitation. Two plates. Two spoons. Rice turned out on a plate. Millie sits across from her without hesitation, as though the silence itself has asked her to.

The first bite is sharp—vinegar, salt, tender flesh. Millie’s brows lift slightly at the taste; then she nods once, something in her shoulders easing.

They eat without talking much. The clink of spoon against bowl, the faint rattle of shutters when wind brushes past, the rhythm of shared food—these become their language.

When they’re done, Isla gathers the dishes. Millie half rises to help, then stops herself, palms resting against the table’s edge instead. Isla doesn’t mention it. She washes the plates, sets them on the rack, the sound of water soft against the kiln’s hum.

The silence that follows isn’t empty. It breathes.

The sea murmurs below the bluff. The scent of vinegar and spices linger.

And for the first time in longer than she can remember, Isla realizes she hasn’t eaten her evening meal alone.

Chapter Text

Back in her room, Millie sinks into the chair on the balcony, hair still damp from another shower, the night breeze cool against her skin. The cup and bowl sit on the table, catching the lamp’s faint spill from inside. She traces the bowl’s rim with her thumb, restless.

It plays back in her mind—the walk along the shore, the way the words she usually keep folded tight slipped out. She’d spoken of things she never names in boardrooms or over casual drinks, a memory that clings like salt to skin. Normally the telling would leave her braced, ashamed of the crack it showed.

But Isla hadn’t looked at her like that. She hadn’t measured the story, pried, or tried to smooth it over. She’d simply listened, steady as the sea. As if the past were not a humiliation to carry but another storm weathered—no less real for being survived.

The thought unsettles her. Comfort this clean, this unforced, feels foreign.

Millie leans back, staring at the carved sky over the island. She tastes vinegar-sour fish at the back of her tongue; sees Isla’s hands steady at the stove; recalls the quiet they shared that was not empty but full.

The bowl sits warm in her palm, and for the first time she wonders—not about land or strategy—but about what Isla sees when she looks at her.

In the distance, the sea keeps its slow rhythm against the shore. Millie stays there until the stars fade, unsure whether she’s been thinking or simply listening.

The next morning spills through the open blinds, bright and insistent. Millie is nursing her first coffee when the receptionist knocks and speaks through the door. “Someone’s here to see you, ma’am.”

She doesn’t expect the face in the lobby—the young mother from the barangay meeting, hair tied back, her toddler son balanced on her hip. The child hides shyly against her shoulder, peeking at Millie with wide eyes.

Therese Villanueva.

“I heard you were staying here,” Therese says, shifting her weight, nervous but resolved. “I wanted to talk. About… my father’s land.”

They take the bench outside, where the sea breeze softens the early heat. Haltingly, she explains how she’s been thinking of leaving for Dumaguete—steadier work, better schools. The land her father left is too much to manage alone. Selling might be the way forward.

Millie listens, steady. The tone reminds her of negotiations, but stripped of polish—just a person weighing survival against memory.

The toddler squirms down to chase a line of ants; Therese gathers him back, voice low. “I don’t want to, but maybe it’s time. The land was his, not mine. He dreamed different dreams than I can afford.”

The words land heavy. Here, finally, is someone willing to consider what she offers. For the first time, the opening doesn’t feel like victory—it feels like burden.

Millie doesn’t reach for a folder or the crisp brochures upstairs. She folds her hands loosely, watching the child tug at the hem of his mother’s blouse.

“Are you sure?” she asks quietly. No pitch. Just the question.

Therese nods, though her eyes flick to the horizon. “I’ve thought about it a long time. I can’t farm it alone. My brothers are gone; my cousins have their own families. It’s just me.” A pause. “And him.”

The toddler climbs back into her lap, thumb tucked into his mouth, gaze solemn. Millie lingers on the small fist curled in fabric—the weight of a life asking more than the island can always give.

“How much would you need,” Millie asks, careful, “to start over in Dumaguete?”

Therese blinks, surprised the question isn’t a trap. She names a number—low. Far too low.

“Your land is worth more than that,” Millie says, voice even. “I can’t promise anything yet. But I’ll talk to my company. For you to get what’s fair, not just what’s offered.”

It isn’t how she’s built her career—squeezing margins, turning desperation into advantage. But with salt air thick on her tongue and a child’s wide eyes on her, the old instincts feel hollow.

Therese studies her, as if measuring whether to believe. Then she nods once—small, but with a trust Millie hadn’t expected.

The toddler giggles at nothing, and the sound lifts into the morning. Millie watches, struck by how fragile and immense a single choice can be.

She carries the image of the child back upstairs—the fist in his mother’s blouse, the gravity in small eyes. In her room, she sits on the balcony table again with the lopsided cup cupped in both hands. The uneven lip presses into her palm like an anchor, proof that not everything must be seamless to hold.

She sets the cup down and dials the office.

Her boss answers on the third ring. Impatience hums on the line. “Well? Any progress? Or are they all as stubborn as that Arevalo woman?”

Millie breathes slow. She hears the voice she’s trained for—measured, persuasive, unruffled—rising to her throat. She almost leans into it. Almost.

“There’s a seller,” she says instead. “Young mother. Wants to start over in Dumaguete.” She gives the parcel’s location, the size, the ownership line. The details are easy. Then her voice steadies in a new way as she states the asking price.

He scoffs. “Too high. We acquired land twice that size in Bohol for less. Offer half; she’ll take it. You know how it is—these people don’t measure value the way we do.”

Millie’s grip tightens. Her gaze drops to the cup, to Isla’s name cut faint in the clay. Not painted for show—carved to last.

“Asking price is fair,” she says, slicing through his dismissal. “And we can afford it. This isn’t about how cheap we can take it; it’s about trust. If word spreads that we’re bargaining down struggling families, no one sells. The project dies before it begins.”

Silence. She can almost see his frown, the ledger running behind his eyes as he reconciles the employee he knows with the voice she’s using now—calm, but firm in a way she’s never used with him.

“You’ve gone soft,” he mutters. “Island witchcraft got to you?”

“Maybe I’m just seeing clearly,” Millie says, before she can second-guess herself.

The words hang—sharp as the day Isla told her If you’re not here for ceramics, you can go.

Millie ends the call. Sets the phone face down.

For a long moment she sits in the quiet. Breeze threads the balcony, lifts a strand of hair. The tide shifts in the distance—pulling out, sliding back. She lifts the cup and traces Isla’s name again.

She understands now—Isla’s sharpness isn’t defense alone. It’s definition. Refusal to let others decide the worth of what’s hers. And Millie, startlingly, hears that voice in her own mouth.

The lopsided cup warms in her hand, more anchor than vessel.

Later, when the midday heat presses close, Millie steps out. She tells herself she needs something simple—shampoo, soap—anything to make her room feel less like a hotel and more like she belongs there.

The mini-mart squats at the corner, half open to the street. Tarps advertising soft drinks flap lazily overhead. Shelves crowd with sardines, laundry powder, instant noodles, crackers stacked in uneven towers. A ceiling fan turns halfheartedly, pushing warm air around.

She slips inside; the bell at the door snaps the quiet.

Outside, a cluster holds court on the plastic chairs. Aling Ester and two elders Millie recognizes from the flea market dinner, fanning themselves with folded newspapers, sipping soda in glass bottles. Their laughter is low and steady—the rhythm of people who’ve known one another a lifetime.

When they spot her, Aling Ester grins, quick and teasing. “Ah, here’s our city girl. What are you buying this time? Don’t tell me just crackers—you’ll fade away.”

The elders’ eyes crinkle, curious more than unkind. One waves her over.

Millie had planned to slip in and out. But the island, like always, has other plans.

She sets her basket on the counter, feeling the shift as their attention finds her. Aling Ester leans forward, fan fluttering lazily.

“So,” she says, light but pointed, “you’re the one from the Manila company. The one talking about the resort.”

An elder nods, lips pursed around a straw. “People say you’ve been walking, asking questions. Must be important work to send someone all the way here.”

Millie straightens, caught between instinct and caution. Their look isn’t yet suspicion, but it weighs.

Aling Ester chuckles, though the moment doesn’t soften. “You still look too neat for this heat, ma’am. Even in sneakers, you walk like the ground owes you space.” She tilts her head. “But people are wondering. How much is this land worth to you?”

Millie exhales through her nose. “That depends,” she says, voice low. “Worth is never just numbers.”

The elders trade a glance.

“Some are thinking of selling,” one says. “Life is hard. No steady work unless you leave. But once your land goes, it doesn’t come back.”

The warning hangs in warm air.

Millie lets it land. Anything she says now will sound like a pitch. So she keeps her hands light on the basket and meets their eyes without flinching.

Then Aling Ester snaps her fan shut against her palm. “Ah! Tonight is Pista sa Aninipot. Ever heard of it?”

“Aninipot?” Millie asks.

“Fireflies,” the older man says, gentler now. “The males light the mangroves by the shore, showing off to the females. Courtship. Happens once a year.”

“It’s beautiful,” Aling Ester beams. “Everyone in the barangay goes. We bring food, children run wild, elders gossip.” She tips her head, amused. “You should come, ma’am. It’s good to be visible. People like to see who they’re dealing with.”

The nods that follow aren’t unkind. Just weighing.

Millie feels surprise—and something warmer. An invitation. Not by meeting request or contract—by the community itself.

As she walks back toward Casa Solana, the thought lingers. Maybe belonging isn’t something handed to you, but something quietly offered—and earned. The island, it seems, is still deciding on her.

She spends the rest of the afternoon drafting reports, though her gaze drifts often to the sea, Aling Ester’s invitation echoing in her mind.

By the time the sun sinks, leaving the sky bruised purple and orange, she finally walks to the shore. Kerosene lamps, set on driftwood posts, mark the path toward the mangroves. Laughter and voices rise ahead, bright against the hush of the incoming tide.

Most of the barangay is already gathered. A long plastic table stretches across the sand, its legs half-buried, crowded with dishes—pancit bihon in foil trays, boiled sweet potatoes, a pile of sliced mangoes glistening gold, roasted chickens blistered and crisp. Children dart around with sticky fingers, shrieking as they chase each other between benches.

Millie spots familiar faces. Mang Tonyo tunes a battered guitar, coaxing an old melody into tune. Mang Efren stands over a grill, smoke curling around a squid so large its tentacles spill across the rack. Aling Ester commands a small knot of gossip, her hands slicing through the air as laughter ripples around her. The mini-mart owner clatters down a crate of soft drinks, caps hissing open in chorus.

The air is thick with food and salt, the warmth of bodies gathered close. Everyone keeps a respectful distance from the mangroves, leaving the dark fringe untouched—waiting.

And amidst all of it— Isla.

She stands near the vendors, her posture easy, grounded. She isn’t loud, doesn’t pull attention, but the way people glance toward her, folding her naturally into their circles, says everything. She belongs here. Entirely.

Millie pauses at the edge of the gathering, feeling the contrast in herself—how she hovers where the sand meets shadow, her crisp clothes too formal for the heat, her presence a little too polished against the blur of laughter.

But before she can retreat, someone presses a plate into her hands, a casual insistence that leaves no room for refusal. And just like that, she is part of the feast.

Smoke drifts from Mang Efren’s grill, the scent of charred squid mixing with spring onions and tomatoes. Music swells, laughter layers over it, and the whole scene breathes like a single organism—loud, alive, threaded through with belonging.

Millie moves carefully through the crowd, balancing her plate, nodding at familiar faces. She means to stop near Aling Ester, but somehow her steps shift elsewhere, drawn by a pull she doesn’t name.

She ends up beside Isla.

The other woman leans lightly against a bamboo post, plate barely touched, listening as a vendor finishes a story. She isn’t laughing, but there’s a quiet warmth in her stillness, the kind that holds space for others. When her gaze lifts to meet Millie’s, it’s steady—like she already knew she’d come.

“I keep thinking people are going to notice I don’t belong here,” Millie says, her voice low, uncertain whether it’s meant to be a joke.

Isla tilts her head, studying her. “You’re here, eating what we eat, standing where we stand. That’s belonging enough.”

Millie lets out a quiet laugh, soft and self-aware. “Not in the city it isn’t.”

Isla shrugs. “Then maybe the city doesn’t know how to hold people.”

The words linger longer than they should, heavier than casual. Millie looks away first, to the children pausing between games to be fed by their parents, to the squid turning on the grill. The air hums with warmth that isn’t just from the coals.

And as the night deepens, the noise of the feast begins to soften. Laughter fades to murmurs; even the children quiet down, drawn by a shared anticipation. One by one, the kerosene lamps are turned off, until the shore folds into darkness.

The mangroves stand black against the night sky, their roots tangled like old stories. For a moment, there’s nothing—just the hum of crickets, the whisper of tide against mud.

Then—

A single light blinks. Small. Steady.

Another. Then another.

Soon, the branches glow with scattered sparks, bright and brief. Tiny lanterns flickering in and out, until the trees themselves seem to breathe. The fireflies pulse in rhythm, males signaling to the waiting stillness of the females—an unspoken conversation of persistence.

Millie holds her breath. The mangroves shimmer like a low-slung galaxy, stars fallen close enough to touch. The lights flash in uneven patterns—some hurried, some patient, all of them insistent.

She glances at Isla, who is watching with that quiet, intent focus that seems to illuminate her from within. The glow threads across her face, catching at her lashes, glimmering along her skin.

It strikes Millie more than she dare to admit.

The fireflies aren’t competing to outshine each other. They’re simply saying, Here I am. I am here. Do you see me?

The thought hums through her chest like a pulse. Maybe that’s what this island is. What Isla is. A steady light refusing to dim, waiting for the right eyes to notice.

And then the harder thought—what has Millie been signaling all her life? Climbing, shining, proving—only to realize how much of it was just asking to be seen.

The mangroves blaze brighter. The air vibrates with flickering light. And beside her, Isla doesn’t move closer, doesn’t step away. Her presence is enough—quiet, constant, a lantern of its own.

Chapter Text

Isla has seen this festival since she was a child. Every year, the same gathering, the same laughter threading through the night, the same hush when the lamps go dark and the mangroves wake into light. It has always been beautiful—but also familiar, something folded into the rhythm of her life, expected as the turn of tides.

But tonight feels different.

She watches the trees flicker alive, the fireflies rising in waves, blinking their soft code into the dark. They have always meant courtship, persistence, the stubborn will to be seen. As a girl, she used to sit beside her grandmother, pointing them out, her small hands clapping whenever the lights clustered thick enough to look like constellations. Her grandmother would murmur, This is how the world remembers love—quiet, insistent, impossible to ignore.

The memory presses close now, but so does the woman beside her. Millie. Too neat for the sand, shoulders still carrying the shape of office walls—and yet standing here with her eyes wide, lips parted slightly in awe.

Isla studies her from the corner of her gaze. The firefly glow traces the curve of Millie’s cheek, catching in her eyes. For the first time, Isla doesn’t see the outsider with pressed slacks and polished words. She sees someone caught by wonder, unguarded in a way she hadn’t expected.

It unsettles her—the way the night folds them into the same breath. She tells herself it’s nothing, only the pull of the festival, only the echo of her grandmother’s voice. And yet the thought clings, steady as the pulse of the fireflies themselves. Patient, impossible to dismiss.

For the first time in years, Pista sa Aninipot doesn’t feel like repetition. It feels like something beginning.

Later, the festival breaks slowly like a tide drawing back. Lamps are lit again, children gathered, dishes scraped clean. The mangroves dim as the fireflies scatter, their language fading into the dark.

Isla finds herself walking beside Millie as the crowd thins, the path toward the bluff filling with the shuffle of feet and low hum of voices. They don’t speak at first. The air smells of grilled squid and kerosene smoke, threaded with salt.

Halfway up the path, Isla glances sideways. “What did you think of it?”

Millie exhales, as though the question releases something she’s been holding. “It felt like the world was trying to remind me of something I’d forgotten.” She shakes her head, smiling slightly, half in disbelief. “I don’t even know how to explain it. I’ve seen fireworks, light shows, all that usual spectacle. But that—” She gestures back toward the mangroves, now only shadow. “It wasn’t for us. We just got to watch.”

Isla hums, a sound of agreement. “That’s the point. We’re only ever guests at things like that.”

Millie nods, quiet again. The path narrows between trees, and ahead the coral walls of Isla’s home glow pale in the moonlight, the mango tree spreading its shadow across the yard. Their shoulders brush once—not by accident, not entirely deliberate either. Neither pulls away.

For Isla, the night folds itself into memory differently than before. The fireflies were the same, the feast the same, but Millie’s voice beside her makes it feel new, unsettled. As though belonging isn’t fixed, but something that can shift, expand, make room.

And for the first time in years, Isla doesn’t mind the walk home stretching longer than it should.

They stop in the yard, the mango tree heavy with shadow, the night alive with crickets. Isla shifts her weight, aware of how close Millie is standing, moonlight softening the sharp edges of her face.

For a breath, neither moves to end it.

“Would you like some tea?” Isla hears herself ask, the words quieter than she intended. She clears her throat. “After a feast like that, it helps you sleep better.”

Millie’s eyes lift, catching hers in the dim light. There’s surprise there at first, then something gentler—an easing of her shoulders, as though the invitation itself is a kind of relief.

“If you don’t mind,” Millie says.

Isla steps aside, pushing the back door open. The house exhales its familiar scent—clay and smoke, the sea folded into every corner. She gestures her in. The festival might have ended, but the night hasn’t yet.

The door closes with a soft click, muting the distant laughter of the barangay winding down. Inside, the house feels smaller against the night—walls still warm from the day, shadows softened by the single warm bulb Isla lights.

She moves into the rhythm she knows. Kettle on the stove, knob turned, flame catching. The sound of water beginning to heat. Her hands find the motions by memory—two clay mugs from the rack, uneven but serviceable, glazed in her own mixed colors.

Behind her, Millie walks slowly through the room, not touching, only looking. Isla doesn’t speak, doesn’t fill the quiet; she lets her have the space. It’s the same house Millie stepped into more than once, but it feels different now—less intrusion, more… staying.

The kettle hisses. Isla pours carefully, steam curling between them. She sets a mug in front of Millie. “Ginger. Grown nearby.”

Millie takes it with both hands, palms wrapping around the clay. She inhales, eyes closing briefly, shoulders easing as though the warmth itself is a kind of anchor.

Isla sips her tea, leaning against the open window. Outside, the constellations hang clear above the sea, their light scattered across the dark water. The air smells of ginger and sun-warmed clay, salt threading through from the shore below.

They don’t fill the quiet with talk. There’s no need. The tea does its work—steadying, loosening—and in the hush between them, the night hums with its own kind of pulse. Isla glances at Millie, the faint echo of firefly light still clinging to her face, softening her edges. The festival wasn’t the only brightness this night had offered.

The mugs grow lighter in their hands. The tide murmurs against the bluff, the sea breathing in rhythm with the air between them. A gecko clicks from the rafters, a small, grounding sound in the stillness.

Millie holds her cup with two hands, thumb tracing the rim in slow absentminded motion. She doesn’t meet Isla’s eyes at first. “I came here thinking it would be like all the other places,” she says, her voice low. “Slip in, get what I need, slip out. Easy. Fast.” She pauses, the faintest breath of laughter escaping her. “That’s always how it’s been.”

Her tone softens, searching. “But here…” Her gaze flicks somewhere beyond Isla. “Something’s different. Something’s… pulling me to stay longer than I should.”

She breathes out slowly. “And I wonder if it’s like the fireflies tonight. If I’m only ever meant to watch.”

She doesn’t name it. Doesn’t name her. But she doesn’t look away either.

Isla feels the words drift between them like wind through the open window—gentle, cool, edged with something unspoken. She doesn’t know what to do with them. With the weight of being part of whatever Millie means, or the risk of assuming too much.

So she only nods, quiet, and takes another sip of tea.

The silence stretches—not heavy, not empty. Just waiting.

Beyond the window, the constellations keep their slow, patient burn.

Chapter Text

Morning drags her up by degrees—first the gulls, then the light forcing its way through the blinds, then the dull throb of too little sleep and too many thoughts.

Millie lies still for a moment, face pressed into the cool side of the pillow. Then it hits her—her own voice over ginger tea, Isla standing across from her, the words she’d let slip like a plate set down too hard.

She groans into the sheets. “Smooth, Millie. Truly elegant. Pulitzer-worthy rambling.”

When she finally sits up, the room smells faintly of salt and the ghost of last night’s ginger. The sea outside is already too bright, glaringly awake. She pads to the tiny desk by the window, sweeps aside a folded brochure, and pulls the paper bag closer.

The ritual has a rhythm now—cup first, then bowl. She sets them down with care, as if they might listen.

“Okay,” she tells them, half-laughing, half-mortified. “So I said… what did I even say?” She mimics herself under her breath, then winces. “Something’s pulling me to stay longer than I should. And I wonder if I’m only ever meant to watch.” She rubs her forehead. “Who says that out loud?”

The cup offers nothing but its sturdy silence. She turns it over and traces the carved name with her thumb. The groove feels like an answer.

“I wasn’t confessing,” she informs them. “Not really.” A beat. “Just… not not confessing.”

Outside, a tricycle buzzes past, its engine fading into the hum of the sea. The bowl’s glaze catches a sliver of sunlight and holds it. She watches it shimmer faintly, remembering the mangroves, the fireflies breathing light into darkness. The way Isla’s eyes had seemed to keep that glow.

“Maybe I just wanted to be seen,” she says quietly. “Without the pitch. Without the armor.”

The words drift out over the balcony, harmless now that they’ve escaped her. She pours water from the carafe into the cup and pretends it’s tea. “For the record,” she tells them, “I know how ridiculous this is—talking to pottery at seven in the morning. But you’re… good at not judging.”

She sets the cup down, continues to the bowl. “Today I’ll check on the mother from yesterday. Maybe Mang Efren. Maybe—” She stops before she says the name that’s waiting. A pulse of duty flickers through her—toward her company, toward the people whose trust she’s somehow gained, toward the impossible balance between them.

“I’ll go by the studio later,” she says at last. “To see the firing. That’s allowed.”

Wind slips through the open blinds, teasing her hair. The sea flares bright, impossible blue. Millie lifts the cup again, takes a sip, and smiles despite herself.

“Alright,” she murmurs. “We survive the day. One honest conversation at a time. And maybe fewer speeches about fireflies.”

The cup and bowl, mercifully, do not argue. She leaves them catching sunlight on the desk, their carved names turned face-up like a pact. Then she ties her hair, pulls on her shoes, and steps into the glare of morning.

The day unfolds loud with heat—tricycles, radios, laughter drifting from open windows. Millie walks without hurry, canvas bag looped over her shoulder, telling herself she’s only out for work. But her steps already know where they’re heading.

By the time she climbs the bluff, the air is sharp with salt. The coral walls of Isla’s home catch the noon light, weathered and resolute. The kiln breathes a low, fading warmth, and Isla is there, crouched before it, hair pulled back, the latch already loosened.

Millie slows, her footsteps loud against the packed earth. Isla glances up—one brief, steady look—then returns to the kiln, easing the iron door open.

Inside, the pieces gleam faintly. Mugs, bowls, a shallow dish—glazes that had been dull and powdery now alive, burnished with unpredictable color.

Millie steps closer. “Is it ready?”

“Cooled enough,” Isla says. She lifts a tray out, metal tongs glinting in her hand. “This batch came through clean.”

The tray lands on the table with a soft clink of clay against clay. Millie leans in—and there it is. The bowl she glazed. The color deeper now, uneven where her brush had skipped, but beautiful in a way she hadn’t expected.

Isla watches her see it. “First pieces always come out like that,” she says. “Imperfect. But they teach you what to do next.”

Millie doesn’t touch it yet. She only looks—the softened gleam, the faint ripple of the glaze, the way the bowl seems to hold memory in its skin.

“You can touch it,” Isla says. Her voice is calm, almost quiet. “Not only watch.”

The words strike harder than they should.

Millie looks up, startled, but Isla has already turned back to her tray.

She reaches out. The glaze is cool beneath her fingertips, smooth in some places, rough in others. She lifts it carefully, both hands steady. Not flawless. Not precise. But hers.

“It feels different now,” she murmurs, half to herself.

The studio smells of ash and sun-warmed clay. She holds the bowl—not as something fragile, but as something claimed. And though she doesn’t name it, something inside her shifts.

She sets it down again, slower this time, her fingers reluctant to let go.

Around them, the other pieces gleam softly—some blue, some green, each one carrying its own accident, its own story.

“Do they always come out this way?” she asks.

“Never the same twice,” Isla says, straightening a mug. “The kiln decides as much as I do. Heat leaves its mark. Fire changes things.”

Millie glances toward the shelves lined with older work—some whole, some cracked. “And these?”

“Too imperfect to sell. Too personal to throw away.”

Millie steps closer, studying the fractures—fine white veins tracing through color. “So even the broken ones stay.”

Isla’s voice is steady, low. “Everything breaks. Clay. Glass. People. Doesn’t mean it stops being worth something.”

Millie turns at that, her chest tightening at the simplicity of it. “And what about the ones nobody takes?”

“Then they stay with me,” Isla says. “Some pieces aren’t meant to leave. Some are only meant to remind.”

The words settle deep. Millie looks down at her bowl again—its uneven edge, its skin of fire and flaw. It isn’t the kind of thing she’d ever have kept before. But here, it feels like proof she tried.

She lifts it one last time, thumb tracing the rim. “So this—” her voice falters before she steadies it, “—this would remind me of what, exactly?”

Isla meets her gaze. “That you touched it,” she says simply. “That you made something matter.”

The kiln ticks faintly as it cools, a slow, steady breath. Millie holds the bowl close, the words anchoring her in a way she can’t explain. She sets it down gently, palms lingering a moment longer than they need to.

Chapter Text

The sun filters through the sheer curtains, laying stripes of gold across the worktable. The studio has grown quieter since the kiln was opened, the fired pieces cooling on the trays, their shine settling into permanence. Isla stacks the finished mugs to one side, but her mind isn’t on the rhythm of tidying.

Millie still lingers near the shelves, her gaze flicking back now and then to the bowl she glazed, as if it might change again if she looked away too long. Isla catches herself watching her more than the clay.

She wipes her hands on a rag, considers the thought before speaking it aloud. “Do you want to try throwing?”

The words hang in the room, heavier than she meant them to. She nods toward the wheel, its surface clean and waiting. “Clay. From the start, not just the glaze. It’s different when you feel it moving under your hands.”

Millie looks at the wheel, then back at her, expression unreadable.

Isla adds, more softly, “It takes patience. Mess, too. But if you want to learn, I can show you.”

Millie hesitates only a moment before nodding. Isla gestures toward the stool by the wheel, pulling a lump of clay from the basin and dropping it with a soft thud onto the aluminium.

“Sit,” she says, steady but not unkind.

Millie lowers herself onto the stool, knees bent awkwardly against the splash pan. Her blouse is neat as always, but Isla notices she doesn’t smooth it down this time. She leans forward, watching as Isla’s hands press into the clay, centering it against the wheelhead.

“It starts here,” Isla says. She sets her foot against the pedal and the wheel hums to life, spinning slow at first. Her palms close around the clay, steadying it as it wobbles. “You have to center it, or nothing else will hold.”

She steps back, wiping her hands on her rag, nodding for Millie to try.

Millie places her hands on the clay, tentative. The wheel spins, and immediately it skews, tilting off-center. Clay smears against her palm. She laughs softly, embarrassed, and tries again, pressing harder.

“Not force,” Isla says, moving closer. “Pressure, steady. Like this.”

She lays her hands lightly over Millie’s, guiding without taking over. Together they press the clay back toward center, the wobble easing under their touch. Isla feels the tension in Millie’s shoulders loosen, just a fraction, as the clay steadies beneath her palms.

“Better,” Isla murmurs.

Millie’s breath catches. For a moment, the only sound is the low whir of the wheel, the rasp of clay under skin. Isla pulls back slowly, letting Millie’s hands take over. The clay spins smooth now, rising under her touch, unshapely but promising.

Isla folds her arms, watching. “It listens if you do.”

Millie glances up at her, clay streaked across her knuckles, a smile flickering at the edge of her mouth. And for Isla, the room shifts—the quiet no longer just hers, but something shared.

Millie leans forward, her hair slipping loose as she focuses on the clay. The wheel spins, steady now, the lump slowly rising beneath her hands. It’s awkward, misshapen, but alive.

“Ease your thumbs in,” Isla says, nodding toward the center. “Not too fast. Let the clay tell you how far.”

Millie presses carefully, and the lump hollows into a shallow curve. Water slips down the sides, streaking her wrists. A laugh escapes her, quick and startled, when the rim wobbles like it’s about to collapse.

“Keep your hands steady,” Isla murmurs, stepping closer. She places her fingers near Millie’s—not touching, but close enough that the guidance is clear. “Clay follows balance, not force.”

Millie steadies her breath, her shoulders softening. The rim evens out, rising into something bowl-shaped, uneven but holding. Her smile widens, small but real, and Isla feels it like a shift in the air—quiet pride where hesitation had been.

“See?” Isla says, softer now. “It listens.”

Millie doesn’t look up, but the line of her mouth curves in answer. She keeps shaping, coaxing the clay higher, her movements tentative but learning. The bowl grows crooked, leaning slightly to one side, but it stands.

At last she pulls her hands back, clay streaked up her forearms, breath uneven. “It’s terrible,” she says, half-laughing.

Isla studies the crooked bowl, its walls thick, its rim slanted. She doesn’t smile, doesn’t joke. “It’s yours,” she says simply.

Millie looks at her then, something caught between disbelief and warmth in her eyes. She glances back at the wheel, the crooked bowl spinning slow under the sunbeam, and Isla knows the piece will stay, no matter how imperfect.

For once, she doesn’t mind the mess of another’s hands in her space.

The wheel slows to a stop, the crooked bowl still turning faintly in the center. Millie leans back, clay clinging to her nails, laughter lingering in her breath. Isla steps forward, cutting the wheel’s motion with a practiced flick, and reaches for a sponge.

“Here,” she says, holding it out.

Millie takes it without hesitation, wiping her hands first, then the splash pan rim where water has pooled. The sight pulls at Isla—this woman who walked in with pressed collars and polished shoes, now smudged with clay, sleeves rolled up, cleaning like she’s done it a hundred times.

They move wordlessly, each gesture finding its place in the rhythm of the studio. Isla rinses tools at the basin; Millie dries them and sets them on the shelf. Clay spatters the floor, and Millie crouches to mop them with the rag Isla hands her. Their shoulders brush once, then again, both times neither stepping away.

When Millie straightens, her palms are damp, hair pushed back from her face, cheeks flushed. She grins at the mess they’ve conquered between them. “Feels almost like… partnership,” she says lightly, though her eyes hold steady on Isla’s.

Isla doesn’t answer right away. She hangs the rag to dry, the words settling in her chest heavier than Millie probably meant them. A partnership. In clay, maybe. But she knows the pull of that word extends further, somewhere she isn’t ready to follow yet.

Still, she says simply, “You did well for a first try.”

Millie looks back at the crooked bowl, drying now on the shelf among the others. Her smile softens. “Mess and all.”

“Mess and all,” Isla echoes.

The room hums with the quiet after work, the air thick with clay and the faint smoke still lingering from the kiln. For Isla, it feels less like a studio, less like solitude, and more like something new taking shape—slow, steady, fragile, but undeniable.

By the time the last rag is hung and the floor wiped down, the sun has tilted lower, bleeding warm light into the studio. Isla dusts her palms on her apron, satisfied with the order restored, when Millie turns toward her.

“An exchange,” Millie says, voice lighter than usual but with a firmness beneath it. She nods toward the crooked bowl drying on the shelf. “You gave me a clay lesson. Let me buy you dinner at Casa Solana.”

Isla blinks, caught off guard. She isn’t used to being offered much, not like this—so direct, so casual, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. She opens her mouth to refuse—habit, instinct—but Millie adds quickly, “Think of it as… tuition. Payment in food. Besides, you’ve fed me enough times already.”

There’s a hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth, faint but daring. Isla studies her—the smudges of clay still on her forearms, the hair pulled loose at her temple, the calmness in her eyes that wasn’t there when she first walked into this shop days ago.

It would be easier to say no. To keep their lines clear, her world intact. But the words don’t come.

Instead, she hears herself say, “Early dinner, then.”

Millie’s grin flickers wider before she reins it in. “Early dinner,” she repeats, as though testing the sound.

And for Isla, the acceptance sits strange in her chest—not heavy, not unwelcome. Just new.

Five minutes later, the tricycle drops them at the hotel’s entrance. The stone bone base glows softly against the last of the sun. Isla rarely comes this way, but stepping through the lobby is like stepping into another rhythm—ceiling fans humming, tiled floors gleaming, everything designed to ease and endure.

At the reception desk, Mae looks up and brightens. “Miss Isla,” she says warmly, with the easy familiarity of someone who’s spoken the name before. “Good evening.”

Millie glances between them, one brow rising. Isla only nods in return, murmuring a greeting. She doesn’t explain, doesn’t need to—but when Mae adds, “Your plates have held up well, ma’am. Guests always ask about them,” Millie’s gaze sharpens with realization.

It’s only later, once they’ve been led to their table, that Millie leans closer, voice pitched low. “So these,” she says, running a finger over the rim of the glazed dinner plate before her, “are yours too.”

Isla shrugs lightly. “The hotel ordered sets a year ago. I didn’t know they were still using them.”

There’s no need to add that each piece has passed through her hands, that these very plates have carried countless meals without her ever seeing them leave the kitchen. But Millie seems to understand anyway, her attention lingering longer than necessary on the curve of the ceramic before she reaches for her menu.

They order—grilled tuna belly, tinolang lapu-lapu, rice still steaming in a platter. The food arrives quickly, fragrant with tomato and lemongrass, char smoke trailing from the fish. The table hums with the soft clatter of utensils, the low murmur of other guests, the occasional lift of laughter from the veranda.

Millie eats without her usual guarded posture. She leans back once, laughing at her own attempt to scrape the fish head clean from her plate. Isla watches the way the hotel’s warm light softens the hard lines she wears in the day, catching in her hair, sharpening the curve of her smile.

Their conversation isn’t constant, but it doesn’t need to be. Millie asks about where she source the glaze, about whether Isla always knew she would do this work. Isla answers simply, her voice even, her stories trimmed to what fits. Millie listens more than she speaks, though every so often Isla feels her gaze linger—steady, thoughtful, as if the act of listening itself has turned into something else.

For Isla, dinners at Casa Solana are usually a matter of function, of formality. Tonight, with Millie across from her, it feels different—like seeing her own work in a new frame, reflected back at her in the glow of someone else’s eyes.

When the plates are cleared and the last of the tea cools in their cups, neither of them moves to leave right away. The noise of the dining hall drifts low around them—silverware clinking, the faint hum of conversation, the sea breathing somewhere beyond the walls.

Millie glances toward the open doors where the night leans in. “There’s a garden out back, you want to stay for a while?”

Isla nods. “I can stay.”

They rise together, leaving the warmth of the dining hall behind. The veranda opens to a narrow path lit by hanging lanterns, their light swaying in the breeze. The air shifts—cooler, carrying the hush of waves brushing the shore below. Footsteps crunch softly on gravel.

The garden air is warm when they arrive, thick with kalachuchi. Isla sits and leans back against the bench, her hands folded loosely in her lap. Millie follows, sitting beside her.

The quiet stretches for a moment, holding them suspended under the warmth of the lantern light.

“Your company,” Isla says, breaking the silence, voice steady. “They’re still pushing through with the resort?”

Millie glances at her, then exhales. “Yes. That’s why I’m here. To make sure the paperwork and signatures line up the way they want.”

Isla tilts her head, watching her. “And that’s enough reason to cross an island for?”

Millie’s laugh is small, without humor. “Enough to pay my bills. To put food on my table. To make sure the roof over me doesn’t leak when it rains.” She rubs a thumb over the edge of the bench as though smoothing splinters. “It’s not a grand answer, but it’s true.”

The admission sits between them, more raw than Isla expected. She doesn’t rush to fill it. Instead, she asks, softer, “And if you weren’t doing this? What would you have wanted?”

For a moment Millie doesn’t answer. The night hums with crickets, a faint note of guitar drifting from somewhere in the garden. Then she says, almost reluctantly, “Psychology. I wanted to study people, help them unravel themselves. I thought maybe I’d be good at it.” A faint shrug follows. “But wanting something doesn’t always mean you get to chase it. Life was louder.”

Isla studies her profile in the lantern glow—the curve of her jaw, the tired strength in her shoulders. She thinks of the woman who first walked into her shop with a voice sharp enough to slice, and wonders which version is closer to the truth.

“Maybe,” Isla says after a moment, “you’re still doing it. Studying people. Trying to understand what makes them stay or sell.”

Millie looks at her, surprised. “You make it sound noble.”

“Not noble,” Isla says. “Just human.”

Millie’s mouth tilts faintly, a reluctant smile ghosting through. “And you? You read people too, don’t you? Through the way they touch clay.”

Isla considers it, gaze drifting toward the shadows where lantern light dissolves into the dark. “Maybe. Clay doesn’t lie. It remembers every hesitation.” She glances back at Millie. “People aren’t so different.”

For a while, neither of them speaks. The air hums soft with the sea, with the low chorus of night creatures, with things that don’t need saying yet.

Millie tips her head back, eyes tracing the stars beyond a tree’s dark outline. “Do you ever get used to this view?”

Isla shakes her head. “You stop noticing sometimes. But never used to it.”

Millie exhales, slow. “I think I could.”

The words hang there—gentle, unguarded—and Isla feels them land somewhere she can’t quite name. The lanterns flicker in the breeze, and for a moment she imagines the fireflies again, their light pulsing through the trees, each flash a quiet insistence. I am here.

When Isla looks at Millie again, the other woman is watching her—not studying, not searching, just seeing.

And in that stillness, the distance between them feels measured not in space, but in breath.

Chapter Text

The garden shifts around them before either speaks again.

What had been quiet a moment ago begins to stir—voices rising from the veranda, footsteps crunching over gravel. Laughter carries on the wind. Someone drags driftwood into the open space near the trees, stacking it in a loose pyramid.

A match flares. Then another.

The bonfire catches with a sudden whoosh, flames climbing fast, smoke curling upward in ribbons that scatter sparks into the dark like impatient fireflies. The light rolls across the garden, pulling people toward it—hotel guests with drinks in hand, still damp from late swims, staff in rolled sleeves moving among them with easy familiarity.

Isla turns slightly toward the glow, her expression unreadable. Millie follows her gaze. The warmth from the fire reaches even their bench, the smoke a soft bite in the air.

“Bonfire Friday,” one of the receptionists calls out as he approaches with a grin. “You should join, ma’am. Everyone does—guests, staff, anyone still awake.”

So now here she is, standing at the edge of the glow with Isla beside her. Dragged, really—Millie had reached for her wrist without thinking, a gentle tug that surprised them both. But Isla hadn’t shaken her off, and that feels like something.

A few moments after, music starts up—one of the staff with a battered guitar, strumming easy chords. A group of tourists clap along. Someone passes skewers of grilled hotdogs brushed with banana ketchup. Glass bottles clink. The air smells of woodsmoke and char, of salt still clinging to the night breeze.

Millie doesn’t know when she last stood in a circle like this without an agenda, without a speech folded in her bag. She doesn’t know why she thought Isla would refuse—because here, in the shifting firelight, Isla doesn’t look out of place. She looks like she belongs in the warmth of it, even if she sits a little apart, steady and quiet.

Millie lifts her skewer, the sauce hot against her tongue. She smiles, turns toward Isla, and says, half-teasing, half-earnest— “See? Worth dragging you into.”

The fire spits and crackles, throwing sparks upward where they disappear into the dark. Laughter ripples through the circle as the guitarist shifts into a love song—something old, familiar enough that even the tourists hum along.

Millie leans back on her right hand, the heat warm against her face, the night breeze cooling the rest. Beside her, Isla sits with her knees drawn slightly in, hands loose over them, her gaze fixed on the flames. The light touches her differently—lays gold across her cheekbones, pulls copper from the strands of her hair that have slipped loose.

Millie finds herself staring, and before she can pull the words back, they leave her—

“You look wonderful in this light.”

Isla’s head turns. For a heartbeat, her expression doesn’t shift, only her eyes catching the fire. Then a small crease forms between her brows, as though she isn’t used to being spoken to that way, not here, not by someone like Millie.

Millie clears her throat, softer now. “I mean it.”

The music carries over them, voices rising, someone clapping in time. But the air between them holds its own hush, the kind that makes Millie’s pulse quicken. Isla doesn’t look away immediately, and that, Millie thinks, is an answer in itself.

They sit that way for a while, side by side, the circle around them blurring. Every so often their shoulders brush when someone shifts behind them, but neither moves away.

Millie accepts fried banana from a passing tray, breaks it in half, and wordlessly offers one piece to Isla. Isla hesitates only a moment before taking it, their fingers brushing briefly, warm despite the sugar slick.

And as the night stretches, Millie realizes she isn’t just watching anymore—she’s inside the glow with her, both of them lit by the same fire.

Later, the bonfire winds down slowly—songs tapering off, bottles emptied, the circle thinning as guests drift back inside. The fire burns lower, sparks fewer now, smoke curling soft into the dark.

Millie rises when Isla does, falling naturally into step beside her. The garden path is lit only by the occasional lantern, their shadows stretching long across the gravel. Beyond the walls, the hum of crickets and the distant hiss of the sea fills the air.

They don’t speak at first. The quiet is companionable, not strained. Millie finds herself listening to the rhythm of Isla’s footsteps, steady against the loose stones, and matching them.

Halfway down the road, she glances sideways. “Do you always stay away from things like this?”

Isla’s mouth curves, faint but wry. “I don’t stay away. I just don’t get pulled in.”

Millie smiles at that, tucking her hands into her pockets. “Guess I should take the credit then. I managed to drag you.”

“You did,” Isla admits, her tone even but not dismissive. She pauses, then adds, “You seemed… lighter there.”

Millie huffs a small laugh. “Maybe I was. It’s easier when there’s no report to cram, no deadline looming.” She kicks a pebble from the path. “It almost felt like I wasn’t just passing through.”

Isla’s eyes flick toward her at that, catching in the lantern glow, but she doesn’t reply.

The road veers toward the bluff, the sound of waves louder now. When they reach the mango tree leaning toward the sea, Isla slows, turning toward the faint outline of her house against the dark horizon. Millie hesitates, the words rising before she can weigh them down.

“Thank you… for letting me drag you. I don’t think I’ll forget tonight.”

The sea answers in its steady hush. Isla only nods, but Millie feels the weight of it—the kind of agreement that doesn’t need words.

And together they walk the last stretch to Isla’s home, the night between them thick with salt, smoke, and something they both feel but don’t name yet.

The next morning breaks too bright, the kind of light that sneaks through the blind no matter how tightly they’re lowered. Millie sits on the edge of her bed at Casa Solana, the lopsided cup cradled in her hands, still warm with coffee. She tries to let herself settle into the quiet—the waves beyond the cliff, the kalachuchi leaves rustling like a lullaby—but her phone will not stop buzzing.

Three missed calls. Two emails marked urgent. A message blinking from her boss.

She opens the newest one.

Status report needed. Specifically: progress on the Arevalo property. Investors want reassurance this parcel is secured. It will be the anchor for the entire development. Without it, the project might not push through. Update by noon.

Millie exhales, dragging a hand down her face. Of course. Of all the lands, of all the families—the project’s center had to fall on the one person who looked her in the eye and told her no.

Her coffee tastes suddenly bitter. She looks at the cup, feels the carved name faint at the bottom.

There is no easy language she can fold this into. No graph or polished slide that can spin Isla’s certainty into hesitation. And the thought of trying—of walking back into that shop with only a pitch—makes her chest tighten in a way that has nothing to do with deadlines.

She sets the cup down carefully, stares at the phone still buzzing on the table. Outside, the island hums with its usual ease. Inside, Millie feels Manila pressing against her ribs, demanding.

For the first time, she isn’t sure which weight she’s meant to carry.

After breakfast, Millie takes the familiar road west, past the mango tree that leans toward the bluff. The air is already warm, salt clinging heavy, the kind of heat that presses down with the weight of midday before it even arrives.

Millie knows them before she even reaches the fenced lot. Their names sit neatly in her folder—siblings left with one parcel of land, a slope of coconut and scrub grass that touches the sea beside Isla’s property. The notes say the brother, Eddie, is struggling, a boat in need of repair, three children, tuition bills already overdue. The sister, Grace, is married into comfort, no longer living on the island but visiting often. She has the luxury to say no—to hold onto sentiment.

Today, both are here.

She finds them outside. Eddie crouches over a motorcycle part, grease staining his hands, while Grace sits on a bamboo bench leaning against the fence, her clothes crisp, her gold watch catching the light. They look up at Millie’s approach—measured glances, neither hostile nor welcoming, just curious.

Millie introduces herself with the same careful courtesy she’s practiced a hundred times, but Eddie cuts straight through it.

“You’re here about the land.”

His tone is blunt, though not unkind. He wipes his hands on a rag and nods toward the slope running all the way down to the sea. “I want to sell. The money would send my kids to university—Cebu, maybe even Manila. They deserve more than fishing nets and tricycles.”

Before Millie can answer, Grace rises from the bench, her voice clear but edged. “And give up the last piece of what our parents left us? This land is memory. You can’t just measure it against tuition slips.”

Eddie’s head jerks up, eyes sharp now. “Easy for you to say. You’re privileged enough to care about sentiments. But sentiments won’t give my kids a better life.”

Millie feels the air tighten, her pulse quicken. She’s seen this before—families split open by the promise of money. But standing here, beside Isla’s land, it feels different. She understands Eddie’s desperation—the way he glances at the half-rusted tricycle he’s trying to fix, the worn slippers on his feet. And she understands Grace’s steadiness, the way her crossed arms seem to hold more than herself.

She doesn’t press. Doesn’t pitch. Instead, she says quietly, “Maybe both of you are right. Maybe the question isn’t just about selling or keeping, but about what the land is worth—and what it will mean once it’s gone.”

Neither answers. Grace’s silence holds ground. Eddie’s silence holds exhaustion. And Millie feels caught between them—between two truths that cannot share the same soil.

As she steps back onto the road, she can see Isla’s roofline just past the trees. The thought lands heavy. This isn’t just a project anymore. It’s people, it’s choices, and the ground beneath their feet might fracture no matter which way it turns.

Her company would want her to turn that fracture into leverage. Divide and conquer. Secure the signature. But walking toward Isla’s bluff, Millie feels the wrongness of it in her bones.

The coral-painted walls of the house appears before the sea does, its silhouette steady against the horizon. The mango tree leans the same way it always has, the kiln chimney rising like a sentinel.

Ordinary, enduring. Everything her company’s reports reduce to “parcel of land, prime for development.”

And yet, it’s Isla’s life. Her grandmother’s hands still in the walls. Her father’s work in the kiln. Every memory, every fracture, every firefly-lit dusk.

Millie’s chest tightens with the truth of it. She has fallen in love with the girl whose life her company wants to uproot.

It’s not neat. It’s not safe. But it’s undeniable.

She pauses at the shop door, the bell still and waiting. Her reflection flickers in the glass—a woman in pressed clothes, carrying the weight of Manila in her phone, and something else entirely in her heart.

For the first time since arriving, she doesn’t know if she can step inside.