by Frances Salayo | Featured in Issue 02 - A Council of Stars
The few Babaylan who survived summoned shapeshifting Kapella, Royal Dayang, to convene with them in the past.
A realm opened.
Kapella, through the call of her ancestors, bent time and space to wind the cosmic clock to the past: “Leave my island!”
**
125 years earlier...
You get the picture: small fishing boats bobbing under the stars, waves splashing against the hull, the mast creaking against the upwind breeze, the tall jib sail beckoning moonlight, and from the waters, Magwayen, Goddess of the Sea, clutching a conch, peers at the man sleeping naked on deck. His muscles are sturdy, like carved branches. She descends upon his boat.
He awakes and squints. Is she a hallucination? “Ako si Ili’han, sino ka?”
She hesitates, but responds. His eyes widen. As the night passes, she confides in him of the daughter she lost, Lidagat. “I ferry into the realm of souls to visit my daughter."
He holds her hand. "You know, we fishermen, we pray to the heavens, Manapuru, Bihang’s fishing net for an abundant catch.” He points up to show her the stars: Balatik, Moroporo, Torong, Aquila, reciting each one like an incantation. The seas were murky, all-consuming, her sorrows ever-drowning; it had cast a shadow on her gaze upon the sky.
“Ili’han means secure fortress,” he whispers.
Gods and humans do not fraternize, she was warned. But her cheeks glow like the moon, her breath slows in rhythm to the waves, and she kisses him.
**
Within the Visayas lived the Babaylan: gender-fluid, female-led healers and shamans indigenous to Samar island, of coral reefs and volcanic mountain ranges, basking in the magnanimity of the ancestors.
They thrived on the abundance of freshwater river fish. The fire cantered amidst them and the sacred trance of the shimmery kulintang. The rising smoke fed a premonition: The white men are coming. They have weapons.
Magwayen gave birth to a daughter they named Kapella. The Babaylan visited with gold and a blessing: may she have her father’s stature and her mother’s sensitivity. Magwayen would kneel to her anak, cup her small cheeks with her hands and smile.
At eighteen, Kapella joined the Babaylan. In her ceremonial garb of sacred beads, a wrapped skirt, and a horned headdress, she chanted incantations among them in a healing ritual echoing across the mountains: Free our minds from wicked tongues.
**
One morning, a spy in the seas warned, “A foreign galleon is headed for Samar’s shores, it drops anchor in 5 days!” All men prepared in kali, the ancient combat system. Ili’han, for his skill in sibat, doubling as a fishing and fighting spear, directed the charge. From Fisherman to Leader.
Kaptan, God of the sky world Kahilwayan, who was against her forbidden love, warned Magwayen that Gods cannot meddle in earthly battles. So Magwayen instead touched Ili’han’s forehead, bestowing unto him the Orca’s spirit. Guided by visions, the Babaylan gifted the fishermen saltpeter, sulphur and charcoal powder mined from volcanoes. The fishermen as skilled swimmers glided against the galleon’s stern of thin glass and wood, and attached the powder pouch as Ili’han launched his sibat’s flaming arrow like a javelin. BOOM! The Visayas retained sovereignty.
**
Watching from a dying star, Antares, is Taksil, who has been jealous of Magwayen since childhood. That night, Taksil descends upon Ili’han’s hut. “I’m Magwayen’s half-sister. I’ll tell you a secret. She cast a spell and seduced you to make Kaptan jealous. Your daughter is really his…isn’t she gifted?”
Startled, Ili’han’s shouts, “Shut up about my daughter!” He shakes his fists to her face.
Taksil giggles and tests man’s weakness – lust. “Magwayen may be a goddess, but you’re the hero,” she says, pressing her body against his to kiss him. He kisses her back, a deep one, then draws his lips away and turns around. As she leaves out the door with his back turned, she sprinkles stardust in his fermented coconut liquor. Ili’han sharpens his sibat, and blinded to the sleight of hand, reaches for his bottle and takes a sip. He passes out. By dawn, the enemy returns to ambush. This time, they bring rifles.
**
Taksil’s lover had been watching. “She kissed a mortal!” Enraged, he whips the tail of a shooting star into a lasso and when Taksil returns, ties it around her neck. She thrashes and strangles to death.
**
Magwayen is outside his hut. “Ili’han, aking mahal? We were supposed to meet in your boat tonight?” He’s on the ground, lifeless. A bullet wound. She grabs the bottle in his palm and sniffs. The poison at the bottom glows red by daylight. Stardust. “I know the origins like a fingerprint…Antares…My half-sister!” Her heart freezes, her face turns ice blue. She wipes Ili’han’s face with her hair. She screams at her own kin’s betrayal, sending the seas into a fury. Storms clash and rage; they awaken the sleeping Goddesses of the heavens above.
In the periphery, the Babaylan are tortured by the colonizers. The mangrove forests are burning. Magwayen’s lips tremble.
“I don’t want her to know pain!” She dashes towards Kapella in the thicket and grabs her. “Uban nako, akong anak!”
“Asa ta padulong, Mama?”
“You would be immortal, luminary,” Magwayen vows. “Earth doesn’t deserve you.”
She looks up, screams “Mga bituon!” and invokes the awakened celestial bodies that Ili’han prayed to. The Stars, in honour of Ili'han's dedication, hear her plea, and in an act of benevolence, lift Kapella up. She ascends, beaming bright, transforming into a star. Her four closest Babaylans join to form a pentagon constellation, the five stars of Mauwa Balaya. Kapella, the Charioteer, would be the brightest star of Mauwa Balaya.
**
The fabric of space can be manipulated, warped, so two locations once far apart are now very close. Relativity can provide a shortcut from one location to another. A star’s gravitational pull is so strong that time for it slows. It turns out 125 years on Samar is an hour for Kapella.
In Samar, the colonizers don’t expect further rebellions. Their guard is down. Kapella, an elastic being from the cosmos, sneaks in and infiltrates the General’s tent while he sleeps. Beside him, a token, a sibat. His blackened heart meets her father’s sagitta and out flows her relief.
Across the shore, her beam beckons her mother.
Frances Salayo is published in The Lupa Newsletter and is a 2026 Writers’ Union of Canada mentee. She is an ardent student of the craft and an advocate for Filipinx literary arts. Her essays and work explore diasporic grief and joy. She dedicates Star-crossed to her matrilineage.
