They buried Crisanta Salvacion without a cause of death. The certificate arrived blank in that space, as if the paper itself had refused to choose. Heart, the doctor suggested aloud. Shock, the police muttered. God’s will, the parishioners whispered, relieved to stop there.
Only I knew that none of those words fit cleanly. Crisanta died in the chapel, kneeling before the image of the Black Nazarene, her hands folded as if holding something fragile and unseen. When they found her, her face was calm—not peaceful but resolved. As though a decision had finally been made, and the body had merely followed. I was the sacristan then. I had locked the doors the night before. I knew she had not been alone. For forty days straight, Crisanta came to the chapel at dawn. She lit one candle each morning, always from the same wick, always with the same care, as if the flame were a promise that might shatter if handled roughly.
“Para kanino?” I asked once. She smiled but did not answer. Devotion like that draws attention not only from people. The elders said she was making panata. A vow, they explained, must be specific to be heard. God, they believed, preferred clarity. But other listeners feel the same. On the twentieth morning, Crisanta stayed longer than usual. I was sweeping the aisle when I heard her voice—low, urgent, almost scolding.
“Hindi iyon ang pangalan mo,” she said. That made me stop. There was no one else in the chapel. I did not ask her about it. In towns like ours, questions are a form of arrogance. We believe survival depends on not knowing too much. Still, the air grew heavier after that. The candles smoked even when there was no wind. The Nazarene’s shadow stretched along the wall, its edges soft, uncertain, as if deciding what shape to keep. On the thirty-ninth day, Crisanta came to me before dawn.
“If something happens to me,” she said, “do not let them name it carelessly.”
Her voice was steady. Her hands were not.
“Name what?” I asked.
She shook her head. “That is the danger.”
The next morning, she was dead. The town responded the way towns always do—with stories. Some said she prayed too hard, that the heart cannot survive such intensity. Others claimed she had angered a spirit by misnaming it. A few hinted at punishment, though no one could say for what.
Father Lucas preached surrender. “We must not demand understanding,” he said.
“Faith requires trust, not explanation.” But trust, I had learned, does not come easily to those who scrub blood from chapel floors.
That night, after the burial, I returned alone. I wanted to know whether Crisanta had been wrong or brave. I lit a candle from the wick she always used.
The flame wavered, then steadied.
“What killed her?” I asked aloud.
The chapel answered with silence so complete it felt deliberate. Then—not a voice, but a pressure, like a thought placed carefully inside the skull.
“Pinangalanan niya ang takot niya.”
She named her fear. Cold bloomed at the base of my spine.
“Fear doesn’t kill,” I said, though the words sounded thin even to me.
“Hindi ang takot,” the presence replied. “Ang katotohanang dinala ng pangalan.”
Not fear. The truth the name carried. Images followed—not visions, but memories that were not mine. Crisanta kneeling. Crisanta weeping. Crisanta was arguing softly with something that never raised its voice. She had not prayed for mercy. She had prayed for clarity.
“What did she name?” I asked.
The candle guttered. Wax spilled onto the floor, darkening like a wound.
“Hindi lahat ng pangalan ay dapat mabuhay ng matagal.”
Not all names are meant to live long. I understood then what Crisanta had warned me of. To name something is to bind it to the world. But binding works both ways. The one who speaks becomes visible as well.
“So she died because she named it?” I whispered.
The silence returned—measured, considering.
“Namamatay ang tao kapag tumigil silang umiwas.”
People die when they stop avoiding. That answer did not satisfy me. Perhaps it was never meant to. In the weeks that followed, the town settled into forgetting. The blank space on the certificate became a mercy. People prefer causes they can fold neatly away.
But I noticed small changes. Prayers grew shorter. Candles were lit with greater care. No one lingered at the altar anymore. As for me, I stopped asking who killed Crisanta Salvacion. I ask instead what she learned. Sometimes, at dawn, I light a candle from her wick. I do not pray the way she did. I don’t need any more clarity. But neither do I lie.
“What are you?” I ask the quiet.
Nothing answers. And that, I have learned, may be the point. Because some deaths are not murders. Some are negotiations. And some names—once spoken—finish what faith begins.
Michael Ryan Gan Braza is a graduate of UP Mindanao and is currently a student at UP Open University. He works in the BPO industry while managing operations and writing fiction, is a former Literary Editor of Himati, served as Editor-in-Chief of his college paper, and has published poetry in Lilinaon. He has attended several writers’ workshops in college and is developing a young adult paranormal fantasy trilogy.