Their mother pressed eight worn pesos into JB's palm before dawn. It was enough for the bullock cart to town—barely. They ate what remained from the night before and filled their stomachs with fruit, grateful for even that.
The road was quiet. It was not market day, and traveling to town on ordinary mornings was a luxury most could not afford. Poverty had taught people to stay where they were.
Only four passengers climbed onto the cart: Kaliyah, JB, and two women.
One of them—a woman with a dark mole on her cheek and restless eyes—kept glancing at Kaliyah.
"JB," she said finally, unable to restrain herself, "who is she?"
"Oh." The woman's gaze lingered on Kaliyah, appraising. "Not married yet?"
There was disappointment in her tone, thinly veiled.
Kaliyah felt irritation stir, but she swallowed it. Speak softly, the Lord had taught her.
They spoke as if she were not there.
"No," Kaliyah said at last, her voice calm. "I'm not married." She offered a polite smile.
Kaliyah let the words pass. How could she explain the years lost to a coma? Some truths did not belong to strangers.
Then the woman laughed lightly, as if sharing gossip.
"When I was your age, I had many men," she said, pride creeping into her voice. "I even aborted some children. Offered them to Molech so I could prosper."
She expected shock. Or curiosity.
What she did not expect was the sudden stillness beside her.
Heat rushed to Kaliyah's face. Her fingers curled so tightly her nails bit into her palms. Her first instinct was fury—sharp, righteous, ready. Words surged to her tongue, harsh and unforgiving.
Say it, Kaliyah's flesh urged. Condemn her.
Instead, the Holy Spirit pressed down on her like a steady hand on a drawn blade.
No.
Her breath shook. Her heart pounded. For a moment, obedience felt like pain.
She swallowed.
"Did he make you prosper?" Kaliyah asked, her voice tight, restrained to the edge of breaking. "After you sacrificed your children?"
The question struck Aling Puring harder than any insult.
Her mouth opened—then closed.
Prosper? Her eyes flickered to her hands: calloused, cracked. To her skirt: patched twice over. To the eggs hidden in her basket—the last she hoped to sell today.
"No," she muttered. "But what does that matter?"
Even as she said it, she felt the lie sag under its own weight.
Kaliyah's thoughts burned now—images she hated, judgments that rose unbidden. God convicted her even as they formed. Her chest ached with restraint.
"It matters," she said slowly, deliberately, "because you gave him innocent lives. What kind of god takes children and leaves their worshippers starving?"
A brittle laugh escaped her before she could stop it.
"Perhaps he was shitting when you were sacrificing or may he was deaf thus he didn't hear you," she added. "Or perhaps he never had power at all."
JB's eyes widened with his sister's guts to provoke people and let out a small, startled laugh.
Aling Puring's face burned.
They mock him, she thought, panic prickling beneath her anger. What if they're wrong? What if I was wrong?
The woman bristled. "Watch your tongue. He might strike you with lightning."
That did it.
Kaliyah felt the last thread of patience strain—stretching, burning—but it did not break.
She laughed not with mockery but with certainty.
"He has no authority over lightning," she said. "He has no authority over me. My God is Jesus Christ. If your god were real, he would have to answer to Him first."
Her voice steadied, unshaken.
Something in Aling Puring recoiled at the certainty in her voice. Not arrogance—assurance.
"My God does not demand the blood of children," Kaliyah continued. "He asks for obedience. And He provides."
JB nodded. "We will never sacrifice lives to false gods."
Aling Puring turned away, her chest tight.
If their God is real, she thought, then what have I done?
"You're foolish," she said sharply, more to defend herself than to wound them. "I won't speak to you anymore."
Silence followed. The cart creaked on.
But the quiet gnawed at her.
After a long moment, she spoke again—quieter, stripped of mockery.
"Who… who is this God you keep talking about?"
Kaliyah felt the tension ease slightly, like a fist loosening.
Kaliyah's face softened.
"The one and only God," she said. "Creator of heaven and earth. He spoke the world into being—and that Word became flesh and lived among us. His name is Jesus Christ, the Son of God."
She spoke gently now, not to win, but to testify.
"He lived in perfect obedience and offered Himself so that forgiveness could be given freely—without sacrifice, without blood from the innocent."
Aling Puring frowned. A word… becoming flesh? It sounded foolish. Impossible.
"So there are two gods?"
"No," Kaliyah replied gently. "One God. One Spirit. One Word. They cannot be separated."
Aling Puring's thoughts spiraled. If this is true… then forgiveness doesn't require blood? Not my children's?
How can a word become flesh?" she asked, almost afraid of the answer.
Kaliyah smiled—not victorious, not mocking—but warm.
"With God," she said, "all things are possible. And if you believe in Jesus Christ, ask forgiveness, and receive Him—you will be forgiven. Not through sacrifice. Not through death. But through grace."
Aling Puring said nothing after that.
She stared down the road, her hands clenched in her skirt, her thoughts louder than the cart's wheels.
The rest of the ride passed in strained silence.
Aling Puring kept her eyes fixed on the road ahead, but her thoughts would not stay still. Kaliyah's words echoed in her mind—not loudly, worse—softly. Persistently.
What kind of god takes children and gives nothing in return? If it did, why does it have to cost a life?
Her chest tightened. She felt the weight of every choice she had justified: the abortions, the sacrifices, the years of hoping that Molek would grant her relief, her survival. She had told herself it was necessary, that it was for survival—but deep down, she had always known the cost. She had taken lives for promises that never came true. And now, confronted by Kaliyah's quiet but unwavering words, that guilt clawed at her, raw and relentless.
She clenched her jaw. They were young. They didn't understand survival. Yet even to her own ears, the excuse felt thin. Survival was what she had prayed for all those years ago. Survival was what she still begged for now. And still—her hands were empty.
Her fingers drifted unconsciously to her stomach, then stilled. She had not done that in years.
Across from her, Kaliyah sat quietly, eyes lowered, hands folded in her lap. Not triumphant. Not watching. Not waiting
That unsettled Aling Puring more than mockery ever could.
If the girl had shouted, cursed, or condemned her, Aling Puring could have dismissed it as youthful arrogance. But she hadn't. She had spoken with restraint, as if something stronger than anger held her back.
If their God is real, Aling Puring thought, why doesn't He look like fear? Why does He act with such quiet authority, such patience?
When they dismounted, Aling Puring hesitated. She opened her mouth to say something sharp—something to regain ground—but the words refused to come. Instead, she busied herself adjusting her basket of eggs.
As she walked away, she caught herself glancing back.
Kaliyah was helping JB down from the cart, steady, unhurried. There was no pride in her posture. Only quiet certainty.
Grace, the word surfaced unbidden.
She frowned. Shook her head. Nonsense.
And yet—
At the market, when a customer haggled harshly over her eggs, Aling Puring nearly snapped as she usually did. The insult burned at her tongue. But suddenly she remembered Kaliyah's clenched hands. Her trembling breath. The restraint that had cost something.
Aling Puring swallowed her words.
That night, as she lay on her mat, sleep did not come easily. The house was quiet, hunger dull but familiar. Her thoughts wandered where she did not invite them.
No sacrifice, Kaliyah had said. Forgiveness freely given.
Aling Puring turned onto her side, facing the wall.
"If You're real," she muttered into the darkness, the words barely formed enough to be called a prayer, "then You'd know I don't even know how to begin."
She waited for lightning.
None came.
Only silence.
But it was a different silence than before—not empty, not mocking. A silence that lingered, heavy and watchful, as if something had heard her… and chosen to wait.
She rolled onto her back, unsettled, unsettled enough to know one thing for certain:
She would never speak of Molech with pride again.
The seed had not yet broken the soil.
But it had been planted.