The incident in the library left me unmoored. For two days, I moved through school in a daze, my thoughts a tangled knot of fear and fascination. I found myself watching Luna not with longing, but with a detective's intensity. I noted the way she never cast a shadow, no matter how harsh the afternoon sun. I saw how the stray cats that lounged by the janitor's closet would arch their backs and hiss at empty air as she passed. The evidence was building, a silent, terrifying crescendo in my mind.
I couldn't ask her. The words would die in my throat every time I tried. Instead, I turned to the only thing I could think of: research. After school, I bypassed Aling Nena's and went straight to the town's small, single-room library, a place that smelled of mildew and old glue.
The elderly librarian, Mrs. Ramos, peered at me over her spectacles. "JM? Looking for something not assigned by Mr. Santos, for a change?"
I leaned in, lowering my voice. "Do you have anything on… local ghost stories? Urban legends?"
Her eyebrows shot up. "Planning to scare your friends?" She didn't wait for an answer, gesturing to a dusty, low shelf in the back corner. "Local history section. The tall tales are mixed in with the real ones. Good luck telling them apart."
I spent the next hour on the cold linoleum floor, pulling out books with cracked spines and pamphlets typed on faded carbon paper. I read about the White Lady of Calayo, a grief-stricken bride who died in a car crash on her wedding day. I read about the Kapre of Mt. Pico de Loro, a giant said to seduce travelers off the mountain paths with the scent of its cigar.
And then I found it. A thin, unbound sheaf of papers, tucked inside a ledger of town council minutes from 1998. The title was typed in a faint, old-fashioned font: "Unsolved Mysteries of Nasugbu: The Luna Reyes Disappearance."
My blood ran cold. Luna.
I skimmed the text, my heart hammering. Luna Reyes was a student at BNHS. A bright, quiet girl who loved to draw. She vanished one night in 1998 after staying late to work on a project. No struggle, no note. Her notebook, filled with sketches of the old town plaza, was found on her desk. The case went cold. The last line of the article made my breath catch: "Some locals believe she never left. They say her spirit still wanders the school halls, forever trying to finish her work."
I dropped the papers as if they'd burned me. Luna Reyes. Our Luna. The dates lined up. The description fit. It was all there, in crumbling black and white. She wasn't just a ghost. She was a specific ghost with a name and a history. A history of tragedy.
I shoved the papers back into the ledger, my hands trembling. I had my answer. And I had never been more terrified in my life.