Chapter 2: Betrayal
The mirror in the corner showed a man who looked nothing like me. He was younger by no less than twenty years, had black hair when mine was brown, had brown eyes when mine were blue, and had light brown skin when I had been pasty white.
The foreign memories in my mind suggested something ridiculous. If they were to be believed, then by some twisted sorcery, I had entered another man's body, in another country, and gone back in time more than a hundred years.
The man's name was Martín Lardizábal, the fifty-year-old governor of the obscure province of Marinduque in the Philippines. The calendar hanging on the wall told me it was August 1898.
I chuckled to myself in disbelief as I looked outside again. The window on the second floor of the Casa Real provided a decent view of the town called Boac.
The small settlement appeared as a little island of civilization, surrounded by a jungle of coconut trees. In the distance, the blue waters of the Sibuyan Sea reflected the rays of the early morning sun. The silvery strip from much nearer was the Boac River.
In front of the governor's residence was the town plaza, a patch of well-trimmed grass with a few shade trees. Pedestrians and carts pulled by horses and carabaos dusted up the dirt roads.
The houses, including the one I was in, followed the same architectural style- thatch roofs, a wooden second floor that served as the main living quarters, and a ground floor made of stone, which was used either as a shop space or for storage.
The bell tower of the cathedral near the river loomed above the houses. Citadel-like walls surrounded the place of worship, built to serve as a refuge for townsmen in case of pirate attacks.
At once, I knew that this was not a dream. Dreams can pervert or twist stored experiences, but they cannot go beyond what is already in the mind. I knew next to nothing about 19th-century Philippines, much less the province of Marinduque, yet there I was by the window sill, knowing the place like the back of my hand.