The Swinging Bank of Asuncion

In the autumn of my senior year, I found myself living in a small, sun-bleached town called Arroya Seca, where the heat seemed to cling to everything like a second skin. My neighbor, a girl named Elena Villanueva, had become my closest friend despite the two-year gap between us. She was originally from a tiny island in the Philippines, a place called Asuncion, and she often spoke of the swaying coconut palms and the sea that glittered like broken glass. When our class organized a Secret Santa, Elena drew my name. On the last day before winter break, she handed me a ceramic piggy bank, glazed in a garish shade of pink, with a strange mechanism that made it rock back and forth when you tapped its snout. ‘It’s from my childhood,’ she said, her smile not quite reaching her eyes. ‘I want you to have it. It brings luck.’ I thanked her, oblivious to the weight of that gift.

Tragedy struck only a few weeks later. Elena, barely eighteen, was found dead in her family’s adobe house, hanging from a beam in her closet. The rumors flew like vultures: a pregnancy, a forbidden relationship, a fear of her devout parents. No note was found, and the whispers never stopped. I was devastated. I had lost my confidante, my protector, the older sister I never had. I kept the piggy bank on my desk, a bittersweet reminder of her.

About a month after her funeral, I was home alone one sweltering evening, my parents visiting relatives in the city. I had my homework spread out, the scratch of my pen the only sound in the still air. My door was shut, as always, to keep out the house’s stray cat. I had been working for about two hours when I heard it: a soft, rhythmic creak. I looked up. The piggy bank was rocking, gently, as if someone had just tapped its snout. I froze, my heart stuttering. I hadn’t touched it. The air in the room seemed to thicken, and I felt a chill despite the heat. I told myself it was a draft, a settling of the house, but the rocking continued, back and forth, back and forth, like the pendulum of a clock counting down.

I tried to ignore it, focusing on my algebra problems, but the sound grew louder, more insistent. The piggy bank began to emit a low hum, a sound like a faraway lullaby, a melody I vaguely recognized from Elena’s descriptions of her island. The tune was ‘Leron, Leron Sinta,’ a Filipino folk song about a woman picking papaya, but the lyrics in my head twisted into something sinister: ‘I am here, I am here, I never left.’ I clamped my hands over my ears, but the hum seeped through my fingers. Then, the piggy bank stopped. The silence that followed was deafening.

Terrified but compelled, I reached out and picked up the bank. It was warm, too warm, as if it had been sitting in the sun for hours. The slot where coins go was dark, and I peered inside. Something shifted, a glint of metal. I shook it, and a small piece of folded paper fell out. My hands trembled as I unfolded it. The handwriting was unmistakably Elena’s, her loops and swirls familiar. It read: ‘They buried me wrong. They buried me in the ground, but my spirit is in the clay. I made this bank from the soil of Asuncion. If you hear me, tap the snout three times.’

I dropped the note as if it were on fire, backing away from the desk. The piggy bank started rocking again, violently now, rattling the pencils in their cup. Then, the room grew cold, and the faint smell of jasmine and saltwater filled the air. I felt a presence behind me, a weight of sorrow and fury. I couldn’t turn around. I was rooted, my breath catching in my throat. A voice, Elena’s voice, but distorted, like a radio on the wrong frequency, whispered in my ear: ‘You have my soil. You have my song. Let me in, Ana. Let me borrow your body until I can find my one true love.’

I screamed and fled the room, leaving the piggy bank rocking on the desk, its hum growing into a shrill, triumphant shriek. I spent the night in the kitchen, the lights blazing, but I could still hear it through the walls. It wasn’t until dawn that the sounds stopped. When I finally crept back to my room, the piggy bank was still, but the note was gone. In its place was a single, dried coffee bean, a symbol from Elena’s island, perhaps a reminder that what is buried can never truly rest.

I never touched the piggy bank again. I eventually moved away, but I dream of it often: a pink ceramic pig, rocking back and forth, its snout pointing at me, and Elena’s voice humming that song. Sometimes, I wake up with the taste of salt on my lips and the feeling that I’m not alone in my own skin. And I know, deep down, that I was a fool to think I could escape a gift from a ghost that loved me too much to let go.