Santhi Mariyanbu

# Santhi Mariyanbu

Children in the Maldives were warned about Santhi Mariyanbu.

She was not the kind of creature who came simply to frighten them. Santhi came for teeth. On nights when the moon was full, she was said to go looking for children who had fallen asleep with dirty, broken or neglected teeth, carrying with her a sack filled with replacements—smooth, perfect teeth she could put in their place.

There was a condition attached to the gift. If Santhi came while you were sleeping, you had to stay asleep.

Nora had lost a tooth that evening. The small gap was still fresh when she went to bed, but she did not clean her mouth first. She settled down and fell asleep without thinking again about the warning.

That night, the moon was full.

Nora did not know when Santhi Marianbu entered the room. She slept while the creature came to the bed with her sack of teeth and bent over her. Long, bony fingers slipped beneath the back of Nora's head and lifted it carefully from the pillow.

Her head rested in Santhi's hand.

The other hand moved towards her mouth.

“A gift for you if you stay silent.”

The whisper woke her.

Nora opened her eyes and found herself looking up at the figure leaning over the bed. Santhi was so close that Nora could see the hollowness of her eyes. One hand was still supporting her head; the other hovered beside her mouth.

There was blood across the fingers.

Nora's gaze dropped farther and found the sack hanging beside the bed. Its mouth was open.

It was full of teeth.

They lay piled together inside it, clean and pale, the smooth replacements Santhi was said to carry for children whose own teeth had gone bad.

Nora stared at them before looking back at the hand beside her mouth.

Santhi had already lifted her from the pillow. Her fingers were bloody. The sack was open beside them.

She had not finished.

Nora gasped.

The hand near her mouth stopped where it was.

Santhi looked down at her.

“You shouldn't have looked.”

By morning, the creature and her sack were gone.

Nora's parents found her sobbing in bed. She tried to tell them about the woman who had come during the night, about the fingers beneath her head and the bag filled with perfect teeth.

Then Nora opened her mouth.

Her parents saw teeth that had not looked that way when she went to bed. They were jagged and uneven, and several had blackened. Whatever Santhi Marianbu had been doing before Nora woke, she had not left behind the beautiful teeth from the sack.

Nora kept crying as her parents looked into her mouth.

The perfect teeth were gone with Santhi Mariyanbu.