Beth

Standing near his parked car outside the gate, I hand him the book. I lean against the car door of the passenger’s seat. Kaiser leans beside me, holding the book and flipping the pages. It is already early morning and my parents are already awake by now. Having a cup of coffee, worrying about their runaway daughter. Again.

But here I am, in a huge puzzle, after Aunt Marissa’s revelation about Alexandra’s life. Somehow I expect a big commotion when I return home.

Although a lot of mysteries in need of an immediate resolution, I can't stop. Not until I see the whole picture behind Alexandra's facade.

Something drives me to hold onto the story deeper than how I planned it. Mr. Dizon’s project isn’t something I should give importance. Yet, the more Kaiser and I delve into it, the further we go deeper into her enchanting tunnel.

I am unsure if she planned it before she passed. But I bet she's also desperate to have her untold story discovered. After Aunt Marissa's revelation, Kaiser seems driven to know everything.

What happened to you, Alexandra?

They only know she was once a happy woman, a friend whom they leaned on when they needed her. A person they could rely on in times of their downfall through her profound pieces of advice. A girl whom they put in a special place in their hearts. But none of them expected a sudden twist.

To see her on television as a notorious criminal had never been a pleasant sight. The dark past she never unleashed even when her life was already at the tip of the pen.

If I were on their shoes, I wouldn’t know how I react to the situation. Seeing them in pain until now motivates me not to stop my investigation. Not until I can understand the full picture of Alexandra Montenegro, of who she was. Not the ones the country knew based on exaggerated facts for the sake of media attention… and money.

I am not a professional detective but an amateur sleuth. Along with Kaiser, we don’t have any previous experience when it comes to solving real-life crimes on hand. Except for my odd hobby of collecting news articles. But, there is one thing we can assure: a new side of Alexandra’s story will be finally untold. Through us.

“Where else do we need to search? We’ve searched Uncle Lucas’s secret room and there wasn’t any valuable information about her. Only files of Monsour Dela Calzada and Fabian Montenegro. They were all my uncle’s mob business. I am not sure if they make sense with her case.” Kaiser flips the pages, trying to figuring out the scribbles I stapled.

I grab the book from him and utter, “Let’s take a look at the book.” I flip the pages to see more possible hidden messages. “Chapter two. The second step to forgiveness. Change the way you view your past. Accept them,” I read the title, almost whispering, but audible enough for Kaiser to hear me.

While skimming the paragraphs, Alexandra somehow chose not to write anything there. But in the third chapter, she did. “Chapter three. The third step to forgiveness. Learn how to balance your thoughts,” Kaiser reads the title himself. He leans against the car door again, placing his hands inside the pockets of his denim pants. “I didn’t know the importance of yoga until Giovanni introduced it to me. As cold-hearted my brother was, I failed to notice his new habits. That’s when he told me he found a new activity helping him to meditate. He said something about yoga. I laughed it off. Alexandra underlined this paragraph."

She used a dented red permanent pen to create a line within the sentences. There are no other marks except the underlined sentences. But when I turn to the next page, I see nothing but a texture as if she wrote something on top of it.

My eyebrows furrow and touch the middle part of the page. Curiosity runs through my head in an instant as I grab my phone and turn on the flashlight.

My theory is right. Something is here. But what did she exactly write here? I ponder.

I tap Kaiser’s shoulder and beckon him to hold my phone with the torch on for me. He did without uttering a word as I hold the page and hit it with the light at the back. Though my vision blur due to lack of sleep, I shake my head and see words. Incomprehensible words in cursive.

“Yin Yang?” Kaiser reads the title with his eyebrow raised. He doesn’t get the connection between the third chapter’s point and the clue itself. I nod to agree with him. While holding the torch, he continues reading the lines below although it’s a bit blurry.

The Tunnel to the Sun

Leads to the Ocean

And becomes the Placenta

That follows the Light

At the end of the Tunnel.

After the last line, he focuses on some words based on the ones he points with his index finger on the page. I look at him waiting for his theory. He hums and sighs after a moment of quick thinking. His face shows that this game is testing his limits. “What’s with this poem?” Kaiser sputters in frustration.

“I don’t know. If she wrote it that way, she has something to tell us or show us at least. We have to figure out what exactly is she pointing out from the poem” I exclaim. I cross while I press my lips together.

“Maybe, she wants to take us somewhere. It’s a place.” Kaiser’s assumptions scare me. My gut tells me he’ll drive and take me to another unfamiliar place once again like he did before. Out of the blue, he takes me to his Uncle Lucas’s secret room and after this poem, where?

“Why do you think so?” My inquiry is partly an alibi so I can finally head home and sleep, resuming the detective life after school. At the same time, I’d feel bad if I stop him given he’s already immersed in the project I started. I hope he isn’t that carried away though. I still need to return home and sleep for my morning class.

“It says tunnel. Ocean. Light. Then, tunnel again. Look.” He points the boxed words Alexandra wrote using the same pen color. She might have used an almost empty pen. “She tells us to go to the place where she describes it in the poem.”

“If not?” I say with a clear doubt, raising my eyebrow.

“Let’s see. At least, we tried. We don’t have anything to lose if we try,” he says with overconfidence and beckons to get inside the car. I sigh, rolling my eyes as I open the car door and sits on the passenger’s seat, latching my seat belt.

“Where do we go?”

“I somehow know the exact place where she wants us to go,” he says, starting the engine, and drives away. It is already early in the morning.

A few hours before the sunrise when we arrive at a forest, minutes away from the main city. It is too dark to appreciate the picturesque beauty of nature. I can't help but feel scared as it is eerie and mortifying. Kaiser hops off the car next to me facing the array of big trees in front of us, with a smile. He sighs and looks at me.

“Let’s go.”

I stop him, holding his hand, shaking my head. “No.”

He shakes his head and holds my hand, squeezing it tight, as if he gives me a reassurance of my safety. “It’s okay. I’m with you,” he says in a comforting tone, showing a warm smile. Damn. Please don’t smile at me like that, Kaiser. Stop it.

I gulp as he grabs my hand entering the narrow entry between the trees. With only our lights from our phone on hand, we have a limited view of our pathway.

While he enjoys the silence of the place, I keep glancing from side to side. My imagination runs wild as my head starts to fill with a weird-looking creature or a ghost following me.

Wide-eyed, I tried too hard to appreciate the beauty as we pass the trail. To the bridge looking like a traditional Japanese design for almost an hour hiking. If it is a daytime, I could appreciate the awesome beauty of the surroundings. God, not at this hour.

At the end of the bridge, I see a stone pathway with an array of flat stones arranged towards a certain direction. We follow it as there is no other trail seen until I smell a faint scent of the salinity. It’s a familiar odor.

As we walk further, I hear the waves slamming to the rocks. The air becomes cooler with a hint of salinity in my nostrils. The cool breeze from the sea touches my face, slicking my hair back. The faint light beamed from the early sunrise shadowed the view in front of us. “At the cliff?” I say, looking at him who keeps his smile.

He releases his grip off of my hand and looks to the distant—seeing a crack of dawn behind the large mass of clouds. There I realize it’s already passed five o’clock in the morning. “Maybe she’s wanted to let go of something. Maybe it's her past. I don’t know.” Kaiser’s explanation sounds plausible so far. I couldn’t get the gist of bringing me here.

“See here.” He presents the page to me with the clues in which Alexandra used other symbols I couldn’t apprehend. “She wrote something in whatever symbols they are. Do you know what this is?”

I pause and think of the possibility since I am kind of familiar with them. Somehow I have already seen them in the past subjects but I failed to notice their importance. Not until Alexandra used it for her game. “I guess I know what they are,” I say while showing my faint smile on my face.

“What?” I point the symbols with my index finger, as I look at his hazel eyes.

“They’re Filipino ancient symbols, Kaiser. It’s in baybayin. It’s the old Filipino writing system.”

“Why would she use them for clues?” He sputters, annoyed with Alexandra’s reason for using a language he isn’t familiarized with. “She could have used other codes. But this?”

I sigh, rolling my eyes while I grab my phone searching for the baybayin on the internet. After my search, I grab the book and sit on the grassy part of the cliff. I place the book on my lap and pick a piece of paper from my sling bag and on top of the page with the baybayin printed on it.

Though he doesn’t understand a thing of what I am doing, he sits down and leans to peep on my notes. I copy the exact baybayin she wrote on the paper to decode the meaning of the symbol, putting the clues together. “There,” I say.“

What does it say?”

“Di…to…ko…na…tag…pu…an…ang…ka…la…ya…an…Sa…ta…ong…ma…hal…ko.” I read the Filipino sentence by syllable before I say it in full. “She says, this is the place where she finally found freedom. With the person she loves.”

At the moment, he fixes his sight on me and I keep staring at them. Because, damn, his eyes are so beautiful.

“Alexandra fell in love with Giovanni?” When he asks the question in a doubtful manner, the romantic atmosphere shatters. I roll my eyes instinctively returning my sight on the clue I write on the paper.

“Maybe. Maybe not. It could mean another man. It could also mean she falls in love with herself as she achieves the freedom she wants. After all, she’s gone through a lot of difficulties in life. I don’t know,” I explain, leaving him to agreeing with whatever I say.

That thought of Alexandra falling in love with Giovanni remains in my head. If she fell in love with him, did he acknowledge it or at least return her the love she gave him? Did they end up having a secret relationship or was it an unrequited love?

“Impossible.” He sputters, clucking. He bends his knees and places his elbow on top of it, leaving the other leg straightened. “Mom told us anybody could like that guy. And Alexandra could be one of those crazy fan girls.”

“That’s possible. But, there are still more to the story. Before we give our conclusions, we should search for more clues,” I close the book, slowing getting up.