Chicken Chronicles Episode 20: The Second Page

Previously on the Chicken Chronicles... At a roadside carinderia south of Laoag, Henrietta opened the fourth letter — the one Estrella had held since Gregory went silent. The first page, she told Chester, was Gregory writing to E: the woman with the grey-ink hand, the one who had already written Henrietta's name on the back of the envelope before they knew they were going north. The second page was for the right person, and Henrietta had not read it yet. Chester, meanwhile, had found something in the back seat. A Petron receipt from Laoag. Time-stamped 11:47 AM. They had passed through Laoag at 11:45 and had not stopped for fuel. The driver's-side rear window — which they had kept closed the whole drive — was unlatched.

The Second Page

Chester put the receipt in his inside jacket pocket — the same one where the fourth letter had lived for two days — and drove the rest of the way through Ilocos Norte without saying anything.

It was not the right time. He was not sure what the right time looked like. But Henrietta had the letter, and Henrietta had that particular stillness around her that meant she was moving through something that needed space to move through. Chester had known her long enough to recognize it. It was the stillness she had when she was counting.

He counted the kilometers instead. Sixty-three to San Fabian.

The receipt was smooth under his fingers when he shifted to overtake a truck carrying bamboo. He did not take his hand all the way off it until he was back in his lane.

—

The gas station in San Fabian had a convenience store with cold drinks and a comfort room at the back. Chester filled the tank himself. Henrietta crossed the street to a sari-sari store and came back with two bottles of water and a packet of crackers and the expression of someone who had made a decision about timing.

She handed him a water. She looked at the letter in her hand — the zippered pocket of her bag, which she had opened without Chester noticing. The envelope was already out.

“I’m going to read it now,” she said. Not asking.

“Okay.”

She got into the passenger seat. She left the door open — the late afternoon air, the smell of fuel and asphalt and someone’s laundry hung too close to the road. Chester leaned against the car and watched the municipality go past in small, ordinary ways: a man on a bicycle, a school gate closed for the afternoon, a dog sleeping on a concrete step with the total commitment of something that had considered all other options and rejected them.

He heard her once: not a word. Just the small sound of understanding arriving somewhere.

Then the zipper.

—

She was looking at the jeepney advertising a church service when Chester came around to the driver’s side.

“He didn’t know my name,” she said. “When he wrote it. He knew the description.” She turned the water bottle in her hands. “He wrote: she will be the one who stops for things other people walk past. That’s how he told E who to find. Find the person who fits that. Write the name.”

Chester thought of Kamuning. A cracked tile on the sidewalk. Henrietta crouched over it with her phone for seven full minutes because the glaze pattern reminded her of something she couldn’t name yet. He had waited. It had not occurred to him to walk on.

“He also wrote,” Henrietta said, “that the name in the third letter — the one the 2012 visitors took — is a person who is still alive.”

A jeepney went past. The church service poster on its side said WELCOME TO ALL.

“And he wrote: do not go looking for that person. Go looking for whoever sent the people who came in 2012.”

Chester said: “Not the person they were protecting.”

“The one who sent them.” She put the crackers on the console unopened. “Gregory believed the visitors were hired. Acting for someone else. He had known for years that someone was watching — that’s why he could not say what he needed to say in a letter. He left the fourth letter as late as he dared.” She looked at Chester. “He wrote that E would know when the right person arrived. That E had been watching for longer than he had.”

Chester thought of the note in Room 12. I have been waiting. Planted in 2003, before Gregory arrived. E had placed it there knowing he would come. Knowing he would find it and understand.

“She’s not new to this,” Chester said.

“No.” Henrietta looked at the road. “She’s been running it longer than Gregory has.”

—

They drove south. Pangasinan opened out flat after the mountains, the rice paddies wide and pale gold in the lowering light. Chester drove with both hands on the wheel and said nothing for twenty-two kilometers, which he knew because he watched the odometer.

Then he took the receipt out of his jacket.

He set it on the console between them without speaking. The date facing up.

Henrietta picked it up. She read it once — the Petron logo, the Laoag address, the date, the time stamp: 11:47 AM.

“We passed through Laoag at 11:45,” she said.

“Eleven forty-five. Didn’t stop.”

She turned it over.

Chester watched her face go careful the way it went careful when she was counting something that didn’t add up yet.

The pencil was faint. Seven digits, thin graphite on the white paper. +63 77 area code.

The same area code as the number that had called them while they were still north of Tarlac, before they had told anyone where they were going.

Henrietta held the receipt by both edges. She did not put it down.

“The window,” she said.

“Driver’s side rear. I never use it. It was unlatched when I found the receipt.”

She looked at the back seat. The window latch, chrome, barely visible in the angle of light.

“This isn’t a break-in,” she said. The receipt was too clean. The fold was deliberate — one crease, center. “Someone handed it to us.” She set it down on the console with the pencil number facing up. “Someone knew exactly where we parked in Laoag and for how long.”

Chester said nothing.

“She’s not behind us.” Henrietta was still looking at the road ahead, at the flat highway and the last light going orange at the edges. “She’s parallel.”

—

Next week on the Chicken Chronicles: the number rings through.

Missed the last episode? Read Episode 19: Grey Ink or go back to Episode 18: The Other Hand.