Chapter 11 - THE HOLLOWAY SECRET
Daniel handed the photograph to his security chief.
“Find where this came from.”
The man studied the metadata.
“Probably stripped.”
“Try anyway.”
Every exterior camera was reviewed.
No stranger appeared.
No footprints.
No vehicle.
The photograph had somehow been taken from a location directly outside the living-room glass without triggering a single sensor.
Evelyn looked disturbed.
“They're closer than I thought.”
Daniel turned.
“Who are they?”
Evelyn hesitated.
Margaret snapped.
“If you say one more time that you're protecting us by keeping secrets, I will personally throw you out.”
Evelyn looked at her.
Margaret did not blink.
“You disappeared and let your daughter spend twenty-two years believing you were dead. You don't get to decide what the rest of us can handle anymore.”
For the first time, Evelyn seemed ashamed.
“They call themselves the Meridian Society.”
Daniel had never heard of them.
“They began as physicians and naturalists in the nineteenth century.”
“Researchers?”
“Hunters.”
Emma hugged Lila closer.
Evelyn continued.
“They believed people like us represented a separate branch of human development. At first they studied volunteers.”
“And later?”
Evelyn's silence answered.
Daniel's jaw tightened.
“They took people?”
“Yes.”
Margaret felt sick.
“Children?”
“Yes.”
Emma turned away.
Evelyn spoke gently.
“That is why I left you.”
Emma spun back.
“You expect me to thank you?”
“No.”
“Because I won't.”
“I know.”
Evelyn explained that in 2004, Meridian had traced her family.
Martin discovered the truth.
Terrified, he helped stage Evelyn's boating death.
Emma stared.
“My father helped you disappear?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did your tape say not to trust him?”
“Because he later changed his mind.”
“What does that mean?”
“He wanted to tell Meridian where I was.”
“Why?”
“Because they promised they could remove the trait from you.”
Emma went still.
“My father was going to hand you over to them?”
“He thought he was saving you.”
Margaret remembered Evelyn's recording.
Fear makes good people betray the people they love.
Daniel paced.
“What stopped him?”
“I vanished before he could.”
“And Emma?”
“Meridian believed the trait had skipped her.”
Emma laughed bitterly.
“Because I stayed away from seawater.”
“Yes.”
Margaret suddenly understood.
“You lived on land to hide.”
“For decades.”
“What about your aging?”
Evelyn touched her face.
“Extended contact with certain mineral environments slows cellular decline.”
Daniel looked skeptical.
“You're saying the ocean keeps you young?”
“Not exactly.”
Margaret raised a hand.
“We can revisit impossible biology later.”
She pulled Thomas Holloway's journal onto the table.
“What did Thomas know?”
Evelyn looked at it.
“Almost everything.”
“Why?”
“Because his mother was one of us.”
Margaret opened the 1912 entry.
The rescue.
The woman in the waves.
“She had a name?”
“Clara Vale.”
“Not Helen Holloway.”
“No.”
Evelyn explained that Clara saved Edward Holloway after the wreck.
Months later, they met again.
Their relationship remained secret.
When Clara became pregnant, Edward's wife agreed to raise the child because she couldn't conceive.
Thomas grew up as a Holloway without knowing his biological mother until adulthood.
“When did he learn?”
“During World War II.”
Margaret frowned.
“How?”
“He nearly drowned during naval training.”
Daniel looked up.
“He transformed?”
“Partially.”
“Why didn't that continue through our family?”
“Because Thomas chose land.”
Evelyn touched the journal.
“He also chose secrecy.”
Margaret remembered her father-in-law's strange warning.
If the sea sends a child back, don't turn it away.
He hadn't been confused.
He had been preparing them.
Daniel turned pages until another entry appeared.
1951.
I met Mara tonight. She says the lines may cross again. I pray they do not.
Emma leaned over his shoulder.
“My grandmother.”
Another entry.
1975.
Mara believes the Holloway child will be born within twelve years.
Daniel checked his birth year.
1987.
Margaret's skin prickled.
Next entry.
1991.
The Ward girl has arrived.
Emma stared.
Thomas Holloway died in 1994.
He had known she existed.
Daniel whispered, “They were tracking us.”
Evelyn looked grim.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
No answer.
Margaret turned the page.
A final note in Thomas's handwriting.
Mara says if the two lines ever produce a child, that child may be able to do what neither bloodline has done for generations.
Daniel looked at Evelyn.
“What?”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
Margaret read the next sentence.
May you like
The child may belong equally to land and sea.
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