Chapter 3 - THE SECRET EMMA NEVER TOLD HER HUSBAND
Daniel didn't speak until they reached the upstairs hallway.
Then he turned on Emma.
“Someone will come looking for her?”
“I was nine when she said it.”
“You remember those exact words?”
“Yes.”
“And somehow you forgot to mention them for six years of marriage?”
Margaret followed several steps behind them carrying Lila.
“Daniel.”
“No, Mom.”
He pointed at Emma.
“She knew there was a possibility our child could be involved in something like this.”
“I didn't know!”
“You knew enough to hide a box under our floor.”
Emma's eyes flashed.
“Because the last thing my mother ever asked me to do was keep it!”
Daniel stopped.
The anger in the hallway suddenly felt too large.
Lila began fussing.
Margaret bounced her gently.
“Lower your voices.”
Emma wiped her eyes.
“I thought my mother was frightened and confused. My father spent years telling me exactly that.”
“What else did she say?” Margaret asked.
Emma leaned against the wall.
“She told me never to let anyone take blood from me after I'd been in seawater.”
Daniel's face tightened.
“What?”
“She told me never to show people certain marks if they appeared on my skin.”
“Did they?”
“Once.”
Emma looked ashamed.
“I was twelve. I went swimming without telling my father.”
Margaret listened carefully.
“What happened?”
“Silver marks appeared around my ankles.”
Daniel stared.
“You were twelve.”
“Yes.”
“And you never saw anything again?”
“No.”
Emma hesitated.
“Because I stopped swimming in the ocean.”
Daniel looked toward the nursery.
“You've gone to beaches with me.”
“I stayed onshore.”
He remembered.
Vacations in California.
A resort in the Bahamas.
Weekend trips along the New England coast.
Emma always sat under umbrellas.
She always joked she hated cold water.
Daniel had never questioned it.
“Why marry me?” he asked suddenly.
Emma blinked.
“What?”
“You knew my family owns property on the coast. You knew I grew up sailing.”
“Because I love you.”
“Then why didn't you trust me?”
That hurt her.
Margaret could see it.
Emma stepped closer.
“Because every adult who heard my mother speak about these things called her insane. Including my father. I was terrified that if I told you, you would look at me exactly the way you're looking at me now.”
Daniel's expression changed.
He looked away.
Margaret intervened.
“The box.”
Emma nodded.
Their bedroom was large, bright, and perfectly ordered.
Emma went to Daniel's side of the bed and pulled the bedside cabinet forward.
Underneath was a narrow seam in the wood floor.
Daniel frowned.
“When did you do this?”
“During renovations.”
“You told me that panel was for electrical access.”
“I lied.”
Daniel exhaled sharply.
Emma removed a small key from a hidden pocket inside an old jewelry case.
Margaret watched her insert it into a tiny lock.
The floor panel lifted.
Inside sat a dark cedar box.
It looked decades old.
Emma stared at it.
“I haven't opened this since the day she gave it to me.”
Daniel crouched beside her.
“Then open it.”
Emma's hands trembled.
She inserted the key.
The lock clicked.
Inside were photographs.
Letters.
A silver pendant shaped like a curling wave.
And a sealed envelope with Emma's name written across the front.
Emma touched the handwriting.
“That's hers.”
Margaret picked up one photograph.
A beautiful dark-haired woman stood on a rocky beach holding the hand of a small girl.
“Is that your mother?”
Emma looked.
“Yes.”
Margaret studied the child.
The girl looked eerily familiar.
Same soft brown hair.
Same round cheeks.
Same wide-set eyes.
“Emma.”
“What?”
Margaret handed her the photograph.
“Who is the little girl?”
Emma frowned.
“I don't know.”
Daniel leaned closer.
The resemblance was undeniable.
“She looks like Lila.”
Emma turned the photograph over.
There was handwriting on the back.
Three words.
Evelyn and Mara.
Below that was a date.
August 1958.
Emma stopped breathing.
Daniel read it again.
“1958?”
“That can't be right.”
Margaret felt every hair on her arms rise.
Emma's mother would not even have been born then.
At least, according to every story Emma had ever been told.
Daniel picked up another picture.
Evelyn stood outside a seaside hotel.
Same face.
Same hair.
Same apparent age.
He flipped it.
1971.
Another.
1986.
The woman hadn't changed.
Margaret sat slowly on the edge of the bed.
Daniel whispered, “How old was your mother when she disappeared?”
“Thirty-seven.”
“And how old would she be now?”
Emma stared at the photographs.
“Sixty-seven.”
Margaret looked up.
The same age as her.
Yet in every photograph spanning decades, Evelyn appeared barely thirty.
Emma reached for the sealed envelope.
Before opening it, she noticed something written in smaller letters beneath her name.
She read aloud.
For Emma, when her first child changes.
Daniel's face hardened.
“Open it.”
Emma tore the envelope carefully.
Inside was a single sheet.
Her eyes moved across the first line.
Then stopped.
“What?” Daniel asked.
Emma looked at him in disbelief.
The letter began:
My darling Emma, if you're reading this, then the blood has returned stronger than I feared. Your child is not sick. Your child is what you were always meant to become.
Daniel whispered, “Become what?”
Emma continued reading.
Then her face changed.
At the bottom, one sentence had been underlined twice.
She read it aloud.
May you like
You were born between two worlds, and one day the sea may come to claim what belongs to it.
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