Chapter 5 - THE BOX UNDER THE FLOOR
For the next hour, nobody left the bedroom.
Emma replayed the tape twice.
Each time her mother's voice reached the words they are lying, the same mixture of grief and anger crossed her face.
Daniel finally switched off the player.
“We need to find your father.”
“I haven't spoken to him in three years.”
“Why?”
Emma stared at the cassette.
“Because every conversation eventually became about Mom.”
Margaret remembered Emma's father.
Martin Ward had attended their wedding but kept mostly to himself.
Quiet.
Polite.
Watchful.
He had left the reception early.
At the time, Margaret had assumed he was simply uncomfortable around wealthy people.
Now she wondered whether he had been uncomfortable around the Holloways specifically.
Emma pulled another bundle of photographs from the box.
Most showed coastal towns.
Maine.
Rhode Island.
Massachusetts.
One showed Evelyn standing in front of a building Margaret recognized instantly.
She grabbed it.
“No.”
Daniel looked over.
“What?”
Margaret turned the photograph.
Behind Evelyn stood the Holloway mansion.
Not as it appeared today.
The building was smaller.
Older.
But unmistakable.
Emma stared.
“When was that taken?”
Daniel checked the back.
September 1986.
Emma was born five years later.
Daniel's voice dropped.
“Your mother was here before you existed.”
Margaret felt unsettled.
“My husband and I bought this property in 1989.”
Daniel looked at her.
“Who owned it before?”
“I don't know.”
“You never checked?”
“We bought it through an estate company.”
Emma examined the image.
Evelyn wasn't alone.
A man stood partially behind her.
Only half his face was visible.
Margaret's hands began shaking.
She knew him.
Daniel noticed.
“Mom?”
Margaret sat down.
“That man…”
“What?”
“That's your grandfather.”
Daniel stared at the photograph.
“My grandfather died before I was born.”
“Yes.”
Margaret could barely speak.
“Thomas Holloway.”
Emma looked between them.
“You're sure?”
“I lived with that photograph on our mantel for thirty years.”
Daniel took the image.
Thomas appeared perhaps forty.
Evelyn looked thirty.
They stood close enough to suggest familiarity.
On the back someone had written:
Thomas kept his promise.
Daniel's expression hardened.
“What promise?”
Margaret didn't answer.
Because she suddenly remembered something.
When she'd first married into the Holloway family, Thomas had been old and increasingly confused.
One night during a family dinner, he had looked at Margaret and said:
If the sea ever sends a child back to us, don't turn it away.
Everyone laughed.
Thomas's dementia was advancing.
Margaret had forgotten the moment completely.
Until now.
“What is it?” Daniel asked.
She told them.
Emma whispered, “He knew.”
Daniel paced toward the window.
“This is getting ridiculous.”
“Our daughter grew a tail an hour ago,” Margaret reminded him. “I think we've moved beyond deciding what's ridiculous.”
Daniel rubbed his face.
Emma continued searching.
A ledger sat beneath the photographs.
Names.
Dates.
Locations.
Some went back more than a century.
Beside certain names was a tiny wave symbol.
Margaret recognized several Holloways.
Thomas Holloway.
His father Edward.
Edward's sister Rose.
Daniel leaned over the page.
“Why is our family in your mother's box?”
Emma turned pages.
More names.
Most belonged to families she had never heard of.
Then she reached the final page.
Emma Ward — 1991.
Beside her name was the wave.
Below it:
Daniel Holloway — 1987.
Also marked.
Daniel went still.
“Why is my name there?”
Margaret felt her pulse pounding.
Emma looked frightened.
The next line had been added much later.
Their child — unknown.
Beside it, two wave symbols.
Daniel grabbed the book.
“She knew about us before we met?”
Emma shook her head.
“That handwriting isn't Mom's.”
“How can you know?”
“I know her handwriting.”
Margaret examined the ink.
The entry about Daniel appeared older than the one about Emma.
Someone had recorded his name when he was a child.
“This wasn't written after your marriage,” Margaret said.
Daniel looked at her.
“What are you saying?”
“Someone was tracking both of you before you ever knew each other.”
Emma's face drained of color.
Then a sheet slipped from between the ledger pages.
A family tree.
Two lines.
WARD.
HOLLOWAY.
They traveled separately down generations.
Then converged.
At the bottom were two names.
EMMA WARD
DANIEL HOLLOWAY
A line joined them.
Below was empty space.
Except for a note.
If these lines join again, the child may carry both inheritances.
Daniel read it twice.
“What inheritance?”
Emma looked toward the door.
Downstairs, Lila suddenly began crying.
A moment later, the glass of water on the bedside table trembled.
Nobody touched it.
Tiny ripples formed.
May you like
Then the water began moving toward the edge of the glass closest to the nursery.
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