Chapter 7 - DANIEL DEMANDS THE TRUTH
Daniel shut the journal so hard the sound echoed down the hallway.
“I need air.”
He walked downstairs before either woman could answer.
Emma followed.
“Daniel.”
He kept moving.
Lila was sleeping peacefully in her playpen.
Daniel stopped beside her.
For several seconds, anger disappeared from his face.
He touched his daughter's hair gently.
Then he looked at Emma.
“Tell me everything you remember.”
“I already have.”
“No.”
His voice was quiet now.
“That isn't true.”
Emma looked away.
“You remembered the pool.”
Silence.
“You remembered the marks at twelve.”
Emma swallowed.
“What else?”
Margaret remained near the stairs.
This needed to happen.
Emma sat on the sofa.
“When I was fifteen…”
Daniel waited.
“I went to a party.”
“That doesn't sound supernatural.”
“There was a pool.”
His expression changed.
“I fell in.”
“And?”
“My legs changed.”
Daniel didn't move.
“You told me it happened once when you were six.”
“I said I thought it happened then.”
“Emma.”
“At fifteen, I knew.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
Margaret felt the betrayal in his silence.
“How long?” he asked.
“Maybe thirty seconds.”
“What did you see?”
Emma's voice dropped.
“Scales.”
“Like Lila?”
“Yes.”
“A tail?”
Emma nodded.
Daniel turned away.
“So you knew.”
“I knew something happened to me.”
“You knew exactly what happened.”
“I didn't know why!”
“But you knew our daughter might inherit it.”
“No.”
“How could you not?”
“Because it never happened again!”
Emma stood.
“I spent years trying. I put my feet in bathwater. Pools. Lakes. Nothing.”
“The ocean?”
She hesitated.
Daniel laughed bitterly.
“You avoided the ocean.”
“Yes.”
“So you deliberately avoided the one thing your mother warned you about, then decided the problem was gone.”
“I wanted a normal life.”
“So you gambled with our child's life to get one?”
Emma recoiled.
Margaret intervened.
“Daniel, that's enough.”
“No.”
Emma's eyes filled.
“No, let him say it.”
Daniel breathed heavily.
“I would have married you anyway.”
Emma looked up.
That silenced her.
“If you'd told me before our wedding, I still would have married you.”
She stared at him.
“If you'd told me before we had Lila, I still would have wanted her.”
His voice cracked.
“But I would have known how to protect my own daughter.”
Emma began crying.
Daniel looked away.
“I wasn't afraid of what you are.”
He paused.
“I was hurt because you decided I couldn't be trusted with it.”
Lila stirred.
Emma wiped her face.
“I was terrified you'd stop seeing me as human.”
Daniel looked at her.
“Are you?”
Emma flinched.
He immediately regretted the question.
“I didn't mean—”
“No.”
Emma stared toward the aquarium.
“I don't know.”
That answer frightened all three of them.
Margaret sat beside her.
“You're Lila's mother. You're Daniel's wife. You're Emma. Whatever else exists doesn't erase those things.”
Emma leaned into Margaret for the first time that day.
Daniel remained standing.
After a moment, he knelt near his wife.
“We find answers together.”
Emma nodded.
“No more secrets.”
“No more.”
Daniel touched her hand.
Then Lila began crying.
A normal infant cry.
Hungry.
Tired.
Emma immediately went toward her.
But Margaret saw something near the aquarium.
The water was moving.
Not slightly.
Every fish had suddenly shifted toward one end of the tank.
The surface rose unnaturally.
“Daniel.”
He turned.
The aquarium water pressed against the glass closest to Lila.
As though pulled toward her.
Emma lifted the baby.
Lila reached one hand outward.
A thin stream of water climbed above the tank's rim.
Margaret gasped.
It hovered for less than a second.
Then splashed onto the floor.
Daniel stepped backward.
Emma froze.
Lila stopped crying.
The aquarium became still.
Nobody spoke.
Then Daniel's phone buzzed.
Security alert.
Motion detected at front gate.
He opened the camera.
A woman stood outside.
Silver-blonde hair.
Dark coat.
Her face was partly turned away.
Emma took the phone from him.
Her entire body went rigid.
“No.”
Daniel looked at the screen.
“Who is she?”
Emma zoomed in.
The woman slowly raised her face toward the security camera.
She looked perhaps forty.
Maybe younger.
Emma had not seen that face since she was nine years old.
But she knew it immediately.
Her voice came out as a whisper.
May you like
“That's my mother.”
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