PART 5 — THE SECOND CHILD
My brother had known the truth.
That was the thought I couldn’t escape.
When the police questioned him, he refused to speak about the incident at first.
He only asked whether his son was alive.
When the officer told him the baby was stable, my brother closed his eyes.
Then he said something strange.
“Did she tell you about the book?”
The officer looked at me.
“What book?”
My brother didn’t answer.
Later, I found out he had been carrying a small notebook for years.
It had belonged to our father.
The police recovered it from his belongings.
Inside were dates.
Names.
Photographs.
Descriptions of children born with the marks.
My name was there.
My brother’s name was there.
And beneath my nephew’s name was a single sentence:
“If the marks appear again, do not let anyone touch the child.”
That explained why my brother had panicked.
But it didn’t excuse what he had done.
I read further.
There were medical terms mixed with strange family notes.
Some pages described the marks accurately.
Others contained wild claims.
One entry said that children with the marks could become seriously ill.
Another claimed that the marks were contagious.
Neither statement had medical evidence beside it.
Then I found my aunt’s name.
There was a photograph attached.
Underneath it, Dad had written:
“She believed me.”
I couldn’t stop staring.
Mom saw the page.
“That is why I left.”
I looked up.
“You left Dad?”
“For three months.”
“Why?”
“Because your aunt became terrified of herself.”
Mom explained that Dad had convinced Clara that the marks were dangerous.
She stopped touching people.
She stopped going outside.
She refused to have children.
Eventually she became isolated from everyone.
“She died believing something was wrong with her,” Mom said.
“Was she sick?”
“No.”
I closed my eyes.
My brother had inherited fear, not illness.
And now he had passed that fear to his own child.
But there was still something I couldn’t understand.
“Why did my brother remember the marks so clearly?”
Mom looked at me.
“Because your father made him promise something.”
“What?”
“To protect the family from another child like you.”
The words sounded absurd.
“What does that mean?”
Mom’s face hardened.
“Your father told him that if the marks ever appeared on another newborn, he had to remove the danger before it spread.”
My stomach turned.
“He thought the baby was dangerous.”
“Yes.”
“He was wrong.”
“I know.”
“And you knew?”
“I knew the marks were harmless.”
“Then why didn’t you stop him before tonight?”
Mom’s eyes filled with tears.
“I tried.”
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