Chapter 16

D anica rejoined her grandmother, trying not to cry again, while sitting on the bed with the woman who had been a stable home base for Danica over all these years. “Do you really have to leave now?” she whispered.

Her grandmother gave her the briefest of smiles. “If not today, tonight,” she shared weakly. “If not tonight, tomorrow. My time here is over. Honestly it’s been over for a very long time. I’ve been waiting for you, hoping you would come.”

Danica’s eyes filled with tears. “You know if you had called…”

“Yes, but that wouldn’t have been the same thing,” Nana murmured. “I could have called you at any time, and many times I wanted to,” she whispered. “Many times I felt like I needed to, but I just couldn’t pull you away from everything that you knew.”

“Everything?” Danica asked. “I’ve only been half living. I’ve been away for ten years, and it hasn’t been any better than the eighteen years when I was here.”

Her grandmother smiled. “I know that, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for all of it.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Danica replied. “I just know that it’s been a tough, very tough lifetime. Now, do you want to explain what it is that you need to tell me?” she whispered.

Nana sighed. “It’s not that easy.”

“Of course not. What does it have to do with my mother?”

Nana hesitated and then sighed. “Your mother used energy all the time. She used it in any way she wanted. To show off, to flirt, to capture men. She put them under a spell and would seduce them, so that they would take her away. But energy, when used like that, it turns… bad.” Nana shuddered. “It always turned out wrong for Daisy, not immediately, but soon afterward,… and she could never quite get away with anybody. She was desperate to have a man, as a grounding rod, somebody who would stay with her, somebody who would love her. But every time she did this, it just caused her more pain and, in many cases, hurt her partners too,” she murmured. “She was incredibly beautiful, but she was also so very wanton with her beauty and her gifts. She didn’t care about anything except herself. Only herself, in order to get away from here.”

“Why did she hate it here so much?” Danica asked.

“Why do you hate it so much?”

“For me, it’s the bad memories,” she replied instantly. “My mother killed me. I have the scars to prove it. It’s memories of a town that hated me. It’s memories of a time when I was shunned, and still am,” she added, with a broken laugh. “That hasn’t changed. I’m not sure it ever will,” she murmured.

“You need to know that you are in danger.”

She stared at her grandmother. “What do you mean that I’m in danger? You’re the one who was hit.”

“Yes, I was hit, and, if I had stayed inside the house, the house would have taken care of it.”

“Maybe, yet Jace came inside. Now I don’t know,” Danica snapped, looking around at the house. “This house should have learned to at least look after the yard too, or something.”

That brought a smile to her grandmother’s face. “And yet you’ve never asked about the house.”

“I certainly have asked about the house, but you’ve never given me an answer. I asked my mother about the house too, and she wouldn’t give me an answer either.”

“The answer is a little on the strange side,” Nana shared, “and, in some ways, not on the good side.”

“What’s new there? What’s so dense and dark about it? Did you imprison somebody’s soul or something?” she asked half jokingly. When her grandmother frowned, Danica wondered if she should have even brought it up. “I meant that as a joke.”

“I know you did. The trouble is, you’re not all that far off.”

“What? Please don’t say that.”

Her grandmother smiled. “There are things you don’t know. Things that you have avoided having anything to do with, but, no, there isn’t a soul imprisoned in this house. Yet the house was brought to life through love—for all the right reasons. Now the house stands guard for all the same reasons,” she said, with a smile, looking around. “It’s not that he has a separate entity or a separate existence, but he is alive in many ways. This house was built by my ancestors and my father and my husband, both of whom adored me,” she whispered.

An eerie sense of encroaching darkness surrounded them in this room. And yet it was still morning outside.

“House, turn up the lights, please.” Her grandmother chuckled, as a dim light brightened the space around them. “It’s almost as if he can read my mood,” she whispered, “and nothing you can say will change it.”

“I know,” Danica agreed, looking around, worry gnawing at her. “What am I supposed to do with the house when you’re gone? He’s like an entity all on his own.”

“He has protected me time and time again,” she whispered. “I know that there isn’t any way for you to understand that, but he was built of love… every ounce. Generations of our family have built, renovated, and added on to this house. My father put everything into this house. I was the apple of his eye. He loved me more than anything,” she whispered. “As did my husband. So much of the house was already built by the time he came around. But, once he understood what my father was doing, he was right there to help. Every step of the way, every piece of wood was magically treated. Every ounce, every pound, every board, nail, screw—all of it went through a process of their bestowing it with the honor of looking after me.”

Nana shook her head in wonder. “I really had no idea that such a thing was even possible. At the time, I didn’t really understand what it meant in terms of living with the house, until my father passed away. That’s when it really came into being. So, in a way, this house is my father. Maybe his energy is connected here. I don’t know,” she said, “but it has been a joy to have, particularly on days when I’m alone because I’m never really alone because of him.”

Danica looked around at the house and shook her head. “No wonder people think we’re nuts.”

“The only people who think we’re nuts are the people who don’t know about the unique things that go on in our world,” Nana explained, smiling. “Stefan knows. He’s still trying to wrap his head around it. People buy and sell houses with complete disregard to the energy they put into it or give back to it.”

“People are takers,” Danica muttered, lost in thought.

“You are right about that. They don’t give back. They don’t take care of these beautiful homes. They just live in them, strip them, sell them, and move on to something else, move on to something that makes them more money or maybe is a better place to live. Nobody cares about the actual essence of a building. Everything is energy. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a toilet that you flush every day or the house that you live in or the food that you eat. It’s all energy, and, if you treat it with respect, joy, love, and gratitude,” she rambled on, “that energy just builds and builds and builds. Somehow, when you take care of it,… when they cared about it,… the legacy of this house was born. Did my great-great-grandfather—or whatever relative however far back—realize what he was creating? I don’t know. But my father and my husband were all for it,” she said, with a smile.

It was odd for Danica to listen to her grandmother talk about her husband because Danica had never met him. He was gone well before she had arrived on the scene. “You never talk about him.”

“Maybe not, but he’s never far from my thoughts. We were truly blessed to have the great life that we did,” she murmured. “When he was here, he knew he wasn’t long for this planet either. He told me so himself. He also worked with energy. He knew, and he understood me.”

Nana smiled. “I was gifted to have the time that I did have with him. It’s also why your mother had so much in the way of gifts, getting that from both sides of her genealogy. Maybe that’s what made her so unstable too. I never could figure that out. The gifts, if used correctly, do a lot to protect the person wielding them. But, in Daisy’s case, just so much was there, and she wanted nothing to do with reining it in or controlling it. She was wild, irresponsible. Of course, what she really wanted was a man, that sense of something that I couldn’t seem to give her,” Nana murmured.

Her head fell back, and with tears in her eyes, Nana added, “Daisy was truly the one greatest creation of my life, and yet she truly was also my greatest failure,” she murmured. “We were constantly at loggerheads, constantly fighting. It was impossible to live with her. Yet, because she was my daughter, I also knew it was impossible to live without her.”

“You have lived without her all these years,” Danica pointed out calmly.

“I know. I know. Thankfully I had you,” she murmured. “I often wonder what happened to Daisy that night.”

“You don’t know?”

“No.” Nana opened her eyes to look over at Danica. “I don’t know. I had various thoughts about what could have happened. I don’t have any proof of what did happen, and it hurts. It hurts a lot to know that my daughter may have suffered.”

“As long as you know that I didn’t do it.”

She looked at her granddaughter in surprise. “Oh, my dear, I never once thought you did.” Nana took Danica’s hand. “Only the crazies in the world wanted you to have done it. You were too special, too sweet to have hurt your mother. I mean, in self-defense, certainly, and honestly you had every right to try and save yourself. But know this, I know that you didn’t hurt your mother.”

“No, I didn’t. But believe me that there are times when I wonder if I should have.”

“Of course, child. That inability to fight back against those who love you is one of the handicaps women often are challenged with. It’s why so much abuse is out there. We take it, and we don’t realize it’s abuse until it’s too late.”

“Were you ever abused?” Danica asked.

“No,” Nana whispered, a smile in her lips. “He truly loved me, and I truly loved him. Even for the few years that we had, we were blessed.”

“Did he know my mother?”

“No, no,” she said, with sorrow. “He died while I was pregnant. One of the saddest, hardest things I’ve ever done was carry on. I just wanted to go to the grave with him,” she whispered. “If I could have found a way to do that, I would have. But when I found out I was pregnant, I knew I couldn’t. No way I could take that step anymore. It’s as if he had left her on purpose to ensure I stayed behind. While I don’t think even he understood, it was pain and torment for me and Daisy. I never understood what made her that way. I never understood any of it. Maybe it was literally just too much out-of-control energy. The more I tried to teach her to wield it, the less she would listen to me. It just became a constant power struggle. It was all fun and games while she was a child, but then somehow she grew into this angry woman.”

“You don’t know what made her angry?”

“No.” She sniffed as she added, “Halloween is the day after tomorrow.”

“You keep harping on Halloween.”

“That’s because you’ve been gone, so you don’t understand. Daisy comes back every Halloween.”

Danica froze, staring at her grandmother. “What?” she asked in shock.

“You heard me,” Nana said. “Just like you died and came back, your mother comes back every Halloween.”

“How is that—how is that even possible?” she whispered.

“I do not know. But I can tell you that she comes back and makes life hell. She comes back to the hospital. She always grabs for one of the doctors. Most people—staff and patients alike—try to stay away from the hospital in case Daisy does show up. Sometimes it’s this hospital. Sometimes it’s the other one a county over. There’s never really any rhyme or reason why one or the other. Yet I know several of the staff here will not go to work on that day, just in case Daisy does appear.”

“That’s awful. No wonder this town can never forget.”

“True. She terrorizes them. I don’t know what she wants. I don’t know why she’s still haunting them, but the fact that my daughter lives as a deeply troubled spirit on the other side—as she was a deeply troubled soul on this side—pains me terribly. If I could do something to help give her peace, I would do it. I have sought assistance from so many people,” she whispered. “Honestly, if I can last through another Halloween, it will be the one thing that I’ll try to do again this year. The one goal I’ve been trying to achieve before I go is to give Daisy peace, so that she can finally leave and never come back. I just want her to be at peace.”

Danica sat back, having a hard time even listening and processing what she had just heard. “That is unbelievable.”

“I know,” her grandmother agreed, with a soft sigh. “For that, you need to talk to Stefan, because he is likely the only other person who can help Daisy.”

“Does he know her?”

“No, he doesn’t know her, but he knows me. He’s heard the stories. He knows how much it hurts me to know that Daisy’s out there, wandering.”

“At the hospital, what does she do?”

“She goes through the emergency entrance covered in blood, and the trouble is, one of the people she deals with at the time ends up dying.”

Danica sat back in horror. “What?”

“Yes,” Nana murmured. “Again, it’s not just at this hospital, although this seems to be the primary place for her to haunt. But she was also taken to the other hospital multiple times in her life. So that became a secondary haunting ground for her. I don’t know how she chooses one versus the other. I don’t know how she chooses her victims, one or the other,” she shared, tears running down her face again. “All I can tell you is that your mother walks on Halloween every year and has done so for the last ten years.”

“I don’t get it at all. You’re saying medical personnel have died every year in the last ten years on Halloween?”

Nana gave her the saddest of smiles. “Yes,” she whispered. “That’s just one more reason to try to get Daisy to stop. Cameron’s father died after the last Halloween, from a heart attack, when he had no health issues. He passed the very next day, after Daisy had left her bloody handprint on his white lab coat.”

“ Try to get her to stop?” Danica jumped to her feet and paced the room. “Oh, good God,” she exclaimed. “We should stop her. That she tried to kill me while she was alive is one thing, but to kill innocent people who are there trying to help her is absolutely an abomination. How the hell are they dying?”

“That’s the thing. Most of the time it’s a heart attack. At least that’s what the evidence suggests, and forensics ends up deciding that,” Nana shared. “Every time it’s some sort of medical emergency that nobody can really explain because these people generally don’t have any prior history. But I can tell you that Daisy does pinpoint specific people, and so some of the staff just don’t work anymore out of fear that they might be next.”

“Good Lord,” Danica muttered, sinking back onto the bed and staring at her grandmother. “Of all the things I thought you might want to tell me, this is absolutely not what I expected.”

Her grandmother gave her the briefest of smiles. “I understand, and you already know that I’m not here for long. But, if I could change one thing, it would be to give Daisy some peace.… I know you don’t want to hear this again, but I really need to rest.”

“I still think we have a lot to talk about,” Danica noted in alarm, looking at her grandmother, not sure how to voice her concerns.

“There is. There absolutely is, and I promise I will wake up. I will wake up until we can stop my daughter and can put her to rest.”

“Why do you want to buy that property back?” she asked suddenly.

Her grandmother never even opened her eyes. “Because it’s all connected to the house,” she whispered, “and he’s been even more erratic and more upset since I sold off that piece. I needed it to put food on the table. Not a lot of people want to pay for psychics,” she murmured. “The healings I accomplished have helped a lot, but back then I needed money, and I ended up selling that piece. Now, I need it back so I can make things right.”

“Have you thought about, when you’re gone, what will happen to the house?”

“Nothing will happen to the house. It’s really all just energy. Like all energy, it can’t be destroyed.” And, with that, Nana fell asleep.

Danica, on the other hand, would not be sleeping anytime soon.

*

Jace stormed around his small rented house. While the residence wasn’t much, he thought the attached land might calm him somehow.

He poured himself a generous amount of Jack Daniel’s before slumping onto the couch, pissed off and shaky from the booze. His doctor had warned him to stop with his binge drinking, but it was damn hard when it was the only thing that allowed him to function. That fact also scared the crap out of him, but he wasn’t permitted to tell anybody, especially not that brother of his. Cameron was an unbearable know-it-all at the worst of times. As for the best of times? Let’s just say there weren’t any best of times anymore. Jace wasn’t even sure when things had soured.

But one thing was for sure, things had gone south since Danica had arrived back in town. Jace wasn’t even sure what his big hate for her was now. And yet something was there. There must have been, and he was willing to go with it.

He was pretty sure it was something somebody had told him. Yet, in his amused, drunken state, it was way past his ability to figure out why and how. Yet he was supposed to love his brother, and that was getting harder too. What do you do when you have a sibling who’s always such a goddamn success that you look like a complete failure alongside them no matter what?

Jace had been doing pretty well until the divorce, and the divorce wasn’t even his fault. His wife just took offense because he’d gone out with one of her girlfriends, and things had gotten a little out of hand.

He’d apologized, for crying out loud. What did his wife expect?

Her girlfriend had been the one who came on to him, so he shouldn’t have to pay the price for that. But his wife didn’t see it that way. Of course she didn’t. She wanted to see it whatever way she wanted, which wasn’t working out so well for Jace.

Then, to make it worse, he had a son, but he hadn’t seen his son in a very long time. When he did see his son, all he did was squawk anyway. He’d become a mama’s boy, without Jace there to guide him.

Now just he and his brother were left. Their father had died after that bitch had shown up at the hospital last Halloween.… His father had had a heart attack the very next day, and their mother had followed him within a few months. Cameron only came home for the first funeral and then the next, staying to help sort out the estate. Seeing the state of the medical staffing issues at the hospital, Cameron had agreed to stay on a trial period.

So now just Cameron and Jace were left in the family. Yet they were on the outs again. They’d been that way a lot as brothers growing up. Then his brother had gone for a higher education degree in medicine, coming home to fill his father’s shoes. Unfortunately for Jace, that had only emphasized the success gap between the brothers.

It wasn’t Jace’s fault. He had tried hard to make a fresh start, and, if that fresh start wasn’t working out, why the hell was that his problem? Of course he didn’t have an answer when his friends, laughing and joking and taunting him, asked, “Then whose problem is it?”

Jace didn’t need to listen to their BS. Which is why he hadn’t seen any of them in quite a while now. Maybe that was a problem; he didn’t know. This wasn’t the time to get his head wrapped around any of this shit either. Friends were supposed to be there for each other. They weren’t supposed to gang up and to do an intervention.

He had dumped them out of his life pretty damn fast. And, besides, they’d accepted his getting rid of them pretty quickly too, so surely that meant they weren’t really friends, right? His tired brain struggled with it.

He stared out the window, knowing that he should probably go do some work at his brother’s house, but he was probably too damn drunk to even do anything effective. His brother did pay him or, at the very least, gave him food and a place to sleep when things got bad, which was happening again. He hadn’t paid his damn rent for a while, and he knew where that would lead.

He groaned, buried his head in his hands, and tried to sit up, only to collapse back. When a knock came on the door, he raised his blurry gaze to it and called out, “Come in.” When a stranger stepped in, Jace glared at him. “Who the hell are you? What do you want?”

The stranger looked at him and shrugged. “I heard you need money.”

“Yeah, I need money. So what does that got to do with anything?”

“I have a job for you,” he said, with a smile, “and you should like this one.”

“Yeah? Why?” he asked.

“Because you can get rid of somebody you hate.”

“I hate lots of people in this world, but chances are that I’ll get caught.”

“Not this time.” The stranger chuckled. “Besides, nobody will give a crap if this person disappears.”

“Yeah, who’s that?” he asked.

“Danica.… I know how well you love her.”

He stared at the stranger, his brain trying to make sense of it. “Hang on. What do you want me to do?” he asked. “I’m up for anything that gets that bitch out of my life, but I don’t know exactly what it is you’re asking me to do.”

“You don’t seem that dense,” the stranger stated sharply, “but maybe you’re not quite desperate enough.”

“I’m not desperate at all,” Jace retorted, with a sneer. “I don’t know why the hell you would even think I am.”

The stranger laughed. “Maybe because you’re collapsed here in a stupor, trying to justify your existence, when really there’s no justification for it at all. In fact, you’re as bad as Danica is.”

At that comparison, a red haze filled Jace’s mind. He roared to his feet and lunged at the stranger, who sidestepped him nicely, and down he went. He shook his head. “Did you fucking trip me?”

The other man laughed. “Hell no, I didn’t, but when you’re ready for some money—”

“I don’t need money that bad,” he interrupted.

“No? You’re about to lose your son because you haven’t been paying child support, and you’ll soon have your truck impounded. You haven’t been paying much of anything, including rent. The only job you’ve got is the little bit of work you do for your brother.” The stranger sneered. “Then again,… you’re not even doing that.”

“How the hell do you know so much about me?”

“Easy. I just hang around the bars and see what lowlife is in trouble, needing a lift.”

“So, are you trying to help me or to hurt me?” Jace asked with a snap. “I’m really tired of people ready to kick me when I’m already down.”

The stranger nodded. “That’s a really good point,” he noted, with a cold and calculated smile. “So, to answer your question, I’m trying to help you. I’m ready to give you a hand up in life. All you need to do is take it.”

“Yeah, but you still didn’t say exactly what I should do.”

“It involves getting Danica to move away or to disappear—whatever method you choose,” he replied. “Surely that could be some fun for you.”

“I hate that bitch,” he snapped. “Now she’s got her hooks into my fucking brother too.”

“Ah. So, you’re about to lose the only job you have and the only support you’ve got,” he noted, with a nod. “I’ll leave a number here on the table. When you’re sober enough to talk to me, give me a shout, and we’ll see what we can do.”

“Yeah, but you can’t let them take my truck,” he added, surging up.

“That depends on you,” the stranger replied, looking at him intently. “I’m happy to go pay it off right now and to ensure that your wife gets the money. But—according to the judges—you need to find a way to deal with your ex.” He stopped and stared at Jace. “Of course that’s another option.”

Jace frowned, struggling once again to sort out what the suggestion was. “You’re not… you’re not suggesting I go kill her, right?” he asked in shock.

“Oh my, I didn’t say that. You did.”

Jace shook his head. “No, no, I didn’t. I would not—”

“I am glad to hear that because, once you get rid of one problem,” he added, “it’s so easy to turn around and get rid of other problems too. Just think what your life would be like if you didn’t have an ex-wife taking you to court every five minutes. Your son would be here for you, and only you, and nobody else could say a word about it. You would have your truck. You would have your monthly disability money, instead of it going for child support. You could live on it—free and clear. No hoops, no problems, no troubles.”

Jace shook his head. “But I don’t hate her, for Christ’s sake,” he muttered in a haze. “I might even be halfway in love with her still.”

“Still? How about when she took you for every penny you had? She filed for custody and then fought to have your truck because you weren’t paying the child support. You don’t realize that boy isn’t even your own son. She’s been having an affair.”

“How did you know that?” At that, Jace glared at him. “That was a fucking raw deal,” he roared, his rage coming back to him. “She should never have done that.”

“Oh, I agree. Absolutely I agree,” the stranger replied. “It’s up to you how you want to go through life—like a loser, surfing couches, who’s about to lose your truck and the few other things that might have mattered to you? Or will you stand up and take notice? You know where women belong, don’t you? A whole world is out there where men are in charge. You’re just not part of it.”

“I should be.” Jace glared at him. “I am the man of the household.”

“You were,” the stranger said, with a smile. “You were, but you’re not now, of course. Though you cared at one point. The question is whether you care enough about yourself to do something to make your life better.”

“Yeah, but I won’t go off on the mother of my kid,” he snapped.

“No, that’s fine. How do you feel about Danica though?”

“That bitch?” Jace said instantly.

“That’s what I thought. So, you know your choice. Talk to me when you’re sober, or stay on the same path you’re on.” And, with that, he was gone.

He was gone so fast, and Jace had to wonder if he was really even hearing what the guy had said. It was freaky to even think about. That’s not who he was. He wasn’t the guy to turn around and to shoot his ex-wife. But that voice in the back of his head nudged him. Who mentioned anything about shooting?

He collapsed onto the couch in a drunken stupor, wondering at what his life had become. Then he didn’t care one damn bit, as the Jack took care of the rest of his ability to think.

*

It’s time , the voice in the darkness stated.

Harriet shook her head in denial. “Not yet,” she snapped. “Another forty-eight hours.”

Dark laughter whispered through her. What will forty-eight hours do for you? You have no way out of it. This is the commitment .

“I know,” she cried out, raising her hands in frustration, “but you can’t blame me for wanting something different for her.”

She will have no choice either. It is your family legacy.

“I understand,” she protested, “but that’s not helping.”

It matters not what helps. You need to tell her . And, with that, the voice disappeared.

She sagged back into her bed, tears in the corner of her eyes. Yes, it was time. She would soon die. She knew that. She didn’t even care about that. That was just another transit in her mind. And it should be one not filled with as much pain and angst as she was going through. People died, often at peace, yet many feared what awaited them.

That wasn’t the case for Harriet.

She knew exactly what waited for her, and she was okay with it. Matter of fact, for years she had felt that she would be completely blessed to have such luck. She wasn’t so sure that luck was a part of it right now, but that was beside the point.

What she was trying to do right now was preserve her granddaughter’s life after this.

And, of course, because she wanted to save her granddaughter and Daisy, everybody else was making sure that wouldn’t be an easy thing to do.

Harriet rose from the bed, dressed, only to collapse onto the big chair in the living room, knowing that her granddaughter was outside in her RV, working away, trying to pay the bills. Money was not an issue around here, at least not now. Harriet had tried so hard to utilize the help that had been offered, and then finally she just gave in. As they explained, it made no difference. Money was just energy. It was just another form of currency, and, as she had already bartered away her soul, this little bit extra made no difference.

The tears rolled down her cheeks. Sad, quiet, tired, Harriet grew resigned, as there was no changing what had been put in motion centuries ago. She kept trying to find another way to do it, but only after there had been some terrible failures.

She hadn’t even considered this to be wrong until recently, when she realized how much her daughter and granddaughter had suffered.

She hadn’t coaxed Danica home. She had come home on her own will. But the man in charge would easily say that she had come home because she knew it’s where she belonged.

Danica was following the instincts of generations, whether she liked it or not.

And that was hard for Harriet to take in because, even if her granddaughter didn’t want any part of this, it didn’t matter what she wanted. It was well out of her hands.

It had always been out of her hands. It was in the hands of people who were more powerful than her.

Harriet had always thought that she had done very well. But she knew that she had utilized a lot of their collective energy to do the good things in life that she had done. Good things were important; it was important to help others. It was important to feel she had some legacy to leave behind. She just hadn’t considered what that legacy would look like when it wasn’t the one she had dreamed it would be.

Nobody could blame her for wanting more, but everybody would. Everybody would view her in a completely different light, and she wasn’t ready for that. Now though, it was well past the time for her to make any of those kinds of changes, and that made her sadder than anything.

She felt the old age in her bones. She had confronted the papery-thin crepey skin with more and more moisturizers, which just seemed to suck it all away, as if the sand in the ocean ran dry with every wave. No holding back this aging tide, she knew that, but she couldn’t stop herself from trying. A preservation instinct remained here, an instinct for herself, and an instinct—even though she wasn’t afraid—an instinct as old as time, to stop the inevitable rush of what was coming toward her.

Harriet wanted to believe it was just because she wanted to preserve her daughter and to help her before it was too late, and yet another part of her realized perfectly well that there was no helping Daisy, and she was just—

You should tell her.

“I know. I know,” she snapped, getting angry and feeling cornered.

Now , the voice insisted.