When she took the infant, Will Graham made Chiyoh promise to keep me a secret. Only a handful of people knew about me. Aside from my parents and Chiyoh, the only ones who knew of my birth were Bedelia du Maurier, Jack Crawford, Alana Bloom and her partner, Margot Verger. Fredericka Lounds knew of me when I was already in Lithuania, and was talked into never mentioning me in her articles. Chiyoh thought all those people she left behind in the United States have forgotten me, even my fathers, until I told her about the email I received.
"You have to decide on your own about it." Chiyoh told me, and I knew I had to reply to Dr. Du Maurier one way or another. However, I did not know what to say to my godmother.
As I sat thinking of what I should tell Dr. Du Maurier, my mind went back to the first time I dared to ask Chiyoh about my family. I was eight then, and for years I have wondered if I had parents like the other children at school. Chiyoh had made it clear to me that we were not at all related. Back then, I could only wonder. The time I spent watching Chiyoh hunt and learning from her was made of questions I cannot articulate. What triggered me to ask was when we were hunting ducks at the castle grounds. There was one duck with her ducklings lined up behind her, following her steps. As I aimed the rifle at the mother, Chiyoh gripped my arm to stop me.
"Why?" I asked, irritated. Chiyoh knew I enjoyed pulling the trigger and has seldom stopped me from doing so, but this is an exception.
"She has her young with her." Chiyoh replied as she dragged me away.
"What do I care?!" I spat in irritation.
Chiyoh inhaled sharply. She stopped her tracks and turned to me, gripping my shoulders tight as if she meant to crush them. "Listen," Chiyoh said as she knelt to my level. "I had the chance to shoot your parents, but I did not... because of you."
"Then who are my parents?" I asked, driven by the sudden surge of emotions brought about by Chiyoh's mention of them. "Where are they?"
"You are better off without them." Chiyoh replied, her grip loosening, and I saw a tinge of sorrow and compassion in her eyes.
"Why?" The question came out of me as a whimper. Chiyoh has never looked at me like that, and I knew that whatever had made her do so must have been very grave.
"They had me take care of you because they knew they couldn't. They are both murderers." She scoffed. "Perhaps they thought it would be better if one murderer raised you instead of two insane fathers."
"Fathers?" I asked, knowing that other children normally had a father and a mother.
Chiyoh disregarded my question with a smirk. "You had a sister too. Her name was Abigail. Your father killed her, and she was a murderer too."
I opened my mouth to say something, but I cannot remember what. I was not able to say it because Chiyoh had stood up and let go of me.
"Go back inside." She said, snatching the rifle from my hands.
I obeyed her and walked towards the castle as she walked on further into the shrubbery surrounding Castle Lecter. It was the last time I heard her speak of my family until more than a decade later.