Susannah couldn't believe what she was seeing in the bathroom near the back office and den. There was a fairly pretty, no beautiful, teenage white girl lying slumped against the bathtub and the toilet. A quick check led to Susannah assuming that the strange girl had fainted.

She stared at this girl that shouldn't be here for a few minutes, then noticed the girl seemed to be reviving from the apparent fainting spell.

Susannah glared at the girl and growled, "Just who in the heck are you? And how did you get into this house, you little tramp?"

"Ooooo," the new Anson moaned as she reached up and grabbed the back of her head, "That hurts." She remained on the floor rubbing at the back of her head where a small bump was pushing through her auburn locks. "Ummm... I'm your father, Susannah, please help me up."

She held her hand out to Susannah, who placed it in her own and helped the girl to pull herself up from the bathroom floor.

Susannah found that statement extremely difficult to believe, and said so, "You're not my daddy! My daddy is black, you're a white girl!"

Anson turned and looked into that mirror again, once more seeing that beautiful yet utterly foreign face instead of his own.

"Then please explain how I knew your name? Someone who didn't know you wouldn't know it, would they?"

Susannah hissed at him, "I find it hard to believe! If you're my daddy, prove it, tell me something that only he would know."

Anson sighed, shook her head and replied, "A few weeks after your momma died, you rode your bike across a neighbour's gravel driveway. You lost control of your bicycle, ended up wiping out on the gravel and limped into my front office a while later with a badly scraped knee and leg."

Susannah blanched, she remembered that day all too well, she'd been crying up a storm when she limped into the front office.

"Perhaps you are him, but the neighbours knew about that happening, they could have told you that whole story."

"Why would Pat and Jim tell someone they have never seen about something that happened to a child eleven years ago?" Anson asked her. "If that doesn't convince you, I grounded you two months after your twelfth birthday because you were caught trying to have sex with Billie Ann."

This remark caused Susannah's face to turn crimson as she became embarrassed at the memory of her father walking in on her and Billie Ann.

"Okay, I know for sure that the only ones that knew about that were myself, Billie Ann and daddy. I'm sorry, daddy, for doubting you."

Anson chuckled, shaking her head a moment ago had made her feel a bit queasy and that bump was the source of a nasty headache. "Can we please go and relax in the office. I'll tell you just how I ended up like this, although you'll find it even odder than my proving to you who I am. Also, that fall has brought on a real humdinger of a headache, I'm going to need some Tylenol or Ibuprofen, my jaw is quite sore as well."

"That would be because of the bruise you have on your cheek, daddy," Susannah stated, "go sit down and I'll bring everything to the office."

Anson slowly made her way to the back office, she still felt off balance so she held the wall as she walked along, using it as a balance aid. At the door to the office, she let go of the wall, taking three trembling steps before she turned and dropped bonelessly into her favourite easy chair.

Susannah entered the office just after Anson had sat down, carrying a full glass of water and handed Anson two Tylenol® Extra Strength pills.

Anson grimaced, reached up and carefully took the full glass from Susannah's hand, then had the pills dropped into his other hand. He stared at the two pills for a minute or two, then opened his mouth, popped them in and washed them down with a long drink, draining the glass.

"Sit down, Susannah, I would rather not end up with a crick in my neck while I talk with you." He waved to the chairs around the desk.

Susannah smiled briefly, nodded and moved behind the desk, settling herself in the high end executive style office chair.

Susannah looked up at the wall behind the desk where two degrees were framed, the name on both of them was Anson Porter Parkness III.

Anson noticed Susannah was looking at the framed degrees and smiled as Susannah turned to face her once again.

"Okay," Anson began to speak, "You know I went out for a walk in the woods yesterday afternoon?"

Susannah nodded as she replied, "Yes, daddy, and I remember you coming in all in a rush and running into the main bathroom."

"That is correct, "Anson continued, "Well, the reason for that is that I was bitten by a rather odd creature while walking in the woods. It looked vaguely like a human, but even though the voice was female, I couldn't tell for sure whether it was a man or a woman. Whatever it was, the creature jumped on me as I walked along the west path and bit me on the shoulder. I hit it, knocked it out, and found a strong, steady pulse.

"I'm not sure why I did it, but I left the creature there and came back here, running into the bathroom as you said. I spent the next ten or fifteen minutes in there, applying Betadine to the wound, then things became even weirder. You see, that bite wound faded, then vanished."

Susannah had leaned back into the comfort of the office chair as her daddy spoke, but this statement brought her upright rather abruptly.

"Vanished, daddy? That just isn't possible!" she yelped. "Wait... Holy!... The bruise on your cheek, Daddy... it's fading... now it's gone!"

Anson nodded as she once again continued, "I wasn't sure, but I suspected that it might fade. I feel better than I have since I was twenty!"

"Well, daddy," Susannah giggled, "Looking like that, I can't call you Anson, so what would you like me to call you right now?"

Anson joined her with a hearty chuckle, "I think I'll honour your momma, Susannah. You can call me Abigail, that was her middle name."

Susannah smiled, "It would be odd if you ran around as a 16 or 17 year old white girl calling yourself by a 42 year old black man's name."