from my daughter!”
I pulled away the blanket—and froze.
Emily’s palms were covered in tiny symbols.
My father looked at me with tears in his eyes.
“I haven’t hurt her,” he said. “She asked me to teach her.”
“Why?”
Emily began crying.
“Because Grandpa said it would help us save you.”
My father then showed me an old box.
Inside was a photograph of my late husband taken just hours before his death.
Standing beside him was a man I knew very well.
My father looked at me and whispered:
“Your husband’s death wasn’t an accident.”
And suddenly, I realized the strange hand signals had never been about hiding something from me.
They had been a secret way of protecting our family.
The rest of the story is in the first comment. 
There was nothing dangerous in my daughter’s hands. Between her fingers, she held several small, colorful cards.
