Untrue

Chapter 1

Artemis was running. She had to escape that strange man that was after her. His twisted smile and cross-eyed, wild gaze were not familiar to her, but she did not look much like herself either. The strange, scary man was following her, slowly but steadily gaining on her, as she ran and ran but went nowhere. A gravity-like force appeared to be holding her back and she did her best to fight it, to no avail. She was practically crawling now, having reached an almost horizontal position in her fruitless attempts to run from her pursuer.

She kept looking behind her back, at the tall figure approaching at a painfully slow pace. Just a few meters ahead of her was the gate to her school's yard, inside which tens of young students were conversing happily, oblivious to Artemis' struggle. If she could only just reach the gate and enter the school, she would be safe. The students would protect her; the man would not dare come in.

Gaining strength once again at the hope that she had a chance to escape certain death, Artemis fought harder and harder to free herself from the grip of the peculiar gravity-like force. Behind her, the tall figure kept walking. She could see his face clearly now. She wished she had not. She kept pushing at the ground beneath her feet with all her might, but the effect was minimal. She was almost able to touch the iron gate now, but the deformed figure was only just a few feet behind her.

Suddenly grabbing hold of the gate, Artemis felt the powerful force lifting and she ran to the other side of the yard where a few of her classmates were sitting. Losing no time to catch her breath, she started explaining the situation. Her classmates' expression did not alternate to fear as she had been expecting. Instead, they looked at her in confusion and a certain degree of indifference. Artemis dared a look back toward the school's entranceway. She could not see it. A tall, now unpleasantly familiar figure was blocking her view. Feeling yet another surge of panic, Artemis turned around at started gesturing wildly to her friends in a desperate attempt to warn them, to make them understand.

But it was already too late. The man grabbed her forcefully from her hair and started dragging her to the school's entrance. Her classmates did not seem to notice her absence and the rest of the students that passed by took no notice of the situation, as though seeing a girl being dragged by her hair by a very suspicious-looking individual was perfectly normal and uninteresting. Strangely, Artemis did not feel any pain. All she could feel was heart-stopping fear. She felt as though an invisible hand had grabbed her heart and was squeezing it hard.

After a few minutes of struggling in vain, which to Artemis seemed like eternity, the figure came to a halt just a couple of feet away from the gate. Artemis stopped struggling and resigned to the fact that she was going to die and there was nothing she could do to change that. She closed her eyes tightly and started screaming as loud as was humanly possible, hoping not for an unexpected rescuer, but rather to console herself that it would be quick and painless.

The way Artemis saw it, her murdered was either going to throw her on the gate, specifically onto the pointy iron bars that arched upward toward the clear sky or he would bang her head repeatedly on the hard cement road until she died. Neither of those options seemed quick and painless ways to die, so by screaming Artemis hoped to tune out the sickening sound of her skull cracking or any other bone breaking. She hoped that this way she could block out the pain. Somewhere in the back of her mind her brained registered the absurdity of such reasoning but her conscious self could not be occupied by unimportant things such as logic.

So she just stood there, holding her breath or perhaps being unable to breathe, waiting for her murderer to make his move and be done with it. Feeling the grab on her hair strengthen and her feet leave the ground as she was forcefully pulled up by the murderer to meet her death, her screams intensified tenfold. Just before she hit the iron bars of the gate, Artemis woke up with a start.

It took her less than a second to realise that the whole experience was merely a nightmare and she was surprised to feel so calm when in the dream her heart was racing. She contemplated the bizarreness of it all and vowed never to watch thrillers again. It was not until she turned to lie on her side, trying to find a more comfortable position as her current one was making her neck rather sore, that she realised she was shaking like a leaf and that her heart was hammering painfully in her chest. It was so painful, in fact, that Artemis stood still, feeling as if her heart was about to explode. Her breathing was erratic, her breaths short and shallow, seemingly unable to absorb the needed amounts of oxygen.

After a while her breathing became somewhat normal and the hammering in her chest was not so painful. Lying on the bed next to hers was her brother, Stavros, oblivious to the agony his sister had just experienced judging by the fact that he was snoring rather loudly. It was at this particular moment that Artemis realised she must have gone in shock because not even the thought of how much she could tease him about it did anything to improve her mood. Not even adding a bit of drooling in the story made her feel even remotely entertained. This was serious.

She just wished that the annoying ringing in her ears would cease. It was driving her mad. It sounded like silverware clanging or something equally unpleasant to her sensitive hearing. 'Probably the neighbours' she thought. Then, in her half-asleep half-awake state, she had an epiphany that caused yet another surge of panic to grip her heart, one that left her wide awake and a hundred percent alert. The noise was neither silverware nor neighbour-related. It was, in fact, coming from her bedroom window and it resembled the sound of solid rock hitting glass. The shades were drawn and she had no idea what the source of the noise was. Her brother was still sleeping -and snoring- peacefully. For a moment Artemis considered waking him up but then immediately discarded the thought as foolish and potentially suicidal.

She sat up in her bed and tried to work up the courage to walk all the way to the window -which was not that far away as her house was rather small-, draw the curtains and look. But what if it is that man that was chasing me? Of course, Artemis knew that to be impossible. But it could very well be another man that was after her. Yeah, because I have thousands of men chasing me! Artemis decided she was being foolish and was probably imagining the increasingly irritating noise anyway so in a surge of courage, or perhaps stupidity, she marched to the window and forced it open. Something collided heavily with her stomach and surprised as she was, she lost her balance and fell on top of her bed. Artemis did not have the luxury of feeling relieved at having landed on something softer than the cold tiles of her bedroom floor. She jumped up almost the instant her body hit the mattress of her bed and started looking around frantically. Artemis, after spotting the intruder, thought that the strange bird that had just flown into the room seemed equally distressed. It kept making high-pitched, bird-like noises, which Artemis was unable to recognize. I never said I was an expert on anything bird-related, she thought. It was too dark for her to recognize what species of bird it was by sight and the sounds it made were completely unfamiliar to her but at the moment the only thing on her mind was to make the stupid bird hush up before it woke up everyone in the building. Her brother was already beginning to stir. From the bedroom adjacent to the room Artemis was currently in, a deep, sleepy, male voice rang out in the darkness.

"Quiet!"

'Great,' Artemis thought. Her dad had woken up. She considered many ways to solve her little bird problem, most of which involved ample amounts of cursing and bird bashing. Finally, Artemis was able to avoid resorting to unwanted violence as the strange bird piped down and stayed still and silent, perched on top of Artemis' computer monitor. She was too preoccupied to think about scratches, which in itself was evidence of her current mental state. Any moment now her dad would come bursting in and she would be left in the highly difficult and awkward position of having to explain what a bird was doing in her room, on top of the monitor screen. A few minutes passed without interruptions from angry parents or irate neighbours, though Stavros did mumble something about a steak. All the while Artemis kept staring at the bird and at the white, square thing it was carrying. At first she had thought it was a dead rat or something even more disturbing but she doubted many animals came in shapes of squares, so her best guess was that this was paper that the strange bird was holding in its talons. Then, suddenly, the most bizarre thing Artemis had ever seen in her life happened. He bird extended a leg holding the piece of paper and looked her straight in the eye. Are birds supposed to do that?

Feeling very apprehensive Artemis approached the bird slowly and warily, avoiding sudden movements in an attempt not to alert it. When she walked all the way across the room and stood in front of her computer she realised that the bird bared a strong resemblance to the owls Artemis had repeatedly seen in books ever since her early childhood. Still moving slowly, Artemis extended her arm, touched the paper and tugged at it without any real effort to pull it. Surprisingly, the owl did not resist. When, finally, Artemis was holding the paper, the owl gave her one last look and then flew out of the window which was still open and doomed to remain this way for a long time.

Now that she was holding the piece of paper, Artemis realised that it had a strange feel to it. The texture was nothing like any kind of paper she had ever touched. If she did not know better she would say that the paper felt ridiculously similar to what she had always imagined parchment to feel like. But that was impossible. Well, Artemis thought, just because I did not recognize the texture that doesn't mean that this particular piece of paper is anything other than ordinary. She was still curious though, not only because of the paper's texture but also because of the rather mind-boggling fact that it had been delivered by an owl of all things. She decided to go to the bathroom where she could examine it carefully without waking anyone up in the process. This was one of the moments when Artemis could have used a bedroom that was just her own, but since that was not going to happen anytime in the near future, she pushed the thought out of her mind and did not think anything about it.

So went to the bathroom she did and upon examining the paper she found that not only was it parchment, but it also had writing on it. And not only that, but the writing was in English too, which was weird because she had lived in Greece for her entire life and did not have any relatives or friends that lived abroad. With an unpleasant fluttering in the general location of her stomach, Artemis started reading what appeared to be a letter, addressed to her, Artemis Evagoras, of Kostas and Amalia.

Dear Artemis, the letter read,

I am sorry that things turned out the way they have. I wish that I could tell you what I am about to tell you in person, but my doctor has given me strict orders to stay in bed. Personally, I don't see a reason why I should. I am bound to die soon, one way or another. It is not fair to you to have to find out something of this magnitude by a total stranger and an impersonal letter, but I am afraid that if I were to die before I have the chance to explain everything to you, you will remain ignorant for the rest of your life.

First off, and I wish there was an easier and less painful way for me to tell you this, I am your mother. I was unable to raise you; at the time I was still a high school student with no money and no support from my family. I was forced to put you up for adoption, hoping that one day, when I was able to stand up on my own two feet, I would be able to get you back. Even though I was able to prevent you from being adopted if I so desired by not giving up my parental rights, I had no idea if I would ever be able to get you back and growing up in an orphanage was not the life I wanted for you. Unfortunately for me, you were adopted a few months later and moved far away from here, to Greece. You probably don't know this but I fought very hard to get you back. I failed every time. As a result of constant stress and consequent unhealthy habits, I am now experiencing serious health problems.

As for your biological father, he left me when I told him that I was pregnant. I don't know much about him but I recently heard that he was a teacher at a very prestigious school here in England. How a man like that could ever be a teacher is beyond my understanding. I am afraid I don't know the name of the school in case you want to seek him but his name is Severus Snape, very uncommon, so you won't have so much trouble finding him if you wish.

I wish I could see you one last time before I die. You must be sixteen now, a young lady. If I could only turn back time and chose a different path, just so that I could see you grow up... But, alas, I cannot.

Ask your parents to show you the adoption papers. They must also have a box with a few old things I used to own along with a picture of me and your father and an old necklace your father had given to me when we were still together.

I am hoping that one of these days you will come and visit me. My address is written below.

Know that I have always loved you and that leaving you was the hardest thing I ever had to do in my entire life.

I hope that you will at least answer to this letter.

My deepest love,

Your mother, Stacey