Untrue

Chapter 2 - Confrontations

Artemis stared at the paper unblinking, un-breathing and unthinking. That letter was way beyond weird. It crossed the line of bizarreness and became downright insane.

Then Artemis realised that this was insane. There was no other explanation. There was no way she could be adopted and from England nonetheless. Can they even do that, adopt from a foreign country? I'll have to check that.

In Artemis' opinion and judging solely from the way that the letter had been delivered, the whole thing could be nothing more than a hoax. Honestly, what where the chances of an owl flying into her room with a letter attached to its leg? True, she was not exactly certain about the possibilities of that happening, but she could guess that they were not only slim, they were non-existent. Someone was having a big laugh right now on her expense, she was sure of it. The only problematic thing about this particular theory was that none of Artemis' friends possessed adequate command of the English language. In fact, their vocabulary range was limited to 'This is a chair' or 'Hi, my name is Catherine'.

So who could it be from apart from a lunatic that claimed to be her mother? She had no pen-pals or anything of the like and nobody on the Internet knew her address or her real name. Could it have been her brother? Artemis snorted. The possibilities of that happening were even less.

What if it was my mother?

No. Absolutely impossible. Granted, she didn't look so much like her parents but she and her brother were recognizably siblings, or at least people said. Could that mean that we are both adopted?

Artemis knew that to be untrue as well. The letter mentioned nothing about her brother, which meant either that the letter was fake or that she was adopted and maybe her brother was adopted too, but they were not in any way related, even though they looked somewhat alike, which made no sense whatsoever in Artemis' mind. So it was by pure logic and absolutely no hopeful feelings and desires that she came to the conclusion that the letter could not possibly be authentic. It was the simplest answer. Didn't people say that the simplest answer is usually the correct one? The letter was fake, end of story. Come morning she would show it to her parents and they would all just laugh at the absurdity of it all. Her parents would reassure her that she was not adopted and she would forget all about the blasted letter.

She turned off the bathroom light and returned to her room. Her brother's snoring had receded to deep, heavy breathing. The window was still wide open and the curtains were moving in rhythm with the soft breeze that had been blowing steadily for the past few hours. If it weren't for the piece of parchment-like paper currently held tightly in her right hand Artemis would have thought she had been dreaming all along.

Who knows? Maybe she was dreaming. That was the simplest explanation yet, so she decided to stick to it for the time being. Maybe when she woke up in the morning she would be clearheaded enough to shed some light on the situation.

She considered throwing the letter in the rubbish but decided against it. She would need the letter as proof tomorrow. If her parents refused to believe her, she would show them the letter. Not that they could speak English all that well but surely the phrase 'I am your mother' was simple enough even for them to understand.

Artemis decided not to dwell on it any further. All that could come out of something like that was her worrying her head off for something that could very well turn out to be a tactless and tasteless farce. She could not understand why someone would play a prank like that to her though. If someone genuinely believed that this was supposed to be funny then they needed to be committed to a psychiatric institution. Artemis would file a lawsuit as soon as she discovered the culprit.

She lied down on her bed and started thinking about appropriate ways to extract her revenge. At some point during her musings she fell asleep. When she woke up the next morning everything she had experienced the previous night felt like a dream. I knew it! A part of her brain screamed but she could not, for the life of her, remember just what she was supposed to have known in the first place.

Her parents were nowhere in the house, which was perfectly understandable since they both had jobs to go to. Her brother, Stavros, was glued to his computer playing computer games, which was also perfectly understandable since this was Stavros and that was what Stavros had been doing day in and day out for the past couple of years.

"Fat!" he said as soon as he noticed that she had woken up and was looking at him. Artemis stuck out her tongue. That was their way of saying 'Good Morning'. Artemis didn't doubt that some people might be insulted if you called them fat first thing in the morning, but for her and her brother it had become some sort of a daily routine.

Then realization hit her and she remembered the occurrences of the previous night. She rushed to her computer and turned it on, nearly stabbing her eye out in the process. Her hopes that everything that had happened last night had been a dream were lost as soon as she noticed the rather deep scratches seemingly mocking her from their place at the top of her monitor. Well, it seems that an owl did pay me a visit yesterday. Or maybe it hadn't. Maybe she was hallucinating?

"Hey, Stavros. Look at that." She called her brother.

"Mother... Mary! What are those scratches? Dad's going to kill you!"

To Artemis' mind two people hallucinating about the same thing, at the same time, in the same room was less that improbable. It was downright impossible.

"There was an owl here yesterday. It made the scratches." Artemis tried to explain the situation and defend herself at the same time.

"An owl? What on earth are you talking about?" asked Stavros with a disbelieving look on his face.

"It came last night, almost broke the damn window!" Artemis exaggerated a bit. Well, maybe a little more than a bit. "It carried a letter in its talons and it sort of... gave it to me and then left!" Is it just me or do I actually sound that insane?

Stavros looked at her in contemplation for a while, his brows furrowed in thought and his eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"Have you been eating sugar again? You know sugar makes you act funny."

"Stavros, this is not a laughing matter! I'm telling you it was the owl." Then she had an epiphany. "I have the letter," she said. "Just let me find it and I'll prove it to you!"

"Fine, whatever," Stavros said. He crossed his arms in front of his chest and stood staring at her, trying to look sceptical but failing miserably. Artemis dived under her blanket in search of the infamous letter. She found it somewhere between her pillow and the wall, crumpled up but otherwise in good shape. As soon as she found it, however, she felt her heart sink. This wasn't a dream anymore. It was real and unless it was some kind of joke, like Artemis wholeheartedly hoped, then she was adopted, her mother was in England and in bad health and her father wasn't even sure of her existence.

Slowly she emerged from under the blankets and looked at her brother. The look on her face must have been one of utter desperation because soon after, the mock strict look on her brother's face faltered and before long it had disappeared completely.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Nothing," Artemis said shaking her head. "You'll know soon enough."

"What about my evidence?" Stavros asked, which was typically insensitive of him. Artemis showed him the paper but when Stavros made a move as if to take it she withdrew her arm. Stavros looked at her questioningly.

"Sorry, no reading."

"Why? A piece of paper is not a good enough proof for me!"

"Well, you'll just have to live with it!" answered Artemis, strongly irritated by her brother's complete lack of tact. Stavros mumbled something that sounded very rude and insulting even though he had said it in a foreign language that was unknown to her and returned his attention to his computer game.

"Shut up, Stavros," she replied but her brother was already too far gone in his fantasy world to listen to her. Taking this as a cue she, too, turned to her computer and started the search on which her future happiness depended. Praying that international adoption was not achievable, she clicked on the first site that came up in the search and started reading, all the while desperately clinging onto the hope that this could not be real.

...But then she found it. International adoption could be achieved, even if it was relatively difficult to adopt from the UK. Not that this meant anything. It merely suggested that the horrible prankster had done his or her homework and had devised a seemingly flawless plan. As far as Artemis was concerned the letter would not be authentic until her parents had verified the information it contained. All she had to do was sit and wait. Her parents would be back sooner or later.

~*~

Seeing that it was summer and schools were closed for good, Artemis had little to nothing to do all day. This particular morning, however, finding something to occupy herself with was not just a matter of spending her time having fun. It was a matter of retaining her sanity. Wondering about the authenticity of the letter was driving her crazy and time had chosen that morning to come to a stop. Either that or her watch had stopped working. Or she was just too anxious and impatient. What difference did it make, really?

Finally, after many painfully long hours during which Artemis ate the entire contents of the fridge and worn out the living room carpet due to her constant pacing, her parents returned home from work. Artemis ran to greet them at the door.

"Mum, Dad, I need to talk to you!" she practically shouted before her parents had time to even close the door behind them. Her eyes were wild with worry, her eyebrows were furrowed forming two vertical lines in the middle and she looked as if someone had just shot her puppy. Typically, her parents did not notice the seriousness of the situation. If Artemis had to think of something that she and her parents did not have in common, their total lack of perception concerning the emotional and mental state of others would be number one on her list.

"Just let us get changed first," her mother said. "You can tell us everything while we're eating."

"But mum..." started Artemis but then she stopped. What am I doing? I am actually looking forward to telling them? What if they say that I am adopted? Thinking better of it, Artemis was not sure if she wanted to confront her parents with the letter. If she asked and she didn't like their answer she could never take it back and everything would be different. Maybe she should not ask. But Artemis knew that she had to. Hadn't she just spent the last few hours devouring everything in the fridge, worrying herself sick and wondering what the truth was? She had no choice, not really. The truth might hurt, she thought, but ignorance is one of the things I most despise.

In the privacy of her mind she wondered what it would be like if she was, in fact, adopted. Not much would change, she decided. She knew that her parents loved her, adopted or not and even though things would be a bit awkward at first, they would soon move past that.

Once her parents were ready, the table was set and everyone had began eating except for Artemis, her mother asked, "So, what did you want to tell us?"

"I need to ask you something." She paused, took a deep breath, closed her eyes tightly and asked the question that had been plaguing her since late the previous night. "Am I adopted?"

Her parents' reaction was not what she had expected. Her father swallowed his food the wrong way and started coughing. Her mother spilled her drink partially on herself and partially into her food. Her brother was staring at her, clearly taken aback by her inquiry. Artemis had to admit, this was not a question one hears every day or during mealtimes.

"What are you talking about?" her father asked as soon as he stopped coughing.

"I got a letter last night from a woman who says she's my mother. She knew my name and everything."

"How could you possibly get the letter at night? The mail comes every morning," her father asked perplexed.

"It wasn't the mailman who delivered it to me. It was an owl."

"An owl?" Her father's reaction was the same as Stavros'. Or any other sane person's. Before her father could say more, Artemis went on.

"Look, I have the letter." She took the neatly folded letter out of her pocket, unfolded it and handed it to her father.

"That's in English!" he exclaimed.

"Give it to me. I'll read it," said Stavros. Her father obliged, a sign that he was terribly upset. Usually Artemis' father was very proud of his knowledge of English and in any other situation he would have tried to read it himself.

After the letter had been read and translated, no one dared speak or even move. In the awkward silence that followed, Artemis battled with herself about pushing the matter further. Finally she decided to go for it.

"Is it true then?" she asked. There was silence again. Artemis thought she could feel it tightening on her chest, cold and alien. Or maybe that was simply distress at having uncovered the world's most atrocious lie.

"I'll take that as a yes," she said quietly after a while. She got up from the table, not even having touched her food, and entering her room, she closed the door behind her and locked it. In the kitchen she could hear her brother protesting, saying that this was his room as well and she had no right to lock the door but he stopped soon thereafter.

Artemis lied on her bed and tried to stop the tears from leaving her eyes but it was impossible to stop the flow. She didn't even know why she was crying. Things would be fine; everything would still be the same. So, why was she crying?

Several hours later, when she had no more tears to shed she was able to attribute her dejection to the fact that the feeling of belonging somewhere, namely her family, had been snatched away from her so violently and unexpectedly. She decided to do as the woman in the letter had wished and reply to her. But first she needed some time o think about some things. Most of all, she needed to talk with her family, she needed to know that they would still be there for her no matter how she decided to proceed about the matter.