Untrue

Chapter 3

Dear Miss Stacey Gillings,

I received your letter earlier today by an owl that nearly broke my bedroom window. You claimed to be my biological mother, which after looking at some old documents, I have found to be true.

As you suggested, I have asked my parents to show me the adoption papers as well as the box you mentioned in your letter. I am afraid that the photographs have been misplaced, though my parents deny having anything to do with it. I also found the golden necklace. It is very beautiful!

I have asked permission from my parents to let me fly all the way to England to see you and I will be coming at the end of the month if that is okay with you.

I wish you would tell me more about yourself and the rest of your family and I really hope you will be alright. Is your illness so serious? What is it? I hope you feel better soon.

As for my father, I have decided not to search for him, since he obviously wanted nothing to do with me in the first place. Of course I hope he is happy and well and I forgive him for abandoning me, but I cannot forgive him for abandoning you when you where still in high school and penniless. I also cannot forgive your family for not supporting you at the time of your greatest need.

That aside, I would still like to know more about him and the rest of the family. I understand that you probably wanted nothing to do with him after he left you and therefore you did not look for him, but I would still like to know a few things about the man to whom I owe my existence.

I hope I am not a nuisance to you. The only reason why I am writing this letter and why I am coming to visit you at a country so far away is that you seemed very eager and hopeful to meet me. Feel free to tell me to bugger off anytime you like and you do not have to answer any of my questions.

Whatever the case is, however, I ask that you please sent me an answer to this question.

Do you really want me to come to England? It is okay if you do not. No hard feelings.

There is one more thing I feel I need to tell you and that is thank you for keeping me and giving birth to me and putting me up in an orphanage so that I could have a better life even if that meant us being separated from each other.

I await your answer. This time I will be prepared for the owl, I promise. What is it with the owls anyway?

Your daughter,

Artemis

Artemis reread the letter and cringed at how needy she sounded -or maybe that was just her being crazy-, but decided to send it nonetheless. After a short trip to the mail service she returned home and indulged herself in fantasies of a new family, or at least a new mother. Not that she had any complaints about her current one, because she knew they loved her and she would miss them terribly for the short period that she would be away, but a new mother meant a brand new start, something that she was not ready to pass up so easily.

She could not help but feel extremely sorry for Stacey, though. How dare that man, whatever his name was, Artemis could not remember, do that to her. Get her pregnant and then walk away as if nothing had happened. The mere thought of that man sickened her. She was one hundred percent on Stacey's side and she wished that she and that sorry excuse of a human being never crossed paths, or else God knew what she would do.

xxxxxxx

A few days later, she was awoken in the middle of the night once again by the same owl that had damaged her window and her computer monitor. Thankfully this time the window was open and the owl decided to sit on her bed instead. So far, so good! Attached on its leg was the same kind of parchment-like paper. For the second time that week, Artemis found herself in the bathroom in the middle of the night, secretly reading a letter from the mystery woman, Stacey.

Dear Artemis,

Of course, I want you to come visit me! I thought I had made myself clear on the subject. And of course I will answer any question you ask me and I will be more than happy to do so. So here is some information about our family like you asked:

I come from a wealthy family of lawyers and have always had the best of everything I ever wanted. At my sixteenth birthday, my father threw a party. Everyone who was anyone was invited. Some of the celebrities of the time where there though I do admit that most of those invited where lawyers, family friends from past generations. It was at that party that I met your father. He was not invited; he had just snuck in with two friends to see what all the commotion was about -and drink some champagne, of course! Shortly after we met, we started dating. My parents knew nothing about our relationship because I knew that they would never accept him. Then I got pregnant and when I shared the news with him he disappeared and I have not seen him ever since.

When I told my parents what had happened, they presented me with no options. I was to abort the baby immediately and they would forgive me. I refused to do something so inhuman. They disowned me and threw me out of the house. The press wasted no time in greedily spreading the scandal. All sorts of rumours were flying around, some of which wanted me a drug addict and away in a rehabilitation centre. Finally, my parents announced that that I was, in fact, vacationing in Hawai (somehow the journalists had failed to discover that I had been disowned, but I expect that was my father's job as he was a highly influential barrister).

The next few months were the most difficult of my life. Having no money whatsoever, I took job after job, hoping I would be able to make ends meet. It proved impossible. The difficulties were insurmountable. Soon after you were born, three days in fact, I was forced to give you up for adoption. The money I was earning was enough for me to get by but with a baby it just could not work, not for any long period of time anyway. I had no one to take care of you when I was working and I was working most of the day.

I realised that even if I did manage to feed you and take care of you, this was not the life I wanted you to have. I decided that in an orphanage you would at least have the basic necessities. I talked to my parents and explained to them what I had done. I literally begged them to find a home for you. My parents took advantage of my despair and pulling a few strings, as usual, quickly placed you with a family so far away, so that I could never see you again.

I was unable to locate your father until only quite recently. I ask that you please try to contact him. Consider that your dying mother's wish. For reasons I cannot describe in this letter I want you to at least try to find him and talk to him. When you come here I will explain everything to you.

I cannot wait until I see you.

Love,

Your mother

P.S. Use this owl to send him the letter. She will find him wherever he is.

Artemis was not just curious, she was intrigued. Why would her mother want her to contact her father after everything he had done to her? Well, I'll find out soon enough, won't I? She decided to write a letter to her father, but she would make it clear to him that the only reason she was doing this was that it was her mother's wish. But why didn't she use the owl to find him in the first place? Maybe she tried but he didn't answer her letters? That figures!

xxxxxxx

Dear Severus Snape,

It is with great reluctance that I am writing this letter but I was asked to do it by someone very close to my heart. I received a letter earlier this week from my biological mother, telling me that I was adopted and that you were my father. Her name is Stacey Gillings and she claims that you left her when she was pregnant with your child, me.

She has asked me to contact you for reasons unknown to me and told me to use this owl to do so for reasons yet again unknown to me. You would be advised not to read anything into this letter as nothing is meant by this gesture. I most definitely seek no contact with you as I am sure you will be pleased to know.

The only reason why I am writing this letter, besides it being my mother's wish, is to ask you whether you truly are my father as my mother claims you to be. In the adoption papers the father was listed as unknown and though I believe Stacey I have found it is better to be safe than sorry.

I understand that you want nothing to do with me but all I want is an honest answer. I promise you that whatever your answer is I will not bother you again in the future.

I ask you to at least go to the pains of composing a letter or a note even, saying yes or no.

I will be waiting for your reply.

Artemis Evagoras