Rick Riordan owns the Huntresses of Artemis. He does not, however, own the goddess. Nor do I, as a matter of fact. I own Saint William's, the girls living there, Morgana, and any other tidbits you see.

I'm not an orphan.

That's an interesting way to start this, isn't it? I guess I should have said, My name is Elaine Bernsen and I live in Saint William's Orphanage but I'm not an orphan. Both of my parents are living.

One time Juliana and Yvette locked Mrs. Westbrook (the woman who owned the orphanage) in the pantry. We weren't very worried about her - after all, she had all the food that she could want. Or all the food that was in there, at least, since there never seemed to be quite enough food at Saint William's.

Anyways, Juliana and Yvette locked Mrs. Westbrook in the pantry and the rest of us got crazy. Katerina blasted her music as loudly as she wanted, Juliana and Charlotte had a jumping contest on the bed, and Yvette led the raid on the fridge to "liberate" the ice cream that was left over from my birthday two days ago. I should have been leading the charge (it was, after all, my ice cream) but Sandra lured me away.

Sandra was older than most of us. She was almost twelve and had a fierce, hard look in her eyes. She'd been in the foster system before and had managed to run away so many times that they'd given up and put her in Saint William's. Sandra had not helped in the capture of Mrs. Westbrook, but she seemed determined to take advantage of it.

"Come here, Elly," she hissed, beckoning me sharply. She was my opposite in almost every way - dark hair to my fair, dark eyes to my blue - so I was surprised that she had called for me. I passed the pantry, flinching a little to hear Mrs. Westbrook yelling about how we were all going to be in such trouble when she got out.

Sandra was standing in the doorway of Mrs. Westbrook's office. That was pretty much as totally off limits as it got around here. Sandra grabbed my hand impatiently and tugged me inside with her.

"Don't you want to see the records?" she asked.

"W-what records?" I asked, petrified. Sandra let go of me and hurried behind the desk. I don't know why she was in such a rush. After all, Mrs. Westbrook wasn't getting out anytime soon. Sandra began typing on the keyboard of the ancient computer, trying to wake it up.

"The records about our parents," Sandra told me. "I know that my dad is still alive. And everyone knows that your parents are living. Don't you want to know where they are? Why they left us?"

I didn't. I didn't even want to be reminded that my parents had abandoned me here.

Sandra was clicking furiously and she gestured for me to come close. "Here, this is your file."

I crept up to her side and she pointed at the screen.

Elaine Bernsen, born 7/22/2000

Mother: Morgana Bernsen

Father: Roland Jones

Parent Information: Mother and father were unmarried teens. She became pregnant in 1999 with his child. Child, named Elaine by mother, left at St.W. Current whereabouts of parents unknown.

Sandra was looking at me strangely. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be feeling, so I looked away from the screen and hunched up my shoulders. Sandra didn't say anything, simply closed my file and clicked on another.

I took another glance at the screen.

Sandra Hernandez, born 9/10/1998

Mother: Christina Hernandez, deceased.

Father: unknown

Parent Information: Mother died in childbirth at Santa Rosa Hospital. Father's name and location never discovered.

Sandra glared at the screen and closed the file with slightly more force than necessary. I was almost afraid that she would break the mouse.

"Sandra?" Juliana stood at the door, looking scared. Even Yvette, chocolate ice cream smeared on her chin, looked somber.

"What?" Sandra snapped, putting an oddly possessive hand on my shoulder.

"Charlotte fell off the bed and hit her head," Juliana said, her lip trembling slightly.

"Then let Mrs. Westbrook out," Sandra suggested shortly. "Come on, Elly." She pulled me out of the room, then left me and ran upstairs. I didn't follow her, because I thought that she might be crying. Sandra had once thrown Katerina out of her room when the younger girl walked in and saw Sandra crying. I didn't want to risk Sandra's wrath, because I knew that I would already be facing Mrs. Westbrook's ire that day.

That night I lay in bed, unable to sleep. I wondered about my parents, and Sandra's father. I would have woken Juliana, my roommate, to talk about it but Juliana had cried herself to sleep earlier, after Mrs. Westbrook had chastised the girl roundly and threatened to put her in the foster system.

I wondered if the reason I couldn't sleep was because it was too hot in the room. I got up and pulled open the window. We were lucky to have a window that opened at all. The one in Yvette's room was so stuck that it only opened a few inches.

I got back in bed and lay still, watching the moonlight shifting through the branches. I must have dozed off at some point, because I started to have this strange dream.

I was still in my bed, but there was someone else in the room. Not Juliana - she was still asleep, her back turned towards me.

It was a teenage girl with long blonde hair and skin so pale that the moonlight made it look silver. Her eyes were green and she smiled at me when I opened my eyes. I sat up and looked her over. She was wearing odd silver clothes and had a quiver thrown over one shoulder.

"Hey there," she whispered, and it almost sounded like she was keeping back the tears.

"Hi," I said. I shivered slightly; the open window had made the room much colder.

The girl immediately crossed to my bed and pulled my blankets up around my shoulders. Then she froze and took a cautious step back, as though afraid of having overstepped some boundary.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"I'm..." she seemed overwhelmed, unable to say anything.

"I'm Elaine," I told her.

"I know," she said, tears coming to her eyes. The tears almost looked silver in the light.

"Are you a fairy?" I asked.

"What?" she said, surprised and a little indignant. Juliana mumbled something and the silvery girl dropped her voice. "Why would you ask that?"

"You're all shiny," I told her. "And my window's on the second floor. Did you fly through?"

"There's a tree," she said, somewhat distractedly. She sat on the edge of my bed. "And I'm not a fairy. I'm a Huntress."

"That explains the arrows," I said, reaching out to touch one. She went very still when my hand was close to her face.

"As for being 'shiny'," she said when I'd withdrawn the hand. "I serve Artemis, the goddess of the moon."

I'd never heard of this person before. I couldn't remember any goddesses of the moon in the fairy tale books that Mrs. Westbrook sometimes let us read, so I dismissed this information.

"That's cool," I said, trying to sound interested.

"Elaine," she paused, one hand hovering in the air between us. Then she closed the distance and her fingertips brushed my face. "I'm your mother."

I jumped, as though I'd been electrocuted by her touch. My 'mother' got up stepped back into the moonlight, looking miserable.

"You can't be my mother!" I hissed. "You... you're only a few years older than me!"

"Artemis grants her Huntresses immortality, as long as we deny the company of men," the girl told me.

"I don't know where you think babies come from, but I'm not totally clueless!" Juliana shifted and the girl's eyes flicked over to my roommate's slumbering form.

"I had you before I joined the Hunt," the girl told me quietly. "I only met Artemis after you were born."

"I don't believe you," I glared at her, pulling my blankets tighter as though to shield me from her words.

"I met Roland when I was fifteen," she said, taking a deep breath. When she said my father's name, her eyes flashed dangerously. "And I became pregnant with you. When Roland heard... he left us, Elaine. He abandoned us."

"You abandoned me," I growled.

"No, Elaine," she said, looking as though she wanted nothing more than to wrap me in her arms. "I... I admit that at first, the pregnancy was unwanted. But then you were born," a silent, silver tear streaked down her face. "You were so beautiful. A girl, a beautiful little girl of my own."

I didn't say anything, just turned my face away. "I didn't - couldn't trust men after what Roland had done to me," my mother continued. I saw her twirling a piece of her long blonde hair nervously. The same nervous habit that I had - the same hair that I had.

"Artemis offered an escape," my mother said. "And I took it. But I couldn't bring a child on the Hunt. I thought that this would be a good place for you."

"It is," I muttered. Because despite not having a lot of food or windows that opened, Saint William's was a pretty good home. Mrs. Westbrook was kind and let us have story books when we wanted them and ice cream on our birthdays.

"I didn't want to leave you," my mother insisted. "Artemis gave me a week to decide what to do. I thought that this would be for the best."

For a moment, we looked at each other in silence. Just looked across the room at each other. I could tell that she saw Roland in my blue eyes, because she avoided looking at them directly.

"What's your name?" I asked. If she was my mother, her name would match the one on the file.

"Morgana," she said, looking a little confused at the question.

I threw back the covers and leapt into her arms. She wrapped her arms around me and I buried my face in her silky silver tunic, sobbing. I had a mother. I had a mother. She held me and I held her, crying with silent, hysteric sobs.

"Don't leave," I begged. "Don't leave me alone."

She hesitated. "Artemis is waiting," she whispered. "She only let me come because I knew that it was your birthday a few days ago."

"Let me come with you," I plead.

She pushed me back and looked at me, her eyes catching mine and holding them. A flash of distaste crossed her face at the sight of those eyes but she smiled kindly enough.

"You could come," she said softly. "If you swore yourself to Artemis and vowed to leave the company of men."

I hesitated. I had always loved the romantic stories in the fairy tales, where the prince comes and rescues the maiden. My mother saw that moment of hesitation and patiently patted my hair.

"It's all right, my darling," she told me. "The Hunt is not for everyone. But I must go back."

"I understand," I nodded, letting go of her and stepping back.

She waited until I climbed back into bed. My mother stood in the moonlight, glorious and as young as the day she had brought me into the world. I thought that no goddess could look prettier than my mother at that moment, with her sad green eyes and the moonlight turning her hair silver.

"I'll always love you, Elaine," she told me. "When the moon shines at night, it will be my lullaby - me singing to you from wherever the Hunt is. I'll come back and see you, I promise."

I nodded, suddenly sleepy. It was almost as though the moonlight really was lulling me to sleep as my head fell back against the pillow. I tried to watch for as long as I could, but I closed my eyes for a second and the next moment, she was gone.

I've seen my mother a few times since that year. One time I told my mother about Sandra and how unhappy she was. My mother went very quiet and said, "Well, I'll see what I can do." A week later, Sandra was gone. Shipped off to some sort of summer camp. I asked if I could go, too, but my mother laughed and said something about Sandra's father arranging her trip. When I frowned and pouted my mother simply sighed, patted my head, and said simply, "I'm only mortal."

"You mean only human," I corrected. "Besides, aren't you immortal?"

"Hm? Whatever you say, darling."

She doesn't approve of my boyfriend (are you really surprised that she doesn't?) but she hasn't tried to shoot him yet with one of her arrows, so I guess that's as good as I can hope for. The meeting itself was awkward enough, since I am now the same age as my mother (it's bizarre, I know) and she was being about as passive-aggressive as she could get towards poor, bewildered Jareth, who had no idea why my 'friend' was mad at him.

Even on the nights my mother isn't here, I leave the window open. Juliana had complained at first, but eventually accepted (albeit somewhat grudgingly) my claim that moonlight was good for you.

Whenever a full moon shines, I had dreams of girls clad in silver, running through the dark forests.

What did you think? I don't usually get a lot of reviews, so I'd appreciate any comments, questions, or concerns that you throw my way.