Righting a wrong

I've never seen my father look agitated but I couldn't blame him, it's been close to twenty years since my mother disappeared without a trace, I Never knew who she was, didn't even know if I looked like her because I didn't even know what she looked like, apparently seeing my mother's face sent Dad into a frenzy, it was bad for his health, so I never asked about her.

after she disappeared he threw out everything that belonged to her and thirteen years ago we suddenly heard that she had died near a park and no one knew how, my father had never forgiven himself for giving up on her, he thought that if he had looked for her and made her stay with him she wouldn't have died.

And now knowing someone had something to tell him about my mother, his late wife, was a huge deal.

"Valeria, you don't have to be here." His face was creased with worry.

"I want to be father, I also want to know about my mother."

Diego entered with Octavian behind him.

"Get on with it." My father snapped, not even giving Octavian a moment.

"Cecilia Hortensius was a bear shifter."

I frowned, "what's a shifter."

"A shifter is someone who can...let's say morph into an animal of some sorts."

That was crazy, but because my father didn't contradict him I kept quiet.

"Cecilia gave birth to Koala Hedgins in the year 1994."

My father sucked in a breath, "He was kidnapped a year after he was born and was proclaimed dead two months later, Cecilia was so stricken with grief that she slept out, whored herself, went against her parents wishes and divorced her husband a year later. She met you at a family function and fell in love then married you a year later. She gave birth to a girl two years later."

"The nurse in charge lied and said it was still born."

My eyes almost came out with how widened they got, still born!. My father was already trembling.

"The child is alive and now an independent adult, two years later she gave birth to twin girls."

My father was now shedding tears. "One of the child was again kidnapped in the hospital and when she woke up she was told she only gave birth to one, and that's Valeria here.

But, the boy they told her was dead is alive and the child they kidnapped is also alive."

I held on to the edge of the chair hard, afraid that if didn't have an anchor I was going to faint, I had an brother and an elder sister and a twin sister somewhere out there.

Diego was the only rational one in the room. "How are we sure you are telling us the ttruth?".

"Because I am, and here's the proof."

He brought out three pictures.

"here's the boy." He pointed at the middle picture. The picture was taken at an awkward angle, it was like the boy didn't even know his picture was being taken.

He had strawberry blonde hair, a straight and narrow nose, a sharp jawline, thick full eyebrows and long eyelashes and forest green eyes, like mine, he looked tall and slender, like a swimmers body.

My father's fingers trembled as he took the picture from him.

"And here is Jordan Hortensius, your first daughter."

The girl had dirty blonde hair like mine, blue eyes like my dad's, she looked like the female version of my dad, she was beautiful.

My dad was now openly sobbing and I was by my side doing the same thing.

"And here's your twin sister, Valeria Danica Hortensius the Third"

She had strawberry blonde hair like the boy, her eyes were mercury, an odd shade of eye colour.

It took me a moment to register what he called her.

"Why is she also called Valeria?"

"That was the name the people who kidnapped her named her."

"Who are you really, Mr Octavian?"

He smiled at me. "I'm Octavian Vesper, and a week ago I thought I was dead but then I woke up in a room and a man who called himself Knox Hortensius gave me a Job, he said he was going to die and he wanted to right a wrong, and to repay him for saving my life, I had to help him achieve what he couldn't; bringing the family back together."

"And where are they?" Diego asked.

"They're all in California."