Hope just finished rereading the letter for the countless time. Her parents had sent it to her. Aunt Mary had been kind to her when she first got it, freaking out, sobbing, laughing, screaming, having fits and lots more. Of course, so wouldn’t anyone when for some reason, after growing up to be almost 15 and you just found out your parents were alive and had sent you to your aunt’s place for your "safety". Really, what could be so bad that it was ok for her parents to live wherever they were, yet not her? And what did her father mean by her parents being royalty? Did that make her a princess? Do princesses get taken away from their parents as soon as they’re born and given to a "family member" to grow up? Was that all normal? No. Of course not. No one who’s a princess ever grows up with anyone but her parents. So why was she with her Aunt Mary instead of in her parents’ arms? And when Magnus, her father, said that they’d see each other when she turned of age, what was he talking about? Would she actually be able to meet her parents soon? When she turned 18 or 21 or was it some other age? And what was her heritage? Whenever Hope asked her aunt these questions, all Mary said was, "When the time comes, child, you will know." What did that mean?

Quickly burshing her mousey brown hair, Hope took a good look at her plain features. She had big almond shaped eyes, something she had read about meant you were beautiful. Why didn’t she feel beautiful? She had big, plump lips that always seemed to be smiling, but maybe that was because he just found out that her parents might be real and she only had a year to wait. Only 366 days (it was a leap year this year). Only 8,784 hours to wait. Only 527, 040 minutes until she met her mother. Only 31,622,400 seconds until she met her father. Again she glanced at her unnaturally pale skin, wondering why she couldn’t ever get any color. Strangely, Hope never even burned. But, in Hope’s point of view, if it meant that she would have some color other than white, she would gladly take it.

Putting down her brush, she glanced at the clock and saw soon it was time for school. Not for the last time Hope folded up the mysterious letter from her parents and headed out the house for school.

When she got there, as usual she met up with her few friends. Casy and Sandy. Sadly, they were put into separate homerooms, had no classes together and didn’t even have the same lunch anymore. Lately, Hope had been feeling like life really hated her. People telling her that her parents were dead, giving her the dorkiest name on the planet and giving her so few friends. Not to mention making her a band geek (she played flute and loved it), bookworm and math genius (no one should ever be as smart in anything as she was in math). But Hope lived with this. She has been in the past ten houses she lived in. Why her aunt couldn’t just settle down anywhere was beyond Hope, but she moved without a fight (she had tried one year and had gotten not only grounded for a month but also made no progress). But the last two times her aunt and her had moved, she noticed a strange letter arrived. It was always addressed to her aunt and Mary never opened it around Hope. This puzzled Hope, but like everything else in her life, she learned to live with it.

Here, in Connecticut, Hope had been going to the local high school for three months now. She lived in about every house for a school year, moving in the middle of summer, at the very end of school or a day or so before the beginning of the new year. Every year. Except when they moved to South Carolina. She had lived there for two years, made great friends, been liked by almost everyone at school, had great grades and was accepted for who she was. Nowhere else has that happened to her.

After going to all her classes and packing, she headed out for her bus where she sat alone for the long ride home.

When she got home, nothing was different. She got herself a snack, worked on her homework, went on the computer to talk to her old friends and other things she did all the time. The only thing that was different was today, online she searched her parents on Google.

Out of the six pages that came up, she found nothing that would resemble King and Queen of England. Besides, she was next to positive it was Queen Elizabeth on the throne right now, not Caila or even Magnus.

This puzzled Hope beyond reason. Why can’t I find my parents? She thought. This must be someone’s idea of a cruel joke. But who would do this? Not even Michael goes this low. But if its real and my parents are King and Queen, why can’t I find them? It was beyond strange in her world.

Before she knew it, Mary was calling her to dinner.

"So, Hope, anything interesting happen at school today?" Aunt Mary asked, trying to get an answer out of Hope.

"Eh, nothing much," she replied in a dull voice

"Oh," this was the way most dinners went.

The rest of dinner went by without a sound. There was nothing to be said and it wasn’t until they were almost done with dinner that aunt Mary spoke to Hope again.

"Hope, you seem a bit off since we moved here. I know you miss your friends down in South Carolina, but it’s been three months now. Life goes on, and you need to make new friends," Mary said.

"I know, Mary. I’m trying. Can I please be excused? I’m not feeling very hungry," Hope said before getting up from the table, bringing her milk and dinner to the sink.

Before Hope got up the stairs to her room, Mary said, "Hope, if you need to talk to me about anything, feel free to. Oh, and remember, in a day it’ll be your fifteenth birthday. You should be happy!"

"Yes, Mary," Hope replied while walking up the stairs to start homework and continuing to search for more information about her parents. Or, in her case, any information on her parents.

What did you guys think? I know it's kinda a filler chapter, except for the letter and a bit more, but I promise next chapter is going to be a thousand times better (not to mention you guys are gonna be begging me for the third chapter to be up!! But enough about the future! Time for...well...idk...writing/updating VK 5!! (no, for once i am not like five stories ahead of the post...)...So yeah!!

Kindly review, and I hope you guys enjoyed it!! Keep patient for the next chapter (which will be up soon!)

-Lizza