Chapter Fifty One Nathan's Point of View
He waved to the princess. "Bye, Rapunzel!" Azalea waved harder than he did. Her golden hair shook in the cold breeze and Nathan was tempted to brush back the stray strands. Alex had met them halfway to the palace, and accompanied them escorting Rapunzel back.
The with-child princess was waving back to Azalea, a peaceful smile on her face. Rapunzel had seemed so tired when Nathan had seen her in the prison. Now she looked a little happier and she walked with a light spring in her step. He tried not to recall how the blond hair braided had looked like a golden rope. He remembered how hard he tried not to cringe as he had a wild thought of her hair wrapping itself around his neck, and then he would be hanging in a tree-
"Well," Dwayne's voice caught his attention. The sunset air was cold while the sun beamed down weakly to chase the chill away. "I had no idea the scratches were still hurting until Rapunzel showed up."
Liam was grinning ear to ear. "She's a rare creature, that's for sure."
"Women aren't another species!" Alex rebuked them teasingly as they started back on the trail to the prisons.
Dwayne smirked. "Some understand them easier than others." His gray eyes smiled at Nathan's green ones. Nathan tipped an invisible hat to Dwayne and they both snickered.
Azalea clung to him as they followed the dirt trail. Nathan held onto her warm hand and relished how soft it felt. She hadn't resented getting Rapunzel back, though Nathan could only imagine the turmoil she had been in to get the Princess when she knew that she'd be arrested. She did her duties and never slacked; she had even helped him with his own duties. She never wavered, and he loved seeing the warm glow in her eyes whenever she looked at him. Azalea is a rare creature as well, he realized.
Alex looked at the two of them and though he smiled, it didn't reach his eyes. Nathan's good mood dissolved and he found himself dreading the work waiting for them. Liam sensed his mood plummet and lapsed into an animated tale of how Michael had nearly wrenched his shoulder from trying to teach Maximus to walk on command. Liam and Michael had been good friends throughout boyhood, and David had only met the mysterious Michael a year before Rapunzel had come back.
Azalea's eyes were unfocused as she daydreamed, and Nathan liked how pensive she looked. His little Doll named after a flower was daydreaming.
When they reached the prisons, it was after dark and most of the prisoners were in for the night. Nathan sighed as Alex locked them back in their cages.
"Stuck in here surrounded by innocent bastards should be a crime." Liam mused from his cell next to Dwayne.
"We're bastards?" Nathan exclaimed. "I think so highly of you, too, Liam." Liam smiled coyly at Nathan, who found himself returning the gesture.
David groaned. "Who would arrest who? All the wardens would be in jail, Liam."
"I'd arrest them." Alex said. He locked Azalea's cage. "No doubt about that. I should be the head warden around here."
"And you'd be bloody good." Nathan said, a drawl in his voice. He laid back on the iron floor and groaned. "First thing you should change are the accommodations."
Dwayne was already asleep. Nathan grinned when he peeked through the gap in the wall between his and Azalea's cell to see her passed out from exhaustion.
Alex bid them a quiet goodnight, and then the [rison was quiet. Nathan's mind drifted as he tried sink into a doze.
"And the minister said, 'Do you Wesley Keen take Abigail Lei to be your wife?" His mother is lying on the bed, rubbing her stomach. She smiles at him, and Nathan smiles back hesitantly.
"And what did he say?"
"He said 'yes', of course." Her green eyes sparkles with tears. "And then he swept me off my feet."
Nathan stares around the familiar room. He has been in here more than usual. His father being away on so many nights always left him feeling vulnerable, and he had been glad when his mother had started asking him to lie next to her until she fell asleep.
"Where is he now? Still working?" Nathan scoots closer to his mother, pulling the covers over her hand that was still on her stomach.
"I suppose so." She murmurs quietly. "He never tells me what the meetings are." Nathan recalls the conversation with a pang, remembering that he was only two when it happened. His younger sister, Anna-Beth, hasn't been born yet, and will be two years younger than him forever when she finally enters the world.
"Maybe he's throwing a surprise party for the princess's birthday." Nathan offers. Smiles form on both of their faces at the idea.
"Maybe he's waiting for cute little Anna-Beth to come out so you can buy her a lantern of her own." His mother teases. She wipes the tears away when Nathan had looked around the room.
"I don't have any money," Nathan grins, "and besides, I have an idea for my lantern."
"And what is that darling?" His mother sleepily combs his dark hair out with her fingers.
"I want a green circle on my lantern." Nathan tries to catch a glimpse of any purple splotches on her arms that he knew were there. "I'm going to paint it on with grinded up leaves."
"Oh really?" His mother pulls her arms back and he saw it: a fresh purple bruise by her elbow. "That will take years to do."
Nathan isn't discouraged. "It'll look different from all the other lanterns." Nathan smiles and sinks down on the pillows.
"You never made me leave the house!" His mother screams. Nathan had remembered the time when his mother and father had been arguing in the bakery his father's friend owned. They had to take over when the two men had to go to a meeting. Nathan had understood that his father's friend was waiting outside, and hadn't heard the harsh exchange between Nathan's parents
His mother had told him that it was an accident, but Nathan knew it wasn't. How could having a bad burn on your hands when you were handling dough be an accident? He had noticed him when he went to bed, after kissing her hands 'goodnight' trying to practice being a gentleman. She had kissed his forehead fondly, and that was when he had seen the burns.
"You're cheating on me!" His father roars at her. His hand goes flying across his mother's face and Nathan surges forward as his father called his mother names that Nathan doesn't want to remember.
"Leave her alone!" Nathan screams but is pushed back against the oven. He yelps as a searing pain hit the back of his shoulder and struggled to block it out.
"Nathan! Don't you hit him!" His mother knocks his father away to gently pull Nathan off the floor. Nathan winces when he saw new dark blisters forming on his mother's hands. She shrieks at his father accusingly, "You burned him!" Nathan had never been so glad that four year old little Anna-Beth was upstairs at a friend of his mother's house, sound asleep.
"He should know not to get in the middle of these things." His father is old, in his fifties, and has never tolerated nonsense. Nathan had worried about him when he had started coming of age, seeing his father have tantrums and angry fits that seemed to happen for no reason.
His father storms out the bakery his father's friend owned, mindful of the fact that it was after dark and all the customers had left. "I'm going to the meeting. Keep six year old Nathan here, or I'll finish what I've started." When his father looks back, Nathan saw fear in his eyes.
His mother ignores him and cooed to Nathan as he starts crying. Nathan worries his mother's hands gently as he keeps getting water from the well in the back. He dumps the water carelessly on her hands, yelling apologies when she screams from the coldness of it, and gets more water.
When she finally makes him stop to tend to his own burn, she has passed out from the angry red color his skin had been. He gets the pail and dumps the entire bucket over his head, gritting his teeth as the cold water flowed on the burn.
And then the memory that was still fresh in his mind.
"Is father home yet?" Nathan asks as they walk through the quiet town. "He's been gone for three days." He reminds her.
His mother holds his little sister's hand tightly as Anna-Beth stares at the guards. "He must have gone out of town this time."
His tiny ten year old body shakes. "Has he ever done that before?"
"No." Fear creeps into her voice.
When they reach the house, Nathan chases Anna-Beth into the backyard. She giggles as she totters forward on small eight year old legs. She dashes around the one tree in their backyard and smiles as he gained a few more yards.
He looks up at the tree branches and a shoe hits him in the face. He takes a step back and looked at the tree. The color drains from his face.
Anna-Beth's voice makes him remember how to move again.
"Mommy, something's wrong with Nathan!"
His mother comes running. "Nathan? What's wrong?"
He points at the tree and shields Anna's eyes.
His mother screams and the scream had haunted him in the coming nightmares. "Wesley!"
His father is hanging in the tree. Lynched, that would be the tern he would know when he turned eleven.
Anna is trying to see. "Did someone try to climb the tree with a rope, Mommy?"
Nathan can't move. He knows he was going to pass out, he knows it.
"Mommy, what's wrong with Nathan?" Fear creeps into her voice now. The warm darkness is coming. Nathan can feel his body pitch forward.
Anna shouts, "Nathan? Nathan!"
"Nathan!"
His eyes flew open as he sat up, gasping.
"What?" He put his face in his hands. He hadn't realized that he had fallen asleep.
"Are you okay?" He looked to find the voice and saw that Azalea was peeping through the gap to see his face. "You were muttering something about someone not climbing trees."
"Bad dream." Nathan groaned and wiped wetness from his eyes. He grimaced.
Azalea looked worried. "But are you okay now?"
Nathan nodded. "Go back to sleep."
When they went quiet, Nathan strained to hear Azalea breathe as she sunk into sleep. He rested his head against the wall, praying that sleep would hit him fast.
