Page 29 of A Princess, Stolen
“I don’t want to shout like this—and I certainly don’t want to come in. The boss would kill me if he caught me.”
At first, I wanted to get up but then decided to remain seated. Maybe Troy was the one planning a mutiny.
“Fine, if you don’t want to know…if you don’t trust me…then I’ll leave now.”
“No, wait!” I needed more information, but for a few seconds, I hesitated. Maybe I could take a step or two in his direction. Demonstrate my goodwill without putting myself within his reach. But what was his reach?
Carefully, I stood up and, for a few seconds, everything spun even though I couldn’t see anything. I was so dizzy from the rocking, the situation, the hunger, and the fear. I leaned against the wall behind me and waited a moment before taking twosmall steps in Troy’s direction. “Close enough?” I asked. If only I could stretch out my hands to feel the bars!
“Just a little further.”
I shook my head silently. I felt like I was in the fairy taleHansel and Gretelas if Troy wanted to lure me to him and put me in the hot oven, although, the hot oven could be anything.
He sighed. “Okay, I see…you’re still afraid of me. I’ll allow it. I’ll tell you anyway. By the way, I could grab one of your pretty braids, you’re standing that close to the bars.”
I quickly took a step back.
Troy took a deep breath. “So, the boss once had a little sister. She died when he was eleven.”
Behind my blindfold, the colorful dots of the Palace of Shards suddenly danced. Nathan’s voice surged through this memory. I come here to talk to my sister. With Lea.
“He was incredibly attached to her. As much as a person can be attached to someone. She was everything to him. Really, everything. His life, his breath, his soul. The most beautiful thing he had ever seen.”
His poetic words sounded melancholic as if he felt them, and they touched me deeply even if I didn’t want them to.
“She became seriously ill and he promised to take her to the bayous.”
“To the bayous?” I asked, irritated, and for a second, I forgot my fear of him. Bayous were slow-flowing rivers, lakes, and streams. In Louisiana, this meant the entire Mississippi delta, but not only that, the entire coast was covered by this swamp landscape that I loved so much. My room, my southern room, was a reflection of this landscape! Green water, ancient bald cypresses, and Spanish moss like silver tinsel.
“He had told his sister about the bayous, repeatedly. They are home to the persecuted, displaced, and ostracized. He always told her that they would find a new home there, that there wouldbe enough to eat, and that they would no longer have to steal because they could make a living from crabbing and hunting…no more running away. She was supposed to see the bayous at least once, but…”
“But?” I repeated cautiously.
“She died before that, somewhere along the Mississippi. But he kept his promise. He took her there after she died and buried her between two lonely swamp banks even though he was still a child himself. Eleven years old. It’s hard to imagine.” He was silent for a moment and then he added softly, “He never forgave himself for not getting his sister to the bayous so she could see them with her own eyes… She was deaf and mute…that was why it was so important to him to show her something beautiful.”
My heart was pounding hard in my chest. The leader of this group had to be Nathan. There was no doubt about it.
However, what about his parents? His family? Was there no one left?
My family is none of your business! You have no right to say those words. To voice them aloud. To even think them! Not you! Especially not you…
What had happened to him that those words would make him so angry? Blindly, I tried to look in Troy’s direction. “Tucekilemeur—what does it mean?”
He snorted. “Do you seriously think I’m going to tell you?”
“Your boss said they were words. So it can’t be a first name. Why did you even tell me if you don’t want to tell me what they mean?” I asked.
“You know,” Troy said, and I was startled because he seemed much closer than before. “Because of his sister, he only makes promises that he can keep. In his eyes, he failed back then. He broke that promise, and even in death, he swore to his little sister that it would never happen again. Promises mean everything in his family.”
After he left, I returned to my seat on the floor and thought about what he had told me. The ship’s boss was definitely the boy from Baton Rouge. I should have been happy about that because now I should feel safer, but instead, bitterness grew inside me.
He definitely knew who I was and he didn’t care. I had always associated the old Nathan with adventure and freedom. A common bond because we both knew what grief meant. Over the years, I had treasured that summer in Louisiana in my memories, recalling it whenever I felt alone and locked up in the penthouse as if I were in a fortress. Safe but not free. But if this was Nathan now, my memory and the whole summer would crumble to dust because he was trampling my freedom. He mocked me. He laughed at me. In fact, if he was Nathan, I would despise him even more than a stranger. Somehow, that made me sad.
I thought of his bracelet still stuck in one of my braids. I had carried it with me for so long to remind me of all the feelings Nathan had awakened in me, but what did it mean anymore? Nothing. Nothing at all.
Over the next few days, I discovered that all the men were never awake at the same time. There were shifts they called off duty. I learned to distinguish most of the voices from one another. The men on one watch usually stayed the same, which I learned by their voices. Troy, Sparta, Pan, and one they called Icarus were always awake at the same time, so they were definitely on the same shift.
Sometimes, toward evening I guessed, music played, glasses or bottles clinked, and the smell of roast and potatoes wafted down to me. They ate together, laughed, and played cards. They showered in the corridor where I was held captive and theymocked me, stuck in a kind of cage, dirty, sticky, and hungry. They all hated me. Troy seemed to be the only exception and I felt more worthless than ever even though I was probably more valuable to them than a diamond. I asked several times if they could remove the blindfold, at least for an hour, but they merely laughed about it, especially Pan, Sparta, and the one they called Taurus. “Spoiled little princess, we not here to powder your ass” was the nicest thing Pan said to me. I have no idea where Troy was during those moments and who knows if he would have defended me at all. I hadn’t yet figured out if there was some kind of hierarchy here.
