Nathaniel's Daughter Nathaniel knew there was something different about his daughter these days. She was changing. He hated to see it; he hated to admit it to himself, but she was changing, and there was nothing he could do about it. After everything they’d been through! He’d loved her, and nurtured her, given her a good #life and shaped her into a nice, decent person, but she was changing now in a way which he knew he didn’t really understand, but it felt so final, so inevitable. He was losing her, and it was breaking his heart. Of course, she wasn’t really his daughter. He knew that. She knew that. He’d rescued her from the #life of evil which her real mother and father had led, and he’d taken her under his caring, loving wing. She’d resisted at first, but Nathaniel knew what was best for her, and, first through physical strength, and then, gradually, through his gentle words and fatherly love, he’d won her over. It had been difficult. Tough love, some would call it. To tame such an unruly child, the spawn of such appalling parents, had not been a straightforward task, and how she’d howled when he’d beaten her, beaten the devils out of her, beaten her into submission... It was like breaking a wild horse, but he’d done it, he’d driven her parents’ evil from her; he’d cleansed her. No longer would she crave the trappings of the modern world with its bright, white, noisy things, things which roared and shouted and flew and drove, things which towered and smoked and loomed and glowed; the spiteful, angry, terrifying, murderous city. Nathaniel had saved her from those that. She couldn’t help her parentage. It wasn’t her fault that her flesh came from a man and woman who were made of the city. That father: he was tall and ugly and hard and fearsome, just like the sky-scrapers and chimneys Nathaniel and his mother had shivered beneath in the dark days of distant memory, when he was small and helpless in a city which stank. His mother couldn’t protect him anymore, though he knew she was always nearby, watching him and loving him, but no longer able to hold him to her as she always had done in the cold maelstrom of the city. She’d left Nathaniel with nothing but a head full of stories of beautiful people in magical places. Places like this quiet patch of forest. That’s why he’d brought Silvie here. And, with his help, Silvie had become the loving, warm, beautiful person he knew she could be. He had freed her from herself, made her lovely. Of course, she hadn’t looked lovely by then. Or smelt it. In fact, she’d looked a disgrace, like a wraith, bloodied and filthy, just like his mother that night in the city, after the men had gone. That was the night Nathaniel and his mother had left the city, running, afraid. And that was the night his mother had become strange and white and sparkly, glowing like a moonlit cloud, no longer able to hold him, to kiss his forehead or grip his hand or tell him a story. From that night onwards, she was always almost out of sight, just disappearing around the next corner, or peering at him from behind a tree. It was as if she’d decided to let him go, to live his own #life, not in the city’s filth, but in the forest’s warm embrace. She was always near him, but never with him anymore. He was a big boy now; that’s what she used to tell him. Silvie had made the cellar stink. But at least the trees around the cottage wouldn’t have to listen to her cries anymore. At least the birds could start returning to the branches from which her screams had driven them, and peace could return to this tiny, wooded valley where the old ruin stood. Nathaniel’s ruin. He’d found it once; a great white hart had led him here, quite deliberately, somewhere in the stormy fog of time, when it was impossible to tell how near or far away things were. Sometimes, Nathaniel thought that was years and years ago, and sometimes he was sure that it was only yesterday, and sometimes he wondered if it had ever really happened at all, if his mother had ever happened, if there was anything else in the world but him and Silvie and the ruin. Sometimes though, there were other things in the time-fog: people shouting at him; people helping him; people without faces; city people, their voices a painful, roaring discord that he wished he could silence... The ruin must have been a game-keeper’s house once, something like that. He’d found it broken and roofless, in need of love and care and that’s what he’d provided. When the evil had gone from Silvie, he’d cleaned her up with water from the stream, washed the mud and blood and vomit from her hair and clothes and soft, pink skin, and dressed her in a pretty dress and shiny shoes he’d bought for her in town. He could see that pleased her. Then, he’d sat her on a chair which a family of gypsies had recently dumped in a nearby ditch. He’d mended it and painted it, and now it was a throne for the good princess Silvie. And the two of them had lived happily together since then, in their cosy ruin. Nathaniel told Silvie the tales his mother had told him, and Silvie listened like a good girl as the autumn leaves fell onto her jet-black curls, and the rain dripped, and a congregation of deer and rabbits gathered all around and a choir of sparrows, starlings and robins sang in waterfalls of golden sunlight which gushed from the vaulted rafters of the forest canopy. His mother loved Silvie too. She was often there, standing nearby, in the corner of Nathaniel’s eye, watching, smiling, approving. But Silvie was changing now. He hated that. Just when he had quietened her spirit, brought her gentleness to the fore. Why? Why had her skin lost that happy glow; why was that innocent radiance gone from her eyes? Why, when Nathaniel stroked her skin, did she feel like a stone, hard and icy? And when he ran his rough and heavy hands over her once silken locks, why did some of it come away in his fingers, like cobwebs? --------- Thanks for reading! If you liked this Opuss, please repost it for me and click 'like'. I'd love to read any comments you have too - the only way to improve is to find out what other people think. Thanks very much!