Entry #1

Adan,

I am sitting on a tavern’s porch under a red wooden canopy between Cartagena and Santa Marta, and the storm has come in on rolling, thick clouds. Every eye on our ship has been set on the horizon since this morning. Men with piercing, and assured dark eyes, were for once apprehensive and doubtful as they looked at the far off cluster of stormy boulders.

Having finished my breakfast, I climbed the steps from the galley expecting to step into another sunny Caribbean morning, but instead saw an ashen sky, and felt this churlish wind wrap around my neck. One of the sailors, a gruff man chewing his words over with a lump of tobacco, pointed a callused finger out to sea.

"You just look out there, Hermana Nieve," he grunted. "You want us to sail in that, eh?"

He was indicating the nest of swollen black clouds, pregnant with what I could assume were outrageous winds and ear popping thunder. The mass was dragging a black veil across the choppy horizon, and occasionally lightening tongues would slither and lick along the nebulous bellies.

I shook my head, transfixed on the darkness far ahead of us. "No, signor," I said, my whispered words were carried away with a passing hiss of wind.

"You and the captain both. He's seen it all, too. Seen it all." His smile was big, his tiny eyes pinched and sparkling with humor at me, now quivering and pale at the sight of such natural power combing the sea. It stalked like some sort of beast, and we could feel its thunderous footfalls on the air. "Maybe you missed your calling as a captain, eh?"

I smiled. "Maybe, signor."

These are hard men I have been traveling with, Adan. Even on this voyage, the storms that frightened me to tears are not nearly as bad as the maelstroms they have lived through. Worked through! Even so, the Captain, who is always the first to rise, insisted we dock as soon as we cleared Cartagena. We would have docked there, but pirates had taken the city, and the Captain thought it too risky for me and my traveling companion, Carmen, to step ashore there.

By late afternoon we had pulled into the small port of Santa Ana, and docked. The Captain, his crew, and the handful of other passengers Carmen and I had been traveling with disembarked and made our way to the nearest tavern. The rain had already started.

So, here I am, beneath this canopy, waiting for Carmen to bring us something warm to drink. She really is so sweet. The kindest girl you’d ever meet, Adan. If she were not so committed to our sisters, I daresay she would have been the best girl for you! Like me she is a novitiate. We are both only a year or so out from our integration into the cloister. Although Carmen is very headstrong about joining the sisters, I am more interested in imploring an anchorite’s abode from the Bishop.

The rain sounds like tiny pebbles on wooden canopy over my head. So peaceful. I watch the puddles in the mud beyond the tavern’s steps. They are spitting back tiny brown beads every time a drop of water strikes the surface. I know the ship is out there, beyond this wall of constantly shifting water, but she is only an outline now. A ghost drifting behind this flowing veil between me and the dock.

“Two teas,” Carmen said upon her return.

I jumped a little. “Carmen, you startled me.”

“Oh, I am sorry, dear,” she giggled as she settled next to me, and to my surprise she had also brought us a dish of grilled pawpaw! We sipped our tea and ate our fruit, and she eyed the book sitting in my lap, at the time sheathing what was left of my graphite pencil. “How is Adan?”

“He’s doing well,” I said, and set my book off to the side. “I am telling him all about our trip.”

Carmen frowned. “Even the bits where I was sea sick.”

“Especially those!”

“The Captain said we should be clear to set out tomorrow.”

“Really? I feel like this rain could never let up.”

“Are you excited about Santa Marta?”

“Yes, very much.”

Carmen was so quiet all of a sudden. Her head had bowed very low that I thought her chin transformed to lead. In contrast to such a heavy expression, her fingertip lightly traced the lip of her nearly empty tea cup. “Me too.”

“Sister,” I touched her wrist, “you seem so worried.”

“I must confess I am a… little nervous.”

“Oh, Carmen,” I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, and kissed the top of her head. “Why? Is it the storm that has you out of sorts?”

“I’m not sure,” she said distantly, and then leaned back so she could look at me with her big hazel eyes. “Just homesick.“ There were tears there, my face melted with sympathy. “I miss the cloister.”

“I do too,” I confided, giving her shoulder a squeeze. Though, I will admit only to you for now, I was not particularly so homesick as Carmen. I did miss our cloister, of course, but this was just so eclipsed by the eagerness I had for this land I had never seen before. Still, Adan, was I lying? Carmen felt so alone without the sisters, I just wanted her to know she wasn’t.

At that moment, the table of sailors back inside the tavern erupted with laughter to what I could only assume was a well-timed joke. They were slapping the table, making their food and frothy beers jump up and down. I chuckled, and this brought a smile back to Carmen’s face. “But we will see them so soon! The year will fly.”

There was a clap of thunder. My heart skipped a beat.

“You’ll see, Carmen, I promise.”

We had more tea, and watched the storm a little longer before retiring to bed. I could hear the thunder growling as I prayed. Crawling into bed, laying still as I waited for sleep, I listened to the rain dance across my window. The lightening winked across the sky, momentarily casting dark shapes in my room, contorted and strange against the sudden brilliance. Even so, I was lulled to sleep.