Hm. I smell some challenge in the water!
I mean, come on, I didn't want to lose my storm. I love that storm. It's a nod to a fitting bit from Revelations Chapter 1, verse 7:
Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. |
I am rather partial to it.
So, this go around, the first chapter is a little different. The short lived character Elias is also back, he's graduated from bit part to supporting character, so make him feel at home. The storm has been shifted to the beginning of Chapter 2, instead of Chapter 1, where it haunts the ship, rather than making a specific appearance.
1
Adan, the year is 1520.
The woods, the gnarled roots, the whisper of leaves around my feet. The sun taking the day with it beyond the horizon. The pretty sunset should have set me at ease, but I see it here and relive. What I see, what I feel, what I smell, touch, and whimper. It all floods back. Such nightmares almost consumed me, but I was pitched from my bed, poured onto the floor of a slanting, creaking cabin. The candle by my bed fell with me and rolled to the whims of the unsteady ship. The wax beacon sputtered across the floor, that light was the only light I had in here. No window to let in the sun, the moon, the stars, blue or gray skies, any of which could be beyond my cabin, and no lantern hanging from a crooked hook.
Would I lose my light?
My covers were coiled around me, the roots of my sleep that begged me to roost further in my nightmare. However, the restless vessel I had called home for the better part of three months would not allow a return to these horrid visions. Instead, the floor slanted further, the walls groaned, and I could hear a slamming, a ramming, a battering against them. Like something wanted to force its way through the planks, find me in my fading light and carry me out to sea.
As I recovered, I could hear the sound of the crew rushing overhead. Their footfalls, usually heavy and thunderous, were pitter-patters compared to the claps against my wall. What had we encountered? I was so close to my destination, I could already feel the sand between my toes, and yet here we were: threatened and frail. Would God hear my prayers through the din of so much madness?
I was to my feet, I rescued my candle, and staggered to the bed as my room continued to pitch with the ship. Threads of still wet wax burned warm against my palm, along my fingers. The sting would have been pronounced further were it not for my drumming heart, the shaking room within the rumbling boat, all of it alone on a dark sea. Then, I heard her:
"Nieve!”
My companion, Hermana Carmen, she was calling to me from what seemed another and far-off world. An ear-searing sound pierced the present racket. I was launched from my feet, I slammed into my sealed door and the candle was snuffed out. My stomach churned and flipped, I thought my feet would leave the air. I burst out of my room and into darkness.
The narrow corridor boasted the cries and complaints of the other passengers. Just four doors down in this wing of the ship, in these cabins I now fearfully confuse with watery coffins, my friend screamed for me. We were family; like sisters in times of joy, mothers in times of need. She needed me now, and I had to find her.
“Nieve! Where are you?” Carmen’s call echoed.
“I am here, I am all right. I will come to you!”
“Nieve,” a hand caught my arm. I turned to find our traveling companion and guardian, Elias Veda. His dark hair was untied and knotted strands framed his now pale face. Normally calm and warm brown eyes were alert and fearful. He was a man with fine aim, strength, and bravery on his side, all of which had not prepared him for something like this. He was a Spanish soldier joining the ranks stationed in Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. We had been paired with him, and he had proven a fine protector and chaperon as we all journeyed to the New Spain, but even now he struggled in this charge. He was nothing against the vicious rocking ship.
Before he could say anything further, the ship slammed. The force of the stop, the way Elias and I crashed to the floor… my dear brother, I thought we had struck rock. There was no snap in the hull beneath us, just a heavy sigh and rolling groan. Elias had me securely in his grasp. He waited there, waited for the water to rush in, pin us to the walls or suck us into the open maw of the sea. The noise was dulled upon meeting the floor. Now, I could only hear Elias’s breath by my ear, and my heart kept beat with the rhythm of panic I was trying so desperately to contain.
I bit my lip.
I clenched my eyes shut.
I returned Elias’s grip, and shuddered; a combination of fear and the control I was attempting in the face of it.
None of the shipmen were racing below deck to find us. The sawing motion of our large vessel resumed. As disorienting as it all was for my feet, and though the swiftly shifting diagonal of the corridor challenged my balance, I was up again. Would we sink or would we sail? The answer to both questions was still one solid, constant: Carmen had to be found. I staggered passed the doors, all of them echoed with the complaints and laments of their occupants. I finally grabbed the knob to Carmen’s portal and twisted it open.
Carmen was braced to the nearest wall. She was a mess of red hair and tangled robe. Her white-knuckled fist shelled half a rosary away from the chaos. Her hazel eyes found me. I went to her swiftly, embraced her.
“It was a monster. It felt like a monster,” Carmen stammered, and I smoothed her wild hair from her gaunt face.
“Easy, Hermana Carmen,” I soothed. “I think we are through the worst of it.”
Elias stumbled in the corridor, but caught himself on Carmen’s door frame. “Christ, what was that?” His eyes darted in, and met both of our stares. “Pardon, Hermanas, for my language.”
I nodded, but I was not focused on Elias or Carmen. My intentions journeyed with my attentions back into the corridor. In an instant, I was seized by the preternatural curiosity my mother chided me for when I was a babe. You know this attitude, Adan, all too well. The need to look, to know, to finally have any and all questions - big or small - responded to.
“I am going on deck.”
“Nieve,” Carmen shook her head, her gaze bore into my own, she grasped at me. “Please, you must stay below. They will find us if we are in danger.”
“No,” on this I was firm, “I will be back. Elias?”
"Yes, Hermana,” he entered the room, but Carmen still protested.
“Come back!” Carmen called, Elias caught her as she stumbled after me, “Nieve!”
But I was on my way back up the corridor. My legs were aching from fighting the whims of the ship. Had I had food in my belly, I am sure I would have loosed it by now across the damp floorboards. My stomach was flipping beneath my chemise and robe, and I could not help but pay attention to every single gymnastic. I considered my arrival in the trashed galley a papal worthy miracle.
The galley was wrecked, elements of cookware and food were mixed with the disarrayed seats across the floor. I climbed the steps from the galley, each steep stair more grueling than the last, slick with seaweed and unexpected puddles. Finally, I hoisted myself onto the deck, expecting to see that tropical summer morning I had waited months for.
2
Dearest Adan, what I saw still chills me to the bone.
The storm had come in on thick, rolling clouds. The eyes of the crew were set on the horizon. Men with piercingly confident, dark eyes were for once apprehensive and doubtful as they looked at the far-off cluster of stormy boulders. I saw an ashen sky and felt a churlish, wailing wind wrap around my neck. I remember shrinking away from the sight, I drew close to one of the nearby sailors. He was a gruff man who always chewed his words over with a lump of tobacco. He pointed a callused finger out to sea. “You just look out there, Hermana Nieve.” He grunted. “You want us to sail that, eh?”
He was indicating the nest of swollen black clouds, pregnant with what could only be outrageous winds and ear-popping thunder. The mass was dragging a black veil across the choppy waters of the horizon, and occasionally, lightning-tongues would slither to lick along the nebulous bellies. Beholding such a powerful force dropped my heart into my stomach. I knew I was pale, I knew I was shivering. Somehow, in the midst of this fear, I remembered how to speak again.
I shook my head, transfixed on the darkness far ahead of us. “No, Signor,” I said, my whispered words carried away with a passing hiss of wind. “I thought we had just pulled through the worst of it.”
“You and the captain both. He’s seen't all, too. Seen't all.”
