A long way from home (Slow updates)

A long way from home

A long way from home. That's where we are. In the middle of the ocean, cramped in a dark ship hold. The smell is putrid, stinking of sick and latrines. We didn't have enough money for a private cabin for us, so we sleep surrounded my strangers. Réel and I barely made enough from selling the farm, leaving us with little for the new world.

Louis is sleeping, leaning on his chest containing his belongings. It is nearly all he does. When he doesn't sleep the monotonous days away, he goes aboard the upper deck to watch the sailors work. Réel is trying to avoid seasickness, keeping his eyes closed and taking the chamomile I give him. He sleeps as well.

Hélène is trying to knit in the darkness, her tangled ball of yarn dampening and wearing. I doubt she'll make anything out of it. She goes to the upper deck as well to "see more than darkness". Marie does nothing but sleep. She sleeps in my arms, though she is not a baby. She wakes little, being exhausted. She has been this way since the second month of our voyage. I'm sure she hopes that when she wakes up we'll be arriving in New France.

I sit and care for Marie and Réel. I go to the upper deck to catch a breath of fresh air and a moment or two to think. Then Louis or Hélène rushes up to tell me Réel needs more chamomile. For a man of 18 years, and usually independant of his younger sister, he is quite needy now.

I hope the next fortnight goes by speedily. For I tire of the sea. Réel needs to be on dry land. Bodies and clothes need washing. Fresh food is very much wanted and needed.

Aunt Jaqueline will be waiting for us. I've never met her before, but she promised in her letter she would send an escort with a wagon and oxen to bring us to her auberge. Réel hopes to find work as a carpenter, to make money for Aunt Jaqueline and be able to offer a good sum for Hélène and mine own marriage. Louis will help along with Réel, or find work as an apprentice. Hélène and I will work around the auberge, helping Aunt Jaqueline, while she boards and feeds 5 children.

Marie will help with what she can, and learn her duties as a woman from Aunt Jaqueline, just like I had from my mother.

Mother. A good woman given a hard life. I'd rather work the rest of my life in an auberge than on the little plot of land we owned. It saddens me that she was not able to come with us. But the journey would have surely killed her, and we would have borne her to the sea, just like so many other on this voyage have parted with loved ones. Never to have a marked site. Never to have a place of rest for family to visit.

The sea is terrifying, but not as terrifying as the uncertainty of our future in this new land. It is said to be huge and vast, with forests as far as the eye can see, lush meadows and water.

It is also said to be habited by indians, or so they are called, the ones native to the land. Some are assured to be friends, trading with settlers. Others are not so kind.

All that is certain is blown away with the wind which pushes our sails.