Story Chapter 4
Providence
The evening of the thirty- third day Chloe could hear a little rumbling, it was so faintly in the distance, and there was just the slightest cloud in the distance. These changes began to appear on the horizon with a small increase in the wind. The breeze felt good to everyone. The rations of water had gotten down to a couple sips once a day. Chloe and the rest of the passengers were losing hope. Some were in one breath asking the priest to pray for them, and for safety, and in the next breath; they cursed the priest and everything he represented. The situation was beginning to get desperate for everyone on board the Queen. The priest had looked after Chloe, and felt that it was only proper that he should. Chloe had confessed to him that she had run away from the convent to go to America and find a better life. She was very brave person to have set off on a journey like this, but Chloe was a spunky young woman and had a sharp mind. He saw great promise in this young woman for God's work. During the night, the wind picked up and they could see the lightning and thunder was getting intense, and then just before daybreak, it started raining and the crew on the deck thought that this was a good thing. They would be able to collect rainwater, and would be able quench their thirst with the rainwater. However, the rain changed quickly to a downpour, and the wind became violent at times. The rain came down in sheets; the rain was heavy enough the ship’s captain and crew could not see what was ahead of them. The wind was strong enough that it could blow a man overboard. However, the Captain during the night had given orders to the crew to lash down everything that could move, and told all the passengers to remain below deck for their own safety. The crew knew what to do as they had been through storms before. That did not make it any easier. With the tremendous risks to their lives, they summoned strength from deep inside of them. At least one last time to manage the ship has it tossed to and fro in the raging sea. They had no control over the seemingly angry sea. The darkness of the sky made inside of the ship unusually dark. The closeness of the passengers created more misery and more depression. They could not go on deck for fresh air. Consequently, it was not long before passengers below deck, with the stench of vomit and body waste brought more sickness. Never the less, there is no remedy to improve their situation. They prayed, they cursed, but most of all they hoped for it to end. All of a sudden without warning, the priest grabbed hold of one of the beams, and a rope that attached from the beams, and he pulled himself up and stood. It was just enough light to see the form of a man, but not enough to know his features, Chloe knew it was the priest. His figure in the darkness stood out from everybody else. In a voice clearer than they had heard the priest speak since they had started on this journey to America he said, "Brothers and sisters I have a message from the Lord our God, this is our final day in this world, and we will soon pass into another world. A world different from anything that we have yet to have imagined, and no, it is not heaven but we will be at home, we will be taken care of, and we will learn many new things and we will be amazed. My God, you raise me up so I can stand on mountains, you raise me up so I can walk on stormy seas, do not be afraid, at that point the priest fell down, were he stood." Nobody moved, as the ship tossed back and forth, and to move you would be unstable, and stand the risk of hurting yourself. Most of the passengers were weak, a lot of them were sick, they had heard the priest, heard his words, but it did not matter and most of them would have no recollection of what the priest had had to say to them. The few that did hear and had some ability to make sense of his words had no idea what the priest was talking about and assumed that he was delirious and perhaps he had caught the fever. Chloe had heard Father O'Connor and she wished she could be were the priest was, but she kept going over his words in her mind until she had them memorized. "God, you raise me up, and I am strong when I am on your shoulders. Do not be afraid, do not be afraid, and do not be afraid." The priest Father O'Connor had known in seminary a priest that had told him of documents in the catacombs of the Vatican's giant library. He remembered his friend told about this area of ocean that stretches from Bermuda and all the way down into the Bahamas forming a triangle. Those that knew of this, they knew they were now in the grip of the Bermuda triangle. Ships had disappeared and sailors told of mermaids grabbing sailors off ships, and driving them into the depths of the ocean. Others told of sailors seeing lost ships with lights, strange lights, catching glimpses of another world. Ships from long ago that had disappeared without a trace. They would hear strange noises, see strange lights and the ship would move backwards, or sideways with no wind, float up into the mist and then as quickly as they moved in one direction they turned in another direction. Then after the strange happenings it would be gone, and if they were lucky they would find that they were nowhere near where they were a few minutes ago. They would be hundreds of miles in a very different direction with no explanation. The priest had told him that it had nothing to do with the devil. These tales were just tales was told by seamen who were frightened out of their minds. Seaman drank too much whiskey, and where seeing things that are yet to have an explanation. The earth had areas that under certain conditions at certain times, if you happen to be in a certain place strange things happened. Many souls had been lost but, there have been one or two documented cases that the Church had documented when there where survivors. They were closely guarded secrets of the Vatican. On one or two occasions these strange things happened, and one of the souls on board a ship would somehow get thrown back, and they would tell tales of being in another world, with people that were strange, and yet kind people that lived in another dimension. Now on the Queen, all of the passengers had lost hope of surviving. Some of the passengers were crying and saying prayers that that their sins would be forgiven. Everybody was still in the bowels of the ship and there had been no movement for what seemed like hours. All of a sudden the rains stopped, the wind stopped and the ship began to shatter, the beams creaked and there was a great pressure. Chloe cupped her hands over her ears, the pressure felt as if it would make her scream. Then there was the bright light that lit everywhere as if it were the sun. Everything was calm as if it had not been a storm, and there had not been strange things going on. However, the Queen, the ship that was at 30° 28 minutes latitude and 80° 17 minutes longitude was no longer there. The Queen vanished and was in another dimension. There was no wreckage, and there was no sign of the ship that had been on the Atlantic Ocean in the year 1848. The entire ship with all those onboard had disappeared. Some would say that the Bermuda Triangle had taken yet another ship, and more souls.