Chapter 2: Maria Priscilla Bantoc - Once fateful stormy night...

           

           Benedicto Laom Bantoc was a young fisherman who had very dark short hair and a round face with an arched nose, bright dark brown eyes, and bushy eyebrows. His father Mr. Ernesto Alon Bantoc was a poor fisherman and his family was poor. His mother Mrs. Milia Laom Bantoc gathered edible seaweeds to sell at the fish market. Ben had made a fortune out of fishing. He was an astute fisher and the time being at the age of twenty-five, he had already owned ten lashed-lug wooden plank canoes with riggers on both sides and two large also lashed-lug wooden plank ships. There were thirty fishermen engaged in dragging the line and trawling with his fishing vessels at sea.

          Now, all of a sudden and out of the ordinary, a terrible and unrelenting storm was approaching very fast and threatening the proprietorship he had built.

           “Josefina, where are you? Are you there?”

           Ben had been trepid though he had not impressed to be obviously alarmed. Not a single human sound he heard. The angry wind had been getting brawny. It had crashed the roof of the house. The house had been made out of stone walls. And it seemed that it had no stand against the surging gust of blowing wind storm.

            “Josefina! Celeste! Petunia!” Ben shouted the names of his beloved wife and daughters.

           Thunder clapped and lightning flashed. He heard a big thud that had landed on the roof. A galloping noise like a chariot's horses' hooves had been heard stomping and trailed off as down the torrential rain poured mercilessly over the roof of clay and tile. Ben stopped and tried to catch his breath for a while, listening to the fading galloping noise that landed and ripping the clay and tile roof.

          “Josefina! Celeste! Petunia!” Ben cried out louder than before. His voice echoed throughout their house and drained with the thrashing and crashing noise of the raging storm. He made his way across from the entrance of their house to Josefina's bed.

           Ben's wife, Josefina, who had been heavy with child and about to give birth had written a hurried note and had left it on the bedside table.

           And the note says:

           Dear Benedict Bantoc, my dear husband,

           We will be waiting for you at Papa Pepeng and Mama Letty's house.

                                     Love,

                                       Josefina

           Ben went off of their house. He barely had time to breathe. It was the first-night watch when the dreadful storm had hit. He had been worried about his family and he had left the fishermen to anchor the ships at the east side of the craggy hill. He ran hurriedly to the path that led to the said hill at the side entrance of their house.

           The rain went down in torrents. The wind and rain had immediately almost blown him away. Ben's tall, slender and sturdy build could not stand against the blowing wind and rain. He held on to the fence as he opened the gate that was at the side of the house that faced the path to the craggy hill. It was dark and the rain had shrouded the path ahead. He thought he saw a lone black shadowy figure riding a horse that stood blocking the road to the craggy hill. He got soaked and water streamed from his hair and his clothes. He wiped off the water from his face with his hands. The shadowy figure he saw had gone and Ben proceeded to the path of the craggy hill.

           Water was coming down fast from the top of the hill. Water trickled at the toes of his shoes and trickled out again at the heels. His wet shoes and the flooding pathway had made his way up to the hill difficult and slippery. He saw someone approaching. At first, he thought it was the shadow he had seen earlier while he was opening the side gate that opened to the craggy hill road.

           “Ben?” asked the approaching human figure holding up an umbrella coming down from the hill.

           “Yes, it's me, Ben!”

           Ben shouted at the familiar person walking in his direction.

           “Is that you, Pepeng?”

           “Yes, Ben.”

           Pepeng indeed it was. The two men approached each other and Pepeng held out his hand and handed over a spare big umbrella and raincoat to his son-in-law. It was very cold, so Ben right away took the big umbrella and the raincoat from his father-in-law's damp hand. He opened the umbrella and quickly put the raincoat on.

           “Josefina sent me to fetch you. She was crying and very distressed. We stopped and took shelter at one of the crags to the north and west when it started to rain heavily.”

           “Are Josefina and the children okay?”

           “The children are okay when I left them at the precipice but Josefina— she is crying and she is looking for you and she needs you very badly.”

           The two men went their way as fast as they could to where Josefina and the two children were hiding for shelter.

           “Josefina could not go on walking to our house in this wretched weather,” said Pepeng while he guided Ben to one of the crags in the north-west direction. The caves of the precipices of the craggy hill had always been a safe haven for the folks living at the foot of the hill whenever a huge storm struck their homes.

           The two men had arrived at one of the caverns of the crag of the craggy hill. Their umbrella and raincoat were of no use and they were soaking wet when they had reached the precipice where Josefina and the children were.

         Pepeng had built a small fire at the entrance to keep Josefina and the children safe and warm inside the cavern before he left to fetch Ben at the foot of the hill. The small fire was still burning. A four-year-old Celeste and a two-year-old Petunia had been already sleeping fast asleep beside each other with Celeste, and Celeste beside Josefina. The twenty-three-year-old Josefina was resting with her back on the wall of the cave. Ben quickly ran and reached out to his wife.

          “Ben, thank goodness you are here and safe,” cried the distressed Josefina. She again cried but calmed down a little bit and said, “I believe I am about to come out of this baby!”

          “I will get Letty and someone to help her, Ben. We have no choice but to let her have the baby here. I'm sure everything will be fine tomorrow, Ben. We will just have to go through this for now.”

          “Thank you, father. I, Josefina, and the children will stay inside until you get back here with Letty.”

           “Ben, you have to sit by the fire to dry yourself up. You are soaking wet.”

          Josefina had calmed down. Her father would fetch her mother and someone to help her bring her baby out. The house was a half a mile from the precipice. Pepeng would be back in an hour.

         Ben led his father-in-law up to the entrance of the cave where the small campfire was burning. It was very dark and the heavy rain again had shrouded the pathway. He thought he saw a shadowy black figure again riding a horse standing and blocking the path, the same thing he had seen at the foot of the hill. His father-in-law had been talking about bringing some food and stuff back for the night while Ben, Josefina, and the children were stuck at the precipice. A gust of wind blew and rain poured even more. The black riding shadow had vanished quickly from where it stood.

          Pepeng got hurriedly on with his footsteps. Ben sat near the fire and dried himself up. Pepeng brought Letty and a child birthing expert with them an hour after he left the cave. Josefina's water had broken just on time when they had arrived and Josefina's birthing process had begun instantly. It was two hours before midnight when Josefina and Ben had given birth to a baby girl and they had decided to name her Maria Priscilla Bantoc. Josefina named her Maria, “Because I was praying to the Virgin Mary so much when I had her,” she said. They added 'Priscilla' for she was born at the precipice.

          Everyone was fast asleep at one point right after Maria came out. However, a scratching noise had awoken Ben from sleeping. The scratching noise he heard had originated outside the cavern wall entrance. The small fire had almost extinguished and so Ben lit it up again. The rain had dissipated and by the first daylight he would come down to see what had happened to his fishing vessels and his fishermen. Praying all were safe, he fell half asleep, disturbed by the scratching noise and the strange dreadful storm that had fallen over the craggy hill.

         The next morning Josefina took her new baby Maria and her two daughters, Celeste and Petunia, to her parents' house. There she would be safe and sound while Ben come down to the east side of the foot of the hill where Ben and Josefina lived and see what had happened to his men and his fishing vessels.

          He almost tore his garment, pulled a hair from his head, and sat down with much grief at what he had seen. He looked at the wreckage around him. His entire armada had been destroyed. His large ships had been wrecked and had sunk at the bottom of the sea and lashed-lug wooden planks from his small canoes and ships floated and washed ashore.

         “That was a terrible storm that night when Maria came. Our fishing boats were wiped out, costing us a fortune. Many wives had nearly lost their husbands and their children had nearly lost their fathers to that horrific event.”

         The rich merchant's wife remembered and cried. Ben had picked up all the pieces from his broken small canoes. He had put together what was left with what he could salvage from the wreckage of wooden planks and built another fishing vessel out of it.

          “My loving wife stop crying for that has all gone now. We have all our fortune back. As for Maria, if our youngest daughter will not attract a husband, there will be enough for her to live her whole life after we are gone.”

           The wealthy Ben Bantoc consoled his wife. This had been their argument since they had had their three daughters grown up.

           The side fence which led to the door of the Bantoc's kitchen and dining table creaked. Maria had arrived before her sisters. All the goods she had brought had been taken and bought. It started to rain slightly. It had been said it started to rain often before the sun sets on and at the foot of the craggy hill since the horrible storm nineteen years ago. The roof of their house had been replaced anew when it got ripped from the terrible storm.

           A delicious hearty smell emitted through the kitchen door facing the side entrance to the craggy hill. Maria was very hungry and went inside the kitchen quickly. Ben and Josefina had been finishing up with their supper when Maria had entered their kitchen.

           “Good evening, Mother and Father.”

           “You sold all of your father's fish goods?” Josefina asked her youngest daughter. They had smoked and dried fish. They had naturally cured fish meats in oil like sardines and mackerel placed in jars. People living over the craggy hill bought their cured fish meats. Fresh fish had been sold at the market at the foot of the craggy hill which Josefina and Ben had carried.

          “Yes, I have, Mother.”

          “It's okay if you can't sell them all dear,” said Ben to his daughter and suggested, “You can give the task to anyone working for your father for all I care.”

          Josefina frowned at her husband's suggestion to their youngest.

         “They are growing up and they need to learn how we live, Ben.”

           “Can I eat my supper now?”

           Maria was very hungry and excited to eat supper. She was shy. She was glad that it had become habitual for the people living near the precipices to eat their father's cured fish meats and she had not to talk too much to sell her father's cured meats. Her parents had started doing cured fish meats a year after she was born. They said it had been an idea born out of the dreadful storm they had experienced. She had started selling their father's cured fish meats when she was fifteen whenever school was out. She had to as Josefina had said they needed to know how their father and mother lived.

          “Your sisters are not home yet. That's unusual.”

           Josefina had been worried that Celeste and Petunia had not been home yet for supper. Maria grabbed a bowl of hearty fish stew and a crusty loaf of bread. Ben got up from the bench and was ready to retire.

           “You two wait for them to come home. I'm hitting the haystack early tonight. Maria, you hand over the list to your mother, that is if people are still buying my stuff.”

            Ben laughed and left both mother and daughter to wait for the rest of the members of the family to come home.

          “The fish stew is delicious, Mother.” Maria was not timid with her parents and was enjoying the fish stew her mother concocted with some white meat fish, octopus, shrimp, mussels, cockles, herbs, and tomatoes. Maria had been dipping her crusty bread into the hearty stew, maneuvering it with her short and stubby fingers when footsteps running toward the kitchen door were heard and in flew an excited screaming beautiful Celeste dragging pretty Petunia along with her one hand and each carrying a basket on the other.

           “Why are you two girls screaming?” asked Josefina. She was happy— her other two daughters were home. Perhaps it was two different kinds of screams, one because of excitement and the other one because of pain.

           “Mother, we have something to tell you,” Celeste said still holding Petunia's one hand tightly.  The latter shook herself off greatly from Celeste's grasp and headed to the table. Her hand had been swollen because of Celeste's unintentional excitement and grabbing her hand tightly.

           “You have something to tell Mother. I'm hungry.”

          Petunia insisted. She put her basket on the table. She then grabbed a bowl of fish stew and crusty bread and joined Maria at the table to eat supper. Maria had been busy gobbling her food while listening to Celeste's announcement.

           “Mother, I am engaged to a handsome young man in our village.” Celeste's voice was excited and she was catching her breath when she announced how happy she had been with her betrothal. “He had been wanting me to give this to you and father too.”

           Celeste handed over the heavy basket she was carrying to her mother. Josefina was speechless at her daughter's sudden betrothal. She looked at what was inside her daughter's basket. It had been filled with candies, chocolates, small cakes, a fine bottle of wine, and expensive cheeses. Josefina had not known that a son of a grocer had been courting her daughter. The young man had been courting her daughter for a while now and finally, Celeste gave in to the young man's amorous intentions.

           “Where is Father? I have been needing to tell him, Mother.”

           Celeste could not wait to tell her father, Ben.

          “He is already asleep. You and I will tell him the news tomorrow morning, Celeste,” said Josefina to her eldest daughter. There was nothing she could do. Celeste was old enough to marry. She had kept the fine wine and expensive cheeses from Celeste's basket. “I will keep the wine and cheese and you can give the rest of the sweets to Maria.”

           Maria protested at her mother's assumption but with her mouth spewing fish stew and bread crumbs, she was incomprehensible and nobody in the room had minded what she had been mumbling about.

           Meanwhile, a twenty-three-year-old Celeste Conchita Carpio Bantoc was going to be married to a twenty-eight-year-old son of a grocer Adrian Diego Booc Linaw. The two quickly had made plans for their wedding. The wedding was to take place at the east side of the foot of the craggy hill where the two of them had lived and met. They would be married at the church also at the foot of the said hill.