My dear sister,

I am writing to you because I am lonely. Lonely and sick. Everyone on this boat is sick. The water is rough. The boat is rocking. Swaying.

Father said that the boat was going to Africa before it went to America. He wouldn't tell me why, but then again he never tells me anything. I just go with the flow, even if at times (like now) the flow makes you seasick. I find it is easier to just go through the motions. Never fight back.

Because we are going to Africa first, it is going to take us three months to get to America. It has only been two weeks and I already cannot stand it. I think I am going to go crazy. I think I already am crazy.

I want my old life back so bad. I want to go back to the way things used to be at the inn, or even in Paris. I want to be able to cry on your shoulder and not my hard lumpy pillow. I cry myself to sleep every night.

The evening after the battle I went down to see what happened. One of the first things I saw was the body of our little brother. Poor little boy, lost to the world at twelve years old. He always had such charisma. I was sure going to grow up to rule the country and do great things. Instead I saw him lying dead on a blood stained sidewalk.

I took off his little vest he always wore and hugged it. Then I kept walking until I found you. My sister. My best friend. It was the hardest thing to see in my life. I bit my lip until it bled, hoping to feel some of the pain you did. I took your hat off and hugged it with the vest. I smoothed your hair away from your face and tried to clean off some of the blood by licking my hand and rubbing your skin.

Then I saw Cosette coming and I ran off. When I came back later they had already taken away your body. You never had a funeral. I never saw you again.

I sleep with the vest and hat in my arms every night. One night I wasn't at home (I was running around in the night helping father with some convoluted plan to break Brujon out of prison and I ended up trying to fall asleep under an old tree). I didn't have the hat and vest with me. I could not fall asleep. I just lied in the darkness trying to count the stars. I counted 132, but I kept losing count and having to start early.

The vest and hat are like my security blankets. They help assure me that you are still here even when I can't see you. I will always know you are still here.

I will never stop loving you,

Your sister, Azelma