by Kristen Day
“Nothing like a good first impression, right?” I shrugged. One by one we went to the bathroom and attempted to clean up as much as possible…but butter, syrup, and jelly had a bad habit of hanging on. I pulled my hair up but could do nothing with the oil slicks of syrup throughout. Oh well, at least I smelled delicious. I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes.
I hadn’t realized I’d fallen asleep until the vibrations of the phone in my pocket woke me up. I had been propping my head up on my hand, which was now glued to my hair with dried syrup. I finally got my phone out of my pocket to see a new text.
I’ve arranged for you to have a guide upon your arrival to Atlantis. He will be meeting the plane via boat.
I looked out the window and caught a glimpse of land below that was growing closer by the minute, and took a much-needed moment to come to grips with our final destination. I could honestly say I never thought in a million years I would be on my way to a mythical island thought only to exist in legends and hearsay. I closed my eyes and attempted to still the nerves that boiled in the pit of my stomach. In less than an hour, I would be standing on the very real island of Atlantis.
Chapter 15
Stasia
“Do me a favor and try not to run into the shield.” Olivia eyed the float plane pilot warily. “I can tell you from experience it doesn’t turn out very well.”
We were all squeezed into a plane the size of my pinky finger with our fates planted firmly in the hands of a rugged, bearded man in his fifties. He introduced himself as Celeus, and from his scratchy voice I could immediately tell he’d been an avid smoker for years. The thick mop of black hair on his head, along with his protruding nose and dark eyes gave away his Greek heritage, while his tattered cargo pants and worn out boat shoes told the story of his life as a fisherman and float plane captain. Countless hours working under the hot sun had turned his skin to leather, but his eyes held a spark of adventure that was contagious.
“I’ve done this a million times, agápi̱ mou.” Celeus grinned; clearly amused by Olivia’s less than flattering comment about his flying skills. Unfortunately his thick Greek accent somehow made him sound slightly drunk to our uninitiated ears, which didn’t do much for my confidence. “I’ve not killed even one soul.”
“Yet…” I heard Avery mutter with eyes squeezed shut and fingernails digging into her knees. As the plane pitched and rolled violently, my stomach grew more and more queasy, and I could only guess at the frightening images of death and destruction running amok through Avery’s mind at that moment.
“Just make sure you don’t kill us!” Olivia screeched and grabbed onto anything nailed down. “And don’t call me ‘your love’.” I found myself staring at her with renewed fascination as I realized she had understood his Greek. He let out a loud guffaw and angled the plane downward sharply. I grabbed the back of Carmen’s seat and held on for dear life. Beside me, Avery was almost to the point of passing out. Or puking.
Celeus continued the sharp descent until I saw the outlines of fish in the pristine turquoise water below. I was completely certain we were about to join them under the surface until he cut the engine and pulled the nose up one last time. Avery shot a desperate hand over the seat and onto my arm, and I grabbed her hand and tried to ignore the loss of blood in my fingers. The three seconds before we hit the water were filled with sheer terror and screams as we all prepared to die. Thankfully the next sound we heard was the splashing of the pontoons on the surface and the plane coasting to a less than graceful stop.
“You call that not killing us?!” Carmen screeched, eliciting another loud chuckle from our pilot.
“Oh my God,” Phoebe choked out with wide eyes. “I think I just had six heart attacks.”
Afraid to look anywhere else, Avery stared at me with wide blue eyes and a calm panic in her voice and asked, “I’m dead, aren’t I?”
“I think we made it,” I comforted her with a tilt of hysteria in my own voice. “I don’t know how, but we did.”
“Trelo koritsia,” Celeus chortled to himself in Greek. “Trelo koritsia.”
I glanced out the window when I heard another sputtering engine approaching. A small inflatable boat was making its way towards us with only one passenger aboard. I gazed out toward the horizon in all directions in search for the island that the boat had surely just come from, but all I saw was endless sparkling blue water.
Celeus hopped out of the plane and helped us unbuckle from our harnesses before retrieving our bags from the underbelly. I climbed out and carefully stepped onto the right pontoon as the small white boat made its way over to us.
“Welcome Theá.” When I realized the deep voice coming from the boat below was addressing me, I twisted around in surprise. “Uh…my name’s Stasia.”
“I know,” he stated simply, but offered no explanation. “My name’s Sebastian.” An amused grin brightened his face and made his blue eyes sparkle with a joke I clearly wasn’t in on. I had a feeling the entire bottle of syrup clumping my hair together and the strawberry jelly stains on my shirt didn’t meet his expectations of a sea Goddess. I was going to need a shower and a change of clothes as soon as possible. For a long, uncomfortable moment he studied me with quiet fascination. The confidence he exuded was staggering, and his strong posture hinted to the fact that he was of importance in Atlantean society.
After several more moments of awkwardness, I tried to avert my eyes to the wooden floor of the boat but found they had decided to settle on the golden skin of his bare chest instead. Looking elsewhere would have been a monumental task for any woman with a pulse. His only piece of clothing was a pair of loose white linen pants that hung dangerously low on his hips. A copious amount of what appeared to be tattoos spiraled down his muscular arms and over his right shoulder. His shaggy blonde hair matched the bronze of his skin and curled up slightly at the tips; giving him a California surfer look.
As my eyes drifted upward and back to his face, I noticed his curious gaze had been replaced with something resembling insecurity. Before I could figure out why he would be even remotely intimidated by me, I noticed his outstretched hands waiting to help me into the boat. His hands were warm and steady as I put my weight into them and stepped downward. Unfortunately for me and my dignity, my right ankle became twisted in an expertly placed, rogue piece of rigging on the side of the boat. He easily held me upright until I untangled my legs and was able to stand on my own. I could only hope that he didn’t know exactly who I was yet. This was not the first impression I wanted to give the people of Atlantis. Thankfully, Olivia was always waiting in the wings to throw me under the bus in case I didn’t do so myself.
“You’ll have to ignore our ever-graceful, food-coated Leader,” I heard her voice chirp from the pontoon above. “She had one too many on the plane, if you know what I mean.” She made a drinking gesture with her hand and raised a judging eyebrow. I rolled my eyes at her and found a relatively sturdy seat in the boat behind Sebastian.
“I see. So tell me - what would your excuse be?” I heard Sebastian say with a smile, and had to stop myself from laughing out loud. Olivia attempted to retaliate, but was too shocked to say anything. It was the first time I’d ever seen her rendered speechless. I instantly liked him, but wondered if he knew he would forever be on Olivia’s shit list. It was only until I watched him lower each of the other girls into the boat that I realized something was missing amongst the strong shoulders, powerful presence, and confident smile. His essence.
No matter how hard I tried, I felt absolutely nothing coming from him. Considering he was about to ferry us back to Atlantis, I couldn’t imagine he was human. Or maybe it was possible that I couldn’t actually feel the Atlanteans’ essence. Maybe I wasn’t attuned to theirs, considering they weren’t descendants of the sea. That thought formed an uneasy ball of anxiety in the pit of my stomach. Up to that point, I hadn’t realized how much I’d come to rely on my sixth sense. Or was it my eighth sense? Tenth? At any rate, the new hole
in my defenses was disconcerting, to say the least.
Once all our luggage was lowered onto the boat from the plane, we said our goodbyes to Celeus and held our ears as he powered up the plane and floated farther away in preparation for takeoff.
“Hold on kyríes,” Sebastian instructed with an easy smile. “I’d never forgive myself if I lost one of you to the karcharíes inhabiting the outskirts of the aspída.”
“Nobody’s impressed by your Greek, show off,” Olivia shot at him with a deadpan tone. “Stasia could make every single one of those sharks eat you for lunch before you could say skatá.”
“Olivia!” I hissed at her. Apparently making it onto the island before annoying the Atlanteans had been a pipe dream.
“What’s ‘skatá’ mean?” Avery whispered innocently to Carmen.
“It means shit in Greek,” Olivia answered for Carmen; her steely gaze still on Sebastian. Beneath her obvious dislike for Sebastian, I noticed a satisfying gleam in her dark brown eyes. I had a feeling knowing the Greek language might not be the only thing in Olivia’s bag of tricks.
“Now who’s the show off?” Sebastian rivaled with a smug grin. Unfortunately, her next comment reminded me why I constantly wanted to tape her mouth shut.
“…and pompó̱di̱ kó̱lo means pompous ass.”
“Olivia!” I scolded her again. Not to be out-done, Sebastian placed a menacing hand on the throttle as he calmly held her challenging gaze.
“Tétoia áschi̱mo lógia, den prépei na proérchontai apó éna tóso ómorfo stoma,” he purred in a low voice meant only for her. Her jaw set firmly with deviance and her face reddened, but before she could even utter a comeback in his direction, Sebastian pushed the throttle down and the boat lurched forward; sending her tumbling backward. I didn’t miss the satisfied sparkle in his eyes as he turned his attention forward and swept the water ahead. A less concerned Carmen and Phoebe couldn’t stop laughing, but still helped her back into her seat. She commenced to glare at Sebastian as he turned the boat to the right with finesse.
I would need to have a long talk with her when we reached the island. Disrespecting our hosts was absolutely out of the question. I sent a stern look in her direction, but she stubbornly looked away as we continued on to the invisible island. I closed my eyes and breathed in the energy I felt coming off the sea at my arrival. I leaned over carefully and dragged my fingers across the surface lightly. Energy sizzled up my arm into my heart, and I smiled widely. The turquoise water’s clarity revealed the colorful reef and schools of fish living within, and I pushed my own essence outward and into the water below as a respectful greeting. I felt a spark when my essence left my fingers and rippled outward from the boat.
I felt the pressure of someone’s gaze on me and lifted my eyes to meet those of our guide. Sebastian smiled knowingly at me and nodded his head ever so slightly in acknowledgement. Excitement danced across his face, and after an endearing wink, he stood.
“Welcome to the legendary island,” he said, before sweeping his arm outward and raising his chin with pride, “of Atlantis.”
I felt a slight pressure almost like a sound wave, and my mouth dropped at what suddenly stood a meager twenty yards ahead of us. Immense stone cliffs towering at least thirty stories above us were suddenly blocking the afternoon sun, which had been eclipsed by their sheer size. They stretched for what seemed like miles on either side, and from our vantage point near the bottom, the very top was not visible at all. Angry waves slammed into large boulders at the base of the cliffs, but they were quickly forgotten as the cliffs began to reflect and shine with each movement of the boat.
“Look at the cliffs!” Phoebe noticed at the same time. “They have gold in them!”
Shining with a brilliance no man could ever replicate, the cliffs most certainly held layers of gold interwoven throughout. The entire cliff glittered with a magnificence I’d never before laid eyes on.
While my eyes did their best to soak in the splendor that loomed ahead, the rest of my senses were being bombarded by an energy so strong it threatened to crush me from the inside out. Everything around me was suddenly brighter, louder, and sharper. It was kind of like the barrage of energy I felt on the Fortunate Isle, but with a slight twist. It was a venerable energy – an energy so ancient, I could almost feel the ribbons of wisdom and antiquity flowing within its borders. The present world was intricately intertwined with a past so magical, it was indestructible. I felt the souls of the old who still settled across the island; their essence littering the landscape with beauty and peace. But amidst it all, at the core of the island there was a pulse.
I felt it in my veins. It captured my essence and seemed to speak only to me. Like the rhythmic waves of the ocean, it pulsed with the very essence of life. A faint singing in my ears calmed my breathing and swept my heart into its beautiful melody. I closed my eyes and listened more intently, but didn’t know the tongue in which it was spoken. A surge of energy flowed through my body and I allowed the song to encompass my every thought and feeling.
“fengári tou aímatos af̱xánetai.”
“fengári tou aímatos af̱xánetai.”
Whatever life force dwelled within the core of Atlantis, it was ancient, immense, and extremely powerful. And it was calling to me.
Chapter 16
Olivia
She was doing it again. I watched with apprehension as Stasia closed her eyes and drifted away into oblivion. The half-cocked smile on her face never wavered as she seemed to sway to music only she could hear. I glanced up at the new pain in my ass otherwise known as Sebastian. He was also watching Stasia carefully, but his reaction was worlds away from my own. He tilted his head and smiled to himself before turning his attention back to the spit of land we were about to pull up next to.
Land may have been an overstatement, considering it was really just a strip of rocks jutting out from the massive cliff rising above us. The waves knocked the boat from side to side and I began to wonder how golden boy was going to maneuver us safely to the rocks without killing us.
I kicked Stasia’s foot in an effort to bring her back to this universe and her eyes fluttered open with confusion, as if she had forgotten where she was completely. I frowned back at her as she glanced around and sighed happily. Whatever she was sensing I didn’t like it. No matter the drug, a drunk Goddess was not a safe Goddess. The slight tingling of the all-seeing eye on my palm warned me something was off. I glanced down at the trace to make sure it hadn’t started glittering like a disco-ball or something, but thankfully it was still pale and barely visible to anyone but me. I clenched my fist and braced myself for the onslaught of waves that were throwing the boat dangerously close to the jagged rocks.
“Got any shampoo?!” I heard Carmen shout at Phoebe as a wave crashed over the bow of the boat; spraying us with ocean water. “This is better than any shower back home!”
“I don’t think an entire bottle of shampoo could wash the syrup out of my hair!” Stasia screeched with happiness as another wave crashed over the boat. I wiped at the waterfall cascading down the left side of my head and met the arrogant eyes of Sebastian. He smiled and shook his head back and forth like a wet dog drying off after a bout in the ocean. I cursed him silently as he stood to get a better vantage point of our rocky destination. Several drops of water raced down the bronzed skin of his muscular back and I inspected the tattoos running down its length. It was a phrase written in Greek: ‘I̱ níki̱ eínai apokleistiká gia ekeínous pou eínai próthymoi na pli̱ró̱soun to tími̱ma’, which translated into English meant, ‘Victory is reserved for those who are willing to pay the price’.
I knew his type. Hot-headed and willing to seduce any and every girl who’d be dumb enough to listen to his bullshit. His use of the Greek language may have impressed the other girls on the boat, but it only proved to me that he was full of himself. Not to mention that for someone who had been isolated on a single island his entire life, his English was amazingly modern. My list fo
r not trusting him was growing longer by the minute. I, on the other hand, had spoken Greek ever since I was a little girl. It was my second language, but only just so. My mother had taught me from a very young age in preparation of the future. There weren’t many times I could thank my mother for forcing me to do something, but I was eternally grateful for the countless hours she worked with me on sentence structure, pronunciation, and memorization of the Greek language. If only to show Sebastian he was no match for me.
He gunned the engine and turned the boat abruptly to the left; sending us hurtling toward the rocks sideways. I pictured my face in the headlines, “A life stolen too soon at the hands of a conceited, crazed madman.” But instead of the tragic image unfolding in my head, the boat slid to a stop right before we hit the rocks, only gently bumping them. Sebastian reached for a thick rope anchored into the stone and pulled the boat flush against our makeshift dock. Once he secured the boat to the rocks, I practically threw Stasia to safety and then crawled over Carmen to get out of the vessel of death.
“Hey, watch it!” she shouted at me when I stepped on her foot.
“We’ll get you a Band-Aid later, princess,” I tossed over my shoulder as I hopped onto the jetty next to a distracted Stasia. I fought the urge to kiss the ground beneath my feet, but decided to help Phoebe and Avery off the boat instead. Carmen shot me a contemptuous look when I reached out my hand to her and chose to jump to the rocks without my assistance. Sebastian prepared to make the leap as well, but I deliberately stepped in his way, crossed my arms, and raised an eyebrow at him.
“What about our bags?” I demanded.
“You won’t be needing them,” he answered simply.
“I beg to differ,” I argued. “If you think I’m getting on this island with no makeup or soap, you are sadly mistaken.”
“Everything you need will be provided.” He grinned up at me. “However, you are free to bring a small satchel of personal items if you wish.”
