Shades of Atlantis

by Carol Oates

  SHADES OF ATLANTIS

  By

  Carol Oates

  Copyright © 2010 by Carol Oates

  All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976,

  no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted

  in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system,

  without prior written permission of the publisher.

  Omnific Publishing

  P.O. Box 793871, Dallas, TX 75379

  www.omnificpublishing.com

  First Omnific eBook edition, November 2010

  First Omnific trade paperback edition, November 2010

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious.

  Any similarity to real persons, living or dead,

  is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-936305-45-2

  Cover Design and Interior Book Design by Coreen Montagna

  For

  Evelyn Oates

  One brief moment and all will be as it was before.

  How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!

  ~Henry Scott-Holland

  Preface

  The midwife laid the baby across a scarlet shawl draped over a flat rock in the dimly lit cave. She wiped her damp brow with the back of her arm, pushed the long braid of her shimmering red hair over her shoulder, and set about carefully cleaning and swaddling the newborn.

  “Does he live?”

  She lifted the child and cradled it in the crook of her arm before turning to the young man. He was dressed in a long brown travel cloak held closed by an intricate gold and emerald brooch at his shoulder. He strained to see the baby’s face as he pulled the hood back and sheathed his heavy sword in the scabbard at his hip. His dark hair was matted to his head, and the grime and sweat of battle caked on the golden skin of his jaw and neck.

  “Does he live?” he repeated anxiously. His brown eyes glinted like gold in the light from the dying log fire nearby.

  “Yes, she lives,” the midwife answered, presenting the child to him.

  “A female! Of course.” He tenderly touched the forehead of the child. “Of course,” he whispered reverently. “And your sister, does she live?”

  The midwife looked to the two women in the corner of the cave whose red hair shimmered like freshly polished copper. One lay quietly on a makeshift bed of straw overlaid with crumpled cloaks like the one the man wore. The other, wearing a green tunic tied at the waist with a braid of brown leather, leaned over her and wiped her face gently with a wet rag.

  “She sleeps—the birth was difficult…” The midwife’s eyes returned to the child.

  The man brushed the back of his fingertips across the child’s cheek with a pained expression. Crashes erupted in the distance. The scraping of metal on metal, the swish of spears slicing through the air, and the cries of the fallen echoed in the confined space.

  “The battle grows near,” the midwife groaned.

  “Yes. Soon the few still standing in the way of the Council will be finished.” He took the child from her and held her in one of his muscled arms. “I must go. Now.”

  The midwife turned away from him to recover a brown leather pocket folder from behind a large rock. She placed the folder, bound with a strip of black leather, in a woven fabric bag across the man’s shoulder. She kissed the child’s head and then used the man’s cloak to conceal both the child and the bag.

  “I will guard both with my life.” He smiled wryly.

  “Where will you take her?”

  He sighed. “I only know who waits to take her from me, not of her journey’s end.”

  Tears glistened in her emerald eyes. “Will I ever see you again?”

  The smile slipped from his face. “If not in this world, in the next, my love. I promise solemnly.”

  A single tear ran down her cheek, and she pulled herself to him. He kissed her hair, embracing her with his free arm as he murmured against her ear.

  “Is tú an solas i mo dhorchadas.”

  You are the light in my darkness.

  Then he was gone.

  She scrubbed the tear from her face and went to join the other women, kneeling down on the damp cave floor beside them.

  The woman with the rag took her hand. “They will be safe. They have to be,” she assured the midwife.

  The two women closed their eyes and lowered their heads. Their lips began to move synchronously, murmuring an enchantment of protection for the child. With each passing moment the battle came closer.

  Chapter 1

  Caleb

  The traffic in front of us moved painfully slowly in the mass exodus from Camden Hills High School. I groaned, turning the key in the ignition for a second time. It was only the end of October; in Maine that meant it was already colder than was healthy for my purple Morris Marina. I held my breath and scrunched my eyes shut, willing the engine to turn over. With a quiet click it purred to life. When it did start it always sounded good.

  “You need a new car,” Amanda stated flatly, not bothering to raise her eyes from the paint charts she was sorting into color schemes.

  “I know, but I can’t bear to part with Bessie,” I sighed, stroking my fingers lovingly over the dash before tapping the new CD player, a present for my eighteenth birthday two days earlier from my aunt and uncle, also my adoptive parents. It sprang to life much faster than the engine, and a strumming electric guitar and crash of cymbals announced one of my favorite CDs.

  A gentle snoring was coming from the back seat. Amanda’s lips turned up at one side in a crooked smile as she tore off a blank sheet of paper and crumpled it into a tight ball. She shifted in her seat before firing it over the back. My seventeen-year-old brother Ben jumped, startled from his sleep.

  “Hey!” He retrieved the makeshift ball and threw it at my head, hitting me right behind my ear. My shoulders rose and my head ducked in a delayed reflex action.

  “It wasn’t me!” I exclaimed, scowling back at him.

  Amanda giggled, and a sheepish expression spread over her face. Ben returned my look with his dark green eyes flashing incorrigibly, then winked before he crossed his arms and shut his eyes. His dark red bangs fell over his eyes when he leaned his head against the window.

  A dark blue sedan stopped to let me out, and I waved out the window in acknowledgment. The driver waved back, grinning, while his passenger, my friend Jen, held her hand up frantically pointing at her watch. I rolled my eyes and nodded before moving out to join a line of cars consisting of a few so-called classics like mine and lots of shiny new models.

  “What was that about?” Amanda asked, her perfectly shaped eyebrows arching.

  “Oh, she’s overly excited about work tonight. Caleb Wallace is coming in for the first time, and she’s dying to get a good look at him.”

  “Ah, the mysterious and elusive Caleb Wallace,” she sighed, a big smile spreading across her delicate features. “I don’t think it’s just Jen. Half the women in Camden have been in heat since his business partners arrived.”

  I shot her a dubious glance. “Come on, Amanda.”

  She closed her folder, shifted in her seat again and raised her hand to her head in a mocking swoon; the girl had problems sitting still. “Okay then—more like three quarters, or at least all the women that have seen the partner that’s his brother. He’s set the bar high—yummy!”

  I scoffed and shook my head. In the back, Ben grumbled something under his breath.

  “Aren’t you curious?” Amanda challenged, tilting her head to one side so that her chin-length, blond hair looked asymmetrical. “I mean, working there and all?”

  “I can’t see what the
big deal is, that’s all,” I responded nonchalantly. “Besides, so what if he stayed behind in New York for a few months? According to what I heard Seth Jameson tell the Knoxes when they were in last month, he was just tying up loose ends in their last restaurant. I don’t think it exactly qualifies as hard time.”

  Amanda threw her head back and laughed heartily, shifting in her seat to face front again. “Trust Ellen Knox to ask. Three ways to spread news: telephone, telegram, and tell Ellen Knox.”

  Ben snorted, stifling a laugh. I couldn’t help smiling too; Amanda was the worst person in the world when it came to secrets and gossip.

  I jumped at a loud rap on the glass beside my head, and my hand instinctively flew to my chest as if to stop my heart escaping. When I saw who it was I reluctantly lowered the window. “Hi, Chris,” I groaned.

  “Hey, Triona, still waiting for an answer,” Chris prompted, keeping his head level with the window and trying to make his voice persuasive. He raised one eyebrow over his chocolate brown eyes and held onto the window frame as I inched forward in the line.

  Chris was on the soccer team with Ben and Jonathan, Jen’s boyfriend, and he was a total jock, for lack of a better word. Tall, handsome, and from a well-respected family in town, he was the kind of guy who drove one of the shiny cars in the parking lot. He also had a reputation as a serial dater, and it seemed I was his intended victim for the winter formal. He had been pestering me to distraction for the last two weeks, trying to get an answer. The only reason I didn’t say no immediately was because I had promised Amanda I would be there, since she’d gotten stuck going with Ben as the result of a stupid bet on a soccer game.

  Unfortunately for me, no one else asked—but then, no one ever asked me out. Amanda said it was because I intimidated most of the guys in school, although I couldn’t imagine anyone less intimidating than me. I wasn’t particularly good looking, and I got average grades. I wasn’t on any of the many school teams. I didn’t make it into any of the school productions—in fact, I tended to blend into the background, and that was just the way I liked it. I couldn’t understand why Chris would want to go with me in the first place.

  “I know, I’m still waiting to hear from my cousin if she needs me to visit that weekend,” I lied. “I promise to let you know by the end of next week. It’s still weeks away, so there’s plenty of time to find a replacement.”

  “I don’t want a replacement. I want you,” he protested suggestively, running his fingers through ruffled hair that was almost the exact same shade of brown as his eyes.

  I had to purse my lips to muffle a giggle at his comical attempts to charm me. Chris was the type of guy who usually got his own way with females, but I couldn’t see how.

  “Okay,” I promised. “By next Friday at the latest.” I smiled innocently at him and revved the engine, continuing to inch forward, hoping he would take the hint to back away from the window.

  “Friday,” he insisted, nodding a greeting to Amanda and then pulling back.

  He slapped the roof twice before walking away backward with a determined expression on his face.

  I rolled the window up, muttering several swear words under my breath. What did my car ever do to him?

  “What’s the problem?” Amanda asked, frustrated as ever at my indecision. “Why don’t you just give him an answer?”

  “Because he’s an idiot,” Ben grumbled from the back seat.

  “Because he’s an idiot,” I echoed, grimacing toward the cars ahead of me.

  Amanda scowled before returning to her paint charts. Finally, I reached the road, hit the accelerator, and turned toward Camden.

  ***

  Jen emerged from the front door as I pulled up outside her house. She was wearing a black silk blouse and a straight black skirt. I sighed, admiring how good she looked, even if her outfit was completely impractical for waiting tables. Her long, light brown hair bounced around her shoulders, and her tall slim figure fit the uniform in all the right places. She threw her jacket on as she walked down the sidewalk, then got in the passenger side and smiled excitedly. I sighed again.

  “What’s wrong with you?” she asked.

  I grunted, pulling away from the curb.

  “Jeez, Alitriona,” she said. “Crack a smile or something. You’re supposed to be impressing the new boss tonight, remember?”

  “It’s just a job, and don’t call me that,” I muttered, forcing a fake smile.

  Alitriona was the name my mom and dad gave me, but I didn’t like anyone to use it now. Anyway, I wasn’t in a bad mood, like Jen seemed to think. In fact, I was feeling optimistic at the moment. Just over another six months and I’d be free from Camden. I was going to Europe; I’d been saving and planning for as long as I could remember. Between work, Christmas, birthdays, and of course the little bit of money my parents left, my bank balance wasn’t looking too shabby.

  Jen filled the rest of our journey with talk about Caleb Wallace, his brother Joshua, and their friend and business partner, Seth Jameson. Seth and Joshua had moved to Camden six months ago and opened a restaurant that catered to Camden’s busy tourist trade. In the summer, people came to hike and head out in the windjammers from the bay for tours. When the temperature dropped, the winter sports enthusiasts arrived to ski, snowboard, and toboggan down Ragged Mountain, a snow resort with unbelievable views over the Atlantic. The rumor mill went into overdrive the day our latest residents arrived. Joshua and Seth were young, twenty-three or -four was the average guess, and they were both extremely handsome and charismatic. Money seemed to be no object in renovating their newly acquired premises on the high ground away from the main part of town into a modern, stylish distraction for people who could afford it.

  We entered the driveway, its small embedded solar lights leading us to the imposing wooden building.

  “Full house again.” Jen grinned. “Plenty of tips.”

  Through the windows, we could see that all the tables were full and a bright orange fire flamed in the stone hearth that rose all the way to the ceiling. I drove past the customers’ cars, parked in the back, and entered the locker room through the staff entrance.

  I hung my jacket up and walked through a door at the end of the row of lockers to a corridor with two rest rooms. Standing in front of the full length mirror with the door open, I surveyed my appearance. Smoothing my skirt, I thought I actually didn’t look too awful. The black suited my dark red hair and made the dark green of my eyes stand out against my pale skin. The deep color of our eyes and hair was another inheritance Ben and I got from our mother. My long wavy hair was tied in a knot at the base of my neck, and I checked it with my hand to make sure it would hold for the night. As I turned back to the locker room, Jen walked back in through the third door that led to the kitchen.

  “He’s not here,” she moaned. I placed my hand lightly on her back, directing her back through the door and scanning the small white card in my hand across the tiny red light in the wall.

  “Never mind,” I consoled her. “It will give you a chance to do some work—instead of just staring.” She threw me an infuriated look over her shoulder, not seeing the funny side.

  Most of the town seemed to be eating here since it opened; even the outdoor deck area with views across the tree tops to the harbor was frequently full to capacity. It was covered by a pergola wrapped in bare vines, planned so that in the summer it would provide shade, but tonight the waterproof awning stretched across the top of it. On clear nights, the awning could roll back into a flap on the exterior wall of the dining room. The restaurant had the latest underground heating system installed outside, no expense spared.

  Joshua Wallace was running the restaurant tonight and was, as Jen constantly reminded me, insanely good looking: tall and lean with broad shoulders, short dark hair which was almost black, and startling blue eyes set against lightly tanned, clean-shaven skin.

  The evening passed quickly, and before I knew it the last of the customers was leaving. I was on the
deck clearing a table when Jen appeared.

  “He’s here!” she whispered excitedly in my ear with a huge grin on her face. She didn’t have to explain who she meant.

  “Great…where is he?” I faked an interested smile, glad that she had forgotten my little quip earlier.

  “In the kitchen. Everyone is leaving, so he’s kind of getting intros as they leave.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t realize. I’ll be done in just a minute,” I apologized, hurriedly putting empty glasses onto a tray.

  “Umm, Triona…” she mumbled, her eyes pleading with me. “Jonathan is here too—outside.”

  As usual. Jonathan was here to pick her up. Apparently the fact she spent the last few hours drooling over Joshua Wallace had been erased from her memory. I continued to load the tray with the remnants of someone’s evening out.

  “The usual then?” I asked casually, which was code for if her mom asked, I drove her home.

  “You’re a pal.” She beamed and threw an arm around my shoulder to give me a grateful hug, then shot off back through the door.

  I finished wiping the table down, balanced the tray in one hand, flicked off the light switch for the deck, and locked the door. The dining room was dark, the fading embers in the hearth casting shadows across the room. As I passed, the kitchen door swung open, and for a second the glaring light blinded me. Blinking, I tried to readjust. A dark-haired figure was standing at the door, his arm outstretched holding it open. Inexplicably, I felt my heart thud loudly in my chest and my knees wobble.

  “Sorry, I didn’t think there was anyone left. Joshua didn’t say there was…”

  The words rolled off his tongue like chocolate melting. The pale golden skin of his brow crinkled. “Are you okay?”