A picture of a packed swimming pool went into an envelope. Then a boy with a dog on a leash. A father giving his daughter a piggyback ride. She was looking down at him, smiling like his shoulders were the most stable place in the world.
Ugh.
I shut my eyes tightly, but my dad’s scribbly handwriting appeared behind my eyelids. I could really use your help here in Santorini, Indiana Olive. With what? What could he possibly need my help with?
I abandoned the magazine and pulled my phone out of my backpack again, in case a text from Dax had managed to find me over the Atlantic. But no, there was only the one he’d sent me last night when he was supposed to come over but had apparently been too busy. Sorry, can’t make it. See you in two weeks.
Those periods looked passive-aggressive. Could punctuation be passive-aggressive? And then there was my overly-bouncy-full-of-nerves text back. Two weeks will pass in no time. Miss you already, hope you have an amazing time in Balboa!!! Then I panicked and added a bunch of mushy-looking emojis that made me hate myself more every time I looked at them. No wonder Dax hadn’t answered. He was probably in the process of rethinking every minute of our time together.
Looking at the wasteland that was our text history made me feel like an elephant was enjoying a leisurely afternoon tea right in the center of my chest, so I shoved my phone away and attempted to soothe myself by looking through my backpack. Sketchbook. Pencils. Watercolors. Makeup. Water bottle. Journal.
I’d definitely pushed the limits on carry-on baggage, but I’m kind of weird about my stuff. Dax jokes that I’m a pack rat, citing the fact that every inch of my room is packed full of things, including twelve plants and a mini garden of succulents, but it’s not that I don’t like to throw things away. It’s that I like to keep things.
“Eísai kalá?” The voice sounded in my right ear, and I sat up very quickly, coming face-to-face with a kind smile and a whole lot of eyelashes. My seatmate. He was in his mid to late twenties, wearing purposely nerdy black glasses and a concerned expression. His entire left arm, or at least what I could see of it, was engulfed in a tattooed rose garden that under regular circumstances I would have been obsessing over. And while I’m sure my skin was currently a shade resembling dead fish, his dark skin was luminous, his hair coiffed. He clearly wasn’t having a mid-flight breakdown.
“Eísai kalá?” he said again, but this time his voice was less confident. He pointed at the seat-back pocket. Was he offering his magazine to my nervous clutches?
“I’m sorry, I—I don’t know what that means,” I stammered. At least that solved the Greek language dilemma. I’d been wondering if I’d remember all the Greek I’d known as a child. The answer was definitely no.
His face broke into a relieved, brilliant smile. White teeth as far as the eye could see. “Oh, thank God, you’re American.” His accent had a hint of the Midwest in it. Minnesota? Chicago? You’d think I’d know, having been born there and all that. “I thought you must be Greek, and I was trying the one phrase I know. Are you feeling ill? I have a vomit bag if you need one.” He gestured to his seat-back pocket again.
“I’m not sick. Or very Greek. I’m…” I searched for a word. Petrified? Horror-struck? “Nervous.”
He glanced at my pile of torn-up magazine pages, and I quickly shoved them into their envelope, my face burning. “Aerophobia,” he said. “It’s a wonder we aren’t all affected by it, seeing as we are literally hurtling through the air in a large sardine can that could plunge to the earth at any given moment. Do you ever think about that? How we could plunge to the earth? Oh my God, don’t think about it.”
He widened his eyes at me behind his round glasses, and I felt a smile creep onto my face. Pointing out looming danger may not be a standard way to calm a nervous flier down, but it was working for me. Also, talking felt good. Very good. “I actually don’t mind flying. It’s more about what will happen when I get there.”
He leaned in, as if in preparation for a bit of juicy gossip. “Oh?”
If juicy was what he wanted, I could definitely deliver. “I’m here to visit someone. It’s a bit… complicated.”
“A boyfriend,” he pronounced.
I shook my head. “No. My boyfriend is back in Seattle. It’s…” Was I really going to tell this stranger? Yep, I was. Rule number two on Mom’s list—No talking to strangers—was but a fleeting memory. I couldn’t help it. After all the lying I’d done to my friends and Dax this week, I was the emotional equivalent of an overfilled balloon. “It’s my dad. He lives in Santorini, and I haven’t seen him since I was eight.”
He studied me for a moment, waiting for a punch line. When none came, his eyes softened and he quickly dropped the eager look. “Rea-lly,” he said, dragging out the syllables. But it was a kind rea-lly. A gentle rea-lly. A knot inside of me loosened. He paused a moment, then carefully put his hand out. “I’m Henrik.”
“Liv.” His hand was warm and sure in mine, and for a moment I felt steady.
He tilted his head toward the window. “About your dad, that’s a big deal.” He was looking me straight in the eyes, which sent a tiny ray of hope surging through me. Was this a mythical person who wouldn’t shy away from talking about the fact that my father had abandoned me? I’d always wondered if they existed.
And he was right. My history with my dad was a big deal. The biggest deal. Or at least it used to be. And now I had a no-strings-attached opportunity to talk about it. “Do you want to hear the weirdest part?”
He nodded, and I went for it. “My dad is an Atlantis hunter. He thinks that the lost city was in Santorini, and he’s been looking for it for most of his life. That’s why he left. One day I went to school, and when I came back, he was gone.”
I’d been keeping those words away for so long that they felt rusted and cobwebby. There was a long pause, and this time the expression on Henrik’s face was clear. Bewilderment. “The lost city of Atlantis? Are you talking about the golden city?”
“That’s El Dorado.” I shook my head, a million facts crowding my mind. Despite my attempts to shove it all into a dusty corner of my brain, I knew almost everything there was to know about Atlantis. I’d known a lot before my dad left, and after he left I’d studied it for years. The fact that I’d once prided myself on being a walking Atlantis encyclopedia was humiliating. “Atlantis is the one that sank.”
Henrik sat up excitedly, bumping his tray table with his knees. “That’s right. I saw a movie about it. It’s an underwater city, right?”
“Well… not exactly,” I said.
Henrik’s was a typical response. People thought they knew about Atlantis, but they didn’t really. Not the way I did. They didn’t have ownership of it the way my father had. Did. Whatever. But most of the adaptations went way off script, which was impressive considering how ludicrous the story was to begin with.
I could already see the questions bubbling up for him. I’d get the basic premise out there, give him the facts, and then we could move on from it. “Atlantis was a city built on an island by the sea-god Poseidon. The people who lived there were half god, half human, and they were some of the wealthiest and most advanced people to ever live. Their island was shaped like a circle, and it was made out of alternating rings of land and water.” I formed a ring with my fingers, then pointed to the center. “There was a temple in the middle full of golden statues. The people had everything, like plants and exotic animals, and their own type of precious metal, cool buildings, all of it. But instead of being grateful for what they had, they made plans to conquer the rest of the world. So the gods decided they were ungrateful and ordered the ocean to swallow the island whole. The people were never heard from again.”