"Where, Jack?"
"You don't want it to be a surprise?"
"I hate surprises."
"Okay, Tess. We're having dinner in Atlantis. See you at six."
7
He hung up before I could demand details, likehowandwhyandhowandwhat?
Dinner in Atlantis. Wow.
It wasn't even possible, unless he had a plane ready to take us to the official ships that were the only way anybody was allowed to travel to Atlantis. Since the lost continent had risen from the depths of the ocean in the area formerly known as the Bermuda Triangle a few years back, everybody in the world had wanted to visit.
But the Atlantean royal family had quickly set guidelines and strictly limited visitors. Mostly historians, linguists, artists, and ambassadors at first, and then they'd slowly allowed a small amount of regular people—tourists, really—to visit.
The king, who was rumored to be hundreds of years old because of Atlantean magic but looked like a hot thirty-something, had even married an American!
But, no.
Surely Jack had been joking.
He knew I had to work in the morning, and that Susan would be coming by the shop too. Surely he didn't think I could just hop on a plane and a boat and be gone for days, even if I knew he could probably arrange it, since he was a friend to the Atlantean royal family and had helped them with dangerous missions in the years when Jack had been a rebel leader.
"Move out of the way, girlie!"
I blinked and realized I was still standing in the same place, and a very tiny woman who was maybe eighty going on a hundred and fifty stood glaring up at me.
"You're blocking the pickles, and I need pickles for my digestion," she informed me at the top of her lungs.
"I'm sorry." I hastily moved my cart out of the way.
"Wait! Since you're here, you may as well reach those pickles on the top shelf down for me," she commanded. "You're tall enough."
"Yes, ma'am." I got her pickles, accepted her grudging thanks, and headed for the checkout.
Atlantis.
No. Hehadto be kidding.
* * *
He wasn't kidding.
I was so anxious and, honestly, stressed out of my mind, that I was completely ready to go by five thirty. I'd tried calling Jack back, but it had rung through to voice mail, which meant either that he was busy or that he didn't want to answer any more questions.
It was driving me nuts.
I was wearing the green dress and my best pair of black patent heels that weren't too high but were still totally gorgeous, and I suddenly realized I didn’t have a current passport. I'd applied for one when I was sixteen and had dreamed dreams of Europe, but they expired in ten years, didn't they? Would I even need one to enter Atlantis? Was this really happening to me?
Would my 'gift' work on Atlanteans?
I didn't know the answer to any of the questions buzzing around my mind like bees on a caffeine overload.
This is why, when Jack knocked and opened my door, I was kneeling on the floor in front of the open wooden chest that usually served as my coffee table, bent over, head and shoulders deep in piles of paper, photographs, and all sorts of scrapbook-worthy keepsakes that I kept meaning to go through and sort out and never did.
Unfortunately, this meant that my butt was up in the air and pointing toward the door.
