Journey to Atlantis Read Online Free Page B

You must learn to trust those feelings.”
    She poured the tea. I had learned to drink her teas without milk. Don’t curdle the passion of a flower with the discharge of a cow’s stomach, she had said.
    “When we surfaced, there was a really bad storm.”
    “I know! The worst storm in years. And then?”
    “Well, the radio said there were three fishing boats lost.”
    “So, you went out to look for them.”
    “Yes. But two of them were already sunk.”
    “How did you know?”
    “I found them later, on sonar.”
    “At the bottom?”
    “No. One was at two hundred feet, the other at seventy-five. They were drifting down slowly.”
    “Horrible! And then?”
    “I found two men in the other boat.”
    “Alive?”
    “One of them … one of them …”
    I felt a heaviness in my chest. Emotion rushed through me and my eyes started to water. I covered my face.
    “Oh, Alfred! Let your tears fall. It’s good for you. Tears are rain from the heart. You must let your heart rain free or the rest of your body will dry up and wither.”
    I wiped my eyes.
    “It’s embarrassing. I never cry.”
    “Of course you do! Everybody does. Ziegfried cries every time he sees a new kitten.”
    I laughed. It was true. Ziegfried cried as easily as a little girl. I wiped my cheeks and continued.
    “I didn’t realize I was so upset about it.”
    “Of course! It is
terribly
upsetting! So, one of them was alive and one wasn’t?”
    Every time I tried to speak, my chest got that heavy feeling and my eyes started. I took a deep breath. I noticed Sheba was crying along with me. She cried a lot too.
    “He … he told me they were brothers.”
    She held my hands again and gently shook them.
    “And you were able only to save one of them. Is that what is bothering you?”
    I took another deep breath. My chest started to calm down.
    “I just wish I had been able to get there sooner. I was too late to save them both. He cried when I pulled him away from his brother.”
    “Oh, Alfred. It is so awful, but you saved his life!”
    “I know. I just felt so bad having to separate them.”
    “So you left the dead brother at sea?”
    “No. I promised I would take him too, so I went back.”
    “Did you put him in your submarine and carry him to shore too?”
    “Yes.”
    “Oh, Alfred! That was very brave! Now his ghost will not haunt the sea.”
    I took a drink of my tea. It filled my mouth with licorice flavour and my mind drifted away to images of a forest, dark and misty, a forest I had never even seen before. It was peaceful but mysterious. Everything about Sheba was peaceful and mysterious.
    “But tell me now what you want to do, Alfred. Where do you want to go next?”
    “I want to explore.”
    “Explore what?”
    “Well …”
    “Yes?”
    “There’s something I want to look for.”
    “And that is …?”
    “It might sound silly because it probably doesn’t exist.”
    Sheba looked so deeply into my eyes I felt like she could read my mind.
    “Try me.”
    Well, if I couldn’t tell Sheba, who
could
I tell?
    “I want to look for Atlantis. But I know it probably doesn’t exist.”
    She sat up straight and her face broke into a beaming smile.
    “That’s perfect!”
    “Do you think so?”
    “It is so perfect, Alfred. For thousands of years people have been waiting for someone to find Atlantis again, and now, you are the one to do it. I am so happy!”
    “But I’m not even sure it really exists. It might be just a myth.”
    “Of course it exists! It’s waiting for you and your submarine to find it. Nobody has been able to find it because they didn’t have the means that you have, or the determination. It is your destiny. Oh, Alfred, what a wonderful destiny you have.”
    I couldn’t help smiling from ear to ear. “Well, Jacques Cousteau looked for it with a submersible.”
    “Did he
live
in his submarine? Did he travel around the world in it the way you do?”
    “No.”
    “Well?”
    Sheba was great. How wonderful to know