• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“Thank you, Mr. Harding.”

He held out his hand to Caroline. She took it and stood, gliding gracefully with him over to the closed windows. Using a louver-crank, Nemo slid back the metal plates, then turned a dial that extinguished the lamps inside the salon.

Outside, the ethereal light from the portholes hung like a diffuse halo around the Nautilus. He encouraged Caroline to take a step closer to the viewing window, to allow her eyes to adjust. When she gasped out loud, he knew she had seen.

“Behold . . . Atlantis.”

Drowned beneath pristine waters that were turned a jewel blue by filtered sunlight lay the ruins of an ancient, long-forgotten city. Fluted Corinthian pillars towered beside a fallen arch adorned with dervish-scarves of seaweed. The collapsed buildings showed magnificent, unrivalled architecture, now appreciated only by colorful fish that flitted in and out of the awesome drowned temples.

“It is beautiful, André,” Caroline said, letting out a long breath. Her face glowed with childlike delight. Nemo thought he had never seen her look more lovely.

An alabaster statue of Adonis-like perfection lay facedown in the mud. Enameled urns that had tumbled to the soft ocean bed were now encrusted with coral. Green and pink sea anemones sprouted in basins and beside broken benches like an odd flower bed. Metallic-pink abalone shells had wedged themselves into the cracks of a crooked flagstone path.

Nemo whispered his next words close to her ear. “I love you Caroline. I’ve loved you all of my life. There is so much more I want to share with you. The oceans of the world can be ours together. Will you marry me?”

Immense marble halls sagged under the weight of water and time. Gems, wrought-gold jewelry, and broken pottery lay strewn across the ocean floor. All traces of the original inhabitants of this place had vanished.

Caroline closed her eyes, letting the words into her heart like water into parched ground. “Of course I will, André.” She opened her eyes and squeezed his hand. They didn’t speak for a long time, just sharing the wonder of the world that lay before them.

“Come walk with me,” Nemo invited, his voice barely above a whisper.

Caroline nodded. “Always.”

Then slowly -- almost shyly -- they swayed toward each other, and their lips met in a kiss that held both reverence for the past and promise for the future. . . .

Leaving Cyrus Harding in charge, the two suited up in undersea garments. Surrounded by warm water, they steadied their footing on the sandy bottom. Nemo reached out to clasp Caroline’s gloved hand. The pair moved like fairy dancers in slow, graceful motion.

As they explored, the final barriers between them seemed to melt away. The ancient paths and their own tortured histories of loneliness, tragic mistakes, and paths not taken now merged with the present into one magical moment frozen in time.

Everything they had endured or experienced in their lives had brought them to this point. They were together now with the future ahead of them. Life was filled with opportunities, a story of love and adventure yet to be written. Regrets over what might have been were washed away by the warmth of the current.

Time had cast its veil of poignant splendor over this ancient place, a reminder that the past was not a thing to fear, but an essential part of the present and all that was yet to come. Walking together, they ventured through the sunken city, treading where no one had gone for century upon century.

It was only the first of many wonders they would experience together.

DEDICATION

This book is for CATHERINE,

who has been an intelligent, insightful, hardworking, and all-around delightful companion on many of my fictional “extraordinary voyages.”

Jules Verne’s characters could not have hoped for a better fellow adventurer.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

During the researching, writing, and editing of this novel, I have valued the insights, suggestions, and expertise of a great many people, including my agents Matt Bialer and Robert