the remarkable adventures of adam de mattos

Lisa Maraventano — novel — $6.99

Prologue

Adam de Mattos was twenty-two years old the day he graduated with the class of 1995 from the University of California. He had a bachelor's degree in Literature and no clue how he would earn his living. He was quite good-looking, a quality which had given him favor when his efforts and indeed his personality would not have been sufficient. He was six foot tall, one hundred and eighty pounds with brown-black hair and dark brown eyes. He was broad shouldered, long-legged, with a square jaw. These features were from his grandfather—also named Adam de Mattos—who had died last year but had been born in Portugal and moved to America as a child.

Adam had been planning to work for his grandfather after graduation. His grandfather had spent decades in California real estate and while Adam had little interest in it, he knew it was the best opportunity for him. When his grandfather died, there was a terrible period of probate and scrambling around after the money and property by his aunts, uncles, and even his father. In the end, Adam inherited ten thousand dollars and lost not only his grandfather but his own future as well. To top this off, last month his girlfriend of the past year dumped him for being too boring and she was an accounting major.

Wandering around Tower Books two days later, Adam found himself in the travel section. He had never thought much about travel. What did people see in it? He flipped open a Lonely Planet guide to Europe. It claimed you could travel on a shoestring.

The pictures and descriptions were amazing: Prague, Venice, Amsterdam. What silken daydreams unfold in the mind at merely their pronunciations.

Boring. He was boring. Not only was he incredibly boring. He was bored.

Adam continued flipping through the travel book while the wild hair established permanent residence. Maybe the rest of the world wouldn't care, but Adam de Mattos was thoroughly excited. He was going to Paris! And Rome! And London! And Madrid!

It was the hope that life could and should be better than it had heretofore actually been.

A fortnight later, Adam stepped off the plane in Dublin.

Shipwreck

A few weeks after his arrival in Europe, Adam awoke with his face in the sand. He coughed and spluttered, saltwater puking up out of him. Pain. Shattering pain in his right leg, his right arm. He tried to move. His body did not respond to his will. Concentrating fully, he tensed the muscles of his left arm, put pressure from his biceps to his elbow and managed to crank his torso up forty-five degrees from the sand.

He heard a strangled cry. Turning his head to the left, he saw a young girl dressed in old-fashioned garb—a long skirt with an apron over it, corseted bodice—drop a wooden bucket she was carrying and rush toward him. She was on the sand next to him within seconds and gabbling in a language he didn't understand as she fretted over his wounds.

"Whoa there, hold on," Adam muttered as she prodded the torn flesh on his shin. She was a very beautiful girl, maybe sixteen years old. The skin of her cheeks and neck and shoulders was pale and unblemished; her sparkling dark eyes and thick eyelashes contrasted superbly against the pure setting. She chattered again in something he was starting to recognize as possibly Spanish but unlike any Spanish he'd heard before.

In a few minutes more, Adam heard the voice of the strange girl behind him. He turned his head and was confounded to see with her four men also dressed in old-fashioned costume with two long poles, rope and some long boards. Next thing he knew a primitive stretcher was constructed beside him. The men brusquely maneuvered him onto the stretcher and, speaking the same unintelligible language as the girl, on cue hoisted the poles and began carrying Adam up the beach to a rustic shack a quarter-mile inland.

Adam realized then that this must be a dream. The man looked like no one so much as the picture of Rabelais from the introduction of Gargantua and Pantagruel he'd read in March. Somehow his subconscious was twisting all the literature he'd read into his own fairy tale while he slept. But if that were true, why the hell was he in so much pain?

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Delfina," she replied. "Y usted?"

"Adam."

"Adán," she repeated.

"Well, could you please tell me what year it is?"

Delfina threw back her head and laughed. "What year it is? It is the year 1630, of course! Adam, you are such a comedian." She walked across the room and blew out the candle. "Good night, silly Adam," she whispered from the doorway.

"Good night, fair Delfina," Adam whispered back. But his mind was turning over what she had said. It only confirmed the suspicion he'd had for some time, that he was dreaming a long, involved dream. Why couldn't he wake up?

— many more adventures inside —