Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 84237 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84237 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
“This is all a bunch of nonsense. Chasing after myths and legends. You’re going to get yourself killed over nothing,” Janice muttered under her breath as she continued making mashed potatoes, slamming bowls and drawers as she worked.
Samuel shoved down the sharp pain of her words and tightened his hold on his determination. He refused to let her be right about this. Maybe he was chasing after myths and legends, but they were the only hope he had when it came to being whole at last.
Three months later
Samuel looked at his phone, then at the printed-off directions in his other hand, and groaned. Why was a hotel so hard to find? Was it the language barrier? Or were the streets just that confusing?
He’d been in Brazil a whole six hours at this point, and that was following a grueling sixteen-hour flight out of Boston’s stupidly busy Logan Airport. After landing at the Tom Jobim Airport in Rio de Janeiro, he’d hopped on two buses to get to Barra da Tijuca, located on the coast.
The ride had been a cramped and bumpy one that stretched more than three hours in thick traffic. The air conditioning on the bus hadn’t been nearly powerful enough to handle the packed-in tourists. He’d spent the entire ride bombarded by at least a dozen different languages, all of them grumbling and testy.
And Barra da Tijuca wasn’t even his final destination. Far from it, in fact, but it would be where he’d stop for the night. Assuming he could find the hotel.
It would help if his phone had any kind of signal here. Samuel had been assured prior to leaving Manchester, New Hampshire, by people who didn’t deserve to be trusted, that his phone would work fine down here. This had turned out to be a whopping lie. Samuel hadn’t had good cell reception since landing.
Next stop after finding the hotel he’d reserved for a couple of nights was somewhere that sold a SIM card. He refused to live like this his entire stay. As it was, he’d been traveling for over a day now and was in a new country for the first time alone. His parents were probably blowing up his voicemails, demanding to know whether he’d landed, made it to his hotel safely, or whether he’d been murdered in the middle of the street, because naturally that’s the first thing that happened to any poor American who dared to step outside of their home country.
Ugh. He could hear his mother’s laments ringing in his head. The slightest niggle of guilt slid through him, but that was probably because they were also driving Salem insane with their worries. His brother had been his greatest supporter during this time.
Alright, the phone was a useless brick of technology right now. The directions in his hands didn’t make any more sense than the first ten times he’d read them. Samuel was already a half hour late according to the itinerary he’d made, and he hated being late. Time to bust out his very limited Portuguese and ask a native for directions.
He’d packed somewhat light for this trip, not needing the burden of a heavy suitcase. A hiker’s backpack was pressed to his spine, resulting in a steady stream of sweat soaking into his shirt. An additional duffel bag was hanging from one shoulder. Thankfully, it wasn’t that heavy, but it felt worse thanks to the godawful mugginess.
He was an idiot. A big, ridiculous idiot.
Why, oh why did he think that coming to Brazil in the middle of summer was a brilliant idea?
Probably because his brain kept pointing out that it was January. How bad could Rio de Janeiro be in January? Back home in New Hampshire, it wasn’t even getting above the freezing mark and there was a foot of snow on the ground.
But it was summer in Rio. The temperature was in the low eighties, but the humidity was so thick it was like getting smacked in the face with a heated wet blanket.
Get directions, find hotel with blissful air conditioning, and then fix his phone. He could do this. It was easy to cross the street and look around to see if there was anyone he could speak to for a moment.
Barra da Tijuca was a busy, high-end neighborhood with cars rushing along the clean, neat roads. The buildings were tidy and well-kept while a wall of high-rises rose up in front of him. He was pretty sure they all faced the ocean, giving occupants a gorgeous view. People were friendly here too.
That was his first impression of Brazil—other than the heat. The people were very hospitable and friendly. If you tried to speak Portuguese to them first, they bent over backward trying to meet you halfway with English.
Samuel’s linguistic skills with the language were spotty at best, despite studying it for three months solid, but he was game to try. Especially with evening approaching. It was late afternoon now, and while sunset was still a few hours off, considering how long it had taken him to get to this point, he didn’t want to be stuck trying to find his hotel after dark.