Read Online The Island of Excess Love by Francesca Lia Block - Free Book Online

corpses of my friends and family back on the beach. What if we find their dead bodies? Even if it’s a wickedy spell, we might think it’s real. I’m relieved that at least there are only two graves here.
    Hex and I go back to my body and lift it carefully. We carry it back up the beach to the trees. It feels small and stiff in my arms, and I remember carrying my mother’s body when I found her in Las Vegas just before she died. I can’t look at this corpse’s face.
    Hex speaks to me softly the whole way. “I don’t understand this, Pen, but it seems like what we’re supposed to do, don’t you think? Like, let’s pretend we’re in a story or a dream. In the epics the burial of the dead is a very important, sacred thing.”
    But even in The Aeneid they didn’t have to bury themselves.
    We lay my body in the grave and go back to get Hex. He doesn’t weigh much more than I do. I try to keep my eyes on the live Hex as we carry the dead one to his final resting place. The two dead versions of us lie there and I don’t feel like crying; I don’t feel anything, except the same desire to get out of here and go home. What kind of spell is this? What weird magic? And what is it supposed to be telling us? That we must leave our old selves behind? What are we meant to learn from it all?
    We shove dirt over our corpses and pat it down and then Hex breaks off sprigs, from a bush covered in white flowers that look like the lace of a bridal dress, and sticks one on top of each mound.
    â€œWhat should I say?” he asks.
    â€œHere lie Hex and Pen, warriors, storytellers, survivors, friends, and lovers. May their souls be reborn to do good and restore this planet,” I say, surprising myself. Since when do I hope to restore this planet? It’s too big a task, and now Venice and Ez and Ash are gone. If we don’t find them I’ll be lucky if I can restore my own heart.
    Hex takes my hand and we run back to the beach. We go down to the water and search among the rocks. Something is lodged in the sand and I recognize the open mouth and staring eyes of the wooden horse from our ship’s prow. Severed like this it resembles the skull of an actual horse. That doesn’t bode well. There must have been a serious shipwreck.
    I put my face in my hands, wanting to make all of this go away. “How do we not give up?”
    â€œBecause we have no other choice?”
    *   *   *
    In the dark space between my palms I see colors emerge and then shatter into fragments like bits of stained glass. Then the colors re-form into images. I see Venice holding Argos, standing with Ez and Ash. They are in a room where waterfalls splash down rock walls into shallow pools. Ash is singing and Ez is sketching. A young man is seated on a flower-covered dais in front of my brother and my friends. The smoke of incense partially occludes him but I see that his eyes are wide spaced, pale, and strange. He wears a crown of antlers, decorated with flowers, on his head.
    *   *   *
    â€œThey’re okay,” I say. “Hex, they’re okay. I see them.” Usually my visions are of the more distant past but I’m pretty sure this one is something that just happened. Weirdly, the man looks like the one in the vision I had of the black quartz island.
    I describe what I’ve seen to Hex.
    He puts his arm around my shoulder. He doesn’t question these things.
    â€œCan you tell where?”
    I shake my head, no. The vision is gone.
    â€œLet’s get some more to eat, and some rest,” Hex says. “Then we’ll look for them.”
    He and I head back to the stream with the fishing net we removed from my corpse. Hex holds it; I don’t like the idea of touching something that was wrapped around my dead body.
    We stand in the water and Hex swishes the net around; it’s easy to catch fish. They’re small and silvery