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

and, I think, more trusting than they should be. Hex rubs two sticks together to ignite a spark and builds a fire. Then we clean and cook the fish on sticks and eat them. I’m not disgusted at all, although I never liked the idea of killing and eating an animal before. Hunger wins every battle, though. The fish taste fresh, moist, and clean.
    â€œWe should bathe now,” Hex suggests. He pulls off his shirt and jeans and slips into the deepest part of the water, a pool beneath a small waterfall.
    I look down at myself; I hadn’t even noticed what a mess I am. My clothes are torn and when I take them off there are bruises all over my arms and legs. When I get in the water Hex uses his fingers to gently clean away the dried blood on my head. As soon as he touches me I feel like myself again. I lean against his shoulder in the water and gaze up. Sun sparkles through the leaves and the air smells of berries and flowers. It doesn’t seem right to relax when so much is uncertain. But my sore, tingling muscles are beginning to unknot in the water and I let myself close my eyes.
    â€œWhat happened on that ship?” I ask Hex. “How long were we there?”
    â€œMaybe a day or two? I don’t know.”
    â€œYou didn’t recognize me.”
    He’s quiet so I open my eyes and look at him. He’s scowling. “What did I do?”
    â€œYou were angry at me. You said something about me not taking care of my child properly. Getting high. Like you thought I was your mom.”
    Hex tosses his head so droplets fling off of the tips of his slick black hair. “I’m sorry.”
    â€œYou didn’t know it was me. It’s okay.”
    â€œI don’t know what’s going on. Who is casting these spells or whatever they are. We need to try and find the others.”
    I nod. “And then we have to find a way to get home,” I say.
    Hex looks down at me, cocks his head, raises his eyebrows. “I’m not sure it’s that simple, Pen.”
    I decide not to ask him what he means. I just want to find the others and leave. There might be fish and berries and fresh water, but there are too many signs of danger. If burying your own body isn’t a bad omen, what is? And besides, how do we know that any of this is real? If our corpses weren’t real, then maybe this whole island is a hallucination of some kind.
    If I were home, I would never leave the pink house again, even if Giants tried to chase me away. I wonder if the house is there anymore or if Bull went back and wrecked it in his rage. I think about my art prints on the ceiling of my room, Ez’s paintings, our books, our vegetable garden. It might all be gone.
    After we’ve bathed we dress in our filthy clothes. I wanted to wash them but they wouldn’t have dried in time and we both feel vulnerable enough without having to walk around naked.
    We go back to explore the woods a little more, following the stream. The trees form a canopy over our heads and pink and white orchids grow up the trunks and hang from the branches. The ground is bright green with moss and the rocks glimmer, crystalline, in the sunshine. We hear birds; it’s unmistakable, and I even think I see a squirrel dart by.
    When the air starts to cool we follow the stream back to our camp. As we’re collecting wood I hear Hex shout my name and I run to his side.
    â€œâ€˜I saw an uncanny thing, which horrifies me to speak of.
    From the first sapling that I tore up, its roots dissevered,
    There oozed out, drop by drop, a flow of black blood
    Fouling the earth with its stains. My whole frame shook in a palsy
    Of chilly fear, and my veins were ice-bound.’”
    â€œWhat? What are you…?”
    He holds up a branch coated in a sticky dark substance. “It’s in The Aeneid .”
    Again.
    I back away from what I don’t want to believe. “Bleeding wood.”
    â€œYes. It’s a sign we should bury