The Island of Excess Love Read Online Free Page A

book.
    I mean, unless it is a children’s picture book about happy and slightly annoying animals or something. Not an epic about omens and wars. We already had to deal with that once, when our lives began to resemble Homer’s Odyssey.
    And I had to bring up The Aeneid . Maybe I’m getting as obsessed as Hex is.
    â€œWhat did the omen in the book mean, though?” Ash asks. “I can’t keep track of all your stories.”
    â€œYou have to start paying attention, man.” Hex frowns. “That they should leave and start a civilization of their own. That’s the whole point of the book. Be brave, venture forth, make sacrifices.”
    Ash shakes his dreads as if they’ll push the idea out of the room.
    â€œWe already have our own civilization, here.” Ez puts his hand on his belly and his face blanches like he’s going to be sick.
    Or maybe I’m just projecting because that’s exactly how I feel. I might be up for exploring the ship after seeing Venice’s hair catch on fire but founding civilizations is a whole different thing.
    â€œI’m not going anywhere,” Ez continues. “I’ve had enough of that shit.”
    â€œWe’ll see,” says Hex. I know this person: when he says, “We’ll see,” it means we’re going to do exactly what he has planned for us.
    *   *   *
    In bed that night he tells me he’s wiped out from the day even though we didn’t do much, really; the incident with the ship has affected all of us. I hold him tighter than usual so that he has to pry my fingers loose from his undershirt in order to shift his position. I close my eyes against the dark, my hand on Hex’s heart, and try to match my breathing to his, wishing he were still awake with me.
    When I finally fall asleep I dream about my mother again. I’m calling her on the phone, asking her to come home. She says she’ll meet me somewhere so I start walking. On the way I pass a graveyard on a hill. I didn’t expect it to be there and it disturbs me. It’s crowded with bronze and marble statues marking graves, so many that there’s nowhere to walk. So many dead, I think, a world of the dead spilling down the sides of the hill. There are androgynous winged figures, women who are turning into trees, males with large heads and torsos balanced precariously on the small, delicate legs of goats, and one statue of the antler man from my other dream. Then I see a statue of my mother. I run to it but it’s difficult because of all the statues, all the graves in the way. Some of them are leaning over, threatening to fall on me. I get to the statue but it’s not my mother—it’s another woman with glittering eyes, and holding a spear. I see the eyes are holes and that there is a fire burning inside of the statue. A liquid substance is beading on her forehead and dripping down her arms. I touch it and see that it’s sweat. The statue raises her spear.
    I wake shivering in a sheet of my own sweat and call for Hex. He grabs me around the rib cage and holds me until I stop thrashing. I’ve kicked the covers off and he reaches to retrieve the blanket from the foot of the bed and pull it around us.
    â€œRemember, it’s just an illusion,” he tells me.
    I’m not sure if he means my dream or what happened to my brother. “You want to leave, don’t you?” I say into his chest. “Because of the fire. But I thought you didn’t believe in illusions.”
    â€œI believe in Virgil.”
    That old man again. “I don’t want to leave here. I know we have to at least go to the ship but…”
    Hex says, “It’s okay. I promise, everything will be okay.”
    â€œWhy?” I ask him. I’m crying, tears running down my face like that sweat dripping off the infernal statue.
    â€œBecause I love you,” he says. “And that’s all we really