“‘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.’”
“What? 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.”
“Yes. It’s a sign we should bury someone.”
In the book it was because Polydorus, the son of the Trojan king Priam, had been killed and the blood signified that Aeneas must give Polydorus a proper burial.
I turn away, trying to keep the desperation out of my voice, but the thought of the dripping branch makes it difficult. “There’s no one else to bury.”
“Not yet,” Hex says.
I turn back to him. He holds the branch up again but there’s no sign of the blood anymore. “Something nasty is going on, isn’t it?” After the Earth Shaker, The Odyssey had at least provided us with some clues, served as a sort of guide. The parallels with The Aeneid are less clear, perhaps a testament to the ever-growing chaos of the world around us.
If stories are no longer our salvation we have even less hope than before.
We build another fire from branches that do not bleed and make our bed on the moss among the roots of a tree. I try to tell Hex that one of us should stay awake, keep watch—what if some other plant decides to hemorrhage in the night—but I’m too tired and sleep is welcome. As a goddess.
8
THE FLOWER CRADLE
THREE CREATURES ARE STANDING over me and Hex.
They are young women with long hair and skin that shimmers wetly in the sunlight. Their breasts, legs, and feet are bare and they wear silk scarves tied around their hips. But they’re not ordinary women. Colorful layers of feathers grow from their shoulders and the webbing of wings that are attached on the undersides of their arms. It’s like a work by Viktor Vasnetsov, a Russian painter of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The painting I’m reminded of depicts two women, one fair, one dark, with the bodies and wings and talons of birds. They are perched in a tree, singing siren songs.
“Why have you come here?” the black-haired and feathered creature before me asks.
“Our ship crashed on this island,” I say as Hex and I clamber to our feet, using each other for support.
Her golden eyes flash. “You must come with us.”
The three of them lift their arms in unison, a flare of color and a shwoosh of wind as their shoulders seem to dislocate and wings fan open; I move closer to Hex.
“We just want to get home,” I tell the bird women.
“Home,” they say, fixing us with their molten gaze, flapping their gaudy pinions. “Go home.”
“We don’t know how. We’ve been trying but our ship is ruined.”
“Ruined,” they all say.
They are still eying me with great scrutiny and I gulp down saliva.
“You must come with us to see the king.”
“Who?” I ask, but I already know. I whisper to Hex, reminding him of my vision of the crowned man but Hex has probably already thought of that.
“The king of the Island of Love.” They high step in the sand as if doing some synchronized dance. “He’s been waiting for you.”
I have to repress a shudder. Hex and I exchange a glance, which tells me he’s feeling the same icy signal of warning to his nerve endings. I’m afraid to go but we must meet this king, if he’s the same one with Venice, Ez, and Ash in my vision. He was in my dream, too, and in the other vision, the one I had before we left. As was this island. The women call it Love; I told Ez and Ash it was the Island of Excess Love.
“Take us there. Please,” I say.
* * *
We follow the bird women along the beach, in the opposite direction from the forest and across sand dunes. Spreading out below us on the other side of the dunes is an expanse of green hills covered with citrus groves, grape orchards, and palm trees. A drove of deer are grazing there.
“It looks like we won’t have to deal with any Giants at least,” Hex says, nodding at the herd.
But what will we have to deal with?
There’s a large structure glittering in the distance. As we draw nearer I see that it seems to be made of rough-hewn quartz crystal. Flowering trees and bushes grow in profusion in a large terraced garden in front of the entrance. Bees and blue, yellow, and white butterflies, all as big as my hand, are busy pollinating. I even see some orange butterflies, which were my guide after the Earth Shaker, some kind of sign from my mother leading me to my destination. But I’m not sure I trust these orange butterflies, or any of this for that matter. It could be a mirage to lure us to some new danger.
“What is this place?” I ask.
“The Flower Cradle,” the bird women say, in unison.
We pass under a large quartz archway and into a courtyard. More citrus trees grow here—lemon, orange, and lime—as well as fig, apple, pear, and olive trees. Waterfalls splash over rocks into shallow pools surrounded by dark purple roses.
I stop in front of one voluminous blossom that grows eye level with me as if asking me to pick it. I’ve never seen a rose this color before. Almost like black grapes, that shiny and juicy looking. The perfume it exudes makes me dizzy.
I reach to pluck the flower, without thinking. The stem snaps unevenly and I have to pull hard and at an angle to break the bloom the rest of the way off.
The brown-haired bird woman turns her head sideways, watching me. “Why did you do that?”
“I don’t know.” I should have picked an orange instead. But the rose compelled me somehow. Like Beauty in the fairy tale.
The red-haired bird woman makes a tsking sound. I stare down at the rose, wishing I could fasten it back on its stem.
We follow the women through another archway at the far end of the courtyard.
Then we’re in a large room of the same rough-hewn quartz with waterfalls cascading down the walls into pools. The floor is polished and inlaid with different-colored stone to create the image of a naked man standing in a circle with his limbs outstretched. He’s surrounded by symbols—a sun, a moon, a rose, a dove, a single eye. At the far end of the room is the flower-heaped, incense-smoked dais I saw in my vision. And on the dais is a throne, a huge piece of quartz that’s been cloven down the middle to reveal its dazzling innards. Seated on it is the king.
* * *
The very young alchemist stared at the people flying off the buildings on the TV screen. For one heart-banging beat he wondered if they had discovered the magic spell to make them fly.
It was not that.
The plane had crashed through the buildings. His mother came in, turned off the TV, and told him to go to his room and get ready for school.
Instead he went to his sister’s room; she was seated on the floor, her three black hound dogs sitting upright behind her, her black-, red-, and yellow-striped snake asleep in its cage. Black candles burned and a sketchbook lay open. There was an image on the page of a naked man and woman holding each other in a fountain. The man wore antlers on his head and the woman was missing one eye. Next to it was another image—two skeletons in the same intertwined position with roses growing on and among their bones. A third image was of a young boy with a white dove, surrounded by cryptic symbols.
His sister looked up at him pale-bluely, her eyes so like his that it sometimes confused him.
“Did you see the TV?” he said.
“I felt sick all night,” she answered.
He didn’t know what this meant. That she’d seen it? That she hadn’t because she was sick? That she was sick because she knew what happened before it happened? The last option was not unlikely if you happened to be his s
ister.
“Can I stay here?” he asked.
She shrugged and he sat down on the floor with her. The curtains were drawn and the room was dim although it was morning. Her hair seemed to be the only source of light.
“This world sucks,” he said.
His sister ignored him.
“What are you doing?”
She looked up and stared at him again with her faintly shining eyes. “Witchcraft. Magic. What do you think I’m doing?”
“I want to learn.”
“You don’t learn, it. You either have the gift or not.”
“What are you going to do?”
The three dogs, who had remained almost motionless, began to bay, as if at the full moon of her presence. “I’m going to change the world,” she said.
She never did. Not even in the little ways that everyone does, except changing his world when she left it. The gift? He achieved it. But by then it was too late.
* * *
I recognize the young man from the twice-reoccurring image in my head, especially the wide-set pale eyes. The only difference is that the crown of antlers he wears doesn’t look like a crown. It appears that there are actual antlers growing from his head.
He’s like no one I’ve ever seen. There’s something predatory about his high cheekbones, arched eyebrows, and flared nostrils. My heart trembles in spite of itself. I’m usually not this susceptible to beauty, especially male beauty, but there is something about him that makes me feel urgent and unsteady. I glance at Hex but I can’t decipher what he’s thinking. There is no sign of Venice, Argos, Ez, or Ash.
I try to stay focused on them, but instead all I can think about is the king. I’ve never been this seized by a vision of someone on our first meeting.
I take a step back from the dais, wanting to make this vision go away. I don’t look at Hex but I can feel him watching me and I know his jaw and fists are clenched.
“Where is my brother?” I say, remembering why we are here. “Where are our friends?”
The king keeps staring at me from under his eyebrows. His full lips spread, revealing the dangerous white points of his teeth. “Welcome, my queen” is all he says.
9
THE KING
HEX STEPS FORWARD, seething. “We need to see our friends now.”
The king smiles at him but his eyes are serious, sad even. “I’m sorry, Hexane. First you will bathe and dress. You will see your friends at the banquet tonight.”
I reach for Hex’s arm but he shrugs me off and moves closer to the king. “So you have some tricks? Okay. You speak all fancy and shit, you know my name and you can make us see our dead bodies. You live in a pretty nice place considering the rest of the world has gone to shit as far as I can tell. But that doesn’t mean you can dick around with us.”
The king’s lips curl as if he’s smelled something unpleasant. “I don’t appreciate that kind of language around my queen.”
“What the fuck? And by the way? She’s not actually yours. She doesn’t belong to anyone. But if she did, homey? It would be me.”
“Penelope,” the king says. “What do you have to say for this boy?”
“I apologize,” I stammer, grasping the back of Hex’s shirt and tugging to signal for him to be quiet. “We’re both very tired and upset. If we could please just see Venice and Ez and Ash. And our dog, Argos?”
“You will, you will, but first I want you to be presentable. Storm, Dark, and Swift will show you to your chambers.” He nods at the bird women; I’d almost forgotten about them. Storm, Dark, Swift. Aello, meaning “storm-swift,” Celaeno, meaning “the dark,” and Ocypete, meaning “swift wing” or “swift-flying,” were the names of harpies in mythology. Harpies cursed Aeneas and his men on their way to what would later become Rome. I’m not surprised these women are named after the harpies, although they’re much more attractive than the original winged, bird-legged coven.
The king seems to have a large amount of affectations at his fingertips, and on his brow if you count the antlers.
I whisper to Hex, “Please do as he says. I saw everybody here, in the vision.” Venice, Ez, Ash, Argos. “I think he’s telling the truth.”
Hex nods but his eyes are hard. Still, he comes with me as we follow the bird women down a corridor.
We stop at a doorway. “Your room,” one of our hostesses says to me. Hex starts to enter but she holds him back. “You’re next door.”
“Fuck that.”
I put my hand on his arm. “It’s okay. Just for now,” I softly tell him. I don’t want to cause any trouble. We need to see our friends.
“Whatever,” Hex says without glancing back as he’s led to his room.
My room has a large bed on a platform of polished quartz. The floor is inlaid with an image of a rose. Inside the rose is an eye.
On a quartz table is a bowl of water, a pile of linens, a vase of the purple-black roses, and a platter of fruit. Dresses hang from protruding crystals of green, black, and pink tourmaline that grow from the quartz walls. The dresses are all of a similar style—long, narrow, cut on the bias, and made of silk or satin charmeuse like the finest slips. Some have tulle at the hem or lace inserts. They are in a variety of colors—ivory, gold, silver, dusky rose, peach, apricot, saffron, sunlit-leaf-green, a celestialous blue. Some, like the blue one, are covered with crystal beading resembling a starry sky. They all look exactly my size although I can’t remember the last time I actually wore a dress—maybe my graduation from elementary school, Then? And I hated it. The dry skin of my finger snags on the blue dress and I let go. Standing there, I get the distinct hair-on-the-back-of-the-neck-raising impression that I’m being watched and I turn around.
I’m watching me.
There’s a portrait of me on the wall. I hadn’t noticed it when I walked in. It’s definitely me, but with long hair like I had Then, more sensual lips, a stronger jaw, and two eyes. Three if you count the huge eye on a small platter in my portrait’s hand. Bull the Cyclops’s eye. The quality of the paint is rich and glossy, infused with light. I’m bare breasted and corpse pale, and there are wilting red roses surrounding me, very much like the ones in the Dante Gabriel Rossetti painting Venus Verticordia. In fact the whole painting, down to the butterflies in my hair, resembles the Rossetti. Goose bumps rise up on my arms, in contrast to the smooth skin of the girl in the portrait.
Who is this king and what does he want from us? From me?
I start to call for Hex but stop myself. He’d only get angrier and then we’d be in more danger. It seems wiser to work this strange man’s ego to our advantage especially if he’s as fascinated with me as he seems.
I try to ignore the warm flush spreading across the tops of my breasts as if my naked body has just been viewed by an enchanting stranger.
Pen, stop. Stay focused.
There’s an adjoining bathroom with a sunken quartz tub, a bowl of fresh rose petals on the rim. Running water?
I fill the tub, sprinkle the petals in the water, and step in. I try not to think of anything or anyone as I soap and rinse my body. Then I towel off and put on the blue dress. I fasten my wet hair up on my head and put on a pair of taupe suede boots. There are no underclothes and my own are filthy so I remain uncomfortably naked under the dress, but also soothed by the drape of the fabric on my clean skin. I have to go find Hex. Despite the weird circumstances I’m excited for him to see me bathed and dressed like a pretty girl for once. And what about our host? Do I care what he thinks, too?
Before I leave the room I examine myself in a mirror over the bureau. The ragged patch over my eye ruins the whole effect. I glance down and see a small crystal bowl.
In it is an eye.
An eye so lifelike it could be real.
But it’s made of glass.
It’s brown, just like mine.
I pick it up and roll it gently between my thumb and forefinger. It feels cool and hard but just slightly malleable, which strikes me as strange.
&nbs
p; Without thinking I place it in my empty socket.
Immediately I close my right eye to check—because this can’t be.
I can see.
I can see from the glass eye.
The view is blurry like looking through foggy glass but I can see all the same.
I start to cry. Tears fall down my face. From both eyes.
No. I don’t want all this. Who is this magician, this sorcerer? Why is he doing this?
I rush out into the corridor and bump into Hex. I gesture to my eye but I can’t speak.
“What is it? A glass eye? What’s wrong?”
“I can see through it,” I say. “Hex, I can see.”
He shakes off some invisible shackles. “We have to find Venice, Ez, and Ash and get the hell out of here.”
“Okay,” I whisper. I can’t tell my lover and best friend that, although I know he’s probably right, I feel a profound and confounding need to stay.
* * *
“Hexane,” the king says when we enter the room where he still sits, “you didn’t put on the clothes I left for you.”
Hex shrugs. “I prefer my own, thanks.”
“We’ll see,” the king says.
Hex has met his “we’ll see” match. I take a step forward, squaring my shoulders. “Can you explain all this to us?”
The king smiles and stands. “All what? This place? What you found in your room? Why question it?”
I try not to flinch and fall to my knees under his blue agate gaze. Instead we follow him out of the room and into another corridor. “Because I like to understand,” I say.
“Of course you do. And you will.”
This isn’t enough for me. I force myself to keep talking. “We were brought here on a ship. We had all kinds of hallucinations; I thought I was going insane, and then there was a wreck and when we came to on the beach Hex and I saw two corpses that looked like us and a tree that bled.”
“A bleeding tree?” The king frowns and shakes his head. “That’s not how it was intended to go. I’m sorry you were traumatized and I couldn’t explain all of it even if I chose to. But now it’s time for you to regain your strength and see some friends who’ve been waiting for you.”
The Island of Excess Love Page 6
