Is grief like the blue of the sky and sea? You can’t even see it anymore when it’s all you have come to know.
But the king said, “Storytelling helps determine action.”
“Tell Hex a story, storyteller,” says Ez. “Tell us all a story. We need one.”
12
THE RETURN
THIS IS THE STORY I tell them. I don’t know for sure if my visions of the future are true, but this is what I see:
* * *
When my friends and I arrive home we pray to whatever deities we may still have a shred of belief in, that the pink house is intact, protected by some fog-spell, like the one Venice once used to keep himself from being found out, so the Giant did not see it.
The six of us and Argos drag ourselves up the shore. It is our hope that sustains us; we are weak from so long without food and much water. The feasts at the Island of Excess Love were not real, only scraps enchanted to resemble stews and cakes and wine. Wine did not make us drunk; it was the magic of the king that did that.
But the magic of the king burned with him. Venice could not have hidden a whole house from a Giant, even if he had the opportunity to focus on this feat during the journey to the Shades and back again.
The pink house is ruined.
The whole facade is gone so it resembles the dollhouse I used to play with as a child. The father who raised me made it and I liked to preside over that tiny world, where every choice was mine. But now I am as powerless as the dolls I played with.
Windows are smashed, walls have crumbled, the roof has caved in. The garden has been trampled, destroyed. The Giant is nowhere to be seen and if my friends and I were not so weak with hunger and devastation we would register gratitude for this.
Only the water in the spring is clear-bright as always, tasting of leaves and sunshine. This is still hallowed ground. We fall to our knees in supplication to the dryads and drink.
A few rogue dandelions grow by the spring and we eat the leaves, chewing slowly, savoring the bitter tang. Then we go back to the house, Hex leading us with his sword drawn.
Hex, Ez, Ash, Acacia, and Venice holding Argos tiptoe over the creaking floorboards and up what is left of the staircase. I take up the rear, glancing back behind me as I go. There is nowhere for a Giant to hide but we still proceed with caution and our hearts startle at every sound. A monster could appear or the stairs could collapse beneath us but we need to survey the extent of the damage.
When night comes we arm ourselves with kitchen knives and huddle together in the large downstairs room where there is the most shelter in spite of the cracked window and the fallen partition that once separated the space into a living and dining area. Hex refuses to rest and keeps watch, pacing the muddy ground in front of the house. I hold Argos, breathing the comfort of his musty fur, and cry myself to sleep as quietly as possible so as not to worry the others.
In the morning we eat more dandelion greens and drink the water and practice our meditations and exercises. When evening comes, Venice calls a meeting and we gather around a fire built in the remains of the fireplace. I sit between Ez and Ash with Argos on my lap, Acacia sits beside Venice, where she seems to always place herself now, and Hex hovers on the outskirts as usual.
“We’ve all been through a lot,” Venice says. “But we can’t give up. We can’t run away again.”
Acacia nods her head, her gaze attaching to his face.
“What are we supposed to do?” Ez asks.
“If Bull comes back we’re fucked,” Ash adds.
“Not if we have a plan.”
We all look at the dove-eyed boy.
“Tell us your plan, Venice,” I say.
But there is no time for a plan.
The earth shakes with titanic footsteps and we rush from the house as the remaining walls threaten to cave in. Coming toward us from across the ruined land is the blind Giant, Bull, and two almost identical, half-naked Giantesses. They are, for me, my rage and grief and fear. Rage at my blindness—my eye stolen from me, a bargain made and not kept. Grief at the death of so many of my loved ones. Fear of my own betrayal, of Hex’s inability to forgive me. These things must be overcome if my friends and I are to survive.
We stand armed with our knives and Hex’s single sword, facing the mottled-cheese flesh and rapacious blood maws of the monsters.
In this moment I remember that my small army and I are not just starving, orphaned boys and girls, lost on a destroyed planet. Not victims. We are heroes in our own ways. We are visionaries and warriors and healers and summoners of the elements.
My hair does not stand up chillily on my head; my voice does not stick meatily in my throat.
“This is our home,” I say in a voice both clear and strong, for I am a warrior, my birth father Merk’s fearless daughter. “You have to leave.” I would like to tell them a story to convince them but these Giants are not interested in tales, they cannot be soothed by words. They have grown too brutal for that. And, for now at least, so have I.
One of the Giantesses reaches down and plucks Venice by his collar, dangling him there, then depositing him into Bull’s hand. I watch my brother disappear in that mitt of flesh and I become a mother wolf protecting her cub. A wolf starved to shaking, ragged, and blinded but refusing to be vanquished. Seeing in her mind’s eye her endangered wolfling. I am empowered by what Virgil calls “the fury of desperation.” A battle howl erupts from my throat like a flock of black birds.
Ash climbs up the rickety remains of the house and leaps from it onto the nearest Giantess’s back as if he is flying, for Ash is a master of air. The female Giant whips around, bellow-lowing, swatting at him, but he eludes her. Jabs at her with his knife, perforating her flesh with bloody holes.
Argos runs forward and digs his teeth into Bull’s homunculus of a toe.
Hex spears Bull’s foot with the sword the king gave to him.
The Giants’ rage makes their bodies heavier and the earth opens and swallows, taking them down into a sinkhole. Venice and Ash and Argos and Hex are with them.
The waters rise up and the waves roll in from the beach, threatening to drown the Giants in their hellhole. Venice and Ash and Argos and Hex are still trapped there, too.
Then the king comes to me as he once appeared, with his jasmine-twined antlers and his uncharred flesh.
“Words are not your only gift,” he says. “Whether you want it or not, you are action as much as word. And now you must protect not only yourself and your loved ones but what remains of me, in you.”
Not questioning the greater meaning of these words, I close my eyes and lift my face to the sky and reach out my arms. I call on the great seas to hear me. Those seas that protected and hid the secret worlds, that readied themselves against the devastation they saw being wreaked on their shores, preparing for the aquatic reign of the earth.
The seas will hear. The wave will stop.
And then another Giant appears, storming toward the fray. Kutter, the one who was not too brutal to listen to my story, the Giant who listened, and spared my life.
He reaches down and plucks Venice and Ash and Argos and Hex up with his mighty hand and deposits them back on the solid ground.
Ez closes the earth over Bull and the Giantesses because Ez, who sometimes seems to fear his own shadow, is a master of earth.
Hex, who is the king of fire, and more than this—the king of my cloven heart—sets a ring of flame around the pit where the Giants are trapped.
This is how they will be sent to hell and how, finally, when I am forgiven by my beloved, I will return from there.
* * *
Hex opens his eyes and I realize he has been awake and listening the whole time. I’m not sure if I’m relieved or afraid.
“Pen the storyteller,” he says. I’m trying to determine if I hear a trace of sarcasm in his tone. “Are you a seeress of the future now, too? Is that what will happen?”
“If we make it happen.”
“And what abou
t the end? Where I forgive you. How will that happen?” His voice sounds weary now, and he looks out across the sea.
The ceaseless motion of the boat is making me queasy. It must be from that. It must be.
“You left me,” I say to Hex, trying to smack the intrusive thought out of my mind. “I didn’t know you would return. I was under a spell. You’ve been drunk and high, you know what it’s like.”
He shrugs and pats his imaginary pockets as if searching for a cigarette. “Good times.”
“Hex! Stop. You know what I’m saying.”
Maybe I’ve reached him because he finally looks me in the eye. “I’m sorry. I was cruel to you. I left without explaining. But Pen, you … you were my source of loyalty.” His voice cracks. “Purity and truth. I couldn’t stand to see you any other way. I love you too much.”
“We’re the same,” I tell him. “In our imperfection. In our illusions. And in our love.”
“I renounce all illusions,” says Hex.
“But this is real, what we have.”
Hex and I gaze at each other for a long time and I see his eyes fill with tears, mirroring mine. I brace myself to hear him say, Was real, but he doesn’t.
“Land ho,” Venice calls from the prow. Acacia throws her arms around him and Argos, responding to their shouts, twists in joy-spun circles at their feet.
There, I see it. Across the water. What remains of our home. Waiting to be reclaimed and rebuilt.
* * *
The pink house stands again. It glows with dawn. Wine-dark morning glories grow up the walls and over the roof. I am sleeping in my old bedroom, in my bed. A sword hangs on the wall.
Where is Hex?
A baby is crying.
I get up and go to the basket where he sleeps. I lift him in my arms and take him back to bed and hold him to my chest. He presses his face against me, places his hands on my breast, and nurses. “Sylvan,” I whisper. My milk flows into him. His hair is downy on his perfectly round head; it smells sweet as honeysuckle. His eyelids flutter and then he opens his eyes and looks up at me.
My child, the one in my belly now. His eyes are blue. Like the antlered king’s. His father.
* * *
This is what is to be. I only pray that Hex is there, perhaps in the next room, outside the range of my vision. And that wherever I must journey, he will join my child and me. He will forgive me and he will join us.
But that is only the beginning.
As I put my hand to my belly now I think of Storm, Dark, and Swift dying on the Island of Excess Love with feathers molting off their shoulders and the skulls of birds punishing their putrid necks. They killed their king and destroyed the world of illusion. It is too late to redeem them.
Then I think of Acacia, my brother’s future wife, sitting on those rocks, shivering, staring out at the empty seas, empty except for us in our little boat. I think of the young men and women, whom Acacia called the brothers and sisters, and their white steeds clambering over the rocks, watching us leave, looking at us as if they were waiting to be rescued. I had believed that all I wanted was to stay hidden in my home, protecting my loved ones, hoarding our precious water and the glorious magic of fruits and vegetables. But after my journey I no longer believe this. I know that when I have returned, reclaimed and restored my home, won back my beloved, and completed what was begun on the Island of Excess Love, I will have to go out into the world, perhaps numerous times, and find the ones who remain. I must help them any way I can.
This is my destiny; now I know. And it has not quite even yet begun.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
While my previous book Love in the Time of Global Warming is loosely based on Homer’s Odyssey, The Island of Excess Love is even more loosely inspired by Virgil’s Aeneid. In that epic a Greek army, hidden in the belly of a wooden horse, attacks the city of Troy. The hero Aeneas escapes with his son, Ascanius, his father Anchises, and some warriors, and then ventures out into the world to create a new home for his people. After much danger, loss, and sacrifice, including a tragic love affair with Queen Dido, and a journey to the underworld, Aeneas finally founds the city of Rome. The story is about, among other things, perseverance in the face of adversity.
Although some of the themes in The Island of Excess Love are similar, I have taken many liberties with the story and not all characters in this book correspond directly to characters in The Aeneid. As mentioned, it served more as an inspiration than anything else and I am very grateful to have the words of Virgil (translated by the wonderful C. Day Lewis) to guide me. I hope you enjoyed this tale and that you turn to the original text to find out more and to discover inspiration of your own.
Francesca Lia Block
September 27, 2013
Los Angeles, California
PRAISE FOR
LOVE IN THE TIME OF GLOBAL WARMING
A Top Ten Title on the 2014 Rainbow List
A Junior Library Guild selection
“[B]eautifully written … Penelope is no buff, bold hero but a grieving, relatable girl ‘stuffed full of fear.’”
—The Washington Post
“A post-apocalyptic setting awash with danger brings an exhilarating twist to Block’s signature mashup of rock-and-roll urchins and high literature.… Literary-minded readers will enjoy teasing out the allusions to Homer … but knowledge of the classics is not a requirement to be swept up in the tatterdemalion beauty of the story’s lavish, looping language.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“The juxtapositions, too, are pulled off flawlessly: the disgusting, deathly, anxious, and devastating are, improbably—through Pen’s astute eyes—also beautiful, lively, serene, and hopeful. Block achieves these and other heroic literary feats in this sophisticated melding of post-apocalyptic setting, re-imagined classic, and her signature magical realism.”
—The Horn Book
“Magic is no stranger to Block’s world, nor is her signature poetic sensibility. And love, in its many varieties and forms, is celebrated, as always.”
—Booklist
“The dreamlike quality of the writing, typical of the author’s works, functions well with the fantastical elements of the story.… This is an excellent title for students who have read Homer’s Odyssey as well as readers who enjoy a mix of fantasy and reality.”
—School Library Journal
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Block, Francesca Lia.
The island of excess love / Francesca Lia Block.
pages cm
Companion to: Love in the Time of Global Warming.
Summary: Pen, Hex, Ash, Ez, and Venice are living on hard work, companionship, and dreams in the pink house by the sea until a foreboding ship arrives and all start having strange visions of destruction and violence then, trancelike, they head for the ship and their new battles, with Pen using Virgil’s epic Aeneid as her guide.
ISBN 978-0-8050-9631-6 (hardback)—ISBN 978-1-62779-239-4 (e-book)
[1. Survival—Fiction. 2. Friendship—Fiction. 3. Love—Fiction. 4. Visions—Fiction. 5. Virgil. Aeneid. 6. Los Angeles (Calif.)—Fiction. 7. Science fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.B61945Isl 2014 [Fic]—dc23 2014005284
First Edition—2014
eISBN 9781627792394
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The Island of Excess Love Page 14
