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

tongue feels thick.
    â€œWhy aren’t I under the spell? I don’t know. It didn’t affect me.”
    My stomach interrupts us with a loud growl. “Are you hungry?” the ghost asks.
    I tell him that I am, and thirsty, too. My mouth feels like sand and salt.
    â€œMerk will bring us food and water,” the ghost, my brother, promises. But I don’t know what I believe anymore.
    And then I see the man who took my eye.
    He’s standing above me wearing a black top hat and a long black coat that resembles charred skin. On his hands are thick black rubber gloves and on his feet are heavy boots with sharp spikes. His eyes are hidden behind dark oversize goggles. He takes out something from the pocket of his coat and fondles it in his gloved hand. Then he removes the goggles and smiles at me, his face stretching into a long, strange shape like a child’s Halloween mask. One eye is an empty hollow. Like mine. The man takes the thing from his pocket, holding it tenderly between his thumb and forefinger, and pushes it into the eye socket. It’s brown and smaller than his other eye and I know where he got it. It’s mine.
    â€œAre you okay?” the ghost says. I’d forgotten he was there.
    I can’t speak so I just point at the man.
    â€œDo you see someone who scares you? A dark-haired man with a small beard?”
    â€œYes,” I manage.
    â€œHe’s dead,” the ghost promises me. “I’ll tell you a story, okay?”
    â€œMy eye,” I say.
    â€œThat’s Kronen. The Giant maker.”
    The ghost pauses as if to gauge my reaction and then goes on in a soft voice. I try to listen to him but I’m still staring at Kronen who is doing a slow jig in his heavy boots, his face twisted into that grimacing smile.
    â€œYou killed him. You’re having a different kind of vision now, but it’s not real. It’s because we’re on the ship. It makes you see things that frighten you. Tell Kronen to leave you alone. You’ve already killed him.”
    Kronen leans close to me so I can see my eye stuck in his misshapen head.
    â€œTell him,” my ghost brother says.
    I can’t.
    â€œTell him.”
    â€œVenice?”
    â€œYes, I’m Venice. You can tell him.”
    I see a tall gold building made of the skeletons of the dead. BANK OF THE APOCALYPSE , reads a sign. A man and a Giant stand before me. Kronen and Kutter. I’m holding a sword in my hand. Hex’s sword. He is gone but I’ll find him again. I will find him, and my other friends.
    And the words come to me then. “I know of many things,” I say. “Gods and monsters, transformations, spells and enchantments, trees and oceans, hospitality, loyalty, betrayal, great wars. I know of kleos —glory—and I know of love.”
    â€œYou are Pen the storyteller,” says my brother, Venice, the ghost. “Your words are powerful. Your love is powerful.”
    And with that Kronen fades away into the bowels of the ship.

 
    6
    Â 
    MAELSTROM
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    I’ M SAFE FROM THE MONSTER maker Kronen but I’m not safe from the monsters of thirst and hunger. My lips are ringed with sore, dry skin that gets more irritated when I probe it with my swollen tongue. The roof of my mouth is swollen, too, and it even hurts to blink my eyes. My stomach seethes.
    Venice keeps talking to me in his soothing ghost voice but he sounds farther and farther away.
    At last we hear footsteps and someone is here with us.
    The man holds my head up and pours fresh water into my mouth, relieving the dirty thirst. I try not to let a single drop escape even though he’s pouring too fast and I have to keep swallowing hard. Then he feeds me some type of porridge with a spoon. I gulp it down as fast as he’ll give it to me.
    â€œGood job, girl, we’ll be at our destination soon,” the man growls.
    When he leaves, ghost boy tells me the man’s name is Merk and