Everyone Should Eat His Own Turtle (A Greek Myth Novel) by H.C. Southwark (nonfiction book recommendations TXT) 📕

believed, as she observed the other woman, that Kleto had seen her fate and decided to fight regardless of consequences; now that the choice was cast, there was no threat, no strike or beating, not even killing, that would make her change her mind. If need be she would go down to Hades with blood under her fingernails.

That seemed foolish. Isme had no illusions about what was going to happen: the sort of thing that was always implied as a potential threat in stories, but that never actually happened in stories because some hero came parading like Perseus on his way home from the Gorgon and stumbling on Andromeda chained on the mountain. Nobody ever told stories about those women who had no heroes.

But that was not entirely true, Isme reconsidered. There were plenty of ugly stories—she just never asked her father to retell them since they were not her favorites.

As the sun set, there was nothing in the walls but firelight and men arriving every moment. Isme had trouble understanding their talking, because she still could not comprehend multiple voices speaking at once. But catching a word or sentence here and there brought her the main threads of conversation.

This was a debate. Some of the men favored the idea of preserving them for sale. But others argued that there were three women, at least one could be made of service, and besides most slavers accepted used goods. These seemed to be winning.

“What about that one?” said one of the men, gesturing with crooked fingers at Pelagia, who had her head cradled between her knees, and somehow she must have realized she was being spoken of because she huddled even smaller.

Isme grit her teeth—she wanted to yell that Pelagia clearly wanted most to be left alone, and only savages should disrespect that. But she was among savages regardless.

“Can you sing,” Kleto whispered, more of a statement than a question, so low that Isme had to realize she was being spoken to.

“I can,” she said, slowly, feeling her father’s promise rise up like fingers inside her, plucking at her ribs: Do you swear not to reveal your songs to any man who has not risked his life for you?—and her own voice in an echo: I promise, I promise...

What could her songs do now? Isme had done little to nothing like this with songs before. She lit fires. She called in turtles. Sometimes she turned seawater fresh to drink. Little things—things that could be marvels, yes, but nothing like—

Nothing like her birth father.

What had Orpheus done with his voice? Called up shades of the dead. Swayed Hades—of all the gods, the Kindly One who was the least kind. He had moved stones to tears. Drowned out the sirens and saved the Argo. Healed dying men, grew a tree overnight, caused whole towns to dance behind him, and emptied rivers...

Yet, the back of her mind said, sounding like the voice in the woods: Yes, Orpheus did all this... And then was torn into pieces.

And from far off came her own voice: I promise, I promise...

Before her, the men were still debating, but there was something different about their talk now, the one who had gestured to Pelagia was speaking more often, directing the conversation, responding to others. They were reaching a decision.

I can’t sing, Isme thought. Her father’s warnings were like wings of birds beating: If men find out what you can do, they will make you do terrible things. She could not let them find out—but more than that, Isme realized. She had no idea how to do what Orpheus had done. What songs did her birth father sing to sway men?

Grandmother Kalliope, she prayed. Great goddess, tell me how...

“I’ll get their attention with song and dance,” said Kleto, breaking into Isme’s tangled thoughts. Isme reared her head to find the other woman was staring at the men, still, as though Isme was beneath her notice. “You play along. Then when I have them—you’ll know when I mean—you get Pelagia out of here.”

When she said this, Isme felt her limbs stiffen in rejection, her mouth ready to form the words, But what about you?

“No arguing,” said Kleto. “I’ll sing them a story, and you will play along, until I move, and then you’ll know when to run.”

“What story?” asked Isme, for she could not think what tale would get such attention. Her mind paged through everything she knew—Apollon and Daphne, Zeus and Europa, Perseus and Andromeda, Zeus and Io, Persephone and Hades...

“Philomel and Procne,” said Kleto, voice flat.

Isme started, blurted out: “That is a horrible story!”

For the first since they been thrown in the corner, Kleto turned her gaze onto Isme. There was a dampening of fire in her eyes, and Isme’s breath caught, horrified that perhaps Kleto’s spirit was dimming. But she understood on some level that Kleto was not upset at the men—rather that Isme had failed some test.

And Kleto said, “No, it is not. Not for those like us.”

Then she snapped back to attention, her face set like an eagle.

Kleto rose from her crouch, hands still tied behind her back, and every head in the room craned to observe her golden hair glittering in the light of the hearth like fire. Around her flies swarmed a gruesome halo, and her movement stirred her garments, casting perfumes and sweat over Isme like the sweet cloying scent of death.

“Men of the forest,” she declared, “I have stood court in symposiums across Greece—singing, dancing, playing lyre. From my teachers I learned the secret arts that please all men. Great women taught me—Agamemnon, Achilles, the like heard them perform. Do you not desire to see what kings have seen?”

All at once the necks of all the men seemed to be like wood, rather than flesh, fixing them in place like the trunks of trees. Not a head stirred from Kleto’s shape. Isme could not blame them—she herself was spellbound, mind racing:

Had Kleto really learned from women who had performed for the mighty