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

home, but more than that was home itself. A cave meant safety and warmth. Isme knew without asking that this is where they had been headed all along.

TWELVE.

~

The ban on words was still in effect. In silence Isme approached the cave opening, eyes straining to see what little could be deciphered in the dark. As they came closer the outside of the cave became intelligible, for Isme could clearly see the stones rimming the mouth like broken teeth. But the insides of the cave became even darker and unknowable. As if light fled before them.

Turning, Isme gave her father a questioning look, but one that was quickly dampened when he held out one of the staves to her.

Reaching for the staff, Isme wondered who they might fight here. She knew this was a sacred place, the same way that she knew the turtles came at the sound of her song across the water—some deep instinct that felt as bred into her as her own skin. To shed blood on holy ground seemed the worst offense possible.

But her father did not let go of the staff when she gripped and tugged. Isme released it to him, only to have him offer it to her again. She frowned under the starlight. What do you want me to do?

Only when she had her hand around the staff a second time did Isme realize: the top of the staff had grass curled around, when it had not before. Her father had pulled up tufts of grass as they passed on their climb and woven them into the wood. She understood: if they were to burn something then it needed to be half from their world and half from this one, the sacred space in front of the cave.

She spared him only one more questioning glance, and this time he relinquished the staff when she tugged. Staring at the little bird’s nest he had constructed, Isme thought, We did not bring tinder or flint. And yet she knew that they did not need them.

The ban on speaking did not include singing, apparently.

Closing her eyes, the inside of her eyelids soft pink in the glow of the light from the stars, Isme reached down into the well of her soul. Fire, she thought, Where are you, fire? You must be holy fire, this time—be worthy of whatever god or goddess lies here, inside the top of this mountain which reaches towards the sky.

Fire did not come easily. No words drifted to her from the well of songs, and Isme frowned, seeking deeper inside herself. She felt along the seam that connected her soul to her body, the far wall of the cavern that housed the well of imagination. And yet as she probed fire continued to elude her, just as she thought she had caught it, so would it dance away like a squirrel playing a game in one of the trees back in the island.

But Isme knew how to catch squirrels. The greedy little things always came for nuts. What would lure fire? She pondered, called:

If you come to us, then you will be the source of all we see. In every moment of our worship we will acknowledge you, O Fire.

Above the water of her well of songs, Isme could feel a small glimmer like the flicker of a candle flame. Fire was listening, and she could almost see its ever-present eagerness. Fire loved to burn, was left entitled by its accustomed center of attention, the hearth in the center of every camp around which all activities flowed.

So Isme flattered: O Fire, we will use you to honor the gods. It is you who burn the sacrifices and it will be you who rise up through the smoke to meet the makers and builders of the world. How pleased they will be to see you, O Fire!

More than just a flicker now. All Isme had to do was reach out and touch—

Yet when she did so, all she found was wet water. Pausing, exploring the boundaries of her imagination, she realized her mistake. Chuckling, she said, Truly you like a good show, O Fire, and then reached under the water and plucked the spark—

The words came easily then:

I call not on the hearth stones

To light once more with fire,

Or on the baking of bread.

Let fire of the gods come!

As fire was carried down

By the hand of Prometheus,

Let such fire come now!

From the gods you came, O Fire,

To the gods we now return you.

Before her eyes opened, she could see that the insides of her eyelids had gone from pink to red, flickering back and forth. Isme let herself gaze into the fire, seeing shapes and forms of beasts that had died out long before man.

Glancing at her father, Isme saw he too was entranced, but the edges of his face strained, like sometimes whenever he was tired and the fire was particularly warm. She knew then that he was thinking of his brother. Reaching out, Isme touched her father on the shoulder, and his face turned to her. His features cleared and he nodded.

Isme advanced to the cave. The opening was breathing, wind inhaling and exhaling as they walked. Soon enough she could see little glittery things at her feet, like watery pebbles. Bending, Isme found small cubes made of bone, copper, tin. There were pieces of cloth, hand-sized squares in various states of decay. Offerings, she realized. The travelers to Delphi may have come solely for Apollon’s shrine, but the locals knew of this place.

Generations since time began must have come here, leaving what treasures they could to the eyes of the gods under the mountain, hoping for favor, to be remembered by forgotten gods.

As they walked, metal and cloth became rare—instead there was a prevalence of bone. The knuckles of animals, studded over with dots, long femurs that could belong to dogs or deer or sheep. And the skulls; foxes, goats, sheep, deer, cows—man.

Isme paused before this human skull. She