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

She had always thought that some new world would be made and she would find a new way to live there. That was what she and her father had prepared for ever since she could remember.

But apparently the prophecies of Prometheus and Delphi were incomplete: not only would this world end, not only would she understand how and why, but also such knowledge would kill her. Maybe not directly—but knowing would foretell her own death. That is, if the God Under the Mountain could be believed.

Isme had heard too many stories about foolish people not believing prophets to make the same mistake herself.

They skirted the border of the town’s walls, overhearing loud remnants of partying from the previous night. Isme wondered if the people native to the town found the days of Apollon’s Oracle stressful, if they wished the time would pass quickly so they could return to peace and quiet. Or perhaps towns were never quiet.

They rounded the walls and came to the gate that led down the mountain. People were coming up, Isme saw, a long trail that led all the way back down into the valley and through the hills that she and her father had walked with the caravan. She wondered how many people would arrive before the six days of Apollon were over.

Couldn’t be much more than this, she reasoned. How many people could there actually be in the world? Perhaps all of them all at once were here at Delphi.

Her father said, “We need supplies for the journey.” And he was frowning at all the people heading up the side of the mountain. “I don’t want you to go inside of the town. We must avoid whatever ceremony will choose a new priestess for Apollon.”

Isme said, “But Father, why do we need supplies? Let’s just make some hunting tools, live off the land until we get to the sea.”

“We don’t dare,” said her father. “Remember, the robbers do not celebrate at Delphi. They will be waiting in any woods or path we take, to ambush us. And if we went into the deep woods, the places where only the minor gods like nymphs go, who knows what could happen? You are only a mortal, Isme. Such places are not for you.”

There was a stone rock ahead just perfect to sit upon. Isme sank down onto it and her father halted beside her. They both were out of breath, and Isme realized that she had been awake now for a day and a night, since they had risen the previous sunrise to arrive in Delphi. She felt as though her limbs might fall off.

She said, “Would it not be possible to rest today, Father? We could just go into the fields and lie for a bit, and then join a caravan leaving Delphi later tonight.”

“The caravans will not leave at night,” said her father. He reached up and rubbed his hand across the shine of sweat on his face. Isme saw that he too was exhausted—there was no chance he could be anything but. He continued, “We must bring our own food this time. There will not be many caravans leaving Delphi, so we have to make ourselves less of a burden in order for us to travel along.”

He turned and gazed across the city, the walls with gates every few steps. Then he said, “I will find supplies quickly and secure us some merchant who is leaving the city. You will go to the house that receives the gods, and wait there and rest.”

Isme wanted to object. It was true that her father was stronger than her, but he also was tired. She wanted to say that they both should just stay in that small house, that whatever ceremony was happening would probably happen elsewhere, and so the little house was probably safe. They could rest for a day.

But her father’s expression told her arguing was pointless.

He said, “Promise: you will not leave the house while I am gone.”

Isme thought about her promise before landfall, about her many promises to her father over the years. She had broken them—disobeyed the rules of the island, and the sailors that night had paid the price. And she had also broken the promise she had made before landing on the mainland: for Kleto had seen her sing.

However, Isme told herself, that doesn’t count. After all, my promise is about a man, not a woman like Kleto. And besides, Kleto and I risked our lives for each other in that robbers’ den. Granted, she probably was working for Pelagia, not me, but close enough. So the promise is still valid—I haven’t broken my word yet.

Besides, her father did not need to know something that would just worry him.

And so she nodded, heaving her unwilling body upright, and the two of them merged into the river of people flowing into the city. As they walked, her father’s hand reached out and grabbed hers. His skin was rough—but his touch was gentle.

~

For the first part of the day, after her father left her in that little house, Isme laid insensate on the floor, not quite asleep but certainly not awake either. She lost track of time, and all her closed eyelids registered was that the glow of the sun was hardly noticeable in the cool darkness of the inner rooms.

When she began to feel a little more herself, she lay and pondered many things: the nature of prophecy, the implications of her own prophecy at her birth, whether Kleto counted as breaking a promise, what sort of songs her birth-father’s head was singing—even now, at this very moment—was it singing?

She wondered what the men on the beach would say when she finally arrived to be with them in the underworld. Then she recalled that the souls of the dead remembered nothing, for they drank the waters of the underworld river Lethe which caused them to forget. And she wondered whether this made her relieved or disappointed.

Though she and her father