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

“What happened?” Isme said, staring openmouthed as Pelagia hurried forward to pick at the wound. Kleto frowned up at Isme, who for a moment was returned to the first days they had met, when she was a pest for Kleto to swat down—

“What do you think?” Kleto growled. She batted Pelagia away. “Men with wine think any courtesan can become a common gutter whore.”

Isme flinched at the words and their low tone. Kleto’s burning eyes stayed fixed on her. Something about the woman remained undaunted and fierce, even as she crouched huddled over, shoulders bowed, bloodied in a tent. Between the waves of her hair, Isme thought she saw bare skin, curves through the shadows.

She realized that Kleto’s woven cloth was only fitted around her waist, and two sudden irresistible desires sprang up within her: to flee from Kleto, or to run and press herself against her like two fish swimming in the sea. Fortunately, both wishes were of equal strength, leaving Isme standing there staring.

Lifting cloth in her hand, Kleto dabbed her lip. “What’s this about your father?”

Wary about asking her help while she was in this state, Isme explained anyway. She said more than she should—about them wanting to leave, then felt she had to explain why, but she was worried about explaining the prophetess of the God Under the Mountain, so she settled for the idea that a fortune teller claimed something unfortunate would happen to her at the festival.

Pelagia piped up, “Then you can stay in here, Isme! I’ll go look for your father. I’m sure Lycander will help, too.” And she leapt up and rushed from the tent.

Isme stared after her. “Should she do that? Are women safe to walk alone?”

Kleto snorted, and Isme returned attention to her, and once there was caught. Kleto said, “What have you been doing all this time without your father?”

There was a tilt to Kleto’s head that made the discoloration on her face look like mere shadow from the pale light still beating through the tent fabric. Isme felt the bruises on her own arms seem to light up, as though she could feel them healing.

“I can fend for myself,” she said. Some part of her rumbled like her stomach when overfull, and she realized she was upset at Kleto’s assumption of her own helplessness. She had fought that robber in the woods, and sung their escape from the robbers’ den...

Kleto was clearly thinking along the same paths, for she said, “Indeed, you can.”

Isme felt her face tighten, on high alert as Kleto shifted in her seat, moving to be more comfortable, but ending up only looking more like a predator readying to pounce. It did not help that she kept her eyes locked on Isme’s in what clearly was a challenge.

Then she said, “How did you do it?”

Isme was prepared for some kind of insult—despite Kleto’s hostility lessening over the journey, the two of them escaping the robbers together, Kleto still often spoke sharply to everyone—but she was not prepared for a direct confrontation.

Pretending to ignorance seemed to work in situations like these. Isme said, “I don’t know what you mean,” but so weakly that even she did not believe herself.

Kleto rolled her eyes. “Why do you do that?” And before Isme could ask what she meant, she was already continuing, “Yes, it can be a good idea for a woman to pretend stupidity. You won’t believe what men will reveal when they think you can’t understand them.” Her eyes glittered. “But I’m not a man you can pretend to.”

Isme did not know how to answer, her thoughts tumbling in on each other like leaves tossed into a running stream—but was interrupted by the sound of a scream.

Pelagia’s voice.

For the space between breaths she and Kleto froze, staring at each other. Some distant part of Isme acknowledged that the glow behind Kleto’s eyes was more than illusion or flight of imagination: the woman truly had the eyes of an animal in the dark. But this made Kleto fiercer when understanding came over her face and she rose like a tempest and flung open the tent to stride through. Isme was merely drawn in her wake.

People passing by the tent or standing to observe the trouble seemed to sense the thundercloud behind them and parted for Kleto to storm through. Isme was so focused on the gold of Kleto’s hair that she barely noticed.

Yet even Kleto halted when they came to the scene:

Two men, almost as tall as Lycander astride the horse, their faces shapeless behind the rags of their beards, held Pelagia by both her elbows as an old woman with silver hair twisted tight into a net stood before her, gnarled hands plucking at Pelagia’s skin as though testing for a layer of fat before buying an animal for dinner.

Kleto must have not expected the old woman, but what brought Isme up short was that she looked almost identical to the prophetess of the God Under the Mountain.

Only when the woman’s eyes scanned this new disruption, bypassed Kleto and locked on Isme, did Isme see the major difference: for this woman was not blind.

“There you are,” the woman said.

Isme felt the muscles at her joints tighten, ready to spring away, to flee, but Kleto whirled and caught her by the elbow. Voice low, she whispered, “What is this? These are servants of great Apollon—somehow they know you, and now you want to run?”

There was no time to answer because the two burly men were upon them and dragging Isme away before she could even properly digest what Kleto had said.

The last thing Isme thought that she heard was Kleto’s voice, as though from a great distance: “Let’s see if your singing can work to save you again.”

FOURTEEN.

~

They took her. They dragged her through the streets. Isme’s limbs felt like ropes woven from bark strands—thick and chewy and