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

strike up within her like a flame that caught coconut strands, or perhaps that was merely contempt for her own curiosity and the mysterious airs that the woman in this temple put on—Isme said, “Why did you bring me here?”

“Direct, I see,” said the old woman. There was something approving in her voice, but so slight that Isme did not dare trust her own evaluation of this. “When seeking knowledge, as Lord Apollon teaches us, it is best to lay out directly and in clear language what the goal is or could be. Reason operates within defined limits.”

As Isme processed this, the old woman turned from the snake to evaluate her. Isme felt as though this inspection was important, but she was unsure whether she wanted to pass—or not.

At last, the old woman said, “Now is where you choose. Do you want to go on trusting that you know everything—or do you want to know for sure? Either way leads to a road that you cannot go back from. You can go across the sea to find a shrine where another dead thing will speak to you. Or you can go straight to the source of all shrines here, at Delphi, and have every question answered.”

Isme weighted options, found she could not stop staring at the eyes of the Python, but in the back of her mind was the knowledge that she, too, was being watched. Except her watcher was invisible.

What had the voice from the woods said, earlier? That if she sought her father, she would start an unbreakable chain of events. And she realized: no matter what that was true.

Yet rearing up with in her was a hunger—not for food or drink but coming instead from a place deeper than her stomach.

She often felt this way when her father told her stories, and it caused her to pepper him with questions, why did Hercules do this? Why does Hera treat Io this way? Why did not Daedalus make the wings with string instead of wax and so save his son Icarus? Why did Prometheus steal fire for men—even though, as god of foresight, he had to know what was going to happen to him?

Her father had not been able to answer that one.

But often, he could answer many of the others. And the curious effect of this hunger was that it could not be satisfied: in fact, feeding it just a little would result in Isme’s hunger growing further. If she let it, the hunger would trail behind her all day and she would only cease to think about it when sleep interrupted her.

Rather like the voice from the woods, thought Isme, and wondered whether it was listening, but only a little. She knew that it was keeping its word and following her everywhere.

Resisting the hunger felt foolish, because she was inside Delphi—which seemed willing to answer all sorts of questions. Isme refocused her eyes outside of herself and back on the old woman, and found those pale eyes gazing back at her, contemplative.

Isme said, “How do I ask my questions and get my answers?”

This seemed the question that the old woman had waited for. Isme saw those pale eyes lower, a tilt of the head indicating the floor beneath Isme’s feet, which could not be seen and only felt because of all of the fog roiling over her ankles. The knowledge was right there, at her own feet, and here she was asking for instruction.

Isme hesitated, waiting to see if she would be given some sort of rules, but the woman did not seem interested in explaining. Perhaps she knew well enough that Isme understood her answer and speaking would only delay the inevitable.

Crouching from where she stood, Isme felt lightheaded as she approached level with the ground. Just at the rim of the mist, where the first drafts of it became visible, she hesitated. She might be doing something she would regret later. Isme had many things now that she regretted and recognized the little warning in the back of her mind whenever she was about to do another regretful thing.

This is the mist of the dead, she thought. It comes up from the underworld—this Python brings it—and I as a living person do not understand. But the priestess of Apollon comes here with this corpse to read these mists, and returns to the surface with words everyone has trouble understanding. What does this mist do to her?

What could it do to me?

Perhaps breathing in this mist will be the end of me. It is mist of death after all—

And a new thought: but the world is ending, and I will live to find out the reason why, and then die. Perhaps this is what the old woman in the cave of the God Under the Mountain meant: perhaps this mist is everywhere at all temples of prophecy, even with the head of my birth-father Orpheus. He must be dead and emitting this mist...

Can fear turn me away from learning all of the answers to so many questions?

She must have hovered there, mind turning circles for too long, because the voice of the old woman broke through her thoughts.

“Do not be so hesitant, Isme daughter of Orpheus.” And, seeing that Isme had raised her eyes, the old woman made a faint smile. “The mist will reveal things that you do not know, as much about yourself as anything else. Only knowing who you truly are will allow you to discover the truth of everything else.”

The words on the column rose before Isme: KNOW THYSELF.

But I do know myself, she thought. Maybe not as much as I could, the little details, but the deepest part of who I am is true: I am Isme, daughter of Epimetheus, and I live on my island waiting for the end of the world. Nothing can ever change that.

Even in her dreams, sleep as deep as it could go, Isme had done nothing but dream of her island. Sometimes she wondered