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

why she did not dream of the stories that her father told and she so loved—instead, she dreamed of him telling her the stories on the island.

And sometimes she dreamed of looking out across the ocean, which rippled with vapors that came up onto the land—and she felt as though the island was the center of the earth. Even in sleep she was indeed Isme, daughter of Epimetheus.

Thinking this filled her with relief. She directed her attention back to the mist, observed the swirling patterns, ripples eddying around her ankles like her feet were stones thrown into smooth water. The vapor was like the waves of the sea. If knowledge had a physical form, Isme thought, of course it would be the sea.

The sea is dangerous, she thought, but beautiful. And has my friends, the turtles.

She ducked her head down into the mist and breathed deep—

FIFTEEN.

~

She was underwater, pulled along by current, lungs full to bursting and ballooning her up, up, up—until she breached the surface—

Gasping, Isme swirled about, trying to find where she was. She had been in a cave—was still in a cave—had been with a snake and an old woman—neither of them here—and had been breathing mist—but now there was only water—

A low glow of light below her feet, oddly blue-green like the waters of the sea reflecting noon sunlight, and yet there was no sun above her, just the arch of the cave dotted with stalactite spears. Like the water itself was a source of light and life.

And suddenly Isme knew where she was: the well of songs in her own soul.

Wonder swirled through her, how something she had only ever seen in her mind’s eye could now be surrounding her, embracing her, and yet she was here. This all seemed so simple and real.

The water was warm, clean like no water Isme had ever before swum in, free of grime and the small bugs or bits of kelp that floated everywhere. Yet buoyant as she was, she knew that she would tire eventually, and began to scan for the walls of the cavern, hoping to find some ledge or shore she could climb onto. The upside-down bowl shape of the cave showed no entrances or exits. Glancing down, she found that there was no end to the depths under her.

When she swam forward, hoping to reach one of the walls for a closer inspection and maybe a ledge, she found that no matter how far she paddled, the cavern walls seemed no closer. Perhaps she was in a bigger cave than she thought.

All of this is inside me, Isme thought. How big the gap between her body and soul was...

It was as if the well of songs was as large as the whole world.

Only when her limbs began to truly tire, and she began to wonder whether it was possible to drown in the depths of her own well of songs—did Isme hear the voice. Invisible as it was, at first she thought it was that of the voice from the woods, and found herself somehow unsurprised that it could follow her even to here—

“My daughter,” said the voice, “Lift up your hand and I will bring you to me.”

Thinking on these words, Isme realized that the voice was not the same as the one from the woods, despite invisibility. She could think of nothing else but to reach—

Then there was a hand in her own, pulling her from the water. Her senses warped, and she thought she was flying—for the ceiling of the cave was suddenly close, and then she was standing upon it, looking at the wall of water above her head, only realizing that the water was not above her, but instead below. A trick of perspective; the pull of the earth had reversed. She was on the ceiling.

Under her feet, the roof of the cavern of the well of songs was soft, powdery, like the beach. Or like what Isme imagined clouds would feel like, if she walked on them.

She had but to turn around and there he was: Apollon, god of music and light.

He was young, almost as herself, or so she would have thought from estimating what she knew about Lycander the mostly-man. He was completely beardless, but stood tall like a man, taller than any she had seen, his body fleshed into muscle. His skin shone like bronze in the sun. Only one shoulder was draped with a woven cloth.

Isme could only think to fling herself down on her face, which in the reversed perspective of the ceiling, only made her throw herself upwards higher than him. She did not question how she knew who he was—she simply knew, and responded.

“Child of Orpheus,” he said, above and around her. His voice was like the low reverberation of a stringed instrument, yet unlike any she had ever heard. “I bring this to you—the golden ambrosia of the Olympians. Drink it, as I command, and learn.”

Something hard and warm was in her hand, where nothing had been before. Isme did not question—only obeyed—and it was like drinking air, like sipping smoke—

Stars burst on her vision, and she was flying, the cavern ceiling above-under her body cracked, split open, herself slipping down—no, up—and she wondered what was beyond this ceiling—then remembered, the well of song was between her body and soul, and so she was breaking through into her soul itself—

Body and soul were being severed. Isme screamed. She had found death after all.

She did not know how long she panicked, but her screaming went on and on, the cracks riveting deeper into the cavern, herself floating-falling further up and down. The whole world inverted, up and down meaningless, day and night hurling by as though the sun had loosed his hold on his steeds and the moon fled ahead—

When she came back to some semblance of herself, Isme knew that she had changed. An alteration of the cavern—the ceiling tunneling upward, becoming not a cave but a hole,