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

Dionysos had danced around the periphery of the action, maenads trapezing wild through the woods like animals.

Nothing good ever happened when maenads came into a story.

But when she had brought this up, Kleto had said, with a look like thunder: Those stories are told that way because they are told by men. If maenads told them, then they would be different stories.

And Isme had thought, but not asked aloud: What possible change in perspective could make tearing someone limb from limb acceptable? She almost answered this question herself, thinking how some of men had earned their fates through disrespect to the gods or the mysteries of women. But still the question had lain open within her as though this answer had not satisfied its hunger.

But she did not want to get into an argument now. From the look on Kleto’s face, Isme was misbehaving, for that was usually an expression saved for Pelagia. Before the moment could stretch over long, Pelagia bent down and said,

“I know you’re worried about tonight, but you’re one of the women so you must come. Don’t worry. Apollon is a man’s god but Dionysos is for us women. You’ve been so troubled these last few days—that’s perfect for tonight, you can forget all your problems. Dionysos is not like the other gods. He just wants us to be happy.”

Isme swallowed down something that felt like a sob in the back of her throat. The words sounded all at once like something she had been waiting to hear. Once again, her thoughts circled around back to her father, from whom there had been no news, no matter whether Lycander stuck his head in and was asked about Epimetheus every single day. With Kleto or Pelagia always there, Isme had not been able to ask the voice from the woods what it thought about her father remaining missing.

Perhaps that was a blessing. If the voice told the truth... she might die of grief. She would become Niobe, a weeping stone.

Three days between ceremonies, six days of ceremony for Dionysos, five already gone. Eight days total. Epimetheus had hardly ever left her alone so long.

Was Isme to cure her own blood guilt, and then return to the island alone, there waiting for the end of the world—and live alone, forever, in the new world to come?

Maybe, if Apollon had trapped her father somewhere, another god could free him. Dionysos was also a son of Zeus... and if he was merciful to women, then maybe...

I’ve already met one god, Isme thought—and then corrected herself. No; I’ve met two. Apollon is a god—but so was my father. I’ve been living with the gods since I was very small, because they are all around us. Grandmother Kalliope, please be with me this night—I’ll try to find my absolution, and my father, all in one place...

Standing on newly steady feet, Isme followed them out.

~

The night was cool over their shoulders as they emerged from the tent.

The few stars overhead were dim in the sunset, but brightening. Men gathered around watching as the women strode from the tents and houses—Isme spotted only one with an expression on his face, a man half-hidden behind a scraggly beard, who looked mockingly at Kleto as she passed—and Kleto gave no heed.

But soon Isme’s vision was consumed by nothing but women.

Women flowing like water, like the little estuaries that merged into streams and then into rivers and became one rushing flood as they left the confines of the town below Delphi and flowed down the mountainside toward the valley.

No moon—Isme found the light from the stars just adequate to see the shapes of others moving with her, all women, holding up the woven cloth of their dresses as they picked their way down the path and across fields. The only shape she could identify for certain was Kleto, for those golden eyes shone with a light all their own.

They reached the edges of the forest down in the valley. Isme felt her healed feet throbbing, which she would have thought a sign that the injuries were permanent, except she could feel that same pulse beating throughout her body. Moving in silence made only footsteps audible, the sound of breathing empty like little gusts of wind...

Alongside the women, in bare small glimpses, Isme thought she saw shadows blacker than black, or else shapes that were human but not, lingering and following. She first noticed them when they truly left the city below Delphi behind—and, reminded of the shadow in the cave, she pressed closer to Kleto, who seemed not to mind.

They wove their way through the bushes and merged into the trees. None of them had trouble passing saplings and trunks, still flowing like water, dodging around obstacles and finding the easiest path. Deep in the forest she saw a flickering light that rivaled Kleto’s eyes beside her, and everyone pressed toward it.

They found a clearing studded with jars—jars that could fit in the palm of Isme’s hand, jars taller than the crown of Isme’s head—and the sweet smell of dying flowers coming from the rims. There was a torch stabbed in the ground, the only true light, which formed the center of the wheel of women assembling around.

Standing beside the torch was a woman with straw-like hair, long and tall, her face almost fleshless to reveal the skull underneath. Looped many times around her waist was a rope, on which was strung many knives that glittered in the uneven light. She wore animal skins, much like Isme herself.

Hesitantly, coming to a halt, Isme glanced at Kleto by her side, but the other woman appeared unconcerned. No—Isme thought, that was not the right description. Kleto was always muted, somehow, perhaps merely in comparison to Pelagia. But having known her long enough, Isme could see that she was not stolid, merely pretending to be, and her acting was subpar. For Isme could see the smallest strain in Kleto’s limbs, and she would have said that Kleto was eager, ready