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

Ah, Kleto, Isme thought. You are the predator who fights—but somehow can never bring yourself to kill.

How lucky you are.

Once the women had assembled, the straw-woman in the center spoke: “Sisters. Look now to ensure there is no impostor. For if a man comes and witnesses our rites, he shall die this very night.”

The women became owls, every head turning on a swivel, observing everyone around her. Movements, but in a circle, as women trailed around the edge of the wheel, measuring each other, confirming. Isme merely glanced at Kleto and Pelagia, who hardly gave her any notice—and she realized why not, because they were not looking for her, at her, they already knew her. They were looking for strangers. For men.

Isme found herself put under observation by the other women. These took one look at her unusual clothing, and then carefully studied her face, a few even coming so close to look that their noses nearly touched hers, frowning as they considered. But something in her convinced them, and they moved on.

There was no outcry, no yell of rage upon a man being discovered. The men of the town must know better than to try and sneak into such a ritual, Isme surmised, not with death on their heads. Some time passed before the observations died down.

The straw-woman, apparently satisfied, continued. “For six days every year the bright light of Apollon, god of music, light, reason and intellect, graces us with his presence high on Mount Parnassus. But just as adding too much weight to one side of the scale destroys the measurement, so too will having a god of such power alone destroy us. If Apollon is left unchecked then Parnassus will rise higher and break through the sky of the world, reaching toward the sun with nothing to pull it down.”

Isme shivered, for she envisioned the mountain trembling, straining to reach higher—to where Olympus was, the home of the gods themselves, beyond the clouds, so that the only way to find it was the Mount Olympus, and even then not tall enough. A mountain shaking the earth—that sounded like an earthquake—

And this was the nighttime. The sky was dark—the world could end at any moment.

I have been waiting all my life, Isme thought, and it could happen here, now...

But within her was the cry: Not yet! I have not found a way to absolve my blood guilt—and Apollon himself confirms, Tartarus is real, the punishment for murder is true! Who knows if the gods will absolve in the new world? And I am not prepared—I’m with all these people, who may be dangerous, and—what about my father?

I can’t endure the end of the world alone.

SEVENTEEN.

~

There was a small murmuring from the women about, voicing concerns the same way that Isme’s mind hurtled through them, and she saw that hidden among their numbers were those same swaying shadows—and more than that, there were women who looked not quite right. Women with limbs a little too long, hair a little too thick—she thought, in the flickering of the firelight, that one of them had more than two eyes—

Isme huddled closer to Kleto, bumping her. Those luminous golden eyes found her in the dark. And to her surprise, Kleto asked, voice low, “What is it?”

She could have lied—Isme found the words, I’m cold, coming to her, but instead she said, “There are shadows, and they move like they aren’t attached to people.”

Frowning, Kleto turned, observed the assembly, gave no sign she was disturbed—and perhaps did not see them at all. Yet still took her seriously. “They say there are many nymphs in these woods, minor gods for whom men have no names.”

And Isme drew a quick breath, for it had not occurred to her that what she was seeing could be anything other than monsters or illusions. From her time in the tent, lying groaning with her own fever, she recalled something like a memory from a dream: every so often a face that was not quite a face would peek through the entrance. Sometimes she thought that she had misremembered Lycander’s arrival, but whatever they were the things always seemed surprised to see her lying there, and withdrew.

She did not have long to ponder this before the straw woman spoke again. “But when one side of the scale is heavy, the other side can be weighed also and brought to balance. If Apollon is light, reason, music, and poison—so too is Dionysos found here in the after-dark. He will teach us to receive the things that cannot be put into words, cure our heartaches, and lets us sing of joy, without which this world would be unbearable.”

Isme felt relief spread through the assembly at these words, all of the women falling silent from murmuring. And there was relief within her, too, especially at the mention of songs, for it sounded like Dionysos was much more reasonable than the god of reason. Perhaps the world would not end tonight after all.

“Now begins the revelry,” said the straw woman. She lifted a hand that looked like a twig and gestured with the bones of her fingers towards the urns and pots scattered across the clearing. “There will be no watering down of drink tonight, for such rules are for haughty men in symposium, who cannot drink straight lest they summon too much of Dionysos. But we have nothing to fear of him—more of him simply cures us more. And should someone interrupt us, then his life be on his own head.”

And Isme was considering how these words sounded like the tail end of a threat, when the straw woman laughed, adding, “After all, now that the men have brought danger by asking Apollon for pretty poems, it is up to us women to solve their mistake by calling down Dionysos and having ourselves a good party. Let us begin!”

At once the solemn mood was broken, laughter pealing through treetops, followed by chattering. Women surged, breaking the circle, congregating