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

to understand the end of the world,” said the voice, once again stating fact as if that was all it needed to do, to remind her. “Dying now will not let you do that, so it is impossible for you to die.”

“But I already know the why,” said Isme. “This world is terrible so it died, the end.”

“Don’t be silly,” said the voice, and now it was chiding. “Do you think you’re the first person to regret something? Did you learn nothing from either of your fathers?”

Heaving breath through her, Isme slumped further into the water, all the way over her shoulders. Both her fathers? Yes, they had made terrible mistakes. Epimetheus was responsible for the end of the world of bronze, because he had accepted the gift of Pandora and her damnable urn. And Orpheus—he had sung men back to life, but could not stop himself from turning to look at his bride Eurydice as he led her to the surface. Effectively, he had killed her a second time...

And now he’s a disembodied head, Isme thought, her eyes trailing to the river bend where Lycander had disappeared. Maybe he would indeed make it to the sea. And if so, maybe he would go all the way across to the other side, to Lesbos, where—

Where Orpheus’s shrine is, the thought finished. Isme frowned. Yes, the shrine—the place where her father had wanted to go, rather than Delphi. The place where the God Under the Mountain had said she might learn how to absolve herself of blood guilt.

I need that, she thought, now more than ever. To no longer carry this burden. If I am going to die, then I want to avoid the punishment for murder. Tartarus is real...

And the end of the world is coming.

Another deep breath, and she looked down at her face in the water, how her visage had blue lips. Under the surface, her fingernails had gone grey. When she tried to rise, her joints were not working. She attempted several times, then sank back exhausted.

Isme said, “Well, voice, it looks like you are wrong—and I can die here anyway—unless you or someone you fetch comes to help—”

There was no response from the woods. Isme had long enough to wonder if the thing was playing some kind of game, when the padding of feet came to her numbing ears. Emerging from the brush was Kleto, garbed below the waist, carrying another woven cloth. She shouted: “What are you doing, you idiot? Get out of the water!”

“Can’t,” said Isme, voice feeble, yet Kleto must have heard, because she hiked up the edges of her garment and came splashing to seize Isme and drag her to the bank, shivering the whole way.

Flinging the other cloth over them, they both sat trembling, pressed together, until Isme felt the pain in her toes that signified they had not, indeed, frozen and fallen off.

“Madness,” said Kleto, teeth chattering a bit. “I saw you walk into the woods carrying something, but lost track of you. Then I find you sitting in what should be ice. Plenty of intelligence in that heart of yours, clearly.” Isme only nodded.

When she was done with these insults, Kleto continued, “They’re saying one of the men from the town came down to have a peek at the naked women in the ritual. Idiot caused a riot. Maybe four or five people are dead, plus plenty of animals. Everyone’s upset but those would have been sacrificed to Dionysos today anyway.”

“Do they know who died?” Isme whispered, daring to ask.

“No,” said Kleto, her eyes lowered. Something in her expression was muted. Then she added, “Pelagia is one of them, though.”

Isme had begun to shiver as her body warmed, involuntary, but otherwise would have gone still. Her lungs paused and when she breathed again, gave a great wheeze. She asked, “How do you know?”

“There was a cliff,” said Kleto. Her arms tightened around Isme. “I saw it in the dark, but she didn’t. I don’t think she would have changed course even if she did. She ran right over the edge and fell screaming—but with joy. Like she was flying.”

Isme imagined the image, but in her mind Kleto was wrong—in her mind, in the dark, Pelagia did not fall and instead was rising, up and up, running through air—

“Don’t mourn for her,” said Kleto, fierce, but seemed more than necessary, Isme thought, as though speaking to herself as well. “Pelagia... she had a hard life. I get bad men because I am beautiful: these eyes, my body round like a statue, my hair. But that beauty protects me. Eutropios won’t let anything too bad happen to me. But Pelagia is ordinary. She’s good at the lyre but so are lots of girls. In a few years she’d be sold off as a pornai and that would be her end, because nobody cares what happens to them.”

Isme’s thoughts tumbled like stones down a hillside. Nothing solid.

Kleto shifted in her seat. “Her name wasn’t even Pelagia, did you know? That’s a place name. Some kind of old word for the sea—pelagos. She was from near there, captured or sold, I don’t know. I never got her to tell me her real name. Maybe she didn’t have one.”

“No,” interrupted Isme, finding her voice. “She had a name. We all do.”

Beneath her Kleto stirred, as though surprised. “I suppose so.”

They sat in silence for some time. Isme realized they were both warmed, but neither moving, reluctant to break the embrace. She thought about saying something, perhaps telling Kleto that this was the most she had ever heard her talk, or perhaps confess that she had killed Lycander, simply for honesty’s sake, but when her mouth opened what came out was:

“This world is ending.”

Kleto’s eyelids flickered, remained closed. She said, “I know.”

“You do?” Isme said, surprising words ringing in her ears.

“You talked in fever,” said Kleto. “Mostly nonsense. Lycander thought you were going mad. But Pelagia thought you were recovering from being priestess at Delphi.”

“What