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

“About missing your father. How the world was going to end. Being the daughter of Orpheus,” said Kleto. She sighed, shifted. “Mostly something about an island. You kept describing this dream where you were standing on a beach and fog from the sea was rolling in and over the island, and in the fog you saw lots of things.”

“Like what?” said Isme, recalling the dream, which she had many times through her life. She had never dreamed of anywhere but the island. Even when her father told her stories of the mainland, stories of heroes and monsters, she had not dreamed them; instead, she dreamed of her father retelling the stories by the fire.

“Turtles, mostly,” said Kleto, and her lids cracked, the gold peeking through. “You said they swam around the island in the fog and sang like they were people.”

Isme shivered, though was no longer cold. “But dead people.”

“Yes,” said Kleto. “You kept mentioning something like that.”

And Isme thought back to the old woman at Delphi: All knowledge comes from the underworld, all understanding cycles up from the depths... And pieces of comprehension began to connect together, the long endless body of the Python billowing smoke to bring knowledge, the prophetess of the God Under the Mountain lying in a cavern behind human bones, and across the sea, the head of Orpheus...

Which was dead. A dead thing knew what prophecies to say...

Swallowing without spittle, bracing herself, Isme pulled from Kleto’s grip and shifted away, just enough that their breathing no longer fell into rhythm as though they were the same being. She said, “I have to go. There is somewhere I must be.”

Kleto’s eyes opened fully. She said, “Good. Now that you’re recovered, Eutropios will probably try to keep or sell you. We spent a lot of time and money on you and your father never came to repay us. Pelagia being dead will make him more determined for money.”

“I must,” said Isme. “Over the sea to Lesbos, to Orpheus’s shrine.”

“That is a long journey,” said Kleto. Her eyes had been soft, but now they hardened, and Isme felt reassured, as though Kleto was proving once again that she too was made of stone, just like the other men of iron. She watched Kleto pull herself to her feet, brushing dirt off the cloth around her waist. “Let us begin now, then.”

“Us?” said Isme, seizing on the single word. She rose to her feet as well, feeling her joints protest in exhaustion and cold. “You cannot come—you belong here.”

“I suppose you will make it all by yourself?” said Kleto, flinging her hair back, uncaring that she bared her breasts. “Navigate to the next seaside town, find a ship that won’t sell you at the nearest port, reach Lesbos, get to a shrine and arrange a day to meet your father, all without being kidnapped, raped, and killed?”

“I must,” said Isme, though what Kleto was describing seemed to loom over her. “I have no choice—I must absolve myself and discover the end of the world.”

Kleto eyed her, pursing her lips, raised a hand to Isme’s ratty hair. “Maybe. You are young enough you could cut this hair, bind your breasts, pass as a boy on the cusp of his voice breaking. But you’d never convince anyone because you can’t act. I can.”

“And you would not draw attention?” Isme replied. “You said yourself that you’re beautiful—the men would kill me and take you, or take us both, if I brought you along.”

“Not if I was the personal gift from one lord to another,” said Kleto, “a concubine for a lord on Lesbos from Menelaus, Lord of Sparta, fresh returned from war. And you would be a personal serving boy, stained dark from the sun while guarding sheep.”

That seemed like a bad story, Isme thought, and yet became aware that she did not know whether that was true. Perhaps it was possible. Only one concern remained...

“If they catch you,” Isme told her, “then they will punish you.” She did not know quite what the penalty for runaway slave women was, but surely even Kleto was not exempt. Must be horrendous, she thought, otherwise more women would run.

“I’m aware,” said Kleto. “But first they must realize I’m not dead.”

Isme realized: It will take days for them to learn that... for Lycander is dead, and if he is Eutropios’s nephew, he will need to be buried, which will take days also. There is no better time to run with a head start. But she could not bring herself to tell Kleto this.

And so hand in hand they merged into the woods.

~

They gathered what cloth they encountered on the way, and Kleto taught Isme how to wind the material about herself, pinching at the corners so it draped just so. The cloth was burdensome, and yet somehow lighter than her animal skins because it allowed wind to sweep through the cracks, cooling during a long walk.

“If only we had something to cut your hair,” Kleto said, “We could start working on the boy-illusion now.”

And so Isme kept an eye out for stones, found several candidates as they walked. In the evening as they stopped to rest she felt the outline of the blade within the stone, then with another rock removed the chalky exterior and went to work on the chert. Kleto watched, fascinated, as Isme hewed a cone-shape, and by bashing the top produced long slices of stone as sharp as metal knives.

“How did you know to do that?” Kleto asked, watching Isme slice the end of a stick, insert one of the stone blades, and tie them together with a strand of green bark.

“My father taught me many things for the end of the world,” said Isme, testing the balance of the new blade. “Metal will rust, no matter what. Every sharp thing grows dull. But if you know how then you can make new blades from nothing but rocks.”

She