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

setting sun. Isme turned her face to greet the disc across the prow of the ship, thinking how long and yet how little time had passed. Only three full faces of the moon ago, she had been on her father’s island getting ready to visit the turtles, and made the mistake of singing to a sea that was not empty of sailors...

And now I am going to see my blood father, O Father of my heart, Isme thought, watching the spray beat across the sides of the ship, waves ineffectual and yet always striving to bring the wooden hull down. She had resolved that, since Epimetheus was a primordial god, a Titan, he probably would hear her same as any other god, and if he was still alive out there then perhaps her prayers meant he knew where she was.

Then, lest her grandmother become jealous at her prayer, Isme added: Please protect and guide me, your granddaughter visiting your son, Lady of Song and Story...

“You will not believe the lies they have cooked for my attention,” Kleto complained, coming up behind Isme and settling with a grip against the side railing. She was as always nowadays a little green-tinted on the sides of her throat below her chin.

Isme turned her face against the wind, no longer cautious of her hair flying into her eyes—she had adjusted to the shortness, and the ease of the male chiton against her body was less cumbersome than the full female peplos, since it exposed her legs. Her sun-dark skin served her well in disguise, for no woman would have worn such short clothing for long enough to stain, and so despite some misgivings the ship captain had accepted that she was a boy—old enough to pretend to manhood, and young enough to fail at being convincing. The sailors did what the captain said.

Seeing she had Isme’s attention, Kleto complained, “The story is that around here are tribes of savages with ceremonies that civilized men have forgotten. They make strangers kings and queens for a day, then sacrifice them to the gods—and eat them!”

Delighted by a new story, Isme grinned. “They were telling me that there are sometimes rumors of sirens descending on rocks around here, and whole ships dying.”

“That part you should believe,” said Kleto, turning a bit more serious. “I saw that they had a jug of rags and wax—to stop their ears, just in case. Looked disgusting.”

“Sirens,” said Isme, repeating the word, and though she tried not to, her mind began to yearn—for although the safety of the ship and crew should have been paramount, in truth she wanted to hear what sort of song could drive a man to die.

~

A moon before, they traveled through the thickest part of the woods, through groves not even robbers would have dared. Sometimes with her new sight, Isme would see the shadows of nymphs peering out from trees, curious and stupefied at her and Kleto as they passed, never having seen men before. And satyrs would flee in terror—but deer were less cautious, would come right up to Kleto’s hands to sniff as if tame.

Are we still alive, Kleto had asked once. I feel as though we have crossed over to another world. But Isme had not answered, and if she had then she would have said that this was more like home than anything else she had seen on the mainland.

Or, perhaps she would have said: Maybe this is what the next world will be like.

It was a good dream: a world that was better than the ones before, not worse. Each world—golden, silver, bronze, iron—was baser than the last. How much worse could things become before they became better? And the answer of course was: everything can always become more horrible than before...

Yet in those woods, Isme had begun to feel the rise of something she had not known was missing until it came again to her: hope.

That was how she had lived on the island, she now saw. Years of hope. Being told that this world would end since she was very small, and yet preparing for that end every day, learning new skills, saving up supplies, listening to the stories. That last part was important. Someone had to carry the stories into the new world.

The world will end but a new one will come. And I’m prepared for anything.

When they had arrived in a small town, the change was a shock. Isme had gone silent for some days, but Kleto took over. She sang on the roads, took the small boons tossed to her. She disappeared once for a day and Isme half thought she was dead, but then Kleto had arrived back with money. Then there was the double-checking of Isme’s disguise, and coaching, and they were securing a boat on the way to Lesbos.

The first night aboard, Isme had watched the way Kleto’s body heaved, tipped over the side, but there was nothing to come up. The sailors said she would not be fed if all she was going to do was feed the fish, and so Isme hoped she would recover soon.

Paler than Isme had ever seen her, Kleto fell down into a crouch on the ship deck, and Isme settled beside her. Then as though herself a deer curling in for the night, Kleto slumped over Isme’s lap. Careful of the long golden hair wound into its basket, Isme adjusted the other woman’s head. She said, “Would a story distract you?”

“I’m hungry, tell me a story about food,” said Kleto. And Isme complied:

Once, long ago, there were some sailors on the ocean who could not catch any fish. They did not know it, but they were drifting overtop a great rent in the sea, where the creatures of water are taken below to the underworld same as the creatures of land. And so all the sailors were catching were turtles.

Trying to eat the turtles proved useless, for they tasted like dead things. Disgusted, the sailors wanted