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

Picking at nearby leaves, she could discern no bug, no creeping mold killer, and concluded that there was something within the plant itself—some vital lack in the spark of life, so that the whole crop did not die so much as failed to live.

Seated in the rows, she considered. What would stop something from living? Life came from the gods—so famine... that was a sign of disfavor, but why? Her mind catalogued all the stories she knew, gods angry over some slight, punishments for murderers like with poor Oedipus, violations of some natural order, gods quarreling among themselves and using mortal men in some proxy war... the list went on...

Kleto paced and muttered, and at last Isme gave in, rose and followed Kleto’s golden hair down the mountainside. They almost reached the sea before the dais became visible, a wood mound bristling with the chopped ends of logs like spears. The podium was about waist-height, and the configuration for air flow told Isme these logs were meant for burning.

Lying atop the wooden pallets was a single figure, a man, that much Isme could discern from the clothing and beard. Taller, slenderer, contrasting in Isme’s mind between these wild men, who bore the square shape of her father Epimetheus, and all the fellow men she had seen of stone, who were thinner and shaped more like what she had seen of the Olympians, Apollon especially.

“Murderers and cannibals,” Kleto whispered, “I just knew it—” and she reached into the pile, was about to pull one of the taller limbs free, no doubt to use as a spear against the wild men, but there was a cry of surprise on the other side of the pile as she jostled it.

Rising from the other side, now in view, was a woman, and Isme saw by her whitened hair how aged she was, back bent forward. Only then by comparison did she realize that the figure on the pile was equally as old, his hair gone but beard white.

“What are you doing?” the old woman said, in a voice that communicated she knew quite well what Kleto had in mind, and this was beyond outrageous or acceptable.

Withdrawing her hand, Kleto said, “You speak like a Spartan.”

“I am,” said the old woman, peering at them, and Isme realized that her vision was not well. “And you—I can’t place your birth, but you are from civilization.”

“We are,” said Kleto.

“It is you, then,” the old woman sank back to her seat, forcing Isme and Kleto to move around the pile to see her. “You will be the next king and queen.”

Kleto gave Isme a glance that read what she thought of that, and silently Isme disagreed: these men of old cannot be cannibals eating kings and queens, because then why would only the king be dead, uneaten, on a funerary pyre? Surely they would have killed this woman, too.

“Please explain,” Isme said aloud, and the old woman began to talk. Much of her ideas rambled, disjointed, out of order, and Isme considered how in stories older people lost their wits, and tried her best to understand—then again, as the man on the pyre was the woman’s husband, perhaps this was grief.

The woman explained how she and her husband had been wrecked, long ago, landed on the island much as Isme and Kleto had. For the gods still sometimes had mercy on the wild men, all the same—because they were the forgotten men, the ones from before, and were not supposed to live in this new world, which refused to produce for them, the sun and water not enough for life—

And so, the woman told them, the only way for such people to live is by the lives of those to whom this world belongs—us, the men of stone. When there is a king and queen of iron ruling, the crops grow, rains come, same as if the subjects themselves belonged to this world. But when one or both of these rulers dies, the cycle stops, and must be renewed with a new ruler and his wife.

“It’s not so bad,” said the old woman, speaking to Isme. “I’ll bet you were some country goatherd, or a serving boy begging for scraps under your owner’s table. Here you will be king—and what a bride!” For she had clearly seen Kleto at least a little, and evaluated the plump, pale, golden-haired visage. “You’ll rule for years, how young you are—and at the end of life be sent to the underworld with ceremonies and honors.”

“Sounds like paradise,” said Kleto, but when she glanced at Isme, the truth could be seen in those golden eyes. Isme reached the same conclusion: Yes, a paradise...

If only Isme was truly a boy.

~

“We cannot stay here,” Kleto said, once they were back in the cave room, but this time her voice hushed so the wild men could not hear, in case they understood.

“But we can’t leave,” Isme responded, and Kleto looked at her like she was mad.

“Why on earth not? You heard what that old hag said—and besides, you have a mission. Orpheus’s shrine at Lesbos, remember? The end of this world?”

“But they are still people,” Isme said, fists clenching in firelight. “This world is ending soon, every oracle says so. As they are now—so we will be, Kleto, in the new world! They can’t live in this world, they need our help. And if we survive to the new world, then we’ll probably be the same way—we’ll need the new men’s help.”

Kleto’s face was set like stone, and the only motion across it was the flickering of the torch lights. Isme finished, “How can we ask for help when we won’t give it?”

“Do you not understand,” said Kleto, forcibly calm. “We couldn’t help them, even if you want to. Isme. You are not a man. They need a king and queen, and we can’t fit those roles. This isn’t a theatre where you can put on a mask and pretend. Whatever ceremony will happen, the gods