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

As far as arguments went, that was impossible to counter. Isme slumped, still trying to come up with some answer, pulling from stories she knew—Hermaphroditus, who was both man and woman; Tiresias, who switched between sexes at the behest of a snake; Iphis, raised as a boy and who prayed fervently enough to Aphrodite that she became the man her bride needed—but yet Isme knew the truth: she was a woman.

She had become a woman a year ago. The moment she felt the blood on her hands, she had known who and what she was, clarity that struck like a blow opening a wound. Must be different for men, she thought—and pitied them, that they did not change at once, and must instead flounder like blind things toward some far goal.

“We will find a way out,” Isme said, at last giving up, sending out only one prayer silently: Grandmother, please find another pair to help these people, for I cannot.

Satisfied, Kleto rolled onto her back and closed her eyes. Isme found sleep tugging at the corners of her mind, too, but when she lay back she was full awake.

In the smoking of the torches, Kleto asked, “How is it that I can be here at all? Sirens, and now this place, like something from a story—wild men, from the world before. Ever since I met you strange things seem to be happening. Is your life always like this?”

Watching the light from the flames play against the inside of her eyelids, Isme answered, “Yes, I suppose so.” She shifted to her side, curled inward, fetal. “I just didn’t know any different. I’ve never been to the mainland before now. It’s like my life is one of the stories my father used to tell me. I think sometimes I know the ending, have known all along, but then I can’t quite catch hold of it. Like there’s something about the nature of the world that I’m missing or don’t understand.” She frowned, eyes shut.

Behind her, Kleto’s voice: “Then don’t worry about it. The world will end soon anyway.” Noise, as Kleto shifted. “Besides, you only live so long, so why worry?”

~

They were woken in the middle of the night. The same group as before—covered in furs, and Isme knew now that they were an assortment of male and female. But all the same round faces peered down at her and Kleto like so many little moons, and Isme found herself thinking of the nymphs and dryads in the forests.

Jabbering, they had Isme and Kleto by the arms, hauling them upright, and then pulled them through the doorway into the passage—but they took a different turn, hauling them deeper into the cave formations. Isme saw Kleto’s limbs tense, but with how many escorted them, perhaps she thought better of fighting.

At the end of this passage was an enormous room lit by torches, and Isme startled, half thinking that she was back in either the cave of the God Under the Mountain or below Delphi. But there was no snake and no sign of the prophetess, just a large assembly of bronze men, every head swiveling to them as they were brought in.

Two wild men waited, clay cups in hand, and held them out to Isme and Kleto.

Looked like wine. But smelled like rust.

“I won’t,” said Kleto, so low that Isme barely heard her. But contained within these words was still the same implacable spirit, and Isme knew then that Kleto would die before breaking this oath. Glancing over the crowd, Isme realized that there was one face missing: the old woman from the beach. Perhaps she was still out there, mourning for her husband, which Isme told herself made the most sense—and yet she had the sinking feeling that she would never see that old woman again. She too refused.

The denial of the drink seemed to puzzle the assembly of wild men, as if they had no idea what Isme and Kleto feared. After proffering several times, the rejection must have been enough, and dejected they carried the cups away, but reverently, as though afraid to spill a single drop.

Isme and Kleto were dragged forward, through the crowd to a stone outcropping that rose to about their knees. They were forcibly placed atop, and then the hands of their captors released, the men and women blending into the assembly, every head of which was staring up at them in what looked like anticipation.

Yet now, from this new vantage point, Isme could see the assembly was more than just people watching—for they held clubs and axes and sharpened wood javelins. It occurred to Isme that this could be some test, and if she and Kleto failed then there would be consequences she did not want to contemplate.

Ceremonies, the sailors had said. Rituals that the civilized world had forgotten.

Ones that we are about to enact, Isme thought.

TWENTY-ONE.

~

“Now what?” muttered Kleto, and Isme tried to think of some answer—yet all that would come to mind was the robber’s den, when last she and Kleto had shared some makeshift stage, except now only the ghost of Pelagia was there for the lyre.

The closest wild man to the stage raised a hand and pointed at Isme, saying a muddled word. The intonation told Isme it was an attempt at Greek, but then he was pointing at Kleto and saying another word, only this one must have been closer to his language, for Isme recognized a name: Pyrrha. Then he pointed at Isme again, repeating himself, and Isme’s mind supplied: Deucalion.

“What was it you said about theatre last night?” Isme whispered to Kleto. “The gods will know if we lie? Well, I think they are telling us to perform. It’s the story from the end of the last world, their world—I’m to be Deucalion, you’re Pyrrha.”

“Curse them to the underworld,” said Kleto, “There is no song of Deucalion and Pyrrha!”

“Then we’ll make one,” Isme said, thinking how strange the mainland was,