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

was dead. This—this was what Troy must have been like—the gods themselves consumed by war until they did not know anything else—

She wanted to yell that they should stop, that nothing was being solved—wanted to cry out something, anything, that might draw attention, but there was nothing, her throat empty like someone had reached down and ripped out what voice she possessed. Rust tasted thick in the back of her mouth, she did not resist as Kleto dragged her from the rock podium, behind which they cowered.

Not for long. The fighting was thickening, shadows on the walls doing violence even to other shadows, and Kleto yelled, just barely heard: “We have to get out of here!”

Isme could neither agree nor disagree, torn between staying where it was not safe and going through worse danger in the chance of escape. Yet as before—as she had in the den with the robbers and the birds, what seemed so long ago—Kleto had her by the arm, and Isme was pulled like a leaf down the stream of Kleto’s strength—

They dodged the first combatants, men grappling with each other—they skirted a pair of children gouging each other’s faces—and then a woman, clawing and biting at a man throttling her—still coughing, Isme found that she could hardly see, the dust from the floor and the wetness in her eyes blurring everything—

A hand caught the cloth over her shoulder, and she was hauled backward—and an elbow knotted around her throat—but Kleto was there, hands raised and clawing so that Isme flinched, half believing Kleto was going for her eyes—but the man howled, warm wetness splashing Isme’s cheek. She was flung to the ground.

“Up—” Kleto cried, pulling on whichever of Isme’s limbs she could grab hold—“You’re the one with the prophecy, remember? You’ve got to live—I’ve got to get you out of here—”

And Isme thought, but could not say: No, Kleto, you are always the one saving other women, you’d save me regardless.

But she was pulled to her feet, and then they were pushing through the chaos. Isme heard Kleto shriek, just once, and sag in the grip of her arm, but then they were out, feet pattering against the sand in the hall—and forward—and then the night before them, the fields still yellow in the light of the full moon.

Isme was steering, and her feet moved on their own, heading down the mountain—toward the place she knew, the sea.

Beside her Kleto grew heavier and heavier, arms thrown over each other’s shoulders, yet Kleto was hardly keeping a grip, and Isme was forced to slide her hand down to Kleto’s side and bear the weight. Under her palm, she felt surging wetness, but only smelled the rust scent when it was in contrast with the salt from the water.

They collapsed to their knees on the sand, moon winking at them over the horizon of the waves, low tide. Kleto’s breath wet and soggy like the ocean was in her lungs. Isme bent forward, trying to hold Kleto upright, and saw the dark stain that trailed all the way down half of Kleto’s peplos, over her knees, her toes.

Straight through the ribs, Isme realized.

She was going to try something, anything, but Kleto’s hand over her shoulders jostled, pulling, just a little. Her eyes, the color of sunlight in the dark, were half-lidded as she said, “Go on. Take me as far as you can on your adventure, wild woman.”

Isme would have argued, but her voice was gone.

With strength she did not know she possessed, Isme dragged them upward, Kleto hobbling beside. They paced the beach, following the line of the world toward some new destination, toward the shrine of Orpheus, wherever he was—

They passed the pyre, which had been burnt, only charred bones left. The old woman nowhere to be seen.

Nothing but them in the entire cosmos—except the moon, the stars, the sea, and probably the turtles—Isme glanced over the water, wondering where her friends were, how far out they swam, if they could see her and Kleto struggle across the sand the same way they did, like their bodies were not made for moving and living on the earth.

Kleto kept skipping steps, and her breathing was much the same. Yet Isme could feel something other than strength in her own limbs—she was beyond caring about what was humanly possible, and could have carried Kleto for all eternity if asked.

But when she glanced to her side, the way Kleto’s sight was turned to the sea, and then the muscles of the neck giving in and the sun-haired head bowing, Isme saw that the golden spark in Kleto’s eyes had gone out.

“Don’t bury me,” Kleto said. Isme was forced only to nod.

She carried Kleto on, even as the other woman’s feet stopped pacing entirely. Their trail dragged in the sand until the moon had traced across the sky and the dawn was just barely holding back the steeds of the sun. Isme felt her body become numb like she was in the cold stream and dying again. When the sun finally rose, Kleto’s hair was a halo of gold, laid down on the sand like she was reclining in some paradise.

And Isme wanted to say: I’m sorry about Lycander. But there were no words on her lips.

TWENTY-TWO.

~

Isme left her there on the beach, not knowing what else to do. She tried to sing something—to perhaps pay Kleto’s toll to the underworld, like with Lycander, but nothing emerged, and the muscles of her throat screamed silently. At last she took off the metal clip on the left shoulder of her chiton—which was torn, anyway—and placed it in Kleto’s hand, hoping that would be enough for greedy Charon the underworld boatman.

Then in her unshod feet she traced the path of the sand.

The sun beat across her bare shoulder, but Isme had lived all her life under him, and this was nothing. Her lips cracked without water. But she knew well enough not to drink from the sea. When night