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

and by focusing she could make out a discoloration skating over the surface of the underworld sea.

No, she realized, river. That was a boat—it must have been Charon, or perhaps some other underworldly being, and if so, then this was the river Styx—except she felt as though the stories were wrong, for this had the feel of an ocean, not a river.

On the one side, the Styx stretched out over the horizon until her eyes could no longer reach that far—but on the other, the outline of a beach, and Isme began to swim, the turtles paddling along. For all her efforts, there was no splashing in the water, just ripples, smoothly breaking the dark glass surface of the dead sea.

The beach was dark sand, gritty, glittering in the little light cast by the stars. It barely rose from the meeting point of the ocean, and then was immediately taken over by plants the color of ash, long bladed grass with each strand tipped with a number of dark drooping flowers, crumpled, like they were old and decaying. The scent of honey and cedar grew as she moved closer, and though she coughed there was no escape.

Isme pulled herself onto the sand, body heavy and ready for rest, and peeked at the fistful of flowers she had taken from the world above. They were waterlogged, drooping, but shockingly white in this dim world of shadow and ash. Rolling over, she struggled to a seating position facing the turtles. “Thank you, my friends.”

The many luminous pairs of eyes blinked at her, and then Isme noticed how all of them refocused, to gaze at something behind. She rolled again. There was a figure, man-height, moving through the dark flat plain with intent, striding toward Isme.

“You had better go,” Isme told the turtles, and they disappeared without a sound, sliding into the still waters without even a ripple.

Isme did not know what to say to the figure approaching; she was not arriving like her father, clothed in song and sun and striding like a conquering warrior, whether that was bluster or truth. Instead she was a wet shivering thing bearing nothing but flowers, stories, and questions. She supposed that would have to be enough.

Whatever she expected the figure to say, certainly it was not this: for the veiled thing declared, “You’re late,” and then began to walk off, expecting Isme to follow. Mystified, and yet more concerned instead of relieved, Isme pulled herself to her feet and trailed after, thinking on the creature’s voice—for it had been that of a woman.

~

They walked for what might have been days. The land was a long endless plain filled with asphodel, air blank and motionless like one’s mind before a thought emerged. Occasionally they passed tribes of roving people, thin and gaunt and haunt-eyed, who seemed to look at everything and see nothing. Whenever the shades of the dead moved—and they roamed constantly, like grazing animals, yet eating nothing—the asphodel was trampled underfoot and rose in puffed spiral columns of ash and smoke, circling in on itself before evaporating. More simply sprang up in its place.

As for Isme and her silent guide, however, there was no puffs of smoke when they walked—the plants underfoot were not even bent. It was as though they were the ghosts in this land, immaterial, and their passage was not even noticed.

At last in the distance came the sight of a peak in the plain, Isme’s eyes straining to see what might interrupt the flat horizon. They approached and in time the blip became more solid, became a building, but not made like any Isme had ever seen—for this was not quarried rock and stone, but rather like something punched upward from the earth, like the surface of the world was a stretched blanket and a hand was pressing up from below to create the walls for the structure. The doorway was an arch. No door.

They passed though without any ceremony or even a word.

~

The building was only one room. Every surface smooth, polished, and embedded in the walls were beautiful designs—Isme recognized colors, but dull, and surmised on the names for the stones—rubies, emeralds, topaz... Yet despite craftsmanship of the sort that men above could envy, the room still held the dim and dark look of ash and smoke; reds more mahogany, blues more indigo, nothing bright or vibrant.

Even the walls were dead, Isme thought.

In the middle of the room was a bench made of the same pressed-outward stone as the walls, and upon that sat a figure veiled in black. The look of it was hunched over, as if curled in on itself, but the head moved to watch as they entered.

Isme’s guide spoke, “Mother, I brought her.”

Another woman’s voice answered, “Come forth and let me see.”

The guide turned, gave Isme a clear path forward. She stepped cautiously, knowing she should show respect yet uncertain how much was required. Only when she saw the edges of the seated figure’s veil did not extend completely down, and there was the pale pink of toes that looked like flower buds peeking out, did she understand.

“Lady Persephone,” Isme said, kneeling in obeisance, hunching over her own knees. The figure did not look overly surprised by her conclusion, but then again she supposed that anything could be happening unknown behind the veil.

“You are Isme, daughter of Orpheus, and long in coming,” said Persephone, and Isme realized then that what she had surmised was true—the underworld was the source of knowledge. She wondered how long she had been expected, and whether the lady of the dead already knew how their conversation would say.

“I am,” said Isme, trying to keep her voice level. “Forgive me for not bowing immediately, my lady, I did not know it was you.”

“Few realize right away, without my husband by my side,” said Persephone. “But I am commanded by my husband to wear this shroud, for none shall see me but him.”

That sounds terrible, Isme thought, imagining wandering through this