“But they are at the festival,” reasoned the voice. “I heard the same prophetic warning as you last night, did I not?”
Isme almost stepped a foot wrong, but her ankle was strong enough to bear the burden at the odd angle. She continued forward, mind running ahead of her to the end of the street, another turn that led gods knew where. She said, “I must find him.”
There was a pause. The soft pat of footsteps behind her ceased, as though the voice had halted and was considering. It said, “If you do this, you will start a chain of events that cannot be stopped. Remember your lesson from the island and the turtles.”
Stay hidden on the island and don’t go to the beach alone—I broke that promise, Isme thought, and others paid for it. But then I was also told to not let a mainlander see what my voice can do, and I broke that promise with Kleto. Yet here I am.
The world was a strange thing. First, she could commit a wrongdoing and receive the worst of all punishments; someone else, dying in her stead. But then she could do the same and be set free. Like the world had no rules of justice, and yet at the same time did; had a harsh sort of justice that was as unrelenting as the invisible stalker behind her. And yet did not.
A universe of order—where one did a bad thing, and one saw the consequences. And a universe of chaos—where one’s actions did not even cause reactions.
Nobody knows the future. In that moment, certainty came to her, a small voice whispering that the reason prophets spoke in riddles was because those gave them wiggle room to escape being accused of lying if the prophecy did not come true.
Then she remembered the stories—such thinking was what stupid people who disbelieved prophecies used to justify themselves in making bad decisions.
And yet above all this swirling of thoughts came only a simple image: the creases at the corners of her father’s beady eyes, whenever he smiled at her.
“If you won’t help me,” she said to the voice, “I’ll find him on my own. I don’t care about the festival or Apollon’s priestess choosing me—or anything but my father.”
As she said this an immense relief swelled within her, as though all her concerns of all these days had been washed away by the waves at the beach back home. The same thing she had felt when her father had told Isme of her birth: that she had been born to another man, Orpheus king of song, and the sudden fear that she and her father were not connected. But they were.
He was more than Epimetheus, father of all mankind. He was also her father.
Behind her, the voice sighed. Then it said, “Turn right, and then when you reach the street of people, turn left at the next fork.”
And that did bring Isme pause. She said, without turning to look, “Why are you helping me? Didn’t you just try to warn me about the priestess and ceremony?”
“You know the consequences,” said the voice. And no more.
Isme told herself that she was not running down the street, and that her mind was not racing, trying to figure out what the voice from the woods hoped to accomplish.
And that the sound behind her was not of feet following.
~
A press of people, all at once. Isme swerved between them, wondering how the voice from the woods could still be following even through this crowd. Though she could not hear it with all the noise of people, she did not bother to question whether it was still there. But she did wonder if it felt as out of place among people as she did. Maybe that was why it always went silent when people were around—
She reached the intersection that the voice in the woods had told her, and wondered—for there were already people around her on this street, and so why should she turn left? Yet, she thought, the voice from the woods had never hurt her... not yet at least.
And so Isme turned left, as she had been instructed.
Halfway down the street Isme bumped into the hip of another woman as she passed, turned to say her apologies—that was what people did in stories, anyway—
But Pelagia’s doe-eyes were on her. “Isme! You came!”
Isme said only, “Have you seen my father? He has gone missing.”
Whatever Pelagia was about to prattle, she dropped the topic like a live coal. “Did you get separated? Maybe he’s waiting for you back where you slept.”
“I just came from there,” Isme said. “He’s been missing all day.”
And then Pelagia had her by the arm, threading through the crowd. Isme let herself be guided, unsure of their destination, but the press of people became thicker, and then they were stopping before a tent on a small grassy area—Pelagia ducked in, and Isme had no choice but to follow—
She saw golden hair, loose and flowing like a river of sunlight, and Pelagia said, “Kleto, Isme says her father is missing—”
But she faltered and fell silent when Kleto turned her head and the other two women saw: she had a bruise on the side of her face, extending from her split lip to dip below her chin. She licked a bead of blood from the corner of her mouth.
“What happened?” Isme said, staring openmouthed as Pelagia hurried forward to pick at the wound. Kleto frowned up at Isme, who for a moment was returned to the first days they had met, when she was a pest for Kleto to swat down—
“What do you think?” Kleto growled. She batted Pelagia away. “Men with wine think any courtesan can become a common gutter whore.”
Isme flinched at the words and their low tone. Kleto’s burning eyes stayed fixed on her. Something about the woman remained undaunted and fierce, even as she crouched huddled over, shoulders bowed, bloodied in a tent. Between the waves of her hair, Isme thought she saw bare skin, curves through the shadows.
She realized that Kleto’s woven cloth was only fitted around her waist, and two sudden irresistible desires sprang up within her: to flee from Kleto, or to run and press herself against her like two fish swimming in the sea. Fortunately, both wishes were of equal strength, leaving Isme standing there staring.
Lifting cloth in her hand, Kleto dabbed her lip. “What’s this about your father?”
Wary about asking her help while she was in this state, Isme explained anyway. She said more than she should—about them wanting to leave, then felt she had to explain why, but she was worried about explaining the prophetess of the God Under the Mountain, so she settled for the idea that a fortune teller claimed something unfortunate would happen to her at the festival.
Pelagia piped up, “Then you can stay in here, Isme! I’ll go look for your father. I’m sure Lycander will help, too.” And she leapt up and rushed from the tent.
Isme stared after her. “Should she do that? Are women safe to walk alone?”
Kleto snorted, and Isme returned attention to her, and once there was caught. Kleto said, “What have you been doing all this time without your father?”
There was a tilt to Kleto’s head that made the discoloration on her face look like mere shadow from the pale light still beating through the tent fabric. Isme felt the bruises on her own arms seem to light up, as though she could feel them healing.
“I can fend for myself,” she said. Some part of her rumbled like her stomach when overfull, and she realized she was upset at Kleto’s assumption of her own helplessness. She had fought that robber in the woods, and sung their escape from the robbers’ den...
Kleto was clearly thinking along the same paths, for she said, “Indeed, you can.”
Isme felt her face tighten, on high alert as Kleto shifted in her seat, moving to be more comfortable, but ending up only looking more like a predator readying to pounce. It did not help that she kept her eyes locked on Isme’s in what clearly was a challenge.
Then she said, “How did you do it?”
Isme was prepared for some kind of insult—despite Kleto’s hostility lessening over the journey, the two of them escaping the robbers together, Kleto still often spoke sharply to everyone—but she was not prepared for a direct confrontation.
Pretending to ignorance seemed to work in situations like thes
e. Isme said, “I don’t know what you mean,” but so weakly that even she did not believe herself.
Kleto rolled her eyes. “Why do you do that?” And before Isme could ask what she meant, she was already continuing, “Yes, it can be a good idea for a woman to pretend stupidity. You won’t believe what men will reveal when they think you can’t understand them.” Her eyes glittered. “But I’m not a man you can pretend to.”
Isme did not know how to answer, her thoughts tumbling in on each other like leaves tossed into a running stream—but was interrupted by the sound of a scream.
Pelagia’s voice.
For the space between breaths she and Kleto froze, staring at each other. Some distant part of Isme acknowledged that the glow behind Kleto’s eyes was more than illusion or flight of imagination: the woman truly had the eyes of an animal in the dark. But this made Kleto fiercer when understanding came over her face and she rose like a tempest and flung open the tent to stride through. Isme was merely drawn in her wake.
People passing by the tent or standing to observe the trouble seemed to sense the thundercloud behind them and parted for Kleto to storm through. Isme was so focused on the gold of Kleto’s hair that she barely noticed.
Yet even Kleto halted when they came to the scene:
Two men, almost as tall as Lycander astride the horse, their faces shapeless behind the rags of their beards, held Pelagia by both her elbows as an old woman with silver hair twisted tight into a net stood before her, gnarled hands plucking at Pelagia’s skin as though testing for a layer of fat before buying an animal for dinner.
Kleto must have not expected the old woman, but what brought Isme up short was that she looked almost identical to the prophetess of the God Under the Mountain.
Only when the woman’s eyes scanned this new disruption, bypassed Kleto and locked on Isme, did Isme see the major difference: for this woman was not blind.
“There you are,” the woman said.
Isme felt the muscles at her joints tighten, ready to spring away, to flee, but Kleto whirled and caught her by the elbow. Voice low, she whispered, “What is this? These are servants of great Apollon—somehow they know you, and now you want to run?”
There was no time to answer because the two burly men were upon them and dragging Isme away before she could even properly digest what Kleto had said.
The last thing Isme thought that she heard was Kleto’s voice, as though from a great distance: “Let’s see if your singing can work to save you again.”
FOURTEEN.
~
They took her. They dragged her through the streets. Isme’s limbs felt like ropes woven from bark strands—thick and chewy and pliable, but still, in their inner nature, solid wood. She did not move with the men gripping her arms on either side—she forced them to haul her the entire way.
“Where are we going?” she demanded. The old woman leading did not even look at her in response. Isme would not beg for an answer that would not come.
But this did not stop Isme’s mind from conjuring up all sorts of terrible things: if this was the priestess of Apollon, then anything could be done to her. Her thoughts filled with being transformed into a tree, or struck dead with a discus, or killed with golden arrows...
When they pulled her through the city walls, Isme seized the corner of the gate. This particular entry was not broad enough for three people to walk through abreast, so she was pulled by only one of the burly men. He tried to haul her along—
Yet something like the rearing of the animal that Lycander often rode rose up within Isme, and her grip could not be broken. The man lifted her off the ground in his effort, and Isme felt her elbow strain in its joint, muscles screaming in overextension. But her grip held.
Isme had no idea that she was this strong.
For the first time since inspecting Isme’s face, the old prophetess turned and came back, once again gazing at Isme. She said, “Now is not the time for this,” and pointedly jerked her head to direct Isme’s attention behind her.
Isme unconsciously followed the direction, which was a mistake—for she was confronted with the mass of human beings who had seen her be selected, and who had followed in complete silence she was dragged from the center of the city. Their faces were solemn and not a single one said or did anything but stare.
Shivering, Isme was reminded of the men who had come in the dark and stood round about the temple of Delphi, who had watched her and her father climb up the side of the mountain and then not bothered to notice them on their way down.
She released the door and was dragged on.
~
They carried her up the side of the mountain, working as a team to pull and lift her up over precipices or large steps. Isme knew this trail—she had scrambled up it with her father only the previous night. The old woman had no trouble despite her age.
Then looming in Isme’s vision: the Temple of Delphi.
It looked like the skeleton of some enormous animal, bleached white by the enduring sun, the columns like femurs and ribs, the dome was the curved crown of the skull. Around it was a mass of spears—or little short infant trees—
Or people, thought Isme, and had she been free she would have turned and fled not just down the mountain to the city but all the way back to the road which led to her father’s boat and the island that was her home. They cannot be people, she thought wildly, surely they did not spend the entire night here in front of the temple—
The men dragging her must have felt the tension vibrating in her like a string, but they showed no mercy. And as she was dragged onward, Isme saw no motion from the crowd assembled before the temple, not like the crowd that was still following, trailing behind almost noiselessly except the animal sounds of feet stepping.
Only when they were within hailing distance in the fading sunlight did Isme realize:
The men in front of the temple were not men at all. They were statues.
Hundreds of statues, perhaps thousands, made of everything one could make statues from: stone, carved thick and chunky or smooth and flowing like water, bronze, gilded green like the foam of the sea, iron, lumpy and powdered with rust, wood, weathered and beaten by the elements, but all still standing, trapped at attention.
For the first time since being caught in the city, Isme did not dig her heels to leave long gashes in the soil. She still did not move with them, but she was reluctant to try to stay among this forest of deadened people, and so her resistance was minimal.
But they walked through this forest of unliving men, she thought to herself: last night in the dark they moved. They watched us...
Close to the temple, the statues thinned and then grew smaller, almost like statues of children, or as though they had been there so long that the dirt had begun to gather around their feet, half burying them in the soil. A stone walkway rose into stairs leading to a courtyard: and Isme’s mind was on the forest of her home, how it faded to scrub-grass and then the rise of the hill and then the sea...
Resistance rose in her again. The two burly men had more trouble dragging her up those steps than ever before. For Isme was thinking about heading over those hills on her island, about those lumpen shadows that she had found on the beach behind…
But the courtyard was empty. The temple loomed high, and this close Isme saw that she had been mistaken thinking it was white like bone: for it had been painted. The carved reliefs showed color, attempts at skin on human faces and various shades for the clothing. Yet it was all pastel, showing that it had been painted just the once and the sun had been striving to remove that paint ever since.
On columns at the temple entrance were carved two words:
KNOW THYSELF
Beside this was space for what looked like at least two more sayings, but while there were etchings, Isme could not make out the other words. Yet she did not think that they had been worn away—instead, the marks on the stone looked new, like fresh wounds. As though they were in the process of forming instead of deca
ying.
She found herself pondering the carved saying—what on earth could be meant by “Know thyself”? She already knew who she was: she was Isme, daughter of Epimetheus, and suspected that most other people knew who they were, too. The words seemed mysterious in that way that was self-conscious of their own mystery. Like they were trying too hard to be impressive.
Isme did not have long to ponder this, for she was drawn up over the courtyard and through the doors. They shut behind her.
~
The grip of the burly men tightened so that Isme knew her skin was bruising. This was unexpected, because she thought they might release her once she was inside—but then she realized that they did not know she would no longer try to run. With the door shut, running was pointless...
Unless they were aware that something even worse was about to happen, and so she would try to run anyway.
The inside of the temple was large, bigger than anything Isme had seen outside of a natural formation. The walls were stone and the only light was spare and came from windows that were at the top of the columns, where the walls met the ceiling. The hush in this place was belied by the ricochet produced by the stone. Isme could hear her own panting echoing back to her.
The old woman surveyed the room, and then turned and stepped back to Isme. Her gnarled hands reached forth and Isme flinched back but could not escape. With hands on the sides of her face she felt bridled. Yet the hands were soft like wet sand on the beach.
Peering into Isme’s face, tilting her head back and forth to see different angles, the old woman said, “You certainly have the look.”
Isme’s face was released. She said, “The look of what?”
Everyone Should Eat His Own Turtle (A Greek Myth Novel) Page 17