Everyone Should Eat His Own Turtle (A Greek Myth Novel)

by H. C. Southwark

  Consumed in fever Isme heard many things. The ceremonies of Dionysos began, and the acting troupe was performing lower on the mountain. These stories were of serious and mournful natures. Pelagia and Kleto shared the burden of Isme’s care between them, switching places to see the plays and perform themselves.

  “We are women,” Pelagia once explained, “So of course we don’t perform in the theater—but there are many symposia and they need lyre players and singers, and you can’t really have music without the singing being about something, so we do perform, too.”

  Isme did not entirely understand why it was necessary for women to remain off the stage, especially since women were part of the stories, and the idea that a young man like Lycander would play a woman seemed absurd. She thought about him prancing around the stage as Medea, demanding that his husband Jason fulfill the duties due to him as wife and mother of Jason’s children, and broke into giggles. But that story was ultimately no laughing matter—she knew the fate of those children in the tale.

  But then again men and women ultimately did not seem all that different. Isme had seen enough people to begin picking up on the differences, but many remained subtle. Even now, she constantly compared everyone to herself, animals, or her father...

  Her father, always in her thoughts, who she sometimes rambled about without knowing what she was saying, but Pelagia would nod and Kleto would look away.

  Some days passed before she began to feel as though her limbs were her own again. Wine was no longer poured over her feet. When she looked down she could see little white pock marks among her toes, but she was without pain. Pelagia looked relieved and said, “For a while, your feet were twice as big as they should have been. Perhaps Apollon still lingers around for his brother’s ceremony and decided to heal you as a thank you for all your trouble.”

  “A thank you?” said Isme, not understanding the reference.

  Kleto, who was there because this was late at night, lifted her eyes and glared at Pelagia. She said, “For the last time, it couldn’t have been Isme up at the temple.”

  Pelagia looked chastised, but began to explain. Somehow, during the six days that Isme had lost, the Oracle at Delphi had delivered prophecies. Yet there had been a new priestess. Men entering the temple had described her as very young, surprisingly dark from the sun, and wearing the skins of animals.

  The acting troupe had heard this news.

  The resemblance to Isme had been uncanny—and Kleto and Pelagia had seen her dragged off by the old woman and two burly men. Yet they had never been able to confirm this suspicion. After all, how could Isme end up as the priestess of Delphi?

  Kleto had concluded that something had happened in the temple of Delphi, but clearly Isme had not become a priestess otherwise she could not now be down here with them. The priestess had to remain in Delphi until her death. And Pelagia disagreed. They turned to bickering over this—but Isme, listening to this quarrel in silence, stroked her own arms and felt goosebumps.

  “You should be glad for Lycander, though,” said Pelagia, who was giving Kleto little glances. “Every day he tried to go up to the temple and see who the priestess was, but we didn’t arrange to ask a question ahead of time. It was lucky he was up there for one last attempt, though the ceremonies were over, otherwise you would have had to hobble down the mountain and never found us.”

  Kleto was scowling. Isme knew she should be concerned about Kleto’s feelings, that she could once again view Isme as a rival. And yet—as she recalled the way Lycander had once told her father how he would look after her, and realized how seriously Lycander still took that vow—the only thing she could feel was grateful.

  ~

  The last day of the Dionysos ceremonies belonged to the women.

  Or so Isme was told. Listening to Pelagia describe the rites over the past five days had taught her that while she knew most of the stories of the gods from her father, she knew very little about ceremonies. Indeed, they seemed almost like two different things—rituals to honor the gods, and then stories about them.

  Isme had begun to wonder which of these things had come first: story or ritual?

  But to hear Pelagia’s excited ramblings brought Isme into a contemplative state. She thought of tales of goats and sheep brought before Delphi and sliced open, still alive, so their entrails could be read and the beats of their hearts counted to answer questions. Not all of them had been given to Apollon—and not all of them were yet given to Dionysos, either, because she still sometimes heard them baying outside.

  She thought, In the well of songs, was I to be offered like one of these goats?

  If she had, what would her own insides have read? The prophecy at her birth said she would understand the end of the world. Perhaps that was the knowledge she would have brought up from the underworld, which Apollon had been seeking. But who really knew the mind of a god seeking anything?

  But she could not linger on these dark thoughts on this day, since both Kleto and Pelagia remained in the tent, distracting her. When the light outside began to dim, Pelagia grew ever more restless, and at last demanded, “Shall we go now?”

  Kleto’s eyes always seemed brighter in nighttime, and lingered on Isme as she said, “Yes, let us go.” She drew to her feet and the two of them paused, waiting. Isme watched them both, kept her silence until she began to feel discomfort as they gazed down at her.

  Then Pelagia said, “Isme, aren’t you coming?”

  I don’t dare, Isme would have said. From Pelagia’s ramblings she had come to understand that some sort of ritual had been planned for this night, and it was expected that the women involved would encounter Dionysos somehow. She had heard plenty of stories where women drunk with Dionysos had danced around the periphery of the action, maenads trapezing wild through the woods like animals.

  Nothing good ever happened when maenads came into a story.

  But when she had brought this up, Kleto had said, with a look like thunder: Those stories are told that way because they are told by men. If maenads told them, then they would be different stories.

  And Isme had thought, but not asked aloud: What possible change in perspective could make tearing someone limb from limb acceptable? She almost answered this question herself, thinking how some of men had earned their fates through disrespect to the gods or the mysteries of women. But still the question had lain open within her as though this answer had not satisfied its hunger.

  But she did not want to get into an argument now. From the look on Kleto’s face, Isme was misbehaving, for that was usually an expression saved for Pelagia. Before the moment could stretch over long, Pelagia bent down and said,

  “I know you’re worried about tonight, but you’re one of the women so you must come. Don’t worry. Apollon is a man’s god but Dionysos is for us women. You’ve been so troubled these last few days—that’s perfect for tonight, you can forget all your problems. Dionysos is not like the other gods. He just wants us to be happy.”

  Isme swallowed down something that felt like a sob in the back of her throat. The words sounded all at once like something she had been waiting to hear. Once again, her thoughts circled around back to her father, from whom there had been no news, no matter whether Lycander stuck his head in and was asked about Epimetheus every single day. With Kleto or Pelagia always there, Isme had not been able to ask the voice from the woods what it thought about her father remaining missing.

  Perhaps that was a blessing. If the voice told the truth... she might die of grief. She would become Niobe, a weeping stone.

  Three days between ceremonies, six days of ceremony for Dionysos, five already gone. Eight days total. Epimetheus had hardly ever left her alone so long.

  Was Isme to cure her own blood guilt, and then return to the island alone, there waiting for the end of the world—and live alone, forever, in the new world to come?

  Maybe, if Apollon had trapped her father somewhere, another god could free him. Dionysos was also a son of Zeus... and
if he was merciful to women, then maybe...

  I’ve already met one god, Isme thought—and then corrected herself. No; I’ve met two. Apollon is a god—but so was my father. I’ve been living with the gods since I was very small, because they are all around us. Grandmother Kalliope, please be with me this night—I’ll try to find my absolution, and my father, all in one place...

  Standing on newly steady feet, Isme followed them out.

  ~

  The night was cool over their shoulders as they emerged from the tent.

  The few stars overhead were dim in the sunset, but brightening. Men gathered around watching as the women strode from the tents and houses—Isme spotted only one with an expression on his face, a man half-hidden behind a scraggly beard, who looked mockingly at Kleto as she passed—and Kleto gave no heed.

  But soon Isme’s vision was consumed by nothing but women.

  Women flowing like water, like the little estuaries that merged into streams and then into rivers and became one rushing flood as they left the confines of the town below Delphi and flowed down the mountainside toward the valley.

  No moon—Isme found the light from the stars just adequate to see the shapes of others moving with her, all women, holding up the woven cloth of their dresses as they picked their way down the path and across fields. The only shape she could identify for certain was Kleto, for those golden eyes shone with a light all their own.

  They reached the edges of the forest down in the valley. Isme felt her healed feet throbbing, which she would have thought a sign that the injuries were permanent, except she could feel that same pulse beating throughout her body. Moving in silence made only footsteps audible, the sound of breathing empty like little gusts of wind...

  Alongside the women, in bare small glimpses, Isme thought she saw shadows blacker than black, or else shapes that were human but not, lingering and following. She first noticed them when they truly left the city below Delphi behind—and, reminded of the shadow in the cave, she pressed closer to Kleto, who seemed not to mind.

  They wove their way through the bushes and merged into the trees. None of them had trouble passing saplings and trunks, still flowing like water, dodging around obstacles and finding the easiest path. Deep in the forest she saw a flickering light that rivaled Kleto’s eyes beside her, and everyone pressed toward it.

  They found a clearing studded with jars—jars that could fit in the palm of Isme’s hand, jars taller than the crown of Isme’s head—and the sweet smell of dying flowers coming from the rims. There was a torch stabbed in the ground, the only true light, which formed the center of the wheel of women assembling around.

  Standing beside the torch was a woman with straw-like hair, long and tall, her face almost fleshless to reveal the skull underneath. Looped many times around her waist was a rope, on which was strung many knives that glittered in the uneven light. She wore animal skins, much like Isme herself.

  Hesitantly, coming to a halt, Isme glanced at Kleto by her side, but the other woman appeared unconcerned. No—Isme thought, that was not the right description. Kleto was always muted, somehow, perhaps merely in comparison to Pelagia. But having known her long enough, Isme could see that she was not stolid, merely pretending to be, and her acting was subpar. For Isme could see the smallest strain in Kleto’s limbs, and she would have said that Kleto was eager, ready to pounce.

  Ah, Kleto, Isme thought. You are the predator who fights—but somehow can never bring yourself to kill.

  How lucky you are.

  Once the women had assembled, the straw-woman in the center spoke: “Sisters. Look now to ensure there is no impostor. For if a man comes and witnesses our rites, he shall die this very night.”

  The women became owls, every head turning on a swivel, observing everyone around her. Movements, but in a circle, as women trailed around the edge of the wheel, measuring each other, confirming. Isme merely glanced at Kleto and Pelagia, who hardly gave her any notice—and she realized why not, because they were not looking for her, at her, they already knew her. They were looking for strangers. For men.

  Isme found herself put under observation by the other women. These took one look at her unusual clothing, and then carefully studied her face, a few even coming so close to look that their noses nearly touched hers, frowning as they considered. But something in her convinced them, and they moved on.

  There was no outcry, no yell of rage upon a man being discovered. The men of the town must know better than to try and sneak into such a ritual, Isme surmised, not with death on their heads. Some time passed before the observations died down.

  The straw-woman, apparently satisfied, continued. “For six days every year the bright light of Apollon, god of music, light, reason and intellect, graces us with his presence high on Mount Parnassus. But just as adding too much weight to one side of the scale destroys the measurement, so too will having a god of such power alone destroy us. If Apollon is left unchecked then Parnassus will rise higher and break through the sky of the world, reaching toward the sun with nothing to pull it down.”

  Isme shivered, for she envisioned the mountain trembling, straining to reach higher—to where Olympus was, the home of the gods themselves, beyond the clouds, so that the only way to find it was the Mount Olympus, and even then not tall enough. A mountain shaking the earth—that sounded like an earthquake—

  And this was the nighttime. The sky was dark—the world could end at any moment.

  I have been waiting all my life, Isme thought, and it could happen here, now...

  But within her was the cry: Not yet! I have not found a way to absolve my blood guilt—and Apollon himself confirms, Tartarus is real, the punishment for murder is true! Who knows if the gods will absolve in the new world? And I am not prepared—I’m with all these people, who may be dangerous, and—what about my father?

  I can’t endure the end of the world alone.

  SEVENTEEN.

  ~

  There was a small murmuring from the women about, voicing concerns the same way that Isme’s mind hurtled through them, and she saw that hidden among their numbers were those same swaying shadows—and more than that, there were women who looked not quite right. Women with limbs a little too long, hair a little too thick—she thought, in the flickering of the firelight, that one of them had more than two eyes—

  Isme huddled closer to Kleto, bumping her. Those luminous golden eyes found her in the dark. And to her surprise, Kleto asked, voice low, “What is it?”

  She could have lied—Isme found the words, I’m cold, coming to her, but instead she said, “There are shadows, and they move like they aren’t attached to people.”

  Frowning, Kleto turned, observed the assembly, gave no sign she was disturbed—and perhaps did not see them at all. Yet still took her seriously. “They say there are many nymphs in these woods, minor gods for whom men have no names.”

  And Isme drew a quick breath, for it had not occurred to her that what she was seeing could be anything other than monsters or illusions. From her time in the tent, lying groaning with her own fever, she recalled something like a memory from a dream: every so often a face that was not quite a face would peek through the entrance. Sometimes she thought that she had misremembered Lycander’s arrival, but whatever they were the things always seemed surprised to see her lying there, and withdrew.

  She did not have long to ponder this before the straw woman spoke again. “But when one side of the scale is heavy, the other side can be weighed also and brought to balance. If Apollon is light, reason, music, and poison—so too is Dionysos found here in the after-dark. He will teach us to receive the things that cannot be put into words, cure our heartaches, and lets us sing of joy, without which this world would be unbearable.”

  Isme felt relief spread through the assembly at these words, all of the women falling silent from murmuring. And there was relief within her, too, especially at the mention of songs, for it sounded like Dionysos was much more reasonable than the go
d of reason. Perhaps the world would not end tonight after all.

  “Now begins the revelry,” said the straw woman. She lifted a hand that looked like a twig and gestured with the bones of her fingers towards the urns and pots scattered across the clearing. “There will be no watering down of drink tonight, for such rules are for haughty men in symposium, who cannot drink straight lest they summon too much of Dionysos. But we have nothing to fear of him—more of him simply cures us more. And should someone interrupt us, then his life be on his own head.”

  And Isme was considering how these words sounded like the tail end of a threat, when the straw woman laughed, adding, “After all, now that the men have brought danger by asking Apollon for pretty poems, it is up to us women to solve their mistake by calling down Dionysos and having ourselves a good party. Let us begin!”

  At once the solemn mood was broken, laughter pealing through treetops, followed by chattering. Women surged, breaking the circle, congregating around the pots. Musings interrupted, Isme trailed after Kleto with Pelagia at her side. They joined six other women in a semicircle around an urn that came up to Isme’s waist.

  Among them was an older woman with streaks of grey scattered in her dark hair, making her look striped like a fawn. Isme stared a little too long, wondering if she would one day look similar, yet the woman did not seem offended and merely smiled at her.

  “First time, dear?” she asked, and Isme glanced at Kleto, who looked unwilling to intervene. She made a quick judgment: surely if she pretended to ignorance, she would not sound anything other than stupid to mainland ears. And so Isme nodded.

  “I thought so,” said the older woman, nodding herself. “You look to have become a woman recently. I have a daughter at home who must wait another year to join—she’s probably sulking now, poor thing, because she thought this year would be her year.”