The other women were making similar talk, just small things as introductions, when Kleto reached forward to the lid of the urn, and pulled it toward herself. The cover was as big around as the wheels of the wagons in the caravan, and yet Kleto mustered the muscle to drag it over the edge, where its rim met the ground. Then she pushed, and it fled a few revolutions before falling on its side.
Pelagia clapped on her thighs. “Look, ours rolled the most.”
Isme realized that the groups of other women were doing the same, except for a few smaller assemblies who had collected the tiny palm-sized pots in clusters, and were simply peeling what looked like a cloth clinging with wax from the top of one or two.
Together the women of Isme’s group leaned in and huddled closer to look into the urn. Isme craned her head and saw that there was liquid inside, dark and viscous, thicker than water—and when Kleto stuck her finger in all the way to the knuckle, Isme revised the substance to that like something resembling honey.
But the color was off. Inside the urn, mostly blocked from the torch firelight, the juice looked dark. Yet as Kleto lifted her finger and it trailed off, the color rainbowed between black and purple and red like blood. The smell was of old flowers—sweetness and musk.
Yet Kleto stuck her finger into her mouth and smiled.
“It’s good,” she said.
One of the other women laughed, darting a hand in and scooping to bring it to her lips where she lapped like an animal. That seemed enough for everyone else, for there was a rush of hands and fingers, some of the women playfully jostling each other and laughing. The urn’s mouth was just wide enough to accommodate them all.
Isme struggled to keep track of who was saying what—even with practice her ability to follow more than one person speaking at a time was terrible. This was made worse by other groups of women beginning to talk among themselves, a low hum of chatter, pleased voices and laughter echoing back and forth as distraction.
Kleto nudged Isme in the ribs, and when she glanced over Kleto jerked her head at the urn. Carefully, Isme reached in and touched the surface of the liquid with the pads of two fingertips. These she held up to her face and observed as they glistened. Then she brought them to her lips one finger at a time, expecting them to taste like wild grapes—for she had figured out that this was undiluted wine.
Yet the taste was unfamiliar. More bitter than she expected, and the tiny sweetness at the end was a surprise.
Isme tried not to, but her nose wrinkled anyway. Kleto grinned, clearly expecting this reaction. The older woman with striped hair laughed softly. Pelagia said, “Don’t worry, in just a little bit you won’t care what it tastes like. You’ll love it.”
Thinking she had no other choice, Isme nodded and scooped again with the same two fingers. Pelagia giggled. They settled into banter. The women began to talk of various mundane things that Isme found fascinating. Two of them complained about their husbands. Another described how she was teaching the daughter of a friend how to use the spindle. Pelagia recounted in great detail a play where Lycander had tripped—into the crowd—and was forced to incorporate that into the story.
The woman with striped hair turned to Kleto. “What about you?”
“I fought off two men who wanted me without payment,” said Kleto.
There was a pause, a breath—where Isme froze with her hand scooping inside the urn, the other women’s faces centered around mouths pressed into lines—then the conversation changed—
One of the women complaining about her husband revealed that she was not so upset about him leaving his sandals everywhere—instead, she knew that he was visiting the brothels, and while she could not challenge him on that, she could punish him over his sandals. The other who had complained about her husband said, “I can only tell all of you these things because if I told him, he would beat me.”
Pelagia nodded, her mouth straight but with something like frivolity in her voice as she said, “Oh, I’ve been beaten plenty of times. The trick is to overact because he’ll think he’s hurting you more than he actually is and then he’ll stop sooner.”
Isme opened her mouth to say something, anything, but Kleto knocked Isme on the shoulder, causing her to accidentally bite the rim of her tongue. The women were already continuing, the moment lost. Kleto made some comment about once nearly castrating a man by seizing his scrotum and twisting, to more laughter.
Placing her hand in the urn for another scoop, Isme realized that now she had to lean over to reach the liquid. Moments ago the wine had been up to the rim. She frowned, listening to Pelagia giggle on the other side of Kleto. It occurred to her that in stories wine affected people, and she felt overly warm in the cool night.
“What about you?” asked the woman with striped hair, and Isme took a moment to realize that she was the one being spoken to. “Any complaints about menfolk?”
My father left me here alone because he might be dead, Isme almost said, but could not bring herself to speak such a thing aloud for fear that might make it true. Instead, she thought back to the island, warm summer days of her father teaching her how to fire clay into bricks, and said, “I have none—my father is a good man.”
A murmur from the other women around, and Isme brought her hand to her mouth, lapping, listening. One mentioned she was proud of her son. Another said that her first husband had been kind. Kleto said, “There is one man I find trustworthy,” and after a moment thinking, Isme realized that she was referencing Lycander.
I have been lucky in many ways with you, Father, Isme thought, but as she turned her hand over, some of the wine having seeped through the creases of her fingers to the back, she licked, considered: But where is my luck now—where are you?
That sent her mind trailing, and she said aloud, “But I do have one complaint about another man.”
The other women nodded, or seemed to nod, she was not sure. Everything in her vision seemed to be happening all at once. Isme said, “A moon ago, my father told me that I was not his blood child—I was born to another man who died. He waited a long time to tell me and only told me because...” I killed those men, she cut herself off.
But the other women did not seem to notice that part. Instead they were smiling, or commenting, and the woman with striped hair asked, “You mean, you were taken in by a man who isn’t a blood relative? Did your mother leave you exposed as an infant?”
Another woman muttered about her husband forcing her to expose their first child, because it was a daughter. Isme, more wine in her hand and unsure when she had retrieved it, said, “Maybe I was. I... thought I was exposed and rescued by my grandmother, but I heard that I was given to a temple instead. I don’t know which is truth.”
“Why would your father not tell you this from the start?” asked Pelagia, her face open like the uncloudy sky. Kleto, too, looked to be studying Isme under the firelight. Isme could only shrug. Pelagia continued, “Do you know who your birth father was?”
Isme said, before she could stop herself: “He was Orpheus.”
A burst of laughter. Pelagia was grinning, chuckling, licking each finger. Isme had no idea why they found this hilarious—she recalled her father saying that ordinary people on the mainland thought stories to be only stories, but that did not explain their humor. Only Kleto was unmoved, gazing at Isme almost speculatively.
“Is your mother Eurydice?” asked the striped woman, but there was some kind of gentle teasing in her tone, like she hoped Isme would answer affirmatively.
“No,” said Isme, deciding to simply tell the truth. “My mother was a maenad.”
“How strange!” exclaimed Pelagia. “I’ve not heard that part...”
“She was one of the women who tore him apart,” said Isme, trying to explain. “When he refused to join their revel, the maenads ripped him into pieces, and I was born after that.” She frowned, dipped another hand into the urn. “I don’t understand stories sometimes—strange things happen, but that’s just the way it is.”
“What do you mean?” asked the woman with striped hair.
Isme said, “I don’t understand how tearing a man into pieces can conceive a child. Almost every time, a child is born from mating. So I don’t know how I came to be.”
“But, Isme, it sounds like your mother—” said Pelagia, but Kleto bumped her on the shoulder. She fell quiet. And Isme saw then that the other women in the circle were quiet, too.
“Well,” said the woman with striped hair, forcibly amicable, “Being the daughter of a maenad isn’t so terrible. I myself am one, and so is my daughter. Most of us in the town are—and if this is your first time, it must feel a little like coming home, yes?”
Isme nodded, felt the world swirl with her head’s movement. Maenads? If this was worship of Dionysos, perhaps this is all a maenad was. The stories might be exaggerated... Any further conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the straw-haired woman. Isme started, her focus having narrowed to only the people around the urn. The other women greeted the new arrival with eagerness.
“Here,” said the straw woman, holding one of the knives that had been attached to her rope, now freed, and handed it to Kleto. “May Lord Dionysos bless you, sister.”
Kleto took the knife with a mixture of distaste and eagerness, which Isme found difficult to describe, and so attributed the expression to her own mind being cloudy with wine. As the straw woman moved on, the women in the circle huddled closer to the rim of the urn, pressing together that Isme could feel the stripe-haired woman and Kleto breathing up against her own ribs. There was an air of expectation, now, anticipation.
Taking the knife, Kleto held out her hand and sliced the edge of her smallest finger. Isme let out a noise of protest, but nobody intervened. Kleto handed the knife to Pelagia, at her right, and held her finger out over the urn. She said, “For Dionysos.”
A single drop of blood fell into the remaining wine.
Pelagia repeated the maneuver, though shrieked a little as she sliced herself, and seemed to giggle at reciting the words. Around the knife went, until the striped woman was handing it to Isme and saying, “Would you like me to help you, dear?”
Isme stared at the knife, at the outline of her own hand hovering over the dark liquid in the urn, the way the wine and blood were indistinguishable. She had heard that men in symposium cut their wine with water, on account that only barbarians drank wine straight, but this did not seem so much of a cutting in that sense—far more literal. Isme had cut and killed many animals, sliced her own fingers—but never intentionally.
Shaking her head, the pausing for the world to stop swirling, she placed the blade against her left thumb and sliced. It slid through skin like water. She felt nothing.
More than one drop fell in, and Kleto’s hand was on her own, saying, “Not too deep.”
Relinquishing the knife, Isme stared into the urn. She forgot to say her line; instead, in her mind words echoed—For you, the men on the beach, and my friends the turtles...
And you, Father.
A collective sigh from all the women around the urn, and then gazing at each other, waiting to see who moved first. One by one they all coalesced on Kleto, like pebbles rolling downhill into a divot to the lowest point—or perhaps they were moths and she was the candle flame. Certainly her eyes were fire as she dipped her hand once more into the urn. The women inhaled as she sipped.
Kleto swirled in her mouth, contemplative. She said, “It’s better.”
This time there was also a rush, but muted, as though the women were ashamed to be seen as too eager, this being something that should be treated with more respect. Isme did not need to be prompted—she waited until there were fewer hands and then scooped with two fingers once more. No more chatter—all the woods were silent.
Now the wine was very sweet. Too sweet. Isme almost gagged.
Around her women were closing their eyes, smiling to themselves. Kleto’s own gaze was like a hawk moving from figure to figure, measuring, but somehow with an absence, as though she was not really present as her eye took in these observations. Isme felt warmth spreading up through her body like a small fire.
She closed her eyes and reached down into herself, only little hesitant because she had not done this in a while, was afraid that perhaps what Apollon had done to the ceiling of the cavern in her mind had permanently altered the well of songs. And before that she had spent days upon days not reaching into this place—for her promise to her father meant she could not sing. This despite having sung every day before... she missed her well of songs.
Inside, the damage was not as bad as she feared—just cracks along the cavern ceiling, on the other side of which lay her soul—and she was distracted by the well of songs itself. The water was boiling. Steam rose and had she been there, fully present the way she had with Apollon, she imagined that she would be choking for air.
But you are here, the words drifted to her—and she knew that she was in the presence of another god, not like with Apollon but a presence nonetheless. Or perhaps more than with Apollon—for this god felt like he was everywhere, pulsing through her.
Dionysos? She asked, and his laughter was enough answer.
There were so many things she wanted to ask, yet so many answers she feared to receive. But she felt as though he reached out and hushed her. His words danced among the steam: Why are you so stressed and worried, my daughter? You are a child of wildness—this is the place for forgetting troubles, not adding to them. Let yourself enjoy. Tonight you are not a thinking creature—the soul is for troubles, but the body for experiencing. Revel.
And Isme opened her eyes. The group of women around her smiled and sighed together. She heard one last echo from within: Know this—everything is permitted.
Glancing, Isme saw even Kleto smiling, reaching out, grabbing Isme by the wrist, pulling, Pelagia trailing behind, the whole mass of women everywhere moving—and not just outward, but shifting among themselves, too, pulling at their hair, the cloth over their bodies, the forest ground strewn with wool and flax—
Isme tore her animal skins, shredding them apart; Kleto ripped her own garment—
And then they were running through the woods, laughing and singing, Isme’s feet sure and strong like they had always been—the air cool and pleasant against her feverish skin. Kleto’s hair had come undone from its usual knotting, and streamed like gold starlight in the darkness. Isme would follow that glittering beacon anywhere.
From around the woods came singing, Isme joining, words reaching the stars:
Tonight it is we—who are the terror!
Let us rejoice and sing of women
Bound under no rules or roles,
Not even the ones we agreed to—
We become monsters of will and fate
And beware anyone who interrupts
Who does not revel and celebrate—
For all things are permitted!
To her left, shrieks of joy as something stirred from the underbrush and fled—Isme recognized the deer, but the shape was far bigger than the ones of her island, almost to her own waist. On four legs she should have been impossible to catch, but with great whooping that carried through the forest the women hurtled after her.
Isme laughed, knowing that they would run the doe down, catch her with bare hands and feast raw like they were wolves. Doubtless the best meal they had ever had.
She was not the least bit tempted to join—she was too busy following Kleto.
They splashed through a stream, hit the edge of the woods and circled, half giving chase whenever hares or birds were startled from their hiding places. Isme saw the shadow-women bounding playfully beside them, Pelagia screamed with merriment as she collided with one, laughing as they bounced off one another.
Yet then shrieking—not joy, not fear, but rage—from nearby—
“A man!” yelled a female voice. “Violator, trespasser—tonight you feed Dionysos!”
Isme could feel the fist of her heart beat so violently in
her chest that she thought it might bruise itself. Rage spread like a sunburn across her skin, yet the burn was pleasant, far better than a warm sunny day, and she raged all the hotter. Turning with Kleto, Pelagia at her heels, they charged toward the voice, roaring and snarling with feverish joy. Here at last, something to spend themselves on—
Cresting a small hill, Isme saw in the dark light of the stars—
Howling, the man fled, chased, but then was on all fours—bounding, not stepping—like a well-trained pack the women closest surrounded and brought him down, and the bay of death from his mouth was the call of a stag, wailing out his life.
Isme and Kleto and Pelagia were hurtling past the kill, watching the antlers jostle as the women fought and pulled and rent their quarry and meal—and Isme laughed—
For they were not bound by anything—all things were permitted—the circle of the woods encapsulating their wildness had been broken and now the whole world was theirs—
Up they rushed, muscles burning in legs and footsteps sending up sparks. Some women raced past Isme, others leaned down and seized rocks, sticks, beating them together in mindless echoing symphony—Isme threw back her head and howled with all their voices, and ahead of them animals raised their eyes—
Deer, sheep, goats, even shaggy little versions of the beast that Lycander had ridden, and among them some version of people—only not quite human, more like walking bags of blood and bone that shifted from two legs to four, or more—
And Isme yelled with her sisters: You broke the circle, invaded the ritual, you knew we called down Dionysos, and so he comes here for you! Now dance—or die!
Some animals obeyed, whirling and pelting downhill to the advancing horde, joining the frolicking, singing and baying and cavorting and swimming in air. But others made poorer choices: some stood, frozen, and were showered with sticks and stones. Others fled—and these were the ones Isme lusted for most—
What was more interesting than a moving target? Like a lioness she hurtles herself on, heedless of what was underfoot, she may well have been flying, Kleto was gone from beside her but that did not matter anymore, for she was no longer Isme—
Everyone Should Eat His Own Turtle (A Greek Myth Novel) Page 22