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

by H. C. Southwark

  ~

  “When you give up asking questions,” said the robed figure as she led Isme out of the door frame and back to the fields of asphodel. The smell was only growing, but Isme found that she was beginning to adjust—barely. “There is a place for you in the Styx at the edge of this world, an island.”

  Isme turned to face her, and was surprised to see that the veil, despite initial appearances, was not a full shroud. Instead Mellinoe wore the cloth like a hat, hooded over her face, which Isme caught the barest glimpse—pale, like a seashell.

  An impulse: to ask, Have you ever seen sunlight? But she reined in, focusing now on her one last task before she could rest.

  “What makes you think I will give up?” said Isme. Within her, desire burned—answers were here, among the dead, somewhere—and yet she felt hesitance as if speaking to an oracle, knowing that she would probably find the prophecy was right in the end, no matter what. If this person, here in the realm of the dead, thought she would have no answers... then perhaps she would not.

  But Persephone’s curse will not let me remain ignorant forever, Isme thought, clinging to that hope. I will die in my time, once I have learned what I want to learn. And that’s just as well—because there’s no point in living alone above, without my father, Kleto, Lycander, Pelagia—without any more questions I want answered.

  The robed figure seemed to observe her. “You’ll find answers, just not ones you want to hear. And so you’ll give up.” The hood cocked to the side. “But I can’t see much beyond that, except where you’ll be at the end—for now.”

  “I see,” Isme resisted the urge to ask. She would know soon.

  The figure raised a hand hooked with talons instead of fingernails, pointing back the way they had come. “If you go that way, you will reach the sea eventually. Those who could have your answers will be more likely there—people whose names you know. Give them life again from yours, and they will speak in exchange. But be warned that your own life is precious.”

  Isme gazed out at the fields, the roving shades and the swirls of dust following them. “How do I bring them life from my own life?”

  And the figure dug into the folds of the robe, handing over one pale sliver of a knife, the handle short and stocky, the blade thin and quivering like a stalk of grass. Isme took the implement, and began to understand—this indeed was dangerous...

  “How will I know who is who?” Her toes hovered on the edge of walking.

  The figure said, “Cut them. What remains of their life will tell you.”

  Nodding, saying thanks, Isme stepped forward back to the fields, the long walk to the beach. She wondered if cutting the shades would hurt them—if, in the process of learning names, she would bleed out what little life even these dead men had left. And she wondered if some of them would have no names at all.

  ~

  The number of souls thinned toward the beach, and moved in odder ways, more circular, less in bands, individuals scattered and rudderless. Occasionally Isme saw some bump one other, with no sign of recognition or annoyance.

  All were nude and shriveled, ribs poking through skin textured like leather, as if the elements had beat over them, despite that the underworld had no wind, rain, or weather. They were coated with the dark puffs of ash emerging from each footstep, but underneath the grime did not seem that much different in color.

  Isme was aware of her own torn chiton, how the fabric was staining darker—not through her own feet stirring up the dust, but through walking close enough to get caught in a shade’s wake. It was an old man, beard dragging on the ground, and she carefully reached out and sliced one of his tendrils of hair, but nothing happened.

  Hair is not enough, Isme concluded, and with an apology nicked his shoulder. The sigh that emerged from the wound sounded like relief. Nestor, son of Neleus.

  Isme considered. The old shade moved like nothing was wrong, as if being cut had not hurt, and the wound was not visible. Perhaps the shade would not be angry about the cut if she gave it life—

  Nestor, son of Neleus, king of Pylos, she thought, recalling her father’s stories. You were on the Argo with Herakles and my blood father Orpheus, and fought at Troy with Achilles and Agamemnon. Having died at such an advanced age, how could you be anything but wise? It would be well worth to ask you questions.

  Standing in front of the withered man, Isme hesitated only the slightest before lifting her wrist and setting the blade against it. The edge was sharp so that the first cut felt like a drop of water against her skin—but then the wound burned, and small panic came over her at the sight of red in all this sea of greys and blacks.

  Carefully, tucking a hand at the back of the man’s head like an embrace, Isme lifted her wrist to his lips. What frightened her at that moment was the lack—there was no breath emerging from him to feel against her skin. And yet when her blood touched his lower lip, something like hunger flashed in his eyes, and latching, he drank...

  It is only a little bit, Isme told herself, fighting down the urge to pull away and flee.

  When she saw that his eyes were focused, now, gazing at her and seeing her, Isme pushed him away and pressed her bleeding wrist to her chest, closing the wound.

  “Good sir,” said Isme, bowing in respect now that he could see her, “King Nestor, can you please tell me, How does one absolve blood guilt for murder?”

  “I thought I knew,” said Nestor, his eyelids lowed so that just a peek of white could be seen. “I thought I knew everything—about life, death, love, what you will, I thought life and experience taught all. But now I see that I know nothing.”

  Isme demanded, “You must know something, Sir.”

  “Nothing,” repeated Nestor. “I know nothing. Nobody knows anything.”

  And he gazed at Isme for a long moment, his eyes riveted to the wrist she was pressing against her own skin to stem as much bleeding as she could, but then just as Isme thought she might have to fight him off, that he might try to lunge for more—he broke his gaze and began to wander off. As though the amount of blood she had given him was used up, expired, like a log on a campfire—burned through and gone.

  Isme stood and watched him, feeling cold prickles across her back, spreading like wings—the realization that as he was now, someday she would be. An empty thing.

  At last Isme turned to another man—but had he not been nude, Isme would never quite have figured this out, not just because of his smooth face but also because there were two flat lumps on his chest that could have been mistaken as female.

  Reaching out with the knife, an apology, she nearly flicked it against his arm, testing to see his name, but then the shade turned—and looked directly at her.

  There was something like a smile on his lips.

  Isme froze. The man seemed to find her petrified reaction humorous. He said, dry lips cracking, “Go on, girl. Scratch me and ask your question.”

  “I—” Isme hesitated again, lifting the knife, then letting it fall by her side. “But you can already speak—why do I have to—”

  “It is the way of things,” said the old man. “Besides, I will count it a new experience.”

  Hesitating the one last time, Isme placed the knife against his collarbone, and watched with something between horror and fascination as the blade bit into his skin.

  The sigh came: Tiresias.

  Inhaling sharply, Isme raised her bleeding wrist to the shade’s face, offering the old prophet her life, but the man said, “Oh, leave off. You’ll need your blood soon enough. Besides, I’m just now gorged with cattle sacrificed by Odysseus, who had the same idea as you about consulting the dead. Poor man has a long way home.”

  Only then did Isme notice that the insides of the old prophet’s mouth were red, flesh-like, not the pale color of old bone like all the others. She nodded.

  “I already know your question,” said the prophet. He was kindly, but matter-of-fact, in a way that told Isme he was prepared for objections and not at all willing to hear
or contemplate them. Perhaps being dead had taught him not to bother anymore.

  “Now, you could go about it the way you’re already going to, or you could simply listen to me describe it,” said Tiresias. With a worn hand he lifted and pointed to a succession of shades, trailing to the distance. “You’ll find Hector here, then Agamemnon, Sarpedon, Ajax the Lesser, and Oedipus after. Then at the end you will find your father’s bride. And at last, when you are ready, you will speak to something you do not expect, and learn the truth.”

  Isme opened her mouth to object, that surely as great a prophet as Tiresias already knew the truth, but his demeanor told her that she would get no more. And so she thanked him, and bowed, and advanced closer to the shore. To home.

  His last words to her were, “When you get a chance, come back and see me again—I should like to talk to someone who asks questions and truly wants answers...”

  TWENTY-FOUR.

  ~

  Down the line Isme went, lifting her wrist to pale sets of lips which were open, numb and maybe mumbling or gibbering nonsense, until they touched her flesh and then would latch and suckle like starving men. More than once she had to wrest away, which was easy enough for they had the strength of grass.

  Blood guilt, Isme would ask, How can I be absolved from it?

  Hector of Troy genuinely tried for a good answer, stating: The best way would be to not incur guilt in the first place. Do your best—beyond your best—to live a virtuous life, not incurring hate or wrath from anyone, so even your enemies honor you. Then you will have no blood guilt to absolve, and the problem never occur.

  Agamemnon looked up thunderous to the dead sky, saying: No matter what, blood guilt is unavoidable. You try your best, but some god will always have wrath reserved for you, and then when you do that god’s bidding someone will blame you and take on herself the duty to punish you. So blood guilt is a common lot to us all—and the gods don’t actually punish for it, lest everyone be in Tartarus!

  Sarpedon, son of Zeus and fallen hero at Troy, added: Blood guilt is dishonorable killing, and so you ought to avoid that at all costs—and yet, I also believe sometimes that any killing, no matter how small, is enough to incur the ban. But in life killing is unavoidable. The best one can do is do as little as possible, and in the meantime show yourself respectable—honor the gods, your parents, uphold your responsibilities—so that perhaps the good you do outweighs the bad, and your life judged fairly.

  Ajax the Lesser tossed his head back and demanded, What blood guilt? There’s no guilt in killing any more than in being killed—the strong do what they will, the weak endure. That is the way of things and always has been. Don’t feel guilt over fools.

  Oedipus only opened his mouth and screamed.

  Isme found the sound horrible enough to throw her hands over her ears, keeping them there until the life from her blood was finally gone, Oedipus’s eyes become glassy once more—with something like a flash of relief within them as he faded back to a shadow of his former self, and stumbled on, numb to the world.

  Blood tickled the inside of Isme’s elbow, a steady trickle that dropped to the soil below. The asphodel was the same as the shades—it sucked up the life and began to bloom, puffing out to beautiful golden lilies—but then crumbled and faded back to ash.

  Light-headed, Isme removed her hands from her ears and pressed her palm against the cut. She had sliced deeper a few times, since the flow had clotted and stopped. How many souls had she spoken to? The number seemed insignificant.

  From far off she saw her—and, reminded of Tiresias’s words, Isme pressed on.

  The woman was a skeleton, bones jutting from wrists, elbows, knees, ankles. Yet there was something gold in her hair—the palest shade of yellow threaded in the ashen strands, so that sunken cheeks seemed to have a small glow of life still present. Isme shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts, which were on Kleto.

  A nick of her knife, and the sigh from the woman’s skin: Eurydice.

  Isme gazed on the sunken eyes, the lips moving to babble nothing, and thought: If things had been different, you are the woman who would have been my mother.

  What a strange idea—a mother. Isme had only ever had her father, and her Grandmother Kalliope. There were other goddesses, of course—and Kleto. But nothing like a mother. Her mind trailed back to the older woman with the stripe of grey in her hair at the ceremonies of Dionysos, and she stood a moment pondering.

  Then she lifted her bloodied arm to the woman’s lips.

  The touch on her skin was softer than with the men. As the mouth drew out life, Isme watched, fascinated, as color seemed to blossom over the shade’s gaunt frame. There was a tilt of seashell on the skin, a blush of red back into the cheeks, the corners of eyes, the lips. The hair became glossy, glittering with gold.

  Only gradually did Isme become aware that the blue eyes were staring at her, observing, though the mouth kept sucking and drawing more. With reluctance, vision spinning and spiraling around that face, Isme pulled away.

  “Do you know who I am?” she asked.

  Eurydice worked her mouth, savoring the taste. She said, “Daughter of Orpheus.”

  “Do you—” Isme hesitated, about to ask about relieving blood guilt, but that seemed out of place, somehow, for she doubted Eurydice had ever killed anyone. Puzzled, she asked herself, Why then did I revive her? And then she saw how Eurydice studied her face, and the answer came to her; another question to ask.

  “You look like him,” said Eurydice. “He always favored his mother.”

  And Isme said, “I know my father’s story. Can you tell me yours?”

  Eurydice blinked, but slowly, lazily, and a smile spread over those full lips. She began a performance, and in those moments what little of death remained in her melted away, until she was full-bodied and alive, flesh ripe and firm like a child:

  I grew up in the mountains, on the hillsides where the songs of birds greeted every morning. I would sing back, and they would tell me of many things: of Olympus, palace of the gods—of Ouranos, stretched above in eternal agony—of Hades, the tenderest and most merciful of gods...

  Then one day I heard a voice in the woods singing. I thought a bird, so pleasant was the song—but like a fish on a lure I came closer, to find a beautiful figure weaving through the woods. All I had was myself, my mother, and the birds—and stories, of nymphs and dryads, and I thought this one of them.

  I came upon her and said, Sweet lady, of what are you singing?

  She smiled and explained, told songs of mighty heroes. I listened to all these and my heart yearned to fly up like a bird and see them for myself. Most of all I loved the stories of their deaths, for then I knew that they had found peace.

  For a long time I met her in the woods. One day I asked how she knew all these things, and she said she had done many of them. I asked why she was now on the mountain—and she said that she had seen me in the woods, and had come here to win me for herself. Only then did I realize the truth: what I thought was a woman, never having seen a man before, was not.

  This was Orpheus, and he made such a case that I acceded to wed him.

  Yet when I told my mother of my decision, she cried out in a loud voice that I should stop. When I was newborn she had taken me to Tiresias, most honest of all prophets, for a story of my life. He had explained that the day I marry would be the day I died. And so in fear my mother had taken me to the mountain, where I should live a full life, never meeting a man.

  Still, when I heard this, I thought of Orpheus and his wonderful stories, and I accepted everything. For our lives are only brief flames in oil lamps—eventually the oil burns dry, the lamp douses out, and such is the end but one long trail of smoke. Therefore let us burn brightly and enjoy what we can before Hades comes and brings us to eternal sleep, where no sorrow afflicts us.

  This I explained to Orpheus, who, hearing the prophecy, laughed that he defied the fates and would brave death itself should I ever be parted from him. But
I, who knew of the peace of death, made him promise not to do such things.

  I made my choice: better one day of love than a full life of regret, for all lives end the same way—the rest of Hades, most merciful and kind.

  The wedding was a joy—we did indeed burn bright. He sang, I danced, and well you know the result—the serpent was asleep in the field, and I stepped upon his back, breaking him—for which he retaliated, and here my soul fled.

  For some time I wandered the depths, not quite lost to myself, drinking Lethe little by little, for while the loss was bitter there was a joy in it, for what was sweet in my life was made sweeter by the bitterness. I could regret nothing.

  Yet one day there came a great shout and there was Orpheus, singing of his love, his regret, such that I could not be angry at him for breaking his promise. But then he was bartering for me to return to the world above—and I wanted to plead for him to stop, because what good is life returned if we are only going to lose it again? Our lamps refilled and burning again, once more they go out...

  But I was not able to speak and be heard, not by the living, and so I followed the command of Hades, trailing after my husband as he walked to the above.

  As we walked a great fear began to come over me. I had lived a full life but now I began to worry over all the things that I would experience above again—the sorrows, unfulfilled yearnings, the pains and miseries that even I, on my mountainside with the birds, knew well enough. I thought of a lamp not burning brightly, but musty, sputtering and dim, and I quaked with fear. If I was going back to a different world from the one I came, perhaps I would have felt his joy—but well I know the world I left behind.

  So I began to beg, as we walked. Please, my husband, my loving Orpheus, let me not go back up to the world above. Let me return to the calm land below.

  On we walked and I knew I was not being heard. I tried to raise my voice, to shout, then tried to sing, then grabbed at his shoulders. On we marched. His limbs were stiff like a soldier. I began to weep. If you truly loved me, you would not do this. If you loved me, you would release me so I can go home.