Everyone Should Eat His Own Turtle (A Greek Myth Novel) H.C. Southwark (100 books to read txt) 📖

were here for the festival; it came only six days a year, when the priestess of Apollon would enter the inner sanctum at Delphi, emerging with the words of the god of music on her lips. Most of the people in the town were not natives—kings and princes and even paupers had come from all through the lands to ask their one single question, for the god only answered one each. If they chose poorly then they would have to wait an entire year to ask another.

Through the light, the sparkles and sparks of torches, bonfires, women carrying lit lamps in one hand and bundling their clothing in the other, Isme followed her father to the town gates. There were few people here. It seemed as though the people had forgotten that they were here to celebrate what lay further up on the mountain; they were too busy partying.

The climb to Delphi was long—they kept pressing higher, and Isme began to feel a small flutter behind her breastbone, something she would have attributed to nervousness—except her hands were not trembling and her feet were steady under her weight.

Above, stars whirled overhead. The moon had long since waned and would only appear in the east moments before sunrise. All that was left was cool powdery stars in the darkness of the night. The Milky Way slashed across the dome like a scar.

As they climbed, Isme remembered when she had asked her father what was up in the sky. She had not been puzzled by the stars as much as the Milky Way, which did not seem entirely as though it was made up of stars. Her father had said that it was once not there, but that long ago the war between the Olympians and the Titans had torn open the sky and this was the result. Isme had wondered then whether that was what had ended the first world, the golden world where mankind had prospered.

Obeying her father’s command, Isme did not ask any questions now. They were climbing at too rapid of a pace anyway. Her father slowed, just enough that they were now walking abreast. Isme supposed this meant they were finally at Delphi.

In the darkness she could not see very much, not without even the moon to light her way, and she kept stubbing her toes despite lifting her feet high. Yet even she could see the outline of tall buildings, long necks reaching up from the earth to uphold triangular rooftops. But, she thought with a start, there were—

Shapes. People. A crowd of shadow men stood still and silent in the dark with their hands upraised in worship around the temple of Delphi. Isme opened her mouth to ask her father what they were, to tell him that they should take another road because clearly they were interrupting, but remembering his command of silence stopped her.

And so they moved through this forest of men, who were silent and still as though dead. Isme felt her mind was paddling up a river with a strong current, and thus was only able to prevent herself from being swept away rather than advance. She could feel the hairs on her arms and legs raised and prickling as though the very dust in the air around her was necessary to sense and feel.

Even as they left Delphi behind, Isme could not stop the feeling of being watched by shadowy men who stood still like stones: and she glanced back, wondering where the voice in the woods was, if it was down there with all those men.

As she looked, every face from all the men at Delphi changed, every head swiveling as they began the ascent. Isme was reminded of the robbers staring at Kleto as she undid her hair in the lit shadows. She wondered if the bodiless voice of the woods was among them, its invisible head upright and staring.

Shuddering at the sight of so many eyes upon her, Isme turned her face forward.

Before, the world had been hilly at the town, and risen towards Delphi, but now it became a climb. Isme used her hands as much as her feet to advance. She could hear harsh breathing in her ears, an echo around her, and she wondered whether this was the sound of her father breathing ahead and the voice in the woods breathing behind. Under her touch the soil became rougher, less crumbly, more stone than topsoil. The grass was tough and full of briars.

They must have climbed for half the night. At once Isme realized that she was ahead of her father. They had switched position sometime after leaving Delphi with its static throng of worshippers. She could not recall the exact moment when she had passed her father and taken the lead. Nor what had possessed her to do so.

And yet here she was: scrabbling up the face of the mountain, working her way along the ridge towards the summit with her father at her heels. The breathing around behind her had not been the voice in the woods after all—but rather that Epimetheus was breathing behind her in big gulps. She was not much better herself.

The world had become easier to see. Perhaps they were so high that the light of the stars was less muddled by the distance it had to travel to the bottoms of the earth. Isme felt as though she was carrying a torch with the flames out, but still aglow. Yet no glow had ever been like this: cool, whitened light without any flickering.

She knew when they arrived. Standing before her was a blank hole, a negative space, a dark seam pierced into the earth. Her father halted behind, so close to her that she could feel his breath against her shoulder as he leaned around to peer at what lay ahead. The sweat gleamed on their bodies in this pale midnight.

Before them: a cave. A small thrill down her spine, the recognition that this was home, just like