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

you wish. Speak to the shades, and they may have better answers for you—find your absolution, if you can, for the end of this world is not here yet, and will not be for some time. Mellinoe here will show you the way.”

“I thank you,” Isme said, and was escorted out.

~

“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