What songs can cause a man to drive himself overboard? Isme wondered, trusting that Kleto was not thinking the same thing, or at least was willing to put up with her disgust to save her life. More than that—hoping that she, Isme daughter of Orpheus, would be immune somehow, and would learn a song to end all songs.
After all, she thought, my song killed those men on the island, and was not meant for that at all—I was merely singing to the turtles. What drew the men? What would an intentional song be?
The waves became choppier, the shouting of the men died down, everyone tense and silent, unheard. The small exposed reef of the sirens was being passed, now—and then—
From the distance, small flickering sunlight-colored bodies, like the feathers of exotic birds were covering their skin, three women figures were huddled together in an embrace. They paid no notice of the ship as it passed—consumed with each other.
Three heads tilted back, voices smooth like moonlight on water—
Oh, sing of this world
Back broken, limbs twisted
The sorrowful half-dead thing—
At birth you come out screaming
At death you go the same way
And in-between are sorrows
Such that you feared at the start
With little joys to keep you thinking,
‘Maybe tomorrow will be better’
But always that tomorrow is the same
As the one you hoped for yesterday—
Better to never be born
Than to see what lies ahead of you
Better to not remember before
Than to recall the heart’s ache
But once you live, there’s no choice—
You must go on knowing you are alive.
Indeed joy is just a lie
Hope, love, happiness are illusion
Fleeting things that pretend to sweetness
In order to make the bitter all the worse
This world is a never-ending trap
And death is no release—
So even the gods delude themselves
And upon occasion weep.
And on the song went, becoming all the worse for their voices, which rose and echoed across the sea, as though striking the dome of the sky and reverberating—
Isme stood spellbound, her heart beating erratic, hands and feet numb. Her thoughts were a tangle of a bird’s nest, unraveling to let the egg inside fall and crack—
Yet movement at her side, and she glanced to Kleto—
Tears ruptured the sides of Kleto’s eyes, carving into her face, and she moved like someone in a dream, swaying and unsteady yet somehow in a straight line to the side of the ship—and Isme knew if she reached the edge she would be no more.
Seizing Kleto by that golden hair, Isme heaved with every muscle she possessed and brought her down, shoving her thumbs into Kleto’s ears to more fully secure the wax that Kleto thought so disgusting. Yet still the body under hers thrashed, hands scrabbling on the deck in a desperate attempt to reach the side and the sea.
Shouting but deaf, a sailor descended, wresting Kleto from Isme’s arms, yelling about ineffectual boys. Within his grip still Kleto strained—and her tears were unending.
The song carried on. And Isme realized, looking into that weeping face, the truth of the sirens. Those who heard the songs took their message into hearts that broke under the weight and threw themselves overboard, and those who did not hear saw the sunshine bodies and made up stories about what they thought the song was.
This message—it was the same as Apollon, Isme thought. The world had nothing deeper to it than suffering—it was a mirror with no reflection. Apollon had concluded that therefore there should be no reason to weep because there was no reason for anything. But Dionysos operated on a different answer to the same principle: if the world was meaningless and mad, then madness was an appropriate answer. The sirens merely rejected both options for a third: to live in sorrow.
But that is not all, Isme evaluated. Perhaps there is something else that can be said, something we do not know, or something we do not value enough. She recalled her claim to Lord Apollon: There is always hope... and love... even if it is the god-killer...
And so, leaving Kleto behind with the sailor, she charged to the rail and flung herself to stand atop, delving deep into the well of songs—the cavern ceiling cracked from Apollon, the water still over-warm from Dionysos, but still was hers—and sang:
Think of sunlight through the leaves
Of an old olive-tree, branches twisted
Bent by storms but still standing
And how it will remain long past yourself.
Every day Helios rises in the east
Says, Today will be a day of sorrow
And of joy, to each who lives below
And the world turns to greet him anew.
Joy is made bitter by sorrow
But grief is made sweet by love
Around the circle we all turn
And in each the other is contained.
If you were never sad,
How would you know what happiness is?
If you do not question,
You will never reach the heart of life.
Think of those beside you
And within you, hearts beating
Touch warm flesh and know
You are loving and are loved.
And she left off, willing the winds to carry her words on—and they did, but the reaction was nothing she expected.
She had sung her best of joy, some alternative to what they claimed, but rather than anger or a contest of song, or acceptance, or curiosity, or even being ignored, instead Isme heard shrieking—
The ship was at its closest, now, and peering hard toward the rocky outpost, Isme could see that the three sirens were indeed woman-shaped, but covered with pale feathers the colors of lightning, which possibly accounted for their flight—but they could not fly now, for they were rending their own bodies, tearing the feathers from their own backs and sides and arms, broken shafts drifting on the wind like fallen leaves—
And they were ripping at their own faces, gouging their breasts, screaming as though in terror, in pain beyond imagining, though Isme could see nothing wrong with them on the outside. It was as though they had something tormenting inside of them that they were already desperate to release, and encountering one more instance of horror had broken their ability to endure—
They were no longer embracing each other, either—they tore at each other’s bodies much the same, but in lingering shock Isme saw that there was no anger in the deed, more like the three of them were helping each other, like this destruction was the soothing of a wound, all they could manage to do for one another—
And then they were pelting into the sea, hurtling down into the waves with abandon Isme had never seen before—the sirens flung themselves into the water—
—and were no more.
Every throat on the ship caught mid-breath, but when the sirens did not reemerge, all Isme could think to say was, “Forgive me, sisters, I did not know.”
And if she would have said anything else, her own thoughts were drowned out by the cheering of the sailors, their hands slapping their thighs, their feet stomping the decks. Some of them had already plucked the wax from their ears and were howling with joy, relief, that they were alive, others had advanced and caught Isme from behind, hoisting her aloft like she was a gift to the gods.
Among the shouting Isme heard all the congratulations, men calling Thank you, boy, you’ve saved us and generations of sailors from those monsters, and she tried to say, “But they weren’t targeting you, they didn’t even know you were here or what would happen to you, they were minding their own business—” but the noise was too loud.
In all the chaos of the celebration, Isme caught only a glimpse of Kleto: still held back by the one sailor, who was weeping for joy, Kleto’s tear-stained face scanned the horizon, as though waiting. But the sirens neve
r returned to the surface.
~
The winds shifted in the night, and the sailors were still too pleased to notice, until the weight of the air became oppressive to walking. The moon blotted out. Time passed and Isme thought to herself that perhaps the sun should have risen by now, but the air was dark and cold and growing colder. She and Kleto were lashed to the ship’s side and the men talked of a storm coming.
Poseidon is angry, someone shouted above the wind, and another called, Yes, we clearly know that, but a third asked, Why is he angry with us, now? And the first replied, Because his sirens are dead—we must appease him with blood—
And Isme had just long enough to feel prickles on her skin before the rest of the crew hushed the first sailor, shouting, Do you want to blame the boy who saved our lives? How dare you—it will be you we sacrifice to the sea, not him!
Bowing her head, half wishing that her hair was still long enough to hide her face, Isme endured as the storm began. Kleto clung to her as the ship heaved and dove, the balance of the world unsteady, and in her mind’s eye Isme saw these sailors as different men, other sailors who had been having a peaceful night under the first full moon of spring, and who had heard a song and somehow cast themselves overboard—
Perhaps it was not Poseidon causing the storm, she thought. Perhaps it is them, the men I killed, either they heard me sing or the sirens went down to the depths and told them, I don’t know, or perhaps it is Poseidon who is angry, twice now he’s seen me kill...
She had heard enough stories of sailors throwing sacrifices to the sea not to follow the play of intent as it came. First they threw cups of wine—and when that did not work, they threw a still-lit torch—and then they were throwing a bucket of flour—and then one of the live goats they had brought aboard—and then—
When they turned to her with apologies and terror, Isme could not think to refuse them, not that anything would have helped. Deck pitching underfoot, they cut her bonds and she was dashed hard against the rising wood, bashing the underside of her chin. Vision spotting, Isme hardly felt hands under her arms and buttocks, she was flying—
The ocean stung like the lash of a jellyfish, beating her pebbled skin raw. Isme was pulled under—but she had spent a lifetime on the edge of the sea, had fought off hungry mother seals underwater, and falling into ocean was not enough to bring her down. Kicking the woven sandals from her feet without hesitation, she made for the surface without needing to question which way was up.
Yet the waves were a problem. She hit air and managed a breath before being struck from behind by a wall of water. Plunged under again, some part of herself acknowledged that the end here was of exhaustion—she would keep afloat only as long as her body could endure—and already she was shivering, and from the time in the river on the mainland knew that she would soon feel warm, but that was deception, for that was how one froze to death.
Before her was the ship, already peeling away, and that was good, for Isme knew another danger was to be dashed senseless against the hull, and then down she would go without ever knowing her own end. And yet—
In the dark of the clouds, wind, rain—there was a face over the side of the rail, a beardless face, but what Isme truly recognized were the eyes of pale gold, lit from within like they were embers from a dying fire—the face opened its mouth and yelled something, and then was heaving itself over the side—
No, Isme wanted to call, stay onboard, stay back, I’ll have enough trouble—you’ll never survive—and the sailors nearby had noticed, were grabbing and pulling the figure back to safety—
But Kleto had always been a fighter. She bent, sunk her teeth into an arm, and a man’s howling could be heard above the wind as he pulled away. For a single eyeblink Kleto stood tall on the rail, and then she dove straight into the water, down, down—
Isme did not much recall what happened between that sight and the feel of Kleto clinging to her, wet skin on wet skin, the both of them tumbling over like a wheel in the waves, but whether that reunion had taken mere breaths or half the day, that did not matter, they were together now and would not be broken apart—
Until they struck the side of a beach, impact like falling from the sky, their sides bruised and heaving as they crawled and pulled each other up out of the waves.
TWENTY.
~
Isme came back to herself with Kleto shouting, “No, no, get away, I’ll do it! Don’t touch him!” This was followed by a splash.
Eyes opening, she found Kleto standing above her brandishing an empty bucket, and a group of people—men, women, she had trouble recognizing, for they were bundled in furs and cloth—wet and cowering under Kleto’s shadow.
Isme pulled herself into a seated position and stared out at a well-tended cave. There was sand underfoot, fine like powder, perfect for sleeping, and the walls had been scraped to remove sharp or annoying protrusions. A series of torches ringed the room and brought the dark-eyed collection of people into contrast with the shadows—and made Kleto’s hair glitter like the stars.
“What is this?” Isme asked, half to Kleto and half to the others.
“Don’t bother,” Kleto said, still brandishing the bucket. “I think they want to clean you, they brought water and some squishy thing that they tried to rub on me. They’re some kind of barbarian. It’s lucky if I understand one word in twenty.”
When Isme’s attention switched back over to them, one stood forward, and began to speak—and Isme understood the label that Kleto had applied, because instead of words they were repetitive sounds, most prominent of which was ‘bar, bar.’
Straightening, Isme spotted a dried sea sponge at her feet, snatched it. She pulled Kleto’s bucket down and dipped the thing into what water remained, then patted her face. “Look, see? I am cleaning myself. Your task is complete. Go!”
The assembly observed her repeat this, then seemed satisfied and filtered out through the mouth of the cave—which, Isme saw, was more like a hole leading to a hall, and concluded she and Kleto were in a branch of a larger underground system.
When they left the room, Kleto sagged down into a crouch. “I was worried they would realize you were not a boy.”
“Does it still matter?” Isme wondered, settling into a more comfortable position. The bucket remained near, and she was still patting at her face, feeling the grime wetting and scraping away.
Kleto glared. “Of course it matters. Lone women are always to be enslaved—got it? No matter what people, when, or where.”
“Right,” said Isme, adjusting what remained of her boy’s chiton. “How do you know that they think I’m a boy, though?”
“I said I understand one word in twenty,” Kleto repeated. “From their babbling, I got that much. Besides, the women among them went to me, and the men toward you.”
“They did?” said Isme, realizing that Kleto had understood the difference in sex despite the similar clothing, but she had not—even now, after meeting many people, she was still that girl on the island who had nothing to compare but herself and her father. She understood then how much she relied on cues of clothing and obviousness, like beards, to give her knowledge about strangers.
Kleto comprehended also, snorted, “You’re hopeless.”
Isme could only smile and continue to pat herself. There was a wound on the underside of her chin that smarted, and scrapes all along her limbs as though she had been scuffed and scratched by an animal, but she recognized the marks of sand.
“We’re alive,” she concluded. Kleto hunched into a shrug.
After a moment filled with nothing but breathing and Isme wincing at discovering some new hurt, Kleto said, “I don’t suppose these are the cannibals that the sailors were talking about. The one who make people kings and queens and then eat them.”
Wild men, Isme thought, remembering back to Delphi, where she and her father had stood out by wearing their animal skins, but still not too badly, because among the people of the city below Delphi there had been o
thers, men dressed like the wilds.
She did not know their language, and they stayed far enough from the island of her father that she had never seen them—but he had told stories of them, too, and sometimes Isme had thanked them in her heart, because some of the things her father taught her to survive into the new world had come from them.
The people of before, her father had said—the people who had received fire from Prometheus, and decided not to advance beyond that. Men from the bronze world, before the world of now, who had survived Zeus’s great flood outside of Deucalion and Pyrrha’s boat, who lived away from the civilizations built by the men of stone. The ones who had been made directly by Epimetheus’s fingers...
The men of the world of iron were part rock and part bronze men, on account that Deucalion and Pyrrha had tossed stones over their shoulders to give birth to the new generation of men, and then their children had intermarried with them. But the people far enough into the wilds, the bronze men, were the descendants of those warring peoples whom Zeus had sent the waters to destroy in the first place. Few still survived.
Isme had always thought that, if she did indeed live beyond the end of this world, then she would be similar to them in the new one—a relic, something from the days before, a reminder that there had been many worlds before and perhaps many worlds after. And she would always be apart from whatever men lived.
“I doubt they will eat us,” said Isme, but did not say aloud the other half: yet I also doubt they saved us from the goodness of their hearts. There’s something they want.
Kleto snorted again. “Everyone thinks that before they’re eaten.”
Isme breathed deep. “They wouldn’t do that. By now they’ve got to have learned their lesson in not offending the gods—otherwise Zeus would have truly killed them all.”
Kleto frowned. “I’m missing something, aren’t I?”
“We both are,” said Isme, pondering what the sailors had meant by ‘ceremonies forgotten by civilized men.’ Her mind went to what she knew of the worlds before—bronze, the world of war; then silver, destroyed for impiety; and gold, during the time of Titans—and wondered how far back the wild men’s worship went.
Everyone Should Eat His Own Turtle (A Greek Myth Novel) Page 25
