Isme heaved upright and wandered to the log pile, where she began selecting logs and timber. These she moved to the fire pit, and began building the flame pyre. She said, “We might figure out a plan to return to Hades’s mainland, sometimes, and check to see how the people above are living, what events have happened, so on.”
“Ah,” said the voice in the woods, clearly pleased at the suggestion. “Then we can estimate how much time is left before the end, maybe. Or at least how long has passed.” It paused, and said, “By the by, what are you doing?”
“It is night,” Isme said, “so I’m making a night fire. You’ll have to get used to all my habits, and yes, sometimes I will visit my friends, both the dead and turtles.”
Closing her eyes, she reached down and found the well of songs, much the same as always, and she sent out a small tendril of a thought—Grandmother Kalliope, tell me what will bring fire, bring life, to this dead world below—and she sang:
As Prometheus brought you from the sky
So I bring you now to the world below
O Fire, killer and lover, help and hurt,
Come forth now in the world of the dead
Come show us what it is to be alive.
Flame spurted, sputtered, then caught hold of the dry tinder. A few moments of tending, and Isme had the night fire awake, breathing in the old smoke and smiling.
Yet across from her, like a smear on the ground, was a dark patch extending from nothing. Isme frowned, rubbed at the corner of her bleary eyes, and yet the dark smear remained. If she looked close enough, however, it seemed to have a shape: a head, and shoulders, like someone crouching, but with nobody actually there.
Then Isme realized: while knowledge might be invisible, or more likely see-through, it still cast long shadows of shapes on the ground and walls of caves, and in this way could be seen.
Isme said, “I’m pleased to meet you.”
finis
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This is the author, H.C. Southwark, who would like to thank you for finishing this book!
If you enjoyed this novel, I have another book: Eternity’s Echo, the story of a grim reaper using time travel to stop the apocalypse.
It’s also free and you can find it here: https://southwark.pub/eternity
Feel free also to stop by, say hello, and check out my other fiction.
Happy reading!
Table of Contents
EVERYONE SHOULD EAT HIS OWN TURTLE
DEDICATION
ONE.
TWO.
THREE.
FOUR.
FIVE.
SIX.
SEVEN.
EIGHT.
NINE.
TEN.
ELEVEN.
TWELVE.
THIRTEEN.
FOURTEEN.
FIFTEEN.
SIXTEEN.
SEVENTEEN.
EIGHTEEN.
NINETEEN.
TWENTY.
TWENTY-ONE.
TWENTY-TWO.
TWENTY-THREE.
TWENTY-FOUR.
TWENTY-FIVE.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
