She makes to turn away. They sag in relief. I am aware of it a moment before it happens; something in my face stirs something in hers.
She is faster than any human so I cannot follow the action.She coils in that way I have come to know, her movements like pulling a bow string taut. She tightens and bursts, an arrow releasing, and a jagged strip of coral is clenched in her fist, syrupy and wet with red. The open wrists of the biggest boy burst flesh and blood like lava through cracked earth.
His hands, separated from his body, fall to the floor. He begins to scream. Ceto does not flinch. She walks to me. Her coral knife is dripping but her skin, her hands, are unblemished.
‘It would have been more disrespectful to leave them all unpunished.’ Her fingers skim my cheekbones, wiping my face. I had not known I was crying. ‘You do not touch what is not yours.’
9
Aethiopia
‘May I have one?’
My grandmother and I look up. Ceto is watching us. She floats on her back, a little way off, bobbing gently.
‘Really?’
‘Yes.’
My grandmother and I glance at each other. We are sharing figs where we sit in the sun, paddling our feet in the water. It is late summer and we are mud covered, the banks slick after the flood. The fruit were easy to pick, hanging low and fat on their stems. I am nineteen, the Nereid has been my companion for three years and, in those three years, she has been prodigious in her refusal of mortal food. She watches my face as though gauging my reaction. She is pleased by my surprise, I can tell. She delights in wrong-footing me, in disproving my assumptions.
‘Why?’ Achiroe is suspicious as I pluck a fruit and toss it lightly into the river. Ceto catches it easily and inspects it, fascinated.
‘There is a rumour among some gods, particularly those who live where mortals do not, that eating mortal food – food that has not been blessed and sacrificed, thatis – affects one’s godhood. Unsurprisingly, no one wishes to experiment.’
‘And you do?’
Ceto’s face is open and my grandmother peers at her, trying to see around the novelty of the expression.
‘I do not believe that it can be true. I have seen you share meals with Meda many times, Achiroe. You are still powerful.’
My grandmother blinks. It is a compliment. She says nothing for a moment.
‘Well, go on. Take a bite.’
Ceto presses her lips over the pulp, and I see her tongue work around the seeds. Her eyes widen. I laugh and throw her another. She pulls this one apart, her fingers finding the soft indentation at the base, folding the flesh and separating it. I eat with her, stuffing my mouth. Something has sprouted between us. Neither of us is sure how to tend to it but it is growing anyway, fertilized by spilled blood like hyacinths.
The boy with no hands lived but it would have been better if he had not. Our world has little use for such a boy and even less use for such a man. The best that can be said is that he is rich so will not go hungry. He haunts the palace, a spectral warning, and no one has touched me since. I wondered, in the aftermath of that day, if I should feel more. But eighteen had stretched out before me, each day bringing bright shoots of newness. They took up too much space inside of me and I could feel little else.
We watch each other now as we chew. Our cheeks are packed and round. We begin to laugh. It is the first time in three years that I have heard her laugh, truly, freely laugh,and she seems younger for it. My grandmother looks between us in confusion before smiling.
‘Perhaps the rumours are true. You are not so fierce now, Cetus.’
‘Ceto,’ I correct.
‘Thank you,’ Ceto murmurs.
I incline my head. ‘It matters.’
My grandmother nods and skips stones idly. ‘I suppose it does.’
I look at the Nereid. She floats again, and her eyes have drifted closed. Her mouth is slightly upturned and she licks her lips occasionally, tasting the memory of the laughter. I run my fingers over the ears of the coral hippo where she clicks against her mate in my pocket.
‘Ceto,’ I say it again, feel its two quick syllables.Sea monster.‘Did you change your shape at birth and earn your name? Or has your name come to its meaning because of you?’
She opens her eyes and blinks at me. ‘It is neither. I was named for my aunt Ceto. My father’s sister.’
‘Your aunt?’
