Read Each Step Like Knives for Free Online Page B

fashion. He was surprised to feel how comfortable it was to
rest his weight entirely on his posterior, especially since it
meant the pressure released a bit on his feet.
     
    The woman put a platter of what looked like sponges
in front of him. The Carrageenai did not eat sea sponges, but he
lifted some on his fingers and tasted it warily. Not sponges at
all! Something better, something delicious. His stomach rumbled and
came awake. He was fiercely hungry. Jeenai gobbled the rest of the
platter as the woman watched. He looked up to see her
expression--one he recognized. She was bemused.
     
    "You were hungry."
     
    He nodded, familiar with her terminology. He patted
his stomach, then gestured a thank you.
     
    "You're welcome."
     
    She understood him. The sea hag had been wrong. He
could not speak as the humans did, that was true enough. But he
could communicate.
     
    She was not eating. She sipped from a cup of some
brown liquid. He asked her if she was not also hungry.
     
    She furrowed her brow at him. He tried again with
the crude gestures used to communicate with Carrageenai infants.
Her face lit with understanding.
     
    "No, I don't want any, thanks. Coffee is enough for
me." She showed him the cup. "Want some?"
     
    He had never consumed a liquid as part of
nourishment before. The seawater he regularly took into his mouth,
nose and gill slits never reached his stomach. He accepted the cup
she handed him, sniffed the dark liquid, then touched his tongue to
it. It was as hot as a thermal spring, and he gave it back to her
with a shake of his head.
     
    "No?" She laughed. "It's a bad habit of mine. I'm a
monster without my coffee in the morning."
     
    He didn't understand what she meant, exactly, but
her laughter prompted his own. His mouth stretched into a grin, and
he saw her face go from amused to shocked.
     
    "Your teeth!" She set down her cup so hard her
coffee spilled. "They're so sharp!"
     
    He clamped his lips closed. He had forgotten for a
moment that human mouths were filled with dull, useless teeth. That
was why they needed to use tools to cut their food for them.
Apparently, though, the sight of his teeth had startled her. Worse,
disgusted her.
     
    Jeenai looked at the woman for whom he'd risked so
much. If she could not love him, he would turn into sea foam. He
would cease to exist.
     
    He told her he was sorry, which she recognized. She
stared at his hands as he spoke, and he realized she was looking at
the soft, flexible webbing between his fingers.
     
    The woman's face was solemn. "You're not human, are
you?"
     
    He shook his head.
     
    "You came from the sea." Recognition made her gasp.
"It was you the other night! You saved me when I went under!"
     
    He nodded. The woman sat back in her chair. She
covered her eyes briefly with her hands, then peeked at him through
her fingers.
     
    "What are you?"
     
    "Carrageenai," he said, but the sound came out
mangled and indecipherable.
     
    She shook her head. "I don't understand."
     
    He stood and put his hands on his thighs. "These are
not my legs. I usually have a tail."
     
    He'd used the formal gesture for tail, but switched
to infant-hands again for her benefit. "A long tail. But I'm not a
fish. We're mammals, like those you call porpoises and whales."
     
    He'd made the symbol for whale by imitating with his
hands a whale breaching, but she clearly didn't understand. He
tried the one for porpoise, the creature his people called
closemates because of their ancestral relationship to the
Carrageenai. That she seemed to understand.
     
    "You're a mermaid? A merman, I mean?" The woman took
a gulp from her cup. She stared at his legs. "You must be joking.
This is still a dream, right? I'm dreaming. Or I'm crazy."
     
    He wondered why she thought she was not experiencing
this reality appropriately. There were Carrageenai who, on
occasion, lost touch with the real world around them and slipped
into their own minds. They were considered mad. His woman,