She was still a bird, mostly, with a woman’s throat and skull, like a harpy from some ancient text. I wondered then where all those shape-shifting stories had come from. If, every now and then, there was someone who changed, because they had to, and if we caught glimpses of them, every now and then, and named them as if they were fixed things. Siren, selkie, sphinx; angel, demon, mutant turtle.
