of my favorites—Suzy, the albino python, in particular. When I was younger, I had thought I might be able to actually communicate with some of Dad’s specimens.
Maybe I could.
Or maybe it had simply made me feel better to believe that these animals, too, were part of my heritage.
In any case, Suzy always seemed to exude a deep, abiding calm. An internal serenity completely different from anything humans had to offer.
I needed that today.
Unlike the previous night in the hospital, I had time to prepare for this shift. Locating the key to the shed on one of the top shelves (not an uncommon place for Dad to leave it), I set it out in its hiding place and flipped the bolt to the locked position. The locked door would let Dad know I was inside—he would knock before he unlocked it and came in, so I would be able to let him know if I hadn’t shifted yet.
Removing the screen lid from Suzy’s terrarium, I set it to the side and let my hand drift across her white and yellow body. She flicked her tongue out, then rubbed her head alongside my arm, the rest of her coils rippling out and over. Making space for me next to her.
Who says snakes don’t have feelings?
Quickly, I stripped out of my clothes, folded them neatly, and set them on the floor next to the terrarium lid. I pressed my torso up against the glass outside Suzy’s enclosure, leaning down into it just a little.
Then I shifted.
In the herpetarium, the moment of panic that came with losing arms and legs flickered, then disappeared, subsumed by the sense of belonging I always felt here.
For the first time ever, I wondered if shifting among my own kind would eliminate that feeling altogether.
As the world around me grayed out entirely, I flicked my tail up into the air and slid into Suzy’s enclosure.
The python slid out of my way, making room for me inside the circle of light shed by the heat lamp.
With an internal sigh, I coiled as tightly as possible next to Suzy. She drew herself across the glass floor, rustling in the aspen bedding as she encircled me, drawn to the heat generated by the shift and remaining from my mammal form.
Or maybe because she realizes I need comfort?
I didn’t know for sure, but I preferred the latter.
Once we were arranged, twisted together and resting, I let my mind rest, along with my body.
It was easier to do in this form.
Lamia form.
The thought drifted across my mind, then was gone, simply another piece of information to process—not consciously, but in my back-brain, along with the muted sounds of the other reptiles as they breathed and moved, the feeling of heat soaking in to my muscles from the lamp, the distant smell of the mice in the freezer that Dad would feed the snakes later in the week, the comforting touch of Suzy’s length against me, the tastes that drifted across the Jacobson’s organ in the top of my mouth, offering information that had no mammalian equivalent.
It was good to come home.
I don’t know how much time had passed when Dad came into the herpetarium.
He walked straight to Suzy’s terrarium. He knew me that well.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he said, dropping his hand down to run a finger across the top of my head, then down my neck and along my spine. The muscles along my sides rippled in concert.
I don’t know if full-blood snakes can love.
But I know that I do.
“Mom’s in the house cooking if you want to shift and dress and join us for dinner.” His voice came through muffled, as did all sounds, bouncing off the tiny cochlear bones in my head. The longer I stayed in serpentine form, the more difficult it would become to translate those sounds into words.
I don’t know how long I had been living as a snake when Dad first found me, but when I first shifted, I couldn’t speak—whether because I had never learned how, or because I had forgotten, we didn’t know.
As a teenager, I had shifted in a fit of pique over some rule Mom and Dad had implemented and didn’t shift back for
Maybe I could.
Or maybe it had simply made me feel better to believe that these animals, too, were part of my heritage.
In any case, Suzy always seemed to exude a deep, abiding calm. An internal serenity completely different from anything humans had to offer.
I needed that today.
Unlike the previous night in the hospital, I had time to prepare for this shift. Locating the key to the shed on one of the top shelves (not an uncommon place for Dad to leave it), I set it out in its hiding place and flipped the bolt to the locked position. The locked door would let Dad know I was inside—he would knock before he unlocked it and came in, so I would be able to let him know if I hadn’t shifted yet.
Removing the screen lid from Suzy’s terrarium, I set it to the side and let my hand drift across her white and yellow body. She flicked her tongue out, then rubbed her head alongside my arm, the rest of her coils rippling out and over. Making space for me next to her.
Who says snakes don’t have feelings?
Quickly, I stripped out of my clothes, folded them neatly, and set them on the floor next to the terrarium lid. I pressed my torso up against the glass outside Suzy’s enclosure, leaning down into it just a little.
Then I shifted.
In the herpetarium, the moment of panic that came with losing arms and legs flickered, then disappeared, subsumed by the sense of belonging I always felt here.
For the first time ever, I wondered if shifting among my own kind would eliminate that feeling altogether.
As the world around me grayed out entirely, I flicked my tail up into the air and slid into Suzy’s enclosure.
The python slid out of my way, making room for me inside the circle of light shed by the heat lamp.
With an internal sigh, I coiled as tightly as possible next to Suzy. She drew herself across the glass floor, rustling in the aspen bedding as she encircled me, drawn to the heat generated by the shift and remaining from my mammal form.
Or maybe because she realizes I need comfort?
I didn’t know for sure, but I preferred the latter.
Once we were arranged, twisted together and resting, I let my mind rest, along with my body.
It was easier to do in this form.
Lamia form.
The thought drifted across my mind, then was gone, simply another piece of information to process—not consciously, but in my back-brain, along with the muted sounds of the other reptiles as they breathed and moved, the feeling of heat soaking in to my muscles from the lamp, the distant smell of the mice in the freezer that Dad would feed the snakes later in the week, the comforting touch of Suzy’s length against me, the tastes that drifted across the Jacobson’s organ in the top of my mouth, offering information that had no mammalian equivalent.
It was good to come home.
I don’t know how much time had passed when Dad came into the herpetarium.
He walked straight to Suzy’s terrarium. He knew me that well.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he said, dropping his hand down to run a finger across the top of my head, then down my neck and along my spine. The muscles along my sides rippled in concert.
I don’t know if full-blood snakes can love.
But I know that I do.
“Mom’s in the house cooking if you want to shift and dress and join us for dinner.” His voice came through muffled, as did all sounds, bouncing off the tiny cochlear bones in my head. The longer I stayed in serpentine form, the more difficult it would become to translate those sounds into words.
I don’t know how long I had been living as a snake when Dad first found me, but when I first shifted, I couldn’t speak—whether because I had never learned how, or because I had forgotten, we didn’t know.
As a teenager, I had shifted in a fit of pique over some rule Mom and Dad had implemented and didn’t shift back for
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