Raising The Stones by Sheri S. Tepper Page B

When they were caught speaking that language, the Voorstod pastors came with their whips and punished them, so Maire was told.
    Morning times, Maire went out into the mists, around the corner of the house to the quarters out back where the Gharm lived. Fess and Bel were there, the daughters of the Manone house-Gharm, and also Bitty, a son of a Manone field-Gharm.
    “What’ll we play?” asked Maire.
    “Adventures,” suggested Bitty. “We’ll adventure to a far place and slay a monster.”
    “I get to be the monster,” said Fess. Fess was the biggest of the Gharm children, almost as big as Maire. Fess liked to be the monster, or the great ally-gaggle in the swamp, or the giant who had caught them all in her teapot.
    So Fess was the monster, and the monster caught Maire and held her fast until Bitty came, just in time, and rescued her.
    Fess’s mam, Lilla, had been Maire’s nurse-Gharm. When Maire was a baby, in nappies, Fess’s mam had taken care of her. Sometimes when Maire was unhappy, she still went to Lilla to hold on to her until things were right again.
    Sometimes the children went out in the fields to play hide-and-seek. The Gharm were very clever at hiding, because they were so small. It was hard to find them, and when they were found, they collapsed in giggles, scarcely able to walk.
    “I love you, Fess,” said Maire Manone. “I love you, Bel.”
    Fess hugged her, and then Bel, but neither of them said anything.
    “I love Fess and Bel,” Maire told her mam.
    Mam became suddenly very quiet.
    “What’s their last names, Mam?” Maire asked, only to be slapped quickly across the mouth with Mam’s two fingers, not to hurt, only to say shush, we don’t say that.
    “Gharm have no family names,” said Mam, whispering. “Call names only, Maire. No family names. If you want a Gharm, you use the call name. That’s all you need.”
    So Fess was only Fess and Bel was only Bel, but Maire was Maire Manone with a family name.
    “I have two names, and you don’t,” she crowed at them. “I have two names.”
    Fess turned to Bel, eyes wide. Bel frowned. Both of them looked shocked and puzzled and then, all at once, cool, as though some little fire inside them went out. Lilla was standing by the back door of the house, listening to what was said. She always listened to them, very carefully. “Fess, Bel,” she said, “Come in now. There’s work to do.”
    They turned away, without a word, and went to Lilla before vanishing in the mists.
    “They won’t play with me!” Maire said to Mam.
    “They have work to do,” said Mam in a quiet voice. “Let them alone, child.”
    “But, I want them to play with me,” Maire cried.
    Dad heard her, and Dad said, “You call those whelps by their call name, Maire Manone, and you tell them what you want them to do, and they’ll do it.”
    So she called “Fess,” and Fess came. “Play with me,” she said, and Fess stayed and did everything Maire told her to do. Everything. Sit here. Say this. Say that. Get up and go there. Fetch. Only Fess didn’t do anything herself, not anything. Everything Maire said, she did, but nothing of her own.
    “You’re not playing!” Maire cried.
    “I’m doing everything you tell me,” said Fess in her quiet voice without any giggles in it. “As I must.”
    “But you used to play with me!”
    “That was before you told us you had two names. When you say that, then you’re master and we’re slaves, and that’s that.”
    Maire went in the house to cry. Dad came in. He was tired and mad from something that had happened. He asked her what the trouble was, and she told him Fess wouldn’t play with her. So Dad took his whip and went out, and Maire heard Fess scream.
    Mam was looking at her, tears running down her face. “I thought you loved Fess.”
    “I do,” Maire said, frightened at the screaming, which went on and on, the animal sounds, as though the throat uttering those sounds had forgotten whose it was and went on