Mara and Dann Read Free

Do you understand? They are brothers.’ He was staring up at her, trying to understand: she was taller, because he was three years younger, four years old, and he was her little brother whom she had protected and cared for since he was born. She said it all again. This one was good. The other was bad. And her name was Mara now and he must forget her real name. And his name was…a moment’s panic: had she forgotten it? No. ‘Your name is Dann.’ ‘No it isn’t, that’s not my name.’ ‘Yes, it is. You must forget your real name, it’s dangerous.’ And her voice shook, she heard it become a sob, and the little boy put up his hand to stroke her face. This made her want to howl and weep, because she felt he had come back to her, her beloved little brother, after a horrible time when some sort of changeling had been attached to her. She did not know if he had understood, but now he said, ‘Poor Mara,’ and she clutched him and kissed him, and they were crying and clutching when two people came in, in the clothes of the Rock People, but they were not Rock People. They had bundles of the brown tunics under their arms and they took two, one for her and one for Dann. She hated the feel of the tunic, slippery and thin, going down over her head, and the little boy said, ‘Do I have to wear this?’
    Now the man said, ‘Quick, we must hurry,’ and hustled them to the door. The candle was left burning; then he remembered, took it up and held it high, looking around the room to see what had been forgotten.
    The little girl who was now Mara looked back too, so as to remember the room, or what she could, for she was already anxious because of what she was forgetting.
    As for the little boy, he would remember later only the warmth and safety of his sister’s body, as he pressed himself into it. ‘Are we going home now?’ he asked, and she was thinking, Of course we are; because all this time she had been thinking, We’ll go home and the bad people will have gone and then…Yet that man had been telling her, yes, he had been telling her – while he squatted in front of her, talking and talking, and she had not been able to hear because of her longing for a drink – they were not going home. This was the first time the little girl really understood that they were not going back to their home. Outside, in the darkness, she looked up to see how the stars had moved. Her father had taught her how to look at stars. She was trying to find theones that were called The Seven Friends. And they were her friends, her stars. She had said to her father, ‘But there are eight – no, nine,’ and he had called her Little Bright Eyes. Where was her father? Her mother? She was just going to pull at the elbow of the tall man who had come in with the clothes, and ask, when she understood that she had been told and had not heard properly. She did not dare ask again. She saw four of the people go off quietly, quickly, hardly to be seen in the brown clothes. Two were left: the man and a woman. She could hear by how they breathed, too loud, that they were tired and wanted to rest and sleep – yes, sleep…And as she drowsed off, standing there, she felt herself shaken awake and in her turn shook her brother, who was limp and heavy in her grasp. ‘Can you walk?’ asked the woman. ‘Good,’ said the man while she hesitated, and he said, ‘Then come on.’ Around them were other rock houses. They were all empty, she could see, while being hurried past. Why was the village empty? How could they, the People, just go into a rock house and walk through a rock village without guards?
    â€˜Where are they?’ she whispered up at the woman, and heard the whisper, ‘They’ve all gone north.’
    Soon they stopped. High in the sky above her she saw the head of a cart bird turning and tilting to look down at them to see who they