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You’ve come home from the market, loaded with vegetables and herbs, things that spilled out of Maba’s basket along the road and you picked up until they were tumbling from your own skirt. “Why did we get so much STUFF this time?” you ask, dumping it on the kitchen counter.
“It’ll be winter soon you know and it’s not such a joy to go to market when we have to ski.”
“But skiing is so much FUN!” You skip after Maba as e disappears down the cellar steps. As you go, you reach blindly to give the hearth god a friendly pat in es niche and remember something you heard at the market. The sunny day and the easy walk had pushed it out of your mind, but now the slight unpleasantness of being made to feel out of place returns. “Maba!” You hurry down the stairs after en. “Why did that old person at the market say our hearth god was just a ghost?”
Maba sighs as e straightens up from the floor. “It’s a story I’ll have to tell you once I’ve finished putting the groceries away.”
“Oooo storytime??” You clatter back up the steps, rushing to call your older wombsib from upstairs. “Maba’s going to tell a story!” As usual, e doesn’t answer right away, buried in some book and ignoring you. “Shebe!” You burst into es room and shake es shoulder. “Shebe, come downstairs! Maba’s gonna tell a story about Therem!”
Shebe puts the book down with a frown. “Therem? Our hearth god?” You nod enthusiastically. “Well Therem is very important person, e was the one who-”
“SSSHHHH! I said Maba’s going to tell the story. You won’t tell it as good.” Shebe snorts, but e follows you when you drag en down out of the room by the hand.
When the two of you get downstairs, Maba is already sitting at the breakfast table smiling gently. “Come and sit. I’m going to tell you a story.” You notice as you slip onto the bench that Maba has taken the statue of Therem out of its niche and is holding it carefully. E looks into your eyes and then your sib’s, and you feel the magic of the story start to slip over you already. “Long ago, a person came to our planet from the stars.”
Shebe sits up. “It wasn’t from the stars, e was from a planet like us!”
“You’re interrupting already?” you protest.
“Yes well,” Maba just smiles a little bigger. “A person came to our planet from another one that was much like ours. But that’s not who this story is about. This story is about that person’s best friend.” E sets the statue on the table and looks at it lovingly. You lean forward to squint at it yourself. Therem’s clothes are painted on in bright blues and reds, but they’re chipping in places to reveal the wood beneath. The carved lines of the face show a far away gaze, but the way the color has rubbed off on one side of the mouth makes it look like en wears a slight, crooked smile. “Our little hearth god, Therem Harth rem ir Estraven,” Maba says fondly. “Who welcomed someone who seemed to come all the way from the stars.”
“But why is e a ghost?” you prod, wanting to get the story moving.
“All gods are ghosts, it's just that this one was a living person like us more recently than most, and people haven't forgotten that time yet. Also, it's convenient to have something dismissive to say about the newest hearth of Estre that only a few generations ago decided to leave the central hearth and come live wayyyy out here, as if it's not close enough we can walk to market in one day.” Maba sounds a bit disgruntled for a minute as e tends to get when e talks about the split with the central hearth, but es voice lightens again as e returns to the story of Therem. “But as to how our Therem became a ghost, e was willing to sacrifice everything for the person from another planet, and for all of us to be able to make friends across the stars. E used all es political skill and physical strength; e gave up es country and in the end, es life.”
“And that's why I can talk on the ansible to Mr. Roi from Urras about physics!”
“Shebe! Stop interrupting! Not everything is about your silly physics!”
“Yes Shebe,” Maba says, calm as ever. “Your Urrasti physics teacher is one of the reasons to be thankful to Therem. But it isn't until after e has died that someone can become a ghost or a god. So this is where the story you wanted to hear really begins.” E pauses to settle back into the telling.
“It was around this time that our family moved to this hearth. As you know, your great grandparents broke a great taboo by swearing kemmer to each other when one of them had already sworn with another.” Maba bites es lip and mutters “As if a kemmer vow with that vile-” E stops enself there, but even though you aren't supposed to know, you've heard enough bits and pieces to gather that it wasn't the sort of loving vow which should be honored. Maba clears es throat. “Well after that there was no way the two of them could remain at the central hearth, and it was only on the condition that their vow not be officially recognized that they were allowed to remain in Estre.”
“But WE all know they were really kemmerings!” you pipe up.
“Yes exactly,” Maba says quickly, as if dismissing any other possibility as nonsense. “But back then, this was a very small hearth with not even a real hearth god. And it was then that a person from another planet visited Estre, mourning the death of one of your ancestors, who had been cast out of Estre much like we had, for swearing kemmer with es sibling.”
“Ew gross!”
“Shebe! You can't say that about Therem! What if e gets mad!” You give the statue a pat on the head to hopefully prevent this.
“Well even gods make mistakes, and just like everyone, they have their reasons,” Maba reminds you both. “But as I was saying. We were visited by Therem’s best friend, who was look for Therem’s family. And we showed en the way to the central hearth, but e left behind a ghost at our hearth. A child about your age was the first one to notice,” Maba says, looking at you. “E was walking on the roof path in the summer time, which as you know is dangerous when the snow is not high enough to catch you if you fall.” You look down at your hands. You had been walking on the roof path last week and Maba scolded you. “And, as any child might have done, e fell. It was a very gentle fall, since e happened to fall into a full laundry basket, but e was scolded of course. The thing is, e swore that e hadn’t lost es balance, and in fact had been pushed. To everyone else this seemed like a nonsense excuse, but really it was the first act of our new hearth ghost.”
“So Therem was punishing en for walking on the roof path?” you guess.
“No. That sort of thing isn’t really the concern of a god. But the child didn’t remember until later what Therem had been trying to tell en. And it would take more than a child’s word for the hearth to recognize a new god. There was another young person in the hearth, a little older, perhaps a young adult, who wanted to go to Erhenrang to be a politician just as Therem had. But like many, e had the wrong intentions. E was looking out for power and recognition, rather than the people of Estre. One night as e was filling out the paperwork required to begin work in Erenhrang, a cup of water on the desk tipped over mysteriously and ruined every page.”
“So e never got to follow es dream?” Shebe interjects.
“Oh e did. But e had to wait until the next year, and after a year of Therem’s help, e was much better prepared. But the spill on its own was also just an accident. The reason we have this god today . . .” Maba leans forward and lays a hand on the statue. “Was the visit of a mysterious stranger. E came in the middle of winter, blew in on a blizzard with a bag full of trinkets and tools. As much as your great grandparents asked who e was and where e came from, e claimed not to even now enself. E only asked that we give en shelter from the weather. Our hearth had little to offer, but the fire was warm, and we would not turn a traveller away. The stranger stayed until the spring thaw. E must have been one of the Handdara, e spent so much time in meditation. The rest of the time, e spent making things, from door hinges to jewelry, and in the spring, e left behind only this sculpture. It was obvious to those who knew Therem that it was a statue of en.”
“Did you ever see the stranger again?” Shebe asks, for the first time a little awed by the story.
“No. And no one knows how e knew just what gift to give us,” Maba continues. “But the child, the aspiring politician, and almost every member of the hearth were reminded of the times when Therem had come to them that year. That little child thought back on the day e fell from the roof and realized e had said some unkind things to one of the other children at school that day. One of the kids who said strange things and wouldn’t talk to the others. Therem was trying to tell en that you shouldn’t bully people even if they seem different and don’t have many friends.”
“Wait.” Shebe gets a look like when e is figuring something complicated out. “If this was happened in our hearth, we probably now that kid! But e must be grown up now!”
Maba rewards es reasoning with a smile. “That’s right. That child is my Maba, who told me this story when I was your age.”
You look at the little statue with new appreciation. Therem seems to smile at you as if you share a secret now. “So a god is a ghost who looks out for you?”
“Yes. We take care of Therem because e looks out for us. The hearth gods of the central hearth may be ancestors who have been dead a lot longer than our Therem, but who else but us in Estre is going to honor an ancestor who was exiled from the domain? And who better than Therem to look out for our little hearth?”