The Stone Girl's Story

  “Aw, look at you!” She leaned in and touched Jacklo’s chin. “You’re so cute! And wow, those look like real feathers.”

  “I know,” Jacklo said. “I was perfectly carved.”

  “He’s modest too,” Mayka said.

  Ilery laughed. “He has no need to be.” She plopped onto the bed. “Are you excited for the festival? Two days until it begins! What do you think of Skye so far?”

  “It’s nothing like what I expected,” Mayka said truthfully. “Ilery . . . we need a safe place to spend the night. Stone creatures aren’t supposed to be out after dusk, and there’s someone . . . We seem to have made an enemy, and we don’t want him to find us.”

  Ilery sat up straighter. “A dangerous enemy?”

  “You’re not in danger,” Mayka said quickly. I hope. It depended on what the stonemason told the guards. If he was smart, he’d continue his story that they’d run away . . . but then Ilery will look as if she’s stolen us. “Or maybe you will be, if we’re caught.”

  “Then we won’t get caught,” Ilery said firmly.

  Mayka smiled and exchanged glances with Si-Si and Jacklo. I knew we could trust her. We’ll be safe here tonight. “Thank you.”

  Si-Si inclined her head in a bow. “Yes, thank you.”

  “What happened to you?” Sliding off the bed, Ilery squatted to examine Si-Si, frowning at the gouges in her torso. “You look half carved. Who did this to you?”

  Si-Si lifted her head proudly, though her mouth quivered. “It was necessary, in order for all of us to escape.”

  Not all, Mayka thought. They’d left Kisonan and the other stone creatures.

  “Escape from who? Who’s your enemy?”

  “An evil stonemason,” Mayka said, thinking of the badger’s story. Checking the door to make sure it was safely latched, she told Ilery everything: why they’d come to Skye, how they’d lost Jacklo, what had happened with Garit and Master Siorn. Then she plunged on and told her about the obedience mark, and she was relieved when Ilery gasped in shock.

  “But that’s terrible!” Ilery cried. “Stone creatures work for their keepers in order to pay back the fee for being carved, and so that their keepers will pay to have their marks recarved. It’s a working relationship. Not . . . not . . . He can’t just . . .” She was waving her arms so emphatically that Mayka had to hop backwards to avoid being accidentally swatted.

  “Exactly,” Si-Si said. “Even when we serve a keeper, we have choices about what we do. With a mark like this . . . a stone creature could be ordered to do horrible things.”

  “Like in the Stone War,” Ilery said. “But, Mayka, how did you escape?”

  “We had help. And the stonemason had tools.” She told Ilery how she’d removed the obedience mark from Jacklo—​and how she’d promised to return to remove it from the griffin who had helped them.

  “We can’t return,” Risa said, from the windowsill. Mayka turned to see that the bird had swooped down from the roof and now perched on the sill, next to a vase filled with marble flowers. “If you go back to the Stone Quarter, you’ll be caught.”

  “Two birds!” Ilery clapped her hands together in delight. “And you really can fly!”

  Risa didn’t seem interested in being admired again. She fluttered her wings, ready to launch from the window if necessary. “Who’s this?”

  “My friend Ilery,” Mayka said. “Ilery, this is Risa. And the bird you already met is Jacklo.” To Risa, she said, “I know it’s impossible, but I hate leaving knowing the mark is out there. It’s not just wrong; it’s dangerous.” As the words left her mouth, she realized, with growing horror, how true that was. She’d been so busy escaping that she hadn’t thought through the consequences, not really. If she left the obedience mark on Kisonan and the others, Master Siorn would demonstrate its power at the Stone Festival—​and all would know stone creatures could be compelled to obey flesh-and-blood people.

  And then the freedom of every stone creature in the entire valley would be at risk.

  I can’t leave.

  But Risa was right—​it wasn’t safe to go back. Guards could be looking for her, thinking she’d run away from Master Siorn. Still . . . I wouldn’t have to go near any guards to find Garit. At some point, he was bound to be in the square preparing for the demonstration—​she remembered that Master Siorn had said he was needed to finish preparations. If she could find him there, ideally without Master Siorn, he could help her sneak back into the Stone Quarter.

  There were a lot of maybes in that plan.

  But it wasn’t terrible.

  “You could disguise yourself!” Ilery hopped off the bed and hurried over to her trunk. “Borrow some of my clothes! Then the only thing that will look stone is your skin, and if you don’t get too close to people, they won’t know.”

  “You don’t mind?” Mayka followed her to the trunk. They were about the same size. She could put on a fabric dress over her stone dress. Ilery pulled out one, and Mayka held it in front of her—​it seemed like it would fit.

  “Here, you could wear a scarf too! Hide your stone hair.”

  “What about Jacklo?” Risa asked. “He still won’t be able to fly until the glue finishes hardening.”

  “Ooh, I have an idea! Mayka can carry him in a basket. If you cover him with a cloth, everyone will think you’re carrying food from the market.” She clapped her hands together. “It’s perfect! If you’re disguised, you’ll be able to go anywhere you want, including the front gate of the city whenever you’re ready to go, even if that stonemason or any of the city guards are looking for you.” She pawed through her belongings until she found a basket, then held it up proudly.

  It was more than just an idea; it was a good idea. “Thank you.” Mayka impulsively hugged Ilery. She hadn’t hugged a flesh person since Father, but it felt right.

  At dawn, she’d free Kisonan and the other stone creatures, and then while the gate was still wide open, they’d leave Skye and never return.

  Chapter

  Twenty

  Mayka watched dawn rise over the city. Lemon yellow licked the spires and towers until they gleamed. It truly was a beautiful city. She wished their adventure here could have gone differently. If Master Siorn hadn’t invented his mark, if Jacklo hadn’t fallen and broken his wing . . .

  “How are your wings?” she asked Jacklo.

  He stretched out his wings and twisted his head to see them. “All better.”

  “No flying yet.” Risa pecked him on the shoulder.

  “Hey! Don’t do that!” Skipping sideways, he folded his wings back against his sides. He shook himself, and his feathers clicked together until they lay flat.

  Jacklo’s squawk woke Ilery. Rubbing her eyes, she sat up. Her hair had tangled in the night, and half of it was plastered against her cheek. Mayka’s hair would never do that, no matter how she lay or how long she lay there. It would always look the same. She wondered what it must be like to have a body that changed all time. You’d wake up wondering how much you’d grown, and whether you’d function the same way that you did the day before. How strange, she thought.

  “It’s time for me to be going,” Mayka said.

  “Oh.” Ilery sounded sad. “Will I see you again?”

  “I don’t know,” Mayka said honestly. “I hope so. You could come visit me someday.” She pointed in the direction of her mountain. “Climb the highest mountain, and when you get to the cliff with the waterfall, call to Jacklo and Risa, and they’ll guide you the rest of the way. I’ll ask them to fly out once a day to look for you. Jacklo, Risa, will you do that?”

  “Of course,” Jacklo said.

  “If we make it home,” Risa said.

  “Don’t be such a pessimist,” Jacklo told her. “Mayka will get us home. She got us away from that stonemason, didn’t she?”

  “We haven’t left the city yet,” Risa pointed out. “And she’s planning to go back.”

  “You don’t need to come,” Mayka told the birds
. She could do this alone. She was the one who’d made the promise to the griffin.

  Swinging her legs out of bed, Ilery stepped into a pair of slippers and dragged her fingers through her nestlike hair. “You can all stay here. You’ll be safe with me.”

  “We stick together,” Jacklo said. “We’re family. That’s what we do.”

  “And I’m not going to be left behind!” Si-Si piped up.

  “Ilery has a point,” Mayka said. “You will be safer if you stay here with her. Si-Si, you’ve already done so much to help us escape. And, Jacklo, you might want to lie low until you can fly.”

  Raising his wings up, Jacklo stood taller. “I can fly now!”

  “No risking it,” Risa insisted. “You might fall again.”

  In a small voice, Jacklo said, “I didn’t like falling.”

  “How did you fall?” Mayka asked. “It’s not like you.” He hadn’t told the story of his accident. She’d assumed he’d crashed into something—​got distracted and flew into a wall. Or tried to break through a window—​hadn’t Master Siorn said Jacklo had been trying to enter someone’s house? She wondered if she could trust anything Master Siorn said.

  “It happened fast. I was flying along, trying to see through windows, when something hard hit me. I heard a crack, and suddenly couldn’t control my wing.” He studied it sadly. “I didn’t see what it was. It’s not much of a story, I know.”

  “Something hit you? Something thrown?” Mayka thought of the stone otters. Master Siorn could have ordered them to throw rocks at all intruders, even aerial ones. Under the control of his mark, they wouldn’t have been able to resist. They even seemed to like throwing things. She shuddered. No one should be forced to hurt another. “Like a rock?” That would have been enough to damage him, and it would also explain where he fell.

  “Maybe. Probably?” He shuddered.

  “You’d think it would have taught you caution,” Risa said.

  Mayka smiled at Jacklo. “It’s okay. I like you just the way you are.” It was good to see him acting like himself, not worshiping Master Siorn.

  “Can he learn caution?” Ilery asked. “I thought stone couldn’t change.”

  Mayka used to think that too. “I already have.” She’d left home—​that was something she’d never expected to do. Since she’d come to this city, she’d learned how to lie, she’d learned how to sneak, she’d learned how to carve, and she’d learned how to be brave. All of that was new. “We should go, before I lose my nerve.”

  Crossing to a trunk, Ilery picked out a blue dress dotted with stars. She also chose a pair of black shoes and a yellow scarf.

  With Ilery’s help, Mayka dressed. It felt strange to have fabric encasing her. For her whole life, her clothes had been stone, but now layered over the stone was this cotton. She touched it and then looked at herself in the mirror. Already she looked transformed.

  “You look like flesh,” Si-Si said.

  “Good,” Mayka said. It was funny that simple clothes could change what others saw as her story. She’d become someone else with a different past and future. She wondered if clothes were a way for flesh people to wear a kind of mark. These clothes, for instance, marked her as a girl like Ilery, from a farm in the valley.

  Ilery tied the scarf around her hair. “This is the style I wear mine in back home.” She looked at Mayka in the mirror, standing next to her. “We could pass for sisters.”

  “I’d like you for a sister,” Mayka said.

  Ilery beamed. “I’d like that too. Did you really mean what you said? That I can visit you someday?”

  “Yes, absolutely. I’ll miss you.” And she meant it.

  “It might not be for a long time,” Ilery said, her smile fading. “I’ll live with my parents until I’m grown. You might not even recognize me.”

  “Then wear a scarf around your hair, tied like this.” She waved at the scarf that Ilery had knotted around her stone hair. “I’ll know you that way.”

  Ilery’s smile came back, as bright as the rising sun.

  Sitting on the edge of the bed, Mayka slid her bare stone feet into shoes for the first time. She giggled. It felt so strange! She wiggled her toes, and they hit against the top of the shoe. “You wear these all the time?”

  “Otherwise we’d cut our feet.”

  Standing, Mayka practiced walking across the room. It would feel strange to run in them, but if she were running, that would mean something had gone wrong, and she could just kick them off.

  Ilery fetched the basket, and Mayka laid Jacklo in it. Cooing at him, Ilery tucked him in with another scarf so he wouldn’t be seen. She put an apple on top to further disguise him and then turned to Si-Si. “I don’t know how to disguise you.”

  Si-Si folded her wings. “Don’t worry. No one ever notices me anyway.”

  Ilery laughed. “You’re a firestone dragon! Everyone will notice you! You’re the reason I talked to Mayka in the first place, you know—​I thought any girl who’d befriend a dragon had to be worth knowing.”

  “Really? But my keepers—”

  “Didn’t deserve you,” Mayka finished for her. “You are extraordinary, Si-Si. You chose to help us. You are brave and selfless, even though your story doesn’t say whether you are or aren’t. You chose to be who you are.”

  “Also, you’re really bright red and orange, so you can’t come with us,” Risa said. “Not to the Festival Square, and not to the city gates. You’ll give us away.”

  “But I . . .” Si-Si blinked, and Mayka thought if the little dragon weren’t stone, she would be crying. “I want to come with you! I want to keep being . . . me. This new me. And you . . . help me be that me.”

  Mayka and Ilery looked at each other. “I’d give her a dress, but I don’t think that would fool anyone,” Ilery said, and both of them grinned at the image of the little dragon in a dress. “I didn’t pack any dragon disguises.”

  Jacklo poked his beak out of the basket. “Can’t she just hide like me?”

  Risa snorted. “She won’t fit, silly.”

  Ilery brightened and then rummaged through her trunk again. She produced a pack with two shoulder straps. “You could carry her in this! I think it’s large enough. But I don’t know how heavy she is.”

  “Very,” Mayka said, and then she smiled again. “But I’m as strong as stone.” She took the pack and opened it. Si-Si climbed in and curled up with her wings around her. Bracing herself, Mayka lifted the pack onto her shoulders, and Si-Si made a chirping-chime sound as she bounced on Mayka’s back. “Are you all right in there?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was muffled. “Let me know when you need me to come out and be brave.”

  Mayka smiled. “I will.” She checked her costume one more time. “I might not be able to return any of this,” she said to Ilery.

  “Give it back when I visit,” Ilery said.

  Mayka hugged her. “Thank you for everything.”

  “Good luck,” Ilery said, hugging her back.

  Risa flew out the window toward the roofs, and Mayka left the room and then the inn. The badger at the front desk glanced at her with a squinting frown, and Mayka took that to be a good sign—​he didn’t recognize her. Stone creatures never wore cotton clothes.

  Carrying Si-Si and Jacklo, she walked through the streets, past the mural, toward the Festival Square. Before she reached it, she heard the sounds: voices shouting orders, hammers hitting wood, chisels on stone.

  The square was even more crowded than it had been before—​the festival was tomorrow. Jugglers and acrobats were practicing. Dancers twirled one another in complicated steps, their skirts flowing around them as they spun and tossed ribbons into the air. Musicians, all playing at the same time, rehearsed. Food vendors were setting up carts and opening colorful umbrellas. She weaved her way toward Master Siorn’s stage and hoped that Risa was keeping an eye out. If Master Siorn was there, then Mayka could blend in with the crowd and wait until Garit was alone.

  But luc
k was with them: Master Siorn wasn’t there.

  Neither was Garit, though.

  On his stage, she saw the pedestals she and Garit had made, decorated with wreaths of stone flowers—​the flowers weren’t alive, but they were beautiful, with petals carved from stones and jewels of every color of the rainbow. It looked ready.

  He has to come!

  Other workers and apprentices were at their stages, adding final details. One stonemason had shaped his entire stage like a clamshell, with seaweed made from green malachite and pearls shaped from alabaster. Another had etched geometric patterns in such fine detail that the lines seemed to spin as Mayka looked at them. A different stage was drenched in diamonds and rubies and guarded by two stone wolves who had emeralds for eyes. Yet another was bare, except for a perfectly formed stone sphere in the center, a marvel in its perfection.

  Where is he?

  Poking his beak out of the basket, Jacklo said, “I see him!”

  “Shhh,” Mayka said.

  Through the crowd, she saw Garit squeezing his way to the stage, his arms full of firewood. Climbing up onto the platform, he piled the wood near the pedestals.

  Slipping between two workers who were carrying armfuls of flowers, Mayka approached him as he climbed off the stage. “Hi, Garit. It’s me.”

  He startled and then peered at her. “Mayka?”

  “Did you get in trouble?”

  “I’m fine. He was furious, but . . . I’m fine. You shouldn’t have come back! I thought you’d be miles away by now.”

  “I can’t leave, knowing what Master Siorn plans. I have to at least try to erase the mark from Kisonan and the others.”

  Garit shook his head. “I can’t help you. Master Siorn will be even more furious! Look, I agree with you—​what he’s done and what he plans to do isn’t right. I hate that I ever trusted him, and if I could leave my apprenticeship, I would be gone in a heartbeat. But I’m as bound to him as the stone creatures he’s enslaved. I can’t disappoint my family by acting against the man who is giving me a future.”