“So you left then, after they were gone?” Mayka asked. “And you’ve been alone ever since?” Poor Si-Si. At least Mayka had left home voluntarily, and Jacklo and Risa had come with her of their own free will too.
“She’s not alone now,” Jacklo said stoutly.
Si-Si shot him a grateful look. “And once a stonemason fixes my wings and my marks, I’ll never be alone again. I’ll be one with the sky! And I won’t be worthless anymore.”
“You’re not worthless,” Mayka said.
“My story—the story you read—says I am,” Si-Si said.
None of them knew what to say to that.
As they walked on, the sun continued to cross the valley. Eventually, it set, and the mountains glowed amber and rose. Mayka looked back at their mountain—the tallest peak, covered in forests and waterfalls—and wondered how her friends were. She wondered if they were worried, if they had guessed where the two birds had gone, if they’d know the right thing to say to Si-Si to make her feel better . . . Nianna would have scolded her, told her how fortunate she was to be alive. Badger would have said something profound. Kalgrey would have mocked. Dersy would have tried to comfort her by sharing his own worries . . . All right, maybe they wouldn’t have known what to say either.
As Mayka walked and thought, the stars began to appear, and the moon shone down, clouds drifting over its smooth face.
Si-Si caught the moonlight on her scaled back every time she hopped, which made her easy to follow. But the uneven ground was harder to see, and several times Mayka stumbled. Once she fell all the way to her knees, but she stood back up and kept going.
“Shouldn’t we wait out the dark?” Jacklo asked.
“What for?” asked Si-Si.
“So we can see our way, of course,” Risa said. “I’ve already flown into three cornstalks, and Jacklo has leaves stuck in his feathers.”
“I can see by the light of the moon. Can’t you?”
“Not as well, obviously,” Risa said. “We should wait for dawn.”
Si-Si said in a tiny, sad voice, “But . . . but . . . I finally have hope.”
The sadness in her words made Mayka feel as if she’d stepped on a baby chick. “All right. We’ll keep going.” Aside from their having to be more careful, it didn’t make that much difference that it was night. A few cornstalks wouldn’t hurt the birds, and even if she fell in a ditch, anything short of a tumble from a cliff was unlikely to damage her.
Besides, the faster we get there, the sooner we’ll be home. After meeting Si-Si, though, Mayka couldn’t help being curious what other wonders the valley held and what they’d find in Skye. She wanted to see what the cluster of lanterns looked like up close. She imagined telling her friends about Si-Si—they’d want to hear everything about her.
Jacklo circled above them. “But, Mayka, night is for stories!”
“At home, we liked to watch the stars, and I’d tell stories,” Mayka explained to Si-Si. To Jacklo, she said, “You can still have your stories while we walk. Si-Si’s already being kind enough to show us the way. The least we can do is get us all there faster.”
“Then I want a story about travelers,” Jacklo said.
Mayka ran through the list of stories she knew that fit that description. “How about ‘The Tale of the Wandering Tree’?” Both Jacklo and Risa landed on her shoulders, one on each side. She took that for a yes. “Once upon a time, a master stonemason wanted a garden, but in the land where he lived, nothing grew. The rain didn’t fall. The soil was empty of life. Even the worms wouldn’t crawl through it . . .”
“How did he eat?” Si-Si asked.
“The story doesn’t say,” Mayka said.
“All flesh creatures need to eat,” Si-Si said. “And they need water too, which I don’t understand, since they just put it in one end and send it out the other.”
Mayka giggled. She’d noticed that too.
“You’re interrupting the story,” Risa said.
“I’m curious!” Si-Si said. “He couldn’t live in a place with no food and no water. And where is this place anyway? Not the valley, certainly.”
“Mayka, just tell the story,” Risa said from Mayka’s shoulder.
The crickets were chirping throughout the field, and the sound made a nice background to the storytelling. Night in the valley was just as peaceful as it was in the mountains, Mayka was happy to see. It’s the sky, she decided. No matter what the story is, it’s all under the same sky. Even if they saw it from a different angle. “What he did have a lot of were rocks. So the stonemason carved himself a garden filled with stone flowers and stone bushes and one great, big, beautiful stone tree in the center with flower buds just open, as if caught in a perpetual spring. He carved marks all over it, trying to make it into a tree that could grow and produce fruit . . . but instead he created a tree who could speak.”
“I’ve never heard this story before,” Si-Si said. “What would a tree have to say?”
Mayka grinned. She’d asked Father the very same question. “At first, he talked about the wind, then birds, then the clouds, and then, quite quickly, he ran out of things to observe. So he picked up his roots and walked to the edge of the forest to see what he could see.”
“But trees can’t—” Si-Si began.
“A stone tree could. It doesn’t need the soil or water or anything to live, any more than we do. It only needs its marks, its stories. Every day, the stone tree would wander a little farther, then return and tell the man what he saw. He walked in every direction until he had seen all there was to see. By then, the stonemason was no longer alive to hear what the tree had to tell. So the tree simply kept walking.”
“Like us,” Jacklo said with a sigh.
“You’re riding,” Risa pointed out. “And you haven’t done any walking at all.”
“But we’re far from home, farther with each mile,” Jacklo said. “Like the tree.”
Si-Si squawked. “We are not lost! I know precisely where we are, or I will, as soon as I see a landmark. I can do this! I think I can. Unless I’m useless, which I am . . .”
Mayka stopped walking. “Are you saying we’re currently lost?” She looked around, but in the darkness, everything blended into the same black-gray. She listened to the crickets. Somewhere there was the gurgle of a stream, with the croak of a bullfrog, mournful.
“No! Maybe. I don’t know!” Si-Si wailed. “Go on with your story. Please. I’ll check ahead just a little bit. Just to see.” The little dragon bounded forward, crashing through the field. Mayka listened to the sound of her crunching across the grasses.
“Mayka?” Risa said. “I think we’re lost.”
Mayka was beginning to think that too. She also was thinking that the tale she’d picked was not the best choice. Because the tree never did return home. He kept wandering, and for all anyone knew, he was wandering still.
Chapter
Seven
As soon as the sun peeked over the mountains, Jacklo and Risa took to the air to scout north and south for any sign of the city. Shoulders slumped, Si-Si paced in a circle around Mayka. “I failed.”
“You tried,” Mayka said as comfortingly as she could.
“I tried to defy my story. I should’ve known I couldn’t. I’m useless.”
In the south, Jacklo was a spot against the clouds. Risa had already disappeared from view, flying high northward. The birds hadn’t wanted to leave her alone, but Mayka had pointed out that she wasn’t alone. She had a dragon to protect her, albeit a small, insecure one. “You brought us closer to the city,” Mayka pointed out. “That was helpful.”
Si-Si dragged her wings in the dirt and sighed heavily.
Mayka squatted next to her. She thought of all the times she’d comforted an anxious Dersy, and all the times Badger and Nianna and others had comforted her, especially after Father died. Si-Si doesn’t have anyone to comfort her. “Maybe . . . maybe you can be more than your story.” She winced as soon as she said it�
��as Father had often told her, even flesh-and-blood people were the sum of their stories. Si-Si couldn’t be other than what she was, any more than Father could have changed the fact that he was a stonemason who’d left the valley and climbed a mountain.
Si-Si let out a whimpering pffft sound.
Searching for something to say, Mayka tried changing the subject. “Tell me about the city. I’ve never even been to a town. Or, well, anywhere.”
“It’s big,” Si-Si said. “Lots of people and lots of creatures, living close together, and . . .” She wilted again, her shoulders drooping even lower until her chin rested on her paws. “I’ve never been there either, at least not in a way I remember. Soon after I was carved, I was brought from Skye to the estate in a cart under a cloth so I wouldn’t be damaged. My home was the first place I saw outside my carver’s workroom.”
“Do you know how to find the workroom where you were made?” Maybe they could ask the stonemason who had made Si-Si to help them. He’d done a beautiful job carving the dragon. She was far more detailed than the oxen and horses they’d seen. Exquisite, really.
“No, but he’s not who we need. He wasn’t skilled enough to make me fly when he created me; he won’t be skilled enough now. I need a better stonemason. Like your father.”
If Father were still alive, he could have changed Si-Si the way she wanted. Hollowed out some of the stone in her torso to make her lighter. Reshaped her wings to be more aerodynamic. Added marks that would let her fly.
Risa was the first to return. She glided down and landed beside them. Preening her feathers, she settled onto a rock. “It’s north. Not far.”
Si-Si perked up. “We’re close? I brought us close?” The little dragon climbed onto one of the rocks in the field near Risa and craned her neck, but her head was still much lower than the tops of the cornstalks.
“Where’s Jacklo?” Risa asked.
“He’s not back yet,” Mayka said.
Risa sighed. “Probably got distracted by something shiny.”
Mayka wanted to head north right now—Skye was close enough for Risa to see! But if they continued on without Jacklo, he wouldn’t know where they were. No, they had to wait.
Sitting on the ground between the cornstalks, she waited.
Up on the mountain, she’d never minded when time went by. Waiting was easy. She’d spent days waiting for a flower to bloom. She’d waited for the moon to be full. She’d waited for the wind to shift. She’d waited for winter. She’d waited for spring. And it hadn’t felt like waiting. It was just . . . living. Time flowed on, and you watched the world, inhabited the world, loved the world.
Somehow, though, it felt different here. She felt as if her stone skin were itching. Her feet wanted to move. She felt a powerful pull northward. Is this what it feels like to be impatient?
She was used to being in one place, her home, and not wishing she were somewhere else. She’d always been exactly where she wanted to be. Standing up, she paced, like Si-Si, simply to keep her feet from feeling that odd itch.
Soon I’ll see the city!
She occupied herself with imagining what it would be like: stuffed with both flesh and stone people and creatures, living side by side, in houses as close to one another as trees in a forest. She wondered if being so close together caused them all to like one another or hate one another. She wondered if she’d make new friends. It’s going to be amazing!
“He’ll be back,” Risa said. “He always comes back, usually with ridiculous tales of his adventures.” She settled her wings around her and tucked her head beneath one of them.
But Mayka couldn’t quit pacing.
She spotted Jacklo first: a black dot against a star-filled sky, like a tiny cloud, and then she saw him flapping toward them. He circled once before he landed.
“You would not believe what I saw!” Jacklo cried. He didn’t wait for them to respond. “Giant monsters! Three of them! Large as . . . as . . . that farmhouse. Legs like tree trunks.” He hopped from foot to foot, ruffling his wing feathers around him. “They are incredible!”
“Dangerous?” Risa chirped. She spread her wings, ready to flee.
“Oh no, they’d stopped. Long ago, from the looks of it. Grass is growing over their bodies, and their faces are crumbling into sand. But oh, they must have been so incredible when they were awake! Imagine giants striding across the valley! Mayka, Risa, you have to come see!”
“But the city is north!” Si-Si said.
“And the giants are south!” Jacklo cried. “Mayka, don’t you want to see them? To read them? Such stories they must have had!”
Standing, Mayka looked to the south, but she couldn’t see through the field. All she saw was more corn. Could it be true? Were there fallen giants in the valley? Father had never told any stories about them. If it was true . . . Their bodies would hold untold tales. Secrets and mysteries she could unlock. Dreams she hadn’t yet imagined!
But north was the future.
North was the city that could be the answer to their hopes and dreams. North was where stonemasons created stories, where people like Mayka were born, where they’d see wonders beyond anything she’d imagined: a place full of more people and creatures, both flesh and stone, than she’d ever known.
She stood for a moment, torn between past and future. But then she looked at Si-Si, whose blazing eyes were fixed so hopefully northward, and she thought of their friends waiting for them back home.
“We go north,” Mayka decided.
“Good,” Risa said. “Let’s go.” She took to the air and, without waiting, flew north. At a jog, Mayka followed Risa. Si-Si hopped beside her, and Jacklo flew to catch up.
But Mayka glanced back to the south and wished she knew what stories lay there, buried in the past.
They ran, flew, and hopped through the day and the night. Farther north, the fields of corn and wheat became sheep and cow pastures, which were easier to run across, but also dotted with piles of manure. Mayka stepped in several, washed off in streams, and then ran on.
They saw farmhouses, lit from within by lanterns and candles. And near dawn of the third day, they encountered their first stone wall. Up until now, all the fences had been wood, but this one was made of chunks of mountain granite that sliced across a pasture. Hefty and gray, it lurked as a linear shadow in the weak predawn light.
“Look!” Mayka said. “It’s proof that stonemasons must be near!” She hurried toward the wall, and the little dragon bounded across the field behind her.
“Wait!” Si-Si called. “It might not want you to cross!”
Putting her hands on the wall, Mayka swung her leg up—and then, suddenly, the rocks shifted beneath her. With a cry, she was tossed backwards, landing on her rear in the dirt.
The stones formed a face. Its features were cobbled together from multiple rocks. In the gray predawn light, she was able to see that the wall had mimicked this pattern elsewhere too—every few yards, there was another face.
“This is private property,” the wall said, stones crunching together. “Do not enter!”
“You’re alive!” Jumping to her feet, Mayka dusted herself off. Chirping angrily at the wall, Risa and Jacklo circled above her. “No, no, stop,” she said to the birds. “It’s incredible!” To the wall, she said, “I’m very sorry. We didn’t know you were alive. Could you please tell us where we are? Are we close to the city? How many miles do we need to go?”
Si-Si tittered as if Mayka had just said something ridiculous. “It isn’t going to answer you! It’s just a wall.”
“But it talked!” Mayka said. “It’s awake.”
“Don’t be silly. It’s only interested if you try to cross it. Watch this.” Hopping up to it, she swatted the wall with her tail. She then hopped backwards.
The rocks shifted again before it spoke. “This is private property. Do not enter!”
“Huh,” Risa said. “Weird.”
“Don’t insult it. Just because it doesn’t
share its feelings doesn’t mean it doesn’t have them.” Leaning over, Mayka examined the nearest face. A mark had been carved into the stones that made its forehead. It was still too dark for her to read, but she ran her fingertips over it.
The face repeated its warning, “This is private property. Do not enter!”
“Hush. I heard you.”
The mark was so short and simple that she could read it with her fingers. Gouged deep into the stone was a single symbol, the word for “wall” or “guard.” She knew from Father’s reading lessons that it was usually combined with other symbols, to create a creature who excelled a guarding a house. But this . . . there were no other symbols, no story about this wall, no history. It simply was.
How sad, Mayka thought. “Can you say anything else? You must have seen things, must think things, being here. You watch the sky. You see the seasons turn. You must have stories of your days.”
“It’s just a wall,” Si-Si said. “Come on. We can go around it.”
Mayka touched the mark again, firmer, waking the face. “Please, we don’t mean any harm. All we want to do is pass through.”
The rock face shifted to speak again. Pebbles spilled from its lips, forming a beard of rocks. “This is private—”
“I know. But can’t you make an exception? We don’t mean any harm to whoever lives here. We won’t bother them. They won’t even know we’re there. We’ll run straight across.”
“Do not enter.”
“Just climb it,” Jacklo said, landing on the wall. “It can’t—” He squawked as rocks rolled around his feet. “Ack! Help! Help, I’m stuck!” Flapping his wings, he tried to pull away.
“Jacklo!” Risa flew down to her brother. Hovering in the air above him, she tried to yank on his wing with her talons. Mayka joined them, pulling on his body. When that failed, Mayka dug into the rocks—they’d rolled together to pin him to the wall. As she dug, the rocks rolled against her too, trying to trap her fingers with the bird. Knocking them back, she pulled the stones apart, and Jacklo shot up into the air.
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