The Stone Girl's Story

by Sarah Beth Durst

  He shot a glance at her. “He really is a good stonemason,” Garit said to her and Si-Si. “One of the best. That’s why my family apprenticed me to him.”

  Mayka opened her mouth to ask about his family.

  Si-Si nudged her, prompting her to walk forward, through the arch. Overhead, Risa had already flown in and was perched on the gutter of a nearby house, waiting for them. As they passed through the wall, the bird leapt off, spread her wings, and glided down to land on Mayka’s shoulder.

  “Jacklo must be so scared,” Risa said into her ear.

  “We’ll find him,” Mayka promised.

  “What if we don’t?”

  “We will.”

  Stepping onto the street, Mayka saw the Stone Quarter for the first time. And she halted and stared, jaw dropped and eyes wide. She’d thought the city was incredible, but this . . . It was . . . It was . . .

  Si-Si squeaked, “Oh wow, it’s beautiful!”

  Spinning in a slow circle, Mayka tried to look in every direction at the same time. She felt as if she’d walked into a dream. Everything, everywhere, was stone, and it was all alive!

  Both sides of the street were lined with palaces carved out of every color marble in the world, and decorated with more sculptures than Mayka had ever imagined. Stone turtles, stacked one on top of another, held up the corner of one portico, while two stone herons flanked a door of another palace—​the door itself was carved with images of the mountains. By another, a stone bear held a cauldron overflowing with stone flowers. As Mayka watched, a second bear lumbered up to the first bear and shouldered its load. The first bear shuffled away.

  “Keep walking,” Risa told her.

  As she stepped forward, Mayka felt stones shift beneath her. Looking down, she saw the street itself was moving. With each step they took, the stones shuffled their positions to smooth the path ahead of them. Looking around, she saw it was doing this for everyone, and no one else seemed to notice. Maybe they’re used to it. She certainly wasn’t.

  The street was surprisingly busy, given that the quarter was “closed.” She noticed that, unlike in the rest of the city, most of the crowd was made of stone, not flesh. Also, there were more different kinds of creatures here. A moose trotted down the street beside a pair of otters. A pink quartz snake slithered by. Little bejeweled lizards clustered on one wall, and an oversized stone beetle trotted across the street, carrying a load of wood on its back.

  “I thought no one was allowed in the Stone Quarter until after the festival,” Mayka said, swiveling to see more. Even the trees were stone, and they didn’t budge in the wind. Not a leaf stirred. A stone owl sat on one branch, watching them as they walked by.

  “These all belong to the stonemasons.” Garit waved his arms grandly.

  Si-Si’s red eyes were wide, and she craned her neck right and left, as if she too wanted to see everything all at once. “This is a treasure trove!” Si-Si said. “My keepers had the most extensive collection in our region, but it didn’t compare to this!”

  “I know! It’s magnificent. Can you believe this place was originally set up as a punishment? Look at it now!” Garit said. “When I was a boy, I used to try to climb over the wall to see inside. And then when I was old enough, I’d beg anyone I could think of to let me run errands for them inside the Stone Quarter. That’s how I met Master Siorn. I was delivering chicken necks. He likes them in stews.”

  Mayka thought of their chickens and shuddered. Perhaps they could hide them when Master Siorn came up the mountain. “What do you mean it was a punishment?”

  “Well, after the Stone War, all the stonemasons were rounded up and moved to this part of Skye, and the city council ordered a wall built around the district. For the first few years, stonemasons were only able to leave on the Day of Demonstration, when they had to display everything they’d carved and prove it was all harmless. Over the years, of course, the Day of Demonstration became the Stone Festival, and the wall also keeps tourists from sneaking in to see the miracles before they’re presented. But it still serves its original purpose: keeping new carvings away from people until they’re approved as safe.”

  His story about the Stone Festival was similar to Ilery’s, except hers said it turned into the festival after only one year. It was close enough, though, to make Mayka think the basic story was true.

  “Do you think your master will be willing to help us?” Si-Si asked. “Even though he’s preparing for the festival?”

  “We’re worried about our bird friend,” Mayka explained. “If he could help us—”

  “Master Siorn knows about every stone creature in the quarter. If your friend is here, my master will have heard,” Garit said confidently.

  A few flesh-and-blood men and women were out in front of their mansions, corralling the stone creatures. One woman was loading up a cart, pulled by a stone . . . Mayka didn’t know what it was. It was larger than a bull, with a long nose that looked like a snake and broad ears that looked like leaves. “What is that?” Mayka pointed.

  “That’s an elephant,” Garit said. “She’s debuting him at the festival. Beauty, isn’t he?”

  “He’s huge,” Mayka said. She’d heard a tale once about an elephant and a mouse who become friends with a lion—​it was a silly little fable that Dersy liked. She wondered if a flesh-and-blood elephant would be this enormous.

  “They’re said to live beyond the mountains,” Garit said. “Master Trenna claims he’s strong and gentle and can replace a team of two oxen in a field. She predicts they’ll be very popular after her demonstration at the festival.” He pointed across the street. “That’s Master Suba’s workshop. He’s been working for fifteen years to invent new marks for stone mice that will make them smart enough to solve any maze.”

  Instead of a garden or a lawn, the front of his palatial house was consumed by a stone maze laid into the earth, with walls that wove in intricate patterns. Mayka could see stone mice running back and forth through the maze, navigating the passageways. “But . . . why? Are there a lot of mazes around?”

  “Um, well, no . . . Actually, I don’t really know why. Just that no one’s ever done it before. Stone mice usually figure out mazes at about the same rate as flesh-and-blood mice, because, you know, they’re mice, but Master Suba thinks he can improve their problem-solving skills.”

  “Good for the mice,” Mayka said. How strange it must be to be the one to decide how smart or skilled a creature would be. She glanced at Si-Si. Someone had decided that the dragon was decorative. The stonemason who had carved her could have given her a different story, but he chose to define her by her limitations.

  She’d never thought about it before, but it was a lot of power for one person to have over another. Father chose my story. Opening her palm, she studied the mark of the reading eye. Except this one. She’d asked him to carve it. She considered what that meant. It means I grew. I changed. “What if the mice decide they don’t want to run mazes anymore?”

  “No one’s making them run,” Garit said. “Look at them.”

  She watched the mice race through their passageways, their tiny paws scrabbling on the stone and their tiny noses twitching. She had to admit they did seem to be happy zooming through. They’d make it to one end, pop out, and then dive back in to begin again, as if this was their sole purpose and joy.

  “Up ahead is Master Zillon.” Garit pointed toward a flesh-and-blood man in front of a mansion made of polished black marble. “He specializes in doors.”

  Master Zillon was directing two stone bears, who carried slabs of granite, then leaned them up against a wall. Each slab was a door, elaborately decorated. One had leaves carved all around a man’s face. Another was covered in stone scorpions, their tails poised. As Mayka watched, the scorpions moved, running around the edges of the door.

  “He’s been working nonstop on tons of new designs. That scorpion is one of them—​it will protect your home when you aren’t there. And there’s supposed to be one where the
door knocker can actually leave the door and go tell his keepers who’s there, then return to the door to be ready for the next visitor.”

  “If he can leave the door,” Risa asked, “why would he stay on it?”

  “Because he’s a door knocker,” Garit said, as if that answered everything. “Oh, and look over there! Master Pria is experimenting with legendary creatures too. That will make my master happy. He’s always saying we need to stop limiting ourselves and our imaginations. The laws place enough limits on us already. You should see some of the creatures Master Siorn has carved! Mixes of animals and birds and serpents. No one wants them, of course—​everyone wants ‘practical’ creatures—​but they’re really cool.”

  Mayka saw a woman with two girls dressed the same as Garit—​more apprentices, she guessed. They were helping the woman, Master Pria, subdue a three-headed stone dog. Two heads were already drooping down, as if in submission, but the third was snapping ferociously. The stonemason rapped the snapping head on the nose, and it whined. She scratched behind its ear, and it licked her with its stone tongue, nearly knocking her over.

  “Um, maybe we should walk on the other side of the street, just to be safe,” Si-Si said, trotting away from the three-headed dog.

  “Don’t worry,” Garit said. “Stonemasons haven’t made dangerous creatures since the Stone War. Of course, there are sometimes accidents. Like the Disaster of the Oxen. That was embarrassing. Did you hear about it?”

  Mayka shook her head, continuing to look all around her. Every building here belonged to a stonemason—​each one bore a sign above the main door, etched with its owner’s name—​and each one had its own magnificent wonder. Jacklo could have been distracted by the sights here and gotten himself lost.

  “Risa?” Mayka said in a low voice. “He could be inside any of these houses.”

  Her beak in Mayka’s ear, Risa said, “They’re all too well guarded. I tried a few, but . . .” She shuddered, and her stone feathers clinked as they ruffled together.

  Mayka hoped Garit’s master would be able to ask his neighbors and friends if they’d seen a stray stone bird, though everyone seemed so busy she wondered if anyone would have noticed him. Poor Jacklo!

  Garit had launched into his story already: “. . . the stonemason set about making as many stone oxen as he could. He took on dozens of apprentices and hired even more workers to haul the stone and make the rough cuts. The city of Skye had never seen anything like it. Instead of handcrafted beautiful art, he was churning out creature after identical creature. The stone wasn’t polished, the faces weren’t crafted—​but the farmers coming to the festival wouldn’t care, he thought. They didn’t want art; they wanted their fields plowed.

  “By the time of the Stone Festival, he and his workers had crafted three hundred oxen.”

  Mayka hadn’t imagined there were that many stone creatures in the world. But then, she’d never imagined as many as were in this city either. “Wow.”

  “I know, right? But the problem was, he worked so quickly to be done in time that he was sloppy with the marks. He’d had some workers do it, and they weren’t so skilled, and well . . . the festival came, and everyone rushed to the Festival Square to see all the masterpieces . . . And the oxen panicked. There was a stampede. People lost their lives. Houses were destroyed. As punishment for his carelessness, the stonemason was forced to recarve all three hundred sculptures by himself and then give them to the families he’d hurt. It supposedly took him the rest of his life.”

  “What happened to the oxen?” Mayka asked. When they’d recovered from their panic and realized what they’d done, they must have been heartbroken. “They must have been so upset after going through all of that.”

  “I guess so,” Garit said, as if he’d never considered it. “I don’t know. It happened a long time ago. Anyway, between catastrophes like that and the Stone War, every stonemason knows it’s important to be careful. And that’s why the city council insists we all live in the Stone Quarter, for their protection and ours.” He said it as if she was supposed to know what the Stone War was, but Father had never mentioned any kind of war with stone. She wondered what other common stories she didn’t know. “Master Siorn says we don’t really have to worry so much about obeying the letter of the law—​he says the people will never get rid of us. We make their lives easier, with supplying everything from farm workers who don’t need to be fed to transportation that doesn’t need to rest. But stonemasons still abide by the rules, to be safe.”

  “What kind of rules?” Mayka asked.

  “You know, practical ones,” Garit said. “Like no carving any marks that could hurt people. No making any fighting creatures or giant monsters or anything dangerous like that. We have to show all our work at the Festival, as I said, and we have to live in the Stone Quarter, where new kinds of creatures can be contained until they’re approved at the festival.”

  “What kind of creatures have you carved?” Si-Si asked. “Anyone like me?”

  “No one shaped like you,” Garit said. “But I’ve worked on your kind of stone before. Firestone. It’s amazing stuff. I can show you a snake I made, if you’d like.”

  “I’d be happy to see it,” Si-Si said politely.

  “Snakes are harder than you’d think,” Garit said. “I had to sand it for days and days to get the curves right, and even then it ended up being a little bulgy around the middle, like it just ate a mouse.”

  “Better not let it near Master Suba’s maze,” Mayka said.

  “I don’t think . . . Oh! You were making a joke! You have a sense of humor. Ha! Amazing. I’ve never met a stone girl before, you know. It’s just . . . not done often. People find it unsettling.” He added quickly, “But I don’t think you’re unsettling at all. I think you’re great!”

  “Thanks,” Mayka said, uncertain if she’d just been insulted or complimented. Maybe both, she thought. “So there aren’t any other stone people here?” She was disappointed to hear that. She’d been hoping to meet another like her sometime. She’d imagined there would be lots in the city.

  “Not that I know of,” Garit said. “You can ask Master Siorn, if you’d like. He knows all the stone creatures—”

  “Yes, you said that,” Risa interrupted. “But we’re really only interested in one: Jacklo. Are we there yet?”

  “Just up ahead.” Garit pointed.

  The building was . . . not impressive. Or rather, it was impressively large, but it was also ugly. It was shaped like an eggplant, with a crown of stones for a stem, and its walls were made of a purple stone the likes of which Mayka had never seen. Hemmed in by a stone wall with a gate, the front yard was littered with boulders and chunks of rock with gouges in them, as well as piles of chipped stones and shards, and the backyard was dominated by an enormous domed structure stuck to the rear of the eggplant and towering over its “stem.”

  “There’s nothing like it in all Skye,” Garit said.

  Mayka tried to think of what to say. “I’m . . . sure that’s true.”

  Garit strode toward the gate, which was flanked by two stone lizards clutching a shield. The shield was emblazoned with the stonemason’s sign. Slowing, Garit said to Mayka and her friends, “Master Siorn is as unique as his house, and he’s, um, sometimes very focused on his projects.”

  “We’ll catch his attention,” Risa said. “This is important.”

  Mayka found herself getting nervous. This man could be their answer to everything: finding Jacklo, fixing her friends, helping Si-Si be who she wanted to be. Or he could reject them like almost everyone else in this city had.

  Garit spoke to the lizards. “Hey, it’s me. I’ve brought friends. Can you spread the word they’re not to be trapped, crushed, or mauled?” He shot a look back at Mayka. “Master Siorn values his privacy. He wants to surprise everyone at the festival, so he’s increased security to keep out spies and busybodies. He’ll probably swear you to secrecy once you’re inside. Not that you’ll be able to gue
ss from what’s visible. Don’t go in the back workroom. Front workroom is fine, but the back one, his private workroom, is off-limits to everyone. Also, don’t comment on his hair.”

  Si-Si peeked around Mayka’s legs. “What’s wrong with his hair?”

  “Exactly what you shouldn’t say,” Garit said.

  “What’s in the back workroom?” Mayka asked.

  “Again, not a good idea to ask. Even I don’t know.”

  The stone lizards swung open the gate and stood at attention on either side of it. Garit passed through, and Mayka and Si-Si hurried after him.

  He held up a hand. “Step where I step.”

  Hopping, he jumped from stone to stone. They followed him. There didn’t seem to be any specific reason for why they had to step on one stone versus another. Mayka couldn’t see any marks on them.

  On the third stone, Si-Si’s back foot slipped, and her claws touched the next stone.

  “Down!” Garit shouted.

  Mayka ducked, and several rocks flew over her head and smashed against a boulder. She heard chittering, like angry squirrels.

  “Stop it!” Garit called. “These are friends!”

  A stone face peeked over one of the boulders. It looked like an otter’s face, with stone whiskers etched in its cheeks and bright sapphire eyes inset above them. “Aw, Garit, let us have a little fun! Come on, Garit!” A second stone otter joined the first. “Yeah, they stepped out of line! That means they’re ours to play with!” A third popped up and barked, “Play, play, play!” A fourth and then a fifth appeared.

  “Your idea of play leaves scars.” Garit flipped up his hair to show a finger-long mark near his ear. “Go back to hide-and-seek!”

  “Yes, yes, yes! I hide; you seek,” one otter said.

  “No, I hide; you seek,” the second said.

  “We all hide,” the third said.

  “Yes, all hide,” the first otter agreed, and then all five dropped down behind the boulders out of sight.