The Stone Girl's Story

by Sarah Beth Durst

  “We’ll keep you blameless,” Mayka said. “Take me into the Stone Quarter, and then bring Master Siorn back here. Stay with him the entire time. That way, he can’t blame you, because you’ll have been with him.”

  “That’s brilliant,” Garit said.

  “Thank you.”

  She waited while he looked at her.

  “So you’ll help us?” Jacklo chirped from within the basket.

  Garit jumped. “Um, yeah.”

  “You’re about to be heroic,” Si-Si said from within the bag. “You should say yes with more conviction.”

  “Yes, I’ll help you.”

  So many people and stone creatures were at the entrance to the Stone Quarter that there was a line that wound around the corner. Keeping her head down, Mayka held her basket tight to her chest as they shuffled forward in the line until they reached the guard. “Apprentice Garit,” Garit said. “This is Apprentice . . . Bird. She’s with me.”

  It wasn’t the same guard as before, Mayka was relieved to see. This man had tufts of hair on his head, as if he’d torn out other clumps. He looked overwhelmed by the flood of people coming in and out through his gate. “Yes, yes, move along. Keep it moving.”

  In the Stone Quarter itself, there was chaos everywhere as stonemasons and their workers rushed to prepare. Mayka slipped closer to one of the houses, hoping to blend in with the various apprentices, while Garit went to persuade Master Siorn to join him on the festival stage.

  Hidden in the crowd, Mayka watched as a stonemason tried to push a stone ox onto a cart. The ox didn’t budge. Instead it stood still, watching a butterfly that flitted over a flowering bush. The woman looped a rope around the ox’s neck and pulled, but it didn’t work. She called over three helpers, and they all pulled.

  The ox swung his head over lazily to look at them, then returned to studying the butterfly. At last, the stonemason called to the workers to stop. She asked for something from one of them—​Mayka was too far away to see what—​but the worker produced a cloth, which the woman then wrapped around the ox’s eyes.

  The ox walked docilely onto the cart.

  Would these people recognize that the obedience mark was evil?

  Or would they just see that it made their work easier?

  I have to stop Master Siorn, she thought.

  If she didn’t, every stone creature here—​every stone creature everywhere—​would be in danger. She watched Master Siorn’s house anxiously, hoping he’d come out soon. If Garit couldn’t distract him . . . If she couldn’t change the marks . . .

  At last Mayka heard a tweet overhead as a gray bird flew low—​a signal from Risa. Mayka stepped behind a cart and watched through the slats as Master Siorn and Garit strode away toward the exit of the Stone Quarter.

  She darted across the street and danced over the stones, ducking beneath the otters’ rocks. “Kisonan,” she called through the door, “we came back.”

  The rock rolled open, and the griffin filled the doorway. “You took a great risk in returning,” Kisonan said, in a tone that implied he didn’t approve.

  “I made you a promise.”

  He snorted, and she expected him to send her away or at least argue. But he didn’t. “There is limited time. You must begin.”

  She nodded and hurried to the workroom. I hope I can do this. So far, she’d carved only Jacklo. She wasn’t sure she could carve the griffin the same way, since their stories were different. But I have to try.

  She set down the basket with Jacklo and then lowered the pack with Si-Si to the ground. The little dragon emerged. “Hello again,” she said.

  Kisonan humphed. “You all took a great risk.”

  Mayka found the tools she’d need. The griffin stood still, his chest out and his wings displayed. She studied his marks. This . . . looked possible. “If I change the left curve . . .” It should be a much simpler alteration than she’d had to do on Jacklo, primarily due to the size and placement of the mark.

  The griffin’s story said he was noble. It retold a tale of a long-ago prince who had become lost. Beset by wolves, with winter snows on their way, the little boy should have died, but a wild creature—​part lion and part eagle—​defended and protected him. Kisonan is loyal, brave, and strong, the story read. He defends his prince. And then: He obeys Master Siorn. Mayka understood why Kisonan had felt so offended. It wasn’t just that the obedience mark took away free will, but he was already loyal—​to have that questioned must have hurt his pride.

  “Carve quickly,” Kisonan said. “There are others who wish for your services.”

  Glancing at the workroom door, she saw several stone creatures had crowded inside.

  “Master Siorn gave no order against this,” Kisonan said smugly.

  She smiled. “Si-Si, can you tell them that I’ll help them all? And Risa, can you please fly outside and watch for Master Siorn? I’ll carve as fast as I can.”

  And then she got to work.

  Taking up her chisel, she reshaped the curve that formed the stonemason’s name and added several more strokes so that it now read He obeys his conscience.

  The next creature, an otter, rushed in and jumped onto the workbench. “Me next!” He lifted one arm to show his mark, neatly tucked beneath it. Changing this one would be a little trickier because of the ripples in the stone that served as his fur.

  “Your story says you were born playing and laughing.” She touched the marks. “You’re an acrobat of the river who once made the fish laugh so hard that they fell onto the shore and fed a family of flesh-and-fur otters for an entire winter. You came to land with your family to—” And here the stonemason had written his obedience mark. She set about changing it from “obey” to “lead” and linked it to the mark for laugh, obscuring the stonemason’s name. “To lead them in laughter,” she finished.

  Grinning hugely, he hugged her, and the next otter scurried up, replacing him on the workbench.

  “Watch for Master Siorn’s return,” the griffin instructed the second otter as Mayka finished her. “We will not have forever.” The two completed otters scampered away to stand guard as Mayka sank herself into her work on the rest of the creatures.

  She wasn’t a master carver, or even an apprentice, but she could make the simple lines that were required to alter the words. The more marks she did, the better she got at carving them.

  On one of the lizards who guarded the gate and had a story that spoke of stubbornness, she changed the mark to “obeys his own wishes.” On the other, whose story told of loyalty, she made it “obeys his own heart.” She wanted to give each creature its own unique tale, so that its revised story would mesh with all its old stories.

  “Speed, little storyteller,” Kisonan said. “You must finish.”

  On one mishmash creature, after a string of marks that talked of his love of silence, she made the obedience mark a part of his past but not his future. On another, she read about his love of the kitchen and preparing food—​on him, there was enough room to add the mark for choosing so she wrote he could choose to obey or not. He could follow his love of cooking, or find another passion if he wanted.

  The workroom was hazy with stone dust that floated in the air, and the sound of chisel on stone filled her ears. She grew used to the feel of the hammer and the way the impact shook her arm.

  The griffin paced back and forth in the workroom, while the others watched either her or the door.

  At last the final stone creature was done.

  Her fingers ached, as if she’d been battering them against a wall. “You’re all invited to come with us to the mountains—​my family would welcome you. Or you can go wherever you want in the valley, or even beyond the valley. But we need to leave now, before Master Siorn returns. We’ll tell the guard that we’re all going to the Festival Square, and then we’ll head for the gate to the city.”

  “We are not leaving,” Kisonan said. “Master Siorn cannot be permitted to carve the obedience mark on any other
creature, and he cannot be permitted to share his invention with any other stonemason. We must stop this abomination from spreading.”

  The two otters who weren’t already on guard bobbed their heads in unison.

  I know he’s right, Mayka thought. It wasn’t enough just to free these creatures. Master Siorn could simply carve the mark onto a new creature and show it at the Stone Festival. And if other flesh people learned that the mark worked, all stone creatures throughout the valley would be in danger. “But how do we stop him?”

  Kisonan opened his beak and shut it. The other creatures whispered to one another. A few whimpered, and the octopus coiled his tentacles as if trying to curl into a ball.

  Sticking his head out of the basket, Jacklo piped up. “Maybe we could trick him?”

  All of them looked at him.

  Before he could explain, an otter raced into the workroom. “He’s coming back!”

  Chapter

  Twenty-One

  The griffin turned to Jacklo. “Trick him how?”

  “Make everyone think it didn’t work,” Jacklo said. “The obedience mark. He’s going to demonstrate it at the festival, right? In front of everyone? Make them all think it failed. Make him look foolish. Then no one will believe him, and no one will believe the mark could ever work.”

  Everyone gawked at the bird.

  “Jacklo, that’s a great idea!” Mayka said.

  Kisonan nodded. “Indeed, if we—”

  Squawking three short chirps and one long, Risa swooped through the door. “Why are you still here? Get out, get out! He comes! He’s on the path! In seconds, he’ll be inside.”

  “Is there a back door?” Mayka asked.

  “There is not,” Kisonan said.

  “We’ll hide you,” one of the mishmash creatures said. They scurried around her, and Mayka scooped up Jacklo in the basket and hurried with them. Si-Si hurried alongside her. She heard Kisonan shuffle toward the front door to greet Master Siorn, and she ran down the hall.

  “Here, here, here,” the creatures whispered as they shoved her into the pantry. Clutching the basket with Jacklo, she wedged herself between a barrel of potatoes and a stack of plates, and Si-Si squeezed in with her. She was sure Risa would have the sense to hide herself.

  They listened as Master Siorn stomped into the house. He shouted for Garit to join him in the private workroom, all the while bemoaning the amount of work that needed to be finished before tomorrow’s festival. Then he called for food to be delivered to the workroom and for no other disruptions. “Garit, what are you waiting for, boy? Grab your chisel and carve!”

  She heard Garit’s voice: “But it’s your masterpiece! You want me to carve—”

  “Yes, yes, you’re skilled enough, and I don’t have the luxury of complete secrecy anymore. There’s no more time! I must be ready to reveal my masterpiece as soon as I’ve won over the public, so that all can see the glory that an unrestricted stonemason can accomplish. Join me, my boy, and be a part of history!”

  “But, Master Siorn—”

  “Enough, boy. Come! This is the most important moment of my career, and I will not have the day ruined because I didn’t finish in time due to your dithering.”

  Your day will be ruined anyway, Mayka thought. We will ruin it.

  She heard a door slam, and then she waited. In a few moments, one of the stone otters sped into the kitchen. “He wants lunch!”

  The mishmash creatures sprang into action. Chattering to one another, they stoked the fire, sliced vegetables, and began preparing a soup.

  Mayka came out of her hiding place, but stayed close to it in case she had to dive back in. Jacklo poked his head out over the lip of the basket and said, “Hey, you don’t have to obey anymore, remember?”

  One of the creatures paused, uncertain.

  “It’s okay,” Mayka told them. “Just make lunch. We don’t want Master Siorn to get suspicious before the festival begins.” But it was a little worrying that they’d leapt so quickly to obey. Was it force of habit, or had she carved them wrong? Maybe it just takes time for their new stories to sink in, she thought.

  “So what do we do at the festival?” the otter asked. “How do we trick him? We don’t even know what he has planned!”

  Kisonan appeared in the kitchen doorway and squeezed himself inside. “I do. He intends to use a number of us in his performance, making us perform a variety of tasks that anyone with common sense would balk at.”

  “Oh no,” one of the mishmash creatures moaned.

  “What do we do?” another asked.

  “Refuse,” Mayka said. “Show the audience that the mark doesn’t work.”

  Kisonan nodded. “Wait until the audience is as large as possible, and then reject his orders. He’ll be undone. No one will take anything he says seriously. If his humiliation is severe enough, the city council could revoke his stonemason badge. He could be forbidden from ever carving another creature.”

  The octopus waved his tentacles nervously. “But are you sure it will work?”

  “He’s trying to tell a story about how he’s created an obedience mark,” Mayka said. “But we’re telling the story about how the mark doesn’t work. Once that story spreads, no one will believe the obedience mark is real. He’ll be the fool of the tale, not the heroic brilliant genius he thinks he is.”

  “I love it.” One of the otters sighed happily.

  “Yes,” Kisonan said, “this is what we’ll do. This time, we will shape the story.”

  Dawn plucked with prying fingers at the kitchen windows. At Master Siorn’s command, all the stone creatures assembled in the front yard, while Mayka stayed behind, hidden with Jacklo in the kitchen—​they’d slip out once everyone was gone.

  “Do you think it will work?” Jacklo asked, after they were alone.

  Yes. Maybe. “He’s trying to sell a story to the crowd,” Mayka said. “We’re going to change the story halfway through. It will work.” I hope. If I carved them well enough.

  “They’ve gone now,” Si-Si reported.

  Mayka crept out of the pantry and hurried through the empty house. She took a hammer and chisel with her, tucking them into the pockets of Ilery’s dress.

  “Into the pack and basket,” she told Jacklo and Si-Si. “Let’s go.”

  Outside, carrying her friends, she joined the crowd surging from the Stone Quarter to the Festival Square. People and stone creatures were everywhere, decked out in their finery. Flesh people wore bright colors and flowery hats, and stone creatures wore ribbons around their necks and had pompoms dangling from their stone ears. Mayka lost herself in the crowd, and for a moment, she forgot why she was there. She’d never been to a festival of any kind before. She felt as if she’d plunged into sparkles. Everywhere, color. Every moment, music and laughter. The joy swept away all worries.

  Almost.

  All these flesh people . . . If they knew about the mark, what would they think? What would they do? If we fail, will the mountain be far enough to be safe?

  Throughout the Festival Square, musicians played, and dancers and acrobats performed. Vendors sold food from carts, and flesh people lined up to buy it. Flesh-and-feathers birds scavenged near them, scooping up treats that people had dropped, and Mayka thought she saw Risa hidden among them.

  At last she found her way to the festival stages and stood with the crowd to watch.

  On one stage was a stonemason who claimed she’d created the most delicate and exquisite carvings ever imagined. As she unveiled her creations, the crowd gasped, and Mayka gasped too. In the center of the stage was a fountain in which she’d carved water out of stone. It was motionless, frozen, but every droplet, carved of translucent blue stone, was linked to another in a detailed chain. Stone fish leapt through the water—​they were made of orange and milky white stone.

  On a second stage was a stonemason with a collection of stone cats. They were draped around his stage, and the audience laughed as the cats refused to come when he called
, exactly like flesh-and-fur cats, and he bowed after they refused, showing it was all a part of the act.

  Mayka wished they’d found one of these stonemasons instead. But then we wouldn’t have known to stop Master Siorn. And he must be stopped. She inched closer through the crowd to Master Siorn’s stage. She caught a glimpse of Garit scurrying back and forth, and she saw the otters clustered by the stairs, hugging one another. Standing on her tiptoes, she tried to get a better view.

  A vendor walked past her and shoved a bag of roasted corn kernels under her nose. “Roast corn! Get your fresh roast corn!”

  “No, thank you.” She scooted away. At least her disguise was holding.

  “What’s happening?” Jacklo asked, his voice muffled from his basket.

  “Nothing yet,” Mayka said.

  “I want to see! Let me fly up with Risa!”

  “I don’t want to risk you breaking again.” He should be healed by now—​it had been another day, but she had enough to worry about with Kisonan and the other creatures.

  Muttering, he settled back down.

  “What was that?” she asked him, but before he could reply, she saw Master Siorn mounting the steps up onto the platform. “Never mind. Shhh!”

  He was dressed in jewels: sewn onto his robes, strung onto necklaces, and circling his head. His ridiculous hair was laced with them. Garnets, rubies, amethysts. He looked as if he’d leapt into a vat of gems. Standing in the center of his stage, the stonemason spread his arms wide.

  “Hello and welcome!” he boomed. “I am Master Siorn, stonemason extraordinaire!”

  Most of the audience ignored him. They continued chatting, eating, and watching dancers, acrobats, and whatever shiny event caught their eye. One lone man on a stage wasn’t enough to attract their attention, even with all his sparkle.

  “Today you will see miracles! Miracles that will change life as you know it. Have you ever had an ox who refused to plow? Have you ever wondered if you could trust your child’s stone nanny? Have your home and your loved ones ever been at risk because of an inattentive guard?” A few people nodded along with him. “What if your stone creature were utterly devoted to your family? What if you could ensure it obeyed your every command?”