She held out her arm and twisted it in the sunlight to look at her marks. Father had carved her last, using every scrap of skill that he, the finest stonemason in the world, possessed to create a living stone girl. But even on her, the edges of her marks had begun to dull and the lines were less distinct, with curves in the symbols instead of sharp corners.

Jacklo landed on the rocks by one of the streams that fed the pond. He had a smear of dirt on his cheek and a sprig of leaves wedged between his stone feathers. He must have been playing in the woods again, instead of flying directly home. “Mayka, why were you planting flowers by Turtle?”

His sister, a stone bird named Risa, fluttered down beside him and smacked him with her wing. It clinked, the sound of stone hitting stone. “You bothered her this morning, didn’t you?”

“Ow! And no. Well, yes, but no. She didn’t want to be alone.”

“She specifically said she wanted to be alone!”

Jacklo preened his feathers with his beak until they lay flat again, like slate tiles on a roof, perfectly ordered. “She was alone with me.”

“That’s not what that word means,” Risa said, then her voice softened. “Mayka, you said you wanted to say goodbye, but you didn’t, did you? Did you give Turtle flowers? Oh, Mayka, you know he can’t see them anymore.” Hopping closer, she laid the tip of her wing gently, comfortingly on Mayka’s hand.

Looking away, Mayka didn’t know how to answer her. It had just . . . felt right to do. Just like visiting him every day felt right. He was still part of the family, even if he slept.

“She’s been telling him stories too,” Jacklo added. “I heard her yesterday. She tried to read his story but couldn’t, so she read him hers. Mayka, will you read us your story? Please, pretty please, with pinecones on top?”

Mayka studied her arm. Each mark on it was a piece of a story. Combined, they made her. If they rubbed away, like Turtle’s . . . She didn’t want to think about it. “How about I tell you one of Father’s favorite stories instead?” she asked Jacklo. A story would make everyone feel better. Including me, she thought. “Once upon a time . . .”

Jacklo danced on the rock. “She’s telling one! Everybody, come!”

“There was a little boy who was lonely. His mother and father worked hard in the city, and he was alone all day, every day. His house was too far from other houses for him to have any friends to play with, and he had no brothers or sisters. His only friend was a rock that sat in the middle of his family’s garden.”

The stone rabbits, Dersy and Harlisona, hopped over to the pond to listen.