Mayka looked at her friends: the birds, the animals, the fish, all her father’s creations. She felt a lurch inside of her that she couldn’t name. Sooner rather than later, we’ll all stop, she thought. Just like Turtle.

I can’t let that happen.

“I think . . .” she said slowly, the idea taking shape, “we need a new stonemason.” As she said the words, she felt them roll around in her mouth and in her head, and they felt right. The birds began to squawk, and the animals muttered and chittered to one another. Yes, that’s what we need, she decided. A stonemason, like Father! A stonemason could recarve their marks, maybe even awaken Turtle and the sleeping fish! And then everything would go back to the way it was supposed to be.

Fluttering his feathers, Jacklo chirped, “But, Mayka, we don’t know any! We don’t know anyone. How can we—”

Mayka stood up on the rock, beside the pond, and looked beyond the garden, toward the pine forest and the valley below. She balled her hands into fists and tried to sound brave. “I’m going to find one.”

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 Chapter 1 

“NO KITTEN IS THAT SMALL,” the text from Harrison read.

Zoe texted back, “Smaller than my hand.” She crouched next to the tiny ball of fluff. Shivering, it had wedged itself between the trash can and the garage door. Zoe had spotted it when she’d dumped a bag of crumpled wrapping paper and used party plates into the can.

She cooed at the kitten, “It’s okay. Don’t be scared. You’ll be all right.” Checking around the garage, she searched for a mother cat or any other kittens, but didn’t see anything. She heard the chirp of crickets, cars on a distant highway, and the hum of her family’s voices through the open window of the brightly lit kitchen. But no meows.

Her phone binged with a one-word text: “Photoshop.”

“If Photoshop,” Zoe typed, “kitten would be riding a velociraptor.”

Bing. “Sweet.” Then: “Still Photoshop.”

“Come see.”

“Busy.”

She sent him an eye-roll emoji. He wasn’t busy. She knew for a fact that he was camping in his backyard, next to her own, and that he was most likely “busy” separating the raisins from the M&M’s in a bag of trail mix. Laying her hand flat, palm up, she waited as the kitten stuck out its little pink nose and sniffed her fingers. Zoe whispered, “Let me help you.”