Stoneheart

Flash-Fiction - by Jen Mierisch

She was six the first time I saw her climb out of the canyon and cross the fields. As I sat up, pebbles tumbled down from my sides, and a dislodged bobcat sprang off my shoulder to scurry up the mountain behind me.

She approached with her head thrown back and her mouth agape, as many did at the sight of a woman made of stone.

I smiled and reached my hand gently down. She hopped onto it without hesitation, eyes wide as I lifted her up to sit on my lap, hands reaching out to touch the green fronds that covered my gown.

“You’re warm!” she said.

“I come from deep in the earth. It is warm there,” I explained.

“Like lava?”

“Sort of.”

Her pony-tailed hair was the color of tree bark after rain. Her face, like the moon, gazed up at mine.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“I do not have a name,” I said. “If you want, you can call me Carry.”

“That’s a nice name,” she said. “My name is Suzanne. You can call me Annie.”

A tooth was missing from her smile.

“I like you, Miz Carry.”

“I like you, too.”

She nestled in, tugging ferns around herself like a blanket.

“My mama is gone,” she said.

“I know.”

“Are you a giant?”

“Yes.”

“Why are you made of stone?”

“Because I hold a lot of people, like I’m holding you right now. And I have to last a long time.”

“How long?”

“Until people don’t need me anymore.”

We sat a while, watching the mist roll past.

“I have to go now,” she said. “Can I come back and see you again?”

“Any time.”

Lowering my hand again, I watched her spring off and scamper across the grass.

“I miss my mama,” Annie said the next time.

“What things do you miss about her?”

“How she would sing me songs, when I couldn’t get to sleep.”

“I can do that,” I said, and I sang her my favorite. For a moment, the asters spread their blooms wider, and the lynx stopped stalking its prey, resting among the snapdragons with its head on its paws.

“That was a good song, Miz Carry,” Annie said.

We watched the seagulls swoop and glide.

“Is Mama coming back?” she asked.

“No.”

“Why did she leave?”

“Because she had to. Her body was sick. She didn’t want to go.”

“How do you know?”

“She told me,” I said. “I held her, just like I’m holding you.”

“She was here?”

“Yes. Before she died. She talked about everything she didn’t want to leave behind. Mostly she talked about you.”

Annie watched two birds dive and twirl. Pinching a fallen feather in my fingertips, I stroked her hair with it.

“After we come apart, we become something new,” I said, sliding a hand along the shore, letting sand slip through my fingers.

“Tessa says you’re not real,” Annie said indignantly. “I told her she was stupid.”

I adjusted my gown to cover her bare feet.

“I hate Tessa. I’m only staying with her until my Aunt Heather comes. Aunt Heather will tell her she’s wrong.”

She grabbed a stick and snapped it in half.

“Tessa called my daddy a bad name. She said he was junky and that’s why he can’t take care of me. It’s mean to call somebody trash!”

I brushed away her tears with blades of grass.

“Your daddy misses your mama too,” I said. “It hurts. He took too much medicine for the pain.”

“Did he come see you, too?”

I looked across the fields. “Remember that canyon you walked through, on the way here?”

“It’s freezing down there,” she said. ​”The wind howls so loud. But I could hear you singing.”

“Your daddy is there,” I said. “He’s having a hard time finding his way out.”

“Can I help him?”

I bowed my head.

“No.”

Annie was seven now. She was smiling today, braiding flowers into a crown.

“Aunt Heather didn’t have any kids. But now she has me,” she said. “She changed the den into my bedroom. Next month I’m going to a new school. She has a dog as big as me!”

I smiled.

“Do you have a pet, Miz Carry?”

“Not really. I let the goats climb on my shoulders sometimes.”

“You should get a pet goat. And I know what you should name it!” she said.

“What?”

“Rocky!” She burst into giggles.

I would not see her again for a long time.

I settled, adjusting my robes, to wait for her father. I could see him, at the edge of the canyon, scratching his way over the rocks.

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