The Stone

Audio: Louise Erdrich reads.

Her family drove north every summer to stay at the end of an island in cold Lake Superior, and it was there that she found the stone. It wasn’t on the beach, where stones are usually found, but in the woods. She was wandering in the brush behind the cabin, uncurling ferns, kicking up leaves, snapping the heads off mushrooms. She sat down beside a birch clump, and after a few moments her neck prickled. She had the distinct feeling that someone was staring at her. Looking around, she saw the stone. It was black and rounded, nestled in the crotch of the birch clump. Water had scoured two symmetrical hollows into the stone, giving it an owlish look, or a blind look, or, anyway, some quality that was oddly attractive. At first, she was startled and a little spooked, but then she ran her hand over the stone and it felt like a normal stone. It was about half the size of a human skull and very smooth. The girl’s mother called to her, and she got up, holding the stone, and carried it into the cabin. At first, she put it beside her pallet in the bedroom she shared with her siblings. But then, thinking that her brothers or her sister might take the stone, she tucked it right at the bottom of her sleeping bag. That night, her feet rested on the cool curve of the stone, and she brushed the smooth eye sockets with her toes.

After a month, the family got ready to return to the city, and the girl put the stone in her backpack, which she kept at her feet for the whole long drive. She did not let anyone else handle her pack, and when she got home she went straight to her room, took the stone out, and set it on her nightstand, where there was also a digital clock and a pile of books. She was old enough now to say good night to her mother and father before entering her room. They did not sit by her bed to read to her anymore. She took her own laundry downstairs as well. Her mother was not the type to go through her children’s rooms often, or to clean for them, so school had started by the time her mother noticed the stone.

She mentioned it at dinner. “That rock by your bed looks like it came from the island. Did you find it there?”

The girl nodded, but her mother’s remark gave her an uneasy feeling, and that night she put the stone at the bottom of her least used drawer. As she fell asleep, she could picture it, nestled among her summer T-shirts and shorts, which would not be disturbed all winter. She was happy just knowing that it was there, and for months the drawer seemed the best place for it. She might have kept it in the drawer indefinitely, if it weren’t for something that occurred at school.

There was a boy named Vic, who often acted up in order to get attention. One day, during art class, the girl felt a little tug at the end of her ponytail, and looked around to see that Vic had used his art scissors to snip off a piece of her dark hair. He dangled the lock from his fingers and grinned at her. But she said nothing. She was frozen, staring at her hair. He made a move to hide the hair, but she found her voice and told him to drop it. She snatched the lock as it left his fingers and balled it up in her fist. At this point, the teacher noticed that something was going on and asked the girl what was in her hand. When the teacher saw the hair, she said that cutting your own hair was the sort of behavior most children had outgrown long ago, and she would have to write a note to her parents.

Her mother was mystified. “Why did you do that?”

Her father lectured her about the beauty of hair.

That night, she put the little clump of severed hair into one of the empty hollows in the face of the stone. As soon as she’d done this, she was flooded with a sense of peace and relief. The entire incident ceased to matter, though she had been terribly upset by it before. She breathed out and laughed as she closed the drawer. It was nothing at all.

After that, whenever something happened to upset her, the girl would go to the stone. She would sit on the bed with the stone in her lap, stroking it, until her agitation subsided. As she got older, in the most difficult of times, to calm herself, she would take the stone into the bathroom with her and set it on the edge of the tub while she soaked. One night, as she lay in the hot water, she became acutely aware of the stone. The smooth, empty scoops in its face seemed profoundly interested in her. A gentle, thrilling ripple spread through her body. After a while, she took the stone into the water with her and held it on her chest, then slid it down her body until it rested, heavily, between her legs. There was the weight and the pressure of the stone and the heat of the water. She put her hand on the stone and pushed against it. Then she put the stone back on the edge of the tub and closed her eyes.

The boy, Vic, made the varsity basketball team; in fact, he was a starter, and the most popular girls followed him home. One night, however, he called the girl and asked her to go out with him. She did. They went to a movie, and in the darkness he took her hand. His palm sweat unpleasantly, but she did not move her hand, although she wanted to. Later, he drove her home in his family car, which had a child’s car seat in the back and smelled of peanuts and other food eaten while driving. He parked the car outside her house and bent toward her. His breath was hot and he panted like a dog, she thought, but she put up with the kissing. He took a strand of her hair between his fingers and whispered something in her ear. He said that she was different from all the other girls, more loyal, because she’d never told on him for cutting her hair with his art scissors. She, too, had never forgotten the incident. Gently, she tugged her hair from his fingers.

A Boy Scout troop leader holds a carrot over a flame.

Cartoon by Glen Baxter