The lake lies silver in the bright light of the noon sun, not a perfect oblong like a looking glass, but amorphous like an ink-splat on starched white paper. It is a mirror of the surrounding coniferous trees, with a surface as smooth as glass. A fresh, earthy, pine scent floats in the air. The weeping willow, the wispy clouds above, all become a Monet. The landscape is a painting of dappled, impressionist brush strokes of muted hues from snow-pea green to silvers with blue undertones. Your eyes gaze to where the sun-speckled water blends into the horizon, where blue meets blue. You and your brother used to love to come here to play, escaping the frenetic movement of the rest of the world.

At age 15, your brother, Caleb, still wants to compete with skipping stones against you, even though you are two years younger. He still enjoys the glory of beating his lesser, still enjoys destroying your pride.

He picks up a stone and tosses it into the water. As the stone skips across its surface, the radiating ripples catch the sunlight.

After three skips the stone sinks; then once again the lake looks like glass, making you picture gliding on its cold surface in your socks.

Caleb keeps skipping stones while you look down at the sea of slippery, glistening pebbles of various sizes. It is a difficult task, finding the perfect one. Each one is a different hue of gray, brown, and black. Some are streaked; others are marbled.

After a few minutes of searching, your back is already aching, so you sit down and watch your brother.

He’s squinting his eyes, spinning the stone off with the exact coordination, like the expert he is. The dark gray stone dives into the clear water with a little splash, sending ripples in ever-widening circles each time it skips. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Nine times. Nine skips. “Score!” your brother hoots, throwing his hands up into the air in triumph, and runs over the rocky shore to you.

“Try to beat that,” he gloats with a smug smile.

“Nine skips? Even a five-year-old could do that,” you say.

“Prove it,” your brother says. You’re lying, and he knows it. The highest number of skips you’ve made is two.

You look back at the stones, and you feel defeated already. You go on all fours and start picking stone after stone, pebble after pebble. You don’t even know what a perfect skipping stone is. You only know that you want to beat your older brother.

A stab of pain scorches your right thumb as the sharp edge of a rock slices it. You wince and suck your thumb to release the stinging pain. Your mouth tingles as the metallic taste of blood blooms. When you draw your thumb back, you see tiny droplets of dark crimson starting to seep from the fresh cut, blotching your pale skin. It hurts, but no matter. You have to beat your brother. You pick up another rock, and the cut stings again. This stone is flat. Holding it feels like you’re holding a sand dollar. It is speckled gray with a white streak in the center. Smooth. No cracks. It is the one.

You rub your good thumb thoroughly against the smooth surface. The rock is almost too perfect to skip. Too perfect to throw into a pool of water, breaking the surface, disturbing the eerily calm setting with its splash, where it will sink slowly, eventually lying amidst millions of other stones just like it.

And it will lie there, for years, centuries, millennia, until it resurfaces onto the rocky shore where you had found it.

How do stones skip, exactly, you wonder? How do they move so speedily at shrinking lengths across the body of water before surrendering, sinking down to their ends? Almost like a deer trying to escape. Leaping into the air before landing swiftly on the surface, galloping away. Each jump done precisely, with a strange, almost incalculable rhythm. Each beat, each skip of the rhythm like the flashing of the white tail of the galloping deer. Each skip’s sharp sound gently fades away, like the sound of hooves pounding into the distance. An echo on the water. Skip. Then the stone is into the air again. Skip. And then it disappears into the water’s open arms.

“What are you waiting for, Abby? Stop standing there like a moron,” your brother jeers.

You try to ignore him, but the words still sting. You try to resist, but your feet start moving toward the edge of the water, your hand still clutching the light gray stone.

Your brother looks at you, a sneer across his face, a look of triumph. That he had won, that you would fail, that the rock would not skip even once, but instead plunk itself stubbornly into the water and sink to the bottom.

But no, you could not let him have that. You could not; you would not, let him have his win, his victory.

You grip the perfect, smooth, dry, skipping stone with your right hand, the one you had cut. You take a last look at it and with all your attention and might, let it fly out of your grasp. You realize you have flung too hard, but it is too late. The cut stings. You hold your breath. All you can do now is wait.

Expecting it to disappear into the water, you look away, not wanting to see your brother’s gloating face. You wait for him to mock you with his sardonic voice for saying that nine skips was nothing.

But instead, you hear him let out a little “whoa.”

You turn your head back to the sparkling water, and watch the stone move like a deer, swiftly and flawlessly, across the smooth glass surface, barely creating any ripples. The stone jumps into the air with each ascent, then dips down to lightly kiss the water and release, creating a bouncing path by which the stone threads sky into water.

Four. Five.

Your brother isn’t sneering anymore. He isn’t gloating anymore. He has a different look on his face. What is it? Anger? Jealousy?

Eight. Nine.

You have reached his level. You are tied. It doesn’t matter if your stone sinks right at that moment, that blip of time. You have won. You look at your brother. He looks surprised. Yes, that was it – definitely jealousy. Maybe even regret.

The stone keeps going.

Ten. 

As you watch it, almost in slow motion, the eleventh skip, the stone does not go farther. There is a splash. A splash of water. Just a tiny one, but it is still a splash. Specks of water fly a few centimeters into the air; white foam rises. Then all is quiet.

The water settles. The ripples disappear. The surface is as smooth as ever.

And your stone, your perfect stone, is gone.