A boy discovers a pearl in the ocean, and adds it to a ring he made for his girlfriend. One night, a bird steals the pearl and carries it back to its nest, where a cat finds it. For the pearl, a long journey begins that will take it from a queen’s crown to a maple syrup bottle by way of a salmon’s belly. By the end of the book, the pearl has found its way back to the boy, who has become an old man. Astonished, he puts the pearl back in the handmade ring and offers it to the woman he is still in love with after all these years.