“Where were you?”
Kallie’s father stood in the narrow doorway. He was tall and lean and wore a perfectly pressed pinstripe suit, accentuating his height. His hair, slick against his skull, was like black glass.
In contrast, Grandpa Jess was a burly, bearded barrel. He wore nothing but faded flannel and well-worn denim. His hair was like a dandelion gone to seed. Kallie worried a good, strong wind might one day blow it right off his head.
She raised an eyebrow at Grandpa Jess in an I told you so expression. She closed the umbrella, shook it twice, and then climbed the porch steps to their green-shuttered foursquare in the heart of town.
The neighborhood was known as the Five Sisters because its primary streets were Caroline, Catherine, Charlotte, Margaret, and Marian. Legend had it the streets were named after the five daughters of the original developer, though no one—not even local historians—could confirm or deny the claim. This didn’t matter to Kallie, for legends were stories, and stories were lies.
Grandpa Jess had bought the house decades ago, immediately after he married Grandma Geneviève, whom he called Gem. He never moved, not even after she died. Kallie’s father returned to the house with Kallie when she was very young. It was right after The Writer had drowned.
Grandpa Jess cleared his throat. “You’re early.”
“And you’re one hour, seven minutes, and thirty-two seconds late.” Her father held the screen door open, his eyes steely behind his dark-rimmed glasses.
“We were at the festival,” said Kallie, adjusting her matching eye gear.
“For a short time…” added Grandpa. He offered a sheepish grin.
Kallie shook the last drips and drops from her umbrella and leaned it against the dull white siding. It was no longer raining, but the air was still a heavy slate-gray.
“The festival? Of Fools?” Kallie’s father stepped aside and let them pass. The screen door slammed behind. He gave Kallie a peck on the cheek, then eyed Grandpa. “Waste of time and money.”
Victor Jones was in charge of risk management at Lake Champlain Insurance, which meant he was re–sponsible for calculating calamity. What were the exact chances a person would be struck by lightning or lose a limb to a rogue shark? What were the precise odds a library would implode? How likely would it be that a meteor would plummet from the sky and land directly on top of the local laundromat?
Most people disliked contemplating dreadful things, so they underestimated the likelihood of such things happening. Luckily, Victor Jones was on the job. He knew tragedy could strike at any moment, and just like Kallie, his motto was: Be prepared.
Kallie removed her boots. She arranged them in perfect order on the mat so they would not leak onto the old pine floor. “I warned him you’d be mad. He didn’t listen.”
Victor Jones sighed. “Does he ever?” He picked up the shoes Grandpa Jess had flung haphazardly and lined them up as well. “And I wasn’t mad. Just worried.”
“The festival was fun,” said Grandpa, shaking his hair, spraying droplets of rain. “You do remember what fun is, don’t you, Victor?”
Kallie’s father scowled. He wiped the drips from his cheeks and jacket sleeves. “There’s enough nonsense in the world. Kallie doesn’t need you exposing her to even more.”
“Don’t worry, Dad,” said Kallie, making a face as though she’d just bitten into a mealy apple. “I didn’t enjoy it.”
She took off her rain jacket, but as she hung it on the newel post to dry, something knocked against the wood. She reached into the pocket and pulled out the box. She’d forgotten all about it.
“What’s that?” asked her father.
“A box.”
Kallie tilted it. Something shifted inside.
“I can see it’s a box, silly,” he said. “Where’d you get it?”
“A man gave it to me. At the festival.”
Victor Jones’s eyes narrowed. He folded his arms, staring hard at Grandpa. “What man?”
Grandpa Jess shrugged.
“The man in the pink fedora,” said Kallie. “He had no face.”
“What do you mean he had no face?” Her father’s expression contorted, nearly twisting into itself. He suddenly reminded Kallie of the woman in the shimmering blue leotard.
“He was faceless. Without face.” She examined the surfaces covered in ivory-colored circles and dark etchings. It seemed old. Very old.
“Must have been part of his act,” said Grandpa Jess, leaning in for a better look. “There were all sorts of buskers. Magicians, belly dancers, clowns…”
“And why would this faceless clown give Kallie a box?” asked her father, his tone a calculated balance between suspicion and anger.
“Because he ran out of roses,” she said, sliding her fingernails into the grooves, trying to pry it open.
“Roses?” Her father seemed genuinely confused.
“Yes. He made them appear out of thin air and then—”
Victor Jones waved a dismissive hand. “I thought I taught you never to accept gifts from strangers.” He snatched the box from her and held it up to the light. It rattled softly. “Who knows what’s inside? Could be dangerous.”
“Don’t bother,” she said. “It doesn’t open.”
“Let me see that,” said Grandpa, taking the cube. He turned it over in his hands, studying it carefully. Kallie watched his bushy eyebrows stitch tightly together and then burst apart as his eyes grew wide. “Why … this is a trick box.”
“A what?” Kallie and her father said at the same time.
“A secret box. A puzzle box. I’ve heard of them,” he said, running his thick finger over the deep grooves, the corners, and the edges. “Never come across one, though.”
“How do you open it?”
“Well, now. That’s the trick part.” He touched the tip of her nose. “Some will open with a simple squeeze in the right location.” He pressed several spots, but nothing happened. “Others require a sequence of complicated—often obscure—manipulations. Anywhere from two to two thousand moves.”
She eyed the box with carefully measured curiosity. She didn’t like picture puzzles—they were like artwork cut into pieces, a waste of valuable time. But this was different. “How do you think it works?”
“I’m not sure,” said Grandpa. “They’re all unique. The man gave it to you—so I guess it’s up to you to figure it out.” He plopped it back into her hands and winked.
“I’d get rid of that silly thing,” said her father. “It’ll distract you. You have only a few weeks before school starts. You need to prepare.”
Every morning, Victor Jones prepared for work by walking five miles. Running disorganized the brain, he explained to Kallie, but walking helped the mind focus. He liked to be focused.
“It’s hardly silly,” said Grandpa. “It’s quite clever. Mechanical. Let her keep it.”
“What’s that white material?” Kallie’s father pointed to the circles. “Ivory? Maybe the clown kept his face hidden because he’s an ivory poacher.”
“It’s not ivory,” said Grandpa. “Ivory is as smooth as butter. This is rutted and pockmarked. Could be shell. Possibly bone. Probably plastic. Tough to tell these days.”
Kallie inspected the circles. The shapes, lines, swirls, and curls etched into them seemed random. Her father had taught her about chaos theory. According to it, nothing in life was random. There was an underlying order in even apparently random data—you just had to find the pattern.
“You know, I once heard a story about a box like this…” began Grandpa Jess.
Kallie frowned. She turned on her heels and marched upstairs. Over her shoulder she heard her father call, “Toss it out, Kallie. It will only cause trouble.”
Kallie’s bedroom was tidy and perfectly organized, with minimal distractions. There was a bed, a nightstand, a dresser, and a desk. Beside the desk was a bookshelf with atlases, almanacs, dictionaries, a set of used encyclopedias, a microscope she got for her tenth birthday, and a single faded photograph in a plain brass frame.
On her desk sat her laptop and a neat stack of textbooks. Culture and Customs of Ancient Civilizations, The Joys of Trigonometry, and Everything You Need to Know About Quantum Physics, but Were Afraid to Ask—her light summer reading. On the wall above her desk hung a poster of the periodic table; on the opposite wall, an enormous world map; and over her bed, a giant graphic image of the night sky divided into eighty-eight constellations.
Kallie sat on the edge of her bed so as not to muss the wrinkle-free covers. If the box was mechanical, that meant it was mathematical. She would solve the puzzle just as she solved really tough equations—with patience, hard work, and determination.
She toiled for over an hour, pressing, pushing, and prying, but by dinnertime, she was ready for a break. She set the box on her desk and headed for the kitchen.
Kallie set the table as usual, folded napkins crisply, placed them strategically beside each plate, and aligned cutlery neatly on top.
“To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one’s family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s own mind,” she quoted from Buddha.
That night, the storm started up again. Kallie lay in bed teetering on the brink of sleep. She listened to the soothing clatter of rain against her window.
Perhaps it was just the rain, but somewhere, just beneath the gentle tap, tap, tap, she could swear she heard another sound. A low rattle—as though something were trapped inside the box, and it was struggling to get out.