Despair sunk like a concrete block in Kallie’s stomach. Without the box, how would she un-entangle herself?
The Plattsburgh paramedics were waiting on the other side. They checked out Anna and Kallie thoroughly, and even when it was certain both were in excellent health, they insisted parents must be notified.
“No!” shouted Anna and Kallie at once.
“We’re fine,” said Kallie.
“I swim all the time in the lake,” said Anna.
“My father is extremely busy with work. And my grandfather is in the hospital. And we have a very important meeting we are late for…”
“So, if you’ll be so kind as to shut the doors of the ambulance and allow us to change into some dry clothes, we’ll be on our way…”
“Dry clothes?” said Kallie.
“Yes,” said Anna. “I always keep extra clothing in my backpack for just such an occasion.”
Anna handed Kallie a pair of ruby-red sweatpants, her yellow T-shirt, and a worn pair of flip-flops. Kallie felt odd—as though she were not just slipping into Anna’s clothes, but somehow into Anna. Everything was a tad too small and far more color than Kallie was used to. When she was ready, she packed the wet clothing into her now-empty satchel. She took a deep breath and sighed. Returning the box to the faceless man was her only hope of ending her connection to the bones and saving Grandpa Jess.
“Don’t worry,” said Anna softly, stroking Kallie’s arm. “We’ll find the faceless man. You can talk to him. He can tell you what to do.”
Kallie didn’t have the energy to argue. There were only two more pieces. A dagger. And then nothing.
Nothing. As though everything Kallie knew and loved would be gone. As though her life as she knew it would be over. And possibly Grandpa’s along with it. She couldn’t waste more time scolding Anna. They were late—soon the children’s festival would be over. They had to move quickly.
They thanked everyone again, got on their bikes, and sped off along Margaret Street toward Cumberland. Kallie found it difficult to pedal in the flip-flops, but they had lost valuable time; they couldn’t lose any more.
In front of an old, picket-fenced house with a sign that read KENT-DELORD HOUSE MUSEUM, there was a huge commotion. Throngs of people dressed in period costumes and carrying wooden muskets milled about. Kallie overheard someone say they were preparing for a battle reenactment. The crowd was so thick Kallie and Anna were forced off their bikes and had to walk. They stopped only briefly to ask for directions.
They reached Trinity Park with little time to spare. The festivities appeared to be wrapping up. There was a clown making balloon animals, a juggler, a petting zoo with goats and a donkey, and a man walking on stilts. There was a tent set up, and it appeared kids were dipping wax to make candles. There was also a puppet theater with dancing marionettes. Kallie was worried. She didn’t recall seeing these performers at the Festival of Fools. They wandered around the park, but there was no sign of the faceless man. If he had been there, perhaps they’d missed him.
“You know,” said Anna. “One time, my mother and father were performing at a festival just like this … and then someone began…”
Frustration welled inside Kallie. “Stop it!” she said sharply. She turned toward Anna, her face contorted with a corrosive anger. “Just stop it!”
Anna flinched, her expression crestfallen.
Kallie continued to glare with withering scorn. She had had enough of Anna and her tall tales. How dare Anna remain impervious to the harshness of reality while Kallie had to face it—every last painful bit?
“I should never have trusted you! You’re a liar! None of what you say is true…” Her words flew at Anna like angry hornets.
Anna seemed to struggle with what Kallie was saying, with the shape and texture of the words, as though trying to form something solid out of a limp lump of dough.
“You aren’t the relative of the long-lost Russian princess. Mrs. Winslow isn’t rich. You don’t live in a mansion on Prospect. You live in a tiny apartment in the Old North End. You don’t have any nice clothes, and you barely get anything to eat.”
Tears welled in Anna’s eyes. She shook her head slowly. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Yes,” said Kallie. “I do. I know exactly what I’m saying. You keep telling everyone your parents are coming home. But they’re never coming home. I know it. And you know it. And it’s time you face the truth.”
Like a marionette with its strings cut, Anna crumpled. She looked at Kallie with a hurt so raw it blistered.
Regret tugged at Kallie, trying to drag her back, but like a runaway train, her mouth kept moving and words kept flying out.
“I heard the secretaries at school talking. I know the truth. I know what really happened. You say your father put your mother in a wooden box—a magical box. Well, he put her in a wooden box and he went in after her all right, only it wasn’t a magical box at all!”
Tears streamed down Anna’s face. Her expression implored, Why did you have to say that? “M-my mother is in a box,” she said. “A wonderfully fancy wooden box. You have your truth. I have mine. What makes yours more valid?”
“Your parents are gone,” said Kallie. “Just like my mother. I’ve had to accept it. And so do you. They’re gone and they’re never coming back. That box you keep talking about—that fancy wooden magic box—it’s nothing but a plain old coffin.”
As Kallie stood there, triumphant in her truth, she saw the bright light that had always shone in Anna’s eyes flicker and go dim. Anna didn’t react. She didn’t respond. She stood staring at Kallie as if the world around her had gone dark.
Kallie remembered the girl she had seen smiling and dancing in the rain. That girl was gone. The girl before her was smaller. Frailer.
The locked box inside Kallie’s mind clicked open, and before she could stop it, a memory slipped out. It was of another time and another place. Of another girl dancing in the rain, laughing and stomping through puddles, getting wet and dirty. That girl had been holding her mother’s hand. It was all so long ago Kallie had forgotten what it had felt like.
Guilt thumped in Kallie’s chest. She had been so large and looming a moment ago, but now she popped like a soap bubble. “Anna, I…”
Anna stood. She did an about-face and ran into the crowd.
Kallie was about to go after her when she heard a familiar sound. It was a violin, playing a hauntingly familiar tune. A man on a zigzag unicycle rolled passed her.