Kallie saw the belly dancer first. Her thick, embroidered belt jingled and jangled as she rocked and swayed. A little farther along, the fire juggler tossed his flaming sticks high into the air, and next to him the lady in the shimmering blue leotard stood on her hands, shooting arrows with her toes. It took Kallie by surprise, because she hadn’t noticed them there a moment before.
These were the same performers she had seen at the Church Street Marketplace. She searched for Anna to tell her the good news when, out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a lean figure standing in the shadows in an alley between two buildings. She recognized him immediately.
It was the faceless man.
Slowly, Kallie moved toward him as though he were reeling her in with an invisible line. When she was only a few feet away, he touched the tip of his pink fedora and bowed his head slightly. Despite his lack of features, she was sure he was smiling.
“I’ve come to return the box…” she said, her voice barely a whisper.
The figure stood perfectly still, his featureless face assessing her. Her courage leaked out like water through tissue paper. She gathered what was left of it and continued. “But, I’ve lost it, you see, and…”
He didn’t move a muscle. Now more than ever, he reminded Kallie of a mannequin standing motionless in a shop’s window display.
She was about to explain further when he shifted. He’d been so perfectly immobile, and the movement so sudden, it startled Kallie. He reached for his fedora, held the hat in one hand, and tapped it lightly with the other.
Out tumbled the box.
He held it in the palm of his hand, his arm outstretched just as he had done the first time.
“But…” she whispered. “I saw it sink…”
He turned the box over until the blank side faced her—the one with no moon and no stars. What Kallie had thought to be the new moon.
The blank face on the box reminded Kallie of the final piece—the one with all blank faces. She had thought it had meant nothing. Emptiness. The end. She had been wrong.
“It’s my story,” she said, realizing for the first time the power and potential in those words. “And I must end it.”
He tapped his hat again, and something else came out. It was long and lean and pointed on one end. It resembled the second-to-last picture—the one she had decided was a dagger. She had been wrong about that as well.
He held the item toward her. She took it in her trembling hands. She could hear Ms. Beausoleil’s words echo in her mind. A tragedy ends in death …
The man dropped the box inside his fedora and placed it back on his head. Then he turned to leave, but Kallie, gripped with curiosity, cried out, “Wait!”
The man stopped.
“Who are you?” she asked.
All sounds around Kallie ceased. The people at the festival seemed to fade into the background. Nothing existed but Kallie and the man as he slowly turned to face her. And like the slick black skin of a rotting banana, he peeled the flesh-colored material from his face and she saw clearly the ghastly sight that lay beneath.
The face had no flesh. No eyes. Nothing but bone. The skull was covered in carved circles, which turned and spun like clockwork.
Kallie gasped in horror. She glanced around to see if anyone else was witnessing what she was, but when she looked back toward the ghoulish face, the man was gone.
Kallie found Anna sitting on a curb beside the sad-faced clown. She had brought along her ocarina and had joined in his performance. When she saw Kallie, she stopped playing.
Despite the surrounding sounds, a heavy silence seemed to stretch out like a chasm between them.
“Did you find him?” Anna asked at last.
Kallie nodded.
“Is it over?”
Kallie clutched the leather satchel close to her chest. In it was the final item the man had given her. “Almost.”