The dream—for surely it was a dream—was stiflingly hot, close and tight and sweltering. The man had all of himself wrapped around her, protectively, possessively, and Lilia couldn't help but desire his desire . . . his obsession. His mouth moved across every inch of her flesh, sucked as if drawing it into himself, as if saying This is mine, this is part of me, and I don't share, and though she couldn't see him, could only feel his hands and his chest and his hips and his thighs move against her, she knew she belonged to him and him alone. That there could never be anyone other than him, whoever he was, for the sole reason that everything in her and of her was his for as long as he wanted it, and he wanted it for eternity, and he didn't share . . .

When she blinked awake to reality, Lilia was panting. Sweat pearled her breast. The sofa bed she'd pulled out and slept on felt suddenly hard as stone, and she bolted up, needing a moment to acclimate. She was downstairs, in the beach house. She'd slept next to the child, and the morning was cool and balmy; she could tell just by looking out the windows. But God she was hot! The clock in the kitchen read five-forty-seven, too early to want to be up and yet too late to fall back into deep sleep. Her body was far too wired to calm itself down now, anyway. Where'd such a dream come from? She'd not read romance novels in years, not had those sorts of fantasies for some while—not one like that ever, actually. Perhaps it'd been her and Arthur's lack of intimacy. They'd hardly touched one another let alone come close to sex in months. Ever since . . .

Well.

Lilia scowled. She threw her light covering aside and padded to the nearby bathroom, going directly to the sink, where she ran cool water and liberally doused her cheeks and throat. Icy rivulets ran down into her pajama top, and she pulled the hand towel from its ring to dab the moisture from the tops of her breasts. The touch of her own hand there caused her to tremble, unexpectedly, and she couldn't help indulging, running her moist fingertips down into and up out of that soft valley between her breasts, along her collar bone, tilting her head to one side to continue her fingers' journey up her throat along her jaw, imagining the touch belonged to the unknown figure from her dreams. That he was desiring her, claiming her. The tendrils of that reverie curled through her body, across her skin, began to consume her once more as if she were in it again. Heat infused her core, shuddered downward with all its agonizing, promising writhing. Lilia shut her eyes and placed one hand against the wall to steady herself while an orgasmic wave threatened to overtake her through no help of her own, only the memory—

—but she made the mistake of opening her eyes too soon, breaking whatever rapture her body recalled from its nighttime productions, and when she caught sight of her wanton, begging face in the dim mirror, she was overtaken not with ecstasy but with humiliation. Her arousal simmered as quickly as it'd boiled up, and in self-loathing, she threw the towel she'd been squeezing for dear life into the sink. How pathetic she was. How utterly wretched. No wonder, really, that her aging, lonely body had finally given in to latent fantasies. Self-gratification didn't satisfy the way a man did, and all it'd taken was one erotic dream to push her over the edge.

The rush of cool air against her damp skin was miraculously refreshing as Lilia stepped from the bathroom, but even so, she picked up her robe from a nearby chair and draped it across her perspiring body. Then she went to stand over the little boy.

Last night, after the paramedics and police had been reassured and sent away, Ivan had produced a portable crib, one of those foldable pack n'plays every new mother added to her baby shower registry. It'd just been in a closet, Ivan had told her, along with a baby gate. Must be for other families who've stayed here, Lilia had mused, not one to question fortune. Arthur had gone to shower and sleep, too tired to argue with his wife, who'd gone about fussing over the lobster boy (for he certainly was a boy—those bits weren't crustacean). Lilia had set up the crib, bathed the child, managed an impromptu cloth diaper, fed him the softer parts of their rice pilaf dinner, and held him until he'd drifted off to sleep, at which point she'd put him to bed. The exoskeletal plates across his chest and back and along his forearms and thighs did cause Lilia some discomfort while cradling him; she'd ended up wrapping a blanket beneath his body. His fat little feet were ten-toed and flesh-plump like those of any two-year-old human child, but his hands ended in a number of clickety-clacking pokers and pincers. Oliver had been disgusted by the child the night before; Lilia had sent the teen to his room with quite a few choice words. Ivan had been surprisingly helpful, and Ramona had been not exactly contributive but patient and watchful, interested, as she always was.

Approaching the crib now, Lilia saw that the child was still in it, sound asleep, happy as a clam (or a lobster! she corrected herself with a grin). She stared down at the strange boy, his golden curling hair, his long-lashed crescent-closed eyes, his round rosy cheeks, his half-open ruby lips with their retracted mouth parts barely showing. How beautiful he was, bizarre and beautiful! She'd always loved her babies, any and all babies.

The child shifted in his sleep, and Lilia noticed suddenly that he'd rolled out of the blanket she'd left him with. Gently, she lifted the velveteen fabric back over the boy's bare body, and then, herself chilled, tightened her own robe with its tie.

Really, they should involve the police. She knew that as well as any sane person would know it. And yet, something told her this baby was supposed to be with her, at least for the moment. He was such a weird, precious thing, and he seemed content. Arthur had saved his life! Where had the child come from? It seemed the very sea itself had coughed him up. Ramona had said she'd seen the airplane drop him, but that didn't make much sense. Unless . . .

The carnival! Of course! This little one was part of that carnival that'd come to town! The random strange people they'd seen—that giant, and those flamethrowers—and hadn't the giant asked her whether she'd seen "others"? Yes. He'd been looking for other carnival folk. Lilia couldn't recall, now, whether he'd mentioned a lobster baby. But the banner the plane had been trailing all day, it'd read "Quaxton's," and she'd known the minute she'd read the strange name where she'd seen it before: Quaxton's Manikins and Marionettes. The dusty old storefront on the edge of town. She'd even photographed it. This Quaxton person had returned, and his carnival had come with him. Surely the store was open once again. Lilia would take the child there today. She should take the child there today.

As she stood looking down at the angelic features of the somnolent toddler, she wondered what his dreams were like. He no doubt drifted through visions of seaweed gardens and chattering bivalves, romped with clusters of clownfish in beds of anemones and sent tiny seahorses scattering amongst clouds of scintillating bubbles.

Lilia caught herself biting her lip a little too hard, and when a hand rested upon her shoulder, she wasn't surprised to feel it there.

"This one . . . you don't have to keep," came Arthur's quietly teasing voice from behind. "You can give him back."

Lilia struggled to keep her jaw from quivering. She lifted a hasty hand to dash away the liquid that squeezed from her eyes. She had no words, which was fortunate for Arthur in that moment.

Sighing (and good God she'd have stabbed him for that sigh if a knife were nearby!), Arthur went out onto the deck, presumably to watch the morning sunrise light the ocean.

No more than twenty minutes later—just enough time for Lilia to throw on some clothing, take care of her basic routine morning needs, make a to-go cup of coffee, and change the little boy's diapering—the woman was pressing through town in the family car with her precious cargo in the backseat. She'd had no car-seat, but the child seemed happy and safe buckled in, babbling away and munching at a powdered donut. Sure, he was strange, some might even say deformed or freakish, and he likely had a mother somewhere. Lilia knew she wasn't his mother. And she had no supplies or skill anymore to take care of a baby. There was no way that beach house was toddler-proofed, and besides, a lobster boy would surely have special needs. She and Arthur could hardly afford to care for their own children, let alone take on another. Still . . . there was something absolutely endearing about him, and a part of her loved him without any other reason than that his need cried out for it, and for Arthur to even hint at . . . ! When she'd been nothing but in love with . . . ! And, oh! She hated him that much more in the moment.

She glanced in the rearview mirror, saw the child with his sugar-dusted cheeks, grinning as he tried to mash the rest of the donut into his mouth without letting his multiple pincers impede his task. He must belong to someone, and she was glad for it; he looked happy and cared for if odd.

When Lilia pulled up in front of the store, which she hadn't driven past since her encounter with that obstinate boy several weeks earlier, she was gratified to find it in the process of transformation. The paint of the store itself as well as of the signage was fresh, green and black and white and gold and red, and the door with its harlequin pattern had been brightened as well. The storefront may or may not have been empty, for the curtains which had hung dusty in the background were now flush against the glass, washed, a gorgeous lush velvety dark aquamarine, but they were drawn so that whatever was going on inside of the window or beyond into the store itself was as secret as it'd been when she'd first seen the place. She parked right in front, knowing that in a logical world, no one would be inside at six-thirty in the morning but knowing, too, that in a logical world, crustacean babies didn't wash up out of the ocean.

She wasn't here to wonder at the absurdity of recent events, though.

Lilia unbuckled the boy and withdrew him from the car, propping him on her hip and wrapping the light blanket around him. She approached the door of Quaxton's Manikins and Marionettes and momentarily hesitated when she looked at the doorknob, uncertain as to what gave her pause until she realized the ceramic harlequin head had been replaced with one of standard brass. Must've needed to be repaired, she figured, recalling the thing had looked rather shabby last she'd seen it. Then, with a shrug, Lilia rapped once on the glass porthole window and waited patiently.

She glanced at the child in her arms, whose bright brown eyes met hers. In a soft moment, the boy tenderly leaned forward and pressed his ruddy lips against Lilia's nose.

Just as he did so, and while Lilia was attempting to convince herself not to run back to the car with the sweet thing, the door creaked inward, and a wizened, haggard face peeked out at them from within. There were no introductions; a gnarled hand with what seemed too many fingers darted forth and gripped Lilia's arm, yanking both her and the child into Quaxton's shop and shutting the door behind them. Whether they'd actually entered a store, though, was anyone's guess, as Lilia could make out nothing but dark curtains as she was dragged through layer after layer of thick black fabric. She tried to question her captor, but the figure was bent only on progress and muttered to itself in a language foreign to Lilia.

"Here, you sit," the person at last said as they reached a space with some dim golden lighting. Taken aback from the unexpected rush of it all, Lilia quickly scanned the veiled space. There was a table, a circular table, in the center of the small alcove, and it was draped in scarves. Cards and a crystal ball were atop it—and that was all Lilia needed to know to comprehend her situation.

"You're a fortune teller," she breathed in relief. Part of the carnival thing. Obviously.

"No! Eye. I am like eye to you," snapped the figure. "Ah. You sit. Put down the creature."

"Creature?"

"The boy."

"Oh." Lilia ruefully obeyed, only because the child had begun to squirm in her arms anyhow, perhaps knowing he was home. The minute she placed him on the ground, he disappeared between the folds of velvet around them. She wanted to follow, but the older woman stopped her.

"Sit."

The old woman flicked her knotted fingers toward the table, and Lilia resigned. What was the harm in it? She'd had her fortune told many times, just for fun. So she settled onto one of the poufs around the table. The colors of everything were difficult to make out, as the only light came from the flickering candle hanging in a glass sphere pendant above the crystal ball. Lilia couldn't help the feelings of discomfort that crept through her when looking fully at the woman, though. She was cloaked in black, her shadowed skull-of-a-head receding into the hood, the irises of her eyes pure white and round as Lifesavers candies, complete with holes in the middle where her black pupils were. Dozens of rattling chains hung down her chest, charms of shells and tiny golden figurines that resembled people—and the woman's hands! They were horribly deformed, with far too many twisted fingers. . . . but the eeriness of her costume could've been heightened by the weird lighting.

The fortune teller immediately shoved the cards and crystal ball from the table, entirely clearing the surface of it. Lilia was startled by the sudden gesture and the heavy thud of the glass ball as it fell onto a pillow. "Listen, I can come back later, if you aren't open right now. I—"

"This is only time I can help you. You listen, now. Do you understand?"

Thrown by the urgency in the woman's voice, Lilia stifled a nervous laugh. "All right, all right. I understand. Go ahead."

"Give me your hands, over the table."

Like a palm reading, Lilia thought. She'd done those, too. There was nothing so crazy about all this. Easy to play along. She stretched both arms over the table, turning her palms face-up, so the fortune teller could examine her lifelines.

But the woman took fast hold of Lilia's small, fair hands and flipped them over, wrapping her enormous, lumpy, contorted fingers entirely around them. The round irises of her eyes began to glow with a white light, and she shook terribly. Lilia tried to wrench free, but the woman held her fast, and she began to speak in a voice deep and inhuman, like something from out of a watery grave: "This I know; this I see. The evil eye, it shows to me."

Lilia sucked in a breath as the woman began to squeeze her hands.

"They will make your flesh their own," the old woman continued, her tone raising somewhat, her eyes dimming a little. "They wait for it, even now. You won't deny them. You can try, but you won't win, not in the end."

"Let go!" Lilia cried, unable to put up with the woman's vice grip crushing the small bones in her hands any longer.

"Do you hear me? They watch you. They hunger for you, salivating even now." The woman pulled closer, positively radiated white heat from her sunken face. "She did not want this, you understand? Not like this, for you, but it has gone too far. She could not help."

"Please . . . you're hurting me—"

"He will take them from you!" The woman picked up Lilia's hands and slammed them back onto the table before releasing them and shrinking back into herself like a puppet whose strings had gone slack.

Left in an unexpected vacuum of quiet and stillness, Lilia rubbed her hands in complete unease. She couldn't see the old woman's eyes, anymore, those glowing rings, nor could she hear anything beyond a very, very quiet wheezing. The candle in the sphere above flickered and sent shadows skittering. Whatever had just happened, Lilia was no longer interested in any sort of fortune telling or palm reading. She rose quietly, fearful of disturbing the old woman, and then she frantically shuffled through the curtains until she found (more easily than she thought she would) the front door.

Once she was back on the road, Lilia attempted to distract herself with practical thoughts, like what to make for breakfast and whether to try her hand at another watercolor that afternoon, but the mentalist's disquieting talk of flesh and hunger wouldn't leave her mind. Wouldn't leave her body, more like. Lilia's very skin prickled, her thighs warmed, her core ached at the certainty that the fortune teller's words were in every way connected with that morning's desperate, erotic dreams . . . and she wondered if . . . maybe . . . she welcomed whatever—or whoever—they'd described.