They sang as they worked, anachronistic, acroamatic songs from depths too profound to plumb, sonorous, bellowing, hollow lays, round and bulbous in shape, strung for infinite distances, their voices swelling into niches and pockets otherwise too difficult for terrestrial noises to reach. Their words made sense to no one but themselves, were not meant for ears above a certain hydrostatic pressure. Dressed in horizontally-striped tops (black and white, of course) and black leggings that revealed muscular calves and thighs, the men kept hidden behind the white rubber masks that completely covered their heads. Slits for eyes and nostrils and mouths allowed for vision and breathing and singing, but as with all of the circus's non-freaks, these roustabouts remained obscure to all observation as they went about their business.

And what was their business?

Why, ushering to reality the vision that'd been promised, of course. In the dark of the night, the sloping fields behind Quaxton's Manikins and Marionettes ballooned and billowed, pulled taut and tightened, draped and refined until a pyramidal structure surged from the gloom toward the quilt of stars far above. There was something effortlessly aqueous about the movement of it all, the undulations and eventual peaking of the tent; had there been any onlookers, they would surely have felt as if they rested at the bottom of the ocean, looking up at an unreachable oxygenated world beyond while dark waves closed in around them. The structure itself pulled down the very sky into its depths, drowned the small creatures and insects caught below. Still, the night world twinkled indifferently around the shadowy behemoth, as would any living space beyond an aquarium.

The arrival of two young people accompanied by the only police officer who'd been at the station when they'd frantically burst into it did not upset the equilibrium of the nascent antediluvian world beyond Quaxton's shop. Though the hotheaded boy banged furiously at the door and was told more than once by the officer to settle down and the girl shed frightened tears, their commotion had no effect on what went on past their line of sight.

At length, though, the officer, insisting Oliver step back, rapped at the door and called some words akin to "police—open up—we need to have a chat—" (neither Oliver nor Ramona could really tell, not for the state they were in), and the door inched inward to reveal the sunken, wizened features of what resembled some old folktale witch.

"That's not him!" Oliver cried at once, and the officer turned and shushed him.

"Ma'am," the man intoned patiently (and Oliver wondered how in the world he could know that cadaver staring at them with its emberous eyes could be any sort of human let alone a woman), "I am so sorry to disturb you at this hour, but is Mr. Quaxton about the premises?"

The door cracked open just a bit more; Oliver recoiled as several thick-fingered claws crept around the doorframe. Why did there seem to be too many digits? He began to count them. Yes—there were definitely too many.

"He not here," the ancient face responded in a hoarse croak, moving forward enough so that the streetlamps dusted its cragged nose and cheekbones. The eyes remained too distant, too set back in their dark pools to see clearly.

"Not here?" the officer unnecessarily repeated.

"No. You come in?" the hag asked, and Ramona, lower in height than her brother, took note of the dangling chains around her neck and wrists, the person-shaped charms. "Look for something?"

Yes! thought Oliver.

"No, no," replied the officer. "These kids here just thought he might know something about their brother. Can't seem to find the boy, is all. Tell you what, you see Mr. Quaxton, you tell him to call the station, will you?"

The crone nodded slowly, rattling bones and jewelry alike, before shutting the door so gently it made no noise whatsoever. The policeman turned toward the two, holding out his hands to show them the nothing they already knew he had for them.

Oliver gaped. "Well what the hell was that? We've got to go in there! Ivan's got to be inside! You can't believe that old lady!"

"Hold on now, hold on. I can't just go into a place without proper cause."

"She invited us in! She said we could—"

"Son, how long have you been looking for your brother?"

Blinking back the time, Oliver raced through his thoughts. "I—I don't know. An hour, maybe?" He looked to his sister. "When was that show, Ramona?"

"An hour?"

Oliver didn't appreciate the officer's skepticism. "He was supposed to be at the theater, but he wasn't, and I'm sure that Quaxton guy took him. I'm sure of it!"

"Because you saw them together, you said?"

"I . . ."

The officer raised his eyebrows, waiting.

The boy turned a shade of pink incongruous with his orange hair, looked to the ground. "I did, sort of. Not, like, exactly . . . though." Before the officer could question him, he lifted his head and hurriedly added, "The man had a puppet that was called Ivan the Terrible, just like—like my mom used to call him when we were kids, and it . . ." He breathed deeply, tried to gain confidence considering the expression the policeman gave him. "It looked like him, all right? The puppet, it was weird, and it looked just like my brother. I can't explain it, but it was like, it was him, the way it looked at me, and it didn't want to be there! My sister, she saw it . . ." Oliver was quickly losing the steam with which he'd begun. "Look, I just know something weird happened with the Quaxton guy! He knows something about my brother, and I need to find him!"

"Have you tried to call your brother?"

"What do you think I am, an idiot?" Oliver quickly apologized, lowered his voice as he added, "He's not answering. And neither are my parents. They're out of town until tomorrow morning."

"And you're staying in the Martin rental?"

"The what?"

"Beach house. You're renting from the Martins? No matter. I know you are. Small town." The officer, who was a young-ish man surely more interested in a quiet night of internet surfing or sexting with his girlfriends than dealing with a couple of hyped-up out-of-towners, sighed and rubbed the back of his head. "Listen. You haven't even been back to your house yet, have you?"

The two shook their heads.

"I bet your brother's there. Sure he just went home early, or he found some friends and is hanging out with them and will head home soon. Sort of thing happens all the time. Blackswallow ain't the kind of place where anything freaky happens, you understand? And Quaxton might be a bit of a weirdo, but he's harmless. Been in and out for years, no harm done. He's got his strange ways, but they're only entertainment, you hear me? You're just not used to him, is all. So I'll give you two a ride back to your house and—"

The radio at the officer's hip suddenly crackled to life, and he stepped aside to have words with whomever was calling him.

Left momentarily to themselves, Ramona and Oliver exchanged constrained glances. The girl nodded her head as if to transfer a message her brother would understand, but he did not grasp what she meant.

"He's here," she clarified as loudly as she dared. "I know he's here. I feel it."

Whether his sister meant Ivan or Quaxton, Oliver didn't know, but his mouth set itself into a firm line.

"I've got to head to Harlequin's," the police officer noted, returning his attention to them. "If you two want to sit in the car and wait while I deal with what's going on there, I can take you home after, or—"

"No," Oliver averred. "You know what, we're fine. We'll just walk home."

"Walk? It's a long way from here."

"It's not very late, yet. We'll be fine."

A siren sounded, not too distant, and the officer became distracted enough that the young people took a back seat to more pressing matters. "All right. If you get into town and change your minds, just come find us at the station. No problem giving you a ride out there."

Oliver nodded, waved. Ramona did likewise, and before they knew it, the officer had climbed into his vehicle and set off, leaving them alone outside Quaxton's Manikins and Marionettes beneath a single flickering lamp post. The silence settled on them rather suddenly like one of those weighted blankets, velvety and thick. Oliver shivered in spite of the summer air.

"What now?" he asked his sister, no longer sure he could take charge of the situation. "Should we try the door, again? Break in the glass?"

"No!" Glancing side to side, Ramona pulled her brother past the window (which was filled with strange fabric and wooden puppets with plastic eyes and stitched mouths, none of them reminiscent of Ivan) and into the shadows at the side of the building. The girl hugged her doll close against her heart. "I have to tell you something. It's been a secret for too long, and I have to tell you, now. I didn't know she could do these things, but Ollie—"

Oliver crouched down at the sight of his little sister, whose eyes had begun to fill with water. His hands gripped her bird-bone shoulders. "What? What is it?"

"This place—it . . ."

"What?"

Ramona's breath came out ragged. "It's not—not real. It's hers—her imagination. It's not real."

A heavy moment lingered in the air, laden with incertitude. "Whose imagination?" Oliver watched as his sister tremblingly held out her doll. Relief washed over the teen. "Bloomy? Her imagination? Right. All right." He loved his sister, but he'd always known there was something a little different about her. Other girls Ramona's age were fighting their parents to wear makeup and tube tops; they'd long left behind their dolls. He had to find Ivan. Maybe the officer was right. Maybe Ivan was at home, and this whole night was a freakshow of overreactions on his part. Really, what kind of sense did it make to think his brother had turned into a damned puppet? What sort of stupidity was that? Which of them was crazier, he or Ramona?

"He is here. I know it," Ramona pressed, more composed.

"Ivan?"

"Qua—the—that man. It's not really his name so it doesn't matter. She doesn't like him. But he's here. He is. I think she invited him but she didn't really mean to . . . or she did, but she didn't know he'd do what he's done. He wants to hurt us, Ollie, and I don't know why, but what happened to Ivan, it's happening to mom, too, and it's going to happen to you, and dad, and . . . but—where are you going?"

Oliver had started off toward the back of the building, which was shrouded in black. Rather than respond to his sister (really, he hadn't even heard her) he moved silently along the brick wall until he reached the end of it, and his low exhalation brought the girl up behind him. Though darkness claimed most of that space beyond the establishment, the two could make out the massive tent that'd been raised, the white stripes glowing in contrast against the gloom. Whether the tent was one continuous conical shape was difficult to tell; there seemed to be numerous indentations and implications of offshoots and side-pavilions, and yet depth and particulars were lost to obscurity. Oliver wanted to say something to someone, his sister if need be but really someone else, someone who could do something about the ominous sensation searing through his gut. He'd known the end result of it all was some carnival, some circus or main event, and yet whatever this was, it felt so weird, so wrong . . .

The boy had hardly twisted his chin over his shoulder to whisper the girl's name when out of the black darted a menagerie of hands, gripping his legs and arms and lifting him into the air. Struggling was useless. As much electric energy as Oliver possessed, he was no match for the three muscular masked figures who waded from the black into the gray, enough for Ramona to see them. They held the boy firm, an easy task, one which apparently caused them no struggle whatsoever, no matter how the teen squirmed or yelled his "fucks" and "assholes" and other threats.

Ramona stood stunned, fearful of the men in their stripes, their thick thighs and calves, their slitted false faces. She hugged Bloomy to her heart. "Put him down! Please, we'll go home! We were just curious!"

The roustabouts didn't answer. Instead, one of them let go of an ankle and, balling his fist, gave the boy such a punch to the gut that Oliver would've doubled over had he not been suspended in air. As it was,when he managed to inhale, he wheezed in and out for dear life, and something like vomit began to trickle from one corner of his mouth. His sister screamed and began to cry, to plead, while the shoulders of all three men jounced up and down as they silently laughed.

"You horrible disgusting monsters!" Ramona's anger somehow managed to overtake her fear, and she darted toward the men only to have one of them shove her to the ground as easily as if he'd flicked away a dandelion puff.

More violence would've surely occurred had not a tall, slender figure Ramona recognized all too well slipped around the men and stood jollily in the midst of the small gathering. The harlequin pulled in its black-sateen shoes at the heels and stood toes-out, first position, its poufy-sleeved arms matching the easy ballet formation. The masked head tipped to one side; the cherry grin and pierced apple eyes unnerved Ramona. Where once she'd found this figure whimsical, its droll presentation cloyed, now. Perhaps, though, she'd receive more sympathy from this clown than she'd managed from those men.

"That's my brother," she tried, getting to her feet, brushing off her elbow and ignoring the blood that swept off with the gravel. "Don't you remember him? We went in your tent of curiosities. They're hurting him."

The harlequin shifted its feet outward into second position and raised a black-gloved finger to its chin as if in thought.

"Can't you tell them to let him go? We just wanted to see the tent. We didn't mean any harm."

With a strange side-to-side gesture that rattled the little gold person-shaped earrings in its plastic ears, the harlequin after a moment took a bow, turned to the roustabouts, and made some sort of gesture that did actually cause them to place Oliver on his feet and take their hands off of him.

Grateful, Ramona watched her brother as he continued to gather his bearings; they'd really knocked the wind out of him. She knew that as long as he stayed near those men, the situation remained tenuous. "Ollie," she called warily, gesturing with her outstretched hand. "Come on. We should go, now."

A stumble to his step, the teen started toward his sister, but it was the harlequin who, as the boy passed, whipped out an arm to stop him.

Both children waited, anxious, while the clown's head inched toward Ramona, its face unmoving though speaking volumes.

The girl suddenly bit her lip. "No. Oh, no. Oliver!" She looked to her brother, who'd pulled himself together enough to know something was terribly wrong. "You made a promise?"

"Wh-what?" he stammered over the harlequin's shoulder.

"Did you promise it anything, when you went in the tent?"

His features fell beneath his shock of orange hair. He said nothing, but they both knew his answer.

Ramona could do nothing, then, as she watched them lead her brother away, calmly, toward the back of the building. Oliver turned to look at her once, just once, but there was no return from a promise of anything to a mysterious stranger. So the girl squeezed her doll to her heart, telling her "We can still figure this out. We still have mom and dad," left Quaxton's shop, and began the long walk home, having lost both brothers in one night.