Ramona removed her sandals the moment she was left alone outside and ran padding barefoot down the concrete sidewalk, doll under her arm. Everything had gone too far—too far! She hadn't known it would become so serious, never would've listened to Bloomy had she foreseen what would happen to her family. When her friend had told her they'd be going on a vacation, that they'd meet all sorts of interesting characters, like imaginary friends come to life, she'd been intrigued. But things were spiraling out of control.

The girl had only a vague notion that she should return to the house, if only because it was the closest familiar space and felt safer than anywhere else. She couldn't stay at the store. Her father was not going to come out of it, and there was no way she was going to go back in, not after what she'd seen inside. What had been the meaning of all those . . . those horrifying infants? The circus folk she understood well enough, and the sea creatures were comprehensible (they were, after all, near the ocean), but the tenuously entertaining and whimsical summer had transformed into a nightmare for which even Bloomy's ten months of garbled communication hadn't prepared her, and now Ramona didn't know how to wake from it.

The town itself seemed deserted as she moved through it; there were no people in the cafés or riding bikes, none opening their shops or walking with coffees and packages, chatting with neighbors. No cars puttered along the roads. The trailing plants at every lamppost hung still in the breezeless air. An eerie silence permeated the atmosphere as if even the birds had decided to abandon Blackswallow Beach, as if they'd had enough as well, and yet was that such a surprise for a pocket of earth destined for submersion? Through the trees, she saw that the sky had taken on a pinkish hue though it was far from sunset, and the clouds, which had remained sedentary all morning, were, rather than shifting, fermenting in place, bubbling in slow motion against that rosy-lit backdrop. Ramona had heard of eerie calm descending prior to tornadic weather and couldn't shake her misgivings that the storm was yet to come.

"I hate you!" she hissed to the doll in the crook of her elbow. "This is all your fault! Everyone's gone!"

Ramona leapt over an upturned chunk of concrete in the sidewalk and continued her jog, passing darkened establishments as she went.

"Oh, you'll get them back for me. You will, or I'll—I'll throw you in the ocean!" She'd said it flippantly and immediately caught herself afterward, then grew emboldened. Swinging the ever-smiling thing face-to-face with her, she added, "And I mean it, this time." Rather than replace Bloomy safely beneath her arm, she held the doll's arm with her right hand, allowing her companion to bounce along at her side.

As Ramona passed the ice cream parlor, familiar music began to pump through the air, quiet at first, then more definite. The girl paused momentarily, spun in expectation of finding the jellied clown she was sure had found her once again, but she saw no one and couldn't identify the calliope's source, so she continued at a quicker pace, the music following her, or rather expanding to encompass all of Blackswallow Beach, no matter how far Ramona might run to escape it.

When at last the girl had made her way clear enough of trees to glimpse a wide expanse of sky, she held back anxious tears at the sight of the foaming cotton-candy-colored clouds. Vast pastel billows limned in gleaming red throbbed like massive organs up in the firmament, recalling to mind the organs Ramona had noticed palpitating beyond the ribs of those conjoined twin sisters.

In the time that she was held rapt by the clouds, carried by the inconstant jovial piping floating around her, some large movement caught Ramona's eye. Flicking her gaze toward the rooftops across the street (on an incline as she was), the girl struggled to comprehend the enormity of what she saw as four gigantic fingers curled up and over the shingles and chimney of one establishment a few blocks away. Ramona watched as a head rose slowly up after the hand, sideways, as if it'd been lying down, and then righted itself. The head was as large as half of one of the buildings it towered above, was long and gaunt, with a jagged chin and deep-set holes-of-eyes, and it wore a top hat like Abraham Lincoln. Before the child had time to process what she was seeing, she heard a commotion behind her and spun to find another figure heaving itself above the bike shop some distance away, a figure she recognized as her old enormously fat friend from the beach, yet now he was so incredibly huge his rippling belly knocked over the chimney of the shop and sent bricks crashing to the ground. The deep echoes of his sobs drew a sonorous response from the top-hatted man, but Ramona could not stay to witness their exchange.

She whipped about and began to run, no longer wasting time with her hasty jog and pulling Bloomy tight against her chest more for comfort than for love of the thing. Godzilla-esque rumbles erupted behind her, but Ramona dared not take time in looking back, especially as the spindly legs of what could only be an impossibly enormous arachnid clambered over the roof of a real estate office directly beside her. The girl had only enough time to recognize a peaked human face alive with ocular spheres rise up out of its thick-furred thorax before she was past it and hurtling down a slope toward the two lane-road leading away from town toward the rental homes.

The stretch of pavement between town and the beach grew barren, sandier, windier. The darkening hues of the sky positively boiled, and yet the light around Ramona remained melony pale. Tired as she was, the girl kept up her pace, never glancing back at the town or what might be following her from it, and as small consolation, the calliope music faded as she gained distance. Somewhere beyond the waves and from the depths of the sea, she sensed many more arrivals, many more horrible and chimeric delusions, and knowing that they were coming intensified the anxiety churning within.

Vacation homes worked their way into view, cropping up along the left as the two-lane road shifted away from the public beach and nearer the quieter stretch of sands marked for renters. The first Ramona passed, a huge structure with fresh buttercup paint and white trim, blinked at her as she hugged by—no, it wasn't the house blinking but what was inside it! A double-take revealed that the two large picture windows on either side of the house's back stairwell were filled with a face, identical enormous, ugly but girlish faces, heavy-lidded devious eyes and puckered mouths, the very same Ramona had seen smaller versions of on the conjoined body she'd played with at the beach that morning. And as she watched, an equally gargantuan hand burst from the side of the house, shattering sparkling glass fragments into the air. A large, lithe arm followed it, wiggling drops of blood from its elbow at the same time a massive Mary Jane twisted its way disjointedly through the garage.

Ramona kept on. Her family's home was near the end of the strand; she could only hope no giant circus freak was inside of it.

Her hopes were dashed when she at last rounded a dune and caught sight of her vacation home's carport. At a mere twenty yards away, Ramona knew there was no chance of getting into the house. Where the family car would have been, wrapped amongst the piles on which the house was perched, was a mass of thick purple-black tentacles, writhing and twisting so their grayish underbellies covered in pearlescent suckers showed and hid themselves like spitted roasting chickens. If there were some person in the midst of all those feelers, they were too difficult to make out, and even though Ramona hadn't had any idea what she'd do when she reached her family's home, utter defeat overwhelmed her.

Anger quickly followed. "Fix it!" she yelled at her doll, gripping the thing with both hands and pulling it up into her face. "Fix it or I'll tear you apart, I swear it! I'll throw you in the ocean piece by piece!"

The doll's painted eyes and prim lips made no new expression, so in frustration, Ramona took hold of one yarn braid in either hand and yanked, hard.

"I don't care if it hurts! I hate you I hate you I hate you!"

Rather than do as she'd threatened, she threw Bloomy off the two-lane road and into a patch of long grass before turning and darting off toward the beach, making sure to avoid her own home and slip between two neighboring houses to get there.

The ocean had worked itself up into a slate gray frenzy; like a rabid animal, it was foaming at a thousand mouths. The waves were not charging in large but they were hungry, slurping relentlessly at the shore. To put in a foot would be to say goodbye to land forever. Ramona swallowed fear at the sight of the water, its odd coloration beneath the frothing sky and fleshy sand, every grain defined in the pale papery light.

What was she supposed to do, now? The entire town was void of people, and they hadn't been the sort of people who'd have helped her, anyhow! Everywhere were monsters, and marching into that Quaxton's—where she was sure her family members were—was an uncertain step. It might be the only thing to do, though, and she was so very afraid to take it. That man terrified her. So much was wrong with him; she'd have sensed it even without Bloomy telling her so.

Bloomy, Bloomy. Why'd she leave her behind? Oh! Her only friend in that moment, as angry as she'd been! Gazing at the turbulent ocean, clutching fistfuls of her hair, Ramona feared she'd have to go back, have to once again face the image of her sea-beast-ridden home, and she'd just made up her mind to do it when a shrill squeal met her ears—something like a dog-whistle, like one of those high-pitched sounds only young folk could hear.

Startled, sure she'd heard it yet unsure where it could possibly have originated, Ramona held her breath, calmed her heart so as to better listen, and when the sound came two, three more times and she'd spun circles without discovering its source, she at last looked down and saw, only a few feet away, a dark smudge along the otherwise monotone sand.

The girl crouched, closer, closer, closer, until she decided to lie upon the beach, and she was soon face-to-body with the tiniest complete human she'd ever seen. He must have been the height of a clover, or the width of a ladybug, and she wished in that moment that she had a magnifying glass to better view him.

"I could've stepped on you!" she first said, haunted by the thought.

The tiny person appeared to wave a hand, shake its head. The face was difficult to make out, features as small as they were, but its hair was close-cut, and its clothing apparently consisted of dark slacks and a matching fitted long-sleeved top. If anything, the man was probably hot in those layers, but Ramona was glad for his dark attire or she might not have seen him at all.

"Can I help you in some way?" she asked quietly, thinking her voice was likely quite loud to such a small person.

The mouth on the miniature face worked, but the girl could make out only tiny whistles and squeaks.

She bit her lip, looked askance, then lit up. "I'm going to turn my head," she told him. "I'll bring my ear very, very close to you, as close as I can, so don't be scared, and then you can tell me what you want, all right?"

It seemed the figure nodded though it was difficult to tell, as small as he was, so Ramona did as she'd said, slowly, not wanting to frighten or harm the tiny man. She lifted a hand to pull hair back from that side of her face, to give him full access to her ear, to allow him to get as close as possible, and she did think she felt a very faint pinch as his hands presumably took hold of her lobe. But then, quite suddenly, a terrific sting shot through her ear canal all the way into her brain (or at least it felt that way), and Ramona jerked upward onto her knees, her entire body caught up in a brief convulsion.

Just as the first needling stab subsided, as Ramona shuddered it away, a second jolt sent her into another gut-wrenching fit. The pain was so jarring it took over her senses entirely during the split seconds she experienced it; she could do nothing at all but scratch like a mad person at the side of her face where it'd come from.

By the time the second wave was releasing her, Ramona had broken out in a cold sweat, was panting, gasping for breaths and confused as to what'd brought all of this on (having forgotten what she'd allowed moments earlier), until a whispery, peevish little voice tickled the miniscule hairs in her left ear:

"Doesn't feel good, does it?"

And she remembered the tiny man. He'd crawled inside! On instinct, Ramona slapped at her ear, wriggled her finger down inside of it, but the moment she pushed too hard, searing pain hit her once more and she dropped to the sand. This time, when the spasmodic episode passed, there was blood on her palm when she withdrew her hand.

"You try it again, I'll go deeper."

Tears streamed down Ramona's blanched face. What had she done but offer kindness? Why had she left Bloomy?

"Do as I say, now," the nasty little voice in her head ordered. "Get up."

Ramona snuffled, wiped her nose with the back of one hand, rubbed the blood off her palm onto her shirt. She artlessly attempted to rise but quickly stumbled.

"Get up, you stupid girl, or I'll—"

"I'm trying!" Ramona screamed louder than she'd known she was able to. "J-just give me a min-ute." Terrified of another paroxysm, the girl worked to control her breathing, to steady herself and get to her feet. The sand felt more viscous beneath her feet, now, and it took much effort to control her vertigo, but Ramona concentrated, and she managed.

"Good girl," the voice snarked. "The kuntskammer. Go to it."

"Th-the curiosity t-tent? With the—"

"Yes! Just go. We're running out of time."

Obeying, Ramona began walking in the direction of the harlequin's tent, which sat closer to her family's house, a bit down the beach. Her legs still shook from the shock she'd suffered and the fright of what was occurring and the absence of her one friend.

"Kuntskammer," the voice snickered in her head, "more like cunt-skammer. Your mother was a cunt, you know that? Do you? Dirty filthy cunt."

Ramona's chin trembled at the voice's tone. She had no idea what the word meant, but it didn't sound nice, and she couldn't understand why the tiny man spoke of her mother.

"Never good enough for anyone. Never good enough for your father, for you, for her family—for anyone. They all hated her, and good for them. They should have. Disgusting whore is what she was. Wasting her life away chasing dicks and needles, thinking she was living some kind of truth, some kind of real. What a nothing she was. Envious, always. That was her problem. Lived her whole life in envy. Took advantage of everyone like the bitch she was and then finally crossed all the lines and fucked your father. Ultimate act of selfishness. Should've just killed herself rather than do it, she should have. Don't know why she waited so long. Disgusting fucking whore. World is better off without her, is what I've always said. She knows it."

Unable to do anything but listen to this wretched tirade and all the continued filth that came spewing afterward, Ramona wept silent tears and kept her focus on the massive tent she approached. A quick gander at her house revealed the indigo tentacles coiling around the walkway from the back deck to the sand, but Ramona thought she saw, too, an enormous tail—not a tentacle, but a scaled lizard tail—swishing about amongst the displaced deck chairs.

No matter, she'd arrived at the kunstkammer, that striped tent of vast curios and wonders. Why the horrid thing in her ear wished her to return to it, she couldn't guess, but she assumed he'd tell her, and of course, as she approached the chalked greeting board and the familiar harlequin slipped out from between the tent folds in all its mystique, he did.

"You gave two secrets, didn't you?"

Ramona was at first confused. "I did what?"

"When you went in! You paid with two secrets!"

"Oh yes, yes!" she hurried to respond, afraid of the tiny man inflicting his awful pain on her once more. "I—I saw something I wasn't supposed to, and . . . and I did something I wasn't supposed to. That's what I told it. Those were my secrets."

The harlequin ticked its head to one side, and Ramona wondered whether it knew she had a tiny man speaking to her in her ear or whether she looked as if she were speaking to herself.

"What did you see, you revolting little slug?"

"I—I saw my m-mother talking to s-someone." Ramona recalled a dull, wintry afternoon. She'd been home from kindergarten, ill with a fever, and her mother had stayed with her. She was supposed to have been napping, but a knock at the door had woken her, and she'd crept to the front of the house to see her mother speaking with . . . "Someone who looked just like her, only sad and messy. Her . . . her sister. My aunt." Lilia had been angry, had argued, had shut the door, but not before the woman on the step had spotted Ramona on the landing.

"And what did you do?" the voice seethed.

Ramona's eyes glazed as she remembered. Softly, she replied, "When Mama left, I went down, and I opened the door. And the woman gave me a doll. She said its name was Ibane, but that I was not to tell anyone. It was our secret." And she'd left, then, that other woman, her mother's sister, her aunt. Turned and gone, just like that, and Ramona had smiled and taken her doll upstairs. Over and over she'd repeated the name, which when said incessantly and with Ramona's speech delay had taken on the sound of Bloomy. She'd not thought of how to explain it, because her father had told everyone he'd bought it, and by then she'd rather begun to think she'd imagined the frantic woman at the door anyway. No one had questioned.

Bloomy had been with them ever since, though she'd only started to communicate with Ramona at the beginning of last school year, right before her father had taken a trip out of town and her parents had begun their months of arguments.

"Secrets secrets are no fun; secrets secrets hurt someone!" wheedled the man in her ear, and then a horrible, uncomfortable expanding sensation filled Ramona's head so quickly it was gone before she could suffer too long, and she watched nonplussed as a lengthy ribbon of what resembled small intestine wriggled from her ear onto the sand, where the jointed, clicking bits at its front end rapidly burrowed its entire length into the grains and was gone.

Left to herself, Ramona absently touched a hand to her slimy though vacated ear. Then she looked to the harlequin, who peeled back a fold of the tent and beckoned her inside for the second time.