When Ramona woke, when her frail body began to shake itself free of the mucilaginous casing surrounding it, a deluge of disorientation washed over the child. The cavernous darkness of a nightmare surrounded her, yet the atmosphere itself felt more like air than water—cool and clean and thin against her damp flesh. Whatever small lights twinkled in the underworld cosmos, they were static and few, but she could see well enough because a lamp emitting an emerald light hung from the wall of a storefront a mere few yards in front of her. The building was familiar to Ramona: large picture window with drawn, velvety teal curtains; barnacled brick façade; wooden door with its porthole window; bright-painted sign announcing (and this was one difference that gave the girl pause) Seaside Boutique rather than Quaxton's Manikins and Marionettes. Why the name had changed, she did not know, but Ramona's gut told her this was the same place she'd known and feared in Blackswallow Beach, and the gargantuan striped, spherical tent she could just barely make out bubbling behind the shop anchored her conviction.

Placing her hands out to her sides, pressing against the sandy ground, the girl managed to push herself up from her uncomfortable recumbent position. Once on her knees, she swept the sticky strands from her face and salt-tangled hair, her red top and jean shorts, and when she turned aside, she noticed a familiar face looking up at her from the ground.

With a weak smile, the girl reached for her wet and dirtied doll and brought it to her heart. "Let's get our family back, now."

With much effort, Ramona managed to rise to her feet. She nodded to herself and, carefully cleaning the ash and sand from Bloomy, pooled her courage and approached the shop, not knowing what she'd find within yet determined to set things right, but when she reached unsuspectingly for the door's knob, a sharp pain pierced the web of skin between thumb and index finger, and she drew back. Blood ran across her palm from tiny teeth marks in an arc across her tender flesh. Darting a glance at the doorknob, Ramona realized it was the ceramic head of a harlequin; in fact, it bore a rather familiar face, a face she'd seen outside the kuntskammer and outside this very shop the night this same harlequin had commandeered Oliver. The thing was alive, somehow, its eyes blinking, its mouth open and clamping its tiny razor bat teeth.

Ramona's initial fear quickly gave way to a balled fist and a stamping foot. "You'd better let me in!" she ordered, but the painted face merely chattered its teeth. Thinking it meant to concede, Ramona reached for the doorknob again only to nearly lose her pinky. The girl huffed, stomped her bare foot once more, then stepped back and took a look around. A moment of thought and she'd built up her nerve. "You give me no choice!" With a shrug, she stepped to the side and with one giant kick, brought her heel against the harlequin's head, crunching the ceramic to mush. The thing's remains showered onto the sidewalk, mingling with a milky, iridescent substance that began to pour from the hole left in its wake. Ramona wrinkled her nose but proceeded to shove the crumbly bits of plaster out of the opening until she was able to reach through the gluey aperture and unlock the door from the inside.

Pushing into the shop was like wading through swamp water, dark and viscous, until quite surprisingly, it wasn't, until all at once Ramona stood in a bright, golden-day-lit shop, clean and neat and—she dared to admit—charming. Racks and displays stocked with whimsical wares adorned the walls and floor space. Bright ribbons and glittering masks, rock crystal lollipops and cotton tuft candy in every color one might imagine, twee figurines and trinkets, sand globes and seashells, gemstones and moonstones and sunstones and moodstones in every sort of setting one might imagine, quaint taxidermied sea creatures and plush versions for children, booklets and pop-ups and paperdolls, taffeys and toffees and sea salt flavored coffees and so, so many more fun and fantastic items for purchase, and of course, then, there were the puppets. An entire wall devoted to porcelain and wooden and china marionettes, all superb . . . many odd . . . some unsettling or even sad . . . but none of them resembling her brothers or parents.

Ramona might have forgotten herself in exploring the beguiling, gleaming, tinsel-dripped treasure trove had she not caught the expression on Bloomy's stolid face.

A hint of remorse overtook her, but she was not long deterred. Locating the shop register, Ramona approached the glass counter (which itself was a huge rectangular aquarium filled with snails and seaweed and a thick black conger eel and silvery fish that darted to and fro so quickly they were difficult to watch) and rang the tiny handbell she found there, the one with a note attached to its handle which read Ring for Service. Beyond that aquarium-register was a narrow opening draped with hundreds of strands of raw freshwater pearls, and beyond those surely was the entryway to the circus tent. Ramona had just mentally prepared herself to head back there when the strands suddenly parted to allow the figure she knew she must face.

He couldn't have been much taller than she, now, and yet Quaxton inspired an unnatural terror, a profound loathing, for even an eleven-year-old could perceive that this creature was made of material risen from some sunken hole, some subaqueous pit, a place best left undiscovered. Ugly as ever, splatter-stained apron over black cotton t-shirt and slacks, sharp and haggard features, bony fingers and nacreous orbs in his sunken skull sockets, the thing she knew as a man named Quaxton approached the register. He dabbed at the corner of his wet, bluish lips with a handkerchief which he then tucked into his apron pocket. He was not entirely at ease, Ramona thought, not as she'd seen him the night he'd put Ivan on display. Quaxton's brow glistened with beads of moisture, and he smelled of decay and fish rot. The flesh of his face and throat resembled white clay more than human skin.

"What is it I can help you with, child?"

His voice, too, was weak and phlegmy, and Ramona was both heartened as well as unnerved by his state. "I want my family," she asserted.

Quaxton placed both of his bleached, clammy hands on the glass countertop as if to steady himself. He tipped his bulbous head to one side and, not looking at Ramona, smiled awkwardly, his lips pulling taut around black-crusted teeth. "Ah, you see, I'm afraid I can't oblige." He worked his eyebrows a bit, his detached countenance perplexing his visitor. "Our bargain was made long ago, and it's too late, now."

Nonplussed, Ramona attempted to work through what was happening. Of all the scenarios she'd expected, Quaxton's neuroses had not been part of any of them. Still, she was fairly certain she'd not made any deals with the man or with anyone at all, for that matter, besides Bloomy. "I didn't make any agreements with you."

"Not you," Quaxton replied, turning his head in several erratic motions, not shifting his grin even a smidgen. His opal eyes darted to the doll before meeting Ramona's anxious gaze.

"B-Bloomy?" She clutched her friend closer to herself.

Surely the grin had become more of a sneer, now, and tension pulled the muscle beneath Quaxton's ill-fitting, doughy flesh, which had begun to look all the more uncomfortable on the bones that held it in place. "And she's breaching the contract this very moment, aren't you?" he whined between clenched teeth. "And she knows, but she doesn't care! Easy to renege once you're dead and all is done, isn't it? Feeling a bit guilty now, is she? Filthy ground dwellers, all of you. Delicate and duplicitous. I must be mad to traffic with terrestrials, mustn't I? And yet it's tit for tat, as you might say. Your nets and lures, your strings and poles? We've ours, as well. Bah!" Quaxton devolved into a coughing (more a gargling) fit, turned aside and spit, shook, collected himself. All of this took nearly two long minutes, as he was apparently suffering from something which hindered his ability to speak, to act, to interact as naturally as he'd done before.

Ramona studied the glimmer of dark spittle at the crook of the man's lips, glanced at what he'd actually coughed up onto the counter, which appeared to be a dark reddish-gray blob of gelatinous material. The longer she looked at this semblance of a person, the more she recognized how ill his costume fit, how much like the clown and the harlequin and all the others he actually was.

"Who are you?" Ramona quietly asked. "Quaxton—that's not your name, is it?" The situation was more precarious than she'd realized, and she inched back ever so imperceptibly, at the same time reconsidering her surroundings, the thousand distracting products in the boutique, the crystal and ribbon and glitter and candy and plastic and glass.

"Children are fond of stories," Quaxton intoned, his voice taking on a sudden deeper burbling quality, as if he were no longer interested in trying to hide himself, as if he spoke through gallons. "So I will tell you a story."

Ramona did not want a story; she wanted her family. But if Quaxton talked, she had more time to think, and so she remained wary, kept her distance, and tried to think of how to get past the ugly fraud and through that pearl-hung archway, which certainly led to the only place her family was likely to be.

"Once upon a time, we lured a man and a woman to our shop—it's what we do best, you see: cast our lines and wait for the easily deceived, the ones hungering for what they cannot have. She arrived with her belly full of baby, he with his head full of shame and other complicated human feeling, and he bought her a charm, a necklace, 'So you know you are loved,' he says, 'whenever you see it, touch it.' She is a drifting woman, that one, easy to lure, easy to catch, but we know when we see her she's best as bait, best to use for much bigger prey. And so we wait, patiently, and we are right—we are always right, our knowledge what it is. Primordial, you'd say, as if disparaging, and yet—ah, but I lose my story. I knew she'd return, that one. Always can tell. We waited, patiently, and again she comes, for the doll." Here he paused and nodded at the yarn-haired stuffie in Ramona's arms. The girl tightened her grip on her friend. "And by this time, we had her caught, if you understand. She would bring us a fine meal, for we spoke of many things, she and I, though she knew little and remembered less, for we are a skilled master, and when she returned for the last time, it was the zoetrope she took. Then all our work was set in place."

The man, who by this time was positively swimming in his skin, reached beneath the register, pulled out a contraption about the size of an old hat box, and placed it atop the glass aquarium-counter. The thing was rather delicate, resembling a miniature carousel in layers, though rather than anything children might ride such as horses or animals, the figures along each layer were ugly sculpted manikins, freakish humanoid creatures that, when in motion, appeared to dance up and down on their strings and laugh at the world with their cadaverous hollow heads.

In spite of herself, Ramona drew closer to examine the zoetrope, and she was discomfited to notice that letters had been painted on a few of the figurines: an I, an O, an L, and an A . . . could it possibly be a coincidence?

"We held many a quaint . . . conversation, she and I. Came to an agreement. A promise, if you will. She'd not remember much of it, not in her terrestrial shape, not until she died and, as she'd contracted, offered us her remains. But the workings were in place, and ah, what a delight it's been for us, to cast our nets and reel them in, to string them up and swallow them whole! You, though—you were not to be touched, child. That was the agreement, for her misery did not extend to you. And now we've had our fill, our story will draw to a close until a time we hunger once more. My name, you asked? Quaxton, no. This name was the last she heard before she left this world, imprinted itself on her. So her delusions intersected with our designs, and what fun it's been, this hunt. We do not know that we've had more fun. Quite an interesting human, that woman. A bit macabre, rather . . . quixotic in nature. But you terrestrials, you never cease to amuse us, even in your inferiority."

Ramona's mouth had gone dry under the continuous watchfulness of this man, but she didn't realize until she attempted to swallow and instead began to cough. Grateful for an excuse to turn aside, she shook Quaxton's oil-slick image from her brain. She couldn't forget why she'd come. "You're from the ocean. Like all the others," she claimed, watching the black eel in the aquarium peek its wormish nostrils out from a hole in a decorative coral before lifting her gaze up once more.

Rather than respond, Quaxton (or the thing which had allowed itself to be called Quaxton) continued only to stare unblinkingly at the girl. His mouth had cracked open so wide on either side that the lips quivered slightly, as if they were burdened by the grimace, and the greenish-black crust around and between the sharp and translucent teeth had begun to seep afresh through any and all openings. Hands still firm on the glass counter, oil-slick orbs burning pearlescent within their black caverns, sweat running in profuse rivulets down every bit of exposed false flesh, Quaxton was utterly repulsive to behold, and yet in not replying to the girl's question, he answered it.

"It-it's true," Ramona breathed, her shoulders prickling under the brute's surveillance. "I know there's a lot of stuff in the ocean that w-we don't know about. It's so deep—"

"Bottomless—"

"A-and there are treasures and volcanoes and caves and sea creatures—"

"Your kind cannot categorize us. You cannot know us. You will not find us.We have always been, and we'll continue to be long after you depart." Quaxton's knuckles stiffened; the veins beneath his fake flesh bulged and leaked. "You are ever drawn to us. When you gaze into a dark pool, you desire its depths; when you look out over vast waters, you yearn for their embrace. You invade our world, and you pull us from our safety only to tear and scrape, dissect and eviscerate, ingest or analyze . . . but never will you know us. We are always beyond, always below. Never our kind will your kind know."

Ramona had begun to fear the contained intensity in whatever creature visibly struggled before her. Quaxton's fingernails were making indentations in the glass countertop for as hard as they pressed into it. "I only want my family," she quietly begged. "Please—"

At this, Quaxton lifted a finger and set a-spin the contraption on the aquarium-counter, the zoetrope. Ramona watched as the gruesome little manikins appeared to jump up and down.

"A black swallower does not disgorge what it has consumed," Quaxton retorted in a voice so strained that Ramona couldn't help tearing her eyes from the mesmerizing zoetrope to look up at him.

To her horror, Quaxton was beginning to convulse, and through his mouth and nostrils leaked a loathsome, putrid, gelatinous goo. His human disguise tore in fine lines, shifted over whatever terrible form lay beneath, causing his features to morph into grotesque versions of himself. Whatever was happening with him, Ramona was sure he was no threat to her in his current state. The entire shop began to shake, though, as if it were a part of Quaxton and his seizing. Artifacts tumbled from shelves and displays, shattering and spilling beads and glass and liquids of all kinds. The man himself could no longer stand and fell back against the wall behind the register. What would happen if Quaxton's true shape were restored? Would the shop disappear or cave in with her and her family inside of it? Ramona couldn't lose her chance. She had to get through that curtain of pearls.

Bloomy spoke to her, suddenly, not aloud but in her own way, the tacit way they'd always communicated, heart to heart, for nearly a year, since Ramona's mother had died and through whatever agreement she'd made with Quaxton.

"No!" Ramona cried, not liking her friend's idea one bit. "We don't have time . . . it'll work? He told you to . . . ?"

She leapt toward the aquarium-counter, gripped the slippery glass with one hand so as to steady herself against the quaking world.

"I mark myself, and he'll have to?" Ramona's eyes watered with all the dust and glitter clouding her vision.

The lights in the shop burst and went out. The walls themselves began to crack and crumble, revealing the windswept countryside of the above-ground, sun-drenched, terrestrial world beyond. The ceiling began showering chunks of plaster.

"All right, all right!" Ramona shouted against the chaos, feathers and pastel-colored candies and seashells raining around her.

She ruefully dropped the doll and took hold of the rotating zoetrope, selected an impish unmarked figure, and, with her fingernail, hastily carved the letter R into its little clay chest. She would've next scrambled across the aquarium-counter if at that very moment it hadn't been shattered by a massive agglomerate of brick and mortar. The resulting deluge of water and glass nearly took the girl with it, but she managed to stand her ground by taking hold of a bunch of exposed wires and netting. She watched as the eel and the silvery fish and the seaweed flowed off through the debris, cried out when she realized they'd taken Bloomy with them, but knew she hadn't time to go after her friend.

The moment the water had settled enough, Ramona climbed up and over the wreckage, avoided stepping in the freakish pile of pulsating scales and oily eyes and needle teeth that Quaxton had become and, holding the zoetrope against her chest, sobbed, "I've read about black swallowers, a long time ago! They explode if they eat too much!"

The hideous creature's fins flapped weakly against the concrete floor. Its jaw began to extend as if it wished to take hold of the girl's ankle, but Ramona only stepped toward the doorway as around her every bit of Quaxton's store except for the archway with its pearly strands blew itself into dust and water droplets.

"Guess your appetite's bigger than your stomach," she grinned, wiping a tear from her cheek, and then she parted the pearls and was gone.