"Is he gone yet, Mummy?" Arlan asked in a tiny whisper. She shook her head, motioning for him to be still. Above the waving fronds of the anemone, the turtle lurked. He'd been there for hours, just floating there. Quera didn't know what he wanted, but she knew it wasn't good.

For months, her oceanic neighborhood had slowly grown more and more desolate and still. At first, she hadn't put the pieces together. She hadn't noticed that every time that turtle came round, another of her neighbors went missing. He'd been a clever beast all right. But she knew now. She knew that she and her son must stay quiet, must not let the turtle know that they were still there.

This side of the grotto was nearly deserted by now. Either they'd gone missing by the turtle's shell, or they'd moved on, unwilling to risk being the next to vanish. Quera hadn't, though. She had nowhere to move to. Arlan's father had disappeared when he was born. A shark may have been involved. Technically, she didn't know if he was actually dead, but it was pretty much a certainty that he was.

The turtle heaved a breath, and Quera froze, wishing, not for the first time, that her vivid orange-and-white coloring could actually blend in with the ocean floor around her. But no, she had to stick out like a sore fin. It wasn't fair, it really wasn't.

"I want to go up, Mummy, maybe he's all right," Arlan whispered. Before she could stop him, he began wriggling his way up through the gently waving fronds.

"No!" Quera hissed, desperately grabbing for his tail. She missed.

"It's all right, Mummy," Arlan told her in his piping voice. "It's all..."

The turtle yawned. Arlan vanished.

Quera's body drifted to the sand below as she wept. Now she was all alone.