Frida and the Wyrm

Prologue

1933

Dr. Benjimit's Fantastic Freak Show was canceled until further notice. To make it official, a sign had been posted on the rickety, makeshift gate that closed the Freaks off from the public. Those non-Freaks who cared enough to worry were told by the gatekeeper Jerald that the great physician and ring master Dr. Lestrade Benjimit had fallen ill. Young children who had scrounged about for weeks for their penny entrance fee sighed in disappointment and hung their heads as they walked away, visions of women with beards and the fattest man alive floating away on the cool autumn breeze.

The Freaks knew better, of course. Estelle, the woman with four legs, watched the spectacle from the grimy window of her small, shared caravan, humming in agony as Jerald shut the gates and turned away from the last straggles of thwarted children. He glanced her way, then dropped his gaze when he saw her watching. He gave her a short nod and hurried towards his trailer.

"She'll be back," Lucy called. "You'll see."

Estelle turned away from the window and looked at her trailer-mates. "She won't."

"She's always runnin' round and gettin' into trouble," Amanda reminded her in her quiet voice. "And you always get worried. But she always comes back."

The four-legged woman watched through the hanging laundry as her one-bodied friends pulled a small pottage pie out of the tiny wood oven together. It would have to be enough for all three of them. "Not this time."

Lucy huffed. "You're always such a stick in the mud, Estelle. Why can't you just try to think happy thoughts for once?"

"Lucy..." Amanda scolded as Estelle burst into tears. She glared at Lucy, who then sighed and acquiesced as her sister moved her side of the body in Estelle's direction.

"She's my baby, my baby!" Estelle wailed as Lucy and Amanda put a blanket around her shoulders. "How could I let this happen to her? To us?"

"Estelle, please calm down," Lucy sighed. "She ain't really your baby."

"Lucy!" Amanda nearly strained her neck giving her sister a bewildered glare.

Estelle howled. "She's as good as! She's as good as, and you know it."

"And she ain't a baby anyway," Lucy continued, prompting her sister into a crouch before the teary Estelle. "She twelve, and smart, too. Heck, we got two heads and we ain't as smart as that girl, you know?"

"She's right," Amanda grudgingly agreed. She wanted to believe it, too. "She'll find her way home easy, like always. She ain't never lost."

Estelle was now sobbing so hard that she made no sound, shaking as though her heart was looking for a way out. "Lost!" she finally gasped out. "Lost! Yes, she's lost! Lost for good! Lost to that- that man! Oh, how could I do such a wretched thing? How could I sell my own girl, my very own girl, to that- that man?"

Amanda and Lucy exchanged glances, their identical soft brown eyes communicating more than anyone could know.

"Calm down, you silly woman," Lucy crooned uncomfortably. "This ain't a Shakespeare reading or nothin'."

"What she's tryin' to say is that it wasn't you who done it," Amanda said, knocking her head scoldingly against her sister's. "It was Dr. Benjimit who done it. And I'm sure he's all wrecked up inside same as you. He canceled the show."

"But I agreed to it!" Estelle was hysterical, wringing the corner of the blanket like a dishtowel.

"We don't have money," Amanda reasoned, her voice gentle. "We got nothing. We're lucky to put food on the table. A freak show ain't no place for a little girl like her. You know that. If she wants back, she smart enough to find her way back. But if it's better there than here... well, she'll find her best way."

"But, she's so innocent! So small!"

"She a dwarf, Estelle. 'Course she small."

Estelle sniffled, taken aback by the dismissive tone. "But what could a man like that have to do with a little girl like her? How could it be innocent? How?"

Amanda and Lucy exchanged a look, unsure of what to say. For, indeed, what could a man like that, so regal and refined and yet so dark-skinned, want with a skinny, underfed runt of a dwarf girl? In this economy, it was unthinkable that even a rich person would want to adopt any girl, much less one of Frida's stature, unless she could be used for something. Short-term thrills in dens and brothels were as widely sought out as eternal ones in churches these days. And as unfair as it was, the richest black men were the ones famous for entertainments of all sorts- both good and evil.

Estelle caught onto their hesitation and wept even more wildly, blue irises shocking and ghostly against the redness of her eyes. Lucy and Amanda stood and began to gently plait her graying hair, trying to calm her down, murmuring kind words to her. But what could they say to end the tears of a woman who has sold her reason for living to a complete stranger?

"Frida. Oh, Frida, my baby, what have I done?"