Frida and the Wyrm

Part 1: Chapter 1: The Doorway

Frida was exhausted.

People pushed her as they rushed about their business, hardly noticing her small form darting between them in the hustle and bustle of the docks. The day was bright and sunny, but in her heart it was as though everything in her was gearing up for a thunder storm. A night and day of nonstop travel and endless tears and tantrums had led her from her wonderful caravan with the Freaks to... this. A grimy, thriving port in New York City, full of uncaring people and horrible, oily, smoggy smells.

"Move it, smalls!" a large man growled. The worn material of his once blue jeans flashed in her peripheral before they caught her at the shoulder and sent her reeling, barely managing to catch herself, bumping into first one busy pair of legs, then another. She looked up to shoot him a ferocious glare, but he had already disappeared into the crowd. She fancied she could hear him, though, shouting at other people to move along before him and his armfuls of cargo.

How she longed for a hand to hold! Even the stranger that strode silently a few feet in front of her, long black ropes of hair swinging with his footsteps, was a preferable alternative to the bumping, bumbling sailors and traders and passengers and bums that hit her head with barrels and boxes and elbows and hips. At least he knew she existed- though he wasn't showing it at the moment.

Frida cursed her short legs, willing them to move a little bit faster, a little bit closer to the only hope of safety she had left in the world. But once again, her view of the stranger's back vanished, enveloped by a large wooden box as some great big oaf walked in front of her.

"Hey!" she shouted at him. "Watch where you're going!"

The old pill didn't even look back. With an indignant huff, Frida looked up, hoping to find the tall, dark man waiting for her.

But he wasn't. She couldn't see him anywhere. A wave of panic and indignation swept through her as she turned. Not there... nor there.... She couldn't see much more than a bustling whirlwind of trousers and jeans in various shades of wear and tear, and, up above, an amoebic sliver of blue sky.

How could he just leave me like this? she fumed as she stumbled in the general direction that she expected he had gone. But then she stopped, and emitted a curse that Estelle would have slapped her for. That man could be anywhere, and here she had gone spinning herself in circles. How could he just leave me like this?!

She fought to keep the panic down. Normally she was quite good at focusing her emotions, and should very well have been able to drown out the anxious tumor in her chest, but it simply wasn't working. He was nowhere to be found.

But she couldn't give up. Frida decided to look for something else in the crowd- a policeman, maybe, or something she could climb. A moment later, through the sea of legs, she glimpsed a bunch of large crates, each nearly as tall as herself, that had been stacked against a big brick building, and started making her way towards it. Years of climbing trees and fences and kitchen counters had strengthened her muscles- easily, she was able to lift her small body up onto one of the crates.

For a short moment, Frida was washed in a familiar awe- is this what people normally see? It was unthinkable that a person could be so high up and think of it as normal. It made her dizzy to think that, if not for whatever accident of birth, she, too, could be up here, flying about the clouds with the rest of mankind.

"STOCK CONTINUES TO PLUNGE! GET YOUR NEW YORK TIMES HERE!" A boy stood a few feet to Frida's right, holding up a newspaper. "GET THE LATEST ON THE STOCK MARKET DEBACLE!" He looked younger than she was. He also was much taller, though that wasn't much of a surprise.

Frida ignored him. Being of equal height as everyone else did her no good- still, people and boxes and horses and automobiles blocked her ability to find the man that held her fate in his hands. Impatiently, she tied her curly black hair up with a strip of blue ribbon that she kept wrapped around her wrist. Up here, the breeze could be felt, and it was throwing strands of hair into her eyes.