Lusus Naturae

By Erin Lee

Lusus Naturae – Latin for freak of nature.

It's probably the only name that made sense for a curiosity like me, who was born with the uncanny ability to read thoughts even quicker than tarot cards the townies pay me to decipher. I've carried my family's circus legacy since the day I came out of my momma's triangular womb and heard her think of what a mistake she'd made in bringing another anomaly into a cruel world.

From that very day, I was determined to set the record straight. We freaks, you see, are the true marvels of the world. Superheroes in our own ways, I'm determined to use the circus to change hearts and minds about the peculiar attributes and talents of my chosen family. I just didn't know it would be so hard.

From a husband known as Lizard Man with scaly skin rendering him virtually unemployable to the rabid Dog Boy, who has taken the idea of running away from his past to the circus to a whole new level, things are complicated. Here, at Circus Lusus Naturae, where the show goes on no matter what our resident sociopath snake charmer says, personalities and agendas are getting harder and harder to manage. It's no wonder I can't get pregnant.

On the hard days—where Skeleton Man refuses to ride a miniature pony or the twins won't stop whining about being double-mint conjoined—I try to remind myself that realities are only illusions. And, as the troupe's surrogate puppet master, I do have some level of control. Today, I'll work on getting Dog Boy out of here so we don't all end up on felony charges. First, I should probably check on the fried pickles. The show goes on and magic, like Momma always said, is actually a verb.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Crazy Ink
• Release date: Oct 6, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393379409

Erin Lee

Erin Lee lives in Queensland, Australia and has been working with children for over 25 years. She has worked in both long day care and primary school settings and has a passion for inclusive education and helping all children find joy in learning. Erin has three children of her own and says they have helped contribute ideas and themes towards her quirky writing style. Her experience working in the classroom has motivated her to write books that bring joy to little readers, but also resource educators to help teach fundamental skills to children, such as being safe, respectful learners.

Book preview

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. Step right up!

See Malformations & Monstrosities...

Meet the Intellectual and Moral Curiosities...

Admission only $19.99.

Welcome to Lusus Naturae – a magical place where sticky-hot crowds gather on cotton candy promises to be entertained on the devil’s playground...

Meet the Freaks:

Rosa and Shirley Hawkings

Hello, Colorado! So nice to make your acquaintance. Ladies and gents, boys and girls. Children of all ages! Welcome to Lusus Naturae’s Travelling Circus – where mutants are marvels and rarities are as ordinary as the impossible things you read about. 

I, Jenny Jubilee Jones—the happiest clown around—am here to introduce you to the freaks! Their oddities are what lured me in and I assure you, they won’t disappoint. Here, you will find women as round as they are tall, men the size of mice and all in between. At Lusus Naturae Circus’ show, you will find everything under the soft, pink sky that the grand Puppet Master orchestrated it to be.

So, sit back in your seats, open your eyes, and prepare to be amazed. Beer and soda are with the vendors at the back of the ring, restrooms are at the top of every ten aisles, and we ask—for the performers’ sake—that you avoid all forms of flash photography in both the big tent and menagerie. Otherwise, the only rules here are to open your hearts and minds to marvels whose very stories and lives will change all you know about possibilities...

First up, are two sisters who are bound—in more than one way—to steal your breath away.

The show’s double conjoined anomalies who’ve shared everything, including a wishbone spine since birth, Rosa and Shirley Hawkings, know how to put on a show.

Rosa has a huge—or very tiny, depending on how literal you are—secret. It’s a secret that will flip all they have planned acrobatically-upside-down and twist the very future of Lusus Naturae’s Circus. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves...

Ladies and gents, boys and girls, meet The Twins! Nicknamed Left and Right, they are sure to delight! Marvelous indeed. But more normal, too, than one might think. You see, the Hawkings sisters have pretty ordinary dreams.

Both hope to marry and have children one day – setting up separate households and spending time with their husbands and family, three days a week. They plan on leaving Sundays for themselves. They’ve only talked about this their entire lives and Shirley is a marvelous planner. What could possibly go wrong?

After years of both discussion and compromise on their adjoined plan, they’ve finally got a clear picture of their individual futures with families of their own. The only problem is, well, they haven’t quite locked down their men. Fear not! They’re working on it. The show’s tattooed man for Right and the pint-sized ringmaster for Left. Sounds simple, right? Have you forgotten Rosa’s secret?

Worry less! Every great performance has its juggling act and the sisters are used to odd predicaments. You see, the twins are double pygopagus twins. They are connected at the base of their spines as well as by a vein patch between their necks. They share common circulatory and nervous systems but are otherwise independent. What more should you know? Our resident Giant reports that they weigh 190 pounds together with Rosa carrying the bulk of it. This, for sure, is an ongoing source of contention between them. Rosa is tired of being considered the fat, ugly twin. Shirley is sick of comparisons to a doll. Aww, the problems of being unsymmetrical. And, folks? That’s not all!

They are just short of five feet tall and have their own vital parts, including sex organs. Imagine that! Most days, both sisters wish they had been born parasitic twins with one twin dormant. It’s a complicated matter of fact.

At the same time, they are glad they have each other in times of both crisis and achievement. Doctors, specialists and surgeons alike have all agreed – they can never be separated. They are, indeed, peculiar but very naturally born freaks. It’s the way our Puppet Master intended it to be. And so the show goes on.

Rosa has eyes for Slash Jones while Shirley is in love with Church Schow. Neither is entirely secure in their relationships and how the two rivals will ultimately get along. This brings us back to the secret:

On top of the fetus she carries in her unshared womb, Rosa has another. Yes. Allow me to confirm. One of the twins is pregnant. There’s more. Rosa was born with the supernatural power of the ability to read minds and see futures. The only person she’s sure knows is our very own Madame Lusus who shares the very same powers of her own.

Please know: Rosa can’t always bring this on at will. It just happens. But when it does? She’s never wrong. She refuses to share this gift with her sister for reasons mostly unknown. The bigger twin prays she won’t pass this ability on to her child and needs to find a way to get Lusus onboard with her latest premonitions.

You see, there are two very new and illusive performers in the show. With big decisions ahead for Lusus, her ability to focus on Rosa’s warnings is imperative to the future of the show. What happens between them matters more than ever before with the impending arrival of Rosa’s baby. Will the jealousy our barren Lusus must tackle be enough to get in the way of what could ultimately bring the tents down?

Slash Jones

And then, ladies and gents, we have our newest circus dad! A reluctant ‘normal’ born freak, tattooed man and shock artist: Slash Jones is the product of a family with a rich circus legacy. His mother was a little person and his father had a growth so big in the shape of a horn coming from his abdomen that it’s now on permanent display at the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Be careful of what you might believe. Slash is not ashamed of his chosen status as a freak.  Instead, he is certain ascertaining the title is goals, man and was raised to believe that being born a ‘natural freak’ is the equivalent of being one of God’s chosen people. For this reason, he is obsessed with the most curious performers in the show. While he’d be entirely up for Left and Right’s plan to make a part-time husband out of him, constant battles with Shirley’s crush and Left herself make that hard.

Of course, Rosa’s pregnancy won’t make the delicate balance in co-parenting with conjoined twins any easier. But Slash isn’t one to turn down a challenge. He’s a man who prides himself on being able to swallow fire without the use of charcoal. He won’t allow their complicated predicament or Shirley either to keep him from his child. For now, he’ll let Rosa figure that out. His goal, at the moment, is mastering the swallower’s pole.

In the meantime, tattooing and extreme scarification including mimicking his father’s horn out of an old, dulled tent stake, are the closest he can get to being a rarity himself. He often feels inadequate because he wasn’t a natural-born mutant. Insanely jealous of Church Schow, the show’s ring master and the man Rosa’s twin is in love with, the animosity is mutual.

But the show goes on and Slash Jones knows: it’s the twisted relationships in the circus that keep things interesting. While he’s a simple man who can usually quickly make sense of things, the one person he can’t quite figure out is his mentor and the freakiest of all – Bailey ‘Ax’ Brown. There’s just something about him, folks. And it when it’s revealed, Slash’s entire plan as a family man may just bottom out.

Finley Sutton

Step right up! Watch the show’s most daring charmer curl around the most poisonous snake this side of the equator! Meet the show’s gender-fluid snake charmer with the dual human ability to twist realities. Finley Sutton charms humans as easily as snakes. Both manipulative and cunning, those who truly know Finley—no one we know—understands he/she cannot be trusted for he/she has no interest in truth. At least, that’s the rumor.

Finley Sutton has personal agendas that no one at Lusus Naturae knows. Yet, the illusions he/she spins are imperative to the show’s future. This person is very powerful. Hell, the charmer got Dog Boy ready at any moment to kill just for the spectacle of it all.

Lusus Naturae Circus’s most loved known sociopath, Sutton is a cunning liar but also knows how to get the truth out of people. Sutton is the show’s biggest uncertainty and is motivated not by what will be in the greater good but only for self.

With a dark past and odd connection to the Hawkings sisters, it’s only a matter of time before Finley intentionally and precisely allows the show’s darkest secret out. Until then, there are motivations and obsessions to derail. There are tales to spin and relationships to change. Like boa constrictors round the gut of a charmer’s waist, Finley Sutton will stop at nothing to ensure that karma is arranged.

It’s an act you can’t afford to miss and at $19.99, where’s the complaint? I’m telling you, folks, this is an act to see!

Whispers Spinler-Goorick

What carnival would be complete without a human seal? A natural freak, Whispers Spinler-Goorick suffers from a condition known as phocomelia. She has no arms to speak of and is otherwise known as Seal Girl. It’s marvelous, indeed. The tiny stubs that would have been her arms grow out from her shoulders and look more like hands; each with three fingers. Yes. You heard that right: a grand total of six. People often compare her to a pinniped. A natural-born freak, she is one of the oddity tent’s greatest commodities and the candy apple of her Giant father’s eye. She is well-liked by mostly all of the other freaks and the surrogate daughter of the show’s fat lady, Truly.

But the show’s not over. We’ve only just begun. If you look at the base of your rows, we are selling popcorn. Just $5, will get you some! What we have to offer you here is better than any reality show. Ladies! Listen up. Whispers is in love with Church Schow. She despises the Hawkings sisters—specifically Shirley—for this reason. The two are known for fights that Rosa is left to break up or ignore. And when you’re bettin’ on half of a conjoined twin or a human seal, where do you lay your cards? Before you lay down your chips, you should know more:

Whispers has no current biological family to speak of. As a child, she was locked in the attic of her well-to-do biological family’s massive home. Her birth mother, a devout follower of extreme religious beliefs, believed her daughter’s deformities were punishment for a one-time affair with a man who called himself a prophet. Of this fact, Whispers’ biological mother’s husband, was entirely unaware. But fret not, ladies and gents. It’s not like it mattered. For this reason and her spectacular deformities, Whispers was dropped off at the circus and left with Truly at ten years old.

It was a blessing, the kind you read about only in the curiosities tents. Down six trailers and straight to your left. Since joining the show a decade ago, she’s never looked back and wouldn’t want to be found. For us, the circus is home. Don’t believe me? Ask her yourself. For a $10 VIP pass, she will tell you that even if her birth mother changed her mind, Whispers would never go back. Not even if she had her heart torn in two by Church and a twig of a twin called Left.

Church Schow

It doesn’t end there . Not even close. What show would be whole without a little person clown? Fully grown, Church Schow stands forty-three inches and weighs less than seventy pounds. He is considered the modern-day Tom Thumb. Church does his best to avoid drama but it always seems to find him especially when it comes to Left and Right. Like I told you before, Left—Shirley Hawking—is in love with him. He isn’t quite sure the feelings are mutual and would rather not deal with it at all if it means competing with shock artist Slash Jones.

Church works as the show’s ringmaster and dresses as a clown. He can’t figure out why Dog Boy is so jealous of him. Slash? Well, that’s easy. He’s always wanted to be a natural born freak and is in love with Right. But Dog Boy? He’s the best kind of freak there is – he can hide his mutation and pull it out only on demand. Church would rather have a tail than be a little person. He could hide a tail.

Most days, Church does the best he can to avoid spectacle. He’s rarely successful. At night, after the lights go down, he likes to spend time with Left but more as a friend than anything. At least, this is what he tells himself. He can’t imagine a life trying to deal with Right’s snoring. Still, there’s something about Shirley.

Neither of them get enough sleep because of late nights sneaking whisky. And lately, he’s been grouchy because time alone with Shirl has been rare with Slash constantly around for Rose. That’s not all. It’s even worse with Whispers—a girl Left believes is far too young for him—chasing him. At the end of the day, he’s starting to wish he’d never agreed to be part of the show at all. He’s beginning to rethink everything. But what would the show be without its favored clown?