The year is 1929, and a tallman freak named Kahlil has returned home from a long sojourn to the traveling carnival sideshow in which he and his dwarf brother Heinrich grew up as adopted orphans. He finds the show crossing the longitude of the American Dustbowl and is excited to see the enigmatic owner, Barnum Carnival, who is also his foster father. The fantastic caravan boasts a menagerie of talent, from the limbless 'Human Cannonball' Belvedere to the three-legged foot juggler Effram. The Sterlings perform death-defying high-flying trapeze acts that boggle the imagination and Madam Lucille sees into the past and future with her third eye, literally. Three bearded triplet sisters known as the Abbys preen for attention alongside the unbelievably hairy strongman man Bear-dee while two-headed twins Tweedle and Twaddle perform mentalist feats. A half-man half-fish mutant called Nemo floats aloof from the world in his aquarium for gaping onlookers while Maiden Marion dances behind her barely concealing veils. And still many more await in the shadows...
But times are rough. Desert life is unforgiving, where any faint hope is soon covered in dust to rot in the mind, a half-remembered memory. And yet, things are about to change for the worse in ways that none of the performers could have imagined. Something dark and monstrous comes, creeping toward them and spreading its oily wings and talons large enough to engulf them all. Kahlil and Heinrich will dig deep into their unknown past, facing their weaknesses and temptations to find the answers that may be their salvation, or destruction.
Come one, come all, come fall, for Mr. Carnival's Traveling Sideshow!