Wicked

Days later, Melena writes to her childhood home, Colwen Grounds, asking for Nanny—the woman who helped raise her—to come at once. Frex warns Nanny that their baby, Elphaba, is “damaged,” but Nanny brushes it off, confident she can handle anything. When she meets Elphaba, she’s startled by the baby’s sharp teeth and restlessness. Still, Nanny is determined to give her the care and affection her parents seem unwilling to provide. Since Elphaba’s birth, Frex has withdrawn from his neighbors, and Melena has started regularly chewing pinlobble leaves, a sedative, to numb herself.

Frex confesses to Nanny that he believes Elphaba’s appearance is punishment for his failure to save Rush Springs from sin. But Nanny pulls Melena aside and asks if she had been unfaithful—maybe that’s the real reason Elphaba is green. Melena denies consciously having an affair, but she admits that while Frex was away preaching, she often chewed pinlobble leaves out of boredom. During that time, travelers sometimes passed through, and she suggests she may have been taken advantage of. Nanny furiously calls this what it is: rape. After a few weeks, when Nanny proposes trying magic to help Elphaba, Frex is outraged. Nanny leaves soon after, still unsure of Elphaba’s origins, but certain the child has a rebellious spirit.