The Girl Who Fell Apart

There lived in the woods a family of three, a mother and her two daughters, which had lost its head long ago. The mother made do with all they had and raised her daughters alone with her intuition and the knowledge her husband had left behind for all of them. The first born, Crystella, was beautiful and kind in heart; the second born, Lucinda, though plain in appearance and dull in spirit, had a clever and cunning mind.

Lucinda also had a deep, hidden jealousy of her sister's beauty. She slept few hours at night, for she spent most of them wandering the woods, grinding her teeth at the thought of the beauty she so wished she had. One such night she felt drawn further into the woods than she had ventured before, and happened upon a clearing in which there was a small lake.

She peered across this lake with curious eyes, for there seemed to be the figure of a woman floating in its center. As she approached the lake's edge, the figure drew hastily near, revealing itself as a beautiful and wise looking woman. "What grieves you this night, dear?" she questioned with a sultry grin.

"My sister, Crystella! She has such beauty yet I have none! See for yourself the face that never once was called 'beautiful'." Lucinda scowled and turned her gaze to the ground, though she soon found a hand on her chin and her gaze drawn towards the eyes of the mysterious woman. She was too stunned to speak another word.

"Oh, dear Lucinda, I have watched you roam these woods night after night. I, the Witch of the Lake, shall grant your wish for beauty with my magic. All you must do is bring me the part of your sister that you wish to be your own. Worry not for numbers, for one is enough. To bring me two would be an insult!" The witch held her palms open before Lucinda. In one hand appeared a sharp knife and in the other a wrap of bandages. "You must wrap the wound you leave in these magical bindings, or the wound will drive your sister to seek what she has lost! And do remember: you may take your sister's beauty but you may never take her heart."

"I will do as you ask," Lucinda promised quite contentedly, not too concerned with that which was inside her sister's body. She took the objects from the witch's hands and gasped as the witch vanished before her eyes. She elatedly hurried back to her home and entered her sleeping sister's room.

Crystella slept calmly and peacefully as Lucinda scrutinized her beautiful body. After a good moment spent in careful contemplation, Lucinda decided that she would start with something simple: her sister's slender, fair hand. She knelt beside her sister and began to saw through her wrist, grinning to see her sister remain asleep as her own blood stained her bed.

The next morning, Crystella awoke in tears that only flowed faster when she discovered that her terrible dream had been true! She stared in horror at the bandaged stub that was once her left hand and screamed for her mother, exclaiming that she had begun to fall apart. Her mother came and comforted her, cried with her, and stayed with her the rest of the day.

That night Lucinda went walking, this time with a heart full of joy as she carried with her Crystella's hand in a bag. She met the witch at the lake's edge, smiling and emptying the bag in the woman's outstretched hands. "I have done as you asked!"

"Very well, then. I shall grant you the fair hands of your sister." She pressed her palms together around the hand, crushed it, and opened her hands to reveal a sparkling red dust. With a grin she sprinkled the dust over Lucinda's hands.

"Oh, marvelous!" Lucinda exclaimed as she watched her callused hands change to mirror her sister's beauty. "May I bring you more?" she asked with an eager heart. The witch nodded and off Lucinda went to once again saw into her sister.

This time Lucinda, full of confidence, chose to steal her sister's eye. She held Crystella's eyelids open and drove the knife's edge carefully into the socket, sawing around the eye until she was sure it was loose. She plucked it, hid it, and wrapped her sister's head before hurrying to her own bed before sunrise.

Again, Crystella woke in terror and her mother gave her a day of attention. Lucinda spent most of the day looking in the mirror, imagining her eyes to be the beautiful amber color that Crystella's were. "Soon, soon!" she chanted merrily.

Lucinda carried the eye that night to the lake and the witch did as she had done before, only this time the powder was scattered upon Lucinda's eyes. "Oh, Lucinda! You certainly are becoming a beautiful lass!"

"Yes, becoming, this is true; but I wish for more. I had a thought, but for fear of insulting you by bringing a pair of eyes, I held back." The witch gave her a compelling look of interest, and Lucinda continued bravely. "What will happen should I bring you my sister's head?"

"You are not satisfied with what you have?" Lucinda shook her head vigorously. "Very well. Take your sister's head and bring it to me. I shall do as I have done for you already, but with her head you shall receive the whole of her beauty."

Lucinda ran as fast as she could back to her home and her knife. She took the blade to the base of her sister's neck and began to saw through. The bone gave her a little trouble, but her burning desire gave her the strength to complete the task.

After she had placed her sister's head in a bag, she stopped to examine the body. "Now how shall I wrap these small bandages around that? There is no stub, and these will not reach around her whole body. It must be that I do not need to wrap her wounds again! After all, I will soon be complete!" She glanced out the window with glee to see the moon still high in the sky, and so she ran hurriedly back to the lake with her sister's pretty head.

"Oh, a second visit! How flattering," the witch announced in a dry tone. "Shall I grant you that which you so desire, then?"

"Yes, yes!" Lucinda opened the bag and placed Crystella's beautiful head, soaked in blood, in the palms of the witch. The woman grinned at the sight of Crystella's gaping, lifeless amber eye then began to crumble the entire head into a mass of red powder. She threw her hands forward, covering Lucinda's body entirely with the magical red dust.

Lucinda hurried home faster than she ever had, leaping into her bed to sleep the few hours she could. Her excitement woke her at the time her mother usually would wake her, though she found her mother had gone. "I nearly did forget, this is the day for errands! Then I shall wait here."

Lucinda began to approach the kitchen table nearest the house's front door but stopped before reaching it. "I see that Mother has left the cupboard open. I shall close it for her as a good child should!" So she did, merrily returning to the kitchen table and taking a seat in which she quickly fell asleep.

Lucinda peeled her eyes open some time later to the feeling of a hand very gingerly resting atop her right shoulder. "Mother! You have returned to adore my beauty!" Lucinda was excited until she felt that the hand was holding something.

She began to turn her head and managed a glimpse of the headless body of her sister and the rusty kitchen knife she held in her hand. She could not turn to see more, for the knife was suddenly driven with great speed and immense strength halfway deep into the side of her neck! She screamed as hard as she could until the blade of the knife sawed through her throat and, soon after, the rest of her neck...

"Mother!" Crystella called out and ran to her mother in tears. "I am happy you are home, however," she paused and sobbed as her tears nearly drowned her words. "Lucinda has vanished!"

"Oh, my dearest Lucinda! Where could you have gone?" They searched through the evening and waited through the night but Lucinda never did return. Though, they thought they heard a woman's laughter echoing out from beyond the forest...