The girl played with the flies by the muddy stream, plucking off their wings and delighting in their suffering. She speared the largest ones with her mother’s sewing needle, pinning them to the pages of a book, saying, “This one knows how to read.” When her mother tried to teach her the alphabet, she refused. “Reading is for flies.”

The girl grew quickly, as did her wickedness and the poverty that surrounded her. She tortured the two chickens in the coop to death and hid their bodies to keep anyone from eating them. Famine and plague descended on the village. The girl was hungry every day; her stomach seemed to be eating itself. The girl’s parents sent her away with an acquaintance who worked in the count’s castle. No sooner had the count and countess set eyes on her—so proud and good-looking—than they took her into their service. They dressed her in satin and silk, in beautiful dresses and shoes. They had her hair done. She looked like a young lady; she ran errands for the women of the court and charmed arriving guests. The count was especially fond of her. He was a man of the flesh, and he could hardly wait for her to come of age so he could take her as a lover. He flattered her and lavished her with gifts, laying the groundwork for his plan. “There’s no one more beautiful than you,” he would say, complimenting her at every opportunity, because he had yet to possess her. He said this over and over and was quite compelling. The count wasn’t interested in girls, but her body was becoming more and more like a woman’s.

The countess, who wanted nothing more than to please her husband—particularly when there was some benefit to her—pretended to think highly of the girl too. She took particular care in dressing the girl, spoiling her. What will happen one day when my husband doesn’t want her anymore, where will we send her? And what if she bears him a child? I don’t want to have it here, we’ll send it to her parents, who’ll look after it as if it were their own. And thinking such thoughts, she sent the girl to visit her parents.