'She wants an apple.' 'Are you listening? She just wants an apple.' No one is listening. She looks at the outstretched arm, skinny and waxen, from a girl about her age. Clenched and then opened, the palm is just big enough to hold an apple. She senses the emotions of the people around the girl. If she is met with anxious fear, then the girl is met with indifference, mingled with a hint of disgust to be precise, as if that human-shaped body was never meant to belong to their kind. 'Have you ever eaten an apple?' she asks. The girl shakes her head. She herself rarely gets to eat apples, but at least she knows what they taste like. The servants occasionally bring them, leaving them at the door for her to take. The girl might have only glimpsed apples from afar or heard of them in passing. After thinking for a moment, she looks at the servant accompanying her, but remains distant. She walks toward the servant, gathers her courage, and says, 'I... want an apple.' No threats, no curses, she learned to express her thoughts directly, just like everyone else. The servant's eyes widen, his hand trembling, until he screams and flees. A few days later, a rumor spreads through the town: the girl on the island is using apples in her curses. The ninety-year-old lady of the Romano family was suddenly bedridden, or the eldest daughter of the Buccellati family couldn't find a husband. All due to malicious curses. People in town quickly hide their apples, and even objects shaped like apples, to ensure that no apple would reach that cursed island. She waited a long time, but never got the apples. The disappearance of the apples showed her that she could never be like those people. She is different. 'Curse you... all of you...' One day, while cleaning, a servant at the mansion stumbles upon a felt apple with nails driven deep into it. He thinks of the apples he bought a few days ago and the headaches he has been suffering. He breaks out in a cold sweat. As more and more felt apples are found throughout the mansion, a terrifying rumor sweeps through the town once more. 'The curse falls upon anyone with apples.' For a while, everyone in town abandons their apples. Crates of apples are dumped into the lake, ripe apples are thrown into the streets. Someone suggests changing the town's name to 'Nonappleton,' to unanimous approval. On a pitch-black night, she sneaks to the shore and picks up an apple that floated downstream. She takes a gentle bite, the sweet juice flowing down her throat. That night, she enjoys a rare good dream. She dreamed of the girl on the street eating a bright red apple.