Baptized in Blood

Danielle Watkins

She walks alone in the woods and bites an apple, tough skin breaking as juice drips down her chin.

She lets sticky liquid stream her face. With nothing left but a skinny core, she throws the apple’s skeleton to the ground and lets it rot.

As she enters a dilapidated cabin, she says nothing. The woman inside looks up, a smirk on her ugly face.

“You’ve gotten old,” the girl says, the juice now drying on her chin.

The woman’s eyes widen like a doe spotted in the forest. The girl smiles wide and draws out a long, sharp knife. It’s good for cutting pies. Apple pies.

Later, the girl looks in the mirror and sees her milky face, spattered with specks of red. Baptized in blood, she is the fairest of them all.

Danielle Watkins graduated with an English/Creative Writing degree from Providence College and is currently pursuing a teaching license. Danielle has been published in Barking Sycamores, Red Fez, and Wilderness House Literary Review. When not dreaming about becoming a published author, Danielle enjoys reading literature (well, mostly teen dystopian novels, let's be real here), watching nerdy TV shows, and singing some classic Justin Timberlake. If she had the soaring, operatic voice of a European soprano, Danielle would be the singer of a female-fronted symphonic metal band, but she's an alto and is probably more the choir type. You can find out more about Danielle on her website: https://dani210w.wordpress.com.