Melinda was a girl whose modesty was surpassed only by her great beauty. It was no wonder that the sorcerer coveted her; indeed, had her and her family not pursued the option of a more secluded life, Melinda would have found herself pursed by half the men in whatever village they dwelled in. Melinda's skin was like alabaster, her hair was one long flaxen mass of ebony. Her irises were twin pools of deep brown luster; her lips were like the petals of a rose. Her height was above average standards, though not overly so, and she was thin yet well proportioned. She had a healthy blush to her cheeks and a hearty spring in her step that were given to her by the rigorous life she led at the edge of the wood.
And by Melinda's kind virtue, she did not show the slightest bit of anger with her father.
"There was no way you could have known," was all she had said in her soft voice when her father desperately explained to her the situation, and only showed her emotion by weeping silently on the porch behind the cottage as the sun slid down the horizon.
In time, Melinda's tears dried and she resolved herself to learn how to live the three years' time she had been allotted with grace and dignity. Her parents admired the fact that Melinda continued to be innocent and obedient throughout all that time, and they doted on her mercilessly, knowing that soon their time with their only child would soon be up.
"Our poor daughter!" Gretchen would weep every night. "Oh, oh, oh, our poor daughter!! Is there nothing we can do to save her?"
And every night, David the miller would reply in anguish, "I'm so sorry Gretchen. for what I've done to Melinda, to our family..!"
It wasn't until a month to the day that the three years' time period would be up, that the miller thought of something desperate. He had heard of a gypsy who had set up shop in the nearest village, and without a word to his wife or his daughter he saddled a horse and set off to it.
He was gone for a period of three days, causing Gretchen and Melinda to greatly worry.
"Perhaps he could not live with what he had done," Gretchen wailed, burying her face into her palms as she wept. "And so he left us!"
"Father is not that kind of man," Melinda had told her mother firmly, although she too worried.
David returned on the fourth day. "Melinda!" He cried, as raced through the door, weary from the ride and reeking of outdoors, obviously weary and hungered from lack of eating.
"David! Where have you been!" Gretchen said angrily as David raced past her.
"No time, Gretchen! I found a way.. to save our daughter."

Three years to the day, Melinda prepared herself for the coming of the sorcerer. She went into the bath at sunrise and did not stop washing herself until she was as pure as the driven snow. She then walked out to the porch, the very same porch she had been sweeping when the sorcerer tricked her father, and carefully she drew a large white circle on the ground with chalk her father had purchased from the gypsy. She stepped inside of it, and waited with what courage she could summon into her heart for the sorcerer to come.
The sorcerer came earlier than expected.

"What?! What is this?!" The sorcerer screamed as he materialized in front of the apple tree, pointing one gnarled finger at white circle in which Melinda stood.
David the miller stepped out onto the porch with relief, seeing that the remedy the gypsy had proscribed had worked. How he wanted to speak out against that wizard, laugh at him and say, "Your trick has not succeeded!" But still, he didn't dare. He knew that sorcerer could still slay both Gretchen and himself out of hand if he so desired it, so he kept his mouth sealed shut.
"Take every ounce of water away from her! Do not let her wash, understand me!? I'll come for her again in the morning," the sorcerer guffawed in his rasping voice, and once again disappeared.
Melinda sighed, and turned to gaze at her father, but he had already scurried off to do the sorcerer's bidding.

The next morning, the sorcerer came again to collect the virtuous Melinda, but shrieked again as he saw that Melinda had wept onto her hands all that night, rendering her hands dazzlingly pure. He still could not touch her. The girl looked up at the hideous sorcerer defiantly, her eyes sore and rimmed with red.
"Miller!" The sorcerer called out then, summoning David to come outside. David had stayed inside, weeping alongside Gretchen, knowing he would not be able to bear seeing Melinda carried off by that old gnarled stick of a man. His eyes widened in shock and disbelief at what he witnessed, the sorcerer still could not abduct Melinda!
"Chop off her hands!" The sorcerer then screamed, pointing at the girl. "Chop them off, do you hear me?!" The sorcerer's eyes were practically a glowing red at this point, his body trembling with rage. His own power seemed to emanate from him in a waving aura of filthy gray, and echoed out when he spoke. "If you do not chop them off, I won't hold any power over her!"
"How can you expect me to chop off the hands of my daughter," David shouted in anguished shock. "I won't.. I won't do it!"
The sorcerer turned his enraged head towards the man, and pointed his knotty finger at him. "If you do not do it, I'll take you instead of your daughter." And so saying, a beam of golden light akin to electricity shot forth from the sorcerer's fingertip and knocked David clean over, burning a hole into his shirt and singing his chest. David moaned and slowly sat up, looking down to his chest with fear.
"If you know what's good for you, you'll swear to do as I wish. I'll come again in the morning to collect what is rightfully mine. "
"I swear!" David said uncontrollably in his shaking fear, before realizing with horror what atrocity it was he just agreed to do.
The sorcerer grinned viciously, then disappeared exactly as in the manner of which he came.
Melinda stared at her father with sudden shock as David scampered upwards, rushing to his daughter's side and cupping her hands in his own. "Oh, Melinda," he said sorrowfully, "I would have never promised to do something like this were it not for my anguish..! But realize that I do not selfishly ask this of you for myself, but for your mother's sake also. won't you help us in this trouble, and please, forgive me for this atrocity I must commit."
The girl sighed, her lashes flickering shut as she said with deep resignation, "Father, do with me what you must. I am only your child."
The way Melinda said this stung David's heart deeply, but he nodded, and lead his daughter to a nearby tree stump to chop off her hands.
He hefted the axe into the air - the same axe he had been using when he had first encountered the sorcerer - and looking down to his daughter's tear stained face he swung it downwards.

Hack, one, two. Melinda screamed and fainted dead away as the blood flowed freely from the stumps where her hands were once connected, her lopped off hands laying flaccidly on the stump soaked with her innocent blood. The miller bent down and binded the stumps of her arms, cursing himself as he did so, and wrapped his poor daughter's hands in a white silk cloth.
He carried his daughter home with deep shame, and buried her hands in front of the apple tree.

Again, the wizard came for the girl, and again, he could not touch her. Melinda had spent the entire night (once she had regained consciousness) weeping so savagely as she never had in her entire life over the stumps of her wrists. So pure they were, that the wizard couldn't even bear to look at them. He screamed in agony, knowing he had lost all rights to her now, and disappeared in the same mysterious manner in which he had arrived.
"Oh Melinda," Gretchen said, kneeling beside her daughter to blot away the tears that kept flowing from her eyes. "You are so virtuous and kind that what you have done here has given us so much. I swear to it, we'll make it up to you. For the rest of your days we will treat you as a most precious thing.."
David nodded firmly at these words, saying: "I swear to it, my daughter."
"Oh no," Melinda wept bitterly, "No! Can't you see I'm not safe here? I must go away to find people who will sympathize with my situation the way I need them to."
David lowered his head, accepting Melinda's decision. "These past three years, you have grown, Melinda. I reckon you've grown into a fine woman, despite your naivete. You'll be lucky to find any such people in this world."
He stooped down beside her and embraced her whole heartedly. In the morning, he'd have to let her go.

In the morning, Gretchen wrapped up the stumps of her daughter's wrists. She tried to put a satchel of gold coins around Melinda's neck on a string, but Melinda stepped back, refusing.
"Why won't you take this small amount of grace, Melinda?" Gretchen wailed.
"Mother," Melinda replied, a bit cold despite her efforts to sound loving, "There is no grace in accepting money that was earned through the deceit of my father and my own blood and tears. Goodbye."

David and Gretchen stared wordlessly as Melinda walked off into the sunrise, her long black hair flying behind her in a harsh wind.