Lizzie

Little Elizabeth sat at her changing desk, tears streaming down her cheeks. Why did that terrible woman have to be so mean?

Her mother has passed away when she was a girl of only five and now three years later her father had already remarried. It was not bad enough that he seemed to have forgotten all about Elizabeth’s beloved mother but the woman he had chosen to take her place, Abigail, was a horrid person.

It was not Elizabeth’s fault that she was the image of her mother, a constant reminder to Abigail of the woman she could never be. Lizzie, the name her mother had always called her by, stared through red eyes at her reflection in the mirror. Her young mind was full of hate.

With her face in her hands, she sobbed for what seemed like eternity. I wish she were dead, she thought. A dull noise pulled at her subconscious, whispering to her.

She is so very cruel to you. She tries to make your father forget you mother.

Lizzie looked up and stared at the reflection in the mirror that was not her own. It was of a women in her thirties but the face seemed to bear the weight of ages. The woman stared back at her with kindness and sympathy etched on her face.

She can never take your mother’s place. You know what you must do, little one.

***

Lizzie stood in the doorway, watching her father and Abigail sleep. Slowly she crept toward the bed, careful not to make a sound. The dull noise was once again speaking to her, It sounded like a child’s nursery rhyme, compelling her to do things she knew she should not do.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the woman’s face watching her from the mirror over the dresser. The rhyme continued to grow louder, beckoning her to do what must be done.

Unable to bear it anymore, she raised the object in her hand high over her head and brought it down with a sickening crunch. The axe bit into Abigail’s neck, almost severing her head with one stroke.

Like a zombie, Lizzie lurched over to her father’s bedside; her pretty white sleeping gown sprayed with blood. Tears rolled down her cheek as she lifted the axe over her head.

“I’m sorry, daddy,” she whispered as she brought the axe down with deadly precision.

She looked at the mirror and saw the face staring back at her, only this time it was not sympathy she saw reflected but the look of malevolence, hatred and mocking. The woman began to laugh as Lizzie dropped the axe with the realization of what she had done. The rhyme continued to play in her head.

Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks.
And when she saw what she had done
She gave her father forty-one.

The End

Word Count: 485