I hate Lindys. Now… Maybe the Lindys out there hate Sarah's? Or Marias? Or even Clarisse's. Who knows? I have my reasons for feeling sick to my stomach every time I hear the name, see a face, catch a reference to Lindy. It doesn't matter if she feeds the homeless, takes care of her lover and remains truthful in every aspect of her life.

One can't help but hate the person who takes away her entire life.

Let me introduce myself. I'm Jennifer Selena Miller the third, and I am a frog. Not that I have always been this way, curse it. See, I used to be a girl, just an ordinary miller's daughter. Im not even pretty enough to catch the attention of some benevolent king who might commission me to spin straw into gold. Not that I could have done THAT either. The most I can do is a lumpy linen thread, which is why I stick to lifting heavy sacks of wheat and scooping flour and helping my father where he needs it.

I can't complain… WELL, not about THAT life anyway. But I definitely can complain about being a frog. I didn't do anything but fall in love with a butthole.

See, once or twice a week, I would haul three sacks of flour onto our mule's back, and then persuade him to the marketplace to trade or sell what we could. It was there, inquiring with a barmaid friend, that I met him. He was the loudest and drunkest in the tavern, but who wasn't loud and drunk on a Saturday afternoon? We were introduced, and there was a pull to his smile that drew me.

I should have known he was trouble. The way his friends spoke of him, the way they talked when he wasn't around. A girl has ears, and a mind to think, despite what you might have heard. So I listened and I thought. But there was still the tug on my heart and he played a tune that I couldn't resist. Eventually, he would buy me a beer, we'd talk, and we'd dance. He was hungry for me, though I didn't know it then.

Now, I am pitying myself a bit too much. After all, why should I regret being happy for a time, even if it was all mirages and fake images and lies? I loved, he didn't, seems so simple now. But, loving a stupid boy doesn't change girls into frogs. Unless… well, unless that stupid boy talked to witches too. Now, I am not referring to sorceresses, magicians, or those healing women who seem to reside in every other town to sell you potions and magic.

Witches… well, the term used to be synonymous with sorceress, but about fifty years ago, one witch starting hoarding magic and using it for her personal gain. And that's where all the trouble started. Now witch means a man or woman who possesses magical talent, but uses it to… dark… means. Like this cursed spell that's on me now.

See, witches, when rubbed the right way, could give people things. Charms, potions… spells. Well, these things drove people crazy, made them see visions, made them act strange, but some people couldn't get enough of those visions.

This witch. Well, this witch wasn't happy with me when she saw me turn him. My boy, the one I loved and wanted to be free. I was working him over. He didn't care so much about that stuff anymore. He'd found steady work, and we saw each other once or twice a week. But one night, he went to see her, as he did less and less, and I'm not sure the conversation they had, but he came back and shoved me in the mud. Stupid stupid girl for even THINKING about getting involved.

Thinking I might change his mind, and sneaking from my home late one night, I went to the inn where he slept now, apprenticed to the cook downstairs. Big mistake, catching them at it in bed. Not like I was completely innocent either. But my boy and that awful witch. Well she wasn't happy to see me either, and a flick of her finger shut the door on my face. I saw green sparks for minutes, and everything grew enormous. Well… that's what I thought at first, until I figured out that it was me that shrunk.

I tried to make it to the stairwell, but it didn't happen. That witch scooped me up and plopped me in a jar she must've had. Then she screwed a lid on and set me down on the windowsill. It might have been a more horrifying experience, watching them, listening, but after a few short minutes, I couldn't breathe so well, and the next thing I remember was his voice, whispering that I should get out of here. He didn't want to see me killed, but he wanted his Lindy to be happy, and he wouldn't stop her from killing me.

So I hopped in circles till I fell into a pond of water and could breathe again. It was wonderful until I saw my reflection. Sure… you expect frogs to be green, right, but I wasn't just subtle green. I was more like a congealing rainbow, splotches of pink and black on my back and sides. Even the other frogs wouldn't talk to me, I could understand their choruses now. If I could have understood them as a human girl, I would have blushed to leave my window open at night. Even soldiers and palace boys would have paled at the words.

I got used to it. Time passed, cold weather, warm weather, and once even my father passing, calling my name with such despair, and I could only croak feebly in reply. It rained, it snowed, the sun rose and set. One day, I woke up and stretched as well as I could as a frog. I grumbled for a minute or two and then realized that my words were human. I could speak again!

It was then I knew I could take my revenge, if I found the right people to help me.