Three poison apples were offered up as means to get rid of Giselle. Where did the Witch-Queen pluck them? No lovely tree can be made to bear strange fruit.
The first grew inside a broken heart. The seed was planted in longing and dreams of true love and the eternal happiness of ever-after. When her lover betrayed her for another, the tender growth turned bitter and ripened on jealousy. She sat weeping in the field where she felt her first kiss, while the ants at her feet caught her tears and carried the tainted water to their mistress. The witch soon appeared in that same field, with the ants' offerings still damp on her fingers.
"Let me take the pain away," The witch whispered into the unsuspecting girl's ear, and with a mere touch of a wand ripped the heart of out her chest.
The second grew inside a baby's skull as the child lay abandoned in the crossroads, shivering under a blanket of dew. The only life it knew formed a fruit too small and hard to nourish anyone. When the babe's final breath offered a last meal to the deformed plant, the flies carried the sweet-tinged stench of rot to one who shared their appetites. The witch went walking in lonely places, and returned with filth on her hands and a rank apple nestled in her bossom.
The third grew under a mound of gold that stayed cold and unspent in the dark. The fruit fed on the damp and decay trapped at the bottom of the earthy hiding hole. The miser died with the money unspent, and his ghost prowled endlessly over the land, unable to pass with his greed unfulfilled. The ghost promised to tell where he hid his gold, if only in return he be released from the curse of his own making. The witch touched the pile of gold, and the apple sprang willingly to her hand, eager to give forth its worth.