Page 63 - The Grotesque Children's Book

Licia the Eldest guessed that it had something to with heat? “That,” said
Diavolo, “is woefully incorrect!” Diavolo clapped his stubby wings on his back
in delight and did a little dance with his cloven feet, and slowly, over the course
of several minutes, Licia's skin turned from a happy peach-color to a tangerine
color to gold. She lost her flexible joints. Her hair stopped flowing in the
breeze and became stiff and golden. And her legs, oh her legs were the most
gruesome transformation of all. Licia's legs slapped together suddenly and
then as if squeezed by some outside force, pulled tighter and tighter against
each other, her supple flesh sucking in towards the bone, and the two leg
bones fusing together into a single thin column, like a strong, sturdy,
immoveable pole of gold. At the bottom where her feet once were now was a
curved little spiral, like the end of some golden monkey's tail. Her robe
sprouted a whimsical golden tassel in front of her.

“And now for the finishing touch!” said Diavolo, watching in evil delight
as Licia's arms, oh her arms, her arms fell off, as though chopped with an axe,
just below her shoulder. “You won't be needing those anymore. And now,
you're part of my palace; part of my family!” Licia was frozen with a permanent
surprised look on her face. “Aha!” her face read, “I know how you did it!” But
those golden lips of hers would speak no more.

Sad to say, the fates of all her other brothers and sisters were the same,
and soon Diavolo had eight shiny new surprised-looking caryatid pillars
holding up his palace, each limbless and inert.

“What! I feel cheated!” perhaps I hear you saying. “I wanted to see each
of the sisters and brothers have their turn. Doesn't one of them save the day
somehow?” No, I'm afraid. Pillars, all of them.

Most each did very much precisely what Lidia the Eldest had done,
looking briefly at all the objects and clues in the octagonal room, then racing
out to the rest of the palace. Some of the siblings were quite diligent and

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