One of them made eye contact with the little girl and, mistaking the horror-struck expression on her face for fascination, started gnawing the rope from which he hung to meet her.
“Not yet,” said the witch, pulling her daughter and the two children forward. “We’ll get to play later.”
As the group passed by, the bodies collapsed, insentient.
Behind the trees and before the mausoleum awaited a pack of black hounds fastened by His Malign Majesty’s most loyal officer, Prince Beelzebub, Chief Lieutenant of Hell and Lord of All Things That Fly, in whose honor the parade downhill was being held.
The hounds barked ferociously at the children, threatening to get free of their leashes. The demon held them tighter. The twins let go of the little girl’s hand and tried to run away, screaming, but they were intercepted by a group of vampires that locked them inside a crate, which they then piled atop other crates containing more children.
The witch picked up the basket full of excrement biscuits that the little German girl had dropped, gave it to her daughter, and pushed her closer to Prince Beelzebub. The little girl resisted, hiding behind her mother’s dress, but the witch grabbed her by the hair and whispered something into her ear that made the little girl prefer to face the demon.
She had reason to be scared. Prince Beelzebub was over ten feet tall. He had the legs and the body of a buck, four human arms covered in fur, the wings of a vulture, and just one head, but three faces. The one to the right was the yellow face of a lion; the one to the left, the rosy face of a young maiden; the one in the middle, the face of a boar, with big fangs coming out of its mouth. All three faces had long beards braided together. The lion and the young woman’s faces chewed little children offered by the vampires standing at both sides; the boar’s lips moved as if mumbling a prayer. He was dressed in a white cassock with a golden hem, pontifical gloves and a purple biretta, and smelled so strongly of blood that every other smell in the air seemed to vanish.
The little girl offered Prince Beelzebub one of the excrement biscuits and then retreated slowly, bowing down and without turning her back to the demon.
Prince Beelzebub ate the biscuit. Then, one of the vampires fed him another child.
The little girl watched the demon devour the poor rascal.
“He refused to bathe,” another vampire hissed into her ear.
“They were disobedient to their mothers,” Beelzebub’s maiden face added, pointing with her chin towards the wooden crates full of children.
The dogs stopped barking. The little girl approached the crates. The eyes of the maiden face followed her steps, but otherwise, the demon seemed indifferent to her presence.
“I didn’t brush my teeth,” said one child, with tears in his eyes.
“I stole candy,” said another one.
“We didn’t finish our soup,” cried our twins.
The little girl sniffed.
A boy inside one of the lower crates pulled the hem of the little girl’s black dress to call her attention.
The little girl squatted down.
“Are you coming to meet the Devil?” the boy asked.
The little girl nodded. She took one of the biscuits from her basket and offered it to the child. The boy wrinkled his nose, shaking his head politely. The little girl put the cake back inside her basket.
“With that nose?” asked a proud voice from atop the pile.
The little girl looked up to the one speaking. The voice came from a girl with red curls dressed in a gingham dress with furbelows and trimmings far too modish to let her play anywhere dirty.
“You are certainly not meeting the Prince of Darkness with that nose, are you?” the snooty girl continued. “It’s full of boogers.”
The little girl stuck her two index fingers inside her nose to clean it and then rubbed her fingers on her dress.
“Yuck!” said one of the boys.
“She’s disgusting!” said another.
“She’s filthy!” said the snooty girl atop.
“How gross!” said the snooty girl inside the crate. “How icky, yucky, repellent, and repulsive. You are such a mess. Cleaning your boogers on your new dress—if you can call that thing a new dress. Show me your hands.”
The little girl looked at her hands for a second; realizing how dirty they were, she then hid them behind her back, and shook her head from one side to the other.
“Her hands are filthy!” said one of the boys in the lower crates.
The little girl hid her hands under her dress.
“And your teeth?” asked again the snooty girl atop, with a deep sigh, realizing how pointless it was to expect clean hands in such a grimy individual. “Did you brush them?”
The little girl opened her mouth and showed her teeth in a gesture more typical of a rodent than of a little girl proud of her choppers.
“How incredibly filthy, dirty and disgusting. And you expect the Devil to find you to his liking?” the snooty girl continued. “He will think you’re disgusting—I, myself, think you’re terribly inappropriate and disgusting, and I must be right, for mommy always says that I am incredibly clever.”
The little girl slouched her head down. She felt like spitting on that snooty girl’s tidy dress. She was repulsive, yes, she very much knew it, but there are more courteous ways to say these things, it is not necessary to hurt people. No wonder the children inside the crates were the Devil’s supper, she reckoned. Those misbehaved rascals had never learned to say thank you, or please, or excuse me, much less to have a courteous conversation with a stranger. They deserved well to be eaten.
“I bet your skirt smells like tinkle.”
The little girl pulled her skirt up to her nose. It did smell a little.
“And those shoes. I would be so embarrassed if I had to wear them.”
The snooty girl had just finished saying that, when one of the vampires feeding Beelzebub wielded a hook to lower the crate that contained her. Another one seized the crate, opened it, snatched the snooty girl by her curls and offered her to the demon.
“Mommy!” sobbed the poor snooty girl, before the maiden’s face swallowed her completely.
“Are you here to meet the Devil?” asked again the little boy that had pulled the little girl’s skirt before.
The little girl nodded.
“They’re going to make you sign something,” the boy said, gesturing towards the demon.
The little girl followed the boy’s gaze back to Prince Beelzebub. The demon called her with a sign of his finger and reached inside his garment for a piece of parchment, which he then extended to the little girl.
Our little friend stared at the document but made
