“I couldn’t possibly meet the prince looking like this!” the princess said, so they spent the last of the money they’d earned and went to a bathhouse, where they were washed and perfumed and anointed with oils. When they emerged, the princess looked so beautiful that she turned the heads of everyone who saw her, male or female.

“I’ll show my father I’m marriageable!” the princess said. “Let’s go meet this peculiar prince.”

So they went to the palace and asked for him, but the answer they got was disappointing indeed.

“I’m sorry,” a palace guard told them, “but the prince is dead.”

“What happened?” asked the handmaiden.

“He fell ill with a mysterious disease and died in the night,” said the guard. “It was all very sudden.”

“That’s exactly what the king said happened to you,” the handmaiden whispered to the princess.

That night they snuck into the palace dungeon, and in the darkest, dankest cell, they found a giant garden slug with the head of a rather handsome young man.

“Are you the prince?” the handmaiden asked him.

“I am,” the repulsive thing answered. “When I’m feeling dejected, my body turns into a gelatinous, quivering mass. My mother finally found out and locked me down here, and now, as you can see, I’ve become a slug almost head to toe.” The prince wriggled toward the bars of his cell, his body leaving a dark stain on the floor behind him. “I’m sure she’ll come to her senses any day now, though, and let me out.”

The princess and the handmaiden exchanged an awkward glance.

“Well, I have good news and bad news,” said the handmaiden. “The bad news is your mother’s told everyone you’re dead.”

The prince began to wail and moan, and immediately a pair of gelatinous antennae began to grow from his forehead. Now even his head was turning slug.

“Wait!” the handmaiden said. “There’s still the good news!”

“Oh yes, I forgot,” the prince sniffled, and the antennae stopped growing. “What is it?”

“This is the princess of Frankenbourg,” said the handmaiden.

The princess stepped forward into a pool of light, and for the first time the prince saw her fantastic beauty.

“You’re a princess?” the prince stuttered, his eyes going wide.

“That’s right,” said the handmaiden. “And she’s here to rescue you.”

The prince was thrilled. “I don’t believe it!” he said. “How?”

His antennae were shrinking back into his head and the tubelike mass of his upper body was already beginning to separate into arms and a torso. Just like that, he was turning human again.

“Like this!” said the princess, and she spat a stream of venomous acid into the lock of the prince’s cell door. It began to hiss and smoke as the lock melted.

The prince recoiled in alarm. “What are you?” he said.

“I’m peculiar, like you!” the princess replied. “When my father found out my secret, he disowned me and locked me up, too. I know just how you’re feeling!”