Pan's Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of the Faun(10)

But now it was time to fulfill the task for which she’d been sent to the mill. She fluttered toward the girl with her new wings and addressed her with vehemence. Come along! she gestured, giving her signal all the urgency her master’s orders demanded. He wasn’t the most patient one.

“You want me to follow you? Outside? Where?”

So many questions. Humans asked them about everything, but they usually weren’t half as good at finding the answers. The Fairy fluttered toward the door. The leaf wings worked really well, but she had her doubts about the body. The insect limbs had been much lighter and faster.

It mattered none. Her master was waiting.

There was still no fear in Ofelia’s heart when she slipped into her shoes and followed the Fairy out of the house into the night. It almost felt as if she’d followed her before, and who wouldn’t trust a Fairy, even when she showed up in the middle of the night? They probably always did. And you had to follow them. That’s what the books said, and didn’t their tales feel so much truer than what adults pretended this world to be about? Only books talked about all the things adults didn’t want you to ask about—Life. Death. Good and Evil. And what else truly mattered in life.

Ofelia was not surprised when the stone arch surged from the darkness.

The Fairy swirled through it. Mercedes was not at Ofelia’s side to stop her, not this time. The labyrinth’s ancient stone walls loomed to her left and right, leading her farther and farther into endless circles, and each time Ofelia hesitated at a corner, the Fairy urged her on. Follow me! Follow me! Ofelia was sure that was what she chirped, fluttering sometimes high above her, sometimes right by her side.

How long had she been walking? Ofelia couldn’t tell. The ancient walls framed the night sky and her shoes were soaked with dew from the moss that carpeted the twisting passages. It all felt like a dream, and there is no time in dreams. Suddenly the walls widened and Ofelia walked into a large courtyard. At the center a huge stone well opened in the ground. There was a staircase leading into it. Ofelia couldn’t tell how many steps there were; it seemed to be infinite—the darkness swallowed them all. A whisper of dank air surged from the well pit and Ofelia again felt the pang of fear, but also the call for adventure.

She followed the Fairy, who was twittering and swirling ahead, down the steps, deeper and deeper underground. The stairs ended at the bottom of the well, but there was no water, just a sculpted monolith similar to the ones she’d seen in the forest. It looked equally ancient, but this one was much taller and surrounded by stone canals carved deep into the floor that formed a labyrinth mirroring the one above. There was a rustle in the shadows behind the monolith, as if something big was moving there, and Ofelia was by now quite frightened but the Fairy was still urging her on. Finally, she followed her down the last few steps and stood at the bottom of the well.

“Hello?” Ofelia called. “Hello!”

She thought she heard the sound of rushing water as her own steps echoed up the well.

“Echo!” she called, while the Fairy was swirling around the column. “Echoooo!” to chase the silence away.

The Fairy had landed on a dead tree trunk. Or so it seemed. But when the winged creature touched its gnarled surface with her hands, it shuddered and what Ofelia had thought to be the bent remains of an old tree stirred, straightened, and—turned around.

Whatever it was, it was huge, as were the bent horns on its bulky head. The face that scrutinized Ofelia with catlike eyes was unlike any she’d ever seen. A goat beard covered its chin while cheeks and forehead showed the same ornaments that were carved on the column, and when the creature ripped itself free from the web of moss and dry vines that melded it to the wall, Ofelia saw that its body was half man and half goat. Insects and trapped earth fell from its hide and its bones cracked when it moved its limbs as if it had stood in the shadows for too long.

“Ah! It’s you!” he exclaimed. Yes, Ofelia was sure it was a he. “You have returned!”

The creature took a tentative clumsy step toward Ofelia, spreading his pale, clawed fingers like roots. He was indeed huge, much taller than a man, his hoofed legs resembling the hind legs of a goat. His eyes, though shaped like a cat’s, were blue, a pale blue, like stolen pieces of sky, with pupils nearly invisible while his skin looked like splintered bark, overgrown, as if he’d been down here for centuries, waiting. . . .

The Fairy was twittering with pride. She’d delivered the girl, as her master had ordered.

“Look! Look who your sister brought!” he purred, opening the wooden satchel he wore strapped across his torso.

Out fluttered two Fairies in the same shape their sister had copied from the pages of a book. Their horned master chuckled with delight when they all swirled around Ofelia, who was clutching her sweater more firmly over her nightgown in the cold, wet air that filled the well. No wonder the Fairies’ master moved so stiffly. Though maybe he was just old. He looked old. Very old.

“My name is Ofelia,” she said, trying her best to sound brave and not intimidated at all by the horns and those strange blue eyes. “Who are you?”

“Me?” The creature pointed at his withered chest. “Ha!” He waved his hand, as if names were the least important thing in the world. “Some call me Pan. But I’ve had so many names!” He took a few stiff steps. “Old names that only the wind and the trees can pronounce . . .”