Pan's Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of the Faun(11)

He disappeared behind the monolith, but Ofelia could still hear his voice, a hoarse, mesmerizing rasp of a voice.

“I am the mountain, the woods, and the earth. I am . . . arrghh . . .” He bleated not unlike a goat, looking very old and very young at the same time, when he appeared in front of her once again. “I am”—he shook his limbs with the growl of an aged ram—“a Faun! And I am, as I always was and always will be, your most humble servant, Your Highness.”

Ofelia was lost for words, when cracking with effort, he lowered his horned head and addressed her with a deep bow. Your Highness? Oh no. He mistook her for somebody else! Of course. She should have known! Why should a Fairy come to her? She was just a tailor’s daughter.

“No!” she finally managed to say, backing away. “No, I . . .”

The Faun raised his head and straightened his stiff back.

“You are Princess Moanna. . . .”

“No, no!” Ofelia protested. “I am—”

“The daughter of the king of the Underworld,” the Faun interrupted.

What was he talking about? His words scared Ofelia more than the night or this place so far away from the bed warmed by her mother’s body. Although we may wish for it, true magic is a scary thing.

“No! No!” she protested once more. “My name is Ofelia. My mother is a seamstress and my father was a tailor. You have to believe me.”

Ofelia felt the Faun’s impatience when he firmly shook his horned head, but she could also detect a trace of amusement in his patterned face.

“Nonsense, Your Highness. You”—he pointed his clawed finger at her—“were not born from a human womb. The moon gave birth to you.”

The Fairies vigorously nodded their small heads. A beam of moonlight made its way down into the well pit, as if it too wished to add proof to the Faun’s statement, and lined the wings of the Fairies with silver.

“Look at your left shoulder,” the Faun said. “You’ll find a mark that proves what I say.”

Ofelia gazed at her left shoulder, but she didn’t dare to push back her clothes to expose her skin. She wasn’t sure what she feared more: that the Faun spoke the truth or that he lied.

A princess!

“Your real father had us open portals all over the world to allow you to return. This is the last one.” The Faun gestured at the chamber they were standing in. “But before you are allowed back in his kingdom we have to make sure your essence is intact and you haven’t become a mortal. To prove that . . .” He once again reached into his satchel. “You must complete three tasks before the moon is full.”

The book he pulled out of the satchel seemed far too big to ever have fit in there. It was bound in brown leather.

“This is the Book of Crossroads,” the Faun said while handing the heavy book to Ofelia. The lines on his forehead swirled like patterns drawn by wind and waves. “Open it only when you’re alone. . . .”

The small pouch he gave her next rattled when Ofelia shook it, but the Faun didn’t tell her what to do with it. He just watched her with his pale blue eyes.

“The book will show you your future,” he said, stepping back into the shadows. “And what must be done.”

The book was so big that Ofelia could barely hold it. It nearly slipped out of her hands when she finally managed to open it.

The pages she was looking at were empty.

“There’s nothing written in it!” she said.

But when she looked up, the Faun was gone and so were the Fairies. There was only the night sky above her and the pattern of the labyrinth at her feet.





7


Razor Teeth


Vidal’s razor was a wondrous thing with its shining blade, sharper than the teeth of a wolf. It had an ivory handle and the steel was German-made. He had taken it from the window of a looted store in Barcelona. A high-end store of gentlemen’s articles: travel kits, grooming kits, pipes, pens, and tortoiseshell combs. But to Vidal this razor had never been just a grooming tool. It was a tool that allowed a man to slash and bite. The razor was his claw—his teeth.

Men were such vulnerable creatures, no fur, no scales to protect their soft flesh. So Vidal took great care every morning to turn himself into a more dangerous beast. When the razor swiped his cheeks and chin its sharpness became part of him. In fact, Vidal liked to imagine it turned his heart, scrape by scrape, into metal. He loved to watch how the blade gave his face the order and shine this place of exile was lacking. He wouldn’t rest until this dirty forest was like the clean-shaven face he saw in the mirror each time the razor had done its work.

Order. Strength. And a nice metal shine. Yes, that’s what he would bring to this place. Blades cut both trees and men so easily.

After he’d taken care of his face, there were of course his boots to polish. He polished them so thoroughly, the leather reflected the morning light. It whispered, Death! in its shining blackness and while Vidal inhaled the smoke of his first cigarette, he imagined the sound of marching boots mixing pleasantly with the music his phonograph was spilling into the morning. The music Vidal listened to was playful and strangely different from the razor and the boots. It gave away that cruelty and death were a dance for him.

Vidal was just giving the boots the last bit of polish when Mercedes walked in with his coffee and bread.