Pan's Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of the Faun(18)

“Hey!” she called, holding up the scrambling insects. She could only hope she’d grabbed the right stones along with the woodlice. The mud made them all look alike.

The Toad licked his lips, while he stared at her outstretched hand with his golden eyes.

Finally!

The intruder showed at least some respect. He was very pleased, although her offerings were poor. The Toad loved to devour his servants. He found the crunching sound they made when he cracked them with his toothless gums to be very satisfying.

Yes, he would accept the offering.

Ofelia didn’t move when the huge tongue slashed through the air like a whip. It enveloped her hand so firmly she was sure the Toad would rip it off. But she still had her hand when the tongue withdrew, and—Ofelia looked at her fingers dripping with saliva—both the woodlice and the stones were gone.

It took the Toad a moment to swallow and digest his prey. So long a moment that Ofelia was already sure she’d grabbed the wrong stones or that the Faun’s gift had failed.

But then the Toad opened his mouth.

He opened it wider and wider.

Oh, how his intestines were burning!

As if they’d just been filled with his own poison!

And his skin . . . it was crawling, as if all his woodlice servants had begun to eat him alive! Oh, he should have strangled that pale-skinned creature with his tongue! Only now did he realize what she had come for. He saw it in her treacherous eyes. His golden treasure! But that realization came too late. With his last dying breath he retched out his own stomach, a mass of pulsating amber flesh, and his huge body deflated like a torn balloon leaving behind nothing but a lifeless pile of skin.

Ofelia crawled to the lump of flesh, though the sight and smell of it made her sick. And there it was! The key the Faun had asked her to bring was sticking to the Toad’s entrails along with dozens of twitching woodlice. The slime covering it stretched like the shimmering threads of a spider when Ofelia grabbed it, but finally it let go.

The key was longer than Ofelia’s hand and very beautiful. She clenched it all the way back through the endless tunnel, although it wasn’t easy to crawl with just one hand. When she finally stumbled out of the broken tree, the sky was already dark and rain was pouring through the canopy of the leaves. How long had she been gone? All the joy she had felt about completing her task and getting the key vanished. The dinner! Her new dress!

Ofelia stumbled to the branch where she’d hung her clothes.

But the dress was gone and so was the apron.

The fear piercing her heart was almost as grim as the fear she had felt in the Toad’s tunnels. She sobbed as she searched the forest floor, pressing the key to her chest, which was so cold from all the mud and the rain. When she finally found the dress just a little way from the tree, the green fabric was caked in mud, and the white apron was so dirty it was nearly invisible in the dark. Above her the branches creaked in the wind and Ofelia thought she heard her mother’s heart break.

The rain was so strong by now that it washed most of the mud off Ofelia’s face and limbs. It was as if the night was trying to comfort her. In her despair Ofelia held up the dress and the apron into the falling rain, but even a million of its cold drops couldn’t turn them green and white again.





13


The Tailor’s Wife


Vidal hated the rain almost as much as he hated the forest. It touched his body, his hair, and his clothes and made him feel vulnerable. Human.

He had lined up his soldiers nearly an hour ago, but his guests were all late and his men looked like dripping scarecrows. Yes. Vidal stared at his watch. They were late. Its broken face told him that and other things—that he was in the wrong place, that his father’s shadow still made him as invisible as the men he was hunting, that the rain and the forest would beat him.

No. He stared over the yard, where the waxing moon was reflecting in the puddles. No, although the rain stained his immaculate uniform and covered his polished boots with mud, he wouldn’t let this place beat him. It felt like an answer from a grim god who liked men as lost and twisted as Vidal, when the headlights of two cars pierced the night. His men rushed forward to shield the passengers with umbrellas. They had all come, everyone who considered himself important in this wretched place: the general and one of his commanding officers; the mayor and his wife; a rich widow, who had been a member of the Fascist party since 1935; the priest; and Dr. Ferreira. Yes, Vidal had invited the good doctor too. Not without reason. He offered his umbrella to the mayor’s wife and led her into the house.

Mercedes had brought Ofelia’s mother down in her wheelchair. Carmen reminded Mercedes of a girl who’d been taught to not offend her father and now did the same for her husband, making herself small, even when she wasn’t in the wheelchair.

“Have you checked for her in the garden?” Carmen muttered as Mercedes pushed her into the room, which the maids had transformed once again from a war room into a dining room.

“Yes, Se?ora.”

Mercedes had checked everywhere for Ofelia, in the barn, in the stables, even at the old labyrinth. She saw fear in the other woman’s eyes, but not for her child, no. She was afraid to upset her new husband. Everyone at the mill was sure Vidal had only married her for the unborn child. Mercedes saw the same belief on the faces of his guests.

“May I introduce you all to my wife, Carmen?”