Pan's Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of the Faun(22)

The Faun ripped off a mouthful with his sharp, pointed teeth and took a few prancing steps toward her.

“That’s me!” He pointed at the column. “And the girl is you.”

He took another bite from his bloody meal.

“And the baby?”

The Faun ignored the question.

“So,” he said. “You retrieved the key.” He bent forward until Ofelia saw her own reflection in his pale blue eyes. “I’m glad.”

He straightened and held his hand out to the Fairy. She landed gracefully on his outstretched finger and the Faun chuckled with delight when she took a greedy bite from his meat.

“She believed in you from the beginning. And look at her! So happy!”

The Fairy fluttered off and the Faun followed her with his eyes as tenderly as a father watching his mischievous child. “She is so thrilled you succeeded!”

He laughed, but Ofelia saw his face was serious when he turned to her.

“Keep the key. You’ll be needing it very soon.” His long hand drew a warning into the night. He always accented his words with his fingers, stretching, pointing, drawing invisible signs, which seemed to reveal more than his tongue. “And this”—he handed Ofelia a piece of white chalk—“you will need as well! Two tasks remain and the moon will soon be full.”

Ofelia couldn’t help but shudder when he caressed her face with his clawed fingers.

“Be patient, Princess,” he purred, smiling down at her. “We’ll soon walk in the Seven Circular Gardens of your palace, stroll over its winding paths paved with onyx and alabaster . . .”

There was something mischievous in his cat eyes. Ofelia wasn’t sure whether it had been there at their first meeting or whether she just hadn’t noticed.

“How do I know that what you say is true?”

The Faun shook his horned head as if she’d deeply insulted him. “Why would a poor little faun like me lie to you?”

He traced the track of an invisible tear down his patterned cheek, but his eyes were those of a lurking cat, ready to pounce.

Ofelia stepped back, her heart pounding. Not with fear. No. Worse. She looked at the gold key in her hand—was it a treasure? Or a burden? She suddenly felt there was no one she could trust, no one in the world. Her mother had betrayed her to please the Wolf, and how could she ever come to believe she could trust the Faun?





15


Blood


The key Vidal used to unlock the barn was not made from gold. For the peasants waiting in front of the withered gates, though, the key unlocked far greater treasure. It was early in the morning, but they were lining up all across the yard, many of them with their children. Hunger was a regular guest at their tables, as regular as their family members and the words bread, salt, beans, or potatoes sounded far more magical to them than any treasure described in the fairy tales of their childhood.

Vidal had two soldiers guarding the barn doors, while another, sitting at a table they’d brought from the house, was checking the vouchers.

“Have your ration cards ready for inspection!” Lieutenant Aznar, who’d been given the task to hand out the vouchers, barked the words with the confidence only a uniform can grant. He didn’t know how it felt to wait in a line just to fill your empty stomach. He came from a butcher’s family, and the worn figures with their tired faces and bent backs looked like an inferior species to him. For sure they were not his kind.

“Hurry up!” he barked at an old man, grabbing the voucher from his outstretched hand. “Your name. First and last.” The lieutenant’s butcher father had never looked like this old man. So exhausted, so marked by life.

“Narciso Pe?a Soriano . . . at your service,” the old man said. They were all at their service. All their lives.

Aznar waved him into the barn.

“Name!” he called, and the line moved silently.

Mercedes and two other maids brought out baskets filled with fresh bread. Lieutenant Medem, who had brought all the treasure to the mill, held up one of the loaves of bread from Mercedes’s basket.

“This is our daily bread in Franco’s Spain!” his voice boomed across the yard. “Kept safe in this mill. The Reds lie when they tell you we let you starve. . . .”

Medem’s words drifted up to the room Ofelia shared with her mother, waking her from a sleep heavy with dreams of the Faun and the Toad and the key that would unlock . . . what? Ofelia wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

Words kept drifting in from outside.

“. . . in a united Spain there is not a single home. . . .”

Ofelia slipped silently out of the bed so as to not wake her mother. Home . . .

“. . . not a single home without fire or bread!”

Bread. The word made her hungry. So hungry. After all, she’d been sent to bed without supper after quite an exhausting adventure.

“. . . not a single home without fire or bread.” Even Ofelia knew that was a lie, though it was proclaimed with so much confidence. When do children realize that adults lie?

Was the Faun lying? He had looked even more sinister in Ofelia’s dreams. How do I know that what you say is true? Her mother was moaning in her sleep and her face was glistening with sweat, although the sun hadn’t warmed the house yet. She didn’t wake when Ofelia tiptoed to the bathroom over the dusty floorboards spotted with morning light, but Ofelia locked the door nevertheless before she pulled the Faun’s book from behind the radiator. Its pages were once again white as snow.