Pan's Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of the Faun(28)

The fact the monster didn’t move made Ofelia bold. She peered over his plate between the terrible hands, curious why it held two marbles, and withdrew hastily when she discovered the marbles to be eyeballs. Only then did she give the images on the ceiling a closer look. What they revealed made Ofelia back away from the table despite all the delicacies it held: the images above her showed the Pale Man’s profession.

Some images depicted children raising their hands and pleading for mercy. Others showed the monster piercing them with knives and swords, or tearing off their limbs or feeding his insatiable hunger with their flesh. The scenes were painted so vividly Ofelia believed she could hear the victims scream. Too much! But when she lowered her eyes to escape the grueling images all she saw were hundreds of small shoes piled against the walls.

Ofelia could barely make herself face the truth, but there it was. The Pale Man was a Child Eater.

Yes, he was.

But if he eats children . . . why all the food? Ofelia wondered. Why the luxurious feast?

She could find the answer neither in the terrible images above her nor among the golden plates. All she had to do, she reminded herself of the book’s advice, was to stay away from the table and let the Fairies help her. The three Fairies greeted her with a pleased twitter when she opened the satchel. Ignoring the grueling host at the table, they fluttered to the left side of the room, where high up in the wall a set of three small doors was surrounded by carvings of gaping mouths, staring eyes, and flames, above an image of a labyrinth.

The doors were barely larger than Ofelia’s hand and each one looked slightly different—but all three Fairies pointed to the door in the middle. It was beautiful—shiny and covered in gold.

Ofelia took the Toad’s key out of her pocket, but suddenly she remembered what the stories in her fairy-tale books had taught her: When faced with three choices, always choose the least obvious choice. The humble one.

“Oh, you’re wrong!” she whispered to the Fairy. “This is not the right door!”

And paying no heed to their irritated chatter, Ofelia tried the key in the lock on the humblest door made from rustic wood and iron nails. The key slipped in effortlessly. Ofelia gave her winged companions a triumphant look before she opened the tiny door. The Fairies, though, hearing the red sand running through the hourglass, swarmed around her, urging her to make haste.

The compartment behind the door was deep, almost too deep for Ofelia to reach what was hidden inside. Finally, she touched soft fabrics and cool metal. The object she pulled out was wrapped in red velvet, and Ofelia almost dropped it when she realized what she held in her hands.

It was a dagger, its long blade as silvery as the moonlight, its golden handle embossed with the image of a faun.

And a baby.

The Fairies once again swarmed around Ofelia, urging her to hurry, but it was so hard for her to remember the running sand in this ancient room where everything seemed frozen in time, including the pale-skinned Child Eater. One of the Fairies, making sure the monster was still not moving, came so close to the terrible face her wings almost brushed his skin, but the Child Eater remained motionless, as if he were only his own monument, a memorial of all his horrible deeds.

Ofelia put the dagger into the Faun’s satchel and tried to keep her eyes on the Pale Man while she walked back to the table. All the food looked so delicious. She couldn’t remember when she’d last seen such a cake or such fresh fruit. Never! And she was hungry. Truly hungry, her heart whispered as she raised her hand. Don’t eat or drink anything! But Ofelia saw the grapes and pomegranates and foods she didn’t even know by name. They all promised such delicious sweetness she didn’t want to hear the panicked warnings being chirped by the Fairies.

No. Ofelia waved them away. One grape—just one. Surely nobody would notice in this abundant feast. Who would miss a single little grape?

Ofelia gingerly plucked one grape and put it into her mouth. The Fairy who’d met her in the woods covered her face in despair.

They were doomed.

The Pale Man came to life. His black fingertips, pointy like thorns, cracked into motion with a spasm. His gaping mouth drew a tortured breath, and his right hand grabbed one of the eyeballs from his plate in his right hand, as his left turned, spreading its fingers like a terrible flower. The eyeball fit perfectly into the hole gaping in his left palm, and when his right hand had received the second eyeball, with a pupil as red as the grape Ofelia had eaten, the Pale Man raised both hands to his eyeless face to find out who had woken him.

Ofelia hadn’t noticed what she’d done. The enchantment the table offered was too strong and the Fairy that had brought her to the labyrinth couldn’t stop her from plucking another of the treacherous grapes.

Oh, that girl!

Why did she make it so difficult to help her? Their horned master would be so angry. The Fairy fluttered right in front of the girl’s face to break the spell, even managing to pull the grape from her fingers. But was the child grateful? Oh no. Ofelia was angry. Don’t they understand? she thought, yanking the grape back from the Fairy. All she wished was to drown herself in sweetness, to have the fruit make her forget everything—all the bitterness, all the pain, and all the fear that filled her life.

The Pale Man had risen from his chair. He stepped out from behind the table, his legs moving as stiffly as if they’d forgotten how to carry his skeletal body. He kept his hands raised to his face, the eyes in his palms searching for the thief who’d woken him and stolen from his table.