Pan's Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of the Faun(37)

Maybe the Faun had heard about those books. He usually didn’t come to Caraméz’s workshop. The Faun didn’t believe in books. He was much older than the oldest manuscripts in the queen’s library and could rightfully claim that he knew so much more about the world than all their yellowed pages. But one day he suddenly stood in the door of the bookbinder’s workshop. Caraméz was slightly afraid of the Faun. He was never sure whether he could trust those pale blue eyes. In fact, he wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that Fauns eat bookbinders.

“I need you to bind a book for me, Caraméz,” the Faun said softly. His voice could be as soft as velvet or as sharp as a lizard’s fangs.

“What kind of book, my horned lord?” Caraméz asked with a respectful bow.

“A book that contains everything I know but will only show what I tell it to reveal.”

Caraméz frowned. He was not sure he liked the idea of such a book.

“This book will help Princess Moanna find her way back,” the Faun added.

Of course. He knew how fond Caraméz was of the lost princess. The Faun knew everything.

“I will do my best,” the bookbinder replied.

The Faun nodded his horned head, as if that was all he asked for, and handed him a bundle of pages.

Caraméz eyed them with surprise.

“But these pages are empty!” he said.

“No, they aren’t,” the Faun replied with a mysterious smile. “This paper was made from the clothes Princess Moanna left behind, and the added glue contains all the knowledge I have of the Upper Kingdom.”

He reached up with his clawed fingers and plucked a roll of brown leather out of the thin air.

“This leather,” he said, “was cut from the skin of a beast that fed on truth and many fearless men. I want you to use it for the cover of the book. That way the leather will give the princess courage whenever she touches it.”

Caraméz unrolled the leather on his workbench and rubbed the empty pages between his fingers. Both materials were of the very best quality. They would make a beautiful book, even though the paper still looked empty to him.

“Go to work immediately,” the Faun ordered. “I just learned I may need the book very soon.”

Caraméz obeyed. He went to work straightaway. But he added one ingredient he didn’t tell the Faun about: he mixed a few of his tears into the glue for the binding, for he was sure the princess would need not just courage and knowledge to guide her way back, but also love.





26


Only Two Grapes


This time Ofelia was awakened by laughter, a soft, hoarse laughter echoing in the darkness that drowned her room like black milk.

“I see your mother is much better, Your Highness.” The Faun looked enormously pleased with himself. “Surely you must be relieved!”

He looked even younger now, though his goat legs still creaked with every step he took toward Ofelia’s bed. Despite the ancient patterns covering his cheeks and forehead, his skin was so smooth it reflected the light of the almost full moon.

“Yes, thank you,” Ofelia replied, casting a nervous glance at the Faun’s satchel peeking out from under her blanket. “Things haven’t turned out that well, though. Not all of them, I mean.”

“Ah? No?” The blue cat eyes widened in surprise.

Ofelia was sure he already knew. She’d come to believe the Faun knew everything—about this world and any other.

“I . . . had an accident,” she murmured, handing him the satchel. The surviving Fairy was chattering inside. Ofelia hadn’t dared to let her out, fearing she might come to harm as well.

“An accident?” The Faun repeated the word in unveiled disbelief.

He opened the satchel and growled.

The Fairy fluttered out and landed on his shoulder. The longer the Faun listened to her, the more sinister his face became until he finally bared his pointed teeth and groaned with anger.

“You broke the rules!” he roared, pointing a claw at Ofelia.

“It was only two grapes!” she cried, hastily pulling the red velvet-wrapped dagger from under her pillow. “I thought no one would notice!”

The Faun snatched the dagger, and shook his head in anger. “We’ve made a mistake!”

“A mistake?” Ofelia could barely hear her own voice.

“You have failed!” snarled the Faun, towering over her. “You can never return!”

Ofelia felt as if the night were opening its mouth and swallowing her.

“But it was an accident!”

“No!” the Faun roared again, his eyes narrow with rage and contempt. “You—can—not—return! Ever!” Each word hit Ofelia like a stone. “The moon will be full in three days! Your spirit shall forever remain among the humans.”

He bent toward her until his face nearly touched Ofelia’s.

“You shall age like them. You shall die like them! And all memory of you—” He stepped back, his hand raised as if to enforce the prophecy. “You shall fade in time. As for us”—he pointed accusingly at the Fairy and at his own chest—“we will vanish with you. You will never see us again!”

Then his body melted into the night, as if Ofelia’s disobedience had turned him and the Fairy into mere shadows dissolved by the light of the waxing moon. And Ofelia sat in her bed, filling the silence they left behind with desperate sobs.