Pan's Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of the Faun(44)

Stumbling through the night, they followed the brook, shuddering under another pour of freezing rain. The old umbrella Mercedes had grabbed barely sheltered them from it. One time she believed she heard Ferreira’s footsteps behind her and had to remind herself that he was dead, like Tarta and so many others. Dead. Did the word become more or less real with every time one had to attach it to a loved one?

“Wait!” Mercedes stopped, her arm firmly around Ofelia’s shoulders.

She thought she could hear a horse snorting, but when she listened keenly into the night, all she could hear was the rain drumming against the trees and dripping from the leaves above them.

“It’s nothing!” she whispered, pressing Ofelia to her side. “Don’t worry. Let’s go.”

But the game was over.

As Mercedes turned, lifting the umbrella, she gazed into Vidal’s face. Garces stood behind him and at least twenty more of his soldiers. How had she not heard them? The night is always on the hunters’ side.

“Mercedes.” Vidal turned her name into a chain around her neck. He let his gaze wander across her face, so stiff with terror, and down to the girl.

“Ofelia.”

He didn’t try to veil his hatred.

He grabbed the girl’s arm and left Mercedes to Garces.

They will kill her. That was all Ofelia could think, while the Wolf dragged her back to the mill, through the forest, over the mud-covered yard, into the house, where her mother had died. They will kill Mercedes like they killed my mother.

The Wolf pulled her up the stairs with hands of iron. He called for one of his soldiers to guard the door before he pushed her roughly into her room.

“How long have you known about her?”

He slapped Ofelia’s face. It was still wet with rain, or was it tears she felt on her cheeks? It didn’t matter. The raindrops were tears too. The whole world was crying.

“How long have you been laughing at me, little witch?!”

The Wolf shook her and Ofelia felt his wish to do more. Break her. Slash her like one of the rabbits the cook prepared in the kitchen for him and his men. Finally, he let go of her with a rude curse and took off his cap, breathing heavily, smoothing his hair. For the first time there was a crack in his mask and it frightened Ofelia more than the Faun’s rage. The Wolf would never forgive that she’d seen him weak—just as he wouldn’t forgive that she hadn’t told him about Mercedes.

“Watch her!” he barked at the soldier by the door. “And if anyone tries to get in”—he put the cap back on his head, straightening it, closing the crack—“kill her first.”

Ofelia’s cheek stung as if the slap had split her skin. She started crying the moment the Wolf closed the door, all those tears: for her mother, for Mercedes, for herself.





33


Just a Woman


And there she was, tied to the beam stained with Tarta’s blood while outside a new day was breaking. Mercedes didn’t look at Garces as he tightened the ropes and bound her hands in front of her, the same way they had tied Tarta’s.

Vidal was busy searching her bag. He had taken off his gloves. He often did when he questioned a prisoner. It was so hard to clean the blood off the leather. Mercedes knew. She’d done it quite a few times.

“Chorizo . . .” He threw the sausage on the ground. “That was not supposed to feed just you and the girl, right? And for sure you didn’t steal this for the girl.” He sniffed at a small parcel. “My best tobacco. You should have asked for it. I would have given it to you, Mercedes.”

Garces smiled and tied another knot, while his capitán pawed through the letters she was to deliver to the men in the forest.

“I want the names of whoever wrote these. I want them by tomorrow.” He handed the letters to Garces.

“Yes, Capitán.”

Why hadn’t she left the letters behind? All the loved ones the soldiers would now come for . . . Nothing would hurt the men in the woods more. All those words of love would turn into weapons against the ones they were supposed to comfort.

Mercedes tried to fight back the tears. Despair welled up like poisoned water in her heart. Love is such a terribly efficient trap, and the cruelest truth about war is that it makes loving a deadly risk. We’ll kill your mother. We’ll rape your sister. We’ll break your brother’s bones. . . .

Mercedes leaned her head back against the splintered wood. What did it matter if they killed her now? She’d been afraid of this for far too long. Her heart was so exhausted from all the fear that it felt nothing except regret about the letters and compassion for the people who’d soon hear a knock at their doors.

Vidal unbuttoned the shirt she had washed and ironed for him. How often had she cursed the stains the blood of someone else had caused? Would hers stain the sleeves or would he take the shirt off? Yes, think about washing shirts, Mercedes. Don’t give your mind time to think about what he’ll do to you.

“You can go, Garces.”

She wasn’t sure what she sensed in the look Garces gave her. Some of the soldiers didn’t like to torture women. His capitán didn’t have any such hesitations. She suspected he enjoyed it even more than breaking men.

“You’re sure, Capitán?”

Mercedes couldn’t remember having ever heard Vidal laugh before. “For God’s sake! She’s just a woman.”