Pan's Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of the Faun(48)

Ofelia scrambled to her feet.

“One last chance.” The Faun’s narrow lips wore a forgiving smile.

Ofelia threw her arms around him and pressed her face into his long pale-yellow hair. It felt like embracing a tree, and the Faun’s laughter was a bubbling spring feeding joy to her desperate heart. He caressed her hair, leaning his patterned cheek against her head, and Ofelia felt safe despite the soldier in front of her door, despite the Wolf, despite the suitcase with her mother’s empty clothes. The Faun’s huge body shielded her from a world that had grown so dark. Maybe she could trust him after all. Who else would help her? There was no one.

“Yes, I give you one more chance,” the Faun whispered into her ear. “But do you promise this time to do everything I say?”

He took a step back, his hands still on her shoulders, and looked at her inquiringly.

Ofelia nodded. Of course. Everything! She would do everything she could just to have him protect her from the Wolf who’d dragged her back to this room like a rabbit caught in the woods.

“Everything?” The Faun bent down until he could look straight into her eyes. “Without question?”

He caressed her face with his clawed fingers and Ofelia nodded again, though this time she sensed the menace in his request.

“This IS your last chance.” The Faun gave weight to every single word.

Ofelia remembered the grapes on the Pale Man’s golden plates. No. This time she would be stronger. She nodded.

“Then listen to me.” The Faun tipped his claw playfully against her nose. “Fetch your brother and bring him to the labyrinth as quickly as you can, Your Highness.”

That was a task Ofelia hadn’t expected.

“My brother?”

She couldn’t help but frown. What do you care? she asked herself. Yes, he sounds as lonely as you are, but he is his father’s son and your mother would still be alive without him. But not for the first time another voice inside her whispered, He couldn’t help it. He had to come to this world even though he was as scared of it as much as you are.

“Yes,” the Faun said. “We need him now.”

For what? Oh, Ofelia! her mother used to say with a sigh. Too many questions! Can’t you for once just do what I say? How, when her heart was asking them so persistently?

“But—” she began carefully.

The Faun’s finger shot up, a withered warning. “No more questions. As we agreed, yes?”

Will you do everything I tell you? Everything. . . . Ofelia took a deep breath. The menace dwelled in that word, but she had no choice, did she?

“His door is locked.”

The Wolf’s room was always locked since he started keeping his son in there.

“In that case,” the Faun said, smiling mischievously, “I’m sure you remember how to create your own door.”

The chalk he produced out of thin air was as white as the piece he’d given her to enter the Pale Man’s lair.





35


The Wounded Wolf


Vidal was in front of his mirror rinsing his slashed face when he heard hoofbeats outside. Two of his soldiers had made it back from the forest, but no one dared tell the capitán the others were lying dead in a clearing among the trees, their blood dripping from fern fronds, while Mercedes, who had cut him like a pig, was alive and free.

Vidal inspected the grotesque grin Mercedes had given him. The kitchen knife had sliced his skin as efficiently as it sliced vegetables. When he tried to open his mouth, a jolt of pain made him shut his eyes, but he still saw Mercedes with the slim blade sticking out of her hand like the thorn of a wasp.

One of the maids had left the curved sewing needle he’d requested on his table. Mercedes had probably stitched his clothes with it. Vidal picked up the needle and shoved it through his lower lip. Each stitch made him wince, but he pulled the black thread through his flesh over and over again to get rid of the grin that made his own face mock him for what a fool he’d been.

Ofelia was listening to his moans through the door the Faun’s chalk had opened in her floor. She could even see the Wolf standing in front of his mirror, and right underneath her a ladder was leaning idly against some boxes that were gathering dust in the back of the room. The Faun had made sure she could get to her brother’s cradle easily. It was standing just a few steps away from it, and though Ofelia couldn’t see him she could hear him softly crying. Maybe he was calling for his mother. Their mother . . . Don’t think about her, Ofelia! Remember where you are!

She slipped into her shoes and drew her dark woolen coat over her nightgown.

The Wolf didn’t seem to hear her as she climbed down the ladder. He was still standing in front of his mirror, with his back to her, groaning with pain. There was blood on his shirt. Ofelia didn’t know who had wounded him, but she was grateful to whoever had dared to attack him, though she could feel his anger. As soon as she stepped from the ladder onto the floor she hastily slipped under the Wolf’s table to hide from his gaze in case he turned around.

But Vidal still didn’t turn.

He was scrutinizing the work the needle and thread had done. They had erased the grin Mercedes’s kitchen knife had drawn. All the mirror showed was a thin bloodstained line, embroidered with black yarn, running from the left side of his mouth up his cheek. He covered it with a bandage and inspected his face one last time. Then he walked over to his table.