فصل دهم

10

The Tree

Ofelia had already walked deep into the forest when she heard the horses behind her. But they didn’t head in her direction and soon the murmuring of the trees was louder than the fading hoofbeats. Ofelia read the words from the Faun’s book while she walked. They sounded even more enchanting under the trees—and she read them over and over, although it was not easy to walk holding the open book: Once upon a time, when the woods were young, they were home to creatures

who were full of magic and wonder.

Ofelia’s feet followed the rhythm of the words as if they were drawing an invisible path.

The creatures protected one another.

They slept in the shade of a colossal fig tree that grew on a hill near the mill.

Ofelia looked up from the book and there was the hill. It wasn’t terribly steep, she could climb it with just a few steps, but it would have taken five men to embrace the tree growing on it. The trunk was split, exactly as the book had shown her.

But now the tree is dying.

Its branches are dry,

its trunk old and twisted.

She looked up at the two huge leafless branches growing from the trunk, bent like the horns of the Faun.

There were still more words in the book. Ofelia whispered them as her eyes followed the pale brown ink across the pages.

A monstrous toad has settled in its roots

and won’t let the tree thrive.

You must put the three magic stones

into the Toad’s mouth.

Ofelia opened the pouch the Faun had given her. Three small stones fell into her hand. And the book still held two more lines: Retrieve the golden key from inside his belly.

Only then will the fig tree flourish again.

From inside his belly . . . Ofelia closed the book and looked at the gaping cleft in the tree. It was very dark inside. She slipped the three stones back into the pouch and took a step toward the tree, when she realized with a start that her new shoes were covered in mud. The heroes in her fairy-tale books never worried about their shoes or their clothes, but Ofelia took off the white apron and her new green dress and hung them over a branch. She could imagine all too well how upset her mother would be if she ruined them. Then she slipped off her shoes and approached the tree. The ground was cold under her bare feet and the wind made her shudder in her thin underdress. The cleft was high enough for her to step through, but the tunnel beyond it was so narrow that Ofelia had to get down on her hands and knees.

Outside the wind was tearing at the ribbons of her new dress.

Beware, it whispered.

Beware, Ofelia, the fluttering ribbons sang.

But Ofelia was already crawling down the tunnel—into the wet wooden intestines of the dying tree. Soon slimy mud covered her hands and knees. It soaked her white underdress and dyed it the colors of the earth. The tree’s roots were all around her, weaving through the wet soil and reaching into the ground like the claws of a huge wooden creature. Woodlice as big as mice crawled up Ofelia’s arms and the mud squelched under her hands as if the ground yearned to devour her.

There seemed to be no end to the tunnel and the maze of roots, but Ofelia wouldn’t turn back. She had to fulfill the Faun’s tasks before the moon was full if she wanted to prove to herself and to him he was right: that she was Moanna, the princess whose father was waiting for her even though Death had made her believe she lost him. For if she was not Moanna, who else would she be? The daughter of a wolf who had stolen her mother’s heart and spelled murder with his eyes. Ofelia stopped for a moment to listen to the sounds of the earth and her own fiercely beating heart. Then she once again sank her hands into the mud and continued to crawl down the endless tunnel.