فصل بیست و چهارم

24

Bad News, Good News

Soldiers are usually silent after lost battles. Vidal’s men, though, were shouting and laughing when they returned from the forest. Mercedes knew something terrible must have happened. The other maids were standing in the kitchen doorway watching the turmoil in the yard when she came running into the kitchen.

“What happened?” She was so breathless from fear she could barely speak. When had she last breathed calmly? She couldn’t remember.

“They caught one. They caught one alive.” Rosa’s voice was shrill with panic. Rumors were she had a nephew in the woods. “They’re taking him to the barn!” They all knew what that meant.

Mariana called to Mercedes when she ran back out into the pouring rain, but Mercedes couldn’t make herself be cautious. Not today. The fear she felt was a beast devouring her heart.

“Mercedes! Come back!” Mariana’s voice was hoarse. The other maids gathered around the cook like a flock of frightened hens, their faces stiff with both fear and hope: fear that Vidal’s men would drag Mercedes into the barn; hope that she might find out who they’d caught.

Who had they caught?

“Pedro!”

Mercedes whispered her brother’s name as her feet slipped in the mud.

“Pedro!”

She’d almost reached the barn when she saw the soldiers dragging their prisoner in through the open door, his legs helplessly ploughing the muddy ground behind him. Mercedes took another step to glance into the barn, but all she could see were the soldiers, their rain capes shimmering in the dark, tying a limp figure to one of the wooden beams inside.

“Mercedes?”

Vidal was standing behind her with Serrano at his side.

“Capitán.” She was surprised the sound her lips formed made any sense. She could barely take her gaze off the prisoner. His head was hanging down, his face hidden under a dark cap. Her brother wore a cap like that.

“I need . . . to check on the supplies in the barn.”

Surely he heard how desperate she was. Even to her own ears she sounded like a lost little girl. Luckily Vidal was far too eager to get to his prisoner to pay any attention.

“Not now, Mercedes,” he replied impatiently. “I want no one in the yard or the barn. Check on my wife, if you’d be so kind. . . .” She nodded obediently. But she couldn’t move. She just stood there and watched Vidal take the cap off the prisoner’s drooping head. He raised his face and looked at her.

Tarta.

His eyes were as wide as those of a lamb being dragged into the slaughterhouse. Wide with the knowledge of what was about to come. Mercedes felt his gaze like a hand reaching for hers, but Tarta didn’t give her away. He didn’t scream for help, he pressed his lips together, determined to be brave, those lips that broke words like porous clay.

Mercedes was still standing in the rain when Serrano shut the barn doors. She was ashamed to feel relief that they’d caught Tarta and not Pedro. The relief only lasted for a moment, though. Tarta knew where Pedro was. And he knew all about her and the doctor.

He knew everything.

Mercedes was surprised her feet found the way back to the kitchen. The others were chopping vegetables for the soup they would serve the murderers. Is my brother still alive? she kept asking herself as she joined them to cut roots and parsley. And how about the others? Were they all dead in the woods, their blood mixing with the rain? No! She told herself. No, Mercedes, they wouldn’t have kept Tarta alive if they’d killed them all.

Slowly, as if her fingers belonged to someone else, she cut another root into pale slices with her apron knife. All she saw was the knife’s sharp blade. What was happening in the barn? It took all her strength to prevent her thoughts from going back to the wide-eyed boy and imagining what they would do to him.

Mariana was watching her, her round face lined by life. “That’s plenty, dear,” she said when Mercedes pushed the chopped vegetables over the table and reached for another root. Which line was life drawing right now onto their faces? So many lines, of fear, of grief . . . Mercedes was surprised she was still beautiful.

Mariana held up a tray of food she’d prepared for Ofelia and her mother. “Shall I take this upstairs?” Mariana didn’t have loved ones in the woods, but she had two sons of almost the same age as Tarta.

“I’ll do it,” Mercedes said, taking the tray from her hands—anything to prevent her imagination from running wild, but it didn’t work. What has happened to Pedro? The question repeated itself at every step she took up the stairs. What is Tarta telling them?

Dr. Ferreira was with Ofelia’s mother. He looked up from the glass of medicine he was preparing when Mercedes walked in. Do you remember Tarta? she wanted to ask him. How he can’t read the newspaper fast enough for the others? Now he can give us all away if they make him talk.

Ofelia didn’t notice Mercedes’s fear.

She was too happy to notice. Her mother felt well enough today to play cards and when Dr Ferreira handed her the glass with medicine she shook her head.

“I don’t think I need it, Doctor,” she said. “I feel so much better.” “That’s why I’m giving you only half the dose, and yes, you’re much better,” Dr. Ferreira replied with a smile. “I don’t understand why, but I’m glad.” Ofelia knew. She looked at the jug of fresh milk Mercedes had brought. The mandrake would soon need it. Along with a few drops of blood. All would be well even though she’d disobeyed the Faun and caused the death of his Fairies. She still heard their screams in her dreams, but her mother was smiling again and, after all, she had fulfilled the second task and brought back the Pale Man’s dagger.

Yes, the Faun would understand.

In her heart Ofelia knew that he wouldn’t, but she was too happy to allow those worries to cast a shadow.