فصل سی و هفتم

37

The Final Task

This time the Fairy didn’t come to guide Ofelia. She had to find her own way through the labyrinth. The last task is always the hardest.

The explosions at the mill continued to tear through the silence of the night, but her brother was peaceful in her arms and part of that peace found its way into Ofelia’s heart. She was sure the Wolf was following her, though she couldn’t see him through the smoke drifting up from the mill. A wolf . . . No, he was not a wolf. Her fairy tales were wrong to give evil the shape of a magnificent wild creature. Both Ernesto Vidal and the Pale Man were human beings who fed on hearts and souls because they had lost their own.

The walls of the labyrinth welcomed Ofelia like a familiar embrace and soon the stone-framed circles it wove around her and her brother made her feel safe despite her pursuer. He won’t find you here, she believed to hear the stones whisper. We’ll hide you from him.

But Vidal was close behind, close enough to see the girl go through the arch and enter the labyrinth, though he was still stumbling from Ferreira’s drops. Ofelia was fast and young, but she was carrying her brother, and the night air helped Vidal clear his fogged head. His finger twisted around the trigger of his pistol as he stumbled through the ancient corridors following the sound of Ofelia’s footsteps like a hunting dog follows the scent of a deer. But each time he thought he was getting close, there was another corner, another turn, another wall . . . as if he himself had become the prey caught in an inescapable trap.

Where was she? Shaking his head to clear the fog away, he stumbled onward, one hand gripping the pistol, the other groping the withered walls. Why had she come here, of all places? He paused to catch his breath and listened for the girl’s steps. There! So light, so fast . . . but her breathing was heavy by now. No wonder, she was carrying his son.

Ofelia could hear Vidal’s steps behind her, but she was sure the opening with the well and the staircase was close, very close. Just around that corner. She turned—and found herself in front of a wall.

The wrong way! She’d gone the wrong way. Everything was lost.

But the labyrinth had waited for her for a very long time, and when Ofelia turned to stare helplessly up the corridor she’d come from, the stones behind her began to shift. She peered over her shoulder and saw the wall that had been blocking her way was parting: tree roots, reaching into the widening gap like wooden claws, were clearing a path for her. The roots brushed Ofelia’s arms and legs as she hastened through the crevice and there it was: the clearing she’d been searching for, at its center the well and the staircase leading down to the monolith where she’d first met the Faun.

The wall closed behind Ofelia and her brother the moment she’d passed through and when Vidal reached it all he found was solid stone. He looked around in disbelief, his shirt soaked in blood from the gaping wounds Mercedes’s knife had made. Ofelia heard him cursing on the other side of the stone wall. She barely dared to draw breath, fearing the wall would open and let him pass, but the stones didn’t move. His footsteps faded and all she sensed was her brother’s heartbeat through the thin fabric of her nightgown and his warm breath at her shoulder.

Peace.

Love.

“Quickly, Your Majesty, give him to me.”

Ofelia spun around.

The Faun was standing at the other side of the well, the moon outlining his silhouette with silver. Ofelia felt herself hesitating with every step as she walked over to him, past the flat stone wall surrounding the well. “The moon is high in the sky, Your Highness!” Ofelia had never seen the Faun so cheerful.

“We can open the portal!” he exclaimed, pointing to the well.

In his other hand was the Pale Man’s dagger.

“Why is that in your hand?” Ofelia felt as if the cold blade were touching her skin. The Faun uttered a soft purr.

“Ah, that . . .” He gently caressed the dagger. “Well . . .” His voice sounded both casual and apologetic. “The portal only opens if we offer the blood of an innocent. Just one drop of blood.” He tried to make the word blood sound small, waving its weight away with his hands. “A pinprick, that’s all!” he added, pinching his palm playfully with the dagger’s sharp point. “It is”—he drew a circle of completion into the night—“the final task.” Cold. Ofelia felt so cold.

“Now, then!” The Faun pointed to her brother, his fingers dancing as eagerly as a swarm of flies. “Let’s hurry! The moon won’t wait.” “No!” Ofelia took a step back and shook her head, pressing the baby so firmly to her chest that for a moment she was worried she’d wake him. But he stayed sleeping as calmly as if her arms were the safest place on earth.

The Faun bent forward, his cat eyes narrow with anger and menace. “You promised to obey me!” He bared his teeth with a threatening snarl. “Give me the boy! Give—me—the—boy!” “No! My brother stays with me.” Ofelia gave him the firmest gaze she could summon. It was the only thing she could do: hold the Faun back with her eyes, make him see she would not change her answer, even though everything in her was shaking.

The Faun gave another purr. This time, though, it sounded like surprise. He lowered the dagger and tilted his horned head to look at her. “You would give up your sacred rights for this brat you barely know?” “Yes.” The Faun’s face blurred through the tears in her eyes. Had they just welled up or had they been there since her father died? She couldn’t tell anymore. “Yes, I would,” she murmured, pressing her cheek against her brother’s tiny head, so warm under the white cap their mother had spent so many nights making for him.

“You would give your kingdom for him who has caused you such misery?” This time the Faun didn’t sound angry at all. Each word seemed a proclamation telling the world about the strange decision a girl named Ofelia had made. “Such humiliation,” he added, challenging her once more.

“Yes, I would,” Ofelia repeated.

Yes, I would. . . . Those were the words Vidal heard when he finally staggered into the clearing. Maybe Ofelia’s voice had shown him the way, or the Faun’s angry speech. Or maybe the labyrinth had been built just for this purpose—to have them all play their part in a story written once upon a time and long ago.

Vidal couldn’t see the Faun at all. Perhaps his own darkness made him blind to too many things. Perhaps he already believed in too much grown-up nonsense to have room to see anything else. It mattered little. What mattered was that he was a few steps away from the girl who appeared to be talking to herself.

“Yes, I would,” Ofelia said again, her voice a broken sob. She stepped away from the dagger, away from the well, away from the Faun, unaware of the man standing just a few steps behind her.

“As you wish, Your Highness.” The Faun spread his hands in defeat, his fingers painting her future into the night.

He was still dissolving into the shadows when Ofelia felt a hand grabbing her shoulder. The Wolf stood behind her, the bandage on his face a blood-soaked mark. He pulled her brother from her arms, peering at him, as if he needed to make sure she hadn’t harmed him.

I protected him! Ofelia wanted to scream. The Faun wanted his blood! Didn’t you hear? But when she turned around, the Faun was gone and she was once again alone. All alone, without her brother’s warmth to comfort her.

“No!” she cried. “No!”

Her arms felt so empty and it was so terrible to see the child in his father’s arms that for a moment she wished she’d given him to the Faun after all. But what did it matter? They were both monsters thirsting for the blood of others.

Vidal took a step back, the baby in his arms. He didn’t make the effort to take aim.

He shot Ofelia in the chest without even lifting his hand.

Her blood spread on her nightgown like an opening flower as Vidal holstered his pistol and walked away with her brother.

Ofelia lifted her hand and watched the blood drip off her fingers. Her knees gave way and she fell by the side of the well, her hand pressed against the wound the bullet had torn, but there was too much blood to hold it back. It painted red patterns on her nightgown and ran down her arm, stretched helplessly over the well. The air rising from its depth cooled her skin, while the blood kept dripping from her fingers, deep down into the womb of the earth.

None of her fairy tales had ever ended like this. Her mother had been right: there was no magic. And she hadn’t been able to save her brother. All was lost. Her breath grew shallow. She shivered: the ground was so cold. . . .