فصل ششم

6

Into the Labyrinth

Ofelia woke to the sound of fluttering wings. A dry, chitinous rustle: angry, brief, then the rattling of something moving in the dark. The candles and the fire had burned down. It was so cold.

“Mother!” Ofelia whispered. “Wake up! There’s something in the room.”

But her mother wouldn’t wake. Dr. Ferreira’s drops had given her a sleep as deep as a well and Ofelia sat up shivering, although she still wore her woolen sweater over her nightgown, listening. . . .

There!

Now it was right above her! Ofelia pushed the blankets aside to switch on the light, but she hastily drew her legs back into the bed when she felt something brush against her.

And then she saw her.

The insect Fairy was sitting atop the footboard, her long antennae quivering, her spindly front legs gesturing, her mouth chirping softly in a language that, Ofelia was sure, came straight out of the stories in her books. She held her breath as the winged creature climbed down the bed frame and scampered over the blanket on her stiff legs. She crossed the vast field of wool to finally stop barely a foot away from Ofelia, who noticed with surprise that all her fear had vanished. Yes, it was gone! All she felt was happiness, as if an old friend had found her in this cold, dark room.

“Hello!” she whispered. “Did you follow me?”

The antennae twitched and the strange clicking sounds her visitor made reminded Ofelia of her father’s sewing machine and of his needle softly tapping against a button he was attaching to a new dress for her doll.

“You are a Fairy, right?”

Her visitor seemed to not be sure.

“Wait!” Ofelia took one of her fairy-tale books from the bedside table and flipped through to find the page that showed the black cut-paper silhouette she’d looked at so often.

“Here!” She turned the open book to her visitor. “See? That’s a Fairy.”

Well. If the girl thought so. Ofelia’s visitor decided to play along. She raised herself to her hind legs and, turning her back on the girl, lost her antennae and made her dry, elongated body resemble the tiny woman in the illustration. In transforming herself, she gave her wings a slightly different shape. She made them resemble leaves. Then she raised her now-human hands and, brushing her pointed ears with her newly grown fingers, compared her silhouette one more time with the illustration. Yes. The metamorphosis had been successful. Actually, this body might prove to be a new favorite, although she’d taken many shapes in her immortal life. Change was in her nature. It was part of her magic and her favorite game.

But now it was time to fulfill the task for which she’d been sent to the mill. She fluttered toward the girl with her new wings and addressed her with vehemence. Come along! she gestured, giving her signal all the urgency her master’s orders demanded. He wasn’t the most patient one.

“You want me to follow you? Outside? Where?”

So many questions. Humans asked them about everything, but they usually weren’t half as good at finding the answers. The Fairy fluttered toward the door. The leaf wings worked really well, but she had her doubts about the body. The insect limbs had been much lighter and faster.

It mattered none. Her master was waiting.

There was still no fear in Ofelia’s heart when she slipped into her shoes and followed the Fairy out of the house into the night. It almost felt as if she’d followed her before, and who wouldn’t trust a Fairy, even when she showed up in the middle of the night? They probably always did. And you had to follow them. That’s what the books said, and didn’t their tales feel so much truer than what adults pretended this world to be about? Only books talked about all the things adults didn’t want you to ask about—Life. Death. Good and Evil. And what else truly mattered in life.

Ofelia was not surprised when the stone arch surged from the darkness.

The Fairy swirled through it. Mercedes was not at Ofelia’s side to stop her, not this time. The labyrinth’s ancient stone walls loomed to her left and right, leading her farther and farther into endless circles, and each time Ofelia hesitated at a corner, the Fairy urged her on. Follow me! Follow me! Ofelia was sure that was what she chirped, fluttering sometimes high above her, sometimes right by her side.

How long had she been walking? Ofelia couldn’t tell. The ancient walls framed the night sky and her shoes were soaked with dew from the moss that carpeted the twisting passages. It all felt like a dream, and there is no time in dreams. Suddenly the walls widened and Ofelia walked into a large courtyard. At the center a huge stone well opened in the ground. There was a staircase leading into it. Ofelia couldn’t tell how many steps there were; it seemed to be infinite—the darkness swallowed them all. A whisper of dank air surged from the well pit and Ofelia again felt the pang of fear, but also the call for adventure.

She followed the Fairy, who was twittering and swirling ahead, down the steps, deeper and deeper underground. The stairs ended at the bottom of the well, but there was no water, just a sculpted monolith similar to the ones she’d seen in the forest. It looked equally ancient, but this one was much taller and surrounded by stone canals carved deep into the floor that formed a labyrinth mirroring the one above. There was a rustle in the shadows behind the monolith, as if something big was moving there, and Ofelia was by now quite frightened but the Fairy was still urging her on. Finally, she followed her down the last few steps and stood at the bottom of the well.

“Hello?” Ofelia called. “Hello!”

She thought she heard the sound of rushing water as her own steps echoed up the well.

“Echo!” she called, while the Fairy was swirling around the column. “Echoooo!” to chase the silence away.

The Fairy had landed on a dead tree trunk. Or so it seemed. But when the winged creature touched its gnarled surface with her hands, it shuddered and what Ofelia had thought to be the bent remains of an old tree stirred, straightened, and—turned around.

Whatever it was, it was huge, as were the bent horns on its bulky head. The face that scrutinized Ofelia with catlike eyes was unlike any she’d ever seen. A goat beard covered its chin while cheeks and forehead showed the same ornaments that were carved on the column, and when the creature ripped itself free from the web of moss and dry vines that melded it to the wall, Ofelia saw that its body was half man and half goat. Insects and trapped earth fell from its hide and its bones cracked when it moved its limbs as if it had stood in the shadows for too long.

“Ah! It’s you!” he exclaimed. Yes, Ofelia was sure it was a he. “You have returned!”

The creature took a tentative clumsy step toward Ofelia, spreading his pale, clawed fingers like roots. He was indeed huge, much taller than a man, his hoofed legs resembling the hind legs of a goat. His eyes, though shaped like a cat’s, were blue, a pale blue, like stolen pieces of sky, with pupils nearly invisible while his skin looked like splintered bark, overgrown, as if he’d been down here for centuries, waiting. . . .

The Fairy was twittering with pride. She’d delivered the girl, as her master had ordered.

“Look! Look who your sister brought!” he purred, opening the wooden satchel he wore strapped across his torso.

Out fluttered two Fairies in the same shape their sister had copied from the pages of a book. Their horned master chuckled with delight when they all swirled around Ofelia, who was clutching her sweater more firmly over her nightgown in the cold, wet air that filled the well. No wonder the Fairies’ master moved so stiffly. Though maybe he was just old. He looked old. Very old.

“My name is Ofelia,” she said, trying her best to sound brave and not intimidated at all by the horns and those strange blue eyes. “Who are you?” “Me?” The creature pointed at his withered chest. “Ha!” He waved his hand, as if names were the least important thing in the world. “Some call me Pan. But I’ve had so many names!” He took a few stiff steps. “Old names that only the wind and the trees can pronounce . . .” He disappeared behind the monolith, but Ofelia could still hear his voice, a hoarse, mesmerizing rasp of a voice.

“I am the mountain, the woods, and the earth. I am . . . arrghh . . .” He bleated not unlike a goat, looking very old and very young at the same time, when he appeared in front of her once again. “I am”—he shook his limbs with the growl of an aged ram—“a Faun! And I am, as I always was and always will be, your most humble servant, Your Highness.” Ofelia was lost for words, when cracking with effort, he lowered his horned head and addressed her with a deep bow. Your Highness? Oh no. He mistook her for somebody else! Of course. She should have known! Why should a Fairy come to her? She was just a tailor’s daughter.

“No!” she finally managed to say, backing away. “No, I . . .”

The Faun raised his head and straightened his stiff back.

“You are Princess Moanna. . . .”

“No, no!” Ofelia protested. “I am—”

“The daughter of the king of the Underworld,” the Faun interrupted.

What was he talking about? His words scared Ofelia more than the night or this place so far away from the bed warmed by her mother’s body. Although we may wish for it, true magic is a scary thing.

“No! No!” she protested once more. “My name is Ofelia. My mother is a seamstress and my father was a tailor. You have to believe me.” Ofelia felt the Faun’s impatience when he firmly shook his horned head, but she could also detect a trace of amusement in his patterned face.

“Nonsense, Your Highness. You”—he pointed his clawed finger at her—“were not born from a human womb. The moon gave birth to you.” The Fairies vigorously nodded their small heads. A beam of moonlight made its way down into the well pit, as if it too wished to add proof to the Faun’s statement, and lined the wings of the Fairies with silver.

“Look at your left shoulder,” the Faun said. “You’ll find a mark that proves what I say.”

Ofelia gazed at her left shoulder, but she didn’t dare to push back her clothes to expose her skin. She wasn’t sure what she feared more: that the Faun spoke the truth or that he lied.

A princess!

“Your real father had us open portals all over the world to allow you to return. This is the last one.” The Faun gestured at the chamber they were standing in. “But before you are allowed back in his kingdom we have to make sure your essence is intact and you haven’t become a mortal. To prove that . . .” He once again reached into his satchel. “You must complete three tasks before the moon is full.” The book he pulled out of the satchel seemed far too big to ever have fit in there. It was bound in brown leather.

“This is the Book of Crossroads,” the Faun said while handing the heavy book to Ofelia. The lines on his forehead swirled like patterns drawn by wind and waves. “Open it only when you’re alone. . . .” The small pouch he gave her next rattled when Ofelia shook it, but the Faun didn’t tell her what to do with it. He just watched her with his pale blue eyes.

“The book will show you your future,” he said, stepping back into the shadows. “And what must be done.” The book was so big that Ofelia could barely hold it. It nearly slipped out of her hands when she finally managed to open it.

The pages she was looking at were empty.

“There’s nothing written in it!” she said.

But when she looked up, the Faun was gone and so were the Fairies. There was only the night sky above her and the pattern of the labyrinth at her feet.