All those stitches . . .
Carmen had spent so many hours sewing that dress, she didn’t want to see the truth in her daughter’s eyes: that she hadn’t made the dress for Ofelia but for the man she told her daughter to call “Father” even though a dead man owned that title.
We all create our own fairy tales. The dress will make him love my daughter, that’s the tale Carmen Cardoso told herself, although her heart knew Vidal only cared for the unborn child he had fathered. It is a terrible sin to betray one’s child for a new love and Ofelia’s mother’s fingers were trembling as she opened the buttons of the dress, still smiling, pretending life and love were what she wanted them to be.
The bathroom was filled with white veils of steam. Ofelia felt it warm and wet on her skin when she closed the door behind her. The tub looked like an inviting white porcelain boat ready to leave for the moon, but the hot bath was not the reason why Ofelia was eager to finally be alone.
She’d hidden the Faun’s book and the little pouch behind the bathroom radiator last night, afraid her mother would find them. It was her secret, and apart from her mother’s dislike for books, she was worried the Faun’s gift might lose its magic if anyone else saw or touched it.
She could barely hold the heavy book on her lap when she sat down on the edge of the bathtub. Its leather binding felt like weathered tree bark and the pages were still empty, but she somehow knew that would change. All the truly important things hide from view. Ofelia was still young enough to know that.
And indeed, one of the blank pages began to bleed brown and pale green ink the moment Ofelia touched it. An illustration of a toad emerged on the page on the right, then of a hand and of a labyrinth. Flowers began to cover the edge of the page and at its center the image of a tree took shape, old and crooked, its leafless branches bent like horns, its trunk split and hollow.
A girl was kneeling inside and peering out at Ofelia. Her feet were bare but she was wearing a green dress and a white apron just like those Ofelia’s mother had made. Once the image on the right-hand page was finished, the left-hand page began to fill with sepia brown letters, as old-fashioned as if an invisible illuminator were writing them with a brush bound from the hairs of a marten’s tail. The letters were so beautiful for a few moments Ofelia just admired them, but then she began to read:
Once upon a time, when the woods were young,
they were home to creatures
who were full of magic and wonder. . . .
“Ofelia!” Her mother knocked at the door. “Hurry up! I want to see the dress on you. I want you to be beautiful. For the capitán.”
Betrayal . . .
Ofelia stepped in front of the mirror. Steam covered the glass, blurring her reflection. Ofelia pushed her bathrobe from her left shoulder.
“You will look like a princess!” her mother called through the door.
Ofelia stared at her reflection.
There it was: a sickle moon surrounded by three stars, as clearly as if someone had drawn them onto her skin with the sepia ink that had filled the pages of the book. The Faun had told the truth.
“A princess,” Ofelia whispered.
She looked at her reflection.
And she smiled.
9
Milk and Medicine
Of course, there would be enough food for the capitán’s dinner guests. His soldiers made sure of that and everyone in the kitchen knew how. Some local families would go hungry for a few days, but what was there to say when soldiers knocked on the door to claim the last chicken or the potatoes a farmer had hidden for his children? Mercedes felt so ashamed as she and the other maids chopped vegetables. That was the use of knives for women: to cut food for the men who killed with their knives . . . who killed those women’s husbands, their sons, and their daughters.
The knife she sliced onions with was the same most kitchen maids kept in the folds of their aprons, right below the belly, safe and always handy: it had a short blade, roughly three inches in length, made of cheap steel and a worn wooden handle.
Mercedes couldn’t take her eyes off the blade. She still remembered the capitán’s hand on her arm. What if he wouldn’t let her go one day? The others for sure didn’t guess her thoughts when she folded her stained apron around the slim blade. They were laughing and gossiping to make themselves forget the uniforms outside and that their sons were fighting each other. And maybe they were right. Maybe life was still more than that. There was still the silence of the forest and the warmth of the sun, the light of the moon. Mercedes yearned to join in the laughter, but her heart was so tired. It had been afraid for too long.
“Make sure those chickens are cleaned properly,” she said. “And don’t forget the beans.”
Her voice sounded harsher than she had intended, but the others weren’t paying attention to her anyway. They were all smiling looking at Ofelia, who was standing in the kitchen doorway wearing the green dress and the white apron Mercedes had ironed with the same care Ofelia’s mother had put into making them. The clothes made the girl look like a character from a book Mercedes had loved as a child. Her mother had often brought books home for her and her brother. She’d been a teacher, but all her books couldn’t protect her when soldiers burned their village. The flames had eaten both her mother and her books.
“You look wonderful, girl!” the cook exclaimed. “Just beautiful.”
“Yes! That’s such a beautiful dress!” Rosa said, her face soft with tenderness. She had a daughter Ofelia’s age. The girl reminded them all of their children and grandchildren—and of the girls they had once been themselves.
“Get back to work! Stop wasting time,” Mercedes told them off, although she felt the tenderness in her heart too.
She walked over to Ofelia and gently straightened the collar of her dress. Her mother was really a talented seamstress and for a moment the dress she’d made for her daughter cast a spell in the old mill’s kitchen—the dress and the girl’s beaming face, so bright with happiness and beauty like a freshly opened flower. Yes, for a moment it made them all believe the world to be peaceful and whole again.
“Do you want some milk with honey?”
Ofelia nodded and Mercedes took her outside where the brown cow was standing under the trees, her udder firm with milk. It ran warm and white over Mercedes’s fingers as she filled a bucket with it.
“Move back,” she softly said to Ofelia. “We can’t have you getting milk on your dress. It makes you look like a princess.”
Ofelia hesitantly took a step back.
“Do you believe in Fairies, Mercedes?” she asked as she caressed the cow’s smooth flank.
Mercedes squeezed the cow’s teats once more. “No. But when I was a little girl I did. I believed in a lot of things I don’t believe anymore.”
The cow mooed impatiently. She wanted to feed calves, not men. Mercedes calmed her with her hands and a few soft words.
Ofelia forgot about the dress and the milk and stepped to her side.
“Last night a Fairy visited me,” she said softly.
“Really?” Mercedes dipped a small bowl into the bucket and filled it with the warm milk.
Ofelia nodded, wide-eyed. “Yes. And she wasn’t alone! There were three of them. And a Faun, too!”