Someone came in and stood by her mother’s bed. Ofelia was relieved to recognize Dr. Ferreira’s shoes.
But Ferreira hadn’t come alone.
“Capitán!” Ofelia heard him say. “Her temperature is down! I don’t know how, but it is.”
Ferreira was very relieved. Since the girl had found her mother bleeding, he’d been worried she’d soon be an orphan and that they would lose her unborn brother as well. Ferreira had tried his best to hide these worries from Ofelia, but he had seen the fear in her eyes, eyes as dark as her mother’s. And he knew he wouldn’t be able to protect the girl from the man standing by his side, if her mother died. The girl who was lying under her mother’s bed, her heart racing . . .
“So? She still has a fever.” Ofelia heard neither relief nor worry in the Wolf’s voice. Or love.
“Yes, but that’s a good sign,” she heard the doctor say. “Her body is responding to my treatment.”
Ofelia felt her mother moving in her sleep above her.
“Listen to me, Ferreira. . . .” The Wolf’s voice was so cold. “If you have to choose, save the baby. Understood?”
Ofelia couldn’t breathe. Her heart was screaming. Each word the Wolf uttered was a slap in her mother’s feverish face.
“That boy,” he continued, “will bear my name. And my father’s name. Save him. If he—”
A sudden explosion silenced him. Ofelia was sure it came from the forest. Death was not only inside the mill.
When Vidal stumbled out of the house, he found his soldiers gathered in the yard. A fireball was rising from the canopy of the trees, painting gray smoke into the sky.
Ofelia heard two more explosions when she crawled out from under the bed. She didn’t care. Her mother’s face was peaceful for the first time since her nightgown had been soaked with blood, and Ofelia gently pressed her ear against her mother’s pregnant belly.
“Brother!” she whispered. “Little brother, if you can hear me, things out here aren’t too good. But soon you’ll have to come out.”
She was so tired of the tears, but they filled her eyes nevertheless.
“You’ve made Mamá very sick.”
If you have to choose, save the baby. The Wolf’s words brought back her anger, but Ofelia didn’t want it. From now on it would be the three of them against him. Mother, sister, brother. That’s how it had to be.
“I want to ask you one favor!” she pleaded. “For when you come out. Just one. Please don’t hurt her.”
Ofelia’s tears painted wet spots on her mother’s blanket, as if all the sadness and fear she felt had become liquid. “You’ll see when you meet her,” she said. “Mamá’s very pretty, even though she’s sometimes sad for many days. And when she smiles . . . I know you’ll love her. I’m sure you will!”
There was no answer, but Ofelia believed she heard her brother’s heart beating underneath her mother’s skin.
“Listen!” She gave her words all the weight a solemn promise needs. “If you do what I say, I’ll take you to my kingdom and I’ll make you a prince. I promise! A prince.”
Underneath the bed the mandrake uttered a soft squeal.
23
The Only Honorable Way to Die
The rebels had blown up the train tracks up in the hills and one of the trains transporting army provisions to a nearby garrison. The engine was entangled in strands of melted iron, its metal flanks coated with ashes and the soil it had dug itself into coming off the rails.
“I sounded the whistle, but they wouldn’t move!”
The engineer was eager to convince everyone this hadn’t been his fault. He stumbled along, as Vidal walked with Serrano past the damaged train cars.
“I tried to stop! I swear! But it was too late.”
Idiot. Only the guilty ones talk that fast. Vidal wanted to shove him under the broken train or kick him until he was as motionless as his engine. But the fool went on and on with his breathless pleas.
“The fireman and I jumped out just in time, but look at the mess they made!”
Vidal eyed the blown-up rails, the blown-up train. Broken. Out of order. That’s what the bastards in the woods wanted. Chaos. He stopped in front of a car that seemed somewhat intact.
“What did they steal?” he asked one of the men overseeing the transport.
“Nothing, Capitán. They didn’t open a single car.” The man wiped soot from his face. He was much calmer than the engineer. He was delivering good news.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“This whole mess . . . They didn’t open any of the wagons. They took nothing. God only knows what they wanted. Other than to waste our time.”
Vidal watched his soldiers swarming around the broken train like ants around their trampled anthill. Waste our time. The words rang awfully false in his mind. No. The rebels wouldn’t make use of valuable explosives just to annoy him. Or would they? The answer rang through the woods before he could finish his thought.
Another explosion made them all spin around. Another fireball was rising from the trees and there was no doubt about the direction from where it came.
Fooled! It had all been a ruse, a distraction!
But now this was war.
The fighting was still going on when they reached the mill—explosions tearing the soldiers’ jeeps, trucks, and tents apart, blood-soaked bodies sprawled all over the yard. Vidal barely recognized Garces emerging from the smoke, covered in blood and soot.
“They came out of nowhere, Capitán!”
Vidal pushed him aside.
It was pouring, as if the sky were teaming up with the rebel beasts. Yes, that’s what he would call them from now on. Beasts from the woods. The rain mixed with the smoke and made it hard to see where the attacks were coming from, but Vidal didn’t remove his sunglasses. Their own reflections in the dark lenses—that was all he wanted his men to see until he’d regained control over his emotions. His mask was slipping and the eyes were the first to betray the rage and fear hidden behind it.
They’d been tricked like a bunch of rabbits by a fox, his equipment, his men, all reduced to a mess of rain-soaked trash. Vidal could hear the forest laughing at him, the forest and the cowards hiding under its trees.
“They have grenades, Capitán!” Garces’s eyes were wide with fear. “There was nothing we could do.” The soldiers all knew their capitán would find someone to blame and to bleed for this.
Only now did Vidal notice that the barn doors stood wide open.
He nearly crushed the sunglasses when he took them off with his gloved hand. Garces didn’t dare follow him into the barn. The provisions, the medicine . . . the rebels had taken everything, even his tobacco. The doors, though, were still intact. No trace of explosives. Vidal inspected the lock. No sign of forced entry.
“Capitán!” Serrano ran to his side. His face couldn’t hide his relief that Garces and not he had been in charge of guarding the mill this morning. “We’ve surrounded a small unit. They’ve taken cover up the hill.”
The hill. Good. That would make the beasts into weak rabbits. Vidal straightened the cap on his wet hair. Yes. This time he wouldn’t let them get away.