“You’ll see, this will take away the pain.” Talking to the boy as if he was a normal patient brought Ferreira at least some peace. Tarta’s eyes were closed again and blood was trickling onto his face from under his black hair.
“Yes, it’s almost over,” the doctor said softly.
He said it to himself. Death had already thrown her cloak of mercy over Tarta’s shoulders.
Vidal didn’t understand men like Ferreira. He had no doubt that a man who helped the rebels would of course also kill his unborn child.
Ofelia was under her mother’s bed checking on the mandrake when Vidal came rushing up the stairs to make sure his son was still alive. His hasty steps filled the mill with the echo of his fear but Ofelia didn’t hear them. She was too worried about the mandrake. The root wasn’t moving anymore even though she’d given it fresh milk and another few drops of blood.
“Are you sick?”
She leaned over the bowl, when she suddenly felt hands grabbing her legs. Gloved hands. The Wolf pulled her brutally by the ankles and Ofelia found herself helplessly sliding out from under the bed.
“What were you doing down there?” He yanked her up and shook her so roughly Ofelia tasted hatred like a poisonous brew in her mouth.
Of course, he found the bowl. He sniffed at the milk and cringed in disgust.
“What the hell is this?”
Ofelia just shook her head. He wouldn’t understand.
She cried out when he grabbed the mandrake out of the bowl and tried to free it from his grasp, but he held it out of her reach, milk running down his arm, while his other hand wouldn’t let go of Ofelia.
Her cries woke her mother.
“What are you doing? Ernesto, leave her,” her mother said weakly, pushing her blankets back. “Leave her alone, please!”
The Wolf thrust the dripping mandrake toward her face.
“Look at this thing!” Milk splattered Carmen’s nightgown as he pushed the root into her hands. “What do you think of this? Heh? She was hiding it under your bed!”
Ofelia couldn’t bear to look at her mother’s face. It was pale with disgust.
“Ofelia?!” she said, her eyes begging for an explanation. “What was that thing doing under my bed?”
The Wolf walked to the door, his steps stiff with anger.
“It is a magic root!” Ofelia sobbed. “The Faun gave it to me.”
“This is all because of that junk you let her read.” The Wolf was standing in the doorway, but Ofelia could still feel the sting of his fingers around her arm.
“Please leave us! I’ll talk to her, mi amor!”
Ofelia hated the tenderness in her mother’s voice and her eagerness to please a man who barely looked at her.
Children do notice those things, for all they can do is to watch—and hide from the storms the adults create. The storms and the winters.
“As you wish,” Vidal said, reminding himself there were more important matters to deal with than a lonely widow who’d spoiled her daughter. Things would change once his son was born.
Ofelia was shaking when he finally left her alone with her mother. So much rage, first the Faun’s and now the Wolf’s. She couldn’t say who frightened her more.
“He told me you would get better!” she cried. “And you did!”
“Ofelia!” Her mother dropped the mandrake on the bed and caressed her face. “You have to listen to your father! You have to stop all this!”
Father. Oh, it was so hard to not hate her for calling him that—and for being too weak to protect her. Ofelia threw her arms around her and pressed her face into her shoulder. Her mother’s nightgown smelled like the place they used to call home, where she had felt safe and happy.
“Please, take me away from here!” she begged. “Let’s just go, please! Please!” But those were the wrong words.
Her mother freed herself from her embrace.
“Things are not that simple, Ofelia.” There was no tenderness in her voice now. It was sharp with impatience. “You’re getting older. You’ll soon see that life isn’t like your fairy tales.”
She grabbed the mandrake and walked to the fireplace, each step painfully slow. “The world is a cruel place, Ofelia. And you need to learn that. Even if it hurts.”
Then she threw the mandrake into the fire.
“No!” Ofelia tried to reach for the twisting root, but her mother grabbed her by the shoulders.
“Ofelia! Magic doesn’t exist!” Her voice was hoarse with exhaustion and anger for all her dreams that hadn’t come true. “Not for you, me, or anyone else!”
A shrill squeal rose from the fire. It was the mandrake—burning, writhing with pain, screaming like a newborn child as the flames were eating its pale limbs.
Carmen faced the fire and, for a moment, Ofelia could’ve sworn her mother could see the magic before her eyes—could hear the screams, could see the root writhe . . .
But then she gasped and grabbed the footboard. Her legs gave way and she slipped to the floor, her eyes wide with disbelief and panic, while the mandrake continued to squeal in the flames.
Blood. Blood was pouring from between Carmen’s legs, staining her skin, her nightgown, the floor.
“Mamá!” Ofelia fell to her knees by her side.
“Help!” she cried. “Help!”
Down in the kitchen the maids dropped their knives. They all had been worried about Ofelia’s mother and her unborn child. The doctor would help. They read the same thought on each other’s faces.
But Dr. Ferreira was in the barn, kneeling by a dead boy, an empty syringe in his hand.
29
A Different Kind of Man
Ferreira rose to his feet when he heard the steps approaching through the rain. Garces was the first one to walk into the barn, lean, thick-skinned Garces, who could keep the pain of others at a comforting distance from his own heart. He stared at the tortured boy whose disfigured face was calm and at peace in death, while the other soldiers gathered in front of the barn doors, holding off the pouring rain with their umbrellas, so strangely tame a device in contrast to their uniforms.
Vidal was the last one to arrive. He knelt at Tarta’s side to examine the dead body while Dr. Ferreira was putting the syringe back into his bag, closing it with the calmness of a man who had done his duty.
“Why did you do it?” Vidal rose to his feet.
“It was the only thing I could do.”
“What do you mean?” There was a hint of surprise in Vidal’s voice. Surprise, curiosity . . . “You could have obeyed me!”
He walked toward Ferreira as slowly as a predator stalking his prey, and stopped right in front of him. It was not easy to stand and just look up at him. But there are many kinds of courage. Ferreira had feared this man for so long—witnessed his butchery, healed the wounds he inflicted—he felt relieved he wouldn’t have to pretend anymore to be on his side.
“Yes, that is true, I could have obeyed you,” he said calmly. “But I didn’t.”
Vidal scrutinized Ferreira like a strange animal he’d never seen before.
“It would have been better for you. You know it. Why didn’t you obey me?”
There was almost a hint of fear in his voice and in the way he pressed his narrow lips together. In his kingdom of darkness everyone gave in to fear, why not this soft spectacled man who barely dared to speak up in his presence?