“Mateo,” she said. “Your time is up. The queen of the Underground Kingdom needs a tailor, and she chooses you.”
“Tell her I am no good!” he pleaded. “Tell her my hands shake and my seams dissolve after just a few days!”
Death shook her head, though her pale face betrayed a trace of compassion.
“Your stitches are more perfect than a nightingale’s song, Mateo,” she said. “And there can be no such perfection in this world.”
“If you take me I’ll cut off my fingers!” the tailor exclaimed. “And what use will I be to her then?”
“You won’t need this body where I’ll take you,” Death said. “All you need is your craft—and you can’t cut that out of you, for it is your very essence. An immortal spark, you might say.”
Hilodoro hung his head and cursed the gift he’d believed to be a blessing all his life. His tears dropped onto the fabric he had been cutting for his daughter’s new dress. Ofelia would have looked so beautiful in it, with her mother’s dark hair and her wide and thoughtful, ever-questioning eyes.
“Just let me finish this dress!” he begged. “I promise once I’ve sewn the last stitch, I’ll come with you willingly and I’ll tailor the most beautiful clothes for the queen of the Underground Kingdom.”
Death sighed. She was used to men begging for another few years or months, sometimes even hours. There was always something unfinished, something undone, unlived. Mortals don’t understand life is not a book you close only after you read the last page. There is no last page in the Book of Life, for the last one is always the first page of another story. But the tailor moved her. There was so much love in him . . . and kindness—a quality Death had found to be rare among men.
“So be it. Finish the dress,” she said with a slight hint of impatience—mostly impatience with herself for giving in to his pleas. “I will be back.”
Hilodoro’s hands shook when he returned to his workbench, and his stitches were uneven. He had to undo them all as they mirrored his despair the way they had once mirrored his happiness. While he cut the thread and plucked it out of the delicate fabric, a bold thought caused him to lift his head.
What if he didn’t finish the dress? What if he never finished the dress?
He began to stay up every night and wouldn’t listen when Carmen asked him to get some sleep, for he wanted to make sure that Death believed he was working on the dress by day and by night. For every stitch he finished, he secretly undid another, so secretly that he hoped not even Death would catch him.
Six weeks later his hand once again cast a skull’s shadow onto the green linen of the still-unfinished dress. Death was standing behind him, but this time she wore a red dress.
“Mateo!” she said, her voice cold as a grave. “Finish the dress before the sun rises or I will take the child you sew it for as well.”
Hilodoro felt how the needle pierced his skin as he clenched it in his hand, and a drop of blood fell onto the sleeve he was sewing. His daughter, Ofelia, would wonder where that dark spot came from.
“I will finish it before the sun rises,” he whispered. “I swear. But please don’t touch my child. She is so young.”
“I can’t promise that,” Death replied. “But I will make you another promise: if you finish this dress tonight, it will wrap her in your love. Whenever she wears it and as long as it fits her, I will not come for her.”
34
One Last Chance
Tap, tap, tap. . . . The guard was walking back and forth in front of Ofelia’s door, back and forth, to keep himself awake. The round window, twin of the full moon by day, was blackened by the night, which would end all hope to fulfill the Faun’s tasks. All was lost. She’d never find out whether he’d told the truth that there still was a place she could return to and call home.
A place where she still had a mother and a father.
Watch her. And if anyone tries to get in, kill her first.
“Kill her?” She’d been waiting for someone to do that since the Wolf left—sitting in her nightgown on the floor, under which the Pale Man roamed, her back against the foot of the bed—waiting for someone to come in and slit her throat.
Ofelia had placed the suitcase with her mother’s clothes beside her, hoping it might give her some comfort, but it only whispered: She is gone. They are all gone: your mother, Mercedes, even the Faun has abandoned you. It was the truth. All that was left was the old mill filled with ghosts and the terrible man who had been the death of her mother and would kill Mercedes, too. Yes, he would for sure kill her. Ofelia wondered only whether she was already dead or whether the Wolf would take his time with her, as they said he’d done with the rebel boy.
Through the steps of the soldier outside her door she heard her brother crying down in the Wolf’s den. He sounded so lost and lonely. His crying mirrored the moaning of Ofelia’s own heart and spun a bond through the night between them. Though she still blamed him for her mother’s death.
Ofelia raised her head.
There was another sound—a rustling of wings shaped like withered leaves.
The Fairy was fluttering above her, a living reminder of her dead sisters and of Ofelia’s failure. She landed on Ofelia’s hand, grabbing one of her fingers. She weighed less than a bird and the touch of her delicate hands filled Ofelia’s heart with light and warmth.
“I’ve decided to give you one more chance.” The Faun appeared from the shadows, holding out his hands as if he were carrying a precious gift.
Ofelia scrambled to her feet.
“One last chance.” The Faun’s narrow lips wore a forgiving smile.
Ofelia threw her arms around him and pressed her face into his long pale-yellow hair. It felt like embracing a tree, and the Faun’s laughter was a bubbling spring feeding joy to her desperate heart. He caressed her hair, leaning his patterned cheek against her head, and Ofelia felt safe despite the soldier in front of her door, despite the Wolf, despite the suitcase with her mother’s empty clothes. The Faun’s huge body shielded her from a world that had grown so dark. Maybe she could trust him after all. Who else would help her? There was no one.
“Yes, I give you one more chance,” the Faun whispered into her ear. “But do you promise this time to do everything I say?”
He took a step back, his hands still on her shoulders, and looked at her inquiringly.
Ofelia nodded. Of course. Everything! She would do everything she could just to have him protect her from the Wolf who’d dragged her back to this room like a rabbit caught in the woods.
“Everything?” The Faun bent down until he could look straight into her eyes. “Without question?”
He caressed her face with his clawed fingers and Ofelia nodded again, though this time she sensed the menace in his request.
“This IS your last chance.” The Faun gave weight to every single word.
Ofelia remembered the grapes on the Pale Man’s golden plates. No. This time she would be stronger. She nodded.
“Then listen to me.” The Faun tipped his claw playfully against her nose. “Fetch your brother and bring him to the labyrinth as quickly as you can, Your Highness.”