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.
7
Razor Teeth
Vidal’s razor was a wondrous thing with its shining blade, sharper than the teeth of a wolf. It had an ivory handle and the steel was German-made. He had taken it from the window of a looted store in Barcelona. A high-end store of gentlemen’s articles: travel kits, grooming kits, pipes, pens, and tortoiseshell combs. But to Vidal this razor had never been just a grooming tool. It was a tool that allowed a man to slash and bite. The razor was his claw—his teeth.
Men were such vulnerable creatures, no fur, no scales to protect their soft flesh. So Vidal took great care every morning to turn himself into a more dangerous beast. When the razor swiped his cheeks and chin its sharpness became part of him. In fact, Vidal liked to imagine it turned his heart, scrape by scrape, into metal. He loved to watch how the blade gave his face the order and shine this place of exile was lacking. He wouldn’t rest until this dirty forest was like the clean-shaven face he saw in the mirror each time the razor had done its work.
Order. Strength. And a nice metal shine. Yes, that’s what he would bring to this place. Blades cut both trees and men so easily.
After he’d taken care of his face, there were of course his boots to polish. He polished them so thoroughly, the leather reflected the morning light. It whispered, Death! in its shining blackness and while Vidal inhaled the smoke of his first cigarette, he imagined the sound of marching boots mixing pleasantly with the music his phonograph was spilling into the morning. The music Vidal listened to was playful and strangely different from the razor and the boots. It gave away that cruelty and death were a dance for him.