فصل بیست و ششم

26

Only Two Grapes

This time Ofelia was awakened by laughter, a soft, hoarse laughter echoing in the darkness that drowned her room like black milk.

“I see your mother is much better, Your Highness.” The Faun looked enormously pleased with himself. “Surely you must be relieved!” He looked even younger now, though his goat legs still creaked with every step he took toward Ofelia’s bed. Despite the ancient patterns covering his cheeks and forehead, his skin was so smooth it reflected the light of the almost full moon.

“Yes, thank you,” Ofelia replied, casting a nervous glance at the Faun’s satchel peeking out from under her blanket. “Things haven’t turned out that well, though. Not all of them, I mean.” “Ah? No?” The blue cat eyes widened in surprise.

Ofelia was sure he already knew. She’d come to believe the Faun knew everything—about this world and any other.

“I . . . had an accident,” she murmured, handing him the satchel. The surviving Fairy was chattering inside. Ofelia hadn’t dared to let her out, fearing she might come to harm as well.

“An accident?” The Faun repeated the word in unveiled disbelief.

He opened the satchel and growled.

The Fairy fluttered out and landed on his shoulder. The longer the Faun listened to her, the more sinister his face became until he finally bared his pointed teeth and groaned with anger.

“You broke the rules!” he roared, pointing a claw at Ofelia.

“It was only two grapes!” she cried, hastily pulling the red velvet-wrapped dagger from under her pillow. “I thought no one would notice!” The Faun snatched the dagger, and shook his head in anger. “We’ve made a mistake!” “A mistake?” Ofelia could barely hear her own voice.

“You have failed!” snarled the Faun, towering over her. “You can never return!” Ofelia felt as if the night were opening its mouth and swallowing her.

“But it was an accident!”

“No!” the Faun roared again, his eyes narrow with rage and contempt. “You—can—not—return! Ever!” Each word hit Ofelia like a stone. “The moon will be full in three days! Your spirit shall forever remain among the humans.” He bent toward her until his face nearly touched Ofelia’s.

“You shall age like them. You shall die like them! And all memory of you—” He stepped back, his hand raised as if to enforce the prophecy. “You shall fade in time. As for us”—he pointed accusingly at the Fairy and at his own chest—“we will vanish with you. You will never see us again!” Then his body melted into the night, as if Ofelia’s disobedience had turned him and the Fairy into mere shadows dissolved by the light of the waxing moon. And Ofelia sat in her bed, filling the silence they left behind with desperate sobs.