فصل سی و نهم

39

The Return of the Princess

Mercedes had never gone all the way into the labyrinth. She’d always feared what she would find and she had been right. She knew it when she saw Ofelia lying by the side of the well.

Mercedes handed Pedro the baby. She would have to forget the baby’s father or she wouldn’t be able to love the child, and love was what they all needed so desperately. It felt strange that another woman had passed two children into her care. Mercedes prayed she would be able to keep at least her son safe. She for sure had failed her daughter.

When she knelt by Ofelia’s side, the pain tearing at her heart was as sharp as if the girl truly were her child. Ofelia was dying. She didn’t even have the strength to turn her head to Mercedes, her fading eyes staring blindly at the blood dripping from her hand into the well.

The blood reddened the rainwater at the bottom of the well. The rain had filled the patterns of the labyrinth surrounding the column and the reflection of the moon floated in the shallow water like a ball of silver, the kind of ball fairy-tale princesses lose in a well. The edges of this one, though, were dyed red with Ofelia’s blood. Some drops had found their way onto the weathered stone of the column, and crimson flowers were growing from the chiseled image of the girl holding the baby.

Tears running down her face, Mercedes began to hum the lullaby she’d once sung to Ofelia. Softening the girl’s laborious breathing, the tune filled the night with memories of innocence, of hope and happiness, and the full moon covered Ofelia with a blanket of silver. She felt its light cool her feverish skin and her aching heart.

Such brilliant light.

“Arise, my daughter,” a voice commanded.

Mercedes didn’t hear the voice. But Ofelia did.

The moonlight turned into liquid gold, enveloping and caressing her.

It was so easy to rise to her feet. Her limbs, so heavy with Death a moment before, suddenly weighed nothing, and she found herself wearing a coat in lavish crimson and gold. It was sewn from the most precious red silk, as red as blood. And the golden thread pattern on it held fast many precious stones: rubies, emeralds, and opals. Her shoes were red too, and they fit her feet perfectly.

Gone was the aching, gone was the pain, and when she looked around, she saw she was standing in a hall so huge the ceiling seemed almost as far away as the sky. On one wall was a stained-glass window, as round as the full moon, breaking the light into every color of the rainbow, and in front of the window were three magnificent thrones rising high above the golden floor on pillars sculpted like the slender trunks of birch trees.

Ofelia’s lips formed a long-lost smile. The woman sitting on the left throne looked very familiar.

“Mother!” she exclaimed. Her tongue had so yearned to speak that word again.

The woman on the throne was holding a baby. Her brother?

“Ofelia.” The crowned man on the center throne was calling her.

He was wearing a robe that resembled royal robes from her fairy-tale books, but his face was one Ofelia knew—a face that used to lean patiently over a piece of fabric.

“Father . . . Oh, Father . . .”

“You have sacrificed your own blood rather than the blood of an innocent,” he said with the soft voice Ofelia remembered singing her to sleep before the world became dark. “That was the final task and the most important one.” He looked over to his wife.

The mother-queen looked so young and happy. The Fairies were fluttering around her—all three of them, alive!—and from behind the queen’s throne stepped the Faun, his body as golden as the walls of the hall. He spread his arms with a welcoming smile as the Fairies swarmed around Ofelia, chattering with excitement.

“And you chose well, Your Highness!” their master exclaimed, bowing his head so deeply his horns almost touched the floor.

“Come here, my daughter!” the queen called, gesturing to the third throne. “Sit by our side. Take your rightful place. Your father has been waiting for you for so long.” In the galleries above them, people rose to their feet. Through their applause, though, Ofelia could still hear Mercedes crying while the blood of the dying girl in her arms was dripping down into the well. She recognized the lullaby Mercedes hummed.

And then . . .

Ofelia smiled—oh so faintly—and then could hear no more.

And Mercedes bent over the dead girl and sobbed until the dark hair was wet with her tears.