Now it was overrun with soldiers, swarming around its withered stone walls like locusts. Ofelia thought it looked lost and sad, as if it missed being a mill grinding fresh grain. Mercedes and the men carried her motherвЂ™s suitcases to the mill house. Or perhaps an enchantress, though Ofelia wasnвЂ™t sure which kind, good or evil. Ofelia thought she looked like a princess pretending to be a peasantвЂ™s daughter.

She had raven-black hair and dark liquid eyes. вЂњMercedes!вЂќ he called out to a woman who was helping the soldiers unload the cars. Then he turned his back on her, as if heвЂ™d already forgotten about her. He was wearing black leather gloves that creaked when he enclosed OfeliaвЂ™s hand in a grip as п¬Ѓerce as a poacherвЂ™s trap. вЂњItвЂ™s the other hand, Ofelia,вЂќ he said softly. вЂњOfelia.вЂќ The Wolf crunched her name between his thin lips into something as broken as her mother, and stared at her extended left hand. But п¬Ѓnally she climbed out, to not leave her mother alone with him, pressing her books against her chest like a shield made from paper and words. Ofelia watched it all from the backseat of the car, despising the prospect of offering the Wolf her hand as her mother had told her to. She even gave in when he told her to sit in a wheelchair like a broken doll. Her mother, though, smiled at him and allowed the Wolf to touch her belly swollen with his child. Oh yes, OfeliaвЂ™s new father loved to break the bones of all those he considered weak, to spill their blood, and give new order to their messy, miserable world.Д«ut Ofelia saw the contempt in his eyes as he welcomed them in the dusty yard where once upon a time, peasants of the surrounding villages had delivered their grain to the miller. They fought the very darkness Vidal served and admired, and he had come to the old forest to break them. He hated everything that didnвЂ™t keep a proper order, and the trees were far too willing to hide the men he had come here to hunt. Yes, they were late, just as Carmen had feared, when they п¬Ѓnally arrived at the old mill Vidal had chosen to serve as his headquarters. вЂњFifteen minutes,вЂќ muttered Vidal, who, like all monsters-like Death- was always punctual. The glass face was marred by a crack, but the hands underneath still told the time and they indicated that the caravan was late. Because she wished so badly for protection, maybe her mother mistook his bloodlust for power and his brutality for strength.Д¬apitГЎn Vidal looked at his pocket watch. People often grow blind when they get older and maybe Carmen Cardoso didnвЂ™t notice the wolп¬Ѓsh smile because CapitГЎn Vidal was handsome and always impeccably dressed in his gala uniform, boots, and gloves. But her mother didnвЂ™t see his true shape. He had the smile of the cyclops Ojancanu and the cruelty of the monsters Cuegle and Nuberu nesting in his dark eyes, creatures she had met in her fairy-tale books. Ofelia knew that the man she would soon have to call вЂњFatherвЂќ was evil. The big bad wolves, the evil kings, the demons, and devils. Only fairy tales give evil a proper shape. But then it grows and takes root, still invisible, unnoticed. It is often little more than a whisper at п¬Ѓrst.

Pans labyrinth 2