Princess Moanna keeps her promise

Ferreiro sat and stared at the fire. Mercedes kept a close eye on him and hummed, knitting him a cardigan. He had torn his old one, which had been worn anyway but his playing in the wooded area near the village hadn't helped.

Pedro was home from war, quiet and pondering, he never spoke much, and sometimes sat in that chair for so long it looked as if the two would grow into each other and never separate. For this reason, Ferreiro never went near the chair even when Pedro wasn't in it, he feared it would take hold of him and never let go.

Pedro liked to hold him in his lap, Ferreiro permitted this because he remembered days when Pedro would play with him and tell him stories, and in those days he had often fallen asleep on his chest. But Pedro had gone away, and came back, grey, smaller, tired and smiled even less than he spoke.

"War is a terrible thing, Rabbit," Mercedes had told him once as she tucked him into bed, "and our Pedro has seen more than enough of it"

"Why are they fighting?" he asked, and Mercedes smiled

"People in Spain have been fighting so long, we're not sure we really remember anymore"

"Then why are we fighting?"

"It is a wise boy to ask this question," Mercedes had whispered, smiling, "but perhaps some of us are fighting for different reasons to others"

"So why is Pedro fighting?"

"Pedro fights to protect what we have left" she answered. Ferreiro watched her a moment, and found he couldn't think of any more questions. Mercedes seemed to see this and they prayed their little prayer before she turned the lamp out.

Ferreiro dreamt strange things last night, as he sat by the stream he and Pablo had found he thought about it. Some parts were only flashes and others were so clear he was convinced they were real.

"Mama," he asked over breakfast, "I dreamt of fairies"

Mercedes looked at him, oddly still

"Did you?"

"Yes," he said, remembering, "they were big as your hand, and had wings, and made strange noises, they led me to a forest where a giant tree grew, and then I saw a centaur and big bull talking, I couldn't hear them but they said something about a gate and then I saw these stairs going down underground"

Underground was a new word, he was learned it when he heard of 'underground forces' on the radio, in today's Spain, 1949, nothing seemed certain, there were heroes like Evita, the man Pedro spoke bitterly of as 'the half-king' called Franco, who was king in all but a crown, and so many things that Spain was supposedly 'not involved with' but somehow had a connection with strong enough to always be on the news.

Back in the kitchen, in their farmhouse on the farm not very far from the French border, Mercedes looked at her adopted son and saw Ofelia. He had her nose and brow, but the firm set of his mouth and chin that reminded her of his father. She knew it could be a bad time to encourage these fantasies, Spain was a bad place to do anything except survive, but a boy of four could get away with it… for now.

"Do we have a king?" he asked her after a brief period of drinking his milk. They were fortunate enough milk for them to drink as much as they liked and sell some.

"We… have a kind of king" answered Mercedes, who had gone back to making bread.

"But I heard we have a prince, on the radio, is he a prince?"

"No, Rabbit," said Pedro, coming into the kitchen, "he is not our prince, Franco has simply tried to steal the crown from our real king"

"Why?"

"Because if the prince becomes king, he could take over the country and Franco would have nothing"

Ferreiro nodded and began to eat the porridge which had had some rare honey added in – a beekeeper had lost his farm and was now selling what he had left, Mercedes had had enough to spare for two pots, one Ferreiro had found and sometimes dipped his finger into, the other Mercedes had placed on the highest shelf at the back, where their inquisitive rabbit had been unable to see.

"Pablo and Michael say centaurs and fairies don't exist" he said miserably

"Fairies and magic are what some people lived for" said Pedro quietly. Mercedes paused in her kneading and looked at him. He gave her a private, sad smile and went back to his coffee.

"Rabbit, you go and play, have you finished?"

Ferreiro finished the last of his porridge, even licking the bowl for its traces of honey and left the house.

"When do we tell him?" asked Mercedes, putting the dough in a container for the oven.

"I suppose we must someday… but he's so young, would he understand?"

"He's just so like her," she sighed heavily, sitting down, "it's in everything, he has something like her voice, the same eyes, he loves her old books, and he dreams like she did"

"Maybe she didn't leave him," said Pedro after a while, "didn't you say she promised to take him with her?"

Ferreiro went straight to his favourite spot in the woods, eager to play. There he found Laura.

"Laura!" he called, seeing her shin-deep in the stream they called The Warriors' Stream. They had built a fort to protect it against monsters.

"Ferreiro, I found berry bushes, come look!" she cried back, showing him a handful of berries and started running ahead of him

"Wait, Laura, wait! I dreamt of fairies again!" he cried, Laura paused but resumed running

"Tell me when we get there!"

They ran until they came across the moss-covered rocks, which were like small, private hills. The forest around them was old, so old it felt like it had a deep, quiet life of its own; Mercedes had once said you can sometimes hear it humming and speaking to itself.

"You dreamt of fairies?" Laura asked as they ate the ripe berries

"And a centaur, and a bull, they were talking but I couldn't hear them, and they said someone had the key to a gate, the gate to their world"

"Who?" asked Laura

"I don't know, they walked away down these stairs underground and I couldn't hear them"

"My grandmother says dreams can take you to other places, places no one can find and some where only children can go"

Ferreiro nodded and ate more berries, happy to taste its sweetness without needing to check anyone was watching.

Laura had to go home for a bath later, and then Ferreiro played on his own. He went back to the fort and pretended he was a warrior. He was the prince, the leader of the army, protecting his home against Franlocos, the demon Half-King. People he knew from his dreams burst into form around him, centaurs, bulls with giant horns and men with curved swords were running to the unseen enemy

"Attack!" cried Ferreiro, pointing his sword to the north "Protect the homeland!"

"My Prince," said a man, his captain, Ferreiro decided, "we must return home at once"

"Why, captain?" he asked, a frown on his noble brow

"The King and Queen await you, Prince, we must leave at once"

Ferreiro looked at the sky, the sun was somewhere between midday and dusk, that was about the time Mercedes liked to have him home, and he was hungry

"The Princess informs you she shall wait at the gate, your highness" added the man, and walked away, most likely to go and fight. Ferreiro frowned. He was alone now, and somehow he felt he was being watched, and, trying not to look too frightened, ran home.

"You good boy, I was just going to call you" said Mercedes smiling her especially pleased smile at him.

"When is dinner?"

"Soon, stewed rabbit for little Rabbit!" she laughed

Pedro, sitting at the table looking the accounting book for the farm, smiled at him. It was his old smile, the smile from the days before he was at war. Ferreiro was so pleased he even went to him and demanded to be put in his lap. Lap-hugs made him feel safe, especially now since Pedro actually looked and felt like Pedro again.

Later that year, no matter how he tried, Ferreiro couldn't bring back the man, perhaps he had died in the battle, but nothing he could do was as clear as that fight had been. Laura was the only person he dared speak to about it, and she seemed a little less than convinced.

"You pretended to be a Prince but it became real?" she asked him

"Yes, a man came in his armour, he had lost his horse, but his chest had a big tree painted on it and he said the princess waited for me at the gate, but I don't know what he means!"

Laura, who was eager to come to his fifth birthday party was willing to at least go along with it.

"Did you try being a Prince again?"

"Yes"

"At that same place?"

"Yes I did, it wasn't like before"

Laura was quiet. Ferreiro hadn't expected an answer, he just wanted to tell someone.

"Who is the princess?" she asked at last

"I don't know, I hadn't thought about a princess"

"Could I be the princess?"

Ferreiro frowned

"But you don't know where the gate is! You can't be the princess unless you can find the gate"

Put out, Laura threw down the stick she was sticking into the ground and walked away

"Don't want to be a princess anyway" she muttered, and stopped again at the stream.

Just then Michael and Pablo came running up to meet them

"What were you two doing?" asked Pablo, a stocky, blonde boy who tended to try and make Laura and Ferreiro married in the games they played. Laura frowned at him

"I'm a warrior, he's begging me for his life" she said, pointing a new stick like a sword at Ferreiro. The boys howled at this and were then suddenly on the ground as the outraged Ferreiro lunged at them both

"Ferreiro, get off me!" shouted Pablo and landed a hard punch on Ferreiro's shoulder, which Ferreiro tried to pay him back for only to be find Michael's knee hard in his stomach.

"I'm sorry!" he shouted, hating Laura, and shot her a cold look, as if he was trying to tell her wordlessly how much he hated her

"I heard Mercedes isn't your mother" said Pablo, rubbing his cheek where Ferreiro had landed one of his best punches yet

"Shut up, yes she is" yelled Ferreiro, almost to the point of tears

"My mother said you're not from here and Mercedes adopted you" said Michael, with no anger or spitefulness in his voice at all which made Ferreiro pause. Pablo was prone to spite but Michael didn't take things so badly in fights and seemed to be simply stating what he knew.

"Mercedes IS my mother and you better not say anything else you two!" Ferreiro cried, and bit back his sobs into a hot, choking ball in his throat. It would go away, he knew, but he had to not shout and talk about something else.

"I'm going home, my dress gets dirty when I play with you" said Laura, addressing all three boys, and walked away

"Hey, don't go!" said Pablo, getting off his perch on a mossy rock, pausing to think he then added "You can be Queen, and Ferreiro King and we can fight you for your castle!"

"Yes, let's play that!" agreed Michael

Ferreiro said nothing but glowered at his two friends and thought about going home himself, but it was early in the day and there was nothing to do at home. Perhaps chop wood or watch Pedro carve things… he was keen to stay and play here.

"No, mother wants me home to teach me things"

"Things like what?" asked Pablo

"Cooking, washing," said Laura looking at him as if he were crazy for asking, "things" she added, and carried on walking away

"Stupid girls" muttered Michael and all three boys ran into the woods to play warriors.

That afternoon Ferreiro came home in a foul mood.

"Pablo says I'm a girl because I think magic's real" he said moodily

"Do you think magic's real?" asked Mercedes, sitting down with him. She had an odd expression on her face, but at this point Ferreiro didn't care if she didn't believe him either, and nodded.

"Then don't listen to what Pablo says," she said quietly, "we can't always see magic, maybe we get a glimpse of it, but it is powerful"

"He says you're not my mother" he said softer still. Mercedes swallowed, she knew from his face Ferreiro was tired, and sometimes after a bad day could suddenly fling himself into an alarmingly strong fit of tears, which then got him even more tired and it took hours to calm him down again.

"Pedro" she called, and went to pick Ferreiro off his chair. She carried him to the fire, put him on the only comfort chair they had (they were lucky, it had come with the house) and stocked up the fire.

"It's time we told you your story" she said, and looked at Pedro just as he came in, knowing he had heard that. Pedro nodded quietly, and sat down in his favourite chair. Ferreiro was placed in Mercedes' lap and as they told him the story they ate bread, cheese and stew.

Ferreiro learned he was named after the doctor, and learned of his real mother, his father, and his sister, who had died weeks after he was born, having tried to save him from his own father's murderous rage, and had stolen him into the labyrinth, and was shot, and died listening to the only song Mercedes knew how to sing.

"Sing me her song" said Ferreiro, who was doing remarkably well, but the story was easy for his little mind to understand; the good guys and the evil man who, like all evil men, was convinced he was a hero among the masses of fools.

"Now?"

"No, when I'm in bed" he asked, not so much with his words but with his tone and eyes, much the way Ofelia had done herself

"Yes, I will… you very like her"

"Am I?"

"She believed in magic too, she believed in fauns and fairies, like I said, she escaped from her locked room in the mill, and all we found was a chalk door on the wall"

"She had magic chalk?"

"The faun gave it to her, at the labyrinth" said Mercedes, remembering fondly

"Why did my father hate her?" he asked

Mercedes' face grew darker. She had not told the boy his father's name, but it seemed the less he knew of him the better, he did not bear his name at least, which they hoped would ward off any haunting spirit of his father.

"She was another man's daughter, and a girl, he wanted his own child and a boy"

"Am I like him?" asked Ferreiro, suddenly fearing for his soul

"No," said Pedro, smiling his fondest smile, "you are nothing like him – is he, Mercedes?"

"Nothing at all alike," she agreed, "he wanted a son to be a little miniature of himself, and you are like your mother and sister, all you have of your father is your eyebrows! You would certainly have disappointed him!"

This made him smile

"Was Ofelia a princess?" he asked at last

"No, perhaps to the fairies she was, and she really believed in them, and I think that her soul went with them"

"So she is, then?"

Pedro smiled at this, Ofelia would have made a good queen; 'queen of the fairies' the old women who Mercedes had worked with had always called her, in her emerald-green dress.

"Why did the general kill her?" Mercedes noticed he didn't say 'my father'

"He was not a man to forgive anything, and she had stolen you out of the house, we think because she was afraid you both might get hurt in the fight, and had taken you to the labyrinth to hide, that was when he gave you to us and we realised he had killed Ofelia"

"But why did he kill her?" demanded Ferreiro, "Did he hate her?"

"The general had never liked her much, and I don't think he thought much of killing her, he was hard man" said Mercedes. She was privately pleased she had caused him so much pain before Pedro had shot him. In later days when Ferreiro was just learning to walk they had decided that as the people who killed his only family they were then supposed to have him, not just because he had nowhere to go.

Ferreiro was curled up between Mercedes and the arm of the chair. He wasn't really sure what to say, or to think.

"We did want to wait until you were a little older, but perhaps it's better to tell you early" said Pedro, who had got up to put logs on the fire, his arms shined with his deep hard-earned tan

"Did Ofelia talk about a gate?" asked Ferreiro

"The Labyrinth had a gate on the front" said Mercedes, but something in her tone made Ferreiro twist to look her in the face

"A few days after we got you, and buried Ofelia, the labyrinth fell through, there's nothing left"

So there was another gate, thought Ferreiro.

Months later, when Ferreiro was turning six, Mercedes fell ill. Pedro was getting increasingly worried; he had received a letter telling him the French Foreign Legion wanted him back for another excursion in Morocco, this time, they said, they were sure of a victory.

In this time, Ferreiro had taken to sneaking out of his room through the window and sitting outside the window where the table was, where the only family he had would talk about things.

"We should have someone look after Ferreiro," said Pedro quietly, sending a wave of cold panic down the boy's spine, "you are not well, then you could rest more"

Mercedes said nothing, which terrified Ferreiro even more. Surely she couldn't give in so easily? It was her position to fight, to hold on to the only son she'd ever had!

"I just don't know if that would do more good, brother," she said at last, "I feel so tired all the time, the more I rest the more tired I feel, without Ferreiro I fear I wouldn't get up at all"

"Sister, our mother always told us, our bodies tell us what we need; if you are hungry, thirsty or tired, you answer it or it shall only get worse, you have ignored it for too long!"

Ferreiro left his post at the window and climbed back into his, and scrambled into bed in case his parents heard any noise, then put his head under his pillow, wrapped his arms round his knees and squeezed himself into the smallest ball he could and prayed, he prayed for Mercedes to get well, but in his prayers he wished he could remember something he felt he'd forgotten, something he once knew or had or remembered, something he had been missing for a long time and didn't know what it was.

He didn't know he was dreaming, but he didn't feel like anything was real either. He walked through the next valley over from theirs, which he had only been to once and all the houses were different, but he couldn't think where he had seen them before, and all the while someone was talking to him. He wanted to find the speaker, desperately wanted to go to them and then saw his path was blocked with sharp rocks and enormous rose bushes with large thorns coming right out at him, and he even noticed they followed his movements to stay pointing at him.

The man, the man he had met at the battle, he was suddenly beside him sword at the ready, and gave him a wretched look

"You must go to the gate, she is waiting!"

"Who?"

"The Princess, can't you hear her? She's been calling you!"

The voice he had been following was getting more urgent, the tone more compelling, his soul wanted to find her so badly he thought it would come out of his chest and leave him behind, which terrified him all the more, the sky was getting darker and the moon had turned orange, the voice was shouting but couldn't hear the words until suddenly it was like a great wind had come into his head and it screamed

"FERREIRO!"

With a shout he sat up in bed, looked up and saw Pedro standing in the door, hand on the latch, having just come in.

"Bad dream?"

"Yeah"

"Blow on your pillow, so it won't come back" he said, and then watched the boy do it and then added "breakfast will be on the table soon"

During breakfast Mercedes was just as quiet and withdrawn as her son, the two of them normally chatted or at least indicated some awareness of the world around them but both had pale, drawn faces that made Pedro uncomfortable, yet got no response from either of them.

"I have to find the gate" said Ferreiro to himself as he headed as usual into the forest. He was exploring much further recently, unaware of what he was supposed to find but conscious that he had something to search for, but then since the dreams had started to get more vivid and increasingly urgent he had long forgotten the time when he didn't truly believe in magic and was becoming involved in how to find it.

"There's a camp of gypsies, mother said" said Laura, who had also found her faith in magic since she hoped to come with Ferreiro to his land of strange creatures.

"So?"

"Gypsies know magic, especially the old ones, they might know how to get you to the gate"

"But don't they want silver? We don't have any"

Laura paused at this, she hadn't any silver either, no one had much that was worth anything. They were perched on a couple of boulders with scattered with old building blocks which seemed as if they were never used. Laura sat on top of the largest boulder whist Ferreiro sat crouching on the smaller one, poking a stick into the ground.

"We could bring her flowers," said Laura at last

"Who?"

"The gypsy witch, she might like flowers"

At this, Ferreiro smiled and immediately began poking around for all the flowers they could find. They headed off west to where the gypsy camp was meant to be and thankfully picked what they could find in the sunny clearances along the way, but when they finally approached the camp they crouched behind a bush and stared worriedly at people who wore strange clothes and spoke in a strange language. Ferreiro could speak both Galician and common Spanish as both languages were spoken in his house, but he only recognised some of each in the strange tongue that met his ears.

"Let's go" said Laura, and they walked back a little to get walk in on the path that led to the camp on their left.

They walked into the camp and was immediately greeted by a man sitting on the steps of his caravan, peeling potatoes with a knife a little bit too big and lethal-looking for Ferreiro's comfort.

"What business you do here?" he asked in very rough Spanish

Ferreiro spoke first in Galician, hoping that might be easier for him.

"Who is the wisest here?" he asked

"And what business would you have with them?" he asked in perfect Galician

"To ask something, questions"

"Questions cost a man silver, but you bring flowers" said the man, a chuckled. He stuck his knife into the wood of the step and, still grinning, beckoned the two to come with him.

"Our wisest elder sit in the caravan, that blue one, yes?" he said, pointing them to a blue caravan with yellow and green paint decoration. And just as the two began to walk there themselves he fell into step beside them.

Ferreiro clutched Laura's hand, and realised she was grasping his with the same desperate need for comfort.

"So what questions have you to ask her?" the man asked as they approached the dwelling

Ferreiro paused and looked worriedly into his face. It was warm, full of humour, but he could just as easily see it flushed with anger. What was he to say?

"Questions for the wise woman are said to the wise woman" said a man who had just appeared on the steps of the place they were headed.

"Was only a wandering thought, calm you!" said the man who then turned sharply around and went back to his own house.

"She saw you coming" said the man, looking down on the children. Ferreiro looked at the window of the caravan and saw a face faintly inside. This made the man laugh

"How wise children are, mother!" he cried, and beckoned the children in

The children were sat on a wooden bench which was folded out of the wall and cushions were offered. Ferreiro automatically took them and arranged them to his back. To his great surprise he was then given bread warm from the oven and a thin stew in a cup.

"The nearest you could have come from is no mean walk for children your size" said the old woman, who sat in a comfort chair. She had long hair, nearly grey but with streaks of dark in it, and was tied into a plait that reached the floor.

Before even tasting anything, Ferreiro offered her the flowers.

"We would have brought you gold, but we don't have any" he explained, worried she might take offence

"Them who can afford silver ask questions of less value" said the old mother, smiling. She took the flowers and examined them. She had particular interest in two of them, which had only small flowers but a delicate pastel purple colour, which Laura had liked.

"If you can bring me a handful of these afterwards, I will have no need of silver" she said at last, and handed the bunch to her son, who put them in a bucket hanging just beside the door.

"How many questions are we allowed?" asked Laura, who couldn't help wondering if silver bought you only a few, a flower she thought was worth more than that might allow them a bit more.

"We shall see" said the woman

"I have one" said Ferreiro, "it's about my sister"

"And who is your sister?"

"She isn't… here… she died, but…"

"She calls you from beyond?"

"Yes!" cried Ferreiro, surprising everyone with his volume, "I don't know where the gate is and why she wants me! She screams at me in my dreams, in my head!"

"Child, calm you!" said the woman with concern, she opened her hand and Ferreiro immediately put his forward.

"You have been upset with this for a long time," she said without even looking at his hands but only in his eyes, "and your sister loved you deeply even before your birth…" she looked at his hands

"I cannot see a gate," she said, "I see a mill, and the oldest forest in Spain… there you might find more answers, or at least you will see where your sister died…"

Ferreiro listened intently. She had died in the labyrinth, and he told her this

"The labyrinth?" the woman asked sharply "Was there a faun?"

"Mama said she thought there was"

"Fauns will haunt the old labyrinths… but then we heard they all fell in on themselves, their purpose fulfilled… ah," she sighed at last, "your sister calls you from a place we once knew, our people remember… go to the labyrinth."

Ferreiro sighed, that was better than seeing bits and pieces of battles and tunnels into the ground…

"Why do I see battles?" she asked suddenly

"… in… when I dream…" he stuttered, suddenly frightened

"Ah… perhaps only a warning then"

They left the camp, remembering what flower they had to bring her.

"You didn't say you had a sister" said Laura wonderingly

"She died when I was a baby, Mama says she got out of a locked room and they found a chalk door on the wall, she had run away from the fight outside and took me to the labyrinth"

"Is that the battle she talked about?"

They paused, having found a couple more of the flower.

"Yes, that could be it!" he cried, thinking of the flashes of fire, horses, sounds and cries he knew these sounds, their sequence and their loudness by heart, but the different pictures that would come to fill in what he didn't see or hear was so confusing

"Mama says when I was little I got so upset by loud sounds, I would hide somewhere dark and not come out… I asked Mama, I am adopted"

Laura picked some more, and they put what they had together. It wasn't a lot, but the day was going to get late.

"When?"

"When my sister died; my mother died in birth to me, my father was a monster who killed people for no reason, and he killed my sister when she ran away from the fight with me"

"His own daughter?"

"No, she was another man's daughter, my mother married my father because they were poor and my father was rich and wanted a son"

Laura was fascinated. All she had wanted to ask the woman was who she was going to marry.

"Pedro says he would not have liked me, I am too much like my mother and sister he says" said Ferreiro, smiling at the joke. Laura did not get the joke but held his hand as they walked back to the camp.

At the camp they met the old woman at the well, who gave them a great, warm smile when they gave her all they could find.

"These flowers are powerful medicine," she said, and looked at Laura, "you have a healing spirit in you, I looked in the water when you were away – you must help Ferreiro"

"I will" she squeaked, suddenly frightened to be under the woman's gaze

"You must both go now, children should not wander in the dark"

Ferreiro was out of breath by running. He and Laura had run as much and as hard as they could. Even as they got back they realised they were not as late as they really ought to have been.

"Quick, say thanks!" said Laura, and they looked for a seed. Finding an acorn they quickly planted it where it had sun and space and murmured a 'thank you' in the direction of the camp.

"Ferreiro!" called Pedro from their house, the two said goodbye and ran to their houses.

"Ferreiro, you didn't come home for lunch, we were worried!" snapped Pedro

"Pedro, Pedro, I found gypsies, I have to go back to the labyrinth!" he cried as he ran to his only father

"You what? Never mind, come in and show Mercedes you are alright!"

The minute he was being led to the bedroom Ferreiro felt an awful chill down his spine. He was suddenly unable to move or breathe, but a push from Pedro somehow landed him from outside the door to beside her bed.

Mercedes looked like a brown skeleton. Her eyes had lost their spark and her smile was not the same, everything about her spoke of how she was being cradled in death's arms.

"There you are, little rabbit" she whispered. Her hand was cold as he held it, he couldn't understand, she had only gone to bed because she was too tired, Pedro said she would get well!

"Mama" he pleaded

"You know I'm not" she said gently

"I went to a gypsy today," he told her, "she said we have to go back, I have to go to the maze"

"To where it was" she answered, and Ferreiro remembered how they had all collapsed

"She said my sister's calling me from there, we have to go there, Mama!"

"Pedro will take you, I don't think I'd make it to the door, but you must go"

She fell asleep as if someone had turned a light out.

"Pedro, what's happening?" he begged his father when they were back in the kitchen

"The doctor says she has a sickness in the blood. Rabbit, she will not live to see summer, you will live with Laura's family, I'm sorry"

So much was said in so little time, Ferreiro nearly wept but he had to know what else he was saying

"You're leaving?"

"There is another fight, I have been called to it, I must leave in two months"

Ferreiro ran out of the house, and ran all the way to the forest, he kept running until he reached the little green hills beside the Warrior Stream, and there he lay in his favourite spot next to the rock and cried. He cried so hard he fell eventually into an exhausted silence, and he watched his thoughts as they sparked and flew senselessly across his mind, and already the sun was sinking below the mountains.

He lay there until he heard someone approach, and then finally sat up. He saw a girl standing to his left, as if she had come from beyond the stream.

"It is a heavy path we have to walk" she said quietly

"Who are you?" he demanded

"You already know me" she said, smiling a little, but her eyes were sad

"I don't know you! Leave me alone!" he cried, and buried his face back into the leaves and moss

"I remember when my mother died, the captain looked at me as if he had won something from me" she said sadly, sitting on the rock just beside his.

"The captain?"

"You know him as well" she said, causing him to look up again. It finally happened, his exhausted, wrung-out brain made the connection.

"Ofelia!" he cried, getting up, and the girl smiled a little more widely

"It's been a hard day for you today" she said, a soft, warm caress in her voice, and he immediately flung himself into her arms. She wrapped her arms around him and rocked him, placing her cheek on top of him head.

"Take me with you!" he begged her, pulling himself away enough to look her in the face, gripping her forearms with his hands to make sure she didn't slip away. She gave him a deep, thoughtful look and nodded.

"There are things you must do, it is hard for you to stay here when half your soul and blood belongs with us," she said gently, "you have felt it, you dream of being somewhere else, you called me to find you, and I called to you back"

"Sometimes very loudly" he said, causing her smile to briefly return again

"Sorry, it's hard to tell how well you hear me, some nights I couldn't tell if you could hear me at all"

"I hear you every night! I heard you always even when I didn't know, I knew fairies were real and I didn't know why!"

Ofelia stroked his hair, feeling deeply sorry for him. Her own soul had been pulled so strongly to her world, everything about this world felt wrong, but this poor child even younger than she had been felt the call and the darker voices of this one in equal.

"I'm sorry," she said, "I knew you could hear me, I used to tell you stories when our mother still held you inside"

"Did you?"

"Lots of stories, most of them about our world, some of them about this one, but you were always better behaved when I told you about ours"

"Is that where you'd gone? After you died?"

"Oh yes… I remember taking you to the labyrinth, the faun told me I had to use a little drop of your blood to open the gate, and my mind told me 'do it, if it will get us away from here!', but my soul wouldn't let me, even when the faun shouted at me and when I knew the captain was there… and then I gave you back to him so you would be safe, the captain would never let anyone hurt you, and then… I was home"

"So how are you here?" asked Ferreiro, feeling the fine cloth of her attire and seeing a thin swirling tattoo around the top of her forehead, a crown of ink.

"The forest has ways into our world, there are places I can come through, but I cannot leave the forest or wander far, I do not wish to, I saw enough of the sun and the cruel men who live and die here"

"They aren't all bad!" cried Ferreiro

"Mercedes was very kind to me" said Ofelia, nodding. Was, won't, can't, thought Ferreiro

Suddenly, a voice called into the forest

"Ferreiro!"

"It's Pedro!" said Ferreiro, and stepped away to better see how close he was. When he looked back to his sister she had disappeared.

Ferreiro trudged back and met his only family at the door.

"She's gone" said Pedro, his voice, eyes and face completely empty, and Ferreiro stared at him.

"You don't have to go to bed tonight; we'll keep each other company"

Women from all over the village came the next day, Ferreiro had fallen asleep in the only comfort chair and woke the next morning with a horrible, heavy headache that kept him from moving without feeling sick and dizzy. The youngest wife in the village, Laura's mother, had lifted him up and was humming to him and stroking his hair. He wound his fingers into her dress and clung to her as if to dear life.

It was some hours later, when Laura's mother had finally tried to detach the child from her and ended up simply sitting on the chair with him (because he had gone into a flying rage, darted to the door of Mercedes' room and wept on the floor until she picked him up again) when Pedro, fully uniformed, came to say goodbye.

Pieces of conversation swept around him, in and out of Ferreiro's ears.

"He is all you have left…"

"…fighting nobody's war…!"

"To leave a little boy alone like…"

"Ferreiro," he said, getting down to eye-level where the boy had his head on Anna's chest just beneath her chin, Ferreiro looked at him and saw the other Pedro, the empty one, and words seemed to fail the man, "… Ferreiro, you will be safe here, Anna will care for you, it is what she would want… I'm going back"

Ferreiro said nothing. Pedro appeared to want some kind of response, and just as he was about to get up and leave, Ferreiro moved. He put his hand in his pocket and took out the only piece of treasure he had ever owned, an olivewood cross on a leather thong; it had been Pedro's mother's.

Pedro took it slowly from his hand, and put it around his neck, only when he looked up again did Ferreiro see his eyes were pouring with tears.

"So God can watch you" said Ferreiro, looking at the little cross. Pedro nodded. He kissed to boy on the head and whispered a quick 'God protect you' before disappearing out the door.

Ferreiro couldn't remember if he fell asleep, or cried, or shouted or anything, for so long he didn't know what to say or what to do. He clung to Anna, whether in her arms, on her lap, or walked around after her with a hand simply holding to her dress, but he stayed out of her way as she did what she needed to about his new home, and allowed Laura to sleep next to him at night. He couldn't say very much, he barely understood what was said to him, but slowly, he found the world slipping away from him.

He saw his sister in his dreams and clung to her because she was all that made sense anymore.

"I know how this feels" she said one night as they walked beside a pond, whose water was a pale gold colour, and had fish which slid in and out of sight in it. It had flowers like lilies on its surface, except they were more like cherry-blossom, deep purple, and had bright red tongues with delicate balls of pollen on them.

"When your mother died"

"She wants to see you" said Ofelia, stopping to look at the fish. She spoke quietly.

"I never knew her" he answered, and, like in every dream he had, flung himself into her arms and wept.

"Mercedes had a hard life," she whispered, "she tried so hard for us, she's resting now, she's with God"

"Why isn't she with you? Where are we?" he asked

"This isn't heaven, God made this place before he made the human world, and we're not human, I was only ever a lost soul"

"But I'm human!"

"You're half human, and you have a choice, to live and die as a human or come to live with us, your family"

"You say this every time I come here!" Ferreiro shouted, struggling away again

"You have to choose, soon, or it will be too late!" snapped Ofelia, he noticed her eyes were not actually dark as he thought, they were dark purple and the tiny vessels that threaded the white were blue.

"Why? Why will it be too late?" he asked, suddenly worried

"As a child grows it becomes like the place it grew in, soon you'll be too much human and you will have to stay there, and I want you here! I promised you, before you were born, I'd make you a prince, our mother wants you back!"

"I don't know her!"

"You know me, and I'm all you have left!"

When he woke up the next morning, he disappeared out of the house, eating the plate of bread and cheese the family left out for him. In the days he had arrived into Anna's home the family left him alone, not least because Laura was getting hugged very tightly at night and having to listen to odd one-way conversations and was certain he needed time to become less confused. This system allowed him room, he was carefully watched in the evenings over the family meal and the rest of the day he was given to have alone time.

Today, he met Ofelia in the forest. He had gone much further than he normally did, where the trees had moss covering at least half the trunk and spreading out to create a bouncy carpet, and here he liked to lie down and be somewhere else, and this time he had gone even further away from thw world he knew.

"You come out further every day" she said, having walked over and sat down next to him.

Ferreiro didn't answer. He sat up and waited impatiently for her to tell him something else besides what she told him every night.

"I talked to my father, he says we must test you the same as I was tested"

"You knew she would die, didn't you?" he asked

Ofelia stopped. She had much longer hair than she used to have as a human, and ran it through her fingers. She sighed.

"Yes"

"You should have told me!" he screamed, with a sudden rage, he threw a stick at her and got up on his feet, and found she had already grabbed him by the shoulders.

"Yes, she would die just like everyone else does, and it hurts, I watched my mother be buried in the earth bringing you into life, and it hurts!" she answered fiercely, her eyes not purple, definitely more brown than purple, but very dark, "It hurts so much you feel something in your soul opening and bleeding, and yes, I knew this would happen"

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I'm not human, I will not take the risks I take to come and see you, to talk to you, to use it for anything other than what I came to do, and that's to take you home"

"You didn't love her then!" Ferreiro accused her. Ofelia sighed again, and tossed her hair angrily out of her face

"When I had nothing left, she was all I had, except you, and she is human and was going to die, to us that means she is already dead, our laws do not allow our lives to become tangled with human matters, when I left this world, I had to leave her behind, and so I knew she would die, and I knew she was sick, but I couldn't tell you"

There was a silence. Ofelia relaxed her shoulders and felt the worst of the tension run out of her, releasing its strange, urging, strangling, restless yet suffocating hold, and in some small way she felt everything affected by it give a tiny, perfectly synchronised cry of relief, and took in a deep breath. She kept her eyes on Ferreiro and reflected for half a second on how her brother could have shared in her relief but, because he had missed a few subtle signals, had missed everything.

"So knowing what I know, would you have acted differently?" she asked

He shifted uncomfortably, pausing in the way the young always do when they'd very much like to give the opposite answer to the sensible one, and internally weighing the merits of each answer. The problem was he knew giving the wrong answer would do nothing, with Ofelia he could not even vent his rage and despair because it would only make things slower, and he feared it would make her answer, which he so desperately wanted after he gave his, less than satisfying.

"No" he answered barely a second or two later.

Ofelia smiled, it was a broader smile than usual, full of warm recognition of his effort. It made Ferreiro surprised and relieved, surprised at how she knew him even better than he had hoped, and relieved that someone knew him at least as well as Mercedes had. Yet it was also annoying, how she was so calm when he was so angry, afraid and hurt.

Ofelia came forward and took one of his hands – how was she going to say everything she had to say?

"I… I can see how angry you are, I want to tell you something," she began hesitantly, causing him to immediately double his focus upon her, which she felt and was grateful for, "anger is so evil, it pulls you around, it's always just ahead of you, telling you what to do, and if you're paying attention you can even feel it – just half a moment ahead of yo, pulling you, and if you see that you get even angrier; you want to tell it what to do, you want to go faster than it does, and sometimes you can. I've seen it; you become so angry that you work at the same pace as it, going so fast you have no control or thought, until you can't keep it going and when you finally can't go with it any longer you stop and see what the anger made you do, what you chose to do to become the master of it – isn't it silly? At first you're happy! Happy because what you've done cannot be excused as a tantrum or ignored, they are forced to see something else; a message, a new face of you, a new strength, and they will remember.

"But," she said, sitting down and looking weary, "the anger that led you there has not finished with you; the message you sent was the wrong one, it made you paint something else over your own true face, and it will even invite you sometime later to do it again, to follow it, to somehow do it correctly this time, and again you'll send a message in your rage, but the painted face you made will only spread… and it never gets better. This is what anger does, and it will destroy you and everything you want to have…"

Ferreiro felt the images fade away in his mind, only one lingered a little longer, the one of himself alone in the dark, but in his eyes was not him, but something else…

Ofelia was pleased she had made herself clear, but even as she smiled, the older look in her face didn't fade.

"I would have done the same, if I had only known what you had only known, perhaps I would have been angrier and more upset, you don't have the Faun and tasks to do, perhaps I would have done worse"

Ferreiro doubted this. His behaviour for the last few days had been truly out of his usual and nothing of it good.

"Now," she continued, "I had come because I wanted to tell you that love is like anger, only much more powerful and works a kind of magic that brings out things we didn't dare hope for in ourselves, and I want to teach you the best way of keeping it close, near to you, at all times"

"What?" he asked, completely sold

"Before I tell you, it needs a lot of work and practise and you must always be willing to do the hardest thing – OK?"

"Yes"

"It's called empathy… you must always think of how the other person feels, to use the signals in their face, body and words to understand the person more deeply, and the last thing is even harder…"

"What?£

"To put another's thoughts and feeling above your own"

Ferreiro was taken aback. Ofelia, feeling her pain from earlier, when she was first told of what her brother must do to enter the Gate, decided to explain further.

"What I'm telling you is not easy," she said gently, "It is hard to understand and it needs the strength of a bear to do, and it will cause you pain, but all warriors face the same, heroes are only chosen from an army of men doing the same job because everyone could see the strength they had in their soul. You are already stronger than all those warriors who killed for a living, but the strong have to face harder challenges, and this one will teach you to be even stronger."

"Empathy" said Ferreiro, as if tasting it and all the ideas that came with it

Ofelia smiled again, it was a less genuine smile for those who could tell, a smile for him rather than her.

"Even a little empathy is far stronger than all the anger the world has ever seen" she said, and at this, she pulled him into a hug and sent him home. She watched him navigate his way out of sight, and walked back to the tree that had allowed her entry to this world. Her father waited for her.

"Well done" he said

"It is unfair," she said reproachfully, "to expect so much of him, it's no light task as mine were"

"Your soul did not need as much training or testing, the Faun knew you only needed very basic tests"

"He is only very young!" she snapped, banging the wall in frustration "He is younger than I was by half a life and he's more human than I, and you will judge him on every mistake he makes, Father? With an even harder task than any other?"

The King sat down on a protruding root and opened his arms. Princess Moanna took his hands and sat on the ground in front of him.

"He is to be a member of Royal Family, personal charge of yours and a true son to your mother," he said gently, "we cannot afford to be less careful; a human soul, yes a half-human soul," he amended against his daughter's indignant expression, "can, without careful training, destroy everything we have rebuilt since your return"