Bea leaned over and kissed me gently on my lips. She tasted of cinnamon. “I’m not sleepy either,” she hinted.

I started to undress her unhurriedly. I was about to pull off the sheets and throw them on the floor when I heard the patter of footsteps behind the bedroom door.

Bea held back the advance of my left hand between her thighs and propped herself up on her elbows.

“What’s the matter, sweetheart?”

Standing in the doorway, little Julián looked at us with a touch of shyness and unease. “There’s someone in my room,” he whispered.

Bea let out a sigh and reached out toward Julián. He ran over to take shelter in his mother’s embrace, and I abandoned all sinful expectations.

“The Scarlet Prince?” asked Bea.

Julián nodded shyly.

“Daddy will go to your room right now and give him such a kicking he’ll never come back again.”

Our son threw me a desperate look. What use is a father if not for heroic missions of this caliber?

I smiled at him and winked. “A major kicking,” I repeated, looking as furious as I could.

Julián allowed himself just a flicker of a smile. I jumped out of bed and walked along the corridor to his bedroom. The room reminded me so much of the one I had at his age, a few floors farther down, that for a moment I wondered if I wasn’t still trapped in my dream. I sat on one side of his bed and switched on the bedside table lamp. Julián lived surrounded by toys, some of which he’d inherited from me, but especially by books. It didn’t take me long to find the culprit, hidden under the mattress. I took that little book with black covers and opened to its first page.

The Labyrinth of the Spirits VII

Ariadna and the Scarlet Prince

Text and illustrations by Víctor Mataix

I no longer knew where to hide those books. However much I sharpened my wits to find new hiding places, my son managed to sniff them out. Leafing quickly through the pages, I was assailed by memories.

When I returned to our bedroom, having banished the book once more to the top of the kitchen cupboard—where I knew my son would discover it sooner rather than later—I found Julián in his mother’s arms. They had both fallen asleep. I paused in the half-light to watch them from the open door. As I listened to their deep breathing, I asked myself what the most fortunate man in the world had done to deserve his luck. I gazed at them as they slept in each other’s arms, oblivious to the world, and couldn’t help remembering the fear I’d felt the first time I saw them clasped in an embrace.

2

I’ve never told anyone, but the night my son Julián was born and I saw him in his mother’s arms for the first time, enjoying the blessed calm of those who are not yet aware what kind of place they’ve arrived at, I felt like running away and not stopping until there was no more world left to run from. At the time I was just a kid and life was still a few sizes too big for me, but however many flimsy excuses I try to conjure up, I still carry the bitter taste of shame at the cowardice that possessed me then—a cowardice that, even after all those years, I have not found the courage to admit to the person who most deserved to know.