Carlos Zafon - The Prince Of Mist

‘Without thinking twice, I went over to the table where the Prince of Mist was waiting for me, a smile on his face. I still remember his voice, deep and measured, saying my name over the hypnotic sound of the music from a merry-go-round that seemed to be far, far away…’

*

‘Victor, my friend,’ Cain murmured, ‘if I weren’t a fortune-teller I’d say that fate wished our paths to cross again.’

‘Who are you?’ young Victor managed to stammer as he glanced over at the ghostly woman, who had retreated into the shadows.

‘I’m Dr Cain. Surely you saw the sign?’ Cain replied. ‘Having a nice time with your family?’

Victor gulped and nodded.

‘That’s good,’ the magician went on. ‘Amusement is like laudanum: it takes away all the misery and pain, even if only for a short time.’

‘I don’t know what laudanum is,’ replied Victor.

‘A drug, my son, it’s a drug,’ Cain replied wearily, turning to look at a clock resting on a shelf to his right.

The hands seemed to be going backwards.

‘Time does not exist, that’s why we mustn’t lose it. Have you decided on your wish?’

‘I don’t have a wish,’ Victor replied shakily.

Cain burst out laughing.

‘Come, come. None of us has only one wish; we have hundreds. And life doesn’t grant us many chances to make them come true.’ Cain looked over at the mysterious woman with a grimace that was meant to look like pity. ‘Isn’t that true, dearest?’

The woman didn’t reply. It almost seemed as if she was made of wood and was incapable of movement.

‘But some of us are lucky, Victor,’ said Cain, leaning over the table. ‘Like you. Because you can make your dreams come true, Victor. And you know how.’

‘The way Angus did?’ Victor snapped despite himself. He’d noticed something odd that he couldn’t get out of his mind: Cain hadn’t blinked at all, not even once.

‘An accident, dear friend. An unfortunate accident,’ said Cain, adopting a note of concern. ‘It’s a mistake to think that dreams can come true without having to offer anything in exchange. Don’t you agree, Victor? It wouldn’t be fair. Angus tried to forget he had certain obligations, and that could not be tolerated. But that is all in the past. Let’s talk about the future, your future.’

‘Is that what you did?’ Victor asked, emboldened by fear. ‘Make your own dream come true? To become what you are now? What did you have to give in exchange?’

Cain lost his reptilian smile and fixed his eyes on Victor Kray. For a moment the boy feared Cain was going to pounce on him and tear him to shreds. Eventually, Cain sighed.

‘An intelligent young man. That’s what I like, Victor. And yet you still have a lot to learn. When you’re ready, come and visit me again. You’ll know how to find me. I hope to see you soon.’

‘I doubt that,’ Victor replied, getting to his feet, his heart still pounding.

Like a sagging puppet whose strings have suddenly been pulled, the woman walked towards him, as if to see him out. Victor was only a few steps from the door when he heard Cain’s voice behind him.

‘One more thing, Victor. About your wishes. Give it some thought. The offer still stands. You may not be interested, but perhaps some member of your wonderfully happy family has a secret desire they dare not mention. That’s my speciality…’

Without pausing to reply, Victor stepped out into the fresh night air. He took a deep breath and ran off in search of his family. As he left, Dr Cain’s laughter echoed behind him like the cry of a hyena.

*

Until then, Max had been listening spellbound to the old man’s story, without daring to ask any of the thousands of questions that were spilling over in his brain. Victor Kray seemed to read his thoughts and pointed at him accusingly.

‘Patience, young man. All the pieces will fit together in due course. You’re not allowed to interrupt. OK?’

Although the warning was directed at Max, the friends agreed in unison.

‘Good, good…’ the lighthouse keeper mumbled.

*

‘That night I decided to stay away from that man forever and try to erase all thoughts of him from my mind. It wasn’t easy. Whoever Dr Cain was, he had a strange way of getting inside your head, like a splinter that goes deeper into your skin the more you try to pull it out. I couldn’t talk about him with anyone or they’d think I was a lunatic, and I couldn’t go to the authorities because I wouldn’t have known where to begin. So I did the only thing that seemed wise in this sort of situation: I decided to let time go by.

‘Things were going well for us in our new home and I was lucky enough to meet someone who proved to be a great help to me: a priest who taught maths and physics at school. His name was Darius. At first he seemed to have his head in the clouds half the time, but in fact his intelligence was only equalled by his kindness, although he concealed it well, pretending to be just another mad scientist. Darius encouraged me to work hard and discover the joys of mathematics, so it wasn’t surprising that, after a few years in his charge, my talent for science became increasingly clear. Initially, I wanted to follow in his footsteps and devote myself to teaching, but the reverend father gave me a severe telling off and said that what I had to do was go to college, study physics and become the best engineer the country had ever seen. Either I did that, or he would never speak to me again.

‘Darius was the one who managed to get me a university grant and who set me on the path towards what could, or should, have been. He passed away the week before my graduation. I’m no longer ashamed to say that I felt his loss as much or more than the loss of my own father. In college I became a close friend of the person who would lead me once more to a meeting with Dr Cain: a young medical student whose family was scandalously wealthy – or so it seemed to me – called Richard Fleischmann. Indeed, the future Dr Fleischmann who, years later, would build the house by the beach.

‘Richard Fleischmann was an impetuous young man, prone to excess. He was used to the fact that throughout his life things had always turned out the way he’d wanted them to, and when, for any reason, something did not go as planned he would fly into a rage. A quirk of fate is what led us to become friends: we both fell in love with the same woman, Eva Gray, the daughter of the most unbearable, tyrannical chemistry professor on the campus.

‘At first we’d all go out together, the three of us, and on Sundays we’d go away for the day whenever that ogre, Theodore Gray, didn’t manage to stop us. But this arrangement didn’t last long. The most curious thing about it was that Fleischmann and I, far from being rivals, became the best of friends. Every night, when we returned Eva to the ogre’s cave, we’d walk back to our rooms together knowing that, sooner or later, one of us would be out of the running.

‘Until that day came, we spent the best two years of my life together. But everything must come to an end. The break-up of our inseparable trio arrived on the night of our graduation. Although I’d achieved every kind of success imaginable, I was feeling down in the dumps because of the death of my old tutor. So, although I never drank, Eva and Richard decided they should get me drunk that night to rid me of my melancholy. Needless to say, the ogre, Theodore, who supposedly was as deaf as a post yet seemed to be able to hear through walls when it suited him, uncovered our plan, and when the evening ended, Fleischmann and I found ourselves alone, completely smashed in some seedy bar, where we devoted our time to praising the object of our impossible love, Eva Gray.

‘That same night, as we stumbled back to the campus, a travelling fair seemed to emerge from the mist beside the railway station. Convinced that a ride on the merry-go-round would cure us of our drunken state, Fleischmann and I walked into the fair and ended up outside the den of Dr Cain, magician, fortune-teller and clairvoyant, as his sinister sign still announced. Fleischmann had a brilliant idea. We would go in and ask the fortune-teller to reveal the enigma: which of us would Eva choose? Despite my drunken daze, I had enough common sense not to go in, but I could not stop my friend, who rushed headlong into the tent.