Chapter
Two
I'm
dreaming, I'm dreaming, I'm dreaming, please
let me be dreaming…
Sarah
felt rather like a broken record as this litany repeated itself over
and over in her mind. This was not happening. Not again.
How could this possibly be happening again? Who had she
managed to piss off badly enough to warrant such a punishment?
Well,
Einstein, Jareth
obviously isn't too thrilled with you.
That
made two of them; Sarah wasn't exactly thrilled with herself
at the moment. She stood in the darkness for a full
five minutes, silently berating herself as all kinds of stupid,
before she eventually began to realize that something was just a bit
... off.
Oh,
yes. That was it. She was still in the classroom.
She
blinked in surprise, then frowned and glanced around. Wasn't she
supposed to be in the Labyrinth by now? This hadn't happened the
last time, she thought, almost irritably. He had forgotten to take
her with him! How was she supposed to solve the Labyrinth like this?
"Um ... hello? Aren’t we forgetting something?"
she called, putting as much sarcasm as she could muster into the
words.
There
was no response. No magic, no glitter, no snarky replies. It was
all very odd. She shook her head, not sure if she was supposed to be
exasperated or amused. "Just what in the hell is going on?"
she wondered aloud. Was it possible that the entire thing had been a
joke? True, it wasn’t a very logical joke, but then
again, Jareth was a faerie—of sorts—and what did she know
about faerie humor, anyway? He found entertainment in driving girls
like her to all sorts of distraction and using them as human rats in
his giant maze. It certainly wouldn't have been beneath him to pull
a stunt like this, scaring the heebie-jeebies out of her and then
vanishing into thin air and laughing his ass off as he watched her
squirm from his own house.
The
idea occurred to her that it might have been—not a joke,
exactly—but rather some sort of a lesson she was supposed to
learn. Hadn't he thoroughly lectured her about not having learned
such a lesson the last time around? He had probably been watching
and had overheard her words, and decided to put the fear of
God into her so that she would remember exactly why she wasn’t
supposed to wish children away into the Labyrinth.
It
wasn’t a very nice trick, and her pride was still stinging from
his scolding, but she had to admit that he had certainly gotten the
desired results.
"Okay,
Jareth. You got me, fair and square," she called sheepishly,
appropriately chastised. "Lesson is learned. I'm a mean,
vindictive bitch for wishing another kid into the Labyrinth. Words
have power. I get it. I’ll never make a resemblance
of that wish again, okay? But, you know, you could have cut the
theatrics and just kindly asked me to watch what I say."
Still
no response, not that she’d really expected any.
She
frowned. "By the way, it was really nice to see you, too,"
she added peevishly. "How are you doing? Turned any more kids
into goblins lately? Maybe we should do lunch. You know, reminisce
on old times and all that?" She paused. "And here
I am, talking to the piano. Isn't that a sign of insanity?”
No,
she decided. It would only be insanity of the piano started talking
back.
Right.
And it was high time she got back to the classroom before Mrs.
Thomas assumed she'd been kidnapped or something. She would just put
this little incident out of her mind and pretend it hadn't happened.
After all, she was getting really good at ignoring the
Could-Have-Beens these days.
Straightening
her shirt, Sarah walked to the door and placed her hand on the knob,
then paused to glance back over her shoulder, half-hoping that Jareth
had reappeared. The room remained empty, and she sighed wistfully.
It really had been nice to see him again, even if he'd only
come to yell at her. It was a shame he had chosen not to stay, but
she guessed he was still pretty annoyed. Maybe he'd eventually
forgive her for her careless thoughts, but knowing Jareth, it might
take a few years.
She
opened the door and stepped outside of the room ... and
promptly froze in bewildered shock, rather like a deer that was just
about to be flattened by an oncoming freight train.
The
hallway was gone.
No.
Not just the hallway; the entire school seemed to have disappeared,
and she found herself standing on the crest of a very tall hill,
below which lay a familiar scene. The Labyrinth sprawled in all its
majesty from horizon to horizon, brilliantly garnished with the
golden light of a setting sun. It appeared even more menacing and
fantastical than she remembered, and she forced her mouth to close as
she glanced back over her shoulder, wondering if it was too late to
go back into the room.
Naturally,
the door had vanished. She was now completely surrounded by the dry,
barren land of the world outside the Labyrinth.
"Oh
dear," she sighed. It was beginning to look like Jareth’s
joke wasn’t as much of a joke as she'd assumed, which meant
that he and she were once more on opposing sides of a very dangerous
game. Her shoulders slumped with disappointment. She should have
known it was too good to last, this whole
being-in-love-with-the-Goblin-King idea. Why did it always
happen this way? She didn’t want Jareth as an enemy.
Being his lover seemed so much more interesting ... even if they
technically hadn't done anything to deserve the label.
Fate
seemed to have other ideas, though. Apparently, it had determined
that she and Jareth made much better enemies, and now they were being
shoved into their former roles of Heroine vs. Villain. It had not
escaped her attention that the particulars of this situation could be
placed entirely on her own shoulders ... but there really wasn't any
point in wallowing in self-pity, now was there? Besides, it
wasn’t as if Jareth had tried to help her find some way out of
the mess, she defended herself. He could have at least bent
the rules a little. After all, he was a king, so didn't that give
him some sort of authority over the laws of the land? When one
looked at it from that perspective, he could be held accountable for
this troublesome predicament, as well.
This
idea made Sarah feel a little better, if not a tad more indignant in
regards to the way he had treated her, acting as if she
was the only one at fault. "Well, fine," she sniffed.
Raising her voice to a shout, knowing he was probably listening, she
added, "If that’s how he wants to play it, then bring it
on!" She'd show him
a thing or three. She'd beaten him once, so what made him think she
couldn't do it again? It would serve him right, anyway, skipping
into her life, wooing her like some Prince Charming, and then
flitting off again with not so much as a by-your-leave. Even the
dreams had stopped after he’d left; she’d wished that he
would have at least left those to keep her company. It
was like a one-night stand, without
the stand.
Still,
if she had known this was how she was going to meet him again,
she certainly would have been more careful about her words! Hell, if
she'd known making a wish like that would bring him to her, she'd
have wished something into the Labyrinth a whole lot sooner. Not a
kid, of course, because that would be mean. But maybe a bird. Or a
squirrel. Hell, the goblins seemed stupid enough that they'd kidnap
a rock if she asked them to. Oh, the possibilities...
With
a heavy sigh, Sarah shoved her hands into her pockets and kicked a
stray stone out of her path as she trudged slowly down the hill.
Well, if she was stuck here, she might as well get started. She had
a long way to go, and time was a-wastin'. As she walked, she allowed
her thoughts to wander, and they eventually wandered to the question
of how squeaky-clean Prissy Missy was doing in the castle,
surrounded by all those dirty, smelly, repulsive goblins.
She
smiled a feral grin, taking childish delight at the thought of the
ten-year-old cowering in a horrified, whimpering ball in a corner ...
or else making Jareth’s life a living hell by wailing about his
natural catastrophe of a throne room at the top of her lungs.
Either
way, the ideas were quite entertaining.
~*~*~*~
Jessica
was indeed in Jareth’s throne room, but she was neither
cowering nor wailing, as Sarah had hoped. Rather, she was staring
about her with open-mouthed fascination, clearly enthralled with the
scenery. Jareth eyed her cautiously, wondering if there was
something wrong with her that the goblins—being, well,
goblins—had overlooked. She had been sitting in the
same spot beside the fire pit for the past fifteen minutes, and he
was beginning to fear that she was having some sort of attack. Of
course, if she died it would be simple enough to revive her, but
should Sarah find out about his negligence, it would be his neck.
Then
again, considering she was the reason the child was even here,
she didn't have the right to accuse him of anything without pointing
fingers back at herself. That thought made Jareth feel a little
better, and he continued to watch the child watch the throne room.
After
several more moments, Jessica finally stirred, blinking slowly as
though coming out of a trance. Jareth watched her closely, curious
to see her next reaction. He could not imagine why Sarah held such
animosity toward the child; she looked positively angelic to him.
Perhaps he would consider adopting her, if Sarah—No, not if.
When, he hastily corrected himself—failed to pass
through his Labyrinth.
Jessica
looked up at him, her big blue eyes wide and filled with horrified
disbelief. Then she opened her pretty mouth and informed him, with a
high-handedness that would have made him proud had it been directed
toward anyone but
him, "This place is a dump.
What kind of a grownup are
you, anyway?"
The
milling goblins stopped dead in their tracks and turned to stare at
her in amazement, even as Jareth forced a pasted-on smile past his
clenched teeth, clutching the crystal he'd unconsciously formed a
little bit tighter in an effort to keep himself from hurling it at
her head.
Oh,
yes. This dear
little girl was going to make a very pretty goblin, indeed.
~*~*~*~
The
double iron doors guarding the entrance of the Labyrinth loomed
before her, and Sarah paused to eye them warily, as though they might
suddenly leap from their hinges and attack her. She had every reason
to suspect such a trick. After all, the goblins had managed to hide
a gigantic robot bearing an ax the size of a kitchen table in the
last pair of doors she'd faced down at the Goblin City, so who was to
say these wouldn't attack her just as well?
She
pushed back her hair and cautiously crept forward, doing her best to
avoid the fairies that flitted around the scraggly flowers like
giant, mutated dragonflies. She didn't trust them
any more than she did the gates. It would have been nice to be able
to locate some of Hoggle's Fairy-Be-Gone, just in case they suddenly
decided that eating her would be a treat. In fact, it would
have been nice to be able to locate Hoggle,
and maybe her other friends along with him ... but she didn't expect
Jareth would be quite that generous a second time.
And
yet, even as she thought the words, Hoggle was suddenly standing
right in front of her, and with him stood a large, shaggy sheepdog
with a fox-like knight mounted upon its saddled back.
Sarah
stopped dead in her tracks, her mouth dropping open in astonishment
at the abrupt appearance of two friends whom she'd not seen since her
initial arrival five years before. It vaguely occurred to her that
they didn’t look half as surprised to see her as she was to see
them, and she had to wonder if maybe they'd actually been expecting
her, but her joy at seeing their faces overrode her curiosity.
"Hoggle! Sir Didymus! I can’t believe it’s really
you!" she cried happily, feeling as if she was fifteen again as
she threw her arms around the embarrassed pair. Ambrosius whined and
wriggled like a happy puppy between them, nearly unseating Didymus,
who scolded him heartily for behaving like such a not-so-noble steed.
"How
hast thou been, fair maiden?" he questioned Sarah, once
Ambrosius had calmed down. "‘Twas quite the surprise when
the gossip reached mine ears that you were back in the kingdom again.
What hast happened?"
"Ever’one
knows what ya did, little Missy," Hoggle put in. "Ya done
went an’ wished away a kid again, eh?" He chortled.
"Wish I’d seen th’ look on Jareth’s face when
he found that out!"
"He
was not happy," Sarah muttered. "Believe me, you
didn’t want to see his face! But it wasn’t as if
I deliberately tried to wish the kid away. It was just an
accident!" She knew that Hoggle and Didymus were unlikely to
judge her as hastily as Jareth had done, but she still felt the need
to defend herself, just in case anyone else was listening. "Anyway,
I guess I have to go through this thing all over again," she
finished irritably, and sighed, gazing up at the gates. "And
here I thought things had finally gotten resolved between us,"
she added, unable to keep the sad wistfulness from her voice. "Two
steps forward ... ten steps back."
"Dost
thou need our assistance?" Didymus offered, and beneath him
Ambrosius looked rather alarmed, apparently remembering the last time
he’d been forced to accompany this troublesome girl through the
Labyrinth. Give him a bone and a warm bed by the fire any day; it
surely beat getting shot at by goblins who would just as soon eat him
as to look at him.
"I
be happy ta help yas through," Hoggle offered gallantly. “Ya
don't even need ta pay me, this time.” He grinned and winked,
holding out his arm on which a familiar plastic bracelet jingled.
Sarah
grinned back and shook her head. “I can't believe you still
have that old thing,” she replied affectionately.
Hoggle
snorted, looking embarrassed. “It's mah greatest treasure,”
he admitted, his ruddy cheeks darkening slightly. He coughed to hide
his embarrassment. “Anyhows, d'ya want me ta go through with
ya? It'd be a ... piece o' cake if I helped, right?”
Sarah
shook her head slowly. "You have no idea how much I appreciate
the offer. But I think Jareth would probably have your head if you
help me through this time around," she told him with a smile.
"Thanks so much, really, but ... I think I need to do this on my
own. For as long as I can, at least." She sighed and looked
toward the iron doors again. "If I keep letting my friends hold
my hand, how will I ever learn to stand on my own two feet?"
"A
very wise question," Didymus replied solemnly. "But
shouldst thou have need of our assistance, blow into this, and I
shall gladly ride to thy rescue!" He dropped a small, silver
whistle into Sarah’s hand.
She
examined it, then smiled briefly, raising an eyebrow. "A dog
whistle?"
He
coughed politely. "Yes, well, mine ears are quite keen, and His
Majesty is quite unlikely to hear it, thus making it easier for me to
rush to thy rescue without being discovered for mine treachery."
"A
very good idea," Sarah replied solemnly, hiding a smile. She
straightened and hung the silver whistle from the golden chain that
held Jareth's pendant.
Hoggle
noticed it and raised his eyebrows. "I always dids
wonder whats happened ta that thing," he said. "Jareth
wouldn’t tell, but I figgered he’d given it to ya b’fore.
We all knows about what happened, when he went Above awhile ago. He
was floatin on a cloud fer weeks. Never seen him actin’ so
tipsy-like. Ya sure got an affect on that one, Sarah."
Sarah's
smile was a tad bitter. "Unfortunately, it's not enough of one
that he’s willing to give up playing his games," she
replied, and sighed, her eyes downcast. "He was furious,
guys. I don't think I've ever seen him that mad before. He pretty
much called me an idiot, and I guess maybe he was right. I didn’t
think, and now I have to go and beat him all over again, and ... I
don’t want to. I don’t want to hurt him like I
did before, and I’m afraid that when it comes down to it, I
won’t be able to do what I have to do to save Jessica."
"Kind
of a sticky situation, huh?" Hoggle said sympathetically.
"Yeah."
She sighed and fingered the pendant. "I wonder if his opinion
of me has changed now. I mean, before I thought that maybe he loved
me, but he looked so ... I don’t know ... so disgusted with me
back there, like he couldn’t stand the sight of me. I don’t
really blame him, I guess. I just went and destroyed whatever shred
of friendship we might have had by making him my enemy again. I
don’t want to be his enemy, but I wonder if he
understands that."
"Well,
the only way yer gonna find out is if ya goes in there an’
plays his game," Hoggle said gruffly, to hide the emotion he
felt at Sarah’s predicament. Pity wasn’t going to help
her, after all. He gestured, and the gates swung open with loud
groans, sounding quite annoyed at being disturbed after so long.
"Well, I wish ya’s luck," he said, holding out his
hand.
She
shook it gravely, then Sir Didymus's paw, and patted Ambrosius’s
head. "It was so great to see you again," she said
honestly. "I didn’t realize how much I missed all of
you." She smiled. "When this is over, if it goes well, I
hope we'll have some time to catch up. Please, if you see Ludo, tell
him I said hello, okay?"
"I
give thee mine word as a gentleman," Didymus replied gravely,
doffing his hat and bowing low in the saddle. Ambrosius woofed, and
Hoggle nodded his agreement, shifting uncomfortably as he tried to
hide his slightly-tearing eyes. Sarah patted his shoulder
understandingly. Then, with a sigh of resignation, she turned back
to the entrance of the Labyrinth and stepped inside.
