Notes: Standard disclaimers apply.
Much thanks to Phuriedae and 3Hours for their assistance, editing, and encouragement.
Monsters
It all started with the owl.
It was sitting on her desk when she returned from lunch one day, beady black eyes shining up at her from its perch atop a stack of horror themed teen novels for her Halloween book display. Sarah eyed it back, warily. Everyone knew Sarah had a thing about owls.
The window of the office she shared with the rest of the youth services department looked out over the woods behind the library, and her desk was just beneath it. One tree in particular sat close up against the rear of the building, several branches and a hollow just about at her eye level. For the four years Sarah had been in charge of teen services she'd watched all sorts of birds make their nests in that tree: sparrows and wrens, cardinals and once a pair of robins. Last year two barred owls took up residence in the hollow. They'd annoyed her for two months during mating season with their laughing hyena-like cries. Her coworkers had listened to her grumble over the irritating qualities of owls, but she'd also found the raptors fascinating with their wide, surprised looking faces.
The owl on her desk was a barn owl, not barred. Its eldritch features and watchful posture had been shaped out of sparkling Swarovski crystal, with jet stones for eyes, and it perched on a blackened tree made of twisting wire.
"Oh, that's pretty," said Carol, who had the desk next to Sarah's and who oversaw toddler programming and pre-school book ordering.
"It's ... something alright," Sarah said, as she picked up the little owl and frowned at it. "Where did you come from?" she asked it, not expecting or receiving an answer.
"Someone must have heard you talking about owls, and decided to give you a gift," said Carol with a grin. "Maybe you have a secret admirer?"
"Maybe," Sarah said noncommittally, and sat the owl on the window sill, where it could stare out at the trees instead of at her.
The next gift came with a note.
Wrapped in silver, glittering paper, and tied with a black velvet ribbon, it sat in the center of her desk, the space around it cleared, as if it would fail to catch her attention otherwise. When she opened it, she found a thick, leather bound book of fairy tales, illustrated by Arthur Rackham. When she picked it up, a slip of thin parchment paper fell out.
You look lovely today, princess. That color green suits your emerald eyes.
The lettering was done in elaborate calligraphy, like the kind she'd taught during a bullet journaling program for teens the week before. There was no signature.
"My eyes aren't emerald," Sarah muttered, and stuffed the note back in the book, before setting it aside with a frown. "They're plain old hazel."
After that the notes and gifts began to show up with semi-regularity. Usually they'd appear during her lunch break, when everyone was out of the office. Sometimes they'd show up after she'd been away and busy with teen programming or pulling books for displays. Once or twice they were there in the morning: left for her very early or late after everyone had gone home the night before.
The gifts ranged from silly toys that spoke to Sarah's love of adventure and mythology, to the occasional expensive, romantic gesture. The notes were written on thin parchment, in that same, overly ornamented calligraphy.
My love for you is undying, said one, accompanied by an exquisite little vase of crystal roses.
Your beauty is only outshined by your innocent, luminescent eyes , said another.
Sarah snorted loudly at that one. Innocent her ass. She had a bookshelf full of naughty romance novels at home, a couple of battery-operated boyfriends, and she'd lost her virginity at age eighteen to a young life-guard she'd met at the pool that summer and never regretted it. She'd had real boyfriends off and on over the years, of course. She was single now, and had been since she'd dumped Matt last Christmas after she found out he'd been cheating on her with his favorite Starbucks barista. She'd thought his caffeine consumption had been remarkably high.
The other girls in her department thought the gifts were romantic, and within a week the word spread round to the rest of the library. Gossip, after all, was practically a currency amongst the men and women who worked there. Even Jim, the law library reference librarian, told her that he thought it was sweet when everyone had been debating the identity of Sarah's gift-giver in the breakroom one day.
If they'd worked in a smaller branch, the debaters agreed, it would have been pretty obvious. But this was the big downtown library. It stood several stories tall and boasted a staff of close to fifty people on any given day—if you counted the IT department, administration, the guys who handled receiving and coding all the books, assistants, pages, and other assorted staff. Not to mention the number of regulars. Sarah's office was shared with the other four members of the youth services department, and it was usually left open during the day. Anyone could wander in and drop something off, they agreed.
Are you enjoying our game, my Sarah?
Sarah kept her feelings on the matter wisely to herself. She was pretty good at keeping secrets, after all.
The following Tuesday, after dealing with a particularly rowdy bunch of pre-teens who'd been causing problems, she returned to find a new note on her desk.
Are the children frustrating you, my love? If you wish, I could take care of them…
"Hoggle, I need you," Sarah said to her bedroom mirror that night, almost as soon as she returned home.
Her old friend appeared in the mirror behind her left shoulder, and Sarah turned to crouch down and give him a quick embrace.
"You're not canceling gamenight again, are ya?" Hoggle grumbled, his face flushed as usual whenever Sarah indulged in a moment of affection.
"No, no, nothing like that. And I'm sorry about last month, I had to go to a baby shower. I wouldn't have heard the end of it if I hadn't shown up, even though it's Lyndsey's third kid. Tea?"
Hoggle nodded and Sarah led him out into the kitchen of her small, one-bedroom apartment. He clambered into his favorite chair and while she got out the kettle and tea bags. "How are things?" she asked cautiously, as she put the water on to boil.
He shrugged. "Same old crap," he said, then put on a ridiculous falsetto voice and the worst accent she'd ever heard. "Higgle, do this. Hedgewort, do that. Spray those fairy pests. Trim the damn roses. Take that kid back to the beginning again. Oh, and by the way, the goblins got into the hedge maze with their nipper sticks and seem to have carved out some new pathways. Fix it or I'll bog you." His sigh climbed all the way up from his toes.
Sarah laughed. "Sounds about right." She got out Hoggle's favorite mug: one with a picture of Grumpy dwarf on it, from Snow White. Hers was white, with the slogan "I see goblins" — a Christmas gift from Toby, several years ago. She got out the tea bags: chai for her, mint for Hoggle. Lightly, stepping around what she wanted to know, she asked. "How's everyone else?"
"Ludo's ... well, Ludo. And Didymus has petitioned for a new bridge again," he said.
"Didn't the bridge just get replaced again a while back?" Time moved strangely Underground. What had been a few short months for her could be closer to a year for him, although there was no set ratio. It was always more time than she had, though. Never less.
Sarah added a heaping helping of sugar to Hoggle's mug. He had an incurable sweet tooth. Sugar was a rare commodity Down There and he wasn't the only one of her friends who over indulged when they visited her.
"It gets replaced almost every time there's a new Runner that makes it that far," Hoggle said with an eye roll. "The most the goblins ever do is slap a few boards down and tie it off with some rope, if you're lucky. I mean, the point is to dump people into the bog, not let 'em get across."
Sarah shuddered, remembering her own close call with the Bog of Eternal Stench. The kettle whistled, and she set about pouring their tea. "How's the Goblin King? Sounds like he's still up to his same old tricks," she asked. She kept her voice deliberately casual.
It's not like it was a completely unusual question. They'd discussed Jareth many times over the years, although mostly in passing. Hoggle had always maintained that naming the thing you're most afraid of robbed it a little of its power. And Sarah had never had any indication that Jareth cared what she said or did, or that he even thought of her at all since she'd won back Toby all those years ago.
Well, up until now. The wording of the most recent note, along with the gifts, was too coincidental. She just couldn't figure out why , after so many years, Jareth would do such a thing.
"Eh," Hoggle said, his eyes wide and greedy as Sarah carried over a plate of Oreo cookies along with his tea. "Oh, are those red velvet?" Hoggle had a weakness for novelty flavors of Oreo cookies, a weakness Sarah shared. She grinned and pushed the plate toward him, but not before stealing a cookie for herself.
"Jareth's just the same as always. Bossy and nasty-tempered and more interested in what coat he's gonna wear on any given day than he is about anythin' else. 'Cept ordering me around, that is." Hoggle munched contentedly on a cookie. "Why?"
Sarah sat down across from him and stirred her tea. She hadn't decided if she ought to tell Hoggle yet about the gifts or not. Something about them left her feeling deeply unsettled. "In all these years, has he ever ... I don't know, mentioned me?"
Hoggle's thick brows lowered over his eyes and the crags in his face deepened into a frown. "Not in my hearin', and that's a good thing. You don't want to be gettin' that rat's attention."
"I did beat his Labyrinth, and you told me once that doesn't happen often."
"Last winner was a few centuries back, I think," Hoggle said. "Above time. Lots of kids got wished away back then. It's not like that anymore."
"You don't think he might ... want revenge or something?" Not that the gifts really said revenge so much as I have a creepy crush on you but she wasn't going to tell Hoggle that. Not yet, at any rate.
"He's not really the revenge type. Too much work," Hoggle took another cookie, gesturing with it before he dunked it in his tea. "Jareth, at heart, is a lazy bastard. Oh, he does his bit when someone wishes someone away—he sorta has to, you know, 'cause of the Rules—but afterward? It's all done and dusted, far as he's concerned."
"He doesn't get angry when someone wins?"
"Oh, he'll have a bit of a temper tantrum after, like when you won. But once he Bogs a few goblins and smashes down a few walls, he gets to feelin' better and things go back to normal."
"Huh," Sarah said, contemplating her seeming utter insignificance in the grand scheme of all things Goblin-King-related.
"Why would you think he's out for revenge now ?" Hoggle asked. "It's been, what? Fourteen years?"
"Almost fifteen," Sarah said, automatically. Not that she'd been counting, but given that Toby's birthday was coming up, and the gifts and notes, it was on her mind again.
"And longer still Down There," Hoggle said, taking a fourth cookie. "I lose track of the time."
She sipped her tea and debated with herself, but she couldn't really see any reason not to tell Hoggle, other than the fact that in some ways the gifts and notes left her feeling almost ... dirty.
"Someone's been sending me … things , at work. And they remind me of the Labyrinth. Crystal owls and roses, books of fairy tales, little fairy figurines and framed illustrations of goblins. Stuff like that."
"Weird." Hoggle frowned and something in Sarah relaxed, relieved that he hadn't lept to the same conclusion as all of her co-workers. "Think they know, about ... you know?"
"The Labyrinth? I ... don't know." She played with a cookie, unscrewing the top off of it and then twisting it back together again. "There are notes. On parchment and written in old-fashioned calligraphy."
"Threats?" Hoggle practically bristled.
"Not ... exactly," she said. "They're more like ... like love notes. Telling me I'm beautiful, or that they like what I'm wearing on a given day. Praising me for something I said or did. It's like they're always watching."
Hoggle's glower deepened. "You don't like it," he said, flatly.
"No," Sarah breathed, relieved someone had noticed. "I really don't."
"And you think it's Jareth?"
"I mean ... the coincidences are kinda obvious. The glittery paper they use to wrap things in, the parchment and ink notes, the freaking crystal owl . Today's note mentioned wishing and getting rid of some kids that were being a problem at work, which is why I called you. But you said Jareth hasn't even mentioned me, and he's not acting weird at all?"
"No weirder or worse than usual," Hoggle scowled into his mug thoughtfully. "You want me to nose around, find out if he's been sendin' stuff, or watchin' you? It'd be just like him, to spy on someone. But I've never heard of him doin' anythin' like this before."
"I know you don't like being near him…" She didn't want to ask him to put himself in harm's way for her. Again.
"I'll do it," he said, waving off anything else she'd been prepared to say. "That's what friends are for."
My sweet Sarah, I would give you the moon and stars if only you asked it of me.
Outside her window the forest blazed with fall colors, and the leaves of the old oak tree shivered down with a hail of acorns every time the wind blew. The barred owls had returned, with their cackling goblin laughs. One of them took to perching on the branch outside her window and eyeing her through it. She'd suspect it was more than it appeared to be, but it had a mate and sometimes she caught them doing owl-matey type things and she didn't think the Goblin King was all that into maintaining the whole owl disguise.
And the gifts continued.
Some days there was no gift, just a note. Always on parchment, written in the same black ink, the messages arrogant and presumptuous.
Precious, you must know I'm the only man for you
She didn't know what to do with them. Her coworkers crowded around her, eager to see what she'd received. The news had even spread to some of the teens she saw regularly, the ones who volunteered to help shelve books, and the ones in the Teen Book Club. They always asked her what she'd received recently from her Secret Admirer, and teased her about him.
"You don't think it's all a little creepy?" she asked her co-workers.
"Maybe he's shy, whoever he is," said Shelly.
The notes were arrogant, possessive, not shy at all.
Her teen volunteers thought it was crazy romantic. "Like Twilight ," said one girl with a dreamy sigh.
Sarah wished that book hadn't been quite as popular as it had become, recently. "You know that Edward is kind of a manipulative asshole, right? Stalking someone, sabotaging their car, and watching them sleep isn't a good basis for a healthy relationship." It was important to her, to be a good role model for the kids she worked with.
"But he does it because he loves her," said the girl.
"That's not love," Sarah said, but none of the teens seemed to agree with her.
She didn't feel like she could get rid of the things, so they accumulated on her desk, on her windowsill, until they hedged her in like a small army, intent on conquering her. The notes got stuffed into the bottom desk drawer, behind her files and old spreadsheets of book orders.
Before, Sarah had often come into work a little early. Never so early that she got a frown from the administration — government jobs were fairly strict on how many hours you worked — but usually a few minutes or two ahead of the rest of her department, so that she'd be the one flipping on the lights and turning on the coffee pot. Now she dreaded it. She never knew if there'd be a present left on her desk again, or if she might, somehow, by chance, catch whoever it was in the act.
She never did.
Nights were worse. Sometimes she stayed late, when she worked an evening shift. An hour was built in between close of patron hours and the official end of day, for paperwork and shelving and general clean up. Rules were that everyone who worked that hour walked out together at the end of the night, the manager set the alarm, and security checked doors and locks. The rest of the staff gathered in the foyer downstairs as final rounds were made, the building somehow loud in its silence, the lights all dimmed, computers off. People paired off to chat as they waited for the stragglers, their voices hushed, even though it was after hours. Habit, perhaps.
Sarah, who'd never been the kind of person to jump at shadows, who'd braved the inexplicable and impossible when she'd been just fourteen years old, found herself lingering near the door on those nights. She kept a can of pepper spray in her pocket—a recent purchase, even if she was unsure of its efficacy against supernatural beings—and arranged for at least one friend to accompany her to her car. The walk was always a little tense and uneasy, and relief only set in once she was in her car and on her way home.
They all thought that was normal: Carol and Elsa and Jim and and Soledad and David and Sunita and Kirsti. It was walking out alone and unafraid that was strange to them. Sarah was, after all, a woman. Women were prey.
She hated it, this downgrade from heroine to hunted.
I like it when you wear your hair up, beloved. I want to bite that slender throat. Mark you, so you'd know you were mine.
Hoggle returned on game night, along with Didymus, Ludo, and a few goblins Sarah had befriended over the years, Frölöw and Fåüstüs, Dogsthörpe and Hörtenz. Sarah made popcorn, and they settled down for a long, but rousing game of Clue. Two hours in, it turned out that they'd forgotten to put cards in the mystery envelope and thus everyone was innocent. The game ended with the goblins arguing over the existential question of whether or not there could be a murder, if there was no murderer to be found.
Sarah had long ago ceased to try to argue with goblin logic.
They made popcorn, and a mess, and watched Sarah's well-worn VHS copy of the The Dark Crystal , until it was time for everyone to disappear back where they had come from. Hoggle lingered after the others had left, until it was just the two of them.
"Did you find out anything?" she asked, while she finished washing up the dishes.
"Not a thing," Hoggle said, sounding frustrated. "Far as I can tell, he planted his bony arse on his throne after the last runner and hasn't moved from it unless he feels like kickin' the goblins around. Caught him in there the other day throwin' darts at the clock and singin' a little song about how he was so bored he was thinking of gougin' out his own eyes for fun. If he was playin' some game with you, I think he'd be ... perkier."
Sarah had paused, her hands in the sink, suds up to her elbows, and just stared.
"He ... wouldn't actually do that, would he?"
Hoggle thought about it for a moment. "They'd just grow back. He might. Never can tell with him."
"You people have very strange ideas of entertainment."
"Forever is a really long time to live." Hoggle said with a shrug. "And Jareth's older than dirt."
She had to laugh a bit. "And this is the figure that has struck fear in the hearts of children for centuries."
Hoggle looked up at that. "Don't go thinkin he's toothless, Sarah. There's a reason I'm afraid of him, and it ain't the Bog, and it ain't the threats or the Cleaners or all his other tricks and traps. He's the Goblin King, no matter how forgotten he's become, and that still means somethin'."
Sarah thought of the notes stuffed in her drawer at work and shivered. Maybe it did.
A pair of emerald earrings came next, sparkling up at her like snake eyes from the little black velvet jeweler's box.
To match your cruel eyes, Sarah. When will you see me?
She shoved both jewels and note away, deep in the drawer, glancing behind her to see if anyone had noticed. No one was around. Storytime was raging just outside the office, her co-worker, Shelly, leading the kids in screaming NO! every time the Pigeon asked to drive the bus.
Sarah wanted to scream along with them.
She hadn't taken a single one of the gifts home. Perversely, she thought if she didn't take any of it home, didn't use any of it, didn't wear any of it, then she technically hadn't accepted any of it. If this was Jareth's twisted idea of courting or something, it was creepy as hell.
There was one way to resolve the question, of course. She could always call on the Goblin King himself. But the only guaranteed way of summoning the Goblin King was to make a very specific wish, and that was something Sarah had promised herself she'd never do again. There were other ways to contact him, though.
Hoggle said that whenever she deliberately invoked anyone in the Goblin Kingdom, they heard her. It couldn't just be in passing, of course. She had to mean it. Just saying Jareth's name wasn't enough to bring him to her, or even snag his attention. She didn't have to make a wish. Like with Hoggle and her other friends, she could just say she needed him. Although that didn't mean he'd show; they all had the choice of whether or not to answer a summons like that. It'd be awkward and inconvenient if she called on Hoggle and it automatically summoned him while he was taking a leak or something. For both of them.
But calling on Jareth, if he was the one sending her the gifts, felt too much like playing into his game. He wanted to be noticed, acknowledged, needed . He wanted her to invite him into her life. Just like wearing the earrings or using any of the gifts, it would grant him power over her that she refused to give.
So, she stored the gifts away and pretended they didn't bother her. Sarah was very good at pretending.
Don't you like my gifts, princess?
Autumn turned cold early that year, the first hint of frost hitting just before Halloween. Some part of her had thought that maybe this was leading up to the holiday. There was a rightness to that idea, given how easy it was for things on the Other Side to cross over on that particular night. Surely, if Jareth meant anything by any of it, he'd come then in all his glittery glory, and try to ... claim her? She didn't know. There was something possessive in those notes, arrogant and monstrous. Whatever he intended, it wouldn't be pleasant.
She was relieved when her gift that day was only a ruby red pendant that looked like a drop of blood, and a note commenting on her Halloween costume for work: she'd dressed up as Joan of Arc.
Of course, you'd choose to be a saint. Are you so pure, my Sarah? I look forward to finding out.
Nothing else interesting happened that night, unless you counted a dozen goblins crashing at her apartment, tweaked out on all the candy they'd stolen.
A week later, she had to work late and walked out to her car with Chris. He was an old friend, a few years younger than her, but they'd gone to university together. He had a boyfriend, but only a few people in their conservative little library knew. Sarah was one of them. She'd often had them over to her place in the past for dinner, or gone over to theirs.
They were halfway to her car when the hair on the back of her neck stood on end and Sarah froze. She stopped and looked around, but the library parking lot was fairly well lit, some of her coworkers still trickling over to their own vehicles, and traffic flowing by as normal as you please on the road.
"Do you feel that?" she whispered. Chris stopped, too, frowning.
"No... maybe," he said, looking around.
"Something's watching us," she said, scanning the trees along the back edge of the property, looking for the shadow of a cloak, moonlight glimmering off cobweb hair, or the white ghost of a bird. But there was nothing at all. Nothing but the vague skittering unease crawling up her spine and the feel of hostile eyes on her.
If Chris noticed her choice of pronoun, he didn't comment on it.
"C'mon," Chris said. "Let's get you to your car. Ain't nobody going to mess with you if I'm here." At four inches over six feet and possessing a solidly built frame, not to mention his shaved head and dark as night, tattooed skin, he didn't look like the stereotypical librarian. He was a gentle, nerdy giant, though, with a deep and abiding interest in historical biographies and genealogy, of all things. He walked her to her car and waited till she was in before leaning close, her door propped open and him blocking the gap like a human shield. "Why don't Gerry and I come by for some late pizza in a bit? You look a bit spooked."
That feeling of eyes watching was still on her.
"Yeah," she said and ran a hand nervously through her hair. "That'd be great. I'll swing bythe drive thru place and grab a couple boxes on my way home. Thirty minutes?"
"We'll see you when you get there."
He waited till she shut her door and locked it before he strode over to his own car and climbed in. They left at the same time, and the feel of eyes on her faded as she pulled away from the lot.
That man is scum, and unworthy of your time. I saw you flirting with him, Sarah.
Remember that you belong to me. Do you think he'd like to play the game, too?
"Hoggle, this has to stop," Sarah said a week later. The messages had gotten increasingly hostile, without ever quite crossing the line into outright threats. This morning he'd called her a teasing bitch, and promised that he'd show her how she ought to be treated. His gift was a print copy of A. N. Roquelaure's The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty.
"I don't even know if I should go to the police. What do I tell them? Oh, yeah, so I think the Goblin King is sending me creepy presents and notes?"
"You still think it's Jareth?"
Sarah reached in her pocket and pulled out the most recent note. It was the first one she'd brought home with her. This one was different.
Have you figured out who I am yet, my Queen?
I look forward to the day when you kneel before me and let me rule you.
He'd signed it with an elaborate letter " J ."
"I don't know what to think," Sarah said, sinking down in her upholstered armchair. Her hands shook, she noted, and immediately anger flared. I will not cower , she thought. The shaking stopped, stripped away by fury.
Hoggle frowned at the paper, brow furrowed. "Do all the notes look like this?" he asked, his voice oddly tentative.
"Yeah, why?"
"Well, and I ain't sayin' that he's not a rat or anythin' but … this isn't Jareth's handwriting," Hoggle said. "And I should know, I've had to read enough of his orders over the years. For being a billion years old, he writes like a drunken chicken. This is too … pretty."
"But if it's not Jareth, then ... who?" Sarah asked, feeling weirdly lost. She could hear those words in Jareth's voice. His wasn't the kind of voice you forgot. Even almost fifteen years later, he still made an impression. But now that she thought about it, there was something different. The note writer demanded, as if her capitulation was his due. Jareth, at least, had always asked for her submission during their game. Almost begged for it, at the end. Never had he demanded or even assumed. "Who else knows about the Labyrinth?"
"Maybe … maybe they don't," Hoggle said. He gestured around at the walls of her apartment, decorated in fantasy themed prints and romantic novels, dragon bookends, Venetian masks and chiming crystals. It was the grown-up version of the girl she'd been. Less cluttered, perhaps, and she clung less to it, but it was still there, still a part of her and always would be. "Everybody knows you like fairy tales, an' I don't think it'd be a stretch to figure out what'd get your attention."
"The way he writes, though. He calls me princess, promises to move the moon for me, swears to love me for eternity." She was reaching, maybe. Jareth had never done any of those things in their brief acquaintance. You take too many things for granted , Hoggle had said once. Was she making assumptions about Jareth without really knowing who he was?
"Hmmmph," Hoggle grunted. "Jareth's not the sort for romantic twaddle, either."
Sarah snorted. "He did say to me once: 'fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave.' I mean, he was trying to keep me from winning, so he probably would have said just about anything."
"Sure," Hoggle said, nodding. "You'd agreed to that, you'd have given him all the power over you he needed. He could have kept Toby and you. That's how he wins. It's not a declaration of love, it's a trap. He's good at those, when he's playing the Game."
"There's that, too. Whoever this is, they think this ... the gifts and notes and everything, is a game."
"Do you want it to be him?" Hoggle asked. She couldn't blame him for sounding so incredulous.
"No," she said, "I just want it to stop. If it is him, though, I'll have some idea of what to do. I've beaten him before, after all."
"You know we could just call Jareth here," Hoggle said, looking a little green at the idea. The fact that he was defending Jareth at all spoke volumes. "Ask him."
"No," Sarah said. If it was him, that'd just be inviting the devil across her doorstep. If it wasn't … "What do I do, if it's not him?"
"Ya know," Hoggle said, "if anything goes wrong, we're just a call away. You beat the Labyrinth, so you can still call on the goblins for help, too. If you need it."
"Thanks, Hoggle. I'll remember that." She put her arm around him then and drew him into a hug until he blushed.
It wasn't until later that she realized he'd stolen the note from her.
Thanksgiving approached. More gifts arrived, accompanied by more notes. The tenor of them had calmed down again, no longer so hostile. Instead they felt sulky, as if the writer was put out that she hadn't solved the puzzle.
I'm beginning to think you don't want to win this game. Perhaps you're just not good enough to beat me. I promise not to gloat when I beat you...
She opened the latest missive a few days before Thanksgiving break. The slender white box underneath was vaguely ominous. Even more so was what it contained: a riding crop, in black leather, on a bed of red velvet, vicious and cruel.
Carol was with her when she opened it. "Oh ... oh that's ..."
"Creepy as hell," Sarah finished. Her memory reminded her that Jareth had also carried such a thing. You're no match for me, Sarah. But the thing of it was, she had been.
"Yeah," Carol said, wide eyed and in full agreement. "You still don't know who is sending these things?" The little army of presents had cluttered up the windowsill, and a nearby bookcase, watchful of her, even without eyes. She'd defeated an army before.
"No," Sarah said, putting the lid back on the box with curiously calm hands.
"Maybe ... maybe you should go to security," Carol said.
"Yes," Sarah said. "I think I will."
She grabbed an empty cardboard box out of receiving and piled all the gifts inside, stuffed the notes into a plastic bag, and loaded it all on a book cart to take it down to security.
Amy and Hal were the two full time security guards employed by the library. Amy was nearly six feet tall, with close cropped dark hair, a tattoo on her neck, and boxer's knuckles. Hal was barely over the age of twenty-four, ginger haired and freckled, and lanky as a lamppost. They listened as Sarah told them what had been going on and showed them the gifts and the escalating notes.
They called the cops and HR, and Sarah got a going over for not reporting all of it sooner.
"Why didn't you?" Amy asked her later, giving her a cup of coffee and a look that said, plainly, that she'd thought Sarah smarter than that.
"I don't know," Sarah admitted. "I guess ... I wanted to believe it ... wasn't real."
Maybe it was Jareth, maybe it wasn't. But she felt better having a report on file.
"We'll station someone outside your office for a while," Amy said. "Me or Hal. We don't have any cameras pointed that way, but the least we can do is make sure he can't get to you or leave you any more of these things. And we'll walk you to your car at the end of the night, if you leave late."
Sarah wondered why being protected felt a little like being imprisoned.
No more gifts or notes arrived before Thanksgiving, and Sarah thought that was telling in and of itself. Would security guards even matter to the Goblin King? Still, she was able to enjoy a week away with her family in relative peace. Toby was into video games now, and couldn't be pried away from his new Game Cube. Irene took Sarah with her to all the Black Friday sales. Her father camped out in the living room, enjoying a few days off to watch football and read the newest Tom Clancy that Sarah had brought him. She knew where she'd gotten her love of books from, after all.
She almost missed the note, except she stepped on it after entering her apartment and it crinkled underfoot. It had been slid beneath her door while she was away, and looked a bit tattered and wrinkled. Whoever had done it had had to work to get it through. The handwriting wasn't so neat or careful this time, either, and it was on cheaper parchment, like the kind you'd buy at the dollar store.
You told them about our Game, Sarah. Ungrateful bitch.
Maybe it's time I showed you what happens when you defy me.
She felt violated. He'd crossed the line from her work to her home.
Sarah was done being hunted.
Time to stop pretending and do something about it.
She told Hoggle about her plan. He didn't like it. She didn't think he would.
"You realize, if you do this, it means you're going to have to face him."
"Got a better plan?" Sarah asked.
"No," he said.
So they did it her way.
It was freezing out, the temperature hovering near zero. The stars overhead, past the orange glow of the streetlights, hung crisp and sharp in the night sky. Her breath froze into ghosts as she left the building, Hal by her side. He walked her to her car, like usual, both of them bundled in coats and scarves and gloves until they didn't much resemble humans, but overdressed snowmen.
She could feel eyes on her again, watching, vaguely hostile.
"I've got to let the car warm up a little," she told Hal, laying a hand deliberately on his arm. "I'll lock the car doors, you don't need to wait, if you want to go do your checks. It's too cold to stand around."
"Sure you'll be okay?" He didn't look convinced, but he did look cold.
"Yeah," Sarah said. "Someone would have to be insane to try something in this weather. Go on, your lips are turning blue."
He watched her get in the car, though, waited for her to turn it on and lock the doors before he waved and wandered off to do the perimeter check on the building before heading home.
Her radio was playing Queen's A Kind of Magic . The heater ran while Freddie Mercury crooned in her ears. "… No moooortal man, can win this day…" There were still a few cars left in the parking lot, especially given that they shared it with the office building next door and lawyers weren't known for normal hours. Even with the car doors closed and locked, she felt ... observed.
She let the windows fog on purpose. When it was warm enough, she stripped off one glove and wrote in the fog: I know you . She had to write it mirror backwards, so it could be read from the outside, and her lettering was shaky. She waited a moment, then put the car in gear and pulled away. It took a little while for the defroster to kick in on her rear windows, and she wasn't sure if she was being followed.
When she got to her apartment complex, she pulled into the lot and took a deep breath. There was pepper spray in one pocket and her keys in the other. Her purse was looped casually across her body. She took a deep breath and remembered what Hoggle had said.
If you need us...
"Hoggle, I need you."
He appeared in her rearview mirror, sitting in her backseat.
"You're sure about this?" he asked.
"Piece of cake," she said.
Instead of heading up the stairs to her apartment, she went around to her trunk and got the cardboard box of gifts out. It was heavy now, a burden after so many weeks, and she had to walk carefully with it over the pavement to avoid slipping on the slick ice. There was a community park next door to her complex, and she went there, following the lit path through the trees, her feet crunching on icy gravel, the scent of pine and snow all around her. Because she listened for it, she heard the footsteps behind her. She ignored them.
There was a picnic area in the middle of the park, deserted at this time of night and in this weather. A metal drum served as a trash can, and she carried the box over and dumped most of its contents inside, all but the bottle of lighter fluid she'd brought with her. She had time to douse the stuff and pull out a box of matches before she heard the footsteps speed up, and a familiar voice say, softly, "Stop."
"Why should I?" she asked and turned to look.
The moon shone down on the clearing, and the nearest lamppost gave enough illumination for her to make him out. Tall, fair haired, thin and bundled in a dark coat with a high collar. His hands were gloved. But that's where the similarities to her childhood villain ended. He wasn't bad looking, never had been. She'd often wondered why she never heard of him dating anyone, but maybe other women had sensed this thing in him, the monster prowling behind the friendly, quiet face and soft-spoken demeanor.
If she was surprised to see Jim —law-desk Jim the reference librarian—standing there in the shadows, Sarah was good enough at bravado to hide it.
"You," she said, as if she'd known all along. And maybe part of her had suspected. She'd made a mental tally of everyone she knew whose first or last name started with the letter J, after all.
"Who else?" he said, still soft voiced like they were standing in the law library instead of a public park, but there wasn't anything pleasant about it. "What do you think you're doing?"
"Getting rid of the gifts," she said. "I don't want them. I never did."
His gloved hands clenched. "You kept them, you wanted them."
"No, I really didn't," she said. She struck the match and dropped it in. The lighter fluid caught quickly, and the acrid stench of all the things inside going up in flames smelled like an exorcism. The light danced over them both like hellfire, casting strange flickering shadows all around. It made even the trees seem to lean ominously closer.
"Is it because I'm ugly?" he asked. He breathed hard, nostrils flared like a bull. "If I was sexier, you'd have wanted them. You'd be flattered . You should be flattered." This last muttered, sulky as a teenager, unattractive in a thirty year old man.
She shook her head. "You're not ugly. I never thought that." The old female instinct, to soothe that which was dangerous, grated on her a little. She hadn't really thought much of him at all, to be perfectly honest. He'd never really talked to her or approached her, never gave her a chance to know him. "But I wouldn't have wanted this , any of this, no matter what you looked like. It was creepy. If you'd wanted to ask me out, you should have just asked. Talked to me, like a person, not … whatever the hell this was supposed to be."
It was like he hadn't heard her, though. His fair skin was flushed and slightly mottled from cold or emotion, or both. In the reflected firelight, his eyes burned. "You were supposed to love me. I love you, Sarah. Can't you see that? I know you. I know how much you long for fairy tales, for a romance like in all those books you love so much. I've read all of them, you know. I looked up your check out history, at work. I've read everything you've ever read. All those books, in your office, too."
Sarah thought she might choke on her revulsion. He hadn't just sent her an army: he'd been silently invading for months, creeping behind the lines.
"I know your favorite colors and foods and movies, even what you're allergic to. I know all about your family, your dad and stepmother, Toby, your slutty mother. How much you love games." He laughed, but it was a harsh, ugly sound. "I even know about the kinky stories you like to read when you think no one is watching. I know that you long to be dominated, to kneel before your king. I know your dreams . I know everything about you. Isn't that love?"
Violated, repulsed, she still managed to stay calm. "No, it's not." Only one person had ever truly known her dreams well enough to offer them, and she'd defeated him, too. "That's not how love works."
He sneered, and it curdled what handsomeness was given him into something grotesque. "You're a frigid bitch , you know that? Always teasing me, flaunting yourself in front of me, like you thought you were better than everyone else. And now this … You wanted me to come after you. Admit it. You just needed someone to show you. That's what you really want, isn't it? Someone to take you?" His posture hunched, coiled. Off in the distance, an owl screeched a hunting call.
She shook her head, watchful now, careful. "No. That's not what I want."
"What do you want, then?" he demanded. She took the bag of notes out of her purse, held it up.
"I want this to stop ," she said, and dumped the papers into the flames. They went up like moths.
She had half expected it, known she was taunting him beyond his limits.
How do you like my Labyrinth, Sarah?
It's a piece of cake.
Maybe she just wanted to see what he'd do. If he'd back off. If he'd see reason. But some monsters can't be reasoned with.
He lunged at her, empty handed since she'd forced the confrontation before he was ready for it. Still, he made due. Her heart raced, and she reached for her pepper spray, but he was faster, or the snow was slick and her hands were numb with cold, and the next thing she knew he had wrenched her arm behind her back painfully and had his other hand around her throat beneath her scarf. He pressed against her, breathing hard, and she could feel how all this was affecting him, even through their layers upon layers of clothing.
"I'll show you," he muttered, hot against her ear, incensed. He bent down, bit at her neck where her scarf had fallen loose. It hurt, more than just skin deep, it bruised something in her soul. "I'll show you how much I love you. Say you love me, Sarah. Say it and I'll go easy on you."
Say your right words , Sarah thought.
She didn't scream it. Didn't yell. Barely whispered it, in fact, given the hand around her throat. But she meant it: every damned word.
"I wish the goblins would come and take you away. Right now ."
And she was heard.
Thunder, this time of year, wasn't exactly seasonal, but it was certainly dramatic. Lightning flashed close by, illuminating the scene briefly. Snow began to fall around them, even as a strangely hot wind picked up and made it swirl in glittering eddies. A dusty, scorched scent came with it, like an old car with leather seats left in the sun on a summer's day, out of place and iron-laced in the midst of winter.
Something in the dark snickered.
Something else moved between the trees.
"What the hell?" Jim said, still gripping her arm tightly.
"You should let me go," she said.
"Like hell I will," he said, twisting her with him as he tried to track the suddenly mobile shadows that danced and darted at the edges of their vision. Red eyes abruptly gleamed in the dark, first a single pair, then more—a hundred tiny, evil sparks of light.
Whispers, sibilant and sinister, surrounded them. Skittering claws over gravel, the sounds of things moving and muttering, low and hungry .
"What is this?" Jim demanded. "What kind of fucking trick is this? Who's out there?"
Cackling laughter now, loud and sharp as glass, from several dozen inhuman throats answered him before falling into ominous silence.
That strange scalding wind picked up, the snow turning to stinging sleet where it fell, although beyond the firelight it drifted peacefully enough. Something white and ghostlike streamed between the trees, crying out a banshee screech of rage. She knew what it was, who it was, even before his huge wings battered around them. Razor talons raked devastatingly close before he swooped away and shifted. Lightning struck again close by, ozone mingling with that hot iron smell and the stench of the burning gifts. Magic glittered and swirled in the air, dancing with the snow and sleet.
And then the Goblin King was there, dressed head to toe in unrelieved, armored black, his starlight hair longer than she remembered and drifting around him in the breeze, while his tattered cloak billowed and swirled, snapping around his ankles like an angry thing.
"Nice entrance," she managed, just before Jim twisted her arm hard and she gasped with pain.
"What the fuck ?" he said, sounding a little high-pitched in his panic. In the darkness, goblins snickered. "Who the hell are you?"
Apparently he didn't know everything about her after all.
She remembered the Goblin King's mismatched eyes, the way they seemed to peer through you, into you, stripping you down to who you were in the dark, when no one else was watching. They landed on her, first, but there was no surprise in them, just cool assessment, as if he were cataloguing the changes in her between this time and the last and found them mildly intriguing. She remembered that the last time she'd seen him, he'd looked resigned. Tired. Defeated.
He had his mojo back now.
Jareth shifted his unsettling gaze just past her, at the asshole that was still attempting to dislocate her shoulder. She bit her cheek to keep from crying out; her shoulder throbbed and burned in protest.
"I should ask you the same question." Oh, that voice. Jim had been soft spoken, but Jareth's voice was something silken and deadly, casual malice in every word. Jim shrank back a little, but he pulled her with him.
"Get the hell out of here," he snarled at the Goblin King. "She's mine."
"Strange. I was under the impression that Sarah was her own," Jareth said, conversationally. "She reminded me once, quite convincingly, that no one has power over her. Not even I. Certainly not you ."
"What the fuck kind of crazy eighties hair metal band reject are you? You need to get the hell out of here before I hurt you."
Sarah considered warning Jim how well Jareth reacted to bravado, but the way he clung to her like she was a meat shield decided her against it.
"Oh? Do I?" Jareth's eyes widened. He looked deceptively innocent, if any major predator could ever be said to look innocent. He was a lion, playing with its food. "I rather think not. You see, a wish has been made, and although I'm obligated to fulfill it, I find myself almost eager to grant this one," he purred, all gleaming teeth and glittering eyes. From around them, from the shadows, the goblins chittered excitedly.
"What the hell are you talking about? What wish?" Sarah could feel the panic in Jim's body, could smell the sweat on him. If she , with her blunt, almost useless human nose could smell it, Jareth could probably taste Jim's fear from where he stood. The Goblin King had not moved so much as an inch. He didn't need to: he was a nightmare incarnate. Sarah was aware that even if Jim had no idea who he was facing, some part of him recognized what Jareth was: fear given form .
Jim's arms tightened around her and Sarah hissed with pain when he wrenched her arm again. It hurt , but she would not cry out and give him that satisfaction. Jareth's eyes shifted abruptly to her, narrowing, predatory. "While I appreciate all this male posturing, could we get on with it, please?" she gasped.
"Shut up." Jim tightened his hand on her throat until it hurt to breathe. "Get on with what?"
Jareth merely smiled, his gaze firmly on hers now, an anchor for her to hold on to. "As you wish."
She hadn't seen the goblins take Toby. She hoped it wasn't anything like this.
The creatures that she sometimes thought of as her friends swarmed out of the shadows, a nightmare horde of horns and claws and teeth and talons, beaks and fangs and twisted, warped limbs. She thought she even saw the flicker of Didymus's tail amongst them. Red, gleaming eyes shone in the darkness as they rushed toward her in a black wave, and past, a tsunami of grotesque little bodies ripping Jim away from her without even a struggle. His hand was on her throat, her arm caught, and then she was freed so abruptly she stumbled.
Sarah gasped, gripping her shoulder through her coat, and almost sagged with relief. A gloved hand reached out and caught her, steadied her, and then politely withdrew to a safe distance.
"Will you be wanting this one back as well?" Jareth asked. His head was tilted slightly to the side, curious, like a cat. Or an owl.
They were alone now, but for the wind and a few lingering goblins who'd remained behind to climb up on the trash can and pull the still smoldering debris out of it. One gnawed on the edge of a charred and blackened book to see how it tasted. Another tucked a twisted, cracked, half-melted crystal sculpture into its pocket. Little bits of burnt parchment paper and ash drifted around them, littering the pristine snow.
"I don't think so," she said, rubbing her bruised throat. "If it's all the same to you, you can keep him."
A crystal rolled up Jareth's arm to rest on his fingertips, and he looked into it. It shone in the moonlight like a captured star. As she watched, though, it turned cloudy and dark, as if filled with ink.
"I don't think you'd like to know what he dreamed of," Jareth said, and there was something slithering and anticipatory in his tone, like he'd just sighted a meal.
"Yeah," Sarah said, still feeling shaky. "I think I've got a pretty good idea what he dreamed of. I don't really want to know any more than I already do."
"Wise decision. You're well rid of him," Jareth said, and he did something fluid with his hands, making the crystal disappear. He regarded her for a long moment, studying her as if she were a puzzle to be solved. "Why did you not call for assistance earlier, before he harmed you? We were watching."
"You were watching?" she said. "I thought you couldn't come until the words were spoken."
"I could not intervene ," he said. "But I knew you were likely to make a wish. I can always sense it, before it happens. Time is fluid, after all. I usually watch, before the words are said, to size up my opponent. But I would have known this time, regardless."
She frowned, thinking back to an owl that had watched her in the park, the day she'd wished Toby away. "How?"
Jareth turned, glancing into the shadows of the trees as if he could see into the darkness. "You can come out now, Hoggle."
Sarah followed his gaze and finally spotted him cowering behind a nearby bush. The guilty look on his face said everything. "Hoggle!"
"I'm not ashamed of nothin'," he said, straightening a little and stepping into the open. "You needed help. I showed him the note, told him what was goin' on. I'm not ashamed," he repeated. "I'd do it again." Hoggle ducked away and disappeared. He'd meant well, at least.
"The little traitor claimed that you thought it was me," Jareth said, very casually, as if they were discussing the weather.
She couldn't help but give a sheepish shrug. "If you'd seen the sort of things he wrote, you'd have understood. It seemed like the kind of thing someone like you might do," she said, defensively.
"Really, Sarah. I think I have better things to do with my life than stalk a woman who I met, briefly, as a child, nearly two decades ago." His lashes lowered to hood his eyes, and his voice dripped with disdain. "You think very highly of yourself."
"I don't," she said. "I know that I'm kind of an insignificant footnote in your ridiculously long lifespan. It was just too … similar. He knew me better than I would have liked." It hurt a little, how easily she'd been deceived, without his ever intending it.
"If he thought showering you with gifts and insinuating notes in order to manipulate your affections was something you dreamed of, he did not know you at all," Jareth said, with the tone of someone who had once underestimated her, and never would again. "As to the rest," he paused, looking thoughtful. "I would not say you are insignificant."
"No?" she asked, peering up into those unsettling eyes. She was taller now, so it wasn't quite so far a distance.
"You did solve my Labyrinth," he said, simply, without a trace of rancor or menace. "And defeated me ." His wide, sensual mouth curled a little at the edges, as if he were pleased by that thought.
"Thank you," she said, feeling a little grateful — not only for the rescue, but because he'd somehow managed to hand her back her self-respect. She tucked her hands in her pockets, her shoulder aching with pain and cold. Her ears and cheeks were growing numb and she was afraid if she stayed out any longer, her nose might start to run, which would be a bit embarrassing in present company. Despite her discomfort, she was strangely loathe to end the conversation. "I'm sorry if I … misjudged you."
"It would not be the first time," he said with a graceful shrug. The breeze caught and tugged at his long, cobweb fine hair and the edge of his cloak, but his skin remained pale and luminescent. If the frigid temperatures bothered him, he did not show it, though his breath fogged when he spoke, as if betraying his possibility. "After all, the last we met, I played the villain. We were not … friends." The way he said it, as if he'd dredged the word up from the back of his memory and dusted it off just for her, struck a chord in her.
She thought about Hoggle, cowardly and greedy and selfish, and also steadfast and loyal and brave when it counted most. She thought about Jareth, throwing darts at a clock, alone and bored and forgotten. He didn't look bored now. "Would you like to be?" she offered, freely, without strings, the way such things should be done.
Jareth looked at her with something akin to surprise, although much less human. The wind danced between them. Snow fell gently now, hushing the world to a breathless silence. "Yes," he said finally, "I believe I would."
"Really?" she couldn't help but ask.
"Time grants new perspective," he said, soft as the snow. Her heart, which had remained cold and unmoved beneath showers of gifts, gave a warm little thump. He was still beautiful and terrifying, still a monster.
Some monsters, she knew, were worth befriending.
"Do you have to, you know, go do Goblin King stuff? I did just wish away a thirty year old psychopathic reference librarian."
"I put him in the tunnels. The Cleaners should be through shortly."
She laughed. It was terrible of her, maybe cruel, but she laughed. Innocent, my ass , she thought.
"Well," she said slowly. "If you're not busy, would you ... like to walk me home? I could make tea and we could … catch up."
He appeared to consider that for a moment. "On one condition." Of course there was a catch. She waited for it. "You must explain this game the goblins have told me of, with the dead body and the Peacocks and the Green Man."
"Is that all?" She nearly laughed. "It's a deal."
His outline blurred, obscured further by a gust of snow. When it cleared, he was dressed as a mortal man: black slacks; a long, heavy gray wool coat that hung nearly to his ankles, with a high collar pulled up against the wind; a thick cashmere scarf tucked around his throat; shiny black shoes and black leather gloves. His face was unchanged, and his hair still long, drifting around his shoulders, the tips of it nearly brushing his waist. Dressed as a human, but by no means human at all. It was a good look on him, she thought.
He fell in beside her, not offering her a hand or an arm, allowing her to progress on her own two feet. As he always had.
"Do you have any chamomile?" he asked.
Behind them, the goblins dug through the ashes, claiming what was unwanted for their own.
THE END
(maybe)
Author's Notes: I'm in the process of working on a longer, multi-chapter Labyrinth fic, but I took a little detour to write this after reading ... well ... a lot of Labyrinth fanfic that glorifies creepy stalking behavior and rewards it with romance. I've never been a fan of the "Jareth has been stalking Sarah since she was fourteen because he's in loooove" storyline.
I mean, I know it's a trope in this fandom, but it probably shouldn't be? That's not how love works, y'all. Some people do it well, but most ... don't. I'm much more a fan of ambiguous, antipathetic Jareth. There's not enough of him in this fandom.
Also: if you ever find yourself in a situation like Sarah's, and you DON'T have a horde of angry goblins and a powerful supernatural being on your side, please, please, please report it to someone who can help you. It's not romantic. It's not sexy. You are not obligated to return unasked for love/lust/affection. Also, don't confront your stalker in the park. Sarah's got resources we mere mortals can only dream of.
As for that "maybe" at the end ... When I'm done with longer things that are eating up my brain, I could see myself eventually revisiting this Jareth and Sarah, and seeing where that offer of friendship and cups of tea take them. Maybe.