Part 1- Say Your Right Words
"'Say your right words!' the goblins said. 'And we will keep the baby forever and ever and ever. And you will be free.'"
Sarah drew in a wistful breath through her nose and lifted her eyes to meet their surprised reflection in Toby's dresser mirror. Eyebrows, once black and unkempt, had long been wrestled under control, but the look of alert was still identical to the one on the face of two and a half years' ago.
Life had taken a definite uphill swing since her race to save her brother from the Labyrinth. She had long understood that the Goblin King had used her brother as a pawn to lure her into his domain; he had never really wanted Toby for his own. But the baby was handy. He had taunted Sarah with Toby and Sarah had learnt that taking people for granted, babies or Goblin Kings was foolhardy and possibly dangerous. So her attitude had turned.
Her father and stepmother Karen had graciously removed the granted they had too placed on Sarah in light of Sarah's renewed outlook on life, and in return she accepted and even embraced the life within her home that she had always been passively resisting. A weekend spent away with her father in Maine shortly after the Labyrinth had lain to rest many of the insecurities and resentments that she had been carrying around with her since her mother left and Karen came into the picture. Things weren't perfect, but at least now she had come to accept them, and realised that her father still thought of her as a person rather than as a built-in babysitter. Occasionally though, she still had urges to behave or respond in a passive aggressive manner, but more often than not, she felt childhood tendencies slipping from her shoulders ever since the night she began packing away her trinkets inside the drawers of her dressing table.
But tonight was the first time in a long time that she had caught herself whispering remembered words from that night long ago. And fancy being those words, Sarah thought to herself. How perditious. Her stretch of growing up had also included an improved vocabulary, thanks to a renewed concentration at school instead of spending hours dreaming of fantasy situation that usually involved her as the heroine, and tall tragic heroes. Say Your Right Words had become an auspicious theme in Sarah's life as she learned how to communicate better to her father and Karen and how to state what she wanted and needed. As it turned out, people weren't mind readers, and as Sarah slowly learned this, she herself had settled into a happier and much more secure place.
Which is why she felt so surprised to find herself, out of the blue, whispering Goblin dialogue in the middle of putting away pairs of Toby's clean socks. The last time she hissed these words, she was in character, frustrated, angry, and hard done by. She had wished her brother away- and he had been taken. Not stolen, as she had later corrected herself, but taken as per her will. But that was ages ago, she thought. She wasn't mad at Toby now. Nor herself. Sarah stood in Toby's room, looking at her won reflection, in an empty house on a Saturday night. Her father and Karen had taken Toby to Connecticut for the weekend to visit Karen's parents, and Sarah, two weeks into eighteen years old, had remained behind for some quality down time. And now she was putting away tiny socks which, although a chore, Sarah didn't mind doing. She loved her brother. She didn't take him for granted, especially now. So what evil sprite perched upon her shoulder and urged her to reminisce with these words upon her lips?
Smiling at her own fanciful thoughts, she put the whisper away as a random childhood throwback. Pressing her teeth over her tongue, Sarah flounced out of the room and down the stairs to collect a new stack of clean Toby shirts to put away.