The truth is rarely pure and never simple. - Oscar Wilde
~oOo~
Sarah had, about a week after her 'adventure' in the Labyrinth, called to Sir Didymus, and for more than just a friendly chat. It was perhaps some strange coincidence, or it could have been just the standard high school curriculum, but either way (and it could very well have been both) the teacher had started them studying Greek myth, and handed out reading assignments to everybody. No two people had the same myth, so there could be no cheating when it came time to write a report back on some particular aspect of their designated myth.
Sarah had received the story of Hades and Persephone. That, in turn, had reminded her of a bit of fairy lore that her Grandmama (mother's side) had told her when she was a little girl – don't eat food offered by the fair folk, or you would be trapped in their world forever.
Sarah had taken a bite out of that peach Hoggle had given her, after all, and children as young as Toby had been then needed to be fed fairly regularly. Chances were good that Toby had been fed while he'd been in the Goblin King's castle. Or he wouldn't have looked as content as he had been when Sarah finally reached him.
He'd probably had his nappy changed too, and probably by magic, since, no matter how hard she tried, Sarah just could not imagine the Goblin King changing a nappy – and the goblins would have gotten it wrong.
Sarah asked Sir Didymus how long she and Toby had before the Goblin King would reclaim them, since they'd eaten fairy food.
"My Lady," Sir Didymus said with a smile. "Ye have naught to fear, for indeed, you are quite mistaken in this matter. You and young Sir Toby did not eat fairy foodstuffs."
"We didn't?" Sarah asked, confused.
"Nay, but rather faerie foodstuffs," Sir Didymus declared. "Most assuredly, tis quite different."
"I don't understand," Sarah admitted with consternation and a will to understand.
"A fairy, Milady, is one of those nasty, pesky little miscreants that Sir Hoggle sprays about the outer wall of the Labyrinth. They are mean, full of falsehoods, and not to be trusted. Quite apart from having an unpleasant bite, those horrid little things will steal people away, and then play such underhanded tricks so that their victims should never escape their grasp," Sir Didymus explained.
"Alright," Sarah agreed, understanding that much.
"A faerie, on the other hand, such as His Majesty, never says anything that is not true, and so may be trusted at his word," Sir Didymus continued.
Sarah blinked in shock as that registered in her brain.
"Though, I grant thee, sometimes the faerie will tie the truth is such knots. Still, the truth it be, and they have honour. His Majesty did, forsooth, bend the rules when ye did run the Labyrinth, but not once did he go so far as to break them. Now, as for your concern over that which thy good self and thy brother did consume, again I say: fear not!" Sir Didymus declared brightly. "For tis a blessing. Because my lady has partaken of sup from the Underground, she shall always be gifted with the sight to see its denizens, e'en when we come above."
"And Toby will be able to see them too, for the same reason?" Sarah guessed.
"Aye, my Lady," Sir Didymus confirmed.
Sarah smiled in relief. "Thank you, Sir Didymus," she said gratefully. "Now, would you care for a game of scrabble?"
"Forsooth and verily!" Sir Didymus declared happily.
Sarah pulled down her largest and most comprehensive dictionary, as well as the scrabble set, and the two sat across from each other on her bed.
The game lasted a good hour before Sir Didymus finally won. Sarah's best word had been 'queenly', which she'd been rather proud of until Sir Didymus had pulled out 'xenophobia'. He had managed to stretch it over a triple-word-score square, with the 'x' on a double-letter-score, to boot. The old fox definitely had a way with words, especially on the scrabble board.
A cry sounded loudly from the next room.
Sarah groaned. "He's got timing, I'll give him that," Sarah moaned.
"My Lady?" Sir Didymus enquired curiously.
"Toby," Sarah answered as she stood. "Was gracious enough to wait until our game was complete before complaining about being hungry, in need of a fresh nappy, or just plain lonely and bored in the cot now that he's woken up. I've got to go," she said.
Sir Didymus nodded in bewildered understanding. "Art not thine parents...?"
Sarah shook her head before he could finish the question. "Nope, just him and me. Dad and Irene won't be back from the office for another few hours yet. I'll see you later, Sir Didymus," she said with a tired smile, and waved him off as she headed out of her bedroom door across the hall to where Toby was crying.
Sir Didymus faded away behind her, gone back to the Labyrinth, still confused as to why Sarah and her brother were alone in the house.
Toby was cared for by Mrs Norris, next door, while Sarah was at school. The woman was about seventy years old, a widow, and a grandmother who didn't get to see her children, or her grandchildren, nearly as much as she would have liked to. The dear old woman currently lived on her pension and the money she and her husband had saved when they were much younger, and was always happy to have children in the house.
She'd cared for Sarah when the mess of Robert and Linda's divorce had been happening, keeping her happy and away from the fighting, providing a neutral territory where either one of Sarah's parents were welcome to spend time with her, so that they could foster positive relations with the only thing they still had in common.
When Sarah got out of school though, she collected Toby from Mrs Norris and took him home again – and then he was her responsibility. Feeding, changing, keeping him happy... until Robert got home and let her go to have some time to herself. If she was a bit late sometimes collecting him from her, Mrs Norris didn't mind. She couldn't be so late that Irene and her dad got back first though, or there'd be trouble.
Sarah got Toby out of the cot, put a peg over her nose, changed his nappy, then took him and her bag (her school bag, which had her homework in it) downstairs. With her baby brother cradled on one hip and supported by one arm, Sarah went about fixing up a bottle for him, then she headed into the lounge room, settled into a comfy chair next to a coffee table, made sure he was supported, and set about feeding him with one hand while she did her homework on the coffee table with the other.
Sarah managed to get her homework done in about the same amount of time it took Toby to get through that bottle.
She quickly packed up her books, tossed a cloth over her shoulder, and then set Toby against that same shoulder. She'd be able to burp him as she headed back upstairs. Bag and homework deposited in her room, Toby was burped, and set back into his cot.
Sarah made sure he had Lancelot, wound up a music box (not her precious music box though, this one was baby-safe and played Yankee Doodle), and set it down to play. If he was still awake when it wound down, he'd let her know.
Her brother tended to for now, Sarah headed back down to the kitchen, intent on making a snack for herself.
Then the phone rang.
"Williams' residence, Sarah Williams speaking," Sarah answered.
"Sarah! Just the beauty I was looking for! How are you dear?"
Sarah smiled. "I'm fine Mom," she answered happily. "How are you and Jeremy? Oh, congratulations on your latest show, by the way."
"Thank you Sarah," Linda said, a pleased tone carrying even through the phone line. "We're both doing well, though we both wish you could have been there on opening night."
Sarah sighed. "Yeah," she agreed. "I bet it was fantastic."
"Of course, it's the closing night that's the real party," Linda confided, an old repetition. "But I suppose your darling step-mother won't let you come for that either. Well, I'll send you a copy of the programme and all."
"Thanks, and I'd put money on you being right about that," Sarah replied with a nod her mother couldn't see. "I'm almost looking forward to the tantrum she'll throw when I'm old enough to go to college."
Linda hummed in amusement. "Yes, because Toby won't be old enough by then to be left on his own, will he?"
"No," Sarah confirmed. "He'll only be three-and-change when I'll be leaving for college."
"Any thought yet about what you'd like to study?" Linda asked hopefully.
Sarah laughed. "Why Mother! Of course I intend to study the theatre!" Sarah proclaimed with great melodrama.
On the other end of the line, Linda laughed at her daughter's sarcastic melodrama, and waited for the 'no, seriously though' to come. It was interrupted.
"Sarah!" Irene snapped, having come through the door in time to hear that declaration. "Life is not some silly fairy-story! You can't get through life on wishes and dreams!"
Sarah barely glanced over her shoulder at the woman. She must have lost track of time, if the office was already closed for the day. She hadn't even noticed the sound of her dad's car pulling into the drive.
Sarah rolled her eyes silently, and turned her back to her step-mother once more. She knew that, and full-well, thank you very much. She really didn't need Irene to be forever harping on at her about that. Fairy-tales had happy endings, after all, and Sarah's only happy ending to date was still tinged with grief, sorrow, belated revelations, and bitterness.
Faeries didn't lie?
Sarah was sure that she'd be filling a whole diary with trying to figure out the Goblin King in her spare time, after what Sir Didymus had told her that afternoon.
"Uh-oh," Linda sing-songed. "Sounds like the banshee has returned. I guess I'd better let you go Sweetheart."
"Any messages you want me to pass on?" Sarah asked.
"No," Linda said. "I just wanted to check in on my treasure, make sure you were happy and healthy. You are, aren't you? I mean, excepting the presence of the banshee," Linda added with a conspiring and sympathetic tone.
"Yeah, I am," Sarah agreed.
"Good. You should get that parcel in the post from Jeremy and me some time this week or next, as long as it doesn't get lost along the way. Love you lots," Linda bid.
"You too Mom," Sarah answered quietly.
"Don't you ignore me young lady!" Irene screeched.
Sarah didn't turn.
"Bye."
"Bye."
Sarah hung up the phone just as her father called her name in a warning tone. She turned, curious to see what he could possibly be about to reprimand her over.
"Don't be rude to your mother," he warned her.
Sarah raised an eyebrow at him. "I wasn't," she answered pertly. "I just finished saying goodbye to her," she added, with a gesture to the phone.
Robert blinked. "Oh," he said softly.
"Robert!" Irene exclaimed emphatically.
"Toby should be asleep," Sarah said plainly, ignoring her step-mother as she spoke to her father. "I have fed and changed him, and my homework's done. I'm going for a walk."
"Okay, Pumpkin," Robert agreed with a tired sigh, and loosened his tie a bit before he started for the stairs.
"Be back by six," Irene ordered Sarah pertly as the girl swept past her towards the door. "Your father and I have a business dinner tonight."
"Sure, whatever," Sarah dismissed, and picked up Merlin's leash from by the door.
Irene didn't like Merlin. Apart from the fact that she just plain didn't like anything that so effortlessly made a mess, and Merlin was a very shaggy dog, he'd been a present to Sarah from Linda. He'd been a parting gift from mother to daughter when the whole messy business had been resolved.
Robert, a more conscientious father than he was a husband, had put off bringing Irene home to meet Sarah until a month after the divorce. By that time, Merlin was firmly entrenched as a member of the household, and Sarah generally let her puppy sleep on her bed.
Irene had been doing her best to force dog and girl apart since she'd married Robert, a year almost to the day after the divorce had been finalised. The only reason, Sarah was sure, that they hadn't actually married on the anniversary of the divorce was because that would have seen them marry on a Tuesday, instead of a Sunday as Irene had wanted.
"Come on Merlin!" Sarah called to where the now large dog was stretched out on the porch. "Time for a walk!"
~oOo~
It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious. - Oscar Wilde
~oOo~
The parcel arrived from her mother and Jeremy a week later, just as Linda had promised. Included was a programme, signed by the entire cast of the production that Linda was currently performing in, as well as some of the better merchandise that would be available to the attending public – and some that would only be available to the cast and crew. There was a box of Sarah's favourite chocolates, and an extra bundle within the plain brown cardboard box that was wrapped up in shining silver paper.
There had been another reason she was so very upset about having babysitting duty the night she had ended up wishing Toby away and running the Labyrinth. It was her birthday. Her fifteenth birthday – and they had gone out on a damn date, completely forgetting that it was supposed to be her day!
Well, Sarah had managed to guilt-trip the pair of them quite effectively the next morning at breakfast. Even Irene had been a little apologetic. Birthdays were a thing the woman could respect for everybody, because, after all, if she didn't respect other people's birthdays, didn't get them nice gifts, then how could she possibly expect them to do the same for her?
And she was very firm that she should always get nice things for her birthday.
"Looking forward to your birthday, Sweetie?" Robert had asked when he spotted Sarah at the breakfast table, looking through a catalogue. "Anything in there you'd like?"
"It was yesterday, Dad," Sarah had answered flatly, and when she'd looked up, the man looked like he'd been punched solidly in a very tender place. He'd given her a Hallmark card with fifty dollars in it when he got back from the office that evening.
Right now though, that was neither here nor there.
Linda, on the other hand, never forgot, and never got the date wrong. She'd actually called the afternoon before, because she would be absolutely flat out with rehearsals as of Sarah's birthday – but they had that day off while the set was moved in and finalised.
This parcel in the mail included Sarah's birthday present. Linda had explained when she'd called the day before her birthday that Sarah's gift had been ordered, custom, for her, and was proving more time-consuming to produce than originally estimated by the person making it – so, Linda said with a genuine apology, it was going to be a late gift.
Linda and Jeremy had still arranged for another gift to arrive on her birthday, a surprise, since they hadn't told her about it. The lovely dress and the garland of flowers that had arrived that day in the post had been so lovely that Sarah had put them on and gone to the park the first chance she'd gotten, and there she had play-acted the lines of the heroine from the book Granny Fitzpatrick (Linda's mother) had sent as a Christmas present to Sarah the previous year. Granny Fitzpatrick wasn't very good at remembering birthdays, but she always sent something at Christmas.
That the rain had nearly ruined the dress and garland had upset Sarah before she'd gotten home, and then Irene's reception had only made everything worse...
That didn't matter now though. Right now, here was the special gift Linda had promised. Made especially for Sarah, and wrapped up in paper that was so pretty she would save it for her scrap-booking. Carefully, Sarah peeled up the tape.
Beneath the silver paper was a red velvet box.
Sarah smiled. A box inside a parcel. A careful inspection proved that the red velvet box had a seam that ran from the top, down the sides, almost to the bottom and around. With equal parts eagerness and care, Sarah raised the top.
Her breath caught.
Inside that box was the most beautiful jewellery. Earrings, a necklace, pieces to thread through her hair... and a mask. A mask like the ones that the people had been wearing in the ballroom when she'd been in the Labyrinth. Except that where those masks had been frightening and grotesque, this mask was beautiful.
It looked as delicate as lace, but it was gold and silver with clear gems that matched the other jewellery, gems that Sarah was tempted to believe were real diamonds. There were also small, delicately made leaves and flowers of white silk hanging from where the ties for the mask were attached.
Sarah knew that, regardless of whether or not the diamonds were real, her mother had really gone overboard this year. She also knew she was keeping this a secret from Irene, as well as out of Toby's reach. For that matter, she was keeping these somewhere that the goblins wouldn't get to either. Yes, a few of the goblins had taken to visiting her. It wasn't just Hoggle and Sir Didymus and Ludo, but other denizens of the Labyrinth occasionally dropped in on her as well.
Safe places in her room were hard to pick though. A place that was safe from goblins was in danger from Irene, and vice versa.
Then Sarah spotted her window seat. It was hollow, had a lid that opened, and it could be locked.
Now, locks were no protection against goblins, as they could go anywhere, but the lid was also quite heavy. The goblins preferred to come through her closet or appear out from under her bed, or at least, so far that was the trend anyway. Both ways required very little effort on the part of the goblins. Sarah figured it was probably a safe choice away from them.
Locks were practically a challenge of authority to Irene though. If something was locked in the house, Irene made it her personal mission to acquire the key. Fortunately for Sarah though, the latches for the window seat were at the very edges, rather than in the middle, and practically invisible if you didn't know they were there. Irene wouldn't even know about these locks to want to break into what would be hidden behind them.
So much the better.
Even though she didn't have any locks for her window seat yet, Sarah was still quick to hide her extravagant gift away. The clock claimed that her dad and Irene wouldn't be back for another hour, but Sarah had no desire at all to risk it.
With the contents of her parcel from Linda and Jeremy all safely stashed away and the box itself taken out to the recycling, Sarah returned inside and settled down on her window seat with a pencil between her fingers.
Her conversation with Sir Didymus had inevitably led to more time spent thinking about every instance where Sarah had spoken with the Goblin King, just as she had known it would. Also in line with her predictions, Sarah was rapidly filling a diary with dissections of those quips and comments. She did her best to recall what had been said exactly, and then following she would pull it all apart and do her best to consider every possible alternative meaning.
Every possible meaning.
Including the meanings she really didn't like, the meanings she didn't for a second believe, and every other option in between and beyond.
Some things that had been said, things which Sarah had only taken under one single interpretation before, suddenly had three or five different possible meanings – and then, sitting there, Sarah realised that the Goblin King could well have treated everything she said then as she was now considering everything that he'd said, and suddenly Sarah was going over it all again, looking for extra shades of meaning that she hadn't meant but that he might have heard and responded to anyway.
Sarah hadn't even finished going through it all when she reached the conclusion that she owed the Goblin King a big fat apology.
Sarah put away the diary and, with thoughts of how to apologise bubbling away in her brain, decided that the time had come to sort through the things she hoarded in her room. Storybooks that Toby would enjoy in a year or two were set on her bed and would be returned to a specific shelf later, separate from those of her books that she would keep for herself. Toys were considered and reconsidered and sorted into three different piles: those that weren't going anywhere, those that would be kept for Toby and/or any children Sarah might some day have, and those that would go to the Salvation Army.
Things that were definitely staying though were her craft things. She had always loved making things – she'd learned from Linda, and Linda had learned from Granny Fitzpatrick. It was something that mother and daughter had done together for generations in their family.
Scrap-booking was the first thing her mother had taught Sarah. How to fix a dress-up when it had been torn was the second. From fixing torn dress-ups, Sarah had moved on to learning how to make toys. Lancelot had actually been the first bear she'd made with her mother. Other toys had followed, and after the divorce, Sarah had begun making stranger creatures. The ones that bore such resemblances to denizens of the Labyrinth had all been sewn just in the last year, inspired by the book Granny Fitzpatrick had sent her.
A love of the otherworldly, the fantastic, and the make-believe was something else that got passed down from mother to daughter in her family. Sarah rather suspected that caution over such was also generally passed down, but the divorce had ripped Sarah from Linda before they had quite gotten around to that lesson.
And whatever the tabloids said, it wasn't Linda and Jeremy having an affair that had led to the divorce, if anyone had cared to ask Sarah that, she'd have told them. The divorce wasn't because of her mother, and it wasn't because of Jeremy.
Sarah liked Jeremy. He and Linda weren't married. They weren't even in that sort of relationship, not really. It was just that he and Linda frequently played opposite each other as romantic leads, and having to kiss someone that often rather brings forth a need to be at least friends. Actually, Jeremy preferred men, but that wasn't really... socially acceptable (a dreamy romantic lead who preferred other men?! There'd be an absolute riot if his adoring public ever found out). He was a great actor though, and Linda was his friend, after having to kiss him that much.
So they lived together, and Jeremy's socially-unacceptable-inclinations were kept quiet, and he treated Sarah like a favourite niece or little sister he hardly ever got to see.
It worked for them.
So, even though Jeremy wasn't her step-father, and likely wasn't about to become so any time this century or the next, Sarah liked him infinitely more than she liked Irene. The woman Robert had been cheating on Linda with, (apparently and according to him) as a sort of defence against the fact that she was a romantic lead and had to kiss another man.
Bah. Robert was a good lawyer, an excellent one even, but he was a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic in most other aspects of life – and Irene was his secretary at the office, which had made the affair apparently that much easier to conduct.
Irene may do her best to play the injured party to Robert when Sarah displayed her contempt of the woman, but really, the vapid woman with her grating voice and absolutely minimal consideration had already firmly installed herself as 'that home-wrecking bitch' in Sarah's mind. It was a title that Irene rarely went a day without living up to in some way. The only good thing to come from the whole mess had been Toby, and even then, even though she'd faced dangers untold and hardships unnumbered to retrieve him, the jury was still out.
After all, Toby would prove in just a few short years how much of a complete brat he could be, and the infamous 'terrible twos' would be upon them before long, and as his primary care-giver (apart from Mrs Norris next door), Sarah would be the one to bear the brunt of that trying time.
Especially since Toby had just the other day happily yelled out "mummy!" when Sarah had collected him from Mrs Norris' house.
Both the old woman and the teenager had sworn to the other that they had not taught the boy that, and Mrs Norris had promised not to mention it to Irene or Robert. Such news would, after all, only further infuriate Irene, and she'd take it out on Sarah in extremely subtle ways.
Like setting her up on mid-week dates with the most obnoxious son of a senior partner she could find.
She hadn't done it yet, but every time Irene told Sarah that "you should go on dates at your age", it was a subtle threat of that arrangement being made should Irene be too displeased with Sarah's conduct.
And it would be a mid-week date. That way, it would interrupt Sarah's much-needed study time without disrupting whatever frivolous and expensive booking Irene had made for herself and Robert that weekend.
But, Sarah had finished sorting out her belongings now, and she could recognise that she wouldn't even be able to procrastinate figuring out the apology she owed the Goblin King any further for now, as she wouldn't be able to take the pile designated as give-aways until Robert and Irene returned. Well, there was homework. Yes, there was always homework that needed to be done.
She was almost finished doing her homework when the phone rang.
It was her dad.
"Sarah honey, I'm afraid we're going to be late at the office tonight, and then there's a business dinner."
"How late?" Sarah asked, deeply unimpressed but accepting that this was just how life was for her – however much she hated it.
"We should be back some time between ten and eleven," Robert promised.
"Fine. Whatever," Sarah dismissed, and hung up without a goodbye.
It looked like she wouldn't be taking those boxes down to the charity bin today then. It also looked like she'd have plenty of time to work on writing that apology to His Majesty.
"Let's see, 'Dear Jareth' is too personal for a monarch, but 'To the Goblin King' is too impersonal for what I want to say... Perhaps if I'm excessively florid he'll get the idea that I'm being a little cheeky, in a friendly sort of way?" Sarah mused aloud, and settled down at her vanity with some draught paper and a pencil. She'd rough out the letter first, then copy it over onto some nice stationary once she was satisfied with everything.
"To His Royal Majesty, King of the Goblins, Master of the Labyrinth. Dear Glittery Sire..." Sarah bit her lip. "Okay, cross out the 'glittery'... And the 'dear'... Hmm, now, what next? Um... I should come straight out and let him know that this is an apology, so that he doesn't just throw it away. He might anyway, but still..."
And so it went, with Sarah mumbling to herself as she scribbled down – and then scribbled out – words and sentences, and even managed to get a line from a poem worked in.
~oOo~
To His Glittering Royal Majesty, Master of the Castle Beyond the Goblin City, Lord of the Labyrinth, and Goblin King.
An Apology.
There is an Aboveground poet, called Ella Wheeler Wilcox, who once wrote that we 'deal full many a thoughtless blow to those who love us best', and I feel that this is something that was proven true in our interactions.
For my part in the many hurtful misunderstandings between us, I am most profoundly and sincerely sorry. I knew no better then, and it is only now as I take it upon myself to reflect on all that was said, and all that was not said, that I begin to even glimpse the extent of the pain that I must have unintentionally caused you.
In Regret,
Sarah Williams.
~oOo~
Her letter completed, Sarah copied it out onto her finest stationary in her very best handwriting, then folded the letter carefully and slipped it into a matching envelope, which she sealed with red wax and a little seal of a stylised 'S' that Linda had given her for Christmas the previous year (among other gifts).
This done, Sarah carefully wrote 'Goblin King' on the front of the envelope with her gold pen, and called for Bob, one of the goblins that sometimes visited her, and asked him to take the letter to the Goblin King.
"Right now?" the goblin asked with a cheeky smile.
Sarah nodded. "I want that letter in the Goblin King's hand immediately, if not sooner please," she confirmed.
Bob nodded. "I do for Lady," he agreed, and promptly vanished.
~oOo~
He has nothing. He looks everything. What more can one desire? - Oscar Wilde
~oOo~
Jareth received the note with an air of boredom, expecting it to be another tiresome missive from some court female, hoping for his lustful attentions. Not amorous, never amorous. The Goblin Kingdom didn't suit their tastes, however much the monarch of said kingdom appealed to their vanities.
He was therefore pleasantly surprised to find who the missive was truly from, and devoured the contents some seventeen times before the words thereon truly sank into his brain. At first, he had simply focused on her name at the bottom of the missive. Then he had admired her lettering, the stationary she had used, the way her handwriting was flowing and even, the way she phrased her words – particularly her address to his own person.
His heart fluttered over each sentence and the care with which he knew she must have chosen each word.
Hope sparked, warm, in his chest.
~The End~