"What You Wish For" by Kitty Rasputin
Disclaimer: I own nothing, except my notebook and my floppy disk.
"You have no power over me." The astonished words spilled from Sarah's lips before she could stop them. She had never remembered the line before. She didn't even know what came next. She had wanted to nail that passage before moving on.
The crystal in Jareth's hand burst and suddenly Sarah was back in her living room. A barn owl flopped around on the floor and flew out the window before she could call it back.
"Wait! I didn't know what would happen. I want to go back. I didn't know!" Sarah's own voice woke her up. There was no need for her to even guess what she had been dreaming about. She already knew. The same dream had haunted her sleep every night for the past seven years.
She stared at the clock. Five a.m. Sadly, she realized there would be no more sleep for her tonight. Sighing, she flipped the light on and pulled out her running clothes. Since she wouldn't be able to sleep, she could at least do something productive. Running had become a daily habit of her life in the past few years.
She crept out of the house as she thought about the curves life had thrown at her. Almost immediately after she'd returned from the Underground, her father had gotten a promotion and they had moved away from the only town she had ever called home. The people in her new school had treated her with such cruelty that she spent most of her time studying and working ahead in the library. She actually did so much extra work that she managed to graduate two years early. Then, her mother had shown up back in her life just in time to drag her away to London.
She clenched her jaw and tried to force her thoughts away from the city and the events that had taken place there. At first, it had all seemed like a grand adventure. She had spent her days taking classes at Oxford and had even managed to make a few friends. When she wasn't studying, she was discussing medieval art or history at one of the local coffee shops. Occasionally, she would sneak her friends into the theater to watch her mom rehearse one of her plays. She even got used to living almost independently. She took care of buying all the groceries and cleaning the apartment. The only thing her mom really did was pay the bills. It had been the first real happiness she'd had since the Underground.
Then, one day, everything had changed. She kept her eyes on the path ahead of her and managed to blink back tears as her thoughts inevitably turned to the dark times that had come her way. The crime in London turned horribly violent. It had gotten so bad that you couldn't even go a day without hearing about more than one murder. People started getting scared to even walk out their front door to go to work in the morning. Two of her friends had been mugged and Sarah herself had nearly been raped. Even now, she still couldn't remember how she had gotten away, but she had the irrepressible feeling that somebody had been watching out for her.
Her footsteps slowed as she reached the gate of the cemetery. She had stuck out her final year at Oxford and had returned home the day after graduation. Ever since the attack, she had been running two miles a day. At first, she was content to do her running on a treadmill. After she'd returned from London, though, she realized she had to get out of the house. She couldn't decide whether she was just preparing herself for the next time it could happen or trying to outrun her past.
Had it been so wrong to turn down her dreams? The thought came so unbidden that she had no time to repress it. It all came down to her last confrontation with Jareth. Oddly enough, that had been the last important event in her life. Nothing had come even remotely close after that. She had wanted to go back since the second she had left.
Vaguely, she realized she had been standing at the gate for a few minutes without moving. She had to physically shake herself to get her mind on track. If anybody had seen her they would have thought it strange, but the cemetery was stuck back in the woods off the beaten path. She knew why she had instantly been attracted to this place. It had such an air of magic around it that she could practically taste it. The old cemetery had been almost forgotten and was evident in the tall weeds that surrounded the tombstones. Still, Sarah couldn't seem to tear herself away from the place. Every morning, almost like clockwork, she arrived at the gate and let herself in.
Instead of wandering aimlessly through the tombstones like she normally did, Sarah went straight to the bench she knew was at the back of the graveyard. She was tired. Tired of waking up to a reality that she didn't want to belong to. She curled up on the hidden bench, safely sequestered from prying eyes by an ancient willow tree.
The irony hit her with the force of a semi. Here she was, a girl so sick of living in this world, surrounded by dead people. She started laughing bitterly until the tears streamed down her face. "Oh, I wish…"
"Be careful what you wish for, Sarah. Remember what happened the last time."
