Life Without the Sunlight

Chapter One

"Don't go that way!"

"What?"

"Never go that way."

"Oh, thanks!" I started right, as directed, then paused. This Labyrinth had already proved to not be what it seemed. Could the same be said of the creatures? I took a step back and said, "Why not?" to the worm.

The worm clicked its tongue. "That way leads straight to that there castle, that's why. You don't want to be going that way."

"Does it really?" I looked down the left corridor, leading seemingly to nowhere except more walls and broken logs and a far, far horizon of orange sky. Empty and decrepit. I wondered what the castle looked like.

"'Course it does. Why would I lie?" said the worm. "Now come on. The missus will have the kettle going."

"No, no thank you." That Goblin King was full of hogwash. This was going to be easy as pie!

The worm shook its head. "Why'd you be wanting to go to the castle anyhow?" Its high-pitched, scratchy voice grated on my nerves.

"The King has my little brother. I need to get him back."

"So you are one of them, are you?"

"Them?" I looked at the worm then, at its fluffy eyebrows and red scarf and giant eyes. Its kind manner made up for the patent hideousness. "What do you mean them?"

"Them speakers that be looking for their siblings, of course. Did you think you're the only one?"

"I –" I didn't know what I thought. There was a part of me that thought this all a dream, and hoped it was. I couldn't believe my fantasy realms of magic and wonder would steal my baby brother from me. "Have you met the others before?"

"I've met a few."

"And they were all looking for the goblin castle?"

"Right you are."

"Then why would you send me the away from the castle if you guessed I wanted to go that way too?"

"Because the King spots anyone who goes that way," he said, in a no duh tone of voice. I found it rather offensive.

Bristling, I demanded, "How? How can he spot them? What does he do to them?"

"He's got his magic crystals, see. He can see anything he wants through those if he knows what he's looking for." Impossibly, the worm's eyes widened further. "In fact, he's probably listening to us right now," it said, horrified, and it started hurrying, inch by inch, to a steaming crack in the wall. "King Jareth won't be pleased by me talking to you, oh no he won't. Sorry, Miss, the missus is waiting."

"Wait!" I cried. "Tell me what he does to them, please."

At the threshold of his home, the worm glanced about and whispered, "If you get too close to the castle too quickly, he throws you into somewhere nasty lickety split. Good luck to you, Miss." And the worm darted inside.

"Thanks a bunch." I sighed. "Great. Not only is he a kidnapper, but he's a stalker. Well, you don't scare me!" I shouted to the heavens. "You hear? You don't scare me!" I took the left path towards the goblin castle.

After a few steps, the worm's words got to me. I started repeating under my breath, "He can't see me, no one can see me, I won't be caught, he can't see me, no one can, I won't be caught." Over and over, a desperate mantra. I needed Toby and I needed to get out of here and I did not, by any means, want to find out where somewhere nasty was.

"He can't see me. I'm unseen. Oh, I wish I could be invisible."

Jareth finished the song with the goblins and revelled in their laughter, their glee, their simple joy. In his own way he loved them as best he could, this collection of mottled and pocked creatures, some of which had been toddlers from Above. He entertained them with music and magic every day. He kept their minds off their plight until they'd become too stupid to remember what was wrong with them in the first place. By now, centuries into his rule, they had about as much intelligence as the chickens they were so fond.

They bounced about the crumbling throne room and didn't notice that the windows had once been glazed and the stones had been clean of feathers and dirt. They were oblivious and he kept them that way. Only he, the Goblin King, needed to understand the nature of their isolated Labyrinth.

What he didn't like was the fact that a little miss Sarah Williams was not anywhere to be found in the run-down city or the near-empty castle. Or the Labyrinth. Nowhere. He stared at the crystal ball and all vestiges of good humour disappeared. He was the Goblin King who wielded power beyond imagination and controlled with mischief and might. He could not be beaten. He could not be evaded.

And yet some girl had done just that.

"Where ever could she be?" he mused to her half-brother, hiding the simmering frustration. Her brother burbled and snuggled in Jareth's arms, tired from the trauma of the last few hours. Jareth let him sleep and tried not to think about the fate his sister might be binding him to.

The sister. That damned girl with the black hair and green eyes and the awestruck, dreamy expression in her round face. She was prettier than many of the petulant children who had run his Labyrinth before, and though she seemed to live her days with her head in the clouds, he sensed steel within. After all, she had accepted the challenge of the Labyrinth and risk a king's wrath. A girl to be watched. The Speakers were all like that. You needed a certain something to toil with the Labyrinth, after all.

But none of them – none of them – had ever disappeared.

"Hoggle!" Jareth roared, upsetting Toby. A clank echoed through the chamber and Jareth spared a glance from shushing the baby to see Hoggle, ugly, pockmarked thing, bewildered before the throne.

"O-oh!" Hoggle exclaimed, voice wavering. "Your Majesty." He ducked a bow and the surrounding goblins sniggered. Hoggle glared back.

"Where is the girl, Hogtie?" Jareth demanded.

"The girl, your Majesty? What girl?" Jareth's glare said all it needed to. Hoggle's eyes widened, "Oh, that girl! She went into the Labyrinth."

"And you let her in," said the King.

Hoggle twisted his puckered lips. "It's my job to give the Speakers entrance."

"That it is," Jareth allowed. "What isn't your job is to show them how to disappear!" Jareth's rage cracked across the room and silence fell. Setting Toby to sleep in a mound of chicken feathers, Jareth stalked over to Hoggle.

He reared, ready to snap again, when Hoggle stuttered, "But your Majesty, how could she disappear?"

Face to face, the dwarf and his monarch pondered this question. And realised. And Jareth's pale face paled further.

"She did it," he whispered. "She disappeared herself."

Oh, Sarah, do you know what you have done?

TOWRTA: TOWRTA: Short but sweet, that's the mantra of this story - it's only about 31k words in all, 14 chapters. If you stick around week by week, it'll all be up soon enough (I encourage you to; it gets quite . . . fantastic by the end). In this version, the Labyrinth isn't a conjuring of Sarah's imagination, and thus the world I get to play in grows ever larger, and Jareth's character starts layering itself bit by bit beyond being a fifteen-year-old's dream dude. We end up with a story the same length as Coraline and in keeping with that sort of dark and pretty fantasy. Needless to say, I loved writing this.

Updates on Tuesdays and Saturdays (New Zealand time). Hope to see you there!

God Bless :)