The sky this time was a bluish-green color, with clouds that were slightly jagged instead of fluffy. They remained still and painting-like for long stretches of time, only to suddenly move quite quickly across the horizon. It was one of the many features of what she now called Other Side that Sarah had gotten used to.
The ground, too, was slightly spongy beneath her body where it should have been hard. Its substantialness varied from moment to moment, though never so much that she might fall right through it. It could also, she'd learned from experience, cause very real bruises and scrapes.
Lying on her back under the oddly-lit sky, she could feel a couple of those bruises and scrapes right now. Her jeans, hiking boots, leather jacket, and blue-streaked hair were also covered in splashes of mud, which she supposed was to be expected when she'd spent the past half hour outrunning giant scorpions.
She let out a deep breath, as always enjoying the contentment that this place brought her after a brief rush of adrenaline. Eventually the silence was broken.
"I had imagined adventuring to be a cleaner sort of endeavor."
She smiled and turned her head to where Jareth lay on the hillside beside her, his trousers and shirt also splattered with mud. At least she'd long since convinced him to leave his capes behind.
"Spoken as if you couldn't magic us clean in a heartbeat," she teased, stretching her hands above her head and running her fingers through the soft grass.
"You're the one who doesn't like me to cheat."
"Only during said adventuring." She turned on her side and leaned on one elbow. "Afterward it really doesn't matter."
He smirked, managing to look regal even with mud-spattered hair and clothes. "Actually I rather like the sight of you all disheveled. Even if I can think of more enjoyable ways to end up in such a state."
Sarah laughed, for once not taking the bait. "At least the scorpions didn't breathe fire."
"No, they simply sprayed venom from their tails. Much more civilized."
Sarah shrugged. "I was telling Miguel's daughter about finding scorpions on my ceiling when I was a child. Other Side must have picked up on some childhood trauma."
"I do hope we're running out of dangerous monsters to battle, though your mind does seem to be an endless wellspring of terror."
She pretended to pout. "You don't have to stick around, you know."
"Bruising as these adventures are, they're far preferable to sitting on my throne and watching the goblins come up with new ways to torment chickens." He folded his arms behind his head. "Besides, you're fragile."
Sarah snorted. "I am not."
"All mortals are fragile."
"Please. I was the one who came up with the hide-in-the-river strategy when we were outrunning the dragons."
"And I was the one who helped you hold your breath for much longer than you normally could have."
"Fine, fine. You're a regular hero and you deserve a medal."
"Ugh, no medals, please. Mustn't have the goblins thinking I'm kind." He rolled over on his side and gazed at her. "But I wouldn't say no to a kiss."
Sarah smiled and inched closer, touching her lips gently to his. He reached up to pull her against him, deepening the kiss—
—and she pulled away, sputtering in disgust.
Jareth frowned. "This is unexpected."
Sarah spat a few more times. "Sorry," she said, trying not to laugh, "but you've got scorpion venom all over your face, and it tastes foul."
Jareth sighed and fell back against the ground. Sarah felt a rippling in the air, and when she'd finished vigorously rubbing her lips against a mud-free spot on her jacket she turned to see that the Goblin King was practically gleaming with cleanliness. She smirked at him.
"Care to share?"
He reached out to twirl a strand of her hair around his finger. "Payment first."
She leaned in to kiss him and was interrupted by a buzzing sound that made them both groan. "Hold that thought."
Jareth threw up his hands in frustration she could tell was half-feigned. "Scorpion venom, your Aboveground devices that defy all logic and can somehow receive transmissions in this place—my desires are thwarted at every turn."
"Yeah, you're a regular Job, Goblin King." She gave him a peck on the cheek and pulled her phone out of her pocket. "It's just Miguel, probably checking to make sure you haven't gotten me killed."
"Please remind him that you are the one who invents these near-death experiences, not I."
Sarah tapped her phone screen. "Hey, what's up?"
Miguel's voice was mixed with the usual sounds of chaos that passed for normal in his home. "Hey. Marisol is trying to murder my ankles with that toy sword you gave her, and judging by the sounds coming from the other room—Mari, gentler, please, Papi's not made of steel—Sammy has just gotten to that point in his favorite video where he starts crying and wants me to stop it."
Sarah heard the sound of said video getting louder and then the abrupt silence that followed when Miguel shut it off. "Why do you let him watch it if it makes him cry?"
"Because he's already a movie snob at age five and that video equals at least a half an hour of peace, even if it's accompanied by tears—all right, Mari, that's enough, go torment someone else with that sword. What're you up to, Sarah?"
"Not much. Outran a few giant scorpions, got a little bruised up."
"Giant scor—for fuck's sake, I thought we agreed that you wouldn't traumatize the twins by dying young?" He sighed. "And now you've gone and made me swear in front of Mari, Nick is going to kill me."
"I didn't die, I'm fine. Just a little muddy."
"Is the royal enabler there with you?"
Sarah laughed. "Yes."
"Pass the phone to him, would you?"
Sarah held the phone out to Jareth, who backed away as if she were offering him a live snake.
"You know he won't take no for an answer," she chided. "Really, you can handle dragons and scorpions but you can't handle a few words from my oldest friend?"
Jareth muttered something about dragons and scorpions being less persistent and reluctantly took the phone from her, as usual holding it somewhat awkwardly near his ear. "Miguel, before you—yes, we were in fact running from giant scorpions, but as I've said before—I find it odd that you expect me to be the 'cooler head' in this situation, given—of course protecting Sarah is in my best interests and the interests of my entire kingdom, but surely you're aware that she's not the easiest person to—I promise. Yes, for the hundredth time, I promise that I will not let Sarah die in this place, on penalty of very creative earthly punishments inflicted by your all-too-capable children."
Jareth gave Sarah a particularly weary glare and handed the phone back to her. "If you'll excuse me, I'll just wander in this direction and seek out new ways to die quickly."
Sarah chuckled into the phone. "To be clear, Miguel, he is telling the truth. This is all me."
"Whatever. Someone has to keep fancypants in his place, especially after he gave you rigor mortis."
"You know that is not what happened, it was mirror lag, you just showed up at a very bad time."
"Or a very good time. Seriously, what if your apartment had caught on fire?"
Sarah heard what sounded like a large crash. Miguel ignored it. "It sounds like your children are a lot closer to death than I've ever been."
"Samuel and Marisol are made of death-retardant molecules, they've got tendencies toward self-destruction that rival yours—"
"I am not self-destructive, you and Jareth are always—"
"—but they always manage to land on their feet." Another crash. "Anyway, you got me a ticket for the play next Tuesday, right?"
Sarah smiled, as usual having to focus very hard to keep up with the trajectory of Miguel's post-fatherhood conversations. "Yeah, mezzanine seat, just one. You seriously want to see the show a third time?"
"Of course I do. It's not like there's anything else good on Broadway these days. Besides, if I give you enough positive feedback you and Lori are more likely to write a role for me in your next show."
Sarah smiled. "How do you know we're not already doing that?"
"I don't. But it pays to cover all my bases."
"All right. I'll confirm with the box office later."
"Thank you. Now get your ass back through the mirror before more monsters show up and I have to explain to the children why tía Sarah won't be bringing them any more dangerous presents."
Sarah slipped her phone back into her pocket and wandered across the rocky landscape to where Jareth stood gazing toward the horizon and tossing a crystal back and forth. "I assured Miguel that you're not to blame if I fall off a cliff in this place," she said.
He waved his hand and the crystal became a butterfly that fluttered over to land on her shoulder. "I'm sure your words were an equal match for a lifetime of protective instincts."
"Well, for the record, he wasn't calling to check on me. He was calling to ask about a ticket to the play."
Jareth cocked his head at her in a way that she'd learned meant he was trying to hide his interest in something. "Your play? The one that you let me read?"
"Yeah." She blushed, still not quite accustomed to pride. "It's, uh, doing pretty well, actually."
He smiled, and the hint of interest was smoothly replaced with cockiness. "Naturally, given that I inspired it."
Sarah rolled her eyes. "I'm never sure how much of your ridiculously high opinion of yourself is part of the monarch act and how much is genuine."
"Then remind me never to reveal the truth," he said, giving a slightly theatrical bow, "in order to keep you intrigued."
She smiled. And then, before she could stop herself and overthink the implications, the words were out of her mouth.
"Would you like to see it?"
Jareth's eyes grew momentarily wide. "See your play?"
"Yes." She blushed and laughed at herself for blushing—it was like being seventeen again and asking her crush to go to the mall. "Tuesday. I could get some more tickets, director's privileges. You know, if you're…not busy."
Jareth's face transitioned between several emotions very rapidly: surprise at her request, genuine delight, and then a slight flush and a neutral look that she knew, yet again, was designed to hide the genuine delight. Her heart ached a bit to see how happy she'd made him with such a small act, and she felt bad for not asking sooner.
He cleared his throat. "It has been…a very long time since I ventured to the Aboveground world. I would be curious to see how it's changed."
Sarah felt her lips twitch and hid her smile with a cough, knowing that this was probably the closest she would get to eager acceptance. "Right. It's a date, then."
His eyes widened even further, and she felt her blush deepen. He took her hand, which was somehow mud-free, and his lips brushed her fingers, eyes locking onto her face in a way that still made her stomach flip.
Damn. He's never going to let me live this down.
A few nights later Sarah was slipping into a red sweater-dress with leggings and knee-high leather boots (the fourth outfit she'd tried on that evening) and running a brush through her hair. She examined herself in the mirror and decided that the look was sufficiently nice for the occasion, but not so nice that it made it seem she was trying too hard.
She picked a few stray dog hairs off of the dress, something she was still doing months after Chris had moved upstate with his new girlfriend and taken Harvey with him. She'd only just gotten used to the quietness of the apartment, though she still missed the dog.
She checked her watch again and paced back and forth in front of the mirror. "Dunno why I'm making such a big deal out of this."
Because it's a big deal?
"We've spent tons of time together, this isn't that different."
You've never spent time together on this side of the mirror. Oh, and you've never watched something you've written with the person who inspired it literally personified on a stage in front of you.
Sarah suddenly felt dizzy. "Fuck."
Sorry, now I've gone and made you overthink it—
"No, clearly I should have overthought it. This was a terrible idea."
No, it wasn't. Just remember how happy he looked, even if he tried to hide it.
She sighed. "Isn't there another way I can make him happy? One that won't turn me into a panicky mess?"
Sorry, no take-backs.
Sarah took a deep breath and checked her reflection one more time. "Right. We're doing this."
She placed her hand against the vanity mirror, relieved that Jareth had long since ceased to be amused by being summoned through affirmations from her Mirror Work book. "Jareth?" Her voice wavered slightly. "Er, are you there?"
The mirror shimmered to reveal him standing in his throne room surrounded by a half-dozen goblins. Two of them were sitting while a third applied some sort of ointment to their scratched faces, which elicited frequent yelps of pain. The throne room was, at least, cleaner than it had been—she'd taken to giving him a hard time about it when she saw it in the mirror, though she knew that most of the mess was the work of the goblins.
He looked up and flashed a quick smile before turning back to the goblins. "Good evening, Sarah."
The goblins stopped their yelping for a moment to look toward the mirror as a unit and wave. "Hi, Blue Lady!"
Sarah laughed. She'd been "Lady" at first, but the goblins seemed to enjoy adding colors to the names of things, so she'd been "Blue Lady" for a while now.
"What happened? Are they all right?"
One of the goblins screamed a particularly colorful curse as another goblin applied ointment to a scratch on its cheek. Jareth ignored the noise, which reminded her suddenly of the way Miguel and Nick could seem oblivious to the noise of their children. "Nothing a little pain and bandaging won't fix. A wished-away cat's owner had no interest in running the labyrinth to get it back, and thus it was transformed into a goblin, but apparently it hasn't let go of its cat-ness, because it's been scratching and biting other goblins that come near it."
"HUUUURTS!" cried one of the goblins. The others joined in, and the effect was similar to an egregiously out-of-tune wind section.
Jareth groaned and waved his hand, and the goblins' voices were suddenly muted, though their mouths continued to move. "Say your right words, Sarah, and grant me a reprieve from this agony."
She thought for a moment. "I, uh, wish the Goblin King was in my bedroom right now."
His image in the mirror shimmered, and then she heard a strange noise and felt a shift in the air around her, and then he was there, not a vision in an alternate world, but standing in front of her on the solid ground of her apartment floor, eyes gleaming.
He held up his hands and looked around, touching his own shoulders and face as if he half-expected them not to be there. His eyes darted back and forth, taking in the small details of Sarah's bedroom. And then his gaze fell on her, more piercing and full of power than it had ever seemed in Other Side.
"Well," he said, his voice wavering slightly. "That seems to have worked."
Thanks for reading! This thing has taken so many forms, but after letting it get to around 25,000 words and being frustrated with the direction it was going, I decided to chop it up and revise it into this three-chapter version. And this version made me happy, so hopefully it'll make a few others happy too. Two more chapters coming soon!
FYI, "Moon Gems" is a 1945 short story by Jun Ishikawa ("Meigetsushu" in the original Japanese, English translation by William J. Tyler). Ishikawa's short story has nothing to do with goblins or labyrinths, though-I just thought the image and the idea suited this story.