Author's note: Thank you so all much for your patience as I attempt what will be my final rewrite of this story. I am so honored that there are so many who have read this story. I have been asked many times to write a sequel, but what I feel that this story needs instead is something else to make it feel complete. This is my attempt to give it that something. Keep your fingers crossed for me. And please feel free to leave your thoughts in a review- those are always appreciated :-)

Disclaimer: The Labyrinth belongs to its various copyright holders and dreamers, but this little twist is brought to you by Mairzy - the only thing I claim to own is the original story elements and characters.

.: :CHAPTER ONE: The Confusion in Her Eyes: :.

It was a small and simple room.

The walls were white and neatly organized with frames, posters, and a modest-sized mirror. In the corner, the comforter on the small bed was stretched smooth; tightly tucked in around the edges. A wooden shelf heavy with lines of books sat next to the unremarkably ordinary dresser and desk.

Small and simple.

But the window – the window was not small or simple. It was large and the view it offered a complex balance of details currently cast in the shadow of night. No curtains obstructed the scene beyond – the window's untouched frame stretched wide, almost straining at its own corners for want of open space.

Here, an indistinct world was offered for consideration. An overwhelming question beyond with no obvious answer – but she had found her own answers here, inside this room. The many books on the shelf allowed her to sharpen that landscape beyond into some kind of focus. It was as her curiosity was lost in the pages of fiction that she found her own view to cast back out over the mysterious vastness beyond her four walls. Not a small and simple view, no, but a view the width and breadth of her unique and limitless imagination.

She was sitting on the floor next to her bed, her back to the window and the barely contained world outside. Her thoughts scattered across the floor with her photographs. About an hour ago she had pulled them out of a little green box, sorting and spreading the mixed collection indiscriminately across the carpet. These were all photos taken at the state fair – a family tradition captured in a chaotic collage of images. The faces beaming out from the images were bright and happy. Here she was 16 years old with braces, in this one her sister was 7. Ferris wheels and roller coasters, animals and face painting, popcorn and caramel apples –warm memories thick with atmosphere and emotion.

She gently touched the photos with one hand, reliving the fuzzy collection of sensations associated with each captured memory. Her other hand was at her neck, fingers absently stroking an oblong black crystal hanging from a silver chain. The crystal was solid and opaque; a black thicker than the night's darkness.

Like the photographs, this crystal was a part of her memories at the fair – a new memory now only a week old.

It had been that time again, when the air becomes ripe with the promise of autumn and the leaves started to turn. But this year the change was deeper. She knew that although no one said it, everyone in the family felt it. Life was becoming complicated and busy – on the brink of throwing everything that had been into everything that it would soon become. The simple phase of family that allowed for traditions like yearly visits to the state fair was fading.

While there was sadness in the tense oncoming presence of change, the taste it left that year was sweet. Somehow every moment at the fair was fuller, everyone kinder and more anxious to savor their time together. This year was to be the bright candied cherry on the mound of ice cream and sprinkles that was the rich experience of this family tradition.

The day had gone by too quickly, but their visits to the fair always did. It was late and petty bickering had started breaking out - everyone was tired and ready to go home. In the night she moved towards the fair gates, but a voice called her back.

"Amry … come take a look at this."

She turned at the sound of her name and smiled at what she saw. Her mother was a few steps behind, bent over a small black object lying on the ground. Sometimes her mother reminded her so much of her grandfather – whether it was scooping up pennies in parking lots or finding shapes in the clouds, both seemed to notice the value in things others too easily overlooked.

Amry walked back, watching her mother reach down and pick up the object on the ground. Now in motion as it was lifted away from the earth, the unknown thing caught some reflection of light and flashed in the darkness.

"It's a crystal necklace."

She was close enough to see it now - the crystal on her mother's palm was solid black and faceted with many smooth sides. It came to a beveled point and hung from a twisted wire setting on a silver chain. There was something quietly intriguing about the simple crystal, something that drew Amry to it.

"Do you want it?"

Looking only at the crystal, Amry had nodded and accepted. Cradling the small necklace in her hands, she turned back to the gates. Together her family left the fair.

And now she was here, sitting among the sea of photographs. Somehow, even sitting in this mass of familiar faces, she felt very alone. These photos were like empty echoes; a part of herself effortless on display that, as hard as she tried, she couldn't reach anymore.

Things had somehow changed -changed in the week following that trip to the fair. A dark change, like a shadow on her heart. She remembered when she first fastened that silver chain around her neck and looked in her mirror, her dark eyes settling on themselves and then moving down to the even darker crystal hanging around her neck. It was heavier hanging there than she had expected.

That day had been the beginning. Most change is so subtle, it slips into our lives and slowly works and warps until one day we wake up on the other side of its effect and wonder when it happened. But not this change. It was as though that day she had woken up to a different world than ever she had been a part of before.

Amry had always had her head in the clouds, had always been different – but the space between her world and everyone else's had become greater. The world around her was somehow almost out of focus, dimmer, as if reality had become the dream lost before it can be fully remembered. She even noticed a gap growing between her and her family, one she was becoming ever more aware of. She was isolated - not just a dreamer, but a dreamer who no longer belonged in the waking world.

And then the blurring began. Blurring - that was the word Amry had chosen for it. It was a strange sensation she felt at the moments of her most intense loneliness. It was like being smeared. It was a phenomenon, an experience that she found hard to explain, even to herself after feeling it. There were moments that a weight seemed to settle upon Amry, and her whole being felt as though it shifted until she was out of focus.

That had been when the dream started. The dream that now played itself over and over again for her night after night. The dream that never finished, the girl and the baby and the maze. . . and the King whose face was lost in shadow . . .

. . . and the words.

"Through dangers untold

And hardships unnumbered,

I have fought my way here to the castle

Beyond the Goblin City

For my will is as strong as yours

And my kingdom as great . . ."

Amry knew those words by memory now, had heard them repeated in her head so many times they were instinct. She didn't know what they meant, but she knew there was more. Something else. Something she always woke up before she could hear.

What is wrong with me? What has changed since these pictures? A silent tear slipped down her cheek as she reached for a photo-this one of her entire family huddled together. That year it had rained.

It was raining now, raining upon Amry's cheeks as she rose from the floor. A seemingly small and simple girl standing in her small and simple room.

Amry turned away from the photos to her window. The world outside glittered its vague greeting in return. She stepped forward, and felt the cool glass of the window pane against her palms. She stretched her hands out on the glass, fingers splayed, eyes distant. Realizing yet another insistent barrier – another degree of separation between her and the rest of the world.

Curling her fingers into fists, she fell back away from the window and stood silently for a moment . Then, deliberately Amry stepped towards the neat book shelf next to the wall. She selected a particularly thick volume - a collection of fairy tales. She considered the book in her hands a moment, feeling its binding and edges, thinking about the love she poured into fiction…then turned and hurled the book across the room. In the passion of anger she threw yet another book and another. They sailed through the air, some smashing loudly against a wall, one catching a frame in its flight and another her jewelry box before thudding to the floor. In an instant, this simple room transformed into one of disarray. In a moment, this easy definition was lost.

And the girl stood, holding a book against her chest, clutching it and convulsing with sobs. Her body shook and her strength left her. She fell to her knees; her precious books lying violated around her . . .

...

"She is the one."

Many beady eyes glittered strangely red in the darkness of the great room.

"She must be. Her soul is like his." This voice was thicker, slower but sure.

The goblins were stirring with excitement and fear.

"Has she said the words?" came a small voice.

"The rules aren't the same," said another.

"Shh. . .listen."

There was silence.

"Can you hear?"

"Feathers," came the answer. He is already there. . .

...

Outside the great dark window a white owl was watching. A barn owl filled with a soul of magic.

He had been called here . . .and he was waiting. With unflinching patience he waited. One would think forever was not long to this creature.

Not long at all.