The hours were wearing thin as the poor woman ran. In the turbulent, dark world she had imprisoned herself within for these thirteen hours nothing was ever as it was supposed to be. Bright but angry eyes watched her from all corners, even when she finally made it to the castle; there were no fan-fairs for the wicked. Cursing her own selfish heart she surged onward, up a flight of tall stairs, past an abandoned throne room and into a chamber lit only by slow burning lamps. A door, decorated in a great iron door knocker, stood mockingly. For a moment the woman was still, her heart beating in her body like a panicked bird. The knocker was girl from the waist up, but tree roots from the middle downward where the roots spiraled into nothing, their texture almost blending in with the swirls and knots in the door's wooden design. In the girl's mouth a ring hung, an object so grotesque in her pretty face it made the woman flinch in disgust. Against the smooth cheeks this ring made an impression, spreading the teeth wide, making the lips thin with the stretch and neck shortened with flesh pushed down by the jaw. It was an ugly thing but her sorrowful stare could make even this woman wish she could remove her tormentor from her lips.
Regretfully, she knocked. The end of the ring clicked angrily against the iron-girl's breasts, where a half circle mark had already been worn into the metal. The door rolled open loudly and a hot wind blew across the woman's face as she entered quietly into the imagined world. Illusion swept over her gently, a wave of false scent and light.
Her heart ached and her mind was screaming at her to run, Sarah was not worth losing everything she had. Sarah wasn't worth finding, her mind cooed. She was his property now. All she would come back to is an empty apartment, no food, no money. Nothing.
Again regretful the woman stepped forward and was swallowed whole into a dream.
"Even if you get the center you'll never get out again…"
When Sarah woke it was with the impression that someone had just spoken, but her room was empty. This feeling of waking up after a dream, with the lasting impression of its content was troubling to her. The sensation had occurred for a very long time; waking was painful, like tearing open a scab that refused to heal. She never seemed to wake up comfortably or rested, and she was always in disarray. A number of her pillows had made their way to the floor and with them a leather book, bright red. Its place beneath her pillows had been disturbed by her restless sleep. She replaced it to its home and stood to dress. Her step-mother had set out an outfit for her, a new habit that had developed between the two of them. Every other weekend they ventured together to the mall and each picked something to buy and something to wish for. Sometimes, when it was something Sarah had really wished for it would appear the following day and Karen would give her an extra kind smile.
That morning the beautiful blue journal that Sarah had seen in an outlandish book store was sitting on her vanity table, ball-point pen tucked in by the spine. Her outfit, selected by Karen was a pair a shorts and a green shirt with bell sleeves and odd embroidery in parallel lines down the front. It was just the sort of earthly attire Sarah loved, something that Karen used to find irritating. Sarah dressed, and pulled up her hair. She could not remember when she began taking such care of the way she looked, maybe it came with the age, but she was careful as she braided her dark locks and pinned in a few fake flowers. She and Karen had settled into a happy medium of a relationship: Karen accepted some of Sarah's eccentric tastes and aversion to boys, while Sarah accepted the chore of attempting a relationship with a woman who was not her mother. Though some select pictures of her mother still smiled back to her from behind pretty frames about her room, she had not heard from the woman in at least two years. Her face appeared to her once in a review of the newspaper, a good one all about the publicized romance between the beautiful Linda and her dashing onstage partner. Sarah had eyed her image in the paper and promptly tossed it back onto the kitchen table. No need for bitterness. Maybe a little discontent feelings.
Maybe she hated her a little.
So that morning when a dark haired woman was sitting at the same kitchen table across from her anxious looking step-mother Sarah was so aghast that she turned immediately around to run, her room was only a stair case away...
"Sarah?" It was too late.
"Damn," She was hushed, but she knew Karen could guess her emotions. She gave her a pleading stare and patted the back of her son, Toby, who sat beside her toying with his cereal. Sarah watched her little brother as she approached the kitchen. Even happy Toby in all his boyish ignorance of his older sister's complicated feelings was making uneasy faces at the woman across the table from him. When Sarah's steps brought her to the edge of the grand doorway the dark-haired woman tuned around.
"Sarah!" Linda stood, her pretty blue stress fluttering when she moved.
She was not as Sarah remembered her. Her hair was still that dark beautiful brown, no hint of grey in sight, but her creamy skin seemed fleshy and sagging. Under her eyes seemed darker than it once was. The skin of her upper arms was flushed when she approached her, outstretched as if to embrace.
Sarah almost considered taking the hug, but initially backed away from her mother whose sweet expression fell flat.
She brushed off the shun and smiled at her daughter, a strain in her eyes that made her look nearer to her actual age.
"I have been looking to get to you for a long time, honey," Linda said. "I had a lot of trouble getting here."
"You used to live here," Sarah said. "It shouldn't have been hard to find."
"It's been a long time..." She dared to look hopeful. "You are so beautiful."
Sarah chewed the inside of her cheek, eyeing her mother and her step-mother both. Had Sarah been younger she might have happily embraced her mother, maybe even plead with her to take her away.
"I am going to the park." She said, a little too abruptly. Both Karen and Linda gave a start.
On Sarah's scurry to the door she nearly knocked over her father Robert who had entered the home from walking Merlin through the kitchen door. His mouth was slack at the sight: his daughter breaking for escape while his current wife and young son sat hosting an awkward breakfast to his ex-wife.
Sarah could not imagine the kind of pain he was feeling, she was too focused on making her run. Through the garage and down the street, past the shops of her small town that never seemed to change, she cut through the streets, over a few grassy hills and into the open greenery of the park. She found solitude under a great tree, the bridge in sight with the small lake was lit by morning light, but no sunshine. The morning was dreary, edging on cloudy with brief patches of rain sprinkling away park-goers. Sarah was alone... But not truly alone.
"Hoggle..." She curled her arms around her arched knees and leaned her chin on their hard tops. "I need you."
The dwarf came from around the tree she was sitting against, blue eyes concerned, wrinkled hands curling and uncurling in worry. He brought with him the simple scents of her younger days, a dusty smell of trees and rain. On his wrist, an elastic string of plastic beads, and at his hip a small sack of pretty jewels rested.
"Sarah?" She snatched him into a hug and finally let tears she was holding fall. On his bony shoulder she cried until she was spent of sorrows and her heart had turned from sadness to anger.
"What does she mean to come back now?" Sarah fumed. Hoggle watched her from his spot on the grass. He had given her a little handkerchief to wipe her swollen eyes. "It has been years since she even called. I mean, years! I was thirteen the last time I heard from her, and now I'm turning eighteen in less than a month!"
Hoggle looked as if he was about to speak but the raging girl kept going.
"Four years of my life! Four years, the most significant years, I think. I am no longer going to be a child; she can't expect to drop in on my life whenever she wants to." Her head dropped into her hands. "It's been so lonely. I'm still not sure what the Labyrinth was meant to teach me. I gave up on some things, tried to make friends... But god," Sarah knew she wasn't making sense. "Why did she have to come back here?" She looked up.
She was alone.
"Damn."
"Sarah?"
Sarah's heavy head lurched to the side to see her mother, kneeling beside her. She realized that Hoggle must have vanished at Linda's approach.
"Did you hear what I said?" She spat. Linda flinched, but kept her ground.
"Please listen to me, Sarah-dear. I need you to come with me..."
"Why?"
"It's different."
"No, it's not." Sarah grumbled. "And I'm not your Sarah-dear."
"You are acting a little immature." Linda's voice was low, her attempt Sarah thought, at seeming motherly
The time for disciplining was over for Sarah, graduated from high-school and college loomed brightly on her horizon. A scholarship for her skills in creative writing promised low debts when her education was complete. She was ready. Comfortable in her life here, heading toward her dreams, she did not feel the need to allow Linda in her life.
"You are just acting," Sarah answered. "You never wanted to be just my mom. So why would I want to come with you now?"
"I had dreams, Sarah. But I should not have taken them. I have come back for you! I have given up everything I had to find you... You need to come with me."
Sarah finally looked her mother in the eyes, mirrors to her own, coated in left over wetness from her tears. She disliked how similar the two of them were.
"You have no power over my life anymore, Mom." She said. She stood, limbs aching from sitting hunched and shook her head down at her mother.
"Damnit Sarah!" Linda's arms went up in frustration. "I'll never get you out of here now!"
"What?" Sarah caught sight of something pale and gold floating down from the sky. A great cloud of tan cloth, encircled by strips of shining material and there stood her old adversary. His face broke out into a crooked smile, sharp teeth glinting.
"Hello Sarah," He said.
The young girl's heart beat in her ears.
His odd eyes moved to her mother, still on her knees reaching for her daughter.
"You have been given a chance. You have lost, Linda." He said. "It was pretty pathetic."
"You only gave me an hour!" Sarah's mother pleaded. She caught hold of Sarah's leg and used it to hoist herself up. She took Sarah into her arms. "Please, let me take her home."
"She has eaten fae food, lived in our world and grown into custom with our air." Jareth seemed a little sad when his eyes took Sarah's, but she could see the glow of happiness that rested there as well. "She would die if she were to return."
"I have fought my way to find her. Why of all others must I remember her?" Linda's touch felt wooden, her words were making Sarah worry.
"It is your punishment." Jareth held out his hand. "You may reclaim your career and lover, which you gave up for her."
In his hands a familiar crystal sat.
"Mom?"
Sarah felt her mother's hands drop away from her. She was not surprised. And when Linda claimed the crystal and gave Sarah one last awkward glance Sarah was not surprised that it was silent. No apologies, no tears. She may have given up everything to find her, but in the end her mother was still the Linda Sarah knew. Selfish.
"You hardly tried!" Sarah screamed.
Jareth touched Linda's shoulder and the woman vanished.
With her fell away the illusion Sarah had known for four years. Around her a great darkness, filled with scattered fragments of the illusion: her clothes, a book, a doll's hand, torn at the wrist.
She faced the Goblin King. He smiled at her, his eyes slowly becoming the only thing she could see as the world began to fade.
Linda felt the world behind her break apart, that hot wind from before was gone and she finally felt cool and calm. She could feel the king's hand on her shoulder even after she arrived back in her apartment. The crystal in her hands shattered and the cupboards were full, her wallet on the coffee table fattened and the door bell was ringing and Jeremy's voice called out apologies from the other side. Everything was returned.
She turned around only once to glance back into the fading world behind her. She could see the Goblin King standing over the limp body of her very own look alike, her Sarah. With a sad smile on her face she turned away for good, finally free of all ties to that wretched world below. She could feel the magic slipping away from her, suddenly aware of how heavy its constant presence was. Now gone the world was calm at last.
Wiping her hands off on her skirt, she skipped like a school girl to the front door and opened it with a smile on her lips and a giggle waiting to burst happily from her throat.
