Chapter One

If I could find myself one more time…
-"Mirai No Kioku"


Toby curled up in the seat by the bay window in his parent's room, and stared out the window. It didn't matter how much time went by, how old he got, whether his life was good or bad, he always, always ended up in the same place.

She's furious. She won't let me back into the house. I deserve it. I still always end up here. It's just this time, I have an excuse.

His mother would be furious, too. Toby could hear her lecture as if she were already there; when will you learn that it's time to grow up, why can't you be more like your sister, we can't take care of you forever…Sarah had gone through her rebellious phase, he'd heard stories, but as long as Toby could remember she had been a model sister, always appreciative and so full of love it was stifling. Their father often joked about the transformation from moody teenage to miniature angel, saying it must've been magic that changed her almost overnight. Sarah would laugh and flash Toby a secretive smile whenever her said that.

Toby hated it. He didn't remember Sarah before she had changed. And he didn't like them joking about magic.

He remembered Sarah's fairy tales and stories…she outgrew living in her fantasy world by the time he started preschool, but she'd told him stories until the day she had her own daughter. He remembered that even when he hated her sweet nature, or wished she could hate him and stop lavishing all her suffocating affection and protection upon him, he had loved hearing those tales. He would want her to disappear but he always loved her for her stories and the magic in them.

But even more, he remembered the dreams.

Toby could remember being so small he could barely climb into bed alone, crying out for Sarah and clutching Lancelot till the teddy bear could have choked. It was always Sarah he called for after the dreams, Sarah he talked to, because she always listened seriously and with all her soul. And it was only in the mornings if he mentioned them again that she dared say it was just a dream.

He remembered the earliest dreams were those of dark stone corridors, music, noise, and goblins and monsters. Yet these never scared him. He felt safe with them. It was the silence that scared him, the walls crumbling down around him, and later, the staircases coming out of walls upside down that turned him round and round so he could never get at what he was looking for…it was the sound of breaking glass as everything suddenly fell apart, with no way to escape.

Lancelot and Sarah made things better. He slept with Lancelot till he was ten or maybe even older, and he cried to Sarah until she left for college when he was six, and even then he called her to talk about the dreams and ran to her when she was home. It wasn't until he was fourteen that he stopped trusting her. That was when he began to resent the stories of Sarah The Caring Obedient Daughter, when he started to realize that they were kidding about magic. He'd always hated it when his parents and even Sarah told him the stories were just stories. It was only then that he realized they really believed it.

That had hurt, the realization…not as much with his father, but for realizing Sarah thought it was all a joke. Sarah, who knew all about the dreams that haunted him more and more, Sarah who should have known better…Toby stopped trusting her then. He never told her about the dreams again, even as the strange man appeared in the shadows, never letting himself be seen by Toby, or when he first looked outside the castle windows to discover the endless maze beyond. And he never told her about the bay window in his parent's room.

He'd always loved that window, with the high up view like something in a castle tower and the perpetual breezes it let in. It seemed to him there a whole other world was outside that one window, one he couldn't quite reach even though he longed to. Even more than Lancelot and Sarah, the window helped quiet his mind after the dreams. He would slip in there late at night, being careful not to wake his parents, and stare out the window until they stirred and he fled. As time went on, when he was sad, stressed, confused, anything at all, he found himself sitting beside the window more and more, whenever he could. Only there did he feel content. Only there did he feel close enough to the world he longed for but could not quite reach.

College had been hard. He couldn't escape the dreams, couldn't hold Lancelot or run to the window, he couldn't deal with the idiots who called him crazy for believing in things they weren't smart enough to notice. He wondered, when he woke from dreams growing steadily more sad, dark, and desperate, if they were right. So Toby dropped out, came home, started classes at the nearest college so he could come home whenever he wanted….not to his parents, but the window to another world.

Those dreams that haunted him…he knew magic was no laughing matter. Those dreams were proof of that.

And now he found himself back at the window, peering out and trying to see the real world beyond the scrim of his hometown, like so many times before. Is parents would be furious to find him there, to hear about how he'd left Anna after so much. He wouldn't tell them about how she'd called him crazy, how he's told her she made him crazy, how he'd thrown his Prozac into the toilet and yelled that any dream world was better than the life she wanted to force onto him, or even about how she had thrown the angels from their engagement party at him, followed by the ring itself as she screamed for him to get out for good. They would be angry enough as it was.

Toby stared out at the sky and wondered if there had been a moment in all 22 years of his existence where he hadn't felt haunted and out of place.

The floor began to rumble beneath his feet. His parents were home.

Toby continued to stare out the window, and waited for the inevitable.



Toby's room might've belonged to a stranger. Even as a child, he didn't keep much there. He wanted space, he wanted to be able to pack up and leave at a moment's notice. Now, with so much of his life locked away in the duplex he and Anna had shared, it was like a guest room, nothing more. Toby wondered if Lancelot was in Sarah's room again, for when his nieces came by. Everything in the duplex was junk. Thank god he had left Lancelot here.

Toby turned over in his bed and stared at the digital clock on his dresser. 2:34. He'd gone straight to his room after dinner at around 7:30, listening to his parents argue about him until 10:50 or 10:51. He'd been lying awake for three hours and fifty-four minutes.

Toby gave up trying to sleep. He threw off his covers, swung his feet out of bed, and headed to Sarah's room.

It had been sixteen years since Sarah had left home for school, twelve or more since she'd lived there, but her room still cried out for her, for the fourteen year old brat who loved make believe. Tony glanced at himself in the vanity mirror as he passed. A tall, too-thin young man with tidy blonde hair and sullen, confused blue eyes stared back at him from behind the necklaces and rose crowns hanging from the mirror.

Lancelot was seated in one of the display shelves on the walls. Sarah had told him about how she never played with her fantasy collections, and used to throw complete fits when one of her dolls or stuffed animals went missing. "Mom and Dad would give them to you to play with," she would say, "and I used to wish you'd never been born."

"Then why did you give me Lancelot?" he had asked once. "Wasn't he your favorite?"

Sarah had nodded, and smiled that secret smile she used when her father talked about her magic transformation. "Something happened to make me change my mind."

She never said another word about it. Toby didn't think he'd ever forgiven her for that.

Sarah had books everywhere, all over her room. Not young adult minidramas or fluffy fairytales, no…these were the real things, the dark stories, the originals, all the classic tales and fantasies. Toby pulled Lancelot down from his shelf and lay down on Sarah's bed, holding the teddy bear tightly in one arm. He reached for the stack of books on her bedside table.

Grimm's Fairytales, The Complete Hans Christen Anderson, The Sandman, Labyrinth, The Storyteller, Celtic Myths and Faerie Tales… Toby skimmed the titles, and decided on The Sandman and Labyrinth. He'd never read the latter, and the former was more than appropriate for the moment. Feeling not exactly comfortable, but certainly more at home than in his own room, Toby settled back against the pillows, propped Lancelot in his lap, and started to read.

The Sandman was almost too fast. The clock in Sarah's room read 3:49 when Toby put down the book. Ironically enough, he felt more awake than when he'd started the book. Toby frowned at it, but with a smile in his eyes. "False advertising," he muttered in mock annoyance. "Time for a new read."

He picked up Labyrinth. The book was well-worn, the pages dog-eared, lines underlined, the spine almost shot completely. Sarah must've really liked this book, he thought briefly, wondering if it had been Old Sarah or Perfect Sarah who had worn it out so. It was probably Old Sarah. Perfect Sarah had never mentioned this story to him before.

Toby switched Lancelot to his other arm. He opened the book and began to read.

This time, time flew.

Toby glanced up at the clock only once. It didn't seem like he'd been reading long, but the time read 5:46. Strange how this book seemed to take so much less time to read and yet he'd read The Sandman in nearly the same amount of time and here he was with at least a third to go. Toby looked back at the book, and shook his head. It was amazing. The story was fascinating, the characters were classic good and evil…

Toby felt like he'd read it all before. Only no princess came to save him. He'd stayed…in all of his dreams, he had stayed.

"I have come to this castle beyond the goblin city to take back the child which you have stolen from me."

Toby shook his head. Let him have the child. I bet when he grows up, he'll hate you for taking you away. He's too young to know he's in danger…he'll always leave part of himself there in the goblin city, and he'll hate you for taking him away from it.

The princess was stupid. She kept going, challenging the goblin king.

"For my will is strong, and my kingdom is great. You have no power over me."

Toby snapped the book closed.

He didn't want to read anymore. He knew what would happen. He didn't want it to.

The clock read 6:15. The sun would be rising soon.




Sunrise from the bay window was breathtaking. Toby didn't see any of it. He gazed at nothing through the glass.

Sarah never told me that story. I wonder if she knew what I would think of it. That idiotic princess. If I were that kid, I'd never forgive her.

The goblin city sounded so much like his dreams. Maybe Sarah did know what he would have thought of the book. It was likely, actually, given what he'd told her about the dreams. But they were comforting…sad, now, and frantic, as if something were running out of time…but he felt more at home there than anywhere. Even the bay window where he now sat was like a play set compared to the dreams.

Toby wished desperately that he could stay there for good. No princess rescued him…only waking reality.

I wish the goblins would come and take me away, right now. Toby rested his forehead on the glass. I'd give anything to get out of this place.

There was a moment of silence, a brief second of cold where Toby's head touched the glass. The next minute, everything was dark.



A hand brushed through Toby's hair, gently stroking the fine blonde strands. Toby opened his eyes slowly, thoughts fuzzy and confused. He was slumped half seated against something hard and edged, maybe a chair or table, I though with a solid base. Everything was silent…no footfalls, no wind, no noise outside, no hum of the heater. Complete silence.

He hated silence. It terrified him.

"You're awake," a low voice whispered above him. "Good."

Toby sat up slowly, a bit dizzy. The floor was cold beneath him. Stone. He was resting against stone. No wonder he ached.

"I must say you are by far the oldest visitor I've had in this place. Or captive, though you are also the only one to wish himself here. Visitor seems more appropriate to this situation."

The voice was smooth, middling in range but rich, with a deep feel if not in sound, a sensuous British drawl like a voice from an old movie…well-mannered, but not heavy. There was a faintly scratchy undertone to it, like an old record. Toby turned, willing his head to clear. He sat before a small throne of time-dimmed, sandy colored stone. The room was easily as large as one of the lecture halls at college, and made of the same stone, hung with a few tattered dark drapings, and crumbling away at the walls and windows. Resting with his knees crossed over one arm of the throne and the arm not stroking Toby's hair draped over the other was a man.

The stranger's hand hesitated, then withdrew. He rested it across his chest and studied Toby through half-closed eyes, both blue, but one so brilliant it matched the August sky and the other pale enough to fall just short of gray. The few violet and blue streaks in his white blonde hair looked completely natural, not dyed at all. That coupled with the wing swept eyebrows and slightly pointed ears told Toby why. He hadn't suffered as Sarah's younger brother without taking some of her with him. This man was not human.

"Your sister would be most upset to find you here," the man muttered with something that was not quite amusement. Toby forgot to breathe.

The silence stretched, complete and interminable. Toby couldn't even hear the man's breathing. Finally, he spoke, lest the silence paralyze him. "How do you know Sarah?"

"Oh, Sarah and I go back a long way." Long, lovely legs clad in what looked to Toby like black spandex swung off the arm of the throne and onto the floor. "I haven't seen her…or you…in years. But I don't think she's forgotten. You obviously haven't."

"Forgotten?" Toby wondered why he didn't simply ask what made the most sense…where was he, why was he here, who was this stranger…but the words that left his lips seemed more important some how.

The man's expression twitched for a moment. "No, I should say that Sarah still remembers. You probably don't. You were too small to be anything but a prize, after all."

"We've met before? When I was small?"

"Very small. I don't know how old you were, don't ask. Sarah would know. I wonder if she'll come back again to get you."

Toby's world suddenly crystallized in a new pattern. "How old was Sarah then?"

"I believe fourteen or so." The man never took his eyes off of Toby. His expression hadn't changed at all since that first sight, save the momentary twitch. "I didn't much care for details at the time."

"I've been here before." Toby looked around. "Almost every night for as far back as I can remember." It felt right, he knew he was right. The rest of the castle looked like this room, though it was silent now. The maze outside the window. The shadows where this stranger no longer hid. "Sarah took me away?"

"Sarah asked me to take you away."

Toby turned, eyes seeking. "And then?"

The man didn't answer for a moment. "She went back on her word. She took you home."

Toby didn't dare let the silence reign again. This place was noise and music, not of his world, no, and not of anything most would prefer to the silence, but Toby had never feared those parts of the dream. This silence had no place in his dream. "Who are you?"

The stranger stood, tall, regal, and utterly alone. His eyes still rested on Toby. He hadn't even blinked. "Welcome back to the goblin city, Toby. I am King Jareth."

A small smile crept over his lips, and Toby realized that if he ever saw Sarah again, he would hate her for the rest of their lives.