All is disclaimed.
Summary: Sarah has a bad habit of looking into people's houses through the windows, and discovers a house for sale that she absolutely must see...
13 Castle Road
Sarah shouldn't have been peering into the window - ever since she was little, first her mother, her father and then her stepmother had repeatedly told her that looking into people's sitting rooms was rude. It was rude, Sarah herself hated it when people craned their necks, walking past her own flat, but she never quite managed to shake off the habit. She'd walk past the man eating his ready meal in front of an enormous television, bathed in its flickering light, past the boy stirring soup? stew? in the big pot in the kitchen, she saw children painting pictures on a wall, and once, though she quickly averted her eyes, she saw a woman get up from a bed, where her lover lay, come right up to the window, rest her hands on the sill, and Sarah pretended that she had not seen a thing. She could not quite tear herself away from others' interior spaces, watching those who did not know that they were being watched, or, sometimes, watching those who knew it very well.
It was an absence of people which captured her attention. The sun was low in the pale sky of the extended days of summer, and the shadows were growing long but not so dark, when Sarah walked back to her flat from the store, swinging the shopper to and fro, and allowing herself, secretly, to look into the lives of other people, all on display. Just there, in a mid-terraced house, between a perfectly normal evening of a couple reading the papers on the one side and perfectly boring drawn curtains on the other, she stared straight into an almost empty, spacious room, which contained precisely two things: a hefty, covered-up piece of furniture, perhaps a sofa, and a small crystal chandelier. She stood still, and time did too, it seemed to her, as she studied the room and the contents, out of place in this ordinary street. She felt a chill on her feet and arms. The sun was much lower than she had expected, she set off quickly, shaken, without looking back.
The house was up for sale. She found an ad in the newspaper the following day and made an appointment. The sofa was at the back of her mind all throughout the afternoon, she wondered how long it had been like that, who had covered it up, and just what exactly was underneath.
When waiting for the estate agent outside the door, Sarah noticed her hands were shaking, and she stuffed them into her pockets, took deep breaths. The agent told her that the property had only just come up on the market. Sarah nodded along, not really listening whether it had double glazing or central heating (it didn't) or what the asking price was (it was pretty steep). Finally, the agent turned the key and invited Sarah in.
They started with the upstairs. There's a cellar, the agent mentioned as they walked up the wooden steps, good for wine, and for vermin. Of course there's a cellar, Sarah thought, there's probably an attic too. There was. The agent pulled down an unwilling collapsible ladder, opened the door - a horizontal ceiling door that opens up rather than out, Sarah noticed - and climbed up gracefully, balancing on the narrow steps in her high heeled shoes. Sarah followed, and was presented with a chaotic view. There's no floor, explained the estate agent, that's why the wooden ladders are lying about all over the place. You can walk on them, or else you'd fall right through. And Sarah almost felt like she was falling then, she wanted to come down. She could fix it up for under ten thousand, she heard the agent say, get a nice room or two out of that, there's plenty of space.
Sarah's stomach turned and reason told her to leave, but she was determined to get to the living room. They were on the first floor, where the bedrooms were large enough, big windows and bare parquet, no furniture. In the master bedroom Sarah looked at the street below. The estate agent joined her by the window. How do you like the view, she asked, tapping her pen on her thigh, and momentarily Sarah imagined that the trees across the road suddenly danced together to form a series of passages, but she blinked it away, blinked again to check that all was as it should be, and allowed herself to breathe.
Downstairs, Sarah declined to see the cellar, instead walking straight into the living room. The two items she saw before were right there - the dusty chandelier which still shone in places where the sun caught the facets of the crystal, and, draped in white, the large sofa. There was also a large mirror in a heavy gilt frame, that she did not see from the street, very old; the glass had stained and darkened, but Sarah still saw the room reflected in its plane, and the two of them, herself, apprehensive, and the blonde estate agent in her suit. Please, the agent said, as Sarah asked about the furniture, have a look. And Sarah, through an act of courage, lifted the cover right off, unleashed a cloud of dust.
Sarah's cough turned into a laugh as she saw that the strange shapeless piece of furniture was just a shabby, moth-eaten armchair. The whole house was so funny, with its attic and cellar and a seat for one. She grinned at the estate agent.
You will be buying, the agent said, and Sarah found herself laughing again, no no no, it was all silly really, she just wanted to see.
Have you seen, Sarah, the agent asked, advancing towards her, tapping that pen, pointing to the wall opposite, have you really seen what it was that you came here to see?
Have I told her my name, Sarah wondered, as she turned around to look into the mirror, but all thoughts left her then, for there, reflected in the large sheet of glass, was the Throne of the Goblin King and above it a wrought iron lamp with candles, suspended from the ceiling by a chain.
We were so impressed by your interest in this... property, the estate agent said, closing up behind her - We thought it was exactly what you were looking for. You will be buying.
And Sarah realised then that it wasn't a question, it wasn't even a threat, because her clothes and even her face had changed in the mirror, she couldn't quite tell how or what was different, was she now wearing gloves? and she wasn't even that surprised when the estate agent quite naturally, with a shake of her head, became the Goblin King.
The former Goblin King, Sarah, he smiled, and flexed his fingers, took a full breath, free at last. Sarah stumbled into the throne. She could still get out, surely, there was still time, she thought, as the wallpaper fell away from the grey stone walls and as the goblins descended from the shadows.
"Long live the queen," Jareth said quietly, and reached around his neck, "Your key..."
Sarah did not struggle when he fastened the chain. With the weight of the strange metal on her chest she felt short of air. She was pushed deeper into the throne and the goblins were still coming, grovelling at her feet. She didn't know where she found the strength or the reason to laugh,
"Forever, right?"
-FIN-