AN: Into Forever, and its sequel Evanescence have now been updated and revised since the original was written in 2011 and the first updated draft was 2013. I hope you all enjoy this story as much as I do, even after five years.
Disclaimer: I own nothing of The Labyrinth.
Sarah Williams found herself clutching her battered copy of the Labyrinth as she walked with Merlin to the park. The events of the previous night were still cascading upon her mind and her morning had passed in frenzy.
At first she had thought it was only a dream, those hours in the labyrinth. When she woke, however, she was met with chattering and snickering that proclaimed her room was still occupied by goblins.
Merlin barked, bringing Sarah back to the present and she scratched his ears before telling him to go play, while thinking about his look alike Ambrosius. I bet Ambrosius would be too scared to even play with Merlin.
Sarah was smiling without realizing it and then noticed how tightly she was clutching the book. She frowned and looked down at the worn copy she had read over so many times, acting out in that very park.
Everything had happened so suddenly the previous night that she hadn't thought about any of it at the time. When she found Toby was gone the Goblin King himself had shown up in her dad and stepmom's room. She was so frantic and caught up in the moment that it hadn't processed.
Sarah looked around the serene little park, with its bridge and neatly trimmed grounds. The labyrinth had been wild and beautiful, untamed and brimming with life. I was there; really, truly there.
The thought sent excitement coursing through her and she took a moment to let that sink in. The leather-bound book in her hands seemed to calm her as much as thrill her.
For the first time she found herself wondering how she even came upon that book. It was a present when I was five. I only remember the little blonde girl that gave it to me. She was weird.
Sarah found herself wandering over to the stone bridge overlooking the water, leaning against the railings as she flipped through the pages.
The words had taken on new meaning for her. It almost felt like she was the heroine in the story. Impossible though, right? I just made a wish. Surely this book isn't about me.
A thought then flitted through her and her stomach twisted. She felt a sense of urgency to go and check on Toby. After all, it had been her wish that the Goblin King would take him away that had brought about the previous night's events. Would he come back for Toby? If the goblins and my friends can still come and go as they please can he?
Without thinking Sarah looked around the clearing for any sign of the barn owl that was always there in the park.
The Goblin King had taken on the form of an owl like that twice. Could it have been him this whole time? There's no way. That was impossible but if it was, what did that mean?
She looked to no avail for that owl, not seeing it at its usual perch. A strange pang of disappointment swept through her before she shrugged it off.
She called for Merlin and they headed back home.
Her stepmother, Karen, was preparing lunch when she arrived back inside. Toby was playing in his highchair, making a mess of carrots and potatoes that put Merlin to shame.
"Karen, I would like to apologize for my selfish behavior," Sarah started, guilt lacing her voice. "I was acting like an ungrateful child and I won't do so again. I was hurt but I didn't have to behave like I did."
Toby glanced over at Sarah from his highchair and erupted into a squeal as he held out his little arms to his big sister. Sarah smiled and walked over to him, straightening his messy blond hair.
Karen glanced over at Sarah with raised eyebrows and Sarah just shrugged and took her seat, making faces at Toby across the table.
"I guess I could ask if you could baby sit the next time Robert and I go out." Karen finally spoke.
Over the next couple of weeks Sarah found herself becoming more obsessed with the labyrinth, writing down all the details she could remember about her time there.
The smell of peaches went with her everywhere. She found what happened during her time in the labyrinth matched her book perfectly. It was so strange. Could it be every girl that made the wish matched the story?
As time went on Sarah began to yearn to return back to the kingdom, to feel the stone walls against her fingers again.
She was already withdrawn from others her age, having few friends and only keeping a select number of those, and she became more-so disconnected. She felt out of place sitting in a classroom. Her mind was in the Goblin Kingdom, running through the labyrinth again.
I felt like I belonged there. Here I feel like an outsider.
The goblins would still be there in her room at odd hours. There seemed to always be at least one hanging around causing mischief. They became very dear to her.
It was a few months later that Sarah felt the pull to call on her friends so she sat in front of her mirror and whispered a single word, "Hoggle?"
In the blink of an eye her friend appeared from the other side of the mirror. He looked better than he had the weeks before, happier even. "Well now, lookie here if it isn't Miss Sarah, not wishing away your brother again are ya?"
Sarah grinned, a blush creeping up her cheeks. "I missed you too."
It was Hoggle's turn to become bashful as he looked downward. "I never said nothing bout missin nobody."
The little dwarf was an open book even in denial and Sarah couldn't stop herself. Before she even thought or questioned the action she reached through the mirror and pulled her friend into a big hug.
Startled, Sarah pushed the dwarf back. "Hoggle, what did I just do?"
Hoggle looked confused. "Don't you know anything Sarah? You beat tha Labyrinth." Now Hoggle looked down, side to side, and anyway but not into Sarah's piercing ever changing eyes.
"What Hoggle?" Sarah demanded, reaching out and shaking the dwarf.
"Well we all didn't really know what would happen ta be honest." Hoggle spoke slowly. Sarah's eyes were blazing with curiosity.
Hoggle shook his head, "I mean it had never happened before. So how could we know that-."
"Hoggle just spit it out already!" Sarah almost yelled, exasperated, aware her dad and Karen could be listening.
"Remember what I said? Even if you get to the center of the Labyrinth you'll never get out again. In more ways than one lemme tell ya.
His Majesty had already given you powers before you even stepped into the labyrinth and then you did the impossible. You beat him Sarah, even when you said it was a piece of cake and he upped the odds for you. You beat him. He granted you more power Sarah."
Sarah's eyes were wide. He had already granted me powers before I went into the labyrinth? That makes no sense. It can't be, "Why would he give me more power Hoggle, after I just beat him?"
Hoggle stared intently at the ground, at the walls, anywhere but at Sarah.
"I guess he thought you could come back once a while, give him a challenge. I dunno. He gets tired of just the goblins ya know, and the other people who run the labyrinth..."
"You mean I can come back?" Sarah's eyes lit up like diamonds and a big smile bedazzled her face.
"Of course you can, that's what I'm sayin. I'm guessin all you have to do is enter through the mirror portal you created that night you came back."
Sarah plopped down onto her bed, a finger stroking her delicate chin, deep in thought. "So he wants me to come back? Hoggle, I'm sorry but I don't understand. He did nothing but deceive me and try and keep my brother. Why would he want me to come back?"
The little dwarf just shrugged, "Beats me."
Sarah groaned, more confused than anything else. If he did give me the power to come back he must have some sort of trick up his sleeves, something to use to get Toby back.
If he did give me powers, which I doubt, then I should learn to use them before I go back, "Well Hoggle I guess I better learn how to use these powers if I do decide to return."
The days and nights blurred for Sarah Williams. She focused all of her spare time on trying to figure out her powers, if she had any at all, and on what she would do upon returning to the labyrinth. How could she, when the Goblin King was so cruel?
It took her exactly a year to figure out how to tap into her magic and it came, as it did that night with Hoggle, unexpectedly.
One day she brought her tattered copy of The Labyrinth to school with her. She sat in her desk with the book propped open with one hand and her head on her other hand, trying to find reason within those pages when all she found was the same story.
She had finally given up though, and figured the Goblin King had put Hoggle up to it when her friend Amy jerked the book from her hands, holding it up towards the light.
Sarah seethed, "give it back Amy."
Amy just laughed light heartedly, "oh sounds interesting, mind if I read it?"
Before Sarah could tell her no the bell rang and Amy was off, book in tow. That was how Amy was though. Where Sarah was a dreamer Amy was always in the moment. It still made Sarah furious though. The book was in her every waking thought and she needed it to help her.
Hoggle tried his best to help Sarah figure out her magic, as well as Sir. Didymus occasionally, but they both had jobs within the labyrinth. They pleaded with Sarah to join them there but she refused. She wanted to be sure when she went again that there could be no more cleaners sent after her or oubliettes.
What a twist of fate if I could send the Goblin King to an oubliette. The thought had made Sarah laugh.
When Sarah was back home, still angry and frustrated over the book being out of her hands she sat at her vanity and willed the book to be there again. Strangely enough there was the book, opened like someone had just finished the last page.
Sarah started, almost not believing the sight before her eyes. There was an almost electric current running through her fingers, making her giddy. The adrenaline of the act caused Sarah to laugh, immediately calling to Hoggle through the mirror.
He was there instantly and rejoiced with her, thinking that she would then cross over to them. She shook her head no though, and explained that was only the beginning. She needed to get better. Quickly, she willed the book back to Amy though. That would have been hard to explain.
Giggling Sarah said goodbye to Hoggle and Sir. Didymus who had just appeared, and ran into Toby's room where he had since been moved. The little man was playing with his toys while Karen was changing in her room.
Sarah grabbed Toby up and swung around with him laughing. Toby was slightly startled but once he saw the joy on his sister's face his own face lit up and Sarah danced around the room with Toby. When Karen found them Toby was laughing so hard he was crying.
Sarah left early for school the next morning and Amy wasn't there. When she did see her Amy just nodded and walked on by after Sarah confirmed that she wasn't mad. It was actually in the lunchroom a few days later when Amy found her.
Amy looked very excited as she gave Sarah back the book.
"The story was amazing Sarah!"
Raising her eyebrows Sarah cocked her head, "Really?"
Amy sat down in front of Sarah, her dark eyes glittering. "I mean I'm sorry I've been avoiding you but I've been working on something and you're going to love it!"
Sarah watched in shock as Amy pulled out a painting from her satchel. The drawing was a rather poor rendition of the Goblin King, but it was the scene that startled Sarah.
"But this can't possibly be a scene from the book." Sarah stated simply, her heart catching in her chest. That can't be right.
"It should have been."
Sarah's eyes travelled over the painting. The Goblin King had one arm wrapped around the girl's waist, the other entangled in her hair. The girl had a dainty hand clenching the poet shirt the King adorned, while her other delicately gloved hand was stroking his cheek. Their foreheads were touching, their lips almost caressing, just enough so that Sarah could almost feel their breath mingling.
"What are you talking about?" Sarah asked, slightly shaking.
"How do you not know Sarah? You've read this book more times than I can imagine."
I've experienced it, what is she talking about? "I don't understand Amy."
"The girl even states in the beginning Sarah," Amy began while Sarah stood there shaken, "but what no one knew was that the king of the goblins had fallen in love with the girl, and he had given her certain powers. He loved her the whole time before she even stepped foot in the labyrinth. That's beautiful."
Sarah could feel her hands trembling so she held them against her side to calm them, "Amy he was just trying to get her brother, to turn him into a goblin, and she was too young too."
Amy frowned then, "Sarah why would he come after that one specific child, out of millions more? Remember when he had her friend give her the peach? He was showing her her dreams, what he could offer her. It was there he even confessed his love for her, and he isn't exactly human, whether she was young or not, she wasn't a child."
Sarah shook her head, remembering too vividly how heady that was, how her head swam as she walked through the ballroom. She could hear a song that the Goblin King was singing as she was wandering through that place.
I'll paint you mornings of gold, I'll spin you valentine evenings though we're strangers 'til now, we're choosing the path between the stars. I'll lay my love between the stars. When she found him he had taken her into a dance, crooning that song to her even as her head swam.
She had almost forgotten about the time limit and finding her brother. I even remember the smell; sunlight and peaches. It's the one thing I don't like to admit, how hypnotizing he had been.
"Amy, Jareth sent her there to distract her, to make her forget finding her brother because she was beating him."
"Who is Jareth?"
Sarah froze, "Sorry, I just sort of gave him a name. So many times reading the story you know? The Goblin King gets old."
Amy was frowning. "Sarah, think about this, if he had just sent her there to distract her, to make her forget, then why did he go there? Why did he sing that song when just her being in a ballroom at all would have done the trick? Why did he dance with her?"
"Because he was showy and flamboyant and wanted to do it himself? I don't know Amy. What I do know is that it was just a trap."
"Okay, then what about when she was just out of the oubliette? He asked her how she was enjoying his labyrinth. He was really excited to be doing that for her."
Sarah retorted, "He was gloating and wanted to show her she couldn't win."
It was Amy's turn to pause, "Sarah, the girl was the one to say the labyrinth was a piece of cake. She said it was easy so he made it more difficult for her."
"Amy I seriously doubt if he loved the girl he would have sent the cleaners after her or caused her to almost fall into the Bog of Eternal Stench."
"You know Sarah, for someone as obsessed with this book as you are you sure are cynical about the whole point of it. What about at the end, when they are facing each other and he tells her he loves her again? He tells her she can have it all, everything that she could ever want."
Sarah thought back to the confrontation, where everything around them was falling apart. He looked frightening then and she had been struggling so hard to remember the last few lines of the book, the ones she always had a hard time with.
"That was a last ploy to get her to give up so he would win, nothing more."
Amy shook her head, her black curls bouncing on her shoulders. "No I don't think so Sarah. I think he was deeply in love with the girl and she turned him down. How cruel is that?"
"He wants her to become his subject, for him to rule her, a slave to his every whim, to fear him for crying out loud!"
"That's his confession of love! Yeesh Sar, how can you not see that after everything he did for her? He literally slaved himself for her. He reordered time for her. He offered her her dreams."
"Amy he doesn't love her; he's just a sore loser." Sarah spat out, grabbing the book and storming off.
She doesn't know what she's talking about, and that's why I have to keep focusing on my powers so that I can return to the Labyrinth. I can't let him best me when I return.
Sarah held true to that notion and continued to develop her skills for the next few years until she was graduating. No matter how she yearned to go ahead and step in the labyrinth she refrained, biding her time and developing her skills.
Her sole focus was on going back to the only place she could ever truly call home. She just had to be prepared to face the Goblin King's wrath but she wouldn't give the Labyrinth up, not in spite of all the cleaners or hallucinations in the world.