All I ask of you, is that when I cannot, would you . . .
Cry?
The car door slammed on her coat, just as stepped away, and tore a rip all the way up the back. Sarah simply stood there, too numb to protest. It was the last of many little tiny annoyances that amounted into one heap of a rotten day. She'd dropped her breakfast yoghurt on the floor, it had coated her skirt en route. She'd been late for a meeting with her editor because the only other work wear she had was an all too formal pair of shimmering trousers. She wore them. Everyone else was in jeans. The key critique to her story cut across the heart of her theme and killed all joy she had in it. She had no energy even to cry. She slipped her arms, one at a time, out of her ruined coat, and left it hanging there as a light rain began to fall. She, her notebooks and her manuscript were soaked by the time she reached her fourth floor flat. Perching the sodden pile of paper onto the edge of the plant pot outside her door, she patted her pockets, then groaned. She'd left her house keys in the coat. She trooped back down the stair and searched through her jacket pockets, only to find them empty. She peered into her car. There they were, on the seat, with her car keys. Of course, the doors were all locked. She stood against the car, in the now pouring rain and raised her face to the skies.
"I'm so unhappy I can't even cry," she said aloud.
She left the car, and her flat, and walked, letting her feet take her where they would.
"I'm not unhappy," she mused to the drops of water that expressed sorrow beyond her ability to grasp, "that would imply I would once again become happy."
She pondered this as she primly skirted puddles on the sidewalk.
"I become resigned, with moments of content," she declared. "Happiness is for those who haven't had their hearts shattered as a child, and their wishes truly answered and twisted against them as a teenager, and their dreams devastated as a young adult."
She put her hands in the pockets of her shiny black trousers. They stuck to her, squeaking as she walked. Of all the days to wear a black bra under her white shirt, now all the neighbourhood could see.
"Let them look!" She declaimed, throwing her hand up in a dramatic sweep. "I might look pretty, but I've too sharp a personality for any lasting love! That's what comes from a shattered heart."
The rain and the whoosh of cars driving past stole her words and silenced them.
She saw the short cut to the river through the Smithson's yard on the far side of the road. She took a rapid glance at the traffic, up and down, saw the gap and ran. Cars slowed and hooted at her, but she was long gone. She pelted across the yard and darted down the zig zag path.
"This way! That way!" It was just like her ragged dating life. "I saw dated you, it fell apart. We kissed and I never saw you again. And you were a coward that didn't ditch me till just before the prom who had been seeing my friend all term!" It was rather humiliating to admit these were all different guys.
She stomped along the part where someone had scattered gravel, still halfway up the hill. She kicked at it and it shifted, and she almost lost her balance.
"And you, there were several of you! Like this gravel, you were there for a few weeks as hopeful perhaps and then just drifted off!"
She hopped down the logs put across the next switch back down.
"I even had the courage to ask two of them out, and wasn't that awkward. Even bad would have been better than awkward."
She stomped her way towards the river. She loved the little turn right at the end of the path; the one where could see almost the whole stretch of the river bend from there. For that alone this trip would be worth it.
She skipped down the logs that served as steps for the next section down. There it was, the river bend in its silvery shimmering glory, with the skies pouring their sorrow down, and the river pulling it away, towards the sea.
The next second her foot slid on the slippery wet log and she went sprawling. Straight into the last part of the path. Only, all the runoff from above pooled there in one large orange muddy puddle.
Spluttering and coughing she pushed herself into a sitting position. Her hands stung, but she couldn't cry. She was overwrought, too far gone over the edge to reach her emotions.
Her white top was no longer just semi transparent, it was tinged with mud orange. Her hair was streaked in it.
"Now this!" She was surprised at the dramatic rise and fall of her voice, still controlled despite her boiling anger and flat apathy. "This, has your name all over it! The one who showed me fairy tales are real, then threw petty challenges and nightmares in my face. Did you really think yourself so wonderful that I'd choose you? Over my brother? Hah! You have no power over me! Told you there!" She smacked the surface of the puddle, splashing herself in the face. She wiped the muck out of her eye. "That's what you get, Jareth, the Goblin King! Wish you were here now! Hah!"
"Sarah?"
She jumped a mile. She was out of the puddle and half way up the path before she registered the utter incredulity in his tone. His tone. His?
She gaped down at him as he stood neatly beside the puddle, in her favourite spot, just where she could see the river bend in all its glory.
"Sarah, what in world are you doing?"
He was impeccably dressed with not a speck of mud on him. The rain that fell lightly rested in his hair like the glitter showers he conjured.
Only, he didn't look anything like what she remembered. There wasn't a touch of snarky attitude in his eyes, just surprise and honest bewilderment.
She perked up. It was him! The Goblin King. The veritable ruler of snarky sass! She turned right around and stomped back down to him. This was just what she needed.
"I am having, as you can see, a most awful day!" She stopped a few steps away so she could face him at eye level. He still had those odd miss matched eyes, strange she had thought she had dreamed that imperfection to balance his beauty. She blinked and drew herself up.
"Did you fall into that puddle and hit your head?" He asked, concerned, gazing up at the way the path zig zaged above them.
"Just from the step you're on," she felt that lowered the whole tone of the conversation to mundane banality. She wanted high drama! He was excellent at that. "I've just realised, our whole relationship is just like that puddle!"
"We had a relationship?" he raised one eyebrow, incredulously.
"Ah," she stuttered, "yes we did! You even danced with me!"
"I dance with many girls; you'd be surprised how most struggle to follow a simple lead. Do mothers not teach a basic waltz to their daughters in this age?"
"Oh," she said as the wind went out of her sails. "It wasn't only me?"
"To dance with me in a peach induced dream? No, that's the honey trap."
"You're a right jerk,"
"At least I'm honest. I'm the Goblin King. I take the children given to me. I try the hearts of those who wish to fight for them, and those – like you– who truly love, win."
"I'm not the only champion of the Labyrinth?"
"No." He smiled.
Her whole life felt hollow. It was true. He was honest in who he was. How had she managed to build a whole world around him? How had she dreamed he was something more? Why had she blamed half of her mistakes and failures on his brilliance and drive? He wasn't fighting her. Wasn't challenging her.
His hair drooped now, dripping rivulets of rain down his face. His makeup ran, a little. He wore the painted tears she could not cry.
No. There was nothing that he wanted. Nothing for him to fight her for.
Sarah walked back down the steps. She stepped carefully around the Goblin King on her favourite step. She didn't get a glimpse of the river view. She walked through the puddle and turned back to him at the end of the path.
"There's an excellent spot for skimming stones a few yards down river if you're coming?"
He stepped around the puddle and she realised to her shock that he was following. She breathed in a squeak of alarm and hurried on.
She scrambled down to the river's edge. Only, with the rain and the rising water from rains further up river, the pebble beach was covered and her feet sunk into thick mud hidden by the misleading tufts of green grass above it. She stood, stuck there, too exhausted to even curse.
He settled beside her, his boots ankle deep in the muck.
"No pebbles today?"
"No," she said listlessly.
They stood in the now pouring rain. His hair refused to flatten under the relentless rain and clumped instead. Hers, she knew hung about her face in nasty rattails.
She sneezed.
"If you want to watch the rain, we could do it in comfort."
She eyed him suspiciously, but he was watching the rain with a slightly distant expression, not at all threatening. She let herself slump. He did the Goblin King gig for a job, or an existence, which was rather pitiable now that she thought of it. And she thought her life sucked? Honestly, what did she have to lose?
"Do I have to wish it?"
"If you like," he shrugged, "a wish is a call to me, and I am already here."
"So it'd be like a three year old going 'nag, nag, nag' in your ear, sorry."
He did not seem to have an opinion either way so she thought for a moment.
"Goblin King, I wish for a place of comfort where we could both watch the rain!"
He smiled and held out a hand and she took it.
"Can you swim?" he asked as around them the river dissolved.
"What?" Sarah then remembered exactly who he was in sudden flat panic.
"Can you swim?" his voice was distant, demanding and she swore she felt his breath on her ear.
"Yes, but whaaaaa!"
She splashed about and felt strong arms grab her and set her on a rock below the water. She settled her feet on the flat rock at the bottom of the large pool they both were in, chest deep. In the rain, overlooking a valley similar to the one they had left, save the river was steaming. He released her once she was steady.
"It's warm," she said in blank shock.
"It is," he peeled his gloves off and tossed them to a broad rock at the side of the pool. He then ducked under and with a little odd hopping that almost had her laughing, tugged off his boots and stockings. He surfaced with a gasp and settled them next to the gloves. She gaped at him as he then reached to the back of his shirt and pulled it over his head. It landed with a wet splat beside his other clothes.
He then leisurely slid back into the water.
"Sarah?"
She blinked as her mind restarted.
"Yeah?"
"You'll find you swim better without your shoes." He ducked under the water and swam away across the pool, and emerged at the far end, overlooking the edge of the waterfall.
She did that, but did not divest herself of any further clothes, as transparent as her shirt was, it was still a shirt, and a barrier. She put her shoes on the stone then dipped under the wonderfully warm water. She waded slowly over to where he stood, taking in his lithe shoulder muscles. He rested his chin on his arms as he overlooked the valley. She joined him in the same stance. It was beautiful.
"How much of this is a dream?" she whispered.
"What is life but a dream? An eternal cycle of rain above a river of rising mist. A momentary drop of a tear, exquisite while falling, then gone. Transience and intransience trapped by beauty."
"You should sell that stuff you say," Sarah sighed as she settled comfortably to float beside him. "I'd buy it."
"Words are but a key to the heart," he murmured, "and I spend my days unlocking them."
She fell silent; she didn't want to discuss what he did. She didn't want to discuss what she did. That neatly killed all current conversation.
She pushed back from the edge of the pool and ducked her head. She scrubbed at her hair to rid it of all the mud from the puddle. She emerged and inspected the rattails. She would need handfuls of conditioner before it was manageable.
"Need some help?"
She glanced up to find him watching her.
"You've got some magic that'll work on this?"
He raised his hands in answer, spreading his fingers like a five year old. She couldn't say no to the silly hopeful grin on his face.
"Trade you," she reached over and lifted a clump of his blond hair out of his eyes.
"We have ourselves an accord. Float on your back, and relax."
She almost fell asleep. The water was comfortable, and his fingers as he promised were magic. She spent the first while simply smiling at the sheer pleasure of having someone stroke her head. Her tired, grumpy self couldn't work up any arguments for ulterior motives. It was just that, wonderful. She wallowed in the glory of it. She opened her eyes sharply when he traced the shell of her ear.
"Our trade, as agreed?" he prompted.
She groaned in pleasure and loss. She sank under water then emerged, contained within a languid calm that nothing could penetrate.
"Same back at you," she gestured for him to float.
His hair was thick and flowed softly in the water. If there was one thing she knew, it was how to give head massages. One writer's retreat she had visited had been held in conjunction with a holistic healing camp, and the healers had traded massages for lessons on expressing themselves with words. It had been an odd trade, but well worth it. Now, ironically, it was she who was giving the massage and he who had provided all those enchanting words. She drew her hands over his scalp, then drifted onto his face, and back onto his scalp as the rhythm of the massage required. She worked down his neck and found a knot on his shoulder and worked that out. She drew her hands up through his hair again and lightly finished at the temples.
"Sarah," he said softly as he sank down into the pool, his eyes still closed.
"Mmh?"
"Thank you."
He hovered at the edge of the pool, clearly half asleep, watching the rain.
She went swimming; she hadn't been in a hot pool in a long time, and certainly not one she had almost to herself.
She popped up beside him as her stomach gave a rumble it was well passed dinner.
"Need to return?" He answered his own question as he pushed himself back in the water, headed for his clothes.
She followed and picked up her shoes.
He simply scooped his things up under his arm and with a gesture; the pool became a window into the hall of her flat where she had hung her full-length mirror.
"If you wish to see me, call," he said.
"If you wish to call, come see me," she retorted, grinning at the surprise on his face.
"Sarah," he said hesitantly, "I am not someone to casually invite into your home."
"No, but your goblins raid my kitchen with regularity, hog the best seat before the TV when the soaps are on and their literary critique is hilarious. You're welcome to join them, though they might be less bold with you around."
His face had an odd expression of consternation and reluctance.
"It's, it's just that I'm not always like this. I have my bad days too, and I know myself, I'll come and find you on a bad day and then," he looked away.
"Then we'll be quits and can compare exactly how awful our lives are. I have chocolate ice cream and cheesy movies to watch for just such occasions. You're honestly welcome. It'd be good to help a friend."
"If you wish."
"No," she eyed him. "Free will, or not at all, I'm not binding you to anything."
He gave her a sheepish grin as if he had just worked that out himself.
"You grant me free access to your home, and all within?" he sounded suspicious.
"If you so wish it."
"Why?"
"Everyone needs a spot to just get away from it all."
"Hah, you already have goblins, there is hardly a difference for me."
She laughed.
"I'll see you."
She stepped back into her apartment. When she looked back the mirror showed only her reflection. Better still, her spare car keys rested in the basket directly below it.