Prologue
Sarah awoke with a gasp and sat up straight, an unnamed danger hanging heavily in the atmosphere of her bedroom. She glanced around and shivered, her eyes searching blindly in the darkness for that which had awakened her. The digital clock on her nightstand read a little after midnight, and Sarah sighed. Her eighteenth birthday had dawned – figuratively speaking – and she was determined that it would pass like any other day.
It was then that she noticed that her room was unnaturally dark, pitch black and frightening, the air thick and tense.
Her eyes flickered towards her bedroom door and then her window; they were both closed, her window locked and bolted as it usually was. She shivered and pulled her knees up into her chest, wrapping her arms around them and biting her lip. For the first time in ten years, Sarah was afraid of the dark.
"You're being silly," she whispered to herself, valiantly trying to ignore the sense of foreboding that rolled in her stomach. "...'s probably just Jareth playing a little birthday trick." She scowled at the thought of him, of the man she constantly banished from her mind, of the name she refused to speak. She covered her mouth with her hand and looked around warily, half expecting him to materialize in a cloud of glitter.
"Don't say his name!" Hoggle had warned her, once upon a time, "To say it is to invite him."
She lay back down and took a calming breath, straining her ears for any out of place noises.
A hand grasped her wrist and she let out a startled scream as a gloved palm covered her mouth. She struggled against them, thrashing on her bed as more and more grabbed onto her, tugging her out of the assumed safety of her bed and dragging her towards her mirror.
She sank her teeth into the hand over mouth and relished in the angry hiss that accompanied the withdrawal of the offending object. "Get off of me!" she demanded imperiously, turning her head roughly from side to side, trying to catch a glimpse of the faces of her kidnappers. "Let go!"
The hands tightened and Sarah let out a yelp of pain as nails bit into her skin. "You can't do this," she hissed at her captors, "You can't!"
Stilling her movements long enough to focus her eyes, Sarah saw a hand hover over the surface of her mirror, and disappear into it. A hand that was followed by another, and another, and then her feet went through, her legs, her torso; in the split second before her head passed through the portal, Sarah whispered his name again. "Jareth."
He wasn't sure what had awoken him. He climbed out of his bed and went to the window, his fierce eyes scanning over his sprawling kingdom, searching for the source of the disturbance. He frowned at the twisting in his chest and leaned against the window frame.
He closed his eyes and sighed. He could've sworn that it had been her voice.
And then he heard it a second time, and was powerless to fight the pull that called him to her.
It took mere seconds and Jareth was standing in her bedroom. He glanced around and his eyes settled on the disturbed bedclothes, the pillow on the floor, the knocked over lamp on her nightstand. He took a deep breath and stiffened at the scent of magic hanging in the air, approaching the mirror and extending his arm. His fingers ghosted over the glass, and he pulled back his hand as if the surface had burned him.
"Where are you, Sarah?" he whispered into the darkness, "Where are you?"