It was raining again. Sarah sat quietly in a chair by her window. She hated the rain. Ever since she was a teenager, there was something about thunderstorms that terrified her. The television droned on in the background, something about another murder in New York City in the year of 1991.

"Nothing new, is it Mac?" She whispered to Maculosus, the black spotted cat sitting on her lap. "Murders and rapes and drugs and…all that." She sighed to herself and looked out the window again.

Sarah was living in New York, had been for three years. She'd moved out of her New Hampshire home the year she'd graduated high school and had been more than happy to be gone. Her father and Karen had started fighting about her and her future. Sarah couldn't stand it. She'd moved away, and within a year, her father died.

Yes. Her father had died. It wasn't anything exciting like a murder or a skydiving accident. He hadn't been driving too fast on a snowy road. There was no tear-inducing tale of a body wreaked by illness. He had just had a heart attack while shoveling the sidewalk. The doctors said there was nothing to do for the 46 year old once he'd gotten to the hospital. Nothing they could do.

Sarah would always remember the wake. She was dressed in her nicest black and held a four year old Toby on her lap as people gave Karen their condolences. It had been at the house. Sarah had been shocked and distressed when her mother blew through the door. Linda Williams was overdressed as usual and only showed up for publicity…not that there was much publicity at her father's funeral. She said hello to Sarah, but not much else as the new boy-toy on her arm was obviously eager to leave. It was the first time that Sarah could truly say she hated her mother.

Toby and Karen (and Karen's new husband) still lived in the old house and were having less and less to do with Sarah. Toby, who was now six, would call every few months to say hello to his big sister and tell her of frogs and bugs and his new baby brother, but the calls were getting fewer and further in-between. Sarah realized that she barely knew him now, almost two years since she'd last seen him which was much longer than you'd think.

The last time she'd seen both Toby and Karen was at Karen's wedding. Again, it had been at the house and although Sarah had been tempted not to go, she kept up appearances as the loving stepdaughter and attended. It had broken her heart to see the pictures of her father and her gone from the hallways and the realization that Karen may not have married Robert Williams for love in the first place was overwhelming. She had grabbed her last few belongings and those left of her fathers' right before she left and vowed never to step into the house again. She hadn't.

She was almost 21 and should be enjoying her life. She had once been feisty and imaginative…but had lost a bit of that. Sarah had gone to NYU and gotten a degree in art history and archeology. She was now working for a museum. It wasn't exactly the glamorous life of her mother. But that wasn't what Sarah wanted. At one time she thought she did, thought she wanted to be a famous actress on Broadway or in Hollywood. But when she felt that her mother had failed her…she changed her mind.

Sarah was bored. She had some friends, nobody of real interest. No boyfriend…she hadn't had a real boyfriend since high school. And that had been a mistake. There wasn't anything very interesting in her life and she knew it. She had her cat, and her little lower east side apartment, but that was pretty much it.

Her days of the labyrinth were over. Sarah would never forget the story and her friends. But she hadn't called on them since she moved. She was a grown up now and grown ups did not call friends from a fantastical land through a mirror for scrabble parties every now and then. Sarah was trying so hard to be grown up that she was forgetting how to have an imagination.

That's where we see her now, sitting with a cat, by a window, staring at the rain.

The phone rang and Sarah sat up with shock. "I'm not home" She said to Mac, who just stared at her with big green eyes.

BEEP

"This is Sarah, leave a message."

But nobody left a message. They didn't leave messages anymore because she rarely got back to anyone. If she wasn't at home, she was at work, and if she wasn't at work…she didn't want to talk to anybody.

"Why do I have to be so boring?" She said quietly as the thunder struck again. "I'm meant for something more than this." She sighed and rested her eyes. Sarah fell asleep petting Mac and staring out at the rain.

Outside her window, a snowy owl sat on a branch in the rain.