A prequel, of sorts, to the Labyrinth: how Sarah eventually got possession of the book.

If I owned the Labyrinth, there would be a sequel, or maybe it would be a trilogy. Seeing as only one movie exists, I do not own the Labyrinth, nor do I own the goblin that's going through my books at the moment and re-organizing them into alphabetical order ("by author, then publishing date-that's how you do it, yes...").

It was early June of 1971 when a young woman ventured into Wesclin books, very pregnant. The rain outside cast a blue-ish ambience into the shop, where only a few standing lamps were on. In the half-darkness, the owner sat behind the front desk in a manner much like a child himself, looking uncomfortable in the cardigan and collared shirt under it. He silently read his book, only glancing at the guest when her back was turned.

Suddenly the woman was at the desk, though the shopkeeper had sensed it. "Excuse me," she asked, "but I was wondering if you could help me out."

The man was almost offended by the idea that he wouldn't help her out. "Of course," he said, standing immediately. "What do you need, precious?"

The lady tried to hide the small gasp that escaped when she was captivated by his mismatched eyes, one with a larger pupil than the other.

"Fairytales," she said quickly, "please."

The man slid out from behind the desk like a cat, slyly gathering a book from this shelf and then from that, making a small pile in his arm. He returned to the desk and set the pile there. "Take your pick," he said gently.

The woman leafed through the picture books, some new and some looking generations old. She finally chose four and handed them to the man.

"So it's a little girl?" he asked as he handled the books.

"Yes," the lady answered with a slightly proud smile.

"If you don't mind me asking," he said, taking the money, "where's her father?"

Thankfully, as the shopkeeper keenly suspected, the lady was not quick to be offended, though she had to wonder why he dared to ask. She replied, "He's back at the apartment, handling the moving guys. I snuck out to see the city one last time before I left." She chuckled sadly.

"Ah, but when we love a place," the man said, bagging her books and then holding the shop's door open for her, "do we ever really leave it?"

The woman smiled brightly back at him before walking out.

Later that afternoon, as the lady sat next to her fiancée in the car in front of their apartment, she looked into the bag of books that she had sitting on her lap. As the car started, instead of looking at her apartment one last time, she realized that the bag had one extra book in it: a small, leather-bound book with one silver word on the cover-

Labyrinth.

As the car, followed by the moving van, drove out of the city and into the far reaches of suburbia, the woman didn't look up once from the book. Rather than watch the skyline of home fade away, she read the adventure of a young girl, a dreamer, who said a silly thing. She couldn't help but feel a connection to the girl, like she knew her.

Of course, she had every intention of raising her daughter to be a dreamer, a poet, an actress. Her daughter was going to be someone great, someone memorable, but forever free like the wind.

Just like her mother.

Also worthy of mention:

1. This was planned with a sequel in mind. I might post part of that later, if it strikes my fancy.

2. Wesclin is the royal bookkeeper, managing the library of the Goblin King himself. He also tackles my collection on occasion.

3. I'm not sure exactly what happened to Sarah's mother, and as the movie itself never says, I took my liberties and decided that she abandoned Sarah and her father to return to the big city (probably New York, LA, something along those lines).

xomarisa!