She was strolling slowly through the empty floors of her school. It was late in the afternoon of a sunny Wednesday in early spring and Sarah didn't feel in the mood to return home already to a brother who would annoy her after the nanny, who took care of him, would leave with Sarah's return and Karen still being at work, just as her father. Sarah still had the task of taking care of her half-sibling whom she still didn't like very much. She felt oddly guilty for doing so, just as for wishing him away years ago.
Sarah sighed and walked over the empty schoolyard. The sun felt warm on her back. And she enjoyed walking around, being the only one on the whole yard, the bald trees whistling long forgotten dreams and wishes of students who had attended her school in long passed centuries. She turned to the left, opening a door which gave off a squeaking sound just as it always did. The hallway thast it lead to was dark and a the air was dry, alsmost thick, tainited with the scent of canvas, oil color, acrylic color and paste. She pressed down the cool metal handle of the wooden door which was covered with semi-wisdoms students wrote onto it using Sharpie or biros. To her surprise the room had been left open and she stepped in.
Golden glooming sunlight was falling through dusty windows, dust particles were dancing in the rays of light like magic dust. The scent of canvas, oil and acrylic colors, paste and paper intensified as Sarah stepped into the room, closing the door that too was squeaking awfully behind her. The desks were standing all together in the middle of the small room, looking like a big table. "Only lacking some knights and a king," Sarah thought, walking around the desks, towards one of the windows. She was walking along diverse art projects students had left here to be finished.
Her hands on the wooden window sill that felt warmed from the sunrays which had been grazing it, she was gazing out of the window, her eyes gliding over bald trees, old buildings, the sky which was surprisingly grey, only leaking some golden sun rays through a cloud that had ripped open. She turned her head as a movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention. It was a white barn owl landing on one of the bald branches. It´s dark eyes were laying on her.
A picture flashed through her head. An owl, sitting on a statue as she was reciting a certain play in the early evening, followed by a heavy rain and thunderstorm through which she was running home, too late for dinner, right in time for being there before her parents left, followed by her making a decision she didn't know whether to regret or be glad of. Since it got her to know magic man, the Goblin . The last time she had seen him was two years ago. Two years in which her girl friends were musing and giggling why she never went out with one of the boys from her class, why she didn´t go to dancing class joining the rest of them there.
But how could she tell them that the first dance she had had had been with him? With that man that had the power to reorder time, to turn the world upside down? The man that did it all for her and whom she had refused to be with, acting all too sudden and without overthinking it. Many times she had been thinking about her choice of wishing him away, of refusing to be part of the Labyrinth. What would she have now? What would her life look like now?
She must have been in thoughts for long enough to give the owl time to fly away again without her noticing.
"And that´s how it goes. Gone. Gone like the Goblin King. I wish he would come back," she uttered, staring out into the far distance, her eyes scanning the trees and branches for the gone owl.
"So that is all you wish?" a soft voice purred alarmingly near to her ear as Sarah found. Her heart was reacing faster, her thoughts span around in her head. Was it really him?