Part 2- Cold Showers
Wet wind sliced the night air, ruffling the feathers at the neck of the white owl that clutched hard to the stiff branch upon which it was resting. Persistent beads of rain slicked down its form unable to draw the owl's attention away from the window that caught its eye.
Not often was he allowed to leave the Labyrinth, but tonight he had felt a special call- one that even he could not explain. Miserable New England weather was no foe for he- in fact it was preferable as it obscured his presence and was likely to limit Sarah to the one location. Watching her through his crystals could be difficult at the best of times, and the last twenty two months had seen Sarah live with renewed vigour and energy. She had been a hard one to follow.
Not tonight, however. The presence of rain must have called to his instincts and told him that a wet weekend in an empty house was too good an opportunity to pass up. Leaving the castle unattended was generally a catastrophic idea under normal circumstances, and the Labyrinth itself so precarious that leaving it unsupervised with a population of stupid yet well-meaning goblins was a certain path for disaster. But tonight he didn't care. He was pent up with restless energy that needed an outlet. If the castle resembled a ghetto when he returned, then he would unleash his razor-sharp temper through his magic, his riding crop and his biting curses; then curl up on his usual window ledge and think in stony silence. That was usually the way it worked. He calmed down after wreaking havoc, and the cycle started at the beginning again. But this was the first time he had left the castle. He was playing with fire, and somewhere, he knew it. But he was tired of imagining scenarios that ended with her saying his name: Jareth.
Water sluiced down the quarter-paned living room window to distort Sarah's moving image. It blurred and wavered as her limbs moved in a pattern- picking up a small garment, folding it and placing it on the arm of the sofa. Again and again she moved in rhythmical motion, black hair swinging, parting for a pale moon of a face, features hidden by the rain slicking down the glass. Features that Jareth would loathe admitting he spent hours examining in his mind; the white forehead, large grey-green eyes, and her indignant mouth. The only person he couldn't intimidate into submission. The only person who wasn't afraid of him anymore. His equal, his better, his master. His Sarah.
She disappeared from the room Jareth was peering through with black owl eyes, and he saw an upstairs light snap on and off again quickly. Then the dormer window next to it, directly above him, pushed forward a soft aura of light. The window opened outward into two halves, manipulated by a small, white hand encircled with many plastic bracelets, and quickly tucked back inside the room. The soft light went black.
The owl launched in an upwards motion, bouncing from branch to branch, using the sound of the impending storm to mask his approach. Settling under a canopy of leaves adjacent to the open window, Jareth let his eyes readjust. He kept looking. He swore to himself that was all