Chapter Two: A Great and Terrible Game
Sarah awoke that morning like she did most mornings. She awoke from a blindingly dark nightmare of a dream that didn't bother her in the slightest. Of course, she could feel nothing so she rose from her bed and headed in the direction of the kitchen.
Anna and Freddy were gone. Andrew never disturbed her when he came to pick up the kids. He just came, threw them and their stuff in his car and zoomed off to the theme park with his wife. None of it mattered much to Sarah; she never felt left out.
It was only when she realized that all of her pills were missing from the counter, she felt mildly surprised. Where had they gone? Did Anna throw them in the trashcan whenever she came home last night? Sarah sighed, deciding that she could wait until Monday before she went and got her script refilled.
"Exactly what I thought," Jareth murmured both legs thrown over the arm of his throne. He held the tubs of pills in both hands; staring at each of them in turn, intently. He opened the tub of anti-psychotic pills and scooped one out. He laid it on his tongue. Before any of goblins, who were of course in various places around the throne room in a chaotic mass of arguments and chatter, realized; Jareth was on the floor, choking and writhing in pain.
None of the goblins understood what was wrong so a healer was called to tend to Jareth. His life was in no danger as he was next to immortal. However, he was forced to stay in his bed for the rest of the day to recover.
Jareth was ecstatic however, that he finally figured out why he could not make contact with Sarah in the past seventeen human years. He had waited triple that time however. There was no logical explanation to how the time differentiated between the human realm and the supernatural, but he had spent so long dreaming of the girl that had beaten him in his own game. He had been so angry, so humiliated… But time changed that. The pain of humiliation and anger soon turned to passion and then that passion into obsession. That undying obsession slowly changed into something else… something we would recognize as love.
Love was a concept widely understood within the realm of the supernatural. It was a type magic that linked them with the human race. Love was only link they shared with them, and through that link, they had brought many humans to the Underground. Once a human fell in love with one of the supernatural, then they could pass through the barriers into that realm where they would be trapped forever. Of course, the Fae had figured out centuries ago that mortal love was a very weak magic and was usually mistaken for lust. But once a human had wrongly decided that their lust was obsessive undying love, then they could pass.
Of course, there were ancient laws that bypassed the magic of love. Children for one could be brought into the supernatural realm when someone wished them away. And then there were those who had succeeded in beating the Labyrinth. They could also have the choice to stay as well.
Within region of the Unseelie Court, usually humans were the ones that tended to the needs of the Fae that resided there. Humans had no rights there. The human women were nothing more than fertile soil for men to plant their seed. Unfortunately, the fertility of the Unseelie Fae had very much decreased over the past millennia, while those of the Seelie Court's fertility increased. An Unseelie Fae's egg required a stronger fertilizer. Humans were perfect in that case. They were very fertile, man or woman, it didn't matter. The child would be a fully fledged Fae. There were no half human, half Fae creatures. The Fae's genetics were dominant over human genes.
It was extremely rare if a Fae fell in love with a human. The Fae had not felt love in a long time; none of them could describe that kind of powerful magic. Jareth never told a soul of his love and yearning for Sarah. He had wondered for years why he could not see her within his crystal, peek at her through her bedroom mirror or even visit her in the light of the moon. Anytime he had tried, she was not there. That was until; he had spotted the young girl on the phone to her friend.
She looked so much like Sarah that he was taken aback. He fell in his owl form from the tree and landed in the soft grass below. He took the girl back to the Goblin City with him. She was still a child, and could still freely roam between barriers.
He was startled when he learned that the young girl that looked so much like Sarah, was not Sarah; but in fact, her fifteen year old daughter Anna. So, he offered her a crystal. If she accepted his gift, he could flit through her thoughts and memories and see the older Sarah through younger eyes. He was astonished at how much Sarah had changed. She was so much older. She had changed, unlike he who remained forever young.
Sarah's brown hair was short and wavy, her brown eyes always frozen and disinterested, her body skinny and wilting away into nothing… Jareth was alarmed by the state he saw Sarah in. She looked, well, numb. Then he found the memory in Anna's head of her mother taking pills; she had been told that Sarah had been taking them every day since she was fifteen. That explained more than enough.
Some human drugs caused humans to stop seeing the Fae that wandered the earth, and in return, the Fae could not see them either. The human was completely invisible and therefore protected from a supernatural intrusion. Jareth knew if he stopped Sarah taking those drugs for even just a day, he could finally lay his eyes on her again.
He promised the very daughter of his love that she would never see her mother again. He had his word, that Sarah would be dead to Anna. Humans had math, the Fae had words. With the right words, they could figure out the secrets of the supernatural realm; similar to the way humans used math to figure out the secrets of their own realm. The logic behind it was long and confusing to a human mind, however; as was math to any Fae. Both species had their explanations and neither could understand the other's theory.
A Fae's word was his bond; once he promised his word, he could never go back on it.
So he had Anna do the task of bringing him the medication prescribed to Sarah, so he could destroy them himself. As for Anna, she was on the way to some theme park with her father and step-mother.
Thirteen hours left. He smiled to himself, knowing that he would be fully well by that time and more than ready to meet with fate.
Sarah felt sick to the bone that evening. It had been twenty four hours since her last dosage of mind numbing drugs and now she was more than willing to sedate herself for the rest of the weekend. She had a little heroin hidden somewhere at the back of her wardrobe from her college days exactly for that purpose. She honestly hated using it, and the thought of using it made her nauseous. But sometimes whenever she ran out of her own drugs and was still waiting for her own medication, she would use the heroin to numb herself right down, to the point where she would just fall asleep and not wake up for days.
After eating a leaf of lettuce for supper, she sighed and decided that she was going to stoop right down to the lowest low that night. She grabbed a stepladder and used it to see the highest shelf in her wardrobe. Behind the jewelry box, in a little box she kept a necklace in; underneath the lining, wrapped in a bloodstained tissue was her heroin. Well, that was where she was sure she kept it. She found the necklace box empty; no necklace, no drugs, nothing.
"Was this what you were looking for Sarah?"
She froze. That voice. The voice of her delusions. The voice that drove her into insanity. How she yearned to hear that voice to speak to her, and whisper sweet nothings in her ear. Even if that voice yelled, belittled or even snarled at her, she wouldn't care. How she loved that voice. How she loved his voice.
Sarah climbed down the stepladder slowly, careful not to trip. She realized then that she had very little covering her bare flesh. She hated sleeping with too many clothes on. They made her feel hot and stuffy. So she wore a vest and her panties. And she had been wearing that ensemble all day, making no effort to get changed.
Taking a deep breath, she turned around towards the source of the voice. Of course he was there. That man, that man who her psychologist insisted wasn't real. That man who stole her brother months before his death. That man that she had yearned to see for such a long time, to tell her that she wasn't dreaming. To tell her that she wasn't crazy.
How could he be imaginary? He looked so real. If anyone walked in right now, they would see him too. She was sure of it.
Jareth was holding up a tiny bag of white powder in one hand. His eyes took her in, but his expression was unfathomable to Sarah. She didn't understand the foreign emotions in his mismatched eyes.
"Or perhaps," he continued, "maybe you were looking for these?"
He used his arm to motion to the dresser. On it sat so many drugs, that Sarah couldn't count. It also had the necklace that had been missing from her wardrobe. Sarah knew that Jareth had raided her house top to bottom looking for everything she had hidden away to make her feel number than she already did. She bit down on her lip and just stared at the floor unsure what to think. It looked so bad whenever all those drugs –legal and illegal– sat there staring her in the face. She only realized it then herself; she was addicted to being numb.
Jareth dropped the little bag of white powder on the dresser and picked up the tub of anti-depressants.
"One of these little tablets has the ability to poison a Fae, if ingested," he mused, "as I have recently discovered. It also had the ability to hide a human from a Fae's sight, and a Fae from a human's sight. My question is, Sarah, why do you take these awful drugs?"
Sarah gulped, "I take them because you aren't real. You're just a delusion that my mind has thought up because I'm lonely."
Jareth shook his head, anger curling his upper lip. "I did not ask for what your psycho-cologist said about why you take those drugs. I asked you why you insist on taking them."
That took her by surprise. How did he know about her psychologist if she he hadn't been able to see her in seventeen years?
"Um," she murmured, unsure of what to say.
Jareth's stance relaxed and his eyes softened as he cautiously approached her, but she moved back. She didn't want to be too close to her delusion. What if he touched her? Would she feel it? She didn't want him to touch her. But to hear his voice once more; she would be more than happy to die then and there.
His expression hardened again and her movement. Why was she so afraid of him? Why did humans not believe? He silently cursed the closed minded race and what they had done to the woman he cared most about.
"I take these pills because Toby died, only a month after I rescued him. I take them because I used to cry every night because I felt that I made the wrong decision. I take them because life isn't fair but it keeps on going anyway. I have a hole in my heart because something I so strongly believed was real just isn't. My pills numb the tender edges of that hole you dug with your shovel of fantasies and dreams. You won't give up. You dig and you dig, but I'm bleeding. We're both going to drown if you keep going. Jareth, I'm not a little girl anymore. You're just a delusion. Let's face it, I'm crazy."
Sarah's quiet voice remained quiet and unemotional as she spoke to him. But there was something on the edge of it; Jareth could just about hear it. Was that hysteria he heard?
Her numbness was fading. Seventeen years of complete apathy could be lost in as little as forty-eight hours. Jareth knew this and was planning on staying with Sarah until that time came. She had to know what it was like to feel again.
"I cannot touch you, Sarah," he told her very gently. "Not for another twenty-four hours."
"You can't stop me then," she stated and smiled very weakly. She moved somewhat cautiously around Jareth and picked up her anti-depressants from the dresser.
He stood there, his face disinterested and somewhat passive. There was disappointment somewhere deep in his mismatched eyes. Sarah could see it clearly. But she didn't care. So what if her imaginary friend was disappointed in her. He was no one. She was no one. Together, they were still no one.
"No, I cannot," he murmured, a smirk playing on the corner's of his lips. "But what I can do, is much more terrifying."
Out of thin air, a crystal materialized on the palm of his hand. Sarah gasped a little, still a little shocked at how sharp and perfect her delusion was. She watched the crystal, waiting for him to start rolling it in his hands to create an illusion that astounded her every time she remembered it. She had tried to master it on countless occasions, only to fail every time.
But this time, he did not start playing with it. It lay in the palm of his gloved hand and he offered it to her.
"Look into this," he said and took a step closer. Sarah, clearly uninterested as she tried to pull the cap off of the plastic tub of pills, ignored him. For some reason the lid wouldn't budge. Then she heard the hissy snickering of countless little demons that followed their master wherever he went. Sarah turned around and glared at him, but the glare itself was feeble and half-hearted. Her eyes caught the crystal he was holding and she gasped.
"Anna!" She cried. The crystal held the image of her daughter's curious face, like she was trying to see into it. "What have you done?"
"What has she done?!" Jareth hissed and pulled the crystal back, covering Anna's face with his black gloved hand. "You are so quick to blame another for your own mistakes, Sarah! If anything, your daughter has been absolutely helpful to me."
"Why?" Sarah mumbled. "Why do you need her?"
"I do not," he shrugged, "she has already done what I have asked her and in return I gave her, her dreams. Now, isn't that generous?"
The words echoed in her head and brought so many memories to the surface, she felt like she was drowning. Sparks of emotion were breaking through her barriers of numbness, and with those emotions, they surfaced memories. Anxiety had pervaded Sarah's stomach at the thought that she would be able to feel in a matter of hours. One hundred percent raw emotion and all of the pain that came with it.
"That little girl is the version of you I suspected I would meet, all those years ago. Fascinated by toys and costumes; her little baby brother bawling, and bawling until she would lose her mind. She would wish him away and then the goblins would do their duty. I would come, of course, and offer a crystal of her dreams, in exchange for her baby brother. She would nod eagerly and take the crystal. I would promise that it would be like he never existed. I would reorder time and move the stars for that one little girl, simply because she wanted her dreams. I do not judge those who wish to accomplish their dreams. I would even go as far to say that I admire their courage."
"You only admire them because you always win," Sarah spat, hate slightly coloring her tone, "no matter whether they choose to challenge you or let you get away with stealing their relatives!"
Jareth grinned, but it was not one of happiness. Dark humor blackened that sharp toothed grin, and Sarah could clearly see the cruelty in his eyes.
"Au contraire, I have never stolen a child, simply granted the wishes of those who wanted to rid themselves of the burden," he said sneeringly. He walked over to her bed, kicked off his boots and threw himself on it, like it was his own bed. He was the perfect picture of relaxation. "However, enough of me. If you even dare to touch any of those poisons, I will crack this crystal and little Anna's dreams will be crushed. She will be sent to my castle and stay there forever, because she's unworthy in her mother's eyes. Anna wouldn't deserve someone to run the Labyrinth for her."
Sarah's breath caught in her throat. If she had been fifteen herself at that moment in time, she would be wailing and yelling 'It's not fair!'But she wasn't fifteen. She was thirty two years old with a bigger responsibility than looking after herself. She was a mother, despite her child hated her. It was her duty to protect her offspring, no matter what pain it caused. If she had to suffer for Anna's sake, she would take it. Her mothering instincts were kicking in.
"No," Sarah pleaded weakly, "leave Anna alone… Take me instead."
Jareth grinned, revealing all of his sparkling white, sharp teeth. That grin was one of dark amusement. As a mother, she could see the childish excitement in his eyes. He hadn't changed a bit, despite the years. He was still a spoiled brat, always getting what he wanted. But what differentiated him from a five year old, was that he was clever. He knew what made mortals tick, especially parents.
"Are you sure, Sarah?" Jareth mused, "It's only forever, not long at all. The time would simply fly by and you would be long dead by the time Anna would even realize she was trapped."
Jareth was bluffing, but this was unknown to Sarah. Time passed far quicker in the Underground that it did on Earth.
Sarah gulped and shook her head, "I don't care. It's me you want. I'm not dragging my daughter into your terrible game."
She was still a little dazed about the dream she'd had that night. One thing that really shocked Anna was that she forgot to put her pajamas on, and that she'd awoken early that morning sprawled across her bedroom floor. In her hand, she found herself clutching a small crystal ball, similar to the one that exotic man in her dream had given her. He said it would show her, her dreams. However, only if she gave the man what he wanted. And what he wanted was her mother's medication.
Sarah was never up any earlier than ten on a weekend. Anna knew right well that Sarah suffered from insomnia and usually lay in her bed all night staring at the ceiling, not feeling compelled to do anything. Her mother's mind was a dark and misty pit that was never clear. Her thoughts were dysfunctional, her smiles half-hearted, her eyes dark and disinterested and her appearance, tired and bland. Sarah Williams was a ghost, lost and lonely and never moving on. Anna supposed that it could have been worse. Her mother could be a drunk and neurotic; rather than quiet, numb and passive.
The pills Anna sought were not hidden but in plain sight. As numb as Sarah was, she wasn't overly imaginative or creative in anything. So her pills were left on the kitchen counter next to the toaster, where they would never escape her sight. Anna picked up the two tubs of pills and shoved them in her pocket.
How am I supposed to give these to that man? I don't even know who he is; she wondered and bit down on her bottom lip. Why was she even doing it? Why was she placing so much trust in a complete stranger?
He can make her better; was her answer to that question. But she had his word that Sarah would be dead to her. What did he mean?
Little did she know that Jareth's plans were above the highest height her imagination could climb.