Recap: An enemy seeks to bring the Goblin King to his knees through treachery and deceit, using his own daughter to bring about Jareth's downfall. Sarah's mother is dead, leaving her a mysterious mirror. And down in the Underground, Sir Didymus speaks with an unnamed woman about his duties and an expected visitor to the Labyrinth...
Chapter Two: Through the Looking Glass
Sarah couldn't be sure where her life had all gone wrong, but she thought it began back in high school on the day her vanity mirror broke. Everything about that day was strange. Several times in class, she looked up, thinking Mr. Adler had called her name only to find her teacher busily grading papers or out of the room. She hadn't been sleeping well, so she shrugged it off, yawning and promising herself to go to bed earlier that night.
Hearing voices, she thought wryly. That's usually not a good sign. But by the time she started walking home, Sarah had already forgotten all about it.
It was the first sunny day in May, blustery and warm. Papers kept flying out of her notebooks and Sarah chased them down, her hair whipping into her eyes. She didn't mind. The air carried the scent of freshly mown grass tinged with the pleasantly sharp odor of wild onion that grew along the sidewalk. The wind thundered against her, billowing out her shirt like a sail until Sarah felt as if she could fly if she were only light enough.
On days like this, she could believe in magic.
Halfway home, a shadow crossed the sun like the gathering of a storm. She looked up, but the only clouds in the sky were small, feathery things that held not a drop of rain. Odd. Sarah wasn't a superstitious person, but something about it made her walk faster, wanting to reach the safety of home where she could shut the front door solidly behind her.
As she started up the driveway, something crunched underfoot-- a shard of glass, so brittle the heel of her sneaker ground it to powder. As Sarah wondered where it came from, a stealthy breeze swept by, scattering the silvery dust until nothing remained. Accompanying it was the faintest sound of bell-like laughter.
Sarah flew through the front door and upstairs to her bedroom only to find her stepmother kneeling on the floor, exasperated and cross.
"Don't come in," she exclaimed when Sarah dropped her backpack in the doorway and took a step into the room. "And keep Toby out, too. You'll cut yourselves if you're not careful."
The empty mirror frame lay facedown on the carpet, and glass was everywhere. Each jagged fragment reflected back crazily angled pictures: bits of blue sky dotted with cloud, her books and posters, the startled expression on her face. Every image was endlessly duplicated in miniature, as if she were looking into a hundred splintered views of her bedroom.
"I left the window open while I was vacuuming your room," said Karen, sweeping the mess into a dustpan. "And it was the strangest thing. I swear I only turned my back for a moment, I don't see how it could fall..."
But fallen it had, though there was no sign of what caused the accident and nothing else in her room had been disturbed. Sarah sniffled quietly for days until her father bought her a new mirror, a funky art nouveau piece that Karen found at a dusty antique shop downtown. Sarah loved it.
When night fell, she placed her hand on the glass and... nothing. Hoggle and Ludo did not appear, Sir Didymus was not there to sweep his hat off in greeting. Sarah called all the names she knew, save one. But her friends were nowhere to be seen.
After that, it had all seemed like a dream. Nobody was waiting on the other side of the mirror, fairies did not exist, good or otherwise, and stairs led exactly where they should and nothing more. There were times when life was so ordinary, Sarah began to question her own sanity. If the Labyrinth wasn't real, if there was no proof...
She took down her old posters and games to give to Toby. Her dolls and figurines were wrapped carefully in tissue paper and packed away in the attic. Sarah hoped it would be easier not having the constant reminder of silly imagined adventures that meant more to her than she dared admit. Perhaps the Labyrinth was something best buried and forgotten.
It almost worked. People noticed the change in Sarah, but couldn't begin to guess at the cause. Karen was relieved at the uneasy truce that grew between them, but found herself inexplicably anxious over her stepdaughter's newfound maturity. Sarah's father sighed in regret that his little girl was growing up. Toby said nothing, but he listened intently to every story his sister told him and went to sleep with the stuffed bear named Lancelot each night. Life was... uneventful.
College was a welcome distraction and four years passed in a bookish blur with nothing leaving more than a fleeting impression. After graduation, she'd been home less than a month before an old professor of hers wrangled Sarah a job in an art gallery in the city. Despite her family's protests, she packed everything she could fit into the back of her old Toyota and left home, promising she'd call every week. The boxes in the attic remained there for the time being, there was no room for them.
And that had been that, the husk of her old life shed and a new one emerging, one without labyrinths or haughty goblin kings haunting her dreams. Sarah could've convinced herself that it was all nothing more than a particularly vivid fantasy except...
Every once in a great while, she would turn her head just in time to catch a flash of white wings, swiftly disappearing from view.
Her aching legs reminded Sarah she'd been sitting on the floor too long. The dress she'd worn to the funeral was bunched up over her knees, and her foot was asleep. This was another bad habit she'd acquired. You think too much, Williams. And about all the wrong things, like stuff you can't change or mistakes you can't fix. She pulled herself to her feet and glanced around her quiet room with its bare walls.
Here there was no dad to tease her out of her blue moods, no Toby to make her laugh. She even missed Karen's interfering ways and how her stepmother fussed over every little thing. Things were different here in the city. It was far too easy to lapse into those solitary periods where she went days without speaking more than a handful of words until her voice sounded strange to her own ears. In the city there were always crowds of people, but none of them were ever interested in you. Sarah was always alone.
It wasn't always that way, a voice inside her head reminded her. Things might have been different if... The humid air made her skin sticky, but Sarah still shivered nonetheless. She would not dwell on the past. She could not. I chose this, she thought fiercely. This is the life I wanted.
But sometimes on these still summer evenings when the city was eerily quiet, Sarah could not avoid thinking about what she hadn't chosen. The remembrance made her feel cold inside, a dull lump of regret that sat like a stone in her belly.
She gathered up the crumpled linen folds of her skirt in one damp hand. The open window wasn't helping, the air felt so close Sarah thought it would smother her. Such an ordinary life, my dear, her mother had once admonished her, tapping an elegantly manicured finger on her daughter's cheek. Are you truly happy with an ordinary life?
Sarah stood, stripping off her wrinkled dress. Despite the heat, her arms prickled with goosebumps. A ghost of a memory passed over her, its pale shade stealing the warmth from her body.
"No," she whispered to her reflection. "No, I'm not."
His dreams were dark of late. Full of shadows and an unspoken menace, they fled like wraiths with the coming of dawn. Jareth turned restlessly in bed trying to remember what they had been, but they were too disturbing to recall: rage and incoherent screaming, pain so great he could feel the sympathetic echoes of it in his own aching limbs. Something dangerous was trying to get free.
Briefly he wondered if it was some omen, but the Goblin King did not truly believe in such portents. It was only a dream, and as the sun stole over the foot of his bed, it was fading quickly from memory.
He rolled onto his stomach, burying his face in the pillow. The silk still held faint traces of her scent, sweet as the rain. Jareth breathed it in, and a slow smile crept over his lips. Sitting up, he let the sheets slip down his bare torso as he admired the silhouette of the slender woman sitting near the window. She sat with her back to him, braiding her hair and humming quietly. Even as Jareth stretched and let the day's warmth drive out the shadows, he knew she'd felt him watching. She always knew.
"Come to bed." he said, making it a caressing invitation.
She turned and smiled. Jareth loved the way she walked, as if her feet did not truly touch the floor. Her eyes were a cool gray like twilight, and the silk robe she had loosely tied at the waist whispered with each footstep. When she drew close, he pulled her down beside him.
"Beloved," he murmured against her breast. "Let down your hair for me."
Reaching up, she did as he asked, letting the shining brown waves cascade down to cloak them both. Jareth took a strand and wound it around his wrist. Her mouth was soft upon his own, with a surprising heat that spread down through his body. She leaned into his embrace, and the last of his unease dissipated like smoke on the wind, as it always did when she was near.
He pulled away with reluctance, reaching for the goblet on a tray by the bed. The night's sleep had left his throat raw and parched, and the wine slid down his throat like honey. It was not one he'd had before, a pale gold nectar that tasted of summer and ripe peaches...
The Goblin King hesitated, turning the empty goblet over in his hands. He'd had nothing to break his fast, and it was a potent draught. Already a pleasant warmth spread through his chest, familiar and comforting. Yet the taste of it bothered him, and he did not know why.
Jareth brushed a hand over his eyes and was startled to find he was trembling. Setting down the cup quickly, he made a fist to still the movement. He would have a word with his steward about the wine, the Goblin King promised himself. It needed watering, or perhaps another vintage that reminded him less of... he knew not what.
Then Jareth remembered something from the dream, a word that drifted up from his murky recollection. His lips formed it silently, uncertain of its meaning but conscious of the way it rolled over his tongue like it belonged.
"Sarah."
Distracted, he'd spoken it aloud. The word was a spell, as if someone had opened a door in his mind just the slightest crack and let the light and air spill in.
The woman tilted her head to one side. "What is that, my love?"
A cool hand touched his cheek, long fingers stroking his jaw and resting lightly on the spot where his blood now pulsed faster. She turned him to meet her eyes, her smile puzzled and questioning.
With the tiniest of clicks, the door closed.
The Goblin King frowned. There was something he ought to remember, a stray memory that slipped further away the harder he tried to catch hold of it. At last he shrugged.
"Nothing of consequence."
Lightning snaked across the night sky, bathing the walls of her room in pale electric blue. Thunder rolled in over the rooftops, the sound of it swelling it until it broke like waves upon monoliths of brick and concrete, glass and steel.
Sarah had left her window open a few inches for the breeze, and now the sheer curtains fluttered wildly in the wind as if twitched by an invisible hand. Outside, the streetlights flickered and went dark. The whole city was holding its breath, waiting for something to happen...
Another crooked streak of lightning illuminated the clouds in violet and gray, followed by the thunder even louder than before. There was a noise like a pebble thrown against the window and a fat pearl of rain struck the sill, followed by another.
Sarah did not notice any of it. Fast asleep with only a light sheet to cover her, she dreamed that she had wings.
A moonless night, with hours to go before the dawn. This was no mortal land, for nowhere Aboveground was the air so achingly clear and sweet, nowhere in her world did the stars appear so bright and close, as if you could pluck them from their celestial beds like gems of spun light. Below her the landscape unfurled in a blur of mountains and forest, and far behind was a maze of golden stone with a castle rising above it.
Frost silvered her wingtips. No, thought Sarah, they were not hers. She was only a passenger in this body, carried along like a leaf on the wind. Though she had no control, she could see through its eyes, black as obsidian and ever watchful. Sarah felt the wash of cool air over its back, heard the smallest movement of prey on the ground below. Her thoughts were her own, though she detected a hint of the Other, ripe with a tang of wild memories that burned and beckoned...
Sarah relaxed and let herself go under, shuddering as its hungers took her-- bloodust and the need to rend something limb from limb. The bird whose body she wore wanted to kill and feed, but tightly bound up with those desires were things Sarah did not anticipate: anger, jealousy, loss. It was a wild snarl of emotions, elusive and fey, and they fluttered at the edge of her mind just beyond her grasp. Sarah closed her eyes and reached.
Images flashed by, bright as sparks thrown off a fire: skimming over treetops like a white ship, the wind so strong it sent soft puffs of dandelion seed whipping past. The open window, calling. A mirror casting back dazzling sunlight, a sudden flurry of alabaster wings and eyes like polished stone. The world falling down...
Just as suddenly as they'd come, the images were gone, leaving her bereft and empty.
She hurt, a weariness that burned in her limbs with every stroke. This bird was not meant to fly so high, to be battered by wintery gales far from home. Air escaped her lungs in a keening hiss and something pierced her breast, sharp as glass. Sarah felt the Other's anguish, the furious beating of wings as the icy shard of pain worked its way deeper into the muscle. Warm liquid trickled past, soaking the downy feathers until they were mottled scarlet and white.
It was not so easy now to tell where she ended and the Other began. They bled, they ached, and the rain began to fall. The cold seeped into the delicate hollow of their bones until they were blind to the glittering weave of starlight that hung above and below. It was like dying, and yet part of her welcomed it.
Her wings were so heavy now she could scarce lift them, and the water was no longer rolling off her back but soaking through to her skin. Sarah shivered to feel it and the weight that dragged her inexorably down. Yet what was the use in fighting it? The battle had been long and futile, all her dreams come to nothing, all her fears grown monstrous and dark. She could let it go, let it all drift away as if on the tides. To die, to sleep...
This isn't me, she reminded herself, the realization coming clumsily to her grasp. We are two, not one, and I am not the Other. A clap of thunder, and then Sarah was tumbling from the sky with the wind howling past as she fell. The stars had gone, their light extinguished in a single stroke. She screamed, talons raking empty air and closing upon nothing. This is a dream, she thought with despair, It isn't real, if I could only wake up...
Jagged ridges of stone flashed past, crowned with with caps of ice and snow. They were very close now, the ground was rising to meet them, and Sarah could not get free. The bird's body was a cage, and she threw herself against the bars to no avail. Frantic, she reached out to it and found only numb sorrow. Help me, she begged. Let me go.
A wave of confusion swept over the Other, rage at the unlooked for intruder, a shrill cry that pierced the rain and shadows. When Sarah pushed, it pushed back, lashing out at her with a ferocity of crimsoned claw that left her shredded and shaking inside. Locked in silent battle, they fell, each struggling against the other as they spiraled ever downward. To her shock, it spoke, a hoarse mockery of human speech that was slow and labored with exhaustion. If you will not save yourself, I must save you, it said. Go.
One final push, even stronger than all the rest, and Sarah broke free at last. The pain of separation was savage and sudden, like a piece of heavy parchment being torn in two, like being spat out of the maelstrom. Dizzied from the sudden change, her blurry vision made out the pale body of a owl, wings thrashing uselessly as it hurtled downward. Then one last flash of brilliant white, swallowed by the black abyss. With a jolt, Sarah found herself back in her own body, still reeling from the sensation of falling a very long way...
Paved stone lay unforgiveably cold underfoot, a dim corridor. At the far end was a closed door, outlined in light that flickered a sooty crimson. There in the distant dark came the rasping scrape of metal. At the sound of it, Sarah tasted fear, coppery and hot at the back of her throat, her fingers feeling blindly along the wall as she crept closer. Her ears strained for sound-- a low murmured voice, a heavy object flung on the floor, followed by a sharp crack. A wordless cry shattered the unnatural quiet of the passageway, discordant with grief and tainted with madness.
Something dangerous was trying to get free.
Sarah woke with the cry still echoing in her ears and a choking panic pressing upon her chest. The dream made no sense, but was no less disturbing for all its illogic. Sifting through the images, her head throbbed. A dark hallway, a storm-- it had been raining in her dream, there were mountains and something more... White wings. That memory was enough to chase the sleep from her mind like a dash of cold water.
The lamp she'd left on was dark, the streets outside her window shaded and silent with the buildings crowding in a little closer. Brief flashes of lightning and the distant rumble of thunder told her the storm was passing. Sarah kicked free of the bedsheets tangled around her legs and sat up, fumbling with the drawer of her nightstand. Just a blackout, she repeated silently to herself. It doesn't mean anything. None of this means anything.
The neighborhood had them often, particularly after summer storms. After the first blackout, she'd prepared. With shaking hands, Sarah lit a fat white candle and set it down beside her book and alarm clock. Even such a small flame was comforting. Nothing can look too awful by candlelight, came Linda's voice, a laughing purr.
"Mother knows best," said Sarah under her breath.
The heat of the day had fled at last, leaving everything cool and damp and smelling of rain. Water gurgled down the drainpipes like a waterfall and Sarah pictured it swirling down through the storm drains, washing the streets clean. After such a storm the gutters would be overflowing and carrying bits of debris away, the currents too strong to resist. Carried along like a leaf on the wind...
Sarah yelped as the match burned down and singed her fingertips, waving it in the air until the flame went out. The sharp scent of sulfur steadied her, and she dropped the dead match on her nightstand. Sarah sighed and shook her head. I need a drink.
She didn't dare leave the candle burning as she slept, but she'd never get back to sleep in the dark without help. The sheets still wrapped around her, Sarah picked up the candle, intending to make her way to the kitchen. If the power had not been out long, there was a bottle of wine in the fridge that might still be cool...
After taking two steps, she froze. By flickering candlelight, the mirror looked like a portal and the carvings seemed to writhe and twist as if they would leap right off the frame. The Sarah-in-the-mirror was a colorless shade and as she confronted the her weak reflection, the bright flame of the candle danced and trembled in her hand.
I'll get rid of you tomorrow, she promised. I don't care what Linda wanted. I'll call Dad and ask him to store it in the attic or sell it to that antique shop, and I'll never have to look at you again.
As if in response came a low growl of thunder, followed by lightning. It lit up the glass until she could see into its depths like a gazing pool. The mirror shone like faded starlight and dark shadows flitted across the surface, eerie and silent in their movement. This time it was no illusion, and Sarah tried to still the whimper that rose in her throat.
I'm still dreaming. Please, let me be dreaming.
Faint laughter echoed in the distance and like the faded memory of a waltz, music began to play-- soft at first, but growing ever louder until it cut through the thunder like a silver thread. Sarah recognized the melody, and her mouth went dry.
"This isn't real," she said, sounding more determined than she felt. "You don't exist, none of this does."
But if it did... Sarah closed her eyes as another memory rolled over her, swift as a wave.
"Is something wrong?"
Her mother leaned against the sink in Sarah's cramped kitchen, fidgeting with the zipper on her purse. On the counter between them was a small bouquet hastily stuck in a glass of water. Sarah touched their long, flat leaves, the flowers that hung like pearls from pale green stems while she waited for Linda to answer.
Her mother laughed and touched her hair, a sure sign she was lying. "Of course not. There doesn't have to be anything wrong for me to want to talk to my own daughter."
Linda's behavior was strange. The month before, she'd turned down a choice film role and abruptly severed her latest romance with an English rock star, a break-up which made all the gossip magazines. As far as Sarah knew, her mother wasn't working at all, though she never said a word about it. When she'd asked, Linda brushed off the question with a flippant remark about secret projects taking up all her time.
But unlike Sarah's childhood, she was never too busy now to call once a day without fail. It was that uncharacteristic punctuality that alarmed Sarah more than anything. Keeping her mother at arm's length had become increasingly difficult, for Linda was nothing if not persistent. Sarah never knew how to behave with this woman, and she suspected she never would.
"It's been good to see you." she said at last, "Just strange, having you here." She nudged the glass with her finger, sliding it over the wet countertop a few inches.
"It's different for me, too. But we could get used to it, couldn't we? Being together again?"
"I'm used to being on my own." Sarah didn't look up, not wanting to see the way her mother's face crumpled.
"You're right, of course." Linda fumbled in her bag for a tissue, trying to hide the wobble in her voice. "I've made some decisions in my life and not all of them were right ones. There are many things I regret, Sarah, never think I don't. But easy or not, I've got to live with the choices I made."
Sarah shrugged, and her reply came out more coldly than she intended.
"Everyone does. It's still better than having to live with the choices others make for us."
Her mother bit her lip then, but she straightened as if steeling herself to go onstage. All the doubts and excuses were gone, only resignation remained.
"The day might come when you're older, darling... Try to understand. We don't always become the people we hoped to be. When life offers you a second chance, you must take it however it comes... and whatever it brings."
With only a slight hesitation, she kissed her daughter on the cheek quickly and left, closing the door behind her with a click.
When Sarah opened her eyes, the mirror was there, waiting. The light had grown stronger, the music like the whispering song of the wind in the treetops. She took a step closer, holding the candle out before her and shielding it from the draft.
"Hoggle?" she whispered, "Sir Didymus?"
And then even softer, as though she didn't dare quite say it aloud... "Jareth?"
At the sound of her voice, the mirror's surface changed, rippling like molten metal. She could not shake the disturbing feeling that if she touched it, the glass would dissolve into a silvery mist and she could step through it like a doorway. Sarah blinked.
"I'm going mad." Her nervous laughter sounded out of place in the empty room.
But what if it were possible? What if Hoggle, Didymus and all the others really were just on the other side of the mirror, as they had been before? A second chance... however it comes.
Sarah swallowed hard and stretched out her hand. She dared herself to move closer, told herself it would be hard and smooth like any ordinary mirror. The glass was luminous and beautiful in the dark, glowing like a pearl in the ocean depths. Her fingertips stopped a mere fraction of an inch away. This is crazy.
Once again came a sly little voice, raised in mocking challenge. Then touch the mirror, prove to yourself it's perfectly ordinary.
Sarah stepped forward and laid her palm flat on the mirror.
Long ago, she went swimming in an old limestone quarry where the water was too murky to see what lay beneath. She'd sat balanced on a flat rock ledge in the sun, hesitating briefly before pushing off and sliding into the water like an arrow. The shock of having nothing under her feet robbed her of breath. It was as if the lake were bottomless, as if it could swallow her without a single splash or sound and no one would ever know Sarah was gone.
This felt the same.
The glass parted for her like a veil, first her hand, then up to her elbow slipping easily through to the other side. Sarah held the candle so tightly that she didn't even notice when hot wax dripped onto her wrist. It's real. I'm not dreaming this, not any of it. But it's not too late. I can turn around, go back to my ordinary life...
What for? demanded the voice, There's nothing comforting about being mediocre. You were drowning in that life. Without a little magic, how will you ever get out?
"Sometimes," she said softly, "The way forward is the way back."
Sarah closed her eyes and stepped through the looking glass.
Author's Notes: I assume people will recognize the reference to the work of Lewis Carroll, who wrote both Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. Sarah's stepping through the mirror is very similar, although what she finds on the other side will be quite different...
Comments/reviews welcome. Comment replies (if not answered privately) are usually posted to my livejournal under the username dmacabre.
