Sarah, After (September 1986) - Part 3
Sarah returned home from the hospital after only one day, her recovery nearly instantaneous - and a total relief to the doctors on staff, who had no idea why she had become so ill or recovered so suddenly. The administrators were also relieved not to lose any more sensitive medical equipment. All tests had proven inconclusive; no one could find any cause for her fever, so Sarah was released after a day of observation.
The morning she'd arrived home, she'd gone straight to her room where she found a large pink apple placed prominently on her nightstand. Oddly, it didn't seem out of place. Somehow she just knew it was for her, and that it was important. She bit into it immediately, almost groaning at its intense flavor. Much like the pear Eleanor had given her in the hospital, this apple was the best Sarah had ever tasted.
She finished it quickly, greedily, then tossed the core into her bedroom wastebasket. She never noticed that it disappeared before it hit bottom, but did observe that she felt strangely content after eating it.
Her father decided it would be best for her to stay home from school for a few days. "Just because they couldn't figure out what was wrong doesn't mean you're completely out of the woods, kiddo," he'd said.
Sarah stayed mostly in her room after that. She said she was tired and needed to rest, but she was just thinking. She no longer felt ill - that much was obvious - but she still didn't feel quite right. She was agitated and anxious, and her hands still tingled some of the time. Strange energy crashed through her in waves, though she didn't have a name for it.
She couldn't put the labyrinth out of her thoughts. She wondered about her new friends and hoped the Goblin King hadn't punished them for helping her. She thought about all of the strange - and sometimes dangerous - creatures she'd met. And her thoughts returned again and again to the king himself - his wicked smile in the tunnels before he'd set the cleaners on her and the way he'd looked at her as they danced. She tried not to remember how stricken he'd looked in the Escher room, but that haunted her, too.
Sarah wondered how much of the little red book was true. The Goblin King's challenge had made her recognize that Toby was more than just a crying burden to her - that she truly loved her brother - but he was supposed to be the villain! But was he? If things were not always as they seemed in the labyrinth, was Jareth one of those things? It was all so confusing.
That night Sarah dreamt she was sitting at an elaborately set table at the center of the hedge maze in the labyrinth, drinking tea from a delicate rose print china cup. It was a beautiful autumn day, crisp and sunny, with just a light breeze - a perfect day for a late-season picnic. She sat staring at the empty place setting across from her. Someone was supposed to be there with her, but she couldn't remember who, exactly. Was it Sir Didymus? She wondered. No, he would bring Ludo with him, and there would be two extra place settings, of course. Hoggle, then? No, that wasn't quite right, either. She reached for a little sandwich from the tray in front of her and noticed that her mother's ring, the one she had given to the Wiseman, didn't look quite right. It was silver instead of gold and had a green stone instead of a red one. Huh, she thought. I don't think Eleanor gave me the same ring after all. Where did this one come from? And who was supposed to be sitting across from her at this table?
Sarah remembered the dream hazily when she woke up, but when she studied her hand in the low morning light, her ring looked exactly like the one her mother had given her. Sarah shrugged. Just a weird dream, she thought.
That afternoon Sarah went down to the kitchen for a glass of water when she noticed a small bunch of red grapes on the end of the counter. Once again she felt a strange sense of ownership. She knew the grapes were for her, though she couldn't have said why if anyone had asked.
Just then, Karen came in through the garage door carrying two bags of groceries.
"How are you feeling today, Sarah?" Karen asked, about to plop one of the heavy bags right on top of the grapes.
"Wait, you're going to squish my…" Sarah began, but Karen had already moved the bag further over, away from the grapes. She'd done it automatically, without taking her eyes off Sarah.
"Squish what?" Karen asked.
"Uh, nothing, I guess," Sarah shrugged. It was obvious Karen never saw the grapes. "I'm fine, though. I'd like to go back to school, actually."
"Your father thinks you need a few more days."
Sarah rolled her eyes. "I'm perfectly fine. And I don't want to fall behind in my classes."
Karen sighed. "Get your assignments from a friend, Sarah. I don't think your dad will change his mind."
Sarah snatched up the possibly invisible grapes and headed to her dad's home office to call her best friend, Mellie. She hadn't talked to her since before her brief illness (or more importantly, her adventure in the Goblin Kingdom), and she wouldn't get any privacy on the kitchen phone with Karen hovering in the background. She dialed Mellie's number, but as soon as her friend answered, Sarah knew she couldn't tell her anything that had happened.
Mellie was her best friend, but she would never believe a word of it.
Sarah mostly just listened as Mellie happily assured her that she would bring all of her assignments later, and filled her in on missed sophomore gossip.
"I was so worried about you," Mellie confessed a bit later. "I saw the ambulance go by, and when I asked Mrs. Jenkins what happened, she said it was you, and I really freaked out. I'm just so glad you're okay."
"Me, too," Sarah said, though she secretly wondered if she was okay after all.
Mellie paused. "Is there something else? Something you're not telling me?"
Sarah sighed, picking at the remaining grapes. Mellie had always been very perceptive. She thought as quickly as she could. What could she tell her friend that was true, without sounding completely bonkers? "The day before I got sick, I…sort of met a guy?"
"Ooh, you met a boy! Why didn't you say, you sly dog?" Mellie laughed.
"Well, he's not from around here, and I'm sure I'll never see him again. It's just that I sort of misunderstood him? And I made him mad. Like super mad, Mellie. I think I really hurt his feelings, and I never meant to do that."
"Well, why are you so worried about it if you'll never see this guy again?"
"I...I don't know. It's just that Jar- uh, Gerald," She quickly covered, "Is kind of an important person, and not somebody…somebody who..." Sarah floundered in her frustration.
Mellie giggled. "Sarah and Gerald sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S…"
"Shut up! It wasn't like that!" Sarah laughed. But she wondered for a second if it was maybe precisely like that.
Lenora had come to visit the next day, a Tuesday. She suggested a walk, and Sarah, who had been cooped up in her room for too long, enthusiastically agreed. They went directly to the park, walking mostly in silence.
Pausing on the bridge, Lenora said, "We need to talk about some difficult things, Sarah. But first I want you to tell me exactly what happened Friday night."
Sarah only hazily remembered what she had said while so feverish in the hospital, and wasn't sure if she should be honest. She wanted so badly to trust someone with her secret, and Eleanor had always been so kind to her, but she knew that she would sound like she was making it up. Sarah rested her hands on the railing and sighed.
"Perhaps it would be easier if I started," Eleanor said, sensing Sarah's reluctance. "You don't know whether you can trust me because what happened seems unbelievable. You traveled to another place where magic is real, yes?"
Stunned, Sarah stammered, "Yes!"
"Magic is real here, too - just rare, and far better hidden."
"Really?"
"Yes, and you're filled with it. Your magic is much stronger than most humans, even very powerful wizards. Some will see you as a danger," Lenora sighed. "But I will keep you safe."
"Thank you," Sarah whispered. "I never thought anyone would believe me."
"Your mother has a little magic, too. That's why I was drawn to her originally."
"Mom can do magic?"
"Her powers are very modest and mostly instinctual - a sort of mild glamour magic she uses to enhance her acting. It's doubtful she would have exhibited much more even with training, but she never attracted the attention of the White Council, so we'll never really know."
"Glamour? Like Faerie glamour?"
"Something like that, yes." Lenora smiled wryly.
Sarah looked at her godmother with just a hint of suspicion. "Eleanor...are you human?"
Lenora looked back with an eyebrow raised. Shrewd girl! "What do you think, little one?"
"Sometimes your face changes. It sort of...slips a little? I've wanted to believe it was just my imagination, but now I don't think it was," Sarah said nervously. "Do you remember my birthday all those years ago, when you first moved here? You had a lady with you at the tea house. She was the same way but had more trouble keeping her face on. She was a lot scarier than you, though. I had a weird feeling that she wanted to turn me into a dog."
"Really?" Lenora was a little blind-sided by the girl's accuracy. Maybe it wasn't just her visit to the Nevernever after all. If she was capable of sensing that much as a young child, her power could have burst forth at any time.
"Yeah. I have no idea why I knew that, but yeah." Sarah shook her head at the memory, barely repressing the shudder that threatened to run down her body.
"You weren't wrong, Sarah." Lenora studied the girl with a new admiration.
"You never answered my question."
"You'll find that's one of the most exasperating quirks of my kind."
Sarah's look of confusion gave way as she worked out the answer in her godmother's response. Eleanor wasn't human, but wouldn't say so directly. "You're Fae," she breathed.
Lenora inclined her head with a small smile.
Sarah giggled. She couldn't help it. "I have a Faerie godmother!"
"Indeed," Lenora said, her amusement twinkling in her eyes. "And now that particular fact is clear, I still wish to know what happened last week."
Sarah told her everything - well, mostly everything. She was frank enough to admit that she had wished away her little brother just because she was annoyed, for instance, but omitted her experience in the ballroom.
Lenora, who had already heard the missing portion of Sarah's tale from her wayward cousin, was more intrigued than annoyed. Already obfuscating and lying by omission, she thought. You'll be one of us sooner than I had hoped.
Though she rarely answered a blunt question, Lenora was never shy about posing them. "What did you think of the Goblin King?"
Sarah's furious blush said at least as much as her stammering reply. "I thought he was a villain, plain and simple. But I...I wasn't so sure after I got home. I think I needed him to be a villain, so he was one. He said so many things I didn't understand, and he looked at me so strangely. So now...I don't know what to think."
That's just as well, Lenora thought. At least the girl wasn't pretending to be repulsed. She idly wondered how much Sarah had understood instinctively on a subconscious level. The binding may not have been properly acknowledged, but it hadn't been rejected. Still, there were more immediate matters at hand. "You need to learn to control your magic, Sarah," Lenora said, abruptly changing the subject. "And though it's rare for one of your kind to study with my kind, it's not unheard of. You shall be my apprentice and under my protection."
"Okay," Sarah said, swallowing at the lump that suddenly appeared in her throat. "How does all this work?"
"I'm not sure how it works amongst mortal wizards, but no matter. It will not work that way for you."
"Why not?" Sarah's apprehension sparked quickly into anger.
"Because you are not like them, little one," Lenora said soothingly. "Your power came too quickly and is too strong to be tutored in a normal way. I believe a lot of wizard training is about strengthening and drawing out one's magic. That would be of no use to you at all. Your magic is fully present already. You need to learn control."
"Oh. That makes sense." Sarah smiled a little sheepishly after her previous outburst of temper. "So, where do we start?"
