Chapter 7:

Winter: Making a move

Audrey was nervously tapping her finger over the arm of her throne while studying some documents. Suddenly she noticed someone in the corner of her eye. "So, how do the goblins feel?"

A slight chuckle escaped from Marigold's lips. "Quite fine. I almost feel like I was with my troops. The same idiots…. What are you reading?"

"Old laws made by the previous Empresses. I'm trying to find something to get Jareth out of this mess. But seriously I don't understand those old laws."Audrey flipped the papers with annoyance. "You know that coughing in my presence is forbidden? No wait, it was. Hm, it seems the Fourth canceled this. Wise woman. I should cancel most of this, I suppose." She scanned the documents, looking for more nonsense.

"… Why didn't you do that earlier?"

"I never had patience to get through all of this."

Marigold commented it with significant silence. "Anyway, I came here because I wanted to ask if…"

"I had noticed that all of this mess is probably the doing of those two?" The Empress finished the sentence before the General.

"Yes. I've noticed it some time, after we sent Jareth to the world of mortals."

" would have known… I knew that they were too dangerous to be in one place at a time, but somehow I'm not surprised. Actually I was expecting something like this. Sooner or later…I'd have preferred if it were later, to tell the truth. Where are they?"

"In place. All we can do is to watch."

"How come we didn't realize it sooner?" Audrey said, seemingly to herself. "Smart brats…"

"Audrey?"

"Yes?"

"Why is the whole Throne Room covered with pieces of vases and tureens?"

"Lucifer came with a visit."

"Ah."

Marigold decided not to ask any further…

Sarah left the university building and headed for the library where she worked part time. It was a simple, calm, and a little bit boring job, but the pay was reasonable and she could make a living out of it (especially with Annie taking care of most of the rent). She even made some new "friends". Sarah smiled lightly. Ms. Thompson was a sweet little old lady, who loved historical romances and could talk about them for hours if she thought you would listen. Dennis was a studious schoolboy, who had read almost every detective story in the library. Also there were Frank, Harry and Alice, a group of friends fascinated with horrors and Stephen King. Sarah liked all of them. They made her workday more colorful. "Hi, Jake!" she greeted her colleague, and nodded back with bright smile. He was mute. Sarah closed her locker and went into the main hall. The work was going rather smoothly when a strange girl approached her.

"Excuse me. Do you have a book with strong emotions in it?" her voice was soft, like a feathers, and plain. Sarah thought if that girl weren't in front of her, she wouldn't have noticed her. She felt confused while just looking at her, like she was suddenly woken up by a professor during a lecture and asked a question.

"Pardon?" Somehow she managed to collect herself. "Well, certainly we have a book like that, but it would be better if you tell me what kind of genre you prefer." The girl gave her a strange look.

"It doesn't matter. I'm fine with whatever you give me."

Sarah chose quite a few books. The girl's head was hardly visible from behind of the pile, but she said it was okay. Even the young woman was carrying at least five of them.

"You want to borrow all of them?"

"No, I'll read most of it here."

After that Sarah was back to her normal duties, from time to time she checked on the strange girl. She could have been thirteen years old, but was kind of small and had delicate body structure. Her skin was pale and thin, like paper. Her face was a bit cat like, triangular-shaped, with a small nose and narrow lips. Her black hair only strengthened the unhealthy impression, the girl was giving, but the most disturbing part about her were her eyes, almost too big for her small face, almond-shaped, and weird green in hue. Also, the aura around her wasn't normal. Like she was only Sarah's imagination. So just to make herself sure that she wasn't seeing things, she asked Jake if he could also see the strange reader. Jake looked at her a bit surprised and confirmed the presence of the girl. But even with his verification, Sarah couldn't shake the weird feeling she had.

Annie was troubled, and her concentration was suffering because of it. Finally she had left in the middle of her lecture, saying she wasn't feeling well, and everyone was free to go home. If she could only understand what Margot exactly wanted from her? She could smell something fishy about the Channel, like there was something she wasn't telling her, a deeper purpose. Annie sighed heavily. Her head started to hurt. She knew that any attempt to figure out what a Channel was planning would fail. Those creatures were far more complicated than ordinary humans. All that was left for her to do was to play her role, and wait for the outcome.

When Sarah came back from work, Annie was watching TV… in her own style. In other words, she was analyzing every word and gesture of people on the screen and making suitable notes of her observations.

"This presenter has a love affair with this chick from forecast", she announced, when she spotted her flatmate.

"How do you know?"

Annie shrugged. Then Sarah noticed that her friend looked kinda sulky.

"Hey, tough day at work?" she asked as she tried to figure out what was happening. Annie had never ever looked like that.

"You can say that. I'll be fine." Suddenly she became happier. "The French teacher is coming to visit!"

"Oh joy…" Sarah rolled her eyes. Poor guy didn't know, who he was dating. Annie would completely psychoanalyze him, and then torment him with the results for next half a year. No wonder, everybody from the teaching staff was avoiding her like the plague. "Then I think it's better for me to leave, huh?"

"You don't have to. Pierre, will come to pick me up at nine. He's so sweet, I wonder if he has some really weird complex…"

Sarah made a long, heavy sigh. Her flatmate would never change.

Jareth flipped a page in the book he was reading. He was trying to figure out how to fulfill his plan of revenge on Sarah Williams since Aianell was here. No doubt she would interfere. He made a short pause when he heard a soft sound of wings beating. The Chronicler returned. As always he quickly ignored her.

"Why don't you try to break her heart?"

The Goblin king almost dropped the book. It was the first full sentence he heard from the demon in a long time.

"What do you mean?'

"It was in a book." Eve said simply, like she was stating a fact. "A girl made some boy suffer, so he came up with a scheme to make her fall in love with him, and then broke her heart."

"And how does the book end?"

"The girl committed suicide. Then the boy realized he loved her and killed himself too."

"What kind of advice is that?"

"Much better than those plans you had."

"And how do you know what plans I had?"

The Chronicler shot him one of her emotionless glares. Jareth swallowed hard. Of course. She was reading his mind.

"I'll think about it…" he said quickly, and returned to reading.

Eve changed her position in the corner. She knew that Margot had made her move. The game had finally started. All that was left to do was to move the pawns on the chessboard. Somehow, the empty inside of the Chronicler felt faint spark of anticipation which died as quickly as it appeared.


AB: I had done it like 6 times, so I really don't want to do it again. Disclaimer in previous chapters. I don't own anything except serious headache. Dziękuję bardzo.

Also today's chapter is brought to you thanks to Shiroikami, my new Beta. This means it's less painful to read it for people who are sensitive with grammar/spelling mistakes.