Chapter 10 – Precious Thing
Erin squared her shoulders as she grasped the antique doorknob. Taking a deep breath she turned it and pushed the door wide. She blinked as the red light of sunrise struck her eyes, squinting against the glare she made out the shapes of buildings, squatting dark and sullen all around. Venturing out she realised she was in the ramshackle city she'd seen at the centre of the Labyrinth. She was almost there.
Rounding a corner she almost tripped over a creature huddled in the shadows. It looked like a cross between a something and a god-knows-what, covered in a mixture of ratty fur and bright feathers, with a lizard's face and skinny limbs. It was wrapped in a makeshift suit of armour made from scraps of chain mail and leather laced together. A helmet that looked more like a cooking pot was crammed onto its head and it was shivering in obvious misery.
"Are you alright?" Erin asked crouching beside it. It curled in on itself and turned its head away.
"Go 'way," a sullen voice muttered. "Leave me alone."
"What's wrong?" The irony of the situation wasn't lost on her. It was rather like one of her bad days where Lacey and Hanna would try to coax her to open up and tell them what was wrong.
"Go 'way!" The goblin (she was sure it was a goblin) exclaimed, flinching away from her outstretched hand. "You'll get me killed."
"He's told you all to keep away from me hasn't he?" Understanding dawned in Erin's face as she put the cryptic hints together. The Goblin King had said the Labyrinth 'didn't have to be' empty. He had pulled everything out to fulfil his 'promise' of leaving her all alone. Except he hadn't quite managed it: the little blue worm and the Fire Gang had somehow escaped his notice. "I'll tell you what, I'll ask a question and you nod if I'm right, ok?"
The pot helmet nodded.
"Ok then. The castle is the other side of the city, yes?" A nod. "And the Goblin King is there?" Another nod. "Is there a girl with him? One who looks a bit like me, but prettier?"
"Precious thing."
The words were spat out in a spiteful hiss.
"I beg your pardon?"
"That's what he calls her," the goblin growled, forgetting any danger it might be in from talking to the stranger.
Jareth had been very specific in his description of what would happen to any goblin caught within sight of the woman. But its resentment of the pretty creature Jareth was fawning over was bubbling up: a goblin warrior even when clumsy and awkward is still a warrior and should never have to stoop to playing the fool to entertain a mithering human wench.
"He calls her 'sweet one' and his 'precious jewel'. He makes us entertain her when she cries."
"Does she cry a lot?" Erin asked in concern. She had seen the expression of cruel delight on the Goblin King's face too clearly in the ballroom to doubt the answer.
"Too much." The goblin scowled, kicking at the stones beneath its feet. "He makes her cry. Just so we'll play the fools to sooth the pathetic wench. He knows what he's doing does Jareth, I'll grant him that. She wouldn't have anything to do with him when he brought her here but now, well she clings to him when he's near and weeps when he's not."
"Clever," Erin murmured.
She knew there was a strong tendency within her nature to cling to kindness and to need reassurance and approval. That all stemmed from being tormented at school. However she had fought against it by isolating herself, making herself strong and self-reliant. So much so, as she now realised, that she had gone the other way and spurned kindness whether well intentioned or not. It seemed that Jareth hadn't stolen her reflection after all, because if he had then this girl would be reacting in the same way as Erin herself might. It was more like he'd stolen the more vulnerable part of her, what? Heart? Mind? Soul? Perhaps even a mixture of all three. Whatever he had taken to spin this second 'Erin' into being the trauma had been enough to bury her memory of everything up to the point of separation. In truth it did not matter what Jareth had done or how he had done it, Erin wanted out of the Labyrinth and finding what had been taken from her was the only way to achieve that goal.
She left the goblin without a backward glance and strode through the city. She could see the high walls of the castle drawing closer as she passed between the warped and twisted buildings. There was no sign of any opposition, no hint that Jareth was mobilising to stop her and that scared Erin more than any army could. If the Goblin King thought he didn't need an army to keep her from the castle, then what was waiting for her within?
"City's empty but the milkman still delivers?" Erin mused as she mounted the high yellow steps to the doors of the castle and spotted two bottles of milk left at the top. "This place is even more twisted than I thought."
The doors were so large and heavy that it was impossible to tell if they were locked or not. Erin pushed and strained against the weight with little success. A sudden thought occurred to her, given the twisted nature of the Labyrinth that pushing might not be the answer. What had the worm said about her getting into his home?
I'm sure you'd find a way in, if you put your mind to it
If she put her mind to it. Erin examined both doors with minute care and found a hair-line crack in the left-hand door, outlining the shape of a human sized door. She ran her fingers over the surface and found an indentation just large enough for the tips of her fingers. Praying that this wasn't a trap Erin pressed her fingers into the tiny holes and was rewarded with a soft but satisfying click. Placing her palm flat against the door she pushed gently and the panel swung open.
"You can't take anything for granted in this place," a tiny voice said at ear level. She looked round and smiled at the purple worm watching her from a crack in the wall. It had an orange scarf round its neck.
"I'm starting to realise that," Erin replied, reaching out one finger to stroke the worm's head. "I think met a friend of yours a while back."
"Tim? Up by the entrance to the Labyrinth?" The worm seemed pleased when she nodded. "Good lad is Tim, good lad. Married me sister he did. She makes a lovely cuppa."
"So I hear," Erin grinned, wondering if any of the other inhabitants of the Labyrinth were as obsessed with tea as these worms. She nodded to the worm and went to step through the door.
"'Ere, you sure you want to go in there, Miss?" The worm's little face wrinkled up in concern. "Tim must've warned you 'bout the castle."
"He did but I have to find Jareth." The name hung heavy on the air and Erin glanced round, half expecting its owner to appear. "He took something of mine and I want it back."
A/N – I don't think the worm had a name in the film but I needed to name him for this so I called him Tim, pretty much because in the film he was voiced by Timothy Bateson. The other worm is called Roger or Rog, in case anyone's interested. I had trouble writing the end of this chapter because Rog is a garrulous little devil and wouldn't stick to his script. He kept distracting me with tales of his sister's fantastic tea and how Tim was the luckiest worm in the Labyrinth to have married her ("'Rog,' Tim sez to me, 'Rog, you say what you like but Annie does make a lovely cuppa.'").
He's called Rog because I could hear Roger Lloyd Pack (Trigger from Only Fools & Horses) in my head while I was writing him.
There's only 3 more chapters to go after this one... at least I hope so - this story was only meant to be eight or nine chapters tops originally but, as they say, it's grown with the telling.