Chapter 21
If you do love me, you will find me out. (Merchant of Venice )
"No excuses now, Joe, You are going straight back to bed." Sarah's voice was kind but firm, as she tucked the blankets around the small, dark-haired boy. The boy squirmed.
"But Mommy, I had a bad dream." His pleading eyes were the same clear green as hers.
"Really?" Sarah said, brushing a lock of slightly curling hair back from the boy's forehead.
"There were goblins, great big ones, with tentacles even."
Sarah laughed softly, "With tentacles even? What colour?"
"Green, of course, Mommy," the boy said with slight exasperation. "And black. And one of them had a purple spots."
"Terrifying. Did you use your right words and wish them away?"
"Yes, but-"
She smiled and shook her head. "So the Goblin King has them back again, and," her voice took on a warning note, "Now there will be no more bad dreams. Or," her voice became mockingly stern, "I will send Daddy to tuck you in tomorrow night."
"But Mommy, Daddy doesn't tell the stories right!" The boy protested, snuggling down under the blankets.
"Well, then you had better behave yourself and stay in bed," she replied as she patted his head tenderly and turned off the light.
. . .
"You have no power over me! On your knees, oh Goblin King!" Sarah's voice rang like a gong, imperious and cold, and against his will the Goblin King found himself kneeling at her feet.
Cool fingers took his chin and he looked up into merciless green eyes. Sarah smiled, baring needle-sharp teeth, and purred, "You shall be my slave, indeed."
"Cut!"
The scene subtly altered and once again Jareth found himself somehow outside it, watching.
"Ok folks," a man's voice called, "We're going to do that one again, but this time, with the alternate angles."
Sarah stood on a stone dais, her green velvet gown swirled elegantly down the steps before her. People bustled around her, tweaking folds and dabbing at her face with brushes and little white pads. There was something familiar about the room, Jareth noticed. The position of the windows, the ornate chair on the dais behind her, the arched doorways. It wasn't until he saw the man rise from where he had sprawled at Sarah's feet that Jareth realized where they were.
"Can I get an Evian?" The actor wore a spiked blond wig, heavy eye makeup, and was dressed in clothes which Jareth recognized as being much too similar to his own usual apparel for coincidence. But, surely, he thought, his own trousers were not usually that revealing?
A woman handed the actor a bottle. He took a drink and handed it back, leering, "Thanks, love."
"Positions please! We've got to wrap this up today."
. . .
"If we shadows have offended,"
Sarah's clear voice filled the room, as she strode downstage from the proscenium.
"Think but this, and all is mended—
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend.
If you pardon, we will mend.
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearnèd luck
Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long.
Else the Puck a liar call.
So good night unto you all.
Give me your hands if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends."
The theatre erupted with whistles and applause as Sarah bowed and skipped lightly off into the wings. The curtain fell and . . .
Damn, Jareth thought inwardly as the dream faded for what seemed like the hundredth time, he thought that maybe this one, finally, was really her. How long had he been searching? How much time did he have left? So many dead ends, so many Sarahs and none of them had been her. But, as he thought back through them, there had been something else, something prowling on the borders of his vision in each and every scene. What was it?
Once again, the darkness before him coiled and stretched, distending into what at first glance seemed to Jareth to be yet another of Sarah's dreams. But as he watched the edges now, he discovered that something was wrong with the scenes unfolding before him. There was something hidden underneath all these fantasies, something darker. He probed and abruptly the dream snapped and . . .
He watched as time after time Sarah fought with Ddrysfa, as time after time she fell soundlessly screaming into the well, her eyes bulging and frantic as she sunk down into its black depths.
These were no projections, no mere day dreams. These, he realized, these were the cause of the deep shadows he had seen growing under Sarah's eyes, the reason her face had taken on a hunted look in the last two weeks. Ddrysfa had been invading Sarah's sleep, twisting her dreams into terrifying specters. No wonder he hadn't been able to find her here. Sarah's dreams weren't safe.
Where then? Where could she hide from her nightmares? Where else could she possibly be?
Sarah's voice suddenly echoed around him:
"Every time I heard the ticking of a clock, I was reminded of this place. Every time I saw a peach or the number 13... Or an owl. You've been inescapable despite my best attempts to leave you behind. It's only forever, Jareth. At least you were able to forget."
Her memories.