Sarah started her Saturday waking up in her bed, hugging her pillow. It smelled like him. She was startled at how much she had missed Jareth's presence. He had returned to the Labyrinth the night before, grumbling about the stack of work that awaited him. Jealous of a pillow, and now jealous of his work, she was well and truly besotted and it was cloying even to her. She made a firm decision not to think of him every two seconds. Perhaps a minute or two could be Jareth free bliss, which would allow her to worry about her friend's response to a days warning for her wedding.
.
Sarah was on the phone when Sophie and Michael walked in at the front door. Sophie carried the stack of hatboxes and had such a brilliant smile of delight that she looked almost thirty years younger. Karen greeted them as Michael hurried through the house to find Toby outside the back.
"I've trimmed them all with the latest fashions, I tell you, letting me add the trimmings saved us a fortune!" Sophie said excitedly to Karen.
Sarah lost the conversation at that point as her theatre friend Amanda picked up.
"Sarah!" She exclaimed. "I tried calling earlier in the week and your stepmother was terribly grumpy about something. Wouldn't tell me or Jack where you were!"
"Yeah, I kind of wanted it quiet until I had things sorted," Sarah confessed, thankful Karen hadn't made up some excuse that would require explaining.
"Oh, and what surprise is this?" Amanda exclaimed, her tone demanding details. "We're all to meet on Monday evening, couldn't you wait until then?"
Sarah laughed.
"Well, actually, I was wondering if you'd do me a huge favour."
"Spill, you've drawn this out all week!"
"Could you phone the whole theatre group and invite them to fifteen Sunwise Avenue, tomorrow at nine?"
"Everyone? Why?" She drawled with anticipation.
"I'm getting married?" Sarah mumbled.
There was a shriek on the other end and she could hear Jack's voice in the background demanding what it was.
"It's him! I know it, it is!" Amanda crowed.
"Him?" Sarah said, astonished.
"Jareth!" Amanda declared. "Oh goodness, we're finally going to meet The Jareth! Oh, darling, everyone will be there just to see him!"
Sarah sat holding the phone in shock.
"How do you know Jareth?"
Amanda snorted.
"Sarah, darling, you mope every time you fight with him and you're a darling when you've had a good time. We had to weasel his name out of your baby brother, for Pete's sake! We had bets that you would marry him after you graduated, well, you've won me a hundred bucks! Love you, gotta get on that phone chain. See you Sunday!"
The dial tone hummed in her ear and Sarah stared at the mouthpiece. Had she been that obvious?
She then phoned her mother's private line.
"Residence of Linda Williams," a man's voice came over the mouthpiece like poured chocolate.
Sarah smiled.
"Hello Jeremy, is my mother in?"
"Sarah, honey, of course, of course! Wait but a moment; she is busy practicing her lines in the front parlour."
A while later her mother picked up the line.
"Sarah, to what do I owe the pleasure of this unexpected call?"
"Hi mom," she said shyly.
"Hello, my love. Now tell your mother what it is, I can hear the nerves straining all the way over the telephone wires."
"I'm getting married tomorrow and I was wondering if you and Jeremy would like to come."
There was a stunned silence on the other end of the line.
"It's that older man Robert was fussing about isn't it?"
"What?" Sarah exclaimed indignantly. "What has dad said?"
"Oh, he phoned a few weeks ago about you and this inappropriate boyfriend, only the more he talked the more he sounded perfect for you. Strong minded, owns his own business, wealthy, and a passion for literature and the fantastic. Good catch, even if you did have to seduce him to do it."
"Mom! I'm not pregnant!" Sarah yelped.
She then realised she had the audience of several goblins, Sophie, Karen and the UPS guy who was delivering a box at the front door. She grabbed the phone and slunk away into the living room to sit behind a pot plant among the goblins. They were at least easy to distract.
"Not? Then I congratulate you on your powers of persuasion," Linda purred.
"Mom, he likes me for me and I for him, we're in this together, neither one of us is coercing the other!"
"Ah, young love. Treasure it, my love."
Sarah banged her head lightly against the wall. Why was it all her conversations with her mother went this way?
"Jeremy and I cannot make it over unfortunately; we're right in the middle of a shoot. Be sure to expect a gift when you get back from honeymoon."
"Thanks mom."
"Oh, and let me give you some advice for the honeymoon."
Sarah hung up half an hour later, red about the ears and very tempted to sneak off to the Labyrinth to find Jareth to discover just how much of what her mother had said was true.
.
She then called her three close school friends.
"You're getting married on Sunday and you only tell me now?" Julia exclaimed in dismay. "Sarah, I'm going to have to drive out to the city to find a dress this late!"
"Oh, don't worry, you have plenty of dresses, it's a fancy dress theme, so long as it's elegant, wear it. I have something based on an eighteenth century gown and Amanda from the theatre club is coming in Italian dress from the fifteenth century."
Julia perked up at that.
"Have you called Kelsie and Tina? We can all dress to a theme. Oh, get on and call them, we've got to go into town anyway and get you a gift! Why do you always leave things to the last minute like this!" She gasped a breath then went silent. "Uh, Sarah, what is the name of the guy you are marrying?"
"Jareth," she said, not liking the trepidation in her tone.
"I knew it! I knew it! Hah, that'll teach Tina! She thought you were dreaming over Jack at the theatre, but we know he's Amanda's! Hah."
"Wait, you know Jareth?"
"No, but everyone knows you had a secret beau, I mean, who doesn't take a partner to the prom?"
"Was I really that obvious," Sarah breathed.
Julia laughed.
"Sarah, you're good at some things, but keeping secrets is not one of them. He's a bird watcher, isn't he? You've been mad for owls since he came on the scene."
Sarah groaned.
"I can't believe everyone knew!"
Julia just chortled mischievously.
"Get along and phone them quick. I'm driving over to Tina's place as soon as I hang up."
.
Sarah dumped the phone back on its stand and sank down beside Sophie at the kitchen table. She was busy making tiny little piecrusts. Karen was out in the city buying enough snacks for fifty people. Sarah did a double take, it was not her imagination, Sophie really did look younger.
"You're looking good!" she smiled at the old woman, Howl must have tried some glamour on her, only she couldn't quite see it.
"I feel young today," Sophie smiled. "All this excitement for your wedding, and to see your young fae meet his mother for the first time yesterday. It reminded me how much we have to live for!"
"I kind of kept it a secret," Sarah admitted, "my knowing Jareth, but it turns out that everyone knows! I feel like a fool, that I've only been fooling myself!"
"Sometimes that is the hardest deception to overcome," Sophie declared. "To break from what you believe to what is actually true."
Sarah nodded.
"Any luck with that curse Howl and Calcifer are under?"
Sophie poked her piecrust a little too hard and had to roll it out again.
"It's one of those problems where the solution is staring me right in the face, but I just can't see it. It's as if I'm missing a vital part of the puzzle and with that piece it will suddenly click into place."
"I will see if I can get a straight answer out of Jareth, but the last times I asked he got all cryptic. He said it is the nature of the spell not to be able to tell anyone who doesn't know about it."
"I hate spells that do that!" Sophie said vehemently.
"I can't imagine anything more irritating," Sarah agreed. "I'm glad my magic is more straight forward."
"Oh you'll learn," Sophie said almost sadly, "I've been looking at the books Howl has set aside for Michael to study and the sections that deal with spoken magic are all about tricky little twists and bindings. The fae in particular love word trickery so something that sounds one way on the surface actually means another, and as spells are intent based, they go with the intent of the caster."
"Then I'll spend my time unknotting all the tricky little spells, I hate bindings." She shuddered, thinking of the way Jareth tried not to show how he feared such things.
They had returned to more mundane topics by the time Karen arrived home.