Practicing medicine was easy to the point of being boring. The patients came in and I listened to their complaints and then I told them to get more sleep or more exercise or less high-fructose corn syrup. Like willing sheep they accepted my suggestions and had no problem answering my questions: Do you ever go for walks in the woods? Have you ever picked up anything from the forest floor that made your skin turn yellow and caused a burning sensation when you urinate? Do you ever see things like ghosts or aliens or members of the Fae monarchy?

A few patients asked what such questions had to do with their acid reflux or clogged nasal passages and I just pointed to the framed medical degree on the wall (I conjured myself an MD from Johns Hopkins University) and that seemed to be answer enough.

Even with my probing questions, I had so far been unable to learn much of anything of importance from the endless parade of patients. It was beyond frustrating. Especially when the young orderly informed me that I had only been there for three hours.

"By the way, Sarah's on her way in," said the orderly.

I looked at her, confused. "Sarah?" I asked.

"Sarah Bradford. Your medical assistant?" she replied, rolling her eyes as if I had asked a truly ridiculous question.

"I have no need of assistance," I snapped back. "I'm perfectly capable of handling these patients on my own."

"Whatever," the orderly sighed.

I was about to give the surly young woman a rather detailed description of the way in which I planned to murder her (slow, painful dismemberment) when the exam room curtains were whisked back and a woman in bright green scrubs walked in. I immediately recognized her as the human female who had found me sprawled out in the mud like a common vagabond.

This is some bullshit.

The woman looked up from her clipboard and started to smile and I was hopeful that she didn't recognize me under my glamour. However, the smile quickly turned into a confused scowl and she looked down at her clipboard and then back up at me.

"You're Dr. Jones?" she asked.

"Why, yes," I answered, clearing my throat. "I take it you are my assistant."

"I'm Sarah, yes," she replied, still obviously confused. "How can you be Dr. Jones?"

'What do you mean?" I asked. "I am Dr. Jareth Jones. That's my name up there on the wall…" I gestured toward my framed "degree."

"No," she said, holding up a hand. "I mean, the last time I saw you, you were drunk and passed out face down in the park."

"I wasn't face down," I snapped and she cocked an eyebrow. "And I wasn't drunk," I quickly added.

"What were you doing then?" she asked, placing a hand on her hip. "You sure as hell looked like you'd been on a bender to me. Hardly the behavior of a medical professional."

"Why does it matter to you?" I countered. "What I do in my free time has little effect on my skills as a doctor."

She glowered at me, unconvinced, and I continued. "What do you know anyway? You're just a medical assistant. Being a real doctor is very stressful. Perhaps I need to blow off steam every now and then."

"Fine," she said, shaking her head. Her dark hair fell around her shoulders and I was surprised once again by her vivid coloring. At our initial meeting, I had attributed her brightness to the head injury I had sustained in my crash. However, months later, her eyes were still as brilliant green, her hair just as richly black, her skin still as creamy. Either I was still suffering the effects of a concussion, or she was abnormally lustrous for a human.

"We're too backed up to stand around arguing," she said, bringing me out of my ponderings. "If you say you're a doctor, great. We need a doctor. I've been trying to manage this place on my own for the past week since the doctor from Salem got snowed out."

She handed me a file.

"I'm sending in your next patient," she told me. "He's nine and needs a check-up. Can you handle that?"

"Of course I can," I barked.

I could tell by her expression that she still wasn't fully persuaded, but she didn't argue. She turned on her heel and swept out of the exam room and I could hear her talking to someone in the hall.

"It's fine," I heard her say. "It's just a check-up. Just let the doctor look you over and then your mom will take you to get a new game, okay?"

I didn't hear the response as the exam room curtain was pushed back again and I found myself looking down at the sticky little face of Toby Williams.

Yep. Definitely some bullshit.


The voice of Irene Wiiliams was unmistakable, even from down the hall and behind the closed door of my office.

"I am holding you responsible for this, Sarah," the older woman ranted. "If you hadn't filled his head full of stories of dwarves and monsters…"

"Toby loves those stories, Irene. He's never had any problem before."

"Well, he's having a problem now!" Irene snarled and I could picture her stomping her little kitten-heeled foot. "Do you realize how embarrassing it is for me to have my son running down the street screaming about how the new doctor is the Goblin King?"

"Right," drawled Sarah. "'Cause this is all about you."

"That is not what I meant, young lady and you know it!"

"Don't talk to me like I'm a child!"

I had finally had enough and stomped down the hall to where the two females stood facing off in the breakroom.

"Ladies," I snapped. "Do you mind? I'm trying to be a doctor."

Sarah looked up at me and I was taken aback by the change in her countenance. Her fair cheeks were flushed pink and her green eyes flashed fire. As lovely as she was in a more relaxed state, she was simply radiant when she was angry. It gave me tingles in the pit of my stomach as well as regions further south.

"Im sorry, Doctor," she said with a sigh. "I'm going to step out for a moment and get some air."

I nodded and she exited the breakroom, leaving me alone with Irene Williams. The older woman smiled at me, a too-bright smile that made her look like a snake who had just cornered its dinner.

"Dr. Jones," she purred. "I hope you don't think ill of me for losing my temper with Sarah. I'm naturally quite protective of my son. Toby is very impressionable and I'm afraid she's filled his head with a lot of nonsense."

"Think nothing of it, Mrs Williams," I told her, choking back bile. "Children often have irrational fears, especially of doctors. I'm a stranger to young Toby. It's normal for him to be a little nervous."

Irene gave a little practiced laugh. "If by 'nervous' you mean screaming bloody murder and running out in the street, I'll give you credit for generosity," she told me. "I just hope you aren't offended by all that Goblin King business."

"Of course not," I answered, adjusting my collar which had suddenly become very tight. Of course I wasn't offended. Why would I be offended? I was enraged. That little shit not only knew I wasn't human, he knew I was the king of the goblins! How could he possibly know that? Irene had said that Sarah had told him stories. Had she told Toby who I was? She couldn't have. Sarah had seen me in my true form and had thought it was merely a costume. How was that boy able to see the truth?

"Perhaps we can try again later after Toby calms down a bit," Irene was saying. "I'll have his father talk to him."

"Yes, do that," I told her. She smiled her snakey smile at me again and I excused myself to my office, letting the orderly see her to the door.

I was still tucked away in there half an hour later when there was a somewhat reluctant knock at my door.

"Yes?" I called. The door opened and Sarah walked in.

"I- I just want to apologize. For everything today," she began. "It's your first day and I was disagreeable and unprofessional. I'm sorry."

I leaned back in my desk chair and studied her for a moment. She was outwardly contrite, but I could still see the hard gleam in her eye and I almost smirked with admiration. She may have been sorry that her actions caused trouble, but she still felt she was justified. Beguiling creature.

"Apology accepted," I told her at last. "I imagine things have been more than a little stressful around here lately."

Sarah shook her head and flopped down into the chair in front of my desk. "It's not just the clinic," she said. "Irene had been on my case before I even came in this morning. She wanted to make sure Toby wouldn't be given any injections or vaccinations and would not let me hear the end of it."

"Why on earth would she not want such a thing for her child?" I asked.

"Irene is against vaccinations," she told me. "When Toby was born we went round and round about it. I didn't like the idea of him being unprotected against preventable diseases. I finally convinced her to get him vaccinated." Sarah paused and I could tell by the look of melancholy that came over her face that her story was about to take an ominous turn.

"A few years ago, Toby was diagnosed with ADHD and Autism. Irene blamed the vaccines."

"And you, I take it?" I asked her.

"Yep," she replied, looking up at the popcorn ceiling. "And Dr. O'Connor, since he was the one who administered the vaccines. Irene gathered a bunch of what she called evidence that supported her claim. It was the most ridiculous load of unscientific bullshit, but she stood by it and threatened to sue poor old Dr. O'Connor. Lucky for him though, he had a stroke and died before she got the chance. Irene probably would have sued me too, if my dad hadn't intervened."

"Your dad?"

"You met him the other day. Robert Williams."

I sat upright in my chair. "Your dad is the mayor?" I asked incredulously.

"Yes," Sarah answered.

"That means Toby is your brother," I noted.

"Technically, he's my half-brother, but I've never really made that an issue."

"Irene is not your mother?"

"Thank god, no," Sarah answered with a laugh. "She's just my evil step-mother. My mom died when I was just a kid."

"Oh," I said, unsure how else to respond. Several quiet moments passed before Sarah spoke again.

"Look," she began, "I think Toby's meltdown freaked out the other patients waiting and they all left. Do you want to go next door and get a drink? I sure could use one."

I looked at my phone. "It's not even noon," I told her.

"So we'll call it brunch," she said, running a hand through her long, dark hair. "I'm buying. Are you coming or not?"

"Sure," I heard myself answer. Sarah smiled, and after removing my white medical coat and putting on my leather jacket, I followed her out the door. Sarah yelled something over her shoulder to the orderly about going to Constance Fisher's to which the orderly just shrugged.

Constance Fisher's, as I soon discovered, was the local watering hole. It was little more than a run-down dive, but its sign said it served alcohol twenty-four hours a day. The interior was dark despite the midday sun, and the walls were decorated with an assortment of odd memorabilia and objects. Black pointed hats hung from the ceiling and a gnarled wooden broom hung over the bar. I suddenly remembered where I had heard the name Constance Fisher before.

"Sarah," I said as we seated ourselves at the bar, "Is this place named for the Constance Fisher who was hanged as a witch?"

"How do you know about that?" Sarah asked, obviously surprised.

"I read about it in a book about Miracle," I told her. "I found the account rather interesting, though tragic."

"Yes, well, don't believe everything you read," Sarah answered glumly. She called out to the barkeeper before I could question her further.

"You're new," said the barkeeper, a relatively attractive woman with unnaturally red hair who appeared to be in her mid-thirties.

"Mitz, this is Dr. Jareth Jones," Sarah said, motioning to me. "He's come to save us from the Salem Voodoo doctor."

"Well, Doctor," the barkeeper said with a flirtatious smile, "I will be making an appointment right away. I am in desperate need of a thorough going-over."

"Down girl," Sarah told her. "Doctor Jones and I have had a bit of a rough day. We just need a stiff drink."

The barkeeper leaned over the bar toward me and winked. "Well, I need a stiff-"

"Mitz!" cried Sarah. "Will you please stop sexually assaulting my employer and just get us a couple of drinks?"

"Fine," said the woman, pulling down two glasses from a shelf and setting them down on the bar with a thunk. "What'll it be?"

"The local," Sarah told her.

"You can call me Jareth," I said to Sarah when the barkeeper moved away to pour our drinks.

"Oh. Ok, thanks," she answered. "Don't pay any attention to Mitzi. When she's not serving up booze, she's banging anything on two legs."

"Noted," I said.

Mitzi-the-libertine-barkeeper returned with our drinks but made no further advances, instead stepping back into a corner to watch us from the shadows. Sarah picked up her glass and raised it.

"Let's make a toast," she said. "What shall we drink to?"

"Let's drink to Constance," I replied, raising my glass.

"Really?" Sarah asked, her distaste apparent.

"I'm new," I told her. "Humor me."

"Okay," she said with a shrug. "To Constance."

"To Constance," I echoed before clinking my glass against hers.

A strange procession of thoughts ran through my head in the few seconds between our toast and the moment I took my first swallow of the local whiskey. I thought first of Constance Fisher, standing in the face of her accusers and instead of begging for mercy brazenly cursing the whole lot of them. I thought of Sarah, fighting for the safety of a child who was only a half-sibling. Going against the likes of Irene Williams to make sure the boy was protected. Perhaps the other Fae and I had judged the humans too harshly. A few of them had some redeeming qualities.

Of course, all that went out the window the moment the liquid landed on my tongue. It was awful. Worse than awful. It was criminally horrible. It tasted as if someone had drunk a cocktail of battery acid and castor oil and then pissed into a whiskey bottle.

"Good stuff, isn't it?" sneered Mitzi from her dark corner as I coughed and sputtered.

"Oh yes," I thought. "I'm going to kill every last one of these fuckers."


A/N:

I've stretched the age difference between Sarah and Toby from 15 years (roughly) in the original story to around 20. Purely for plot-related reasons.

Sarah's surname will be addressed in the next chapter.

Do you have any thoughts or theories about how Toby is able to see Jareth's true form? Let me know your ideas in the comments!

~Fanny~