Disclaimer: no rights what so ever to anything Labyrinth, except the most important ones, to admire it, be inspired by, and to dream about.
There are three songs used in this chapter. The first one is more like a poem I wrote myself. The second is the lovely and endearing 1971 song 'Kooks' David Bowie wrote a few days after the birth of his son. The song is a wonderful welcome to a babe. The tenderness of it utterly enchanted me.
Last but not least Sarah 'sings' Enya's song from The Memory Of Trees album 'On My Way Home'.
If you don't know the songs I mentioned, for your own enjoyment -try- to get hold of them.
My apologies if I seem somewhat pushy with my musical tastes towards you all. It's just my enthusiasm running away with me.
I would like to thank all of you dear hearts who were kind enough to comment on my story and who kept pushing me for the next chapter. Without your support, it would not have been.
So again thank you.
This chapter's rating is PG-13 for swearing and references to violence.
And yes. I -will- be getting on with the story already. Right now!
Ramowen
The Lonely and the Lost
Chapter III: Songs of Misery and Joy
Green rain over Baghdad, somehow no more dangerous than a computerized game when filmed with night-vision. Unclear images showed what had been coming for a while now, a war in the gulf.
Like nothing new, this war held no interest for the man staring at the television. But Robert Williams had learned he could not afford to lose the now out of sight, for it would mean the loss of those around him. The colleagues and their small talk, the relations and their lunches. The neighbors and the relatives. Keeping them at distance by means of no contact had the adverse effect. Thus it worked between responsible and curious humans who were in a habit of looking after each other.
However, when the mask of normality was firmly in place, one could dance with the devil in one's own basement and nobody would be the wiser.
The devil, the dancer, the thief.
The Goblin King.
The basement of Robert's house had become his secret place. Firstly it had been cleaned out, than cleaned up. The walls plastered white, cables laid, the most modern of computers installed. And o what a wonderful world the Internet was. The green cursor danced over the screen and digit by digit, zero one, one zero, information from all around the globe revealed itself. Libraries filled with ancient legends of Ireland and the long lost past and the war between the Tuatha De Danann and the Fomorians. The little people, giants, unicorns- at one time Robert even found himself making a file about Smurfs.
He needed a break. Badly.
So the old obsession took a new route. A large map of the surrounding area now donned the wall. Green pins pinpointed homes from which people, both young and old, had disappeared over the last fifty years. Red pins indicated murder sites. A thin black thread connected a disappearance and a site. Those where of less interest to the father.
Pictures of milk-carton children appeared. More and more and more, nation wide. But only those of children who had gone missing from their own homes. Only infants and teenage girls. A cabinet filled itself with neatly stacked files. Hundreds of hours of work. Not a clue what so ever.
One afternoon Robert took down the swing from the tree in the backyard. Reasoning logically there was no hope left he would ever see his son playing with the damned thing. So Robert pulled it down and put it away.
But the gut feeling still told the man quite a different story. Sarah lived. Toby had to be somewhere he could be found. And damn all the pixies.
Inside Sarah's little red book with the golden title, Robert had found the address of the bookshop with the second hand books were Sarah had bought it. The student behind the counter could tell him not a thing. The references to the writer proofed a dead end.
Sometimes Robert felt watched, scrutinized. Haunted. As if someone was toying with him. Guiding him into a maze of questions without answer. Trapping him inside his own obsession to find his children. Enticing him with bits of information that could occupy him for months to ultimately be led no-where. Seducing him into the firm belief there was such a thing as a mythical land called The Underground, with its Labyrinth and magic. Forever out of the adults reach.
Robert made some friends among divorced men with children. Men who still sought the company of women with hopes of courtship. Foolish men who were easily manipulated into allowing their children into 'uncle' Roberts care for one Saturday evening. They stayed at Robert's home, ate his candy and played with Sarah's old board games. They went early to bed without protest, slept in the spare bedroom and woke up in the morning, with, to their surprise, their windows wide-open. And kind Uncle Robert with bags under his eyes, looking terrible. As if he had not slept all night.
Robert drugged the children, taking care the only effect they would undergo was a good nights sleep. Then he wished them away. Waited all night for some miracle that never happened.
One anger and grief inspired day he went dangerously overboard and in the mall kidnapped an infant out of it's buggy. Two days later he left the child unharmed in a bag near a gas station.
He came and went unnoticed.
Even with this babe, the miracle had not happened. When morning came and Robert found himself capable of wringing the innocent's neck because of it, he finally realized he was sinking into insanity.
He started to see owls by daylight.
Robert learned how to handle a gun and rifles and went hunting. Once, alone in the woods, he took a point blank shot at an almost white barnyard owl he found dozing in the loft of an abandoned shed. There was not even a feather of the animal to be found- but the laughter which might have been only the owls shriek, kept ringing in his ears for hours and nearly drove him to putting his rifle into his own mouth and pulling the trigger.
He never went hunting alone again, but in company became quite the woodsman. Robert never saw the owl again.
He started drinking again.
His employer gave Robert the phone number of a self-help group of parents of missing children. Robert promised to go, dreading it. How could these people help him? What could he tell them?
'Hi, I'm Robert (Hi Robert!) My two children have been kidnapped by the Goblin King and now he's slowly driving me insane. Did you know he is an owl sometimes?'
Robert was forced to listen to the stories of people whose children had been found back molested and killed in the most god-awful way. He listened to a loving father describing his runaway son, never to have been found back. He learned that sometimes knowing what tragedy has befallen a loved one is easier to bear than never learning their fate at all.
He learned to regret a choice once made in his youth, when jealousy had overtaken him. A choice he could never ever rectify.
He learned that many couples brake up after their tragic loss and how many others find great strength and new depths within their relationship. He found he could speak in mock love about Sarah and that the group saw right through him. He was invited to talk about his anger, vented some of it and found a kind of acceptance. In tears he spoke about his father and his own abuse as a child. In tears he spoke about the blows he had dealt his children and how sorry he was for all of it. Begging the Good Lord for another chance with his family.
Some parents were terribly upset with him, some claimed understanding.
He learned from the group that self-made poetry was a help to them to express themselves. Some had taken up drawing or painting. At home in his basement, Robert dusted of his old guitar and had a go at 'expressing himself'. He strummed the guitar, hummed a few bars and made up a tune with the words that came trough him. He sang them with tears in his eyes and a broken voice.
"Years and years and years he told me
"Son do grow up, don't be such a baby
"And he held the reigns of my life
"So tight and he would never, ever stop
"He was the man in '45, love
"The hero fighting for our lives, dove
"A hardened man wasted without a chance
"Upon the bloody beach of Second World War France
"I was born in the first year he was out, defending us
"But he never believed that I wore his bloody face
"The twin of my grandpa, but when finally that became obvious
"All the love between him and me had been long lost
"And when he got no job but the dull one in the factory
"He told my mother what a whore she was, could she not see
"The respect he should be given by us, his family
"He showed me his medals, and that was good-
"When Joey's dad came home from the war he was a kinder man
"Who had learned to be scared out of his scull, and then
"Move on and forgive
"Move on up and live
"And be awakened by the nightmares screaming bloody murder
"Not my dad
"Not mine
"No not mine
"His belt a whip for the smallest thing
"Every moment you dreaded, everything
"When you went to school you went with the rule
"You were happy
"I hated little Joe and I hated his dad
"And everybody thought his drowning was sad
"And nobody knew where I had been
"Or cared to ask me
"I learned how much power there is in fear
"And I learned it well, don't you fret my dear
"I'll protect you all, I'll protect you good
"For that is what a Father should
"Years and years and much years later on
"He died far away and all alone
"With his bottles and his medals in a box
"Wasted, in some home
"When Joey's dad came home from the war he was a kinder man
"Who had learned to be scared out of his scull, and then
"Move on and forgive
"Move on up and live
"And be awakened by the nightmares screaming bloody murder
"Not my dad
"Not mine
"No not mine
After listening to the result, Robert burned the tape of the song and sold the guitar. For the group he made a tender drawing of Sarah and Toby, flanked by some of Sarah's unicorns.
It was surprisingly good and established the lie he really was remorseful and on his way in becoming caring.
Remaining bottles were emptied in the sink, again.
One evening a mother passed photographs around of her second family. She had brought a son to the marriage, he a daughter. An infant the beloved one of their new union.
Five photographs. Three of the lost baby boy, stolen from his bed one night. Right out of their own home. Two snapshots of the whole family together, one 'before' and one a year 'after'.
Robert nearly dropped the photographs when it was his turn to say 'oh' and 'ah'. The babe was just another normal infant, nothing special. The family pictures however, showed something quite interesting indeed.
The intact family had been of mother and father, infant, a boy of about sixteen and a sullen freckled girl, just the right side of fourteen. The broken family showed the mother and father standing much closer, a young man already filling out his body quite nicely, holding his mother and smiling shyly. The girl stood in front of the father, his hands on her shoulders. Tall, with bright eyes knowing she was something special. From her neck dangled a lovely necklace with a pendant shaped like a silver owl in flight.
Oozing charm Robert became a friend of the couple and the family. It was the year Toby would have been seven and Sarah twenty-one. But in the home of his new friends the talk was not about missing children. Robert played chess with the father, spoke about rugby with the son. Once, with tears in his eyes, he gave the now sixteen-year-old daughter the earrings he lied about to have bought for Sarah's seventeenth birthday. The girl accepted the silver with the same secret smile she always seemed to wear if people did something special for her. For she thought of herself as very special. The arrogant little bitch.
The last time Robert saw the girl smile was when he unexpectedly picked her up from her school. The foolish girl trusted 'uncle' Robert and hopped in his car. Forgetting all she had learned from her parents, forgetting most molesters were very well known to their victims. Lucky for her Robert had no physical hurt in mind for the girl. While driving he gave her a brown paper bag and asked her to take a good look at it's content. When the girl found the little red book she nearly fainted. Robert asked her if he could take her to a small cafe where they could talk about it and she agreed numbly.
The Bluebell Bar had not changed much over the years, it had only become more corny and somewhat abandoned. The same old movie stars donned the wall, but sometimes the music was updated to the 'pop' of Climie Fisher or the ballads of Spandau Ballet. Ashtrays had been removed in one corner, fruit-juice and salads had entered the menu as main course.
Hidden in one of the boots, whispering behind her cold cup of coffee the girl told Robert how she had loathed being forced to take care of that brat of a baby brother of hers. Her new big brother and she took turns and he never seemed to mind, but she did. And then one day she had found a copy of the Labyrinth booklet in an old bookshop and she dreamed away. Wistfully she had called upon the fantasy King to take her brother.
He had been no fantasy. In detail the girl described the coming of the King. How he had charmed her and frightened her and seduced her into submission. The girls eyes had this far away look as if describing her very first love, telling Robert about the King's fine features, elegant attire, even if ominous, and his moonlight blond silken locks. Robert showed the girl a copy of Sarah's drawing and the girl started crying. Begging Robert to be allowed to keep the flimsy paper. She told him the King had given her a crystal with a present inside. Told her it was a very special present for a very special girl, if only she could let go of the brat she had wished away. The choice was an easy one. The foolish child regarded her necklace as something of an engagement present and apparently wasted her youth waiting for him to come back for her.
But when the truth of Sarah's disappearance sank in, the girl broke down and started to sob hysterically. For Sarah -had- walked the Labyrinth and -had- returned home with her brother. And -had- been taken away again.
Robert reached out with his hand and patted the girl on her arm. Before she realized it, he had gotten hold of the owl-pendant and yanked the chain from her neck. The girl shrieked and grabbed for the precious trinket, but the man pushed her roughly back into her seat. Robert asked the girl if she had ever realized she had condemned her baby-brother to the miserable life of a Goblin. Her guilty expression assured Robert of her silence about their encounter.
Proof. Solid proof. This girl and the pendant in his hand baring witness to the fact he had -not- lost his mind. That it was all true. Everything. More than Sarah's drawings or diary. More than the red book with the gold on the cover, it was proof!
Robert left the self-help group and ditched his job. He sold his house and disappeared into obscurity. A small cheap flat with just enough room to house his updated computer, his files and a bed. Now he had certainty he needed the time. Time to find a way in.
There -had- to be a way in!
Jenny Christophersdaughter closed the old stable-door and walked through the garden to the house. She had taken care of the horses for the night and hurried home under the starry sky and a moon so bright it could be one of the Goblin King's crystals. The girl wore the same kind of gray pants and brown leather boots her dashing King usually dressed himself with. But her short sleeved green shirt was far more practical without those ruffles and her straight sheepskin body-warmer held no elegance at all. She could not use frivolities while working with the horses, nor missed them.
Jenny was a pale skinned freckled honey-blond sixteen-year-old, the spitting image of her father. Eyes as blue as the sky on a hot summer's day, hair pulled back in a high ponytail, a whimsical nature and a kind heart.
The flowers and herbs her mother grew here smelled heavenly, even if the blooms had closed for the night. She could see her mother through the open window, illuminated by the candlelight behind her. Holding her baby sister and rocking the infant gently to try to get her to sleep. It would not work, Jenny knew. The only thing that would get her baby-sister to doze off was if her father sang her to sleep. Every night he would take the old Aboveground guitar from the hooks in the wall and play the gentle songs he knew so well. In Aboveground Jenny's dad had wanted to become a singer. What he had become down here was the best silversmith of the Goblin King's artisan village. Or 'the Nugget' as most of the Underground folk insisted on calling it.
Their house was small and low. Thick white plastered brick walls, dark brown thatched roof. The red painted frames of the windows with the cat dozing in the windowsill and the old vines growing all over the wall. The coziest room was the kitchen with the large table everybody used to sit around. The wood-stove and the hearth always giving off their steady warmth in winter and the larger windows in front when opened made the room cool in summer. Her father usually sat in front of those, with a book or his guitar.
The front of the house was Father's workshop. Everybody had a tiny room in the attic directly under the roof. Most houses in the artisan's village were like this. Since some Goblin had planned the village's layout, there were no real streets. Only a somewhat ordered chaos of houses surrounded by random plots of land.
The garden was such a plot. Vegetables were grown there, and those flowers. Father had a plan to grow grapes against the stable wall. They had four horses at the moment. Jenny's, Mathew's and two guests Jenny had been asked to train.
The garden was not very wide, but rather deep and it would take a few minutes to cross. Jenny held her pace and smiled at the idyllic view of her mother and baby sister. She loved them both to bits. She loved all her brothers and sisters and her father to bits. And their neighbors and her eldest brother's elfin friends. It was a peaceful, loving community Jenny lived in. So fucking harmonious it was no wonder she used to ride her horse hard, until the excitement of the ride drove her boredom away. Jenny smiled at herself. She would not dare say such a word like 'fucking' out loud. It was a swearword her father had taken with him from the Aboveground. That other world where hardly anything had been harmonious.
Once upon a time Jenny's father Christopher, had lived in a place called Ireland. He had been a member of a group called Protestants and had had the audacity to fall in love with Jenny's mother, Maude, a then seventeen-year-old Catholic. Jenny did not understand why there had been any strife at all between these groups, but they both were adamant the relationship between the two teenagers should end. Even when it was found out that Maude was with child.
Soon after Maude's son was born, it became clear that her parents had given this child of sin up for adoption. Maude had run away from home to meet with Christopher, taking the infant with her. All young Christopher had been able to bring with him was his guitar. Life became extremely hard for the still unwed couple, lodging in a boardinghouse, very short on money and mainly unemployed. Maude found a waitress job in a pub. Sometimes Christopher could play there, but they had to take little Mathew with them for they could not afford a babysitter nor knew a friend to look after him. One night, Maude's father found the couple in that pub and caused a scene. The father was thrown out and Maude could go, fired. Taking the backdoor they fled. It rained no more, but thunder still hung in the air like the silence before the storm and the black wetted streets gleamed coldly beneath the streetlights. Walking those deserted streets of Belfast in the middle of that night, Christopher improvised a gentle song to encourage his girl. He swore he'd rather have the Hobgoblins take his child -right now- than see it taken and raised by strangers.
And right on cue, a truly strange stranger had appeared in front of them. Dressed in black armor and dark velvet, a swirling cape dancing around him in a nonexistent breeze. Spiky hair with an odd silken quality, seemingly woven out of moonlight. Noble features, his eyes holding a hypnotic quality while deeply penetrating. Dust turned to silver sparks in his wake.
He claimed to be the King of the Goblins and demanded their child now belonged to -him-.
Christopher had taken a swing with his guitar and tried to knock the oddball against the ground. Laughing the creature disappeared in a tornado of sliver sparks, blinding the couple, the guitar passing right through air where it should have bruised flesh and bone. Maude screamed as she felt her child wrenched from her arms and when the couple could see again, they were elsewhere.
Highly amused with Christopher's resistance the Goblin King had -somehow- transported them to the magical world Jenny knew as her only home. He had given the hapless youngsters thirteen hours to solve his Labyrinth and reclaim their son.
Maude and Christopher lost the bet. Afterwards Maude begged not to be separated from her child. The Goblin King allowed the young family to stay intact on three conditions. They were never to return to the Aboveground, Christopher had to become a silversmith and teach both his infant and any future children the trade, and they had to accept they would have a long standing debt with the King. Basically agreeing to do any damn thing he asked of them.
Maude and Christopher had no choice but to agree, otherwise their little Mathew might have ended up a Goblin. But the young couple quickly understood King Jareth had not condemned them to anything, quite the contrary. They now had their chance to get married and live together until the end of their days in a peace and tranquility they never would have experienced in their old lives. Disguised as threat, Jareth had given them happiness. Their gratefulness grew into loyalty and trust over the years. Jareth had commanded Christopher to teach his children his new profession, for which he proved to be extremely talented, but he did not -force- those children to follow in their fathers footsteps. Whatever they would do with their lives was their choice and not his business. And the 'debt' Maude and Christopher owned was hardly ever referred upon, although the King seemed to have a natural supernatural awareness for any masterly trinket Christopher made. Sometimes he would claim those before any other Fay could even see it. To Jenny the Fay behaved oftentimes not unlike a murder of magpies, the lot of them.
Sudden movement caught the girl's eye and she swiftly turned to the side, to see a white barnyard owl gracefully land on the low wooden fence surrounding the garden. It cocked its head towards her, blinked its eyes and shrieked. The animal smirked at Jenny. There was only one kind of owl she knew off that could actually smirk at her. She turned towards the house again and started to yell, pleasantly surprised and exited.
"Mum! Dad! Dad, come quickly!"
Her father came to the window, his face open and questioning, her mother made some movement and put Cindy down who promptly started crying. Christopher looked annoyed over his shoulder and missed the obvious of the King shape-changing into his Fay form. Mathew came to the backdoor and stared at his younger sister.
"What in the blazes-" Then he noticed the amused King nonchalantly strolling down the garden path.
"Oh dear lord-"
"-My- Lord is the correct phrase, boy."
Jareth passed the two youngsters, winking mischievously at the immediately blushing Jenny and entered the house. Jenny in turn could not help the smirk on her own face. -Somebody- was in a good mood today. But the appearance of the King was quite odd really. The last items her father had been working on were some buckles and a simple candlestick.
Jareth chuckled at all the surprised faces he saw round the table. Christopher's very blond mob of hair and Maude's curly chestnut had left them with a team of beautiful blond and redheaded children, all very freckled and amazingly alike their father in their features. Round faces, small noses and with those incredibly clear blue eyes. He ignored their gentle questioning faces and turned to the crying babe in her cot. Jareth conjured up a tiny crystal that flew from his hand and made little shiny pirouettes above the infant's face. Cindy stopped crying and tried to catch the little sphere, making bubbling almost laughing little noises.
"There, there, little one- we cannot have you in a tiff while I am talking to your parents."
Christopher neared the King and asked: "My Lord, to what do we owe the honor of your visit?"
"You know, you might wish to learn that unruly lot," and the pointed at the children with his cane "to stand and greet their King when he pays you a visit. Or not to turn their backs on him."
Jenny snickered. Jareth glanced over his shoulder at her and she made a mock curtsy. For a moment the King narrowed his eyes at her, even as he was smiling still. But it unnerved the girl and she suddenly understood Jareth's business with her family might be serious. She saw Mathew swallow hard. The King still had a claim on him, Jareth had never renounced it.
"Christopher, Maude, a word with you please."
The King tuned and left the house as quickly as he had entered. He walked to the back of the garden, not even looking if his subjects would follow him. Out of earshot of the children he turned and faced the humans. His face not grim, but very serious. Maude took Christopher's hand in hers and she shivered. Jareths gaze went over their shoulders to the house a moment, where young curly copper hared Mathew still stood in the doorstep. Subtly he shook his head, but it was enough for the couple. They would not lose their son today,
"You two are very fond of children, are you not?"
"Well my Lord, we have seven of them, you know." Maude and Christopher exchanged a happy glance and focussed rather starry-eyes on Jareth. After all, he had made the very being of their children possible.
"How about nine."
"What?"
Jareth tapped his cane against his open palm, observing the two.
Maude lay a hand on her belly and shivered- The King could not be serious. If babies came, they came. But Maude was not exactly planning on more children, and certainly not so soon after Cindy's birth.
Christopher put a protective arm around his wife and looked rather perplexed and pained at the king. Jareth merely shook his head.
"You two have parented your offspring well- they are growing up healthy and confident. I would like you to take upon yourself the duty of raising two children who have not been that fortunate, and who will bring some considerable changes into your household. Not to mention your lives."
"Wished away ones?" Christopher asked.
"One of them."
"And the other lost and wanted to stay? Like we did?"
Jareth smirked. "I would not say that." Then the King turned very serious. "The larger problem is with the boy. A two year old stunted and even somewhat retarded toddler, seriously mistreated by his natural parents." The unevenly focused eyes doubled their intensity with Jareth's next words while he looked straight at Christopher.
"Especially by the father. He does not move, while he should be walking- I know he could when he was younger. He does not talk, does not even smile." Jareth's gaze swept over Maude now.
"Think of your little Cindy not smiling."
"Oh this is horrible."
"Quite. And I need the two of you to take care of little Toby, as if he were your own. I'm sure with all your healthy little ones around he would learn to trust you two rather quickly."
"My Lord-" Christopher was searching for words. "I'm not quite sure if things will work that way-"
Jareth raised his brow and narrowed his gaze.
"But for the boy's sake we'll try, won't we darling?" Christopher continued with some haste.
"Oh that poor little boy! How could anybody do such a thing- How has he been hurt- When will we see him?"
Jareth could not help but smile again at the woman's befuddled eagerness. Maude truly was a mother in the in the best and most beautiful sense of the word. She was raised like that and reveled in the role, so unlike her eldest daughter. Jareth did enjoy all the complications and differences in this family. He could never have hoped Maude and Christopher would turn out to be so endlessly amusing to him when he first met them in that gloomy wet and cold Belfast street.
"Tomorrow, with his sister. She is a very spirited young lady who wished her brother away only to have him placed under my protection. She is very devoted to him." Jareth nodded towards the house. "Jenny is of an age with her."
"What is he name?"
For the slightest of moments Jareth seemed to hesitate.
"Sarah."
"Sarah- " repeated Christopher, looking from the corner of his eye at his wife, who gave him a similar meaningful glance.
"Yes." answered Jareth curtly.
"And Toby." Maude noted.
"Quite." said Jareth in the same brusque tone.
"Sarah and Toby." repeated Maude.
Jareth's expression had turned a careful blank and his voice had grown cold enough to freeze the summer's night.
"I take it than that you accept."
The two humans lowered their gaze, but Jareth was unsure if this was a sign of respect or a vain effort not to laugh.
"Yes, my Lord King."
"Good. Expect us tomorrow, mid-morning."
Unwilling to witness the couples reaction when gone, Jareth quickly stepped back, fell in on himself and his swirling cape and shape-changed once again. He circled the couple once and took to the sky, eerily shrieking.
Christopher could not hold himself back. The moment Jareth was gone, he burst out laughing.
"Oh my- Oh my dear- this is getting very interesting!"
"Oh stop laughing, this is serious enough. That poor little boy."
"Did you saw his face, love? He was embarrassed!"
"Yes, but why?"
"He lost to the girl!"
"And got them back."
That sobered the silversmith.
"Yes, you are right. If anything, it seems that he has won from the girl after all. He should be gloating."
"So why would he be embarrassed?"
The silversmith smiled broadly. "Well, my love, it would seem we will have plenty of time to sort out that little puzzle. In the mean time, do you tell Jenny she will have to share her room for a while, or do I? With a virtual legend no less."
"You tell her, my dear. You, will tell her."
Arms around each other they walked back to the house.
Fourteen-year-old Nan, curls of unruly copper tried to comfort little Cindy, who was again crying. When her parent's entered the house, she and the others saw their easy smiles and she understood the King's demands at least had not been unreasonable.
"Children, we have some very serious things to discuss with you, so please-" the silversmith found himself rudely cut off by his youngest daughter's crying.
"Wahah!"
Maude walked over to the wall and took Christopher's guitar down. She gave it to her husband.
"You know it won't stop until she sleeps."
"And dad, you know she won't sleep until you sing her to sleep." said Nan.
"Oh alright." Christopher took the guitar and hesitated a moment.
"I think," said Maude, "that Mathew's song would be quite appropriate."
Christopher nodded and while he sang, looked at all his children in turn. With their happy, sleepy little faces and the promise they beheld.
Mathew, an adult already really with his eighteen years, long copper colored curls and slender frame. He sometimes more resembled the Elves he spend so much time with than a human boy. Probably the young man would be a silversmith too, he had learned the trade well and enjoyed the work. Jenny, already such a formidable woman where her personal choices were concerned. The best horse-trainer the village had ever had. Gentle caring Nan, only fourteen and already her mothers image, if not for the looks than for the character. Blond Birdie of twelve, well Jonathan really. Who had taught himself every birdsong he'd heard and rather whistled than spoke. A healer of animals he wished to be. Anna with the long blond ponytail. The little brave Tomboy and the only human the Goblins respected for the pranks she liked to play on them. If there was anyone of the village who knew her way through the Labyrinth and went about without fear, it was she. The auburn Robert of five who also seemed to have inherited his mothers caring nature. And last but not least, little carrot top Cindy. The innocent blank in their midst. What would she choose to be?
What would they be, when the future had arrived for them? Whatever it would be, it would be the future of their own making. No pre-destination, no expectations. His children were so totally free here. So totally without care. Perhaps Jareth was right after all. Perhaps such surroundings were exactly what a traumatized boy and his legendary sister needed. After all, she was only a young girl. Those two would be welcome in his family. As were all the little ones the Good Lord had graced him with. And with that, he did -not- mean Jareth.
Christopher sang his old song of the other life, the Belfast life. Where he and his Maude had been so different for breaching the gaps between animosity, tradition and religion. Everyone they had known wanted a simple, happy life. Everyone wanted peace. Except when a couple was eccentric and strong-minded enough to dare to live those words.
A son of hope they had seen in Mathew. An open question, reflected in a lovely tune.
"Will you stay in our Lovers' Story
"If you stay you won't be sorry
"'Cause we believe in you
"Soon you'll grow so take a chance
"With a couple of Kooks
"Hung up on romancing
"We bought a lot of things to keep you warm and dry
"And a funny old crib on which the paint won't dry
"I bought you a pair of shoes
"A trumpet you can blow
"And a book of rules
"On what to say to people when they pick on you
"'Cause if you stay with us you're gonna be pretty Kookie too
"Will you stay in my Lovers' Story
"If you stay you won't be sorry
"'Cause we believe in you
"Soon you'll grow so take a chance
"With a couple of Kooks
"Hung up on romancing
"And if you ever have to go to school
"Remember how they messed up this old fool
"Don't pick fights with the bullies or the cads
"'Cause I'm not much cop at punching
"Other people's Dads
"And if the homework brings you down
"Then we'll throw it on the fire
"And take the car downtown
"Will you stay in our Lovers' Story
"If you stay you won't be sorry
"'Cause we believe in you
"Soon you'll grow so take a chance
"With a couple of Kooks
"Hung up on romancing
"Will you stay
Sarah had felt like a princess when she looked around the room. She wondered if it might have been Jareth's mothers, for it certainly befitted a queen, and an elegant one at that. Yet in stark contrast to Toby's cozy nursery, this place had a cold, lonely feel about it. As if at one time it had been lovingly prepared and vacated before ever been put to use.
The walls an ceiling had been plastered a warm green, framed with dark wooden decoration. Spirals climbing the corners, golden and wooden leaves sprouting from polished vines. Small multicolored flower fairies tumbled from those vines and populated the walls, flying, playing, making music. Some, half hidden, making love.
Pink and blue and white their colors were. What was it again little Wendy had told her mother? The girl that went with Peter Pan? Something like the white and pink ones being boys and girls, and the blue ones the sillies who did not yet knew what they were.
Their dragonfly wings were gold-tipped and sparkling and they shimmered in candlelight and the easy glow of the hearth.
The windows of this room were a lot smaller and there was no balcony. Green stained glass in diamond shape set in heavy oak frames, dark brocade and again with gold embroiled curtains hung at their sides.
Like in Toby's room, the cold gray tiled floor had been covered with furs. Obviously the Goblin King was no PETA member. Or perhaps he had just conjured up the furs, with the glamour of the crystal balls. Could magical fur be accepted as fake?
Sarah shrugged. It was proof of her weariness her mind took to a trail of thought like that. It was indeed way past her bedtime. And the bed looked so inviting. A large four-poster bed with a green heaven and green draperies, both embroidered with gold. Green satin sheets- so soft an embrace to sleep within.
Somewhere a clock rang the hour, but Sarah failed to count the bells. Looking for a bathroom to prepare for bed, she found a working museum of a bathroom, straight out of the nineteenth century, behind the door next to the hearth. A humongous copper bathtub on lions feet, scented bath oil's- Whomever choose them had a strong preference for roses and peaches. Sarah contemplated taking a bath, saw one of the baths feet scrape the floor impatiently and decided a bit peeved she was too tired.
Having finished, Sarah went to the large wardrobe on the other side of the room. Dark oak, a large mirror in one of the doors, tiny goblin faces for locks and hinges. All with hats and helmets firmly pulled over their eyes. Perhaps Sarah imagined it, but it seemed almost if some of the hinges softly protested the injustice of it. And some of the figures on the walls seemed to have moved. Sarah shrugged. Well what would one expect in the Goblin Kings castle. Luckily she had to spend here only one night. She wondered what kind of nightgown she might find, indeed what kind of clothing the King would like for her to wear. She remembered a certain ball gown…
Two very simple cotton dresses, straight, plain, one brown the other midnight blue, both with tight bodices and no sleeves. A slightly nicer dark green one with black lace at the front. Several white shirts or shifts with pleated wide sleeves. Not all that unlike the ones she used to wear Aboveground. A brown woolen cape, brown ankle high boots, several little white caps. In a drawer at the side white underwear and black stockings, of which not much more was to be said than that they were functional. Two straight and long cotton nightshirts without any frivolities added. A simple handmaidens wardrobe.
Sarah stared at the clothes, a gift to be taken with her in the morning. There was a little cloth bag, obviously meant for the transport of the garments. One moment Sarah felt unreasonably angry. Cheated almost. But then she realized that ball gowns were not frocks one usually wore during the daily routine of any village, not even in Kansas. Where she definitely was no longer. Yet the garments were so at odds with the luxurious room, Sarah could not help but to contemplate the difference. Had Jareth brought her here on purpose, so she would see what she would be giving up if she left the castle? He was sneaky enough for such a tease. Smiling to herself Sarah changed into one of the nightgowns. It hugged her body comfortably and felt pleasant to her skin. Its looks therefore deceivingly simple.
Sarah made a round through the room and blew out the candles one by one. She pulled a screen for the hearth, closing of it's dying embers. One candle in hand, she went to the windows. Before closing the curtains, she opened one of them to feel the fresh night air on her face. This room was at the back of the Castle Beyond The Goblin City. It overlooked a lovely palace garden, pale and pristine in the moonlight. Of course featuring another hedge maze, abet a small ornamental one. The scent of roses hung heavy in the air and a peacock crooned in the distance while crickets played their summer waltz.
No owls against the moon.
Sarah sniffed the air wonderingly, for there was something absent she realized had been omnipresent on Earth. She sighed incredulously as she understood. No cars. No gasoline. No distant industry. No modern stench. Just the moon, the white of the graveled garden paths and marble benches and assorted ornaments. And the utter darkness beyond. No streetlights- no sounds of distend traffic. No blinking airplanes in the sky. No distractions. Puzzles, yes. Tests and confrontations. Friends and in the past, adventure. All that one could wish for to feel alive and exited and grow.
And Sarah felt a contentment coming to her very soul. A sense of belonging to the quiet dark and the secretive peace of the surrounding Labyrinth. She nodded to herself knowingly, the lyrics of a song coming to her. The girl chuckled. It seemed one of those things down here. Emotions, occurrences of some importance or just a silly mood drew music to one. Sarah decided to leave the curtains open, closed the window and blew out the candle. With the green filtered and fractured moonlight in her back, she made her way to the bed and gave in to the music she felt gently humming in the air. Open now to anything the Labyrinth had to offer. In the middle of the room she halted, closed her eyes and let flow from her voice what she felt touched inside.
"I have been given
"one moment from heaven
"as I am walking
"surrounded by night,
"Stars high above me
"make a wish under moonlight.
"On my way home
"I remember
"Only good days.
"On my way home
"I remember all the best days.
"I'm on my way home
"I can remember
"every new day
"I move in silence
"with each step taken
"snow falling round me
"like angels in flight
"Far in the distance
"Is my wish under moonlight
Sarah shivered as the gentle yet ghostly music died away. It had come to her with her acceptance of the Labyrinth and now the magic left her as if satisfied with this new inhabitant. The song had brought the girl the seed of forgiveness- whatever had befallen her in the past, it had led her to this enchanted world, the place where she could be happy and so in a sense all those miserable times had had their purpose. And now it was time to let go and heal and move forward.
Whether kitchen maid in the castle, servant to Toby's new guardians in that unknown village or whatever else fait might throw at her- here in the Underground she was at peace. For a mere thirteen hours or an eternity, Sarah Williams knew she was home.
There are three songs used in this chapter. The first one is more like a poem I wrote myself. The second is the lovely and endearing 1971 song 'Kooks' David Bowie wrote a few days after the birth of his son. The song is a wonderful welcome to a babe. The tenderness of it utterly enchanted me.
Last but not least Sarah 'sings' Enya's song from The Memory Of Trees album 'On My Way Home'.
If you don't know the songs I mentioned, for your own enjoyment -try- to get hold of them.
My apologies if I seem somewhat pushy with my musical tastes towards you all. It's just my enthusiasm running away with me.
I would like to thank all of you dear hearts who were kind enough to comment on my story and who kept pushing me for the next chapter. Without your support, it would not have been.
So again thank you.
This chapter's rating is PG-13 for swearing and references to violence.
And yes. I -will- be getting on with the story already. Right now!
Ramowen
The Lonely and the Lost
Chapter III: Songs of Misery and Joy
Green rain over Baghdad, somehow no more dangerous than a computerized game when filmed with night-vision. Unclear images showed what had been coming for a while now, a war in the gulf.
Like nothing new, this war held no interest for the man staring at the television. But Robert Williams had learned he could not afford to lose the now out of sight, for it would mean the loss of those around him. The colleagues and their small talk, the relations and their lunches. The neighbors and the relatives. Keeping them at distance by means of no contact had the adverse effect. Thus it worked between responsible and curious humans who were in a habit of looking after each other.
However, when the mask of normality was firmly in place, one could dance with the devil in one's own basement and nobody would be the wiser.
The devil, the dancer, the thief.
The Goblin King.
The basement of Robert's house had become his secret place. Firstly it had been cleaned out, than cleaned up. The walls plastered white, cables laid, the most modern of computers installed. And o what a wonderful world the Internet was. The green cursor danced over the screen and digit by digit, zero one, one zero, information from all around the globe revealed itself. Libraries filled with ancient legends of Ireland and the long lost past and the war between the Tuatha De Danann and the Fomorians. The little people, giants, unicorns- at one time Robert even found himself making a file about Smurfs.
He needed a break. Badly.
So the old obsession took a new route. A large map of the surrounding area now donned the wall. Green pins pinpointed homes from which people, both young and old, had disappeared over the last fifty years. Red pins indicated murder sites. A thin black thread connected a disappearance and a site. Those where of less interest to the father.
Pictures of milk-carton children appeared. More and more and more, nation wide. But only those of children who had gone missing from their own homes. Only infants and teenage girls. A cabinet filled itself with neatly stacked files. Hundreds of hours of work. Not a clue what so ever.
One afternoon Robert took down the swing from the tree in the backyard. Reasoning logically there was no hope left he would ever see his son playing with the damned thing. So Robert pulled it down and put it away.
But the gut feeling still told the man quite a different story. Sarah lived. Toby had to be somewhere he could be found. And damn all the pixies.
Inside Sarah's little red book with the golden title, Robert had found the address of the bookshop with the second hand books were Sarah had bought it. The student behind the counter could tell him not a thing. The references to the writer proofed a dead end.
Sometimes Robert felt watched, scrutinized. Haunted. As if someone was toying with him. Guiding him into a maze of questions without answer. Trapping him inside his own obsession to find his children. Enticing him with bits of information that could occupy him for months to ultimately be led no-where. Seducing him into the firm belief there was such a thing as a mythical land called The Underground, with its Labyrinth and magic. Forever out of the adults reach.
Robert made some friends among divorced men with children. Men who still sought the company of women with hopes of courtship. Foolish men who were easily manipulated into allowing their children into 'uncle' Roberts care for one Saturday evening. They stayed at Robert's home, ate his candy and played with Sarah's old board games. They went early to bed without protest, slept in the spare bedroom and woke up in the morning, with, to their surprise, their windows wide-open. And kind Uncle Robert with bags under his eyes, looking terrible. As if he had not slept all night.
Robert drugged the children, taking care the only effect they would undergo was a good nights sleep. Then he wished them away. Waited all night for some miracle that never happened.
One anger and grief inspired day he went dangerously overboard and in the mall kidnapped an infant out of it's buggy. Two days later he left the child unharmed in a bag near a gas station.
He came and went unnoticed.
Even with this babe, the miracle had not happened. When morning came and Robert found himself capable of wringing the innocent's neck because of it, he finally realized he was sinking into insanity.
He started to see owls by daylight.
Robert learned how to handle a gun and rifles and went hunting. Once, alone in the woods, he took a point blank shot at an almost white barnyard owl he found dozing in the loft of an abandoned shed. There was not even a feather of the animal to be found- but the laughter which might have been only the owls shriek, kept ringing in his ears for hours and nearly drove him to putting his rifle into his own mouth and pulling the trigger.
He never went hunting alone again, but in company became quite the woodsman. Robert never saw the owl again.
He started drinking again.
His employer gave Robert the phone number of a self-help group of parents of missing children. Robert promised to go, dreading it. How could these people help him? What could he tell them?
'Hi, I'm Robert (Hi Robert!) My two children have been kidnapped by the Goblin King and now he's slowly driving me insane. Did you know he is an owl sometimes?'
Robert was forced to listen to the stories of people whose children had been found back molested and killed in the most god-awful way. He listened to a loving father describing his runaway son, never to have been found back. He learned that sometimes knowing what tragedy has befallen a loved one is easier to bear than never learning their fate at all.
He learned to regret a choice once made in his youth, when jealousy had overtaken him. A choice he could never ever rectify.
He learned that many couples brake up after their tragic loss and how many others find great strength and new depths within their relationship. He found he could speak in mock love about Sarah and that the group saw right through him. He was invited to talk about his anger, vented some of it and found a kind of acceptance. In tears he spoke about his father and his own abuse as a child. In tears he spoke about the blows he had dealt his children and how sorry he was for all of it. Begging the Good Lord for another chance with his family.
Some parents were terribly upset with him, some claimed understanding.
He learned from the group that self-made poetry was a help to them to express themselves. Some had taken up drawing or painting. At home in his basement, Robert dusted of his old guitar and had a go at 'expressing himself'. He strummed the guitar, hummed a few bars and made up a tune with the words that came trough him. He sang them with tears in his eyes and a broken voice.
"Years and years and years he told me
"Son do grow up, don't be such a baby
"And he held the reigns of my life
"So tight and he would never, ever stop
"He was the man in '45, love
"The hero fighting for our lives, dove
"A hardened man wasted without a chance
"Upon the bloody beach of Second World War France
"I was born in the first year he was out, defending us
"But he never believed that I wore his bloody face
"The twin of my grandpa, but when finally that became obvious
"All the love between him and me had been long lost
"And when he got no job but the dull one in the factory
"He told my mother what a whore she was, could she not see
"The respect he should be given by us, his family
"He showed me his medals, and that was good-
"When Joey's dad came home from the war he was a kinder man
"Who had learned to be scared out of his scull, and then
"Move on and forgive
"Move on up and live
"And be awakened by the nightmares screaming bloody murder
"Not my dad
"Not mine
"No not mine
"His belt a whip for the smallest thing
"Every moment you dreaded, everything
"When you went to school you went with the rule
"You were happy
"I hated little Joe and I hated his dad
"And everybody thought his drowning was sad
"And nobody knew where I had been
"Or cared to ask me
"I learned how much power there is in fear
"And I learned it well, don't you fret my dear
"I'll protect you all, I'll protect you good
"For that is what a Father should
"Years and years and much years later on
"He died far away and all alone
"With his bottles and his medals in a box
"Wasted, in some home
"When Joey's dad came home from the war he was a kinder man
"Who had learned to be scared out of his scull, and then
"Move on and forgive
"Move on up and live
"And be awakened by the nightmares screaming bloody murder
"Not my dad
"Not mine
"No not mine
After listening to the result, Robert burned the tape of the song and sold the guitar. For the group he made a tender drawing of Sarah and Toby, flanked by some of Sarah's unicorns.
It was surprisingly good and established the lie he really was remorseful and on his way in becoming caring.
Remaining bottles were emptied in the sink, again.
One evening a mother passed photographs around of her second family. She had brought a son to the marriage, he a daughter. An infant the beloved one of their new union.
Five photographs. Three of the lost baby boy, stolen from his bed one night. Right out of their own home. Two snapshots of the whole family together, one 'before' and one a year 'after'.
Robert nearly dropped the photographs when it was his turn to say 'oh' and 'ah'. The babe was just another normal infant, nothing special. The family pictures however, showed something quite interesting indeed.
The intact family had been of mother and father, infant, a boy of about sixteen and a sullen freckled girl, just the right side of fourteen. The broken family showed the mother and father standing much closer, a young man already filling out his body quite nicely, holding his mother and smiling shyly. The girl stood in front of the father, his hands on her shoulders. Tall, with bright eyes knowing she was something special. From her neck dangled a lovely necklace with a pendant shaped like a silver owl in flight.
Oozing charm Robert became a friend of the couple and the family. It was the year Toby would have been seven and Sarah twenty-one. But in the home of his new friends the talk was not about missing children. Robert played chess with the father, spoke about rugby with the son. Once, with tears in his eyes, he gave the now sixteen-year-old daughter the earrings he lied about to have bought for Sarah's seventeenth birthday. The girl accepted the silver with the same secret smile she always seemed to wear if people did something special for her. For she thought of herself as very special. The arrogant little bitch.
The last time Robert saw the girl smile was when he unexpectedly picked her up from her school. The foolish girl trusted 'uncle' Robert and hopped in his car. Forgetting all she had learned from her parents, forgetting most molesters were very well known to their victims. Lucky for her Robert had no physical hurt in mind for the girl. While driving he gave her a brown paper bag and asked her to take a good look at it's content. When the girl found the little red book she nearly fainted. Robert asked her if he could take her to a small cafe where they could talk about it and she agreed numbly.
The Bluebell Bar had not changed much over the years, it had only become more corny and somewhat abandoned. The same old movie stars donned the wall, but sometimes the music was updated to the 'pop' of Climie Fisher or the ballads of Spandau Ballet. Ashtrays had been removed in one corner, fruit-juice and salads had entered the menu as main course.
Hidden in one of the boots, whispering behind her cold cup of coffee the girl told Robert how she had loathed being forced to take care of that brat of a baby brother of hers. Her new big brother and she took turns and he never seemed to mind, but she did. And then one day she had found a copy of the Labyrinth booklet in an old bookshop and she dreamed away. Wistfully she had called upon the fantasy King to take her brother.
He had been no fantasy. In detail the girl described the coming of the King. How he had charmed her and frightened her and seduced her into submission. The girls eyes had this far away look as if describing her very first love, telling Robert about the King's fine features, elegant attire, even if ominous, and his moonlight blond silken locks. Robert showed the girl a copy of Sarah's drawing and the girl started crying. Begging Robert to be allowed to keep the flimsy paper. She told him the King had given her a crystal with a present inside. Told her it was a very special present for a very special girl, if only she could let go of the brat she had wished away. The choice was an easy one. The foolish child regarded her necklace as something of an engagement present and apparently wasted her youth waiting for him to come back for her.
But when the truth of Sarah's disappearance sank in, the girl broke down and started to sob hysterically. For Sarah -had- walked the Labyrinth and -had- returned home with her brother. And -had- been taken away again.
Robert reached out with his hand and patted the girl on her arm. Before she realized it, he had gotten hold of the owl-pendant and yanked the chain from her neck. The girl shrieked and grabbed for the precious trinket, but the man pushed her roughly back into her seat. Robert asked the girl if she had ever realized she had condemned her baby-brother to the miserable life of a Goblin. Her guilty expression assured Robert of her silence about their encounter.
Proof. Solid proof. This girl and the pendant in his hand baring witness to the fact he had -not- lost his mind. That it was all true. Everything. More than Sarah's drawings or diary. More than the red book with the gold on the cover, it was proof!
Robert left the self-help group and ditched his job. He sold his house and disappeared into obscurity. A small cheap flat with just enough room to house his updated computer, his files and a bed. Now he had certainty he needed the time. Time to find a way in.
There -had- to be a way in!
Jenny Christophersdaughter closed the old stable-door and walked through the garden to the house. She had taken care of the horses for the night and hurried home under the starry sky and a moon so bright it could be one of the Goblin King's crystals. The girl wore the same kind of gray pants and brown leather boots her dashing King usually dressed himself with. But her short sleeved green shirt was far more practical without those ruffles and her straight sheepskin body-warmer held no elegance at all. She could not use frivolities while working with the horses, nor missed them.
Jenny was a pale skinned freckled honey-blond sixteen-year-old, the spitting image of her father. Eyes as blue as the sky on a hot summer's day, hair pulled back in a high ponytail, a whimsical nature and a kind heart.
The flowers and herbs her mother grew here smelled heavenly, even if the blooms had closed for the night. She could see her mother through the open window, illuminated by the candlelight behind her. Holding her baby sister and rocking the infant gently to try to get her to sleep. It would not work, Jenny knew. The only thing that would get her baby-sister to doze off was if her father sang her to sleep. Every night he would take the old Aboveground guitar from the hooks in the wall and play the gentle songs he knew so well. In Aboveground Jenny's dad had wanted to become a singer. What he had become down here was the best silversmith of the Goblin King's artisan village. Or 'the Nugget' as most of the Underground folk insisted on calling it.
Their house was small and low. Thick white plastered brick walls, dark brown thatched roof. The red painted frames of the windows with the cat dozing in the windowsill and the old vines growing all over the wall. The coziest room was the kitchen with the large table everybody used to sit around. The wood-stove and the hearth always giving off their steady warmth in winter and the larger windows in front when opened made the room cool in summer. Her father usually sat in front of those, with a book or his guitar.
The front of the house was Father's workshop. Everybody had a tiny room in the attic directly under the roof. Most houses in the artisan's village were like this. Since some Goblin had planned the village's layout, there were no real streets. Only a somewhat ordered chaos of houses surrounded by random plots of land.
The garden was such a plot. Vegetables were grown there, and those flowers. Father had a plan to grow grapes against the stable wall. They had four horses at the moment. Jenny's, Mathew's and two guests Jenny had been asked to train.
The garden was not very wide, but rather deep and it would take a few minutes to cross. Jenny held her pace and smiled at the idyllic view of her mother and baby sister. She loved them both to bits. She loved all her brothers and sisters and her father to bits. And their neighbors and her eldest brother's elfin friends. It was a peaceful, loving community Jenny lived in. So fucking harmonious it was no wonder she used to ride her horse hard, until the excitement of the ride drove her boredom away. Jenny smiled at herself. She would not dare say such a word like 'fucking' out loud. It was a swearword her father had taken with him from the Aboveground. That other world where hardly anything had been harmonious.
Once upon a time Jenny's father Christopher, had lived in a place called Ireland. He had been a member of a group called Protestants and had had the audacity to fall in love with Jenny's mother, Maude, a then seventeen-year-old Catholic. Jenny did not understand why there had been any strife at all between these groups, but they both were adamant the relationship between the two teenagers should end. Even when it was found out that Maude was with child.
Soon after Maude's son was born, it became clear that her parents had given this child of sin up for adoption. Maude had run away from home to meet with Christopher, taking the infant with her. All young Christopher had been able to bring with him was his guitar. Life became extremely hard for the still unwed couple, lodging in a boardinghouse, very short on money and mainly unemployed. Maude found a waitress job in a pub. Sometimes Christopher could play there, but they had to take little Mathew with them for they could not afford a babysitter nor knew a friend to look after him. One night, Maude's father found the couple in that pub and caused a scene. The father was thrown out and Maude could go, fired. Taking the backdoor they fled. It rained no more, but thunder still hung in the air like the silence before the storm and the black wetted streets gleamed coldly beneath the streetlights. Walking those deserted streets of Belfast in the middle of that night, Christopher improvised a gentle song to encourage his girl. He swore he'd rather have the Hobgoblins take his child -right now- than see it taken and raised by strangers.
And right on cue, a truly strange stranger had appeared in front of them. Dressed in black armor and dark velvet, a swirling cape dancing around him in a nonexistent breeze. Spiky hair with an odd silken quality, seemingly woven out of moonlight. Noble features, his eyes holding a hypnotic quality while deeply penetrating. Dust turned to silver sparks in his wake.
He claimed to be the King of the Goblins and demanded their child now belonged to -him-.
Christopher had taken a swing with his guitar and tried to knock the oddball against the ground. Laughing the creature disappeared in a tornado of sliver sparks, blinding the couple, the guitar passing right through air where it should have bruised flesh and bone. Maude screamed as she felt her child wrenched from her arms and when the couple could see again, they were elsewhere.
Highly amused with Christopher's resistance the Goblin King had -somehow- transported them to the magical world Jenny knew as her only home. He had given the hapless youngsters thirteen hours to solve his Labyrinth and reclaim their son.
Maude and Christopher lost the bet. Afterwards Maude begged not to be separated from her child. The Goblin King allowed the young family to stay intact on three conditions. They were never to return to the Aboveground, Christopher had to become a silversmith and teach both his infant and any future children the trade, and they had to accept they would have a long standing debt with the King. Basically agreeing to do any damn thing he asked of them.
Maude and Christopher had no choice but to agree, otherwise their little Mathew might have ended up a Goblin. But the young couple quickly understood King Jareth had not condemned them to anything, quite the contrary. They now had their chance to get married and live together until the end of their days in a peace and tranquility they never would have experienced in their old lives. Disguised as threat, Jareth had given them happiness. Their gratefulness grew into loyalty and trust over the years. Jareth had commanded Christopher to teach his children his new profession, for which he proved to be extremely talented, but he did not -force- those children to follow in their fathers footsteps. Whatever they would do with their lives was their choice and not his business. And the 'debt' Maude and Christopher owned was hardly ever referred upon, although the King seemed to have a natural supernatural awareness for any masterly trinket Christopher made. Sometimes he would claim those before any other Fay could even see it. To Jenny the Fay behaved oftentimes not unlike a murder of magpies, the lot of them.
Sudden movement caught the girl's eye and she swiftly turned to the side, to see a white barnyard owl gracefully land on the low wooden fence surrounding the garden. It cocked its head towards her, blinked its eyes and shrieked. The animal smirked at Jenny. There was only one kind of owl she knew off that could actually smirk at her. She turned towards the house again and started to yell, pleasantly surprised and exited.
"Mum! Dad! Dad, come quickly!"
Her father came to the window, his face open and questioning, her mother made some movement and put Cindy down who promptly started crying. Christopher looked annoyed over his shoulder and missed the obvious of the King shape-changing into his Fay form. Mathew came to the backdoor and stared at his younger sister.
"What in the blazes-" Then he noticed the amused King nonchalantly strolling down the garden path.
"Oh dear lord-"
"-My- Lord is the correct phrase, boy."
Jareth passed the two youngsters, winking mischievously at the immediately blushing Jenny and entered the house. Jenny in turn could not help the smirk on her own face. -Somebody- was in a good mood today. But the appearance of the King was quite odd really. The last items her father had been working on were some buckles and a simple candlestick.
Jareth chuckled at all the surprised faces he saw round the table. Christopher's very blond mob of hair and Maude's curly chestnut had left them with a team of beautiful blond and redheaded children, all very freckled and amazingly alike their father in their features. Round faces, small noses and with those incredibly clear blue eyes. He ignored their gentle questioning faces and turned to the crying babe in her cot. Jareth conjured up a tiny crystal that flew from his hand and made little shiny pirouettes above the infant's face. Cindy stopped crying and tried to catch the little sphere, making bubbling almost laughing little noises.
"There, there, little one- we cannot have you in a tiff while I am talking to your parents."
Christopher neared the King and asked: "My Lord, to what do we owe the honor of your visit?"
"You know, you might wish to learn that unruly lot," and the pointed at the children with his cane "to stand and greet their King when he pays you a visit. Or not to turn their backs on him."
Jenny snickered. Jareth glanced over his shoulder at her and she made a mock curtsy. For a moment the King narrowed his eyes at her, even as he was smiling still. But it unnerved the girl and she suddenly understood Jareth's business with her family might be serious. She saw Mathew swallow hard. The King still had a claim on him, Jareth had never renounced it.
"Christopher, Maude, a word with you please."
The King tuned and left the house as quickly as he had entered. He walked to the back of the garden, not even looking if his subjects would follow him. Out of earshot of the children he turned and faced the humans. His face not grim, but very serious. Maude took Christopher's hand in hers and she shivered. Jareths gaze went over their shoulders to the house a moment, where young curly copper hared Mathew still stood in the doorstep. Subtly he shook his head, but it was enough for the couple. They would not lose their son today,
"You two are very fond of children, are you not?"
"Well my Lord, we have seven of them, you know." Maude and Christopher exchanged a happy glance and focussed rather starry-eyes on Jareth. After all, he had made the very being of their children possible.
"How about nine."
"What?"
Jareth tapped his cane against his open palm, observing the two.
Maude lay a hand on her belly and shivered- The King could not be serious. If babies came, they came. But Maude was not exactly planning on more children, and certainly not so soon after Cindy's birth.
Christopher put a protective arm around his wife and looked rather perplexed and pained at the king. Jareth merely shook his head.
"You two have parented your offspring well- they are growing up healthy and confident. I would like you to take upon yourself the duty of raising two children who have not been that fortunate, and who will bring some considerable changes into your household. Not to mention your lives."
"Wished away ones?" Christopher asked.
"One of them."
"And the other lost and wanted to stay? Like we did?"
Jareth smirked. "I would not say that." Then the King turned very serious. "The larger problem is with the boy. A two year old stunted and even somewhat retarded toddler, seriously mistreated by his natural parents." The unevenly focused eyes doubled their intensity with Jareth's next words while he looked straight at Christopher.
"Especially by the father. He does not move, while he should be walking- I know he could when he was younger. He does not talk, does not even smile." Jareth's gaze swept over Maude now.
"Think of your little Cindy not smiling."
"Oh this is horrible."
"Quite. And I need the two of you to take care of little Toby, as if he were your own. I'm sure with all your healthy little ones around he would learn to trust you two rather quickly."
"My Lord-" Christopher was searching for words. "I'm not quite sure if things will work that way-"
Jareth raised his brow and narrowed his gaze.
"But for the boy's sake we'll try, won't we darling?" Christopher continued with some haste.
"Oh that poor little boy! How could anybody do such a thing- How has he been hurt- When will we see him?"
Jareth could not help but smile again at the woman's befuddled eagerness. Maude truly was a mother in the in the best and most beautiful sense of the word. She was raised like that and reveled in the role, so unlike her eldest daughter. Jareth did enjoy all the complications and differences in this family. He could never have hoped Maude and Christopher would turn out to be so endlessly amusing to him when he first met them in that gloomy wet and cold Belfast street.
"Tomorrow, with his sister. She is a very spirited young lady who wished her brother away only to have him placed under my protection. She is very devoted to him." Jareth nodded towards the house. "Jenny is of an age with her."
"What is he name?"
For the slightest of moments Jareth seemed to hesitate.
"Sarah."
"Sarah- " repeated Christopher, looking from the corner of his eye at his wife, who gave him a similar meaningful glance.
"Yes." answered Jareth curtly.
"And Toby." Maude noted.
"Quite." said Jareth in the same brusque tone.
"Sarah and Toby." repeated Maude.
Jareth's expression had turned a careful blank and his voice had grown cold enough to freeze the summer's night.
"I take it than that you accept."
The two humans lowered their gaze, but Jareth was unsure if this was a sign of respect or a vain effort not to laugh.
"Yes, my Lord King."
"Good. Expect us tomorrow, mid-morning."
Unwilling to witness the couples reaction when gone, Jareth quickly stepped back, fell in on himself and his swirling cape and shape-changed once again. He circled the couple once and took to the sky, eerily shrieking.
Christopher could not hold himself back. The moment Jareth was gone, he burst out laughing.
"Oh my- Oh my dear- this is getting very interesting!"
"Oh stop laughing, this is serious enough. That poor little boy."
"Did you saw his face, love? He was embarrassed!"
"Yes, but why?"
"He lost to the girl!"
"And got them back."
That sobered the silversmith.
"Yes, you are right. If anything, it seems that he has won from the girl after all. He should be gloating."
"So why would he be embarrassed?"
The silversmith smiled broadly. "Well, my love, it would seem we will have plenty of time to sort out that little puzzle. In the mean time, do you tell Jenny she will have to share her room for a while, or do I? With a virtual legend no less."
"You tell her, my dear. You, will tell her."
Arms around each other they walked back to the house.
Fourteen-year-old Nan, curls of unruly copper tried to comfort little Cindy, who was again crying. When her parent's entered the house, she and the others saw their easy smiles and she understood the King's demands at least had not been unreasonable.
"Children, we have some very serious things to discuss with you, so please-" the silversmith found himself rudely cut off by his youngest daughter's crying.
"Wahah!"
Maude walked over to the wall and took Christopher's guitar down. She gave it to her husband.
"You know it won't stop until she sleeps."
"And dad, you know she won't sleep until you sing her to sleep." said Nan.
"Oh alright." Christopher took the guitar and hesitated a moment.
"I think," said Maude, "that Mathew's song would be quite appropriate."
Christopher nodded and while he sang, looked at all his children in turn. With their happy, sleepy little faces and the promise they beheld.
Mathew, an adult already really with his eighteen years, long copper colored curls and slender frame. He sometimes more resembled the Elves he spend so much time with than a human boy. Probably the young man would be a silversmith too, he had learned the trade well and enjoyed the work. Jenny, already such a formidable woman where her personal choices were concerned. The best horse-trainer the village had ever had. Gentle caring Nan, only fourteen and already her mothers image, if not for the looks than for the character. Blond Birdie of twelve, well Jonathan really. Who had taught himself every birdsong he'd heard and rather whistled than spoke. A healer of animals he wished to be. Anna with the long blond ponytail. The little brave Tomboy and the only human the Goblins respected for the pranks she liked to play on them. If there was anyone of the village who knew her way through the Labyrinth and went about without fear, it was she. The auburn Robert of five who also seemed to have inherited his mothers caring nature. And last but not least, little carrot top Cindy. The innocent blank in their midst. What would she choose to be?
What would they be, when the future had arrived for them? Whatever it would be, it would be the future of their own making. No pre-destination, no expectations. His children were so totally free here. So totally without care. Perhaps Jareth was right after all. Perhaps such surroundings were exactly what a traumatized boy and his legendary sister needed. After all, she was only a young girl. Those two would be welcome in his family. As were all the little ones the Good Lord had graced him with. And with that, he did -not- mean Jareth.
Christopher sang his old song of the other life, the Belfast life. Where he and his Maude had been so different for breaching the gaps between animosity, tradition and religion. Everyone they had known wanted a simple, happy life. Everyone wanted peace. Except when a couple was eccentric and strong-minded enough to dare to live those words.
A son of hope they had seen in Mathew. An open question, reflected in a lovely tune.
"Will you stay in our Lovers' Story
"If you stay you won't be sorry
"'Cause we believe in you
"Soon you'll grow so take a chance
"With a couple of Kooks
"Hung up on romancing
"We bought a lot of things to keep you warm and dry
"And a funny old crib on which the paint won't dry
"I bought you a pair of shoes
"A trumpet you can blow
"And a book of rules
"On what to say to people when they pick on you
"'Cause if you stay with us you're gonna be pretty Kookie too
"Will you stay in my Lovers' Story
"If you stay you won't be sorry
"'Cause we believe in you
"Soon you'll grow so take a chance
"With a couple of Kooks
"Hung up on romancing
"And if you ever have to go to school
"Remember how they messed up this old fool
"Don't pick fights with the bullies or the cads
"'Cause I'm not much cop at punching
"Other people's Dads
"And if the homework brings you down
"Then we'll throw it on the fire
"And take the car downtown
"Will you stay in our Lovers' Story
"If you stay you won't be sorry
"'Cause we believe in you
"Soon you'll grow so take a chance
"With a couple of Kooks
"Hung up on romancing
"Will you stay
Sarah had felt like a princess when she looked around the room. She wondered if it might have been Jareth's mothers, for it certainly befitted a queen, and an elegant one at that. Yet in stark contrast to Toby's cozy nursery, this place had a cold, lonely feel about it. As if at one time it had been lovingly prepared and vacated before ever been put to use.
The walls an ceiling had been plastered a warm green, framed with dark wooden decoration. Spirals climbing the corners, golden and wooden leaves sprouting from polished vines. Small multicolored flower fairies tumbled from those vines and populated the walls, flying, playing, making music. Some, half hidden, making love.
Pink and blue and white their colors were. What was it again little Wendy had told her mother? The girl that went with Peter Pan? Something like the white and pink ones being boys and girls, and the blue ones the sillies who did not yet knew what they were.
Their dragonfly wings were gold-tipped and sparkling and they shimmered in candlelight and the easy glow of the hearth.
The windows of this room were a lot smaller and there was no balcony. Green stained glass in diamond shape set in heavy oak frames, dark brocade and again with gold embroiled curtains hung at their sides.
Like in Toby's room, the cold gray tiled floor had been covered with furs. Obviously the Goblin King was no PETA member. Or perhaps he had just conjured up the furs, with the glamour of the crystal balls. Could magical fur be accepted as fake?
Sarah shrugged. It was proof of her weariness her mind took to a trail of thought like that. It was indeed way past her bedtime. And the bed looked so inviting. A large four-poster bed with a green heaven and green draperies, both embroidered with gold. Green satin sheets- so soft an embrace to sleep within.
Somewhere a clock rang the hour, but Sarah failed to count the bells. Looking for a bathroom to prepare for bed, she found a working museum of a bathroom, straight out of the nineteenth century, behind the door next to the hearth. A humongous copper bathtub on lions feet, scented bath oil's- Whomever choose them had a strong preference for roses and peaches. Sarah contemplated taking a bath, saw one of the baths feet scrape the floor impatiently and decided a bit peeved she was too tired.
Having finished, Sarah went to the large wardrobe on the other side of the room. Dark oak, a large mirror in one of the doors, tiny goblin faces for locks and hinges. All with hats and helmets firmly pulled over their eyes. Perhaps Sarah imagined it, but it seemed almost if some of the hinges softly protested the injustice of it. And some of the figures on the walls seemed to have moved. Sarah shrugged. Well what would one expect in the Goblin Kings castle. Luckily she had to spend here only one night. She wondered what kind of nightgown she might find, indeed what kind of clothing the King would like for her to wear. She remembered a certain ball gown…
Two very simple cotton dresses, straight, plain, one brown the other midnight blue, both with tight bodices and no sleeves. A slightly nicer dark green one with black lace at the front. Several white shirts or shifts with pleated wide sleeves. Not all that unlike the ones she used to wear Aboveground. A brown woolen cape, brown ankle high boots, several little white caps. In a drawer at the side white underwear and black stockings, of which not much more was to be said than that they were functional. Two straight and long cotton nightshirts without any frivolities added. A simple handmaidens wardrobe.
Sarah stared at the clothes, a gift to be taken with her in the morning. There was a little cloth bag, obviously meant for the transport of the garments. One moment Sarah felt unreasonably angry. Cheated almost. But then she realized that ball gowns were not frocks one usually wore during the daily routine of any village, not even in Kansas. Where she definitely was no longer. Yet the garments were so at odds with the luxurious room, Sarah could not help but to contemplate the difference. Had Jareth brought her here on purpose, so she would see what she would be giving up if she left the castle? He was sneaky enough for such a tease. Smiling to herself Sarah changed into one of the nightgowns. It hugged her body comfortably and felt pleasant to her skin. Its looks therefore deceivingly simple.
Sarah made a round through the room and blew out the candles one by one. She pulled a screen for the hearth, closing of it's dying embers. One candle in hand, she went to the windows. Before closing the curtains, she opened one of them to feel the fresh night air on her face. This room was at the back of the Castle Beyond The Goblin City. It overlooked a lovely palace garden, pale and pristine in the moonlight. Of course featuring another hedge maze, abet a small ornamental one. The scent of roses hung heavy in the air and a peacock crooned in the distance while crickets played their summer waltz.
No owls against the moon.
Sarah sniffed the air wonderingly, for there was something absent she realized had been omnipresent on Earth. She sighed incredulously as she understood. No cars. No gasoline. No distant industry. No modern stench. Just the moon, the white of the graveled garden paths and marble benches and assorted ornaments. And the utter darkness beyond. No streetlights- no sounds of distend traffic. No blinking airplanes in the sky. No distractions. Puzzles, yes. Tests and confrontations. Friends and in the past, adventure. All that one could wish for to feel alive and exited and grow.
And Sarah felt a contentment coming to her very soul. A sense of belonging to the quiet dark and the secretive peace of the surrounding Labyrinth. She nodded to herself knowingly, the lyrics of a song coming to her. The girl chuckled. It seemed one of those things down here. Emotions, occurrences of some importance or just a silly mood drew music to one. Sarah decided to leave the curtains open, closed the window and blew out the candle. With the green filtered and fractured moonlight in her back, she made her way to the bed and gave in to the music she felt gently humming in the air. Open now to anything the Labyrinth had to offer. In the middle of the room she halted, closed her eyes and let flow from her voice what she felt touched inside.
"I have been given
"one moment from heaven
"as I am walking
"surrounded by night,
"Stars high above me
"make a wish under moonlight.
"On my way home
"I remember
"Only good days.
"On my way home
"I remember all the best days.
"I'm on my way home
"I can remember
"every new day
"I move in silence
"with each step taken
"snow falling round me
"like angels in flight
"Far in the distance
"Is my wish under moonlight
Sarah shivered as the gentle yet ghostly music died away. It had come to her with her acceptance of the Labyrinth and now the magic left her as if satisfied with this new inhabitant. The song had brought the girl the seed of forgiveness- whatever had befallen her in the past, it had led her to this enchanted world, the place where she could be happy and so in a sense all those miserable times had had their purpose. And now it was time to let go and heal and move forward.
Whether kitchen maid in the castle, servant to Toby's new guardians in that unknown village or whatever else fait might throw at her- here in the Underground she was at peace. For a mere thirteen hours or an eternity, Sarah Williams knew she was home.