Vengeful Nightmares
(Author's note; Chapter 21 and about half of Chapter 22 will be revolving around Hoggle and his time in the Meditation Chamber. For those of you who want to hear more about Sarah and Jareth, just hang in there! It's all coming soon.)
Chapter 21
"Do you hear something?" asked Allisande, who noticed that Gaheris had turned suddenly to face the door. He motioned for her to be silent, then sucked thoughtfully at his teeth.
"No. It's begun, though." He said quietly. He had felt the aura around the door shift and deepen, and he had been attempting to gauge how intense this 'session' would be. The Chamber was created so that the fae people could hone their magic skills, but now a dwarf who had no magic at all and a human who had the powers of a fae, but not the knowledge of how to use those powers, would use it.
"You don't sound very confident."
"Well…I don't suppose I do…" he shrugged. "Having the dreams inside of him lowers his chances of making it out alive and sane. You really should have had Sarah go first, or rather, instead."
"Maybe I should have flipped a Guilder," she returned sarcastically, "It was not an easy choice to make, Gaheris; we need both of them, and we need them both to be freed of anything that might keep them from their objective. It wouldn't have mattered if Sarah went first; he would still have to go."
Gaheris turned away from the door, and faced his intended. "You are positive this is necessary?"
"I am. If it's successful, they will be better equipped to deal with what might be coming."
"Which is…" he trailed off.
"Well, Hoggle will draw the dreams, and Jareth and Sarah will work together to contain them…I hope."
"You hope!"
"Yes, I hope! They can't do these things with out know-how, and this is not something you or I could teach them! And don't say we could teach Sarah; it would take too long. Jareth would be long dead, and the dreams would be even more unmanageable then."
Gaheris sighed. "Aye…and Hoggle will no longer be able to draw them, if Jareth dies. Damn, but he's spoiled! Must the entire Underground suffer for his wounded pride!" he sat down, and sighed again. "What a damnable mess."
"Aye…" she sat down beside him, and took his hand. "Aye, that it is."
* * *
It was just as he had remembered it…the flowers, the coffin, the weeping relatives. Clasped in his mother's cold, lifeless hands was a bouquet of pink sweetheart roses; her favorite flowers. His father, who was like a zombie for the entire duration of the funeral, had spared no expense. The coffin was no simple wooden box, but a lavish mahogany casket lined with beige silk.
"What's it about this time that brought ya here?" asked his mother.
"Well…" he shook his head, not wanting to speak just yet. She let go of his hand, and urged him forward with a gentle shove. He looked back at her, then walked slowly over to his younger self. A four-year-old boy. He saw his own face looking back at him, and the haunted bleakness of it made him catch his breath. On impulse he reached out to touch the boy's shoulder, but his hand came in contact with nothing. The boy wasn't really there. None of it was really there. The scene melted like wax. "Uh!" he gasped, falling back. "That…that was me." he whispered. A hand came to rest on his shoulder, and he gave such a start that it was jarred free. The hand came back firmly, and his mother's face appeared in front of his own.
"What brought ya here?" she asked again.
"I don't know." he shook his head. "Was it them?"
" 'Them?' You mean the dreams?" she asked.
"You knows 'bout the dreams?"
"O'course I do," she told him, as if it were common knowledge. "I've always been with ya, so I knew when they started in on ya, even though I couldn't stop 'em. But it wasn't the dreams, Hoggle. You brought us here, so deep down you must know why."
The scene appeared again, and Hoggle stared at his younger self, unable to tear his eyes away from the apathetic little boy. Then he looked up at the figure of his father, who was weeping silently. Then back at the boy. Then he knew.
"I…I didn't cry at yer funeral." He said in the smallest whisper, unable to meet his mother's gaze. The shame of it was heavy…so heavy; what kind of son doesn't mourn the death of his mother?
Lita put a finger under his chin and turned his head to make him look at her, but he shut his eyes. "Hoggle…look at me."
He shook his head and tried to turn it away, but she prevented this by grabbing his shoulders and moving to stay in front of him. She put a hand on either side of his face. "It's all right. Open your eyes. Please?"
He did. He forced himself to look because she had asked it, and he saw nothing in his mother's eyes but love. She smiled. He winced, and lowered his head. "Mum, please…"
"You done nuthin' wrong. I didn't cry at my mother's funeral, either. I was too stunned to cry. D'ya know how it happened? No, wait, of course you don't…you were to young ta be told." she tapped her palm to her forehead, smiling at her own absent-mindedness.
Hoggle waited for her to tell him, but she had stopped talking. "How'd it happen?" he asked.
"Oh…Well, she died havin' yer uncle. See, she had an accident, and the babe came too early. She…well, I don't know if I should be tellin' you this, but…she bled to death afterwards. Both she and the babe, buried on the same day."
"What was…" he began, then closed his mouth. He knew his time with her was limited, and he didn't want to waste it by calling forth bad memories.
"It's all right, you kin ask."
He sighed. "What was 'is name?"
"My father didn't name him." She said, and for the first time he heard a slight note of anger. He turned and looked at his younger self one last time before she took his hand and led him away.
* * *
Hoggle and Lita stood in silence as scene after scene played out in front of them. Every blow and harsh word that was remembered was brought mercilessly to life, and Hoggle's heart pounded faster and faster. They saw his father punch him in the back, and Hoggle remembered that there had been blood when he visited the privy for about a week afterwards; he fought the foolish impulse to cover his mother's eyes to keep her from seeing, and his cheeks flared crimson with humiliation and anger. Sure, she had changed his diapers and all, but this was different. He was ten years old there, and, well…this was different! When he looked over at her, he saw that she was tight-lipped and grim. She was angry, and rightly so.
"I hates 'im!" the boy was whispering fervently as he painfully relieved himself, "I don' care, I hates 'im!"
The first day the blood had appeared, he had panicked. He didn't dare run screaming into the house; instead, he fell to the floor and sat with his back to the privy door, muffling his cries with his hands. "He's…he's kilt me, I…I'm dyin', I'm…"
"Enough, damn it, enough!" Hoggle shouted out loud to no one. When he tried to turn away the image followed, and he finally stood there panting and trembling with rage. His father never knew about the blood. He had kept it to himself, and his father had boxed his ear for hogging the privy that morning. And really, if he had told him he wouldn't have been believed, and he would have been too embarrassed to prove it. He had hidden under the porch for the rest of the day, and that became his hiding spot for when there was trouble. Which there frequently was. Until the day when he would leave that house for good, Hoggle was terrified of his father.
Sometimes his father woke him up in the middle of the night and made him drink with him. Hoggle's first sip of whiskey had made him vomit, and his father had beaten him black and blue before making him clean it up. Every time after that, he drank his whiskey and watched his father like a wary puppy. He was frequently drunk, and even when he woke up with the sick headaches that come with drinking, his father made him work. On those mornings, he frequently gave his breakfast (which his father made him cook for the both of them) to the garden.
"Stop it…" he whispered. Then he gaped as the scene began to change drastically from what he had remembered. He saw his father come out of the house, something that hadn't happened that day. His father had something hidden behind his back, and when the younger Hoggle looked up as the older Hoggle looked on, he held it out. His hands were tangled in a mass of auburn hair, and dangling from that hair was a head; his mother's head, dripping crimson blood onto one of the cabbage plants. The younger Hoggle just stared, but the older Hoggle could feel himself beginning to panic; his breath was coming quicker now, and his heart was in his gullet.
"You know, boy, I killed yer mother…I could just as easily kill you!"
"What do you want me to do, Daddy?" asked the little boy.
The nightmare pulled out a shot glass, and drizzled his mother's blood into it. "Drink."
The child drank.
"No!" the older Hoggle yelled, clutching his head and shaking it wildly from side to side. "Yer not real, yer not real, yer not…" He started forward, hands extended to grab the glass, and the nightmare that was his father turned and leered at him. This was what it wanted. It was no longer on his playing field; this was their realm, the dungeons of the mind.
"Hoggle! Hoggle, stop!" His mother caught and held him with preternatural strength, and pinned his arms to his sides. She lowered him to his knees and held him as he fought to get free, fought so that he could knock the shot glass from the child's dirty, blood-stained hands. Then, abruptly, the fight left him and he went completely slack. His eyes closed as his head rested on his mother's shoulder, and he almost seemed to be sleeping, except for the fact that he was out of breath.
"Shhh, it's all right, sweetie." She crooned, "It's all right. That never happened, and you an' I both know it. Now, calm down. Just calm down."
He stayed there for a while, then he swallowed hard and pulled back. He was dry-eyed with shock, and he shook with a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature, which was admittedly cold.
"Hoggle, listen to me. That was to try ta discourage ya. They want you ta be ruined, because then you and yer friend have no chance of stopping them. You can't let them do this, ya hear me? You can't—let them—do this." She told him, looking at him more sternly than his father ever had. He was suddenly ashamed of his lack of control, and he vowed to himself that he wouldn't let it happen again. He looked away, and his eyes grew wide.
"Hey, somethin's happenin' again." He pointed, and they stood up to watch.
Molger sat in a drunken sleep at the kitchen table, unaware of what his son was doing. Hoggle was tip-toeing across the kitchen floor with a burlap sack in his hand. At thirteen he had been heartbreakingly skinny, and his little feet made almost no noise at all as he made for the pantry. He stole a box of matches and several candles, and stuffed them and about a pound of jerky into his 'pack'. He also took a small loaf of bread, putting half of it in on top of the jerky and wolfing the rest down. Then he went upstairs and raided his father's money box. Oh, he didn't take it all; money was easy enough to come by if one could work, and Hoggle had certainly done a lot of working in his short lifetime. He was sure he could find something to do. He only took a handful of Guilders and a large, uncut sapphire. Surely he could find a place to sell that!
As Hoggle watched this scene play, he fought with his guilt and told his mother what he had told himself back then. "I did it so's he wouldn't kill me. He came close a few times. I did it so's I could live."
She only nodded, and he mistook her silence for condemnation. It was stealing, after all, and from his father, no less. In his hometown, things were so damned rigid that his motives would not matter. He had still stolen from his father. "Will you please say something?" he asked quietly, "Even if you bawl me out, say something."
His mother didn't seem to have heard him; she was watching his younger self make the final preparations for the journey ahead. Hoggle shook his head, stricken by his mother's reaction. "Please, don't let her hate me for this! I knows what our people is like, but she…she was different, wasn't she?" he thought frantically.
"Mum…" he whispered, his voice breaking.
She finally looked at him, and he saw that her face was damp; it looked disturbingly like the face that he had seen inside that coffin all those years ago. "I almost left him, you know." she told him slowly, "What stopped me was…well, I was carryin' you inside my belly, and I was afeared. I was scared to raise my baby alone, so I stayed. I thought I'd be givin' you a better life…By God, I was so wrong! He's diff'rent, now's he's dead, but I still shoulda left him."
"But…I thought you…" he cleared his throat, and asked, "Did you love 'im?"
"At first. He was always a heavy drinker, but I didn't see back then. I blocked it out."
"And…do you still live him?" he asked.
She nodded. "Not the same way I loved 'im when we got married. The man I fell in love with didn't really exist, but the man I know now… He realizes what he done, and he's sorry."
"He's sorry." Hoggle said flatly. "Well, that's nice to know! 'Sorry' ain't gonna make it all right, just like that."
"I know. He knows it, too. That's why he had me come with you, instead of both of us comin'. He ain't askin' for you ta forgive him…But I wish you would, Hoggle."
"Why should I? Mama, he killed you! He…he took you away, and I had to grow up without ya. He didn't even remember it, and the whole town thought you fell 'cause you were too stupid an' clumsy to watch where you was goin', and that's horse puckey! Others said that you killed yourself on purpose! And he got away with it, damn 'im! He got away with it!"
"I want you to forgive him because of what this hatred's doin' to ya." she told him calmly when he stopped for breath. "Did you notice that most of yer dreams are 'bout him? The dreams are usin' all yer anger and hatred against you. You has to let go of it, Hoggle. Let go of it."
"Mum, I can't!" he threw up his hands, "Don't you think I've tried?"
"All I know is that it's makin' you miserable. Sarah done her best ta help ya, and I can't do much more than she has. That poor girl's shoulder musta been soaked. Now, don't turn away, son. It's nothin' ta be embarrassed for."
"That's what she said."
"Well, she's right." Lita told him, "Yer bein' played with, Hoggle, plain and simple. Them dreams are hittin' ya with all they got, an' they make you feel everythin' five times as hard as you should. Ain't yer fault at all."
"Yeah, but…Cor, it's so embarrassing! I…I bawled like an infant, not once, but…I don't even know how many times! And…well, I'm not bawlin' now, but outside this whatever-it-is room I would be. I don't even know why that is, but I think it's got somethin' ta do with you."
"Sure, didn't I tell ya I was here to keep ya sane? That also means in control. Right now, yer actin' almost like you normally would. Almost; they can still touch you here." She waved her hand, and Hoggle knew what she meant.
Another image appeared, and time had jumped ahead. Hoggle saw himself pass out in Sarah's arms, and he saw her panicked expression. Then he gawked stupidly as she picked him up like a child and hurried on in roughly the same direction he had pointed out that day. His heart pounded at how helpless he had been, and how easily she could have left him behind. It was an uncharitable thought, but it flashed quickly in and out of his mind just the same. He saw her carry him to Jarjuk's village, and he saw how carefully she tended to him while he was in the grips of the terrible fever. She had saved his life. He hadn't even known how close he had been to death; he had thought the worst had been throwing up in front of her that day, but he had been wrong. His cheeks reddened when he saw himself begin to cry in his sleep, and she took him on her lap and rocked him. That was the last thing she had tried and the only thing that worked.
"Am I like a li'l kid to her?" he murmured to himself, and his mother heard him and smiled.
"Of course not. I just think she didn't know what else ta do. That was the best thing she coulda done at the time, anyway. She cares for ya too much to embarrass you on purpose."
"She cares too much anyway." He replied, folding his arms and frowning as he saw that she had been crying right along with him.
"What are you talkin' 'bout?" she frowned back at him.
"Well…I didn't know about that," he indicated her tears, "but I had 'er cryin' another time 'cause I couldn't control myself. I'm s'pose to be helpin' her, but the whole time it's been the other way 'round. I wouldn'a had the kinda patience she had, and…well, I always bungle it when I tries ta help her like she helped me. Last night I made such a complete ass outta myself, and she was…damn, she was so nice about it! If I was her, I woulda slapped me in the face."
"Cor, that's garbage. That fae you were just talkin' to told ya that the dreams kin control yer actions to a point. I knows he's tellin' ya true, because I seed 'em do it to ya. I kin see 'em, though I can't do nuthin' 'bout 'em. They hit ya where ya live, and they take away yer self-control." She sighed, touching her son's cheek. "Oh, my boy, how I wanted ta reach out an' comfort ya, but I couldn't! You wouldna seen or heard me, and I wouldna been able ta touch ya. Far as I'm concerned, Sarah done the right thing. An' if she cares too much, so what? She saved me boy's life." She gripped his shoulders affectionately, and turned away to let him digest this.
* * *
Time had jumped back again. Hoggle had been renting out his skills as a gardener to whoever was willing to pay him. He also did some odd jobs on the side; he worked as a delivery boy every now and then, but he was really too small to get there fast enough to suit people. He also worked as a thief for a while, but he gave it up at fifteen due to an 'unfortunate retaliation' that left him with three cracked ribs and a permanently ruined knee.
In the years that followed, he grew so mistrustful of people that they eventually decided he wasn't worth their trouble. And, he reflected, back in those days he wasn't. By the time he should have been thinking about finding a wife, he was too skittish around other people, girls especially, to even try. His mind and his fears won out, and he never married. He was pushing away his chances, which were few, with both hands and with a vengeance.
Later on, when he had been working for Jareth for some time, he began to relax a bit. However bad Jareth treated him, contact with the Goblin King was always brief; for the first time in his life, Hoggle had a place where he could feel somewhat secure, and he had a steady job that paid better than his previous jobs. He tended the Hedge Maze section of the Labyrinth, and he also took care of the climbing plants that lined the walls around the gate. He soon got over any qualms he had about killing fairies; he had dozed off one morning by the gate, and had woken up covered in stinging purple welts, a gift from the little pests.
By the time Sarah had come to tackle the Labyrinth, he still avoided people like the plague but he was no longer afraid of them. If anything, he was so standoffish that he seemed to be daring her. As Hoggle watched himself badger the girl into snapping at him, he was both amused and disgusted by his behavior. A mirror had been held up in front of him, and he wasn't sure he liked what he saw. Still, he had changed since then.
"Shame on ya, lad!" Lita said with a smile, having noticed how uncomfortable he looked.
"Aw, come on!" he crossed his arms. "We still became friends, didn't we?"
"Hmm…'bout time you had a friend. I'd say it's long overdue. I noticed this one don't bother ya as much as the other ones did." She said, referring to the scene that they had just seen.
"Well, I ain't like I was back then. Well," he amended, "not completely."
Lita's form began to waver, and he couldn't make out her reply. She faded in and out once, then blinked out completely as he stared in disbelief. "Mum!" he called, his voice bouncing mockingly back at him as if from unseen walls.
"Mum! You all right?" he hurried forward, but she was gone. "Mu—oh, great!"
Abruptly he found himself in the dark, and before he could utter another syllable, cold hands seized him from behind and knocked him senseless.
