Two
The stars had disappeared some time ago, fading out one by one, but she was still walking. A warm but otherworldly wind had come up from somewhere and she could hear the tall grass rustling around her, though she could no longer see it. She felt she was about to walk off of the face of the earth. Earth? she wondered; Is that even accurate anymore? Am I still anywhere near Earth? Is this another Earth? Two Earths …
She felt drowsy and at the same time, never so alert. The wind threaded carefully through the length of her hair, which tingled as though each strand were alive and filled with its own animated consciousness. Strangely, though she no longer felt entranced, Sarah still had no fear as she walked on through the dimness. She no longer cared where she ended up in this journey in the darkness, or whether it ever ended at all; it was enough to be here, in this simple, primeval place that didn't force her to think, react, or even see. It was solace to her battered soul.
The wind twined about her, and there were words inside it, under it. In her mind there was a voice, distant as though welling up through worlds of space and time.
Everything you wanted I have done … I have turned the world upside down … and I have done it all for you...
The light came so gradually that she was unaware of it until she suddenly realized that she could see her surroundings again. She had just entered a clearing, seemingly in the middle of a dense, majestic forest. The air had the gray expectancy of twilight just before the dawn. She felt as though she were present at the dawning of time itself.
The clearing had all the ethereal beauty of a fairy tale. A tiny stream burbled through one corner. The grass was springy and soft to her touch, and greener than any grass she had ever seen. The trees leaned over the glade like benevolent grandfathers, delicate, laughing wildflowers springing up among their roots for grandchildren. The very air felt cool and crystalline. It was all so sweet it was almost sticky. Peering into the dim forest, she half-expected a unicorn to walk out from within the dusk and say hello.
It was all too much to assimilate. She realized she was exhausted, nearly asleep on her feet, and had begun to sway alarmingly. She lay down in the grass by the stream, past caring about unicorns or grandfather trees, or anything at all.
She slept for a long time, feeling safe indeed in the cool embrace of the verdant copse, soft green light dappling her mossy bed with warmth and peace. When she awoke it was evening, the sun an hour or so from setting. Long crimson and gold shadows stretched across the clearing. She lounged on the bank of the stream for a while, watching the patterns of light dance in the grass. It occurred to her that she was not hungry.
How long was I walking? How far away from home am I?
What happens now?
She felt rather than saw the light in the trees behind her, small and golden, wavering in the trees. She felt a little fear at first, but then it dissipated as she was overcome with the feeling that she knew whom this visitor was going to be.
And it was.
There he stood, resplendent.
"Welcome, Sarah." His grin loomed over her even more than the misty grey cape or the shining, mismatched eyes.
She had no mind for pleasantries. Her head was spinning at the sight of this man, a sight she had never expected to see again. Her words came so softly she wasn't sure they would even be heard.
"What is this place?"
"Why, this is the Labyrinth, of course."
"But I haven't recognized anything."
"Do you not remember how much the Labyrinth changed around you in thirteen hours? Well, in eight years it can change much, much more."
"But where are all the people? Where is Hoggle, Ludo? Where is Sir Didymus? Where are all the goblins?"
He did not answer her question, but merely said, "This Labyrinth can read your mind, Sarah. It will give you whatever you need or want."
"It sure didn't do that the first time."
He laughed, a sincerely enjoyable chuckle. "As you say."
Now, what did he mean by that? He was changing the subject. She didn't want riddles; she did want to find out about her friends. She had not seen them since that night of the last excursion to Jareth's realm, after which they had all appeared in her room and celebrated together until she had dropped asleep from pure fatigue. When she awoke, morning sun in her eyes, they were all gone. She had called and called, just like they had told her to do, but no one had never answered. It was her first bitter abandonment, and she had felt terrible over it until she had decided that it probably had something to do with the man standing before her, so, putting grief aside, she had resolved to confront him about it, if she was ever given the chance.
But she couldn't. He looked at her and she quailed. Bile rose to her throat as she stood there, hating herself for her fear.
And yet to her surprise she found herself asking him a question equally as incendiary.
"Then why did you bring me back?"
Jareth had been watching her quietly, almost amicably, all this time, but now his mood seemed to sadden under her suspicion. He sighed and turned, walking a little ways from her before replying. His voice sounded detached, as though he were telling a story to a stranger.
"The first time I brought you to my Labyrinth, you had asked me to do so. You were expecting a challenge, an adventure just like one out of one of your storybooks, so I made everything in my world conform to your expectations. You wanted a threatening villain straight from a melodrama, so that is what I became for you … and, unknowing, you thought that is all that I could be. Although I tried to tell you, show you otherwise, as much as I could within the role you had cut out for me, you were mired in your preconceptions and would have none of it …"
He turned towards her, lamplight reflecting in his eyes so that she could not read them. "But, Sarah, you did not understand the true nature of this Labyrinth. This time, my dear, you wished for an escape — so that is what it has become. You see, this place is formed for you, out of your own dreams and desires, and only you have the power to enter or leave it. I created it, but I cannot place you here. It was you who decided to come."
"But you pulled me out of my own world! To the … the valley with the mountains!"
"That place was merely a crossroads. If you had wanted to badly enough, you could have returned to your own place and time. But you chose to follow my path, instead."
Sarah said nothing. Not that she exactly trusted him yet — for all she knew, he had more than a hand in forcing her off onto his "crossroads" — but she could not deny that she had certainly walked into the darkness of her own choice.
Although now she couldn't remember quite why.
He continued. "This haven was built on your dreams, Sarah, and no one can follow you here. You are safe from the world. You are finally safe from pain and betrayal."
"But why did you do this?"
Again he didn't answer her directly. He looked at her, but his voice was hard and seemed to be chastising her. "You are no longer a child. You have learned that to have happiness, you can't simply assume it will come to you and stay forever. If ever you are fortunate enough to come across it, you must grab on to it, and never let it out of your grasp."
He whirled, his cape a blur of black mist. "And that, my dear, is the Secret of Life!" His face was closed again, his smile coolly taunting, eyes glittering. Now he looked the way she remembered him. Cruel, confident, frightening. Every inch the king.
From deep inside somewhere, a vestigial memory of their last encounter, she remembered feeling anger against him. She re-experienced for just one moment the hot flare of determination. It struggled for dominance against the shadows … and sank down again, under the terrible weight of her dread.
She didn't know why she suddenly wanted to cry so hard.
Sarah thought a lot that night, alone in the dark. Jareth left her be, and not even goblins came to bother her, but it did not even occur to her to think that peculiar.
At first she numbly raked over every detail of her meeting with the goblin king. It appeared that no matter how much time had passed, Jareth had retained the ability to scare her. But there were still a lot of missing pieces in the puzzle. The first time she had met him, he had stolen her brother, and she had risked his wrath to get Toby back. They had been absolute adversaries. Of course he had scared her. But she had beaten him. Now, however … what was the purpose of her being here? They were no longer rivals. There was no Toby to save. Why had he created for her a new Labyrinth, she, his worst enemy? How had he done it? Something, or several somethings, were missing in the equation, and it unsettled her. What was his game this time?
He had no power over her, wasn't that right?
Then why was she worried?
Sarah awakened this time from unpleasant dreams into the cool, clean damp of morning. An earthy aroma filled her head. Mist still clung to the edges of the forest, and the trees were unbearably green. The sun dappled them happily and the brook burbled gleefully. Fairies danced in the flowers. The clouds laughed. Something moved off in the distance. Sarah squinted. Yes. It was a unicorn.
"Okay, that's it," she sighed, exasperated. She picked herself up, took a deep draught from the brook, then stood and strode purposefully out of the glade without looking back.