Chapter 7 - Loop Hole

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Disclaimer - I do not own the Labyrinth but I did get lost at Hampton Court once.

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Emily immediately knew something was wrong when the cries of her step-sister

stopped so abruptly. She pushed open the nursery door nervously.

"Hannah?" she whispered uneasily into the darkness. There was a noise but it didn't

sound like anything a baby could make. She crept over to Hannah's crib. It was empty!

Suddenly there was a flurry of movement around the room. Dark and strangely shaped

shadows moved across the walls. The suspense was electric. However, it was soon

ruined when the window burst open and a tall, dark figure entered, lost it's footing

somewhere along the line and fell flat on its face.

"Good God! Are you all right?" cried Emily. The figure made a few muffled noises as

if it had just had a few unexpected mouthfuls of carpet. It slowly got to its feet.

"I'm fine. I just tripped." it said. Emily had not expected to hear a female voice let

alone a cockney one. "Bloody hell! It's dark in here!" she had not expected it to swear

either. The dark form stalked across the room and found the light switch. Everything

flashed into view and Emily saw the intruder properly. It was a young woman in her

early twenties, nearly seven feet tall with thin, skeletal limbs. Her eyes were large and

a shocking shade of violet and her chin length black hair curled upwards at a forty-five

degree angle. She was dressed in a knee-length black skirt, a black blouse and,

surprisingly, black and white stripy stockings.

"Who are you?" Emily whispered.

"Oh sorry! How rude of me. I'm Hilarity." said the girl.

"What do you want? Where's Hannah?"

"Isn't it obvious? You wished a kid away. Kid gone. Stranger in your room."

"You're not the Goblin King!" Emily exclaimed.

"Not exactly. He's not here at the moment and I'm just filling in. I'm a travel writer

normally." said Hilarity. This was rather awkward.

"Where's Hannah?" Emily repeated. "Bring her back!"

"I can't I'm afraid. What's said is said. And trust me when I say I don't like this any

more than you do. I'm not experienced enough for this and frankly this line of work

disgusts me."

"Is there really no way to get her back?"

"Of course you can get her back. You just have to solve the Labyrinth." said Hilarity.

Inside she was really guilted out. She had never made anyone look this unhappy

before and it disturbed her. Emily agreed to save her sister so she brought her to the

edge of the Labyrinth and genuinely wished her luck.

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"So there's no kind of loop hole to get her out of this?" asked Trin when his cousin

returned and told her story.

"No. I've read this bloody book from cover to cover and there's nothing. And then I

had to re-read it because I realised that I hadn't been concentrating on it at all and I

was just thinking about monkeys." Hilarity cried almost in hysterics now. She really

didn't like this Labyrinth-sitting business and to top it all off she was having the

mother of all bad hair days.

"You know..." Trin said thoughtfully "You can't help this girl but there's no rule that

says I can't..."

"Oh! Would you?" she whispered gratefully.

"Anything for you, Hils." he said then muttered "and anything to piss off that Goblin

git."