Half in Shadow
By Ellie
The thin girl was sitting alone in the darkest corner of the room. One of her hands twirled a strand of mahogany hair in constant frenzied circles while she stared into the darkness and whispered to herself.
She was a pretty girl, and the shadow of the woman she may someday become was hinted at in the hallows of her developing cheekbones and the line of her neck and shoulders; an elegant beauty was blossoming in her, and not even the dingy sweatpants and wild, disarrayed hair could disguise the evidence of its coming.
"Why is she here?" I gestured towards her, curious despite myself.
Dr. Branson smiled in an apologetic kind of way, "That's Sarah. She suffers from delusions but tends to often be quite lucid. She's medicated, a precaution we had to take after an unfortunate incident with a mirror two months ago. We believe she may harm herself without it."
"But you say she's lucid..." I made it a firm statement.
Dr. Branson's eyes widened, "John you can't possibly think to-" I interrupted him with a wave of my hand.
"It's my project if you remember, and I was given express permission to interview with any person here with enough wits about them to understand what I'm doing. You said that she's usually lucid, I'd say that means that 'Sarah' falls under my list of possible candidates."
Without another word, I walked towards the beautiful girl, stashed away in her corner, talking to something past the walls with bubbly animation.
"There aren't any turns! What's a maze without any turns?!" She murmured brokenly to her wrist.
"Sarah?" I asked quietly.
As those big green eyes drew upwards to meet mine I felt a surge of electric shock as the glassy green-amber seemed to focus and crackle with new energy and intelligence. It was as if I were watching a person become born, in moments with all of her personality in tact. Her posture straightened, her hands stopped shaking and rested lightly in front of her, and those suddenly fathomless green eyes were looking into mine and measuring me, with obvious intelligence.
My breath almost caught as an unbearably sexy smile stole over lips much too young for her to understand her own mysterious appeal, "Yes, I'm Sarah. Did Hoggle send you? He's such a dear friend, my Hoggle."
I noticed her fingers slightly shaking as she followed her puzzling words with a brilliant smile, devoid of all meaning. "Hoggle has been trying to help me escape, but he and Ludo and Sir Didymus just can't seem to do anything without his help." Her eyes took on a conspiratorial gleam as she sidled a little closer to my ear, "We must never call on him or the goblins will come!"
She shrieked with a sudden spasm of giggles, "Goblins! Goblin King!" She snapped her hand over her mouth hard enough to bruise as her eyes widened childishly. "Oh, no, mustn't say the words!!" She began to rock back and forth as tears fell like rain from her clenched eyes. Her hands were pressing hard into her mouth and the golden hue of her skin had turned pallid.
A nurse began to glance towards Sarah, and I stepped away, unsure of what to do. Suddenly, those green eyes flew open and she looked into my own with a force I've never felt before, "You can help! If you say the words we'll be free!"
Elegant, tapered fingers grasped my own sharply and she grabbed my notebook from the table and scrawled 10 precise words onto the first sheet:
I wish the goblins would take you away, right now.
"Say them! Please, you have to help me! Say them NOW!" The intensity in her voice spurned me to force the words from my suddenly parched throat.
Her eyes closed and her face became serene as the nurse rushed towards her, a needle at the ready. She was smiling as they administered the sedative and her eyes grew cloudy once more, but I still heard her whisper to me before she fell under the medicine's cold embrace: "He'll come for me now. Thank you for saving me."
When I returned the next day to visit Sarah, and to question her about the words that are still scrawled in my notebook I was informed that she had disappeared the same night that I had met her. None of her possessions were missing, and the only thing out of place in her room was the presence of a single white feather.
Sometimes I pull out my notebook and trace the words she wrote. What kind of power did they hold over her? And was it a power of the mind, or of the spirit?
Someday, I may try them out myself.
Someday.
A/N) Addie's challenge: Write a Crazy!Sarah fic, where her time in the Labyrinth has affected her mind. Grins this one was a lot of fun to write, and it has a couple of plot bunnies scurrying around my head... I may return to this at some point. ;)