It was a beautiful garden; Sarah had to admit that. No matter how many hours her father spent in his little garden behind the house, no matter how much he pulled weeds and fertilized, it could never be breathtakingly exotic as this garden.
Once upon a time, she would have dreamed of such untamed beauty with a sigh. Now, as she glanced around at the flowers growing wild in designs that no mathematician could devise and listened to the buzzing of fat bees and exotic birds, she felt distinctly uncomfortable. She realized with a start that she wanted a pair of hedge trimmers and a good thick pair of gloves.
It seemed like sacrilege to wish for such a thing in a garden like this, but at some point, she had come to prefer neatly trimmed gardens with flowers carefully arranged to be pleasing to the eye and sterilized to avert the presence of pests of all kinds; silent gardens, with nary a living creature save those the gardener wished.
Feeling slightly silly, she slipped off her shoes and socks. I always used to want to run barefoot in a meadow. It was a strange hope and she knew it, but perhaps if she could experience it, she could regain whatever it was that she had lost...whatever it was that now made her a stranger here.
Sarah stood and walked in a circle. Nothing happened. Feeling even sillier, she danced a few steps. Her cheeks burning, though, she quickly stopped. All it had accomplished was making her feel ridiculous.
With a cough, she sat down and picked the strands of grass off of her toes before putting her socks back on and tying her shoes with an angry jerk. What am I doing? I could have stepped on something sharp, and then I'd be no help to Toby whatsoever. Resolving again to do whatever it took to get her little brother through this maze quickly and unscathed, she strode towards the garden walls.
After a moment, however, she paused and frowned. Strange. She should have been flush up against the walls by now, but to her eyes, they appeared no closer than they had been before she started walking. She took one step...then another...
And paused again. That's right. I forgot. Now I remember why I hate this place.
"I need to get through the Labyrinth, but there aren't any turns or corners or anything... It just goes on and on and—"
"Well, you just ain't lookin' right! It's full of openings!"
She shook her head to clear it of the memory. The whiny, petulant voice of her teenage self still lingered in her ears, embarrassing her.
"Fine," she said aloud. "So the Labyrinth isn't logical. It's the opposite. So, to get out of here...I just...have to do the opposite of whatever I would actually do normally."
With a smug grin, she turned around and walked the other way. After a moment, she found herself back at the fountain. She kept walking, but only found herself against the wall of the palace. Sarah frowned. "All right... Perhaps I was wrong."
So it's not the way I would think it is, nor is it the opposite. That leaves only...
Hardly even knowing why she was doing it, she slowly turned and started walking parallel to the walls. As she walked, she turned her head to the left to watch the garden walls to see if they moved at all.
Suddenly, she was knocked off her feet and flat on her back. The breath knocked out of her, she lay still and gasped for air for a moment, staring up at the dusky orange sun. Once she could breathe well enough, she reached up and rubbed her forehead, where a lump was already forming. She groaned in pain, but found her fingers to be covered in dust rather than in blood.
I could still have a concussion, though... Can I still think clearly? How many fingers am I holding up? Who was Clytemnestra in mythology? What does the Pythagorean Theorem—
"Oh, fuck it," she said aloud. "I never knew the Pythagorean Theorem anyway." Standing up slowly, Sarah grumbled at her popping joints – Since when does my body creak? I'm only twenty-six years old! – and blinked bemusedly. Right in front of her was a stony, viney wall.
She again looked to her left where the lengthy garden and the wall had been, and found there the fountain and the palace, visible behind a gently rolling hill.
Ignoring the soreness of her body, Sarah laughed. "I did it! I did it!" She reached out her hand and rested her hand against the cool stone of the wall. "Not logical, not irrational, but utterly sideways!" Placing her other hand squarely on the wall, she craned her head back.
And back.
And back.
The wall seemed to stretch up to the clouds, towering higher than anything she could imagine. It seemed impossible that something so tall could stand, yet stand it did. Struck by a sudden feeling of vertigo, Sarah groaned and slammed her eyes shut.
She rested her head against the wall, hissing slightly and pulled away when her bruised forehead touched the wall. I hate heights. Hate them, hate them, hate them. Ever since the incident at the Bog of the Eternal Stench, she hadn't been able to bear large heights. The tree outside the Labyrinth hadn't been too horrible, but this...
It's okay... I can do this. I'll show him. That childish, selfish, arrogant...
"It's not that high," she whispered to herself. "It's just an illusion. It's not that high..." Keeping her eyes squeezed tightly closed, she reached her right hand up as high as it could go and grabbed a protruding rock. Slowly, her left foot crept up from the ground, searching for a foothold. Biting her lip, she prepared herself to lift her right foot and leave solid ground.
"Hello? Is anyone there?"
Sarah froze. The voice was distant, but unmistakably real. No. Toby needs my help. If I don't climb this wall now, who knows when I'll have another chance? For all I know, next time I come back out here, this wall will have sharp spikes sticking out of them. She said a silent apology to the voice and hoisted her foot off the ground.
"Hello? Anyone? Help!"
Dammit. The voice had been closer that time, and definitely very young and female...and scared. I can't leave a scared child alone...not even if she is a brat who mocked my little brother. Sarah sighed and let go of the wall, not wanting to admit to herself that she was slightly relieved to postpone the climbing.
"Hello?" Sarah called back. "Are you there?"
"Yes! Hello? Can you help me?"
"Yes... Where are you?"
"I don't know!" the panicked voice called back. "I...I don't know! Please, help me! P—p—please!"
Uh oh. She's losing it. I'd better calm her down before she starts having a panic attack. Remember what they told you in psych class...
Sarah pitched her voice lower to sound calm and soothing. "Okay, dear, I'll find you! Don't worry! Listen... Can you still hear me?"
"Y—yes..."
"Good. This is what you're going to do. You're going to take some deep, even breaths. All right?"
"Okay..."
"Are you taking them?"
"...Yes..." The girl's voice sounded marginally calmer now.
"Good. That's very good. Okay, honey, now what you're going to do is sit down and stay where you are. You're going to start singing, and I'm going to use the sound of your voice to find you. Okay?"
"R—right."
Sarah waited, but the girl was silent.
"You...can start singing now," Sarah called, trying to keep an edge of impatience out of her voice.
"Oh! Oh, sor—sorry..."
Again, silence. Determined not to jolt the girl's fragile emotional state any further, Sarah clenched her mouth closed to keep from calling out again.
Finally, a thin, reedy voice floated from the direction of the castle. "Oh baby, baby, I'm so into you—"
Before Sarah could stop herself, she groaned. "Please. Anything but Britney Spears."
The voice cut off suddenly. A sob was the only reply.
"Oh, god," Sarah muttered. I insulted the patient. I broke the cardinal rule. Goddammit! "Honey?" she called, ashamed. "I'm sorry. You can sing whatever you want, all right?"
Another long silence followed. In the instant before Sarah was ready to just sit down and admit defeat, the girl called brokenly, "I can't sing."
"That's okay, I promise. You just need to make noise so I can find you! I wouldn't tell anyone if you sounded like Cameron Diaz."
"...Huh?"
"She has a bad singing voice. It was a joke. Listen, sing or talk, it doesn't matter, just make noise."
"I...I can recite Shakespeare...if that's okay..."
Sarah rolled her eyes, thankful that the girl couldn't see her. "Yes, that's fine."
"Ahem... 'Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name..."
As the voice continued, Sarah muttered under her breath, "Figures that she wouldn't know Macbeth or Hamlet or one of the non-sickening ones..."
Keeping her ear attuned to the sound of the girl's voice, but drowning out the exact words, Sarah threw open the doors of her rooms and entered the castle, leaving the garden behind her.
She gasped as she found herself in a luxurious set of rooms, decorated mostly in shades of mahogany and maroon silk. "Wow," Sarah breathed, running a reverent hand across the crimson velvet of the bedspread on the four-poster bed. She hadn't expected Jareth to give her anything this nice. But then, he probably can just create rooms like this with a flick of a wrist, so it's not like he expended any effort... Stop it, Sarah, she mentally scolded herself. Don't forget what you're here to do. You don't have time to feel the bedspread and jump on the bed. Jumping on the bed did sound like fun, though. In fact, it sounded more fun than anything else she could think of. I don't need to jump on the bed for long, after all. Just one or two quick bounces and I'll get right back to finding the girl. Three bounces, tops...
Sarah hoisted herself onto the bed, which gave pleasantly under her weight. She laughed delightedly and flopped backwards onto the mattress. Maybe four bounces. Stumbling to her feet, she caught her balance and bounced tentatively. It felt great. She hadn't bounced in years...not since she was a girl.
She bounced higher and higher until her head nearly brushed the canopy, with nary a protesting creak of the kind that she remembered from her father and stepmother's bed. With her arms outspread as though they were wings, she threw her head back and collapsed onto the bed, giggling helplessly. Her head sank into the soft, cool pillow. It felt surprisingly comforting, like a kiss brushed against her forehead from a mother she barely remembered.
"Oh," she sighed. "I love this room..." With a sound that was almost a purr, she stretched and pulled the covers around her in one smooth motion.
Sarah frowned. There was the niggling feeling at the back of her mind that she'd forgotten something. She hated that feeling. After all, what could she possibly be missing? Here she was in bed, all sleepy and cuddled up and ready for a good nap. There was someone talking, but it was far off, and she couldn't really understand what the person was saying. Whatever it was couldn't possibly be all that important. If it was anything at all, really, she was sure that she'd remember it when she woke up...
"Hello? Where'd you go?!"
Sarah's eyes jerked open as she sat straight up in bed with a gasp. She took a deep breath, trying to convince herself that the panicked shout had been part of her dream. Her heart feeling like it was pounding directly behind her eyes, she waited. It was a dream. It had to be. No one else is here.
"Hello, please?"
Sarah cringed. There it was again. It had been real. "Who on earth could it be?" she muttered. "I'm trying to sleep."
"Are you still there? Please help me!"
She glared. There was no way that she'd get back to sleep with this racket. "Fine," she grumbled. "I'll go find you and make you shut up, you stupid loudmouth."
The frightened yells echoing in her ears, she dragged herself from her comfortable bed and trudged towards the grand double-doors at the entrance of the suite. As she threw the doors open and stepped out into the hall, a cool breath of air brushed across her face and the screams suddenly seemed to double in volume.
"What the..." she whispered, shaking her head as though clearing cobwebs from inside. "What was I doing?" She turned around and stared back into the elegant suite with a look that amounted to horror.
Her head snapped around. "Honey? I'm still here! I'm sorry, please keep talking. I'm coming, I promise!"
"Where'd you go?" The girl's voice was dangerously close to wheezing sobs again.
"I'm really, really sorry," Sarah called, shooting an impotent glare towards the ceiling. "I got...delayed. Why not start reciting Shakespeare again?"
As the girl's voice resumed reciting Juliet's melodramatic speeches, Sarah started wandering through rooms, tracking the girl's voice as best she could. Keeping her attention on the chanting rhythm of iambic pentameter, she silently ranted with her fists clenched. That rat! That pointy-toothed, long-haired, freak-eyed...rat! He made me forget everything again! He made me fall asleep while that poor girl was screaming her brains out... That damned bastard. I swear I'll get him for this!
Though she tried to ignore the strangeness of the rooms through which she was trekking and the rooms she passed by along the way, Sarah couldn't help but notice the room full of floating bubbles or the room with dancing suits of armor on the ceiling, or any one of several others.
The room that really got her attention, however, was a replica of her old bedroom, white door beckoning temptingly: stuffed animals, ugly Cats poster, pictures of her mother – her real mother, the old music box, and everything that she had tried to forget that she had thrown away over the years. Her eyes filling with tears, she took an involuntary step towards the door. "No," she whispered and dragged her arm across her eyes, blinking hard. "No. I won't."
"Hello?"
"Yes," Sarah called, her voice hoarse, "I'm still here. I'm getting close... You sound like you're just on the other side of a wall. Keep talking!"
"Okay...I can do Juliet again! 'Romeo, Romeo—'"
Great. Sarah groaned. She hadn't wanted to admit the possibility, but now she was certain: the girl's voice was coming from somewhere on the other side of her "bedroom." She took a deep breath. I will not forget everything. I will not. I can't. Squeezing her eyes shut, she stepped into the room.
Nothing happened.
She peeked through her eyelashes; she was standing inside the room and nothing had jumped out at her. Nor had she forgotten who and where she was or why she was there. A deep sigh of relief escaped her lungs, but then she looked around in confusion. The girl's voice was coming from inside this room, it had to be, but there was no one else in there.
"Hey!" she called, interrupting the steady stream of Shakespeare. "Tell me, what do you see?"
"W—what?"
"Wherever you are... What do you see when you look around?"
"Um...I...can't see..."
"What?"
"I... There's something over my eyes and I can't see a thing!"
Count to three, Sarah. One...Two...Three... She took a deep breath. "It's okay. Just try to stay calm. I know that you're really close by."
Sarah glanced around the room, looking for something, anything that seemed out of place. On her first circuit around the room, she found nothing: the bed was neatly made, the drawers on her vanity overflowing with lipstick and a cheesy cardboard crown sitting atop them all. Opening her closet, she found nothing out of the ordinary, except that some of the clothes in there were very embarrassingly dated.
The second look around the room revealed nothing unusual either. The third was no different.
With a quiet groan of sheer frustration, Sarah sat down in the chair and stared into the mirror. A younger face looked back at her.
A startled yelp escaping her, she jumped to her feet again. After a short moment, she peered into the mirror again. There was no doubt that the face looking back at her was indeed her own, but the face was rounder, the hair longer, the eyes brighter. Sarah was looking at an image of herself as she had appeared when she had been in the Labyrinth before.
She raised a self-conscious hand to her hair; the image in the mirror did the same. As she waggled her fingers in elaborate patterns, the figure did likewise. Slowly, she reached out and touched the mirror... then gasped as her hand went straight through. She pulled her hand back and looked closely at it. It appeared to be fine.
With barely any more hesitation than a shaky breath, Sarah stood on the chair, ducked her head and bent her back so her long legs wouldn't get stuck, and stepped through the mirror.
