-----
When Sarah's father and stepmother returned home, they thought that Sarah truly had gone insane. Toby was still in his room, oblivious to everything else around him. But Sarah was nowhere to be found. Upon knocking and then tentatively entering her room, they found every mirror smashed. Then they had smelled the smoke.
-----
Sarah had stormed up to the attic, racing back down with her arms full of boxes. She wanted it gone. Everything. Suddenly the idea came that it wasn't enough to get rid of them, give them away. Sarah wanted these things eradicated from existence. If she couldn't have it, then no one could.
She was in a blind fury at something that she couldn't pinpoint. She knew that it had happened. She had just denied it. And now it was denying her. And she was angry. It had happened. And now she wanted none of these things that reminded her of it. It wouldn't talk to her, it wouldn't let her back--not without doing something that she might forever regret. It wasn't fair. Now all she wanted was to take her revenge on something, anything.
She raked the yard clean of leaves, pulling them into the darkened spot at the edge where her father always burned them. Once they were crackling, she began to feed her possessions to the fire one at a time. First the posters, then the stuffed animals, then the dolls. All of it. She had emptied the boxes until all that had remained was her copy of The Labyrinth. Sarah held it up to toss it in with the rest of the things, but an errant thought flashed through her head. Don't, not yet, you're missing something.
Slowly she lowered her hand, and stuck the book inside her shirt. That was when she heard a noise behind her. Her father and stepmother, both standing there with looks of confused horror on their faces.
Sarah walked past them without a word, leaving the charring remains of her childhood on the ground.
-----
She never noticed the owl perched in the limbs far overhead, quietly watching.
-----
Not surprisingly, they sent her to a psychologist as soon as they could get her in. And Sarah, now that whatever-it-had-been was completely out of her system, was at a loss as to what to say. The psychologist himself seemed at a bit of a loss, in Sarah's opinion.
Her father had reported that she had never had any problems before, and that she was back to acting perfectly normal. Indeed, Sarah seemed perfectly normal again. Her sessions were private, but that didn't help any. She didn't know what to say. And the tests confirmed all the things that she wasn't. No, she wasn't on drugs; no, she wasn't suicidal; no, she didn't have any imbalances. However, Sarah saw that if she didn't say something, she was going to be here for the rest of her life.
So she settled on the truth. At least as much of the truth as she could say without them thinking that she really had gone crazy. She told the doctor that she knew why she had done it, and that she would just say it. Well, why hadn't she before, he wanted to know?
"Will you tell my parents?" she asked.
"It all depends. You are a minor, but if there's nothing that I feel that they need to know about, nothing self-destructive or detrimental...."
"I did it because I was angry."
He nodded, prompting her.
"I had packed up those things because I wanted to get rid of them. They reminded me of something. I wanted to forget it, I think. I put it all behind me. But then, the other day, I found one piece that got left out. And I hated it. And suddenly, I wanted it all gone. Not stored, just gone. It's as simple as that."
He nodded. "You wanted revenge? And that was the only way to get it?"
"Yes."
The doctor nodded again, scribbling notes, as if this was all making perfect sense.
However, then he said something that completely threw her.
"It sounds to me like you wanted revenge against someone, Sarah, not something."
Images flew through her mind. Yes, lots of someones. Or maybe just one someone. Not for what he had done, but for what he hadn't done.
But she had to think fast. "That's what I don't want you to tell. I'm sure they told you that all those things were things I used to play games with?" He nodded. "But I didn't play them alone. There was this guy--"
"A boyfriend?"
"No, just someone. But they didn't want me having any guys hanging around, when I was that young. So I didn't tell them. I was almost old enough when I could have, but then he left. I got angry and I packed everything away after that. I never saw him again. The other day, I found something he gave me." Sarah finished, hoping that she wouldn't have to make up/go into any further details.
But the doctor seemed satisfied. In fact, he gave her a clean bill of health, accompanied by some psycho mumbo-jumbo spoken to her father and stepmother.
And as much as she hated to admit it, the visits to the psychologist had helped Sarah sort something out--why exactly she had been angry. True, she had tried to make herself believe it was only a dream, convince herself that it didn't happen. Who wouldn't, really? But when she had remembered, and had shouted out to anything, anyone, the only answers were silence. Who was she shouting to? Anyone that could hear her, of course.
Though who knows how far her voice could really carry?
But who had the most power to hear her, everything else aside?
The Goblin King.
