The night after Moira saw Sarah perform, she and Jareth met Sarah in her dressing room.
"Well, it is a very different version of reality than what actually happened," the dowager queen said, "but fascinating. The only character who is exactly like they were in real life is Carlotta- but then, that kind is quite common. "
"Now, mother, the managers were rather like the real ones," Jareth reminded.
"Idiots are common as well," Moira sniffed. "Run along, Jareth. Don't you have some royal something or other to do?"
"I was going to offer to transport you ladies to somewhere to continue your chat in private."
"I can see to that, shoo."
When he was gone, Moira asked, "Sarah, would you like to try it?"
"Try it? What it?" she asked, feeling slow. Surely Moira did not mean transporting them?
"Surely I do," the queen retorted, reading her thoughts. "You must learn sometime, now is good."
"What if I- screw up and scatter our atoms all over the place?"
"Don't be silly, child. We might land somewhere we don't wish to go, but I can correct that quickly. There are safeguards built into magics that prevent such things from happening. At worst, we might land in Timbucktoo. Just think of your home. That's it, hold the image in your mind. Now, take my hand. And.. step through the mirror."
She hadn't cleaned the house that morning...oh blast it. Sarah wished that she had done so. Moira wasn't even her mother in law yet and she was going to see she was a lousy housekeeper. Blast, blast, blast.
As they walked through the cool waves of glass that felt like electricity or something, Sarah chastised herself until they stepped into her bedroom. Or was it? She hadn't made up her bed that morning. The bed was made up. With Fresh sheets.
Not fresh sheets. New ones.
"I don't think this is my home," Sarah confessed. She'd obviously wished them to the wrong place.
Moira picked up a photo from the bedside. "This is your family, is it not?"
Sarah looked. "Yes. And, that is my book," she added, seeing a volume laying beside the photo.
"Your wishes projected. I do not know what we would have found- but the strength of your desire reached ahead and did whatever you see that is different. Excellent. You will be an apt student."
Hoping that the wish had straightened the kitchen as well, Sarah gave Moira a fifty cent tour on the way to that area of the house where she offered her refreshment. Then, as they chatted over tea, she began to ask more about the past.
"Moira, has Jareth watched over all of my family, all that descended from Christine?"
"Yes. Even after he recognized that they were not you.He even granted some of them wishes." Once again, it seemed that the Fey lady was laughing over some hidden bit of humor.
"I take it the wishes weren't ones that went well?" Sarah guessed.
"Well, wishes did land two of your aunts in the Bog of Eternal Stench, child."
Placing her cup down, Sarah blinked slowly. "They did? I don't recall any of them - reeking. I didn't like being around them much, but the weren't fetid."
"Would you like to hear the story?"
Sarah nodded.
"Do you recall your mother's sister, Kathleen?"
"Aunt Kathy, yeah. "
"After Linda, your mother, ran off to seek her fortune, Kathy was bitter. I believe the girls were all about seven years apart in age?" When Sarah confirmed this, Moira went on, "Their youngest sister, Becca, was four at the time, and Kathy eleven. Becca whined and puled often, and Kathy was sure that if she had been a better child, Linda might have stayed and not abandoned them. Nonsense, but such was her warped thought pattern. So, she found the book, your book, and wished that the goblins would take away Becca. I honestly did not think she'd try to get the child back, Jareth had to be more frightening than usual to convince her to attempt it. "
Moira paused to take a sip of her tea. Impatient, Sarah asked, "How'd they land in the Bog?"
"Becca's crying was driving us insane at the castle. It was rather incessant. She was driving the poor goblins nuts, chasing them, making them play dress up, and so on. My exact words were, 'Rebecca Emilia, if you don't cease and desist, I'll have to put you in the Bog'. That is always such an effective threat, I was sure it would work. Well, she didn't behave, so I had given my word. I tossed her in. Meanwhile, Kathy was throwing some kind of fit- such that Jareth had to go and see what was happening before she disturbed the balance of things too greatly. She didn't like the way things were, not the fireys, not the dwarves, not anything.I believe the term for what she had is a hissy fit. So, Jareth offered her a shortcut to her sister- who was by this time in the Bog. "
"How'd they get out?"
"After a day of being in the bog, we received a missive from Sir Didymus. " Moira laughed again. "You do recall how proper and formal he is? To whit it read, 'Sire, My Lady Moira, it has been mine own good pleasure this past segement of forever to be thine steward of the Bog of Eternal Stench. Your mercy and goodness altered my perception of smell so that I could not be driven mad by the aforementioned stench. Yet now I am forced to ask that thy mercy extend once more to thy servant and relieve me of duty, for the only way to make my tenure bearable since the arrival of these two damsels would be to strike down my senses of hearing and of sight as well, in which case I verily would not be an effective knight. Their continued whining, puling, complaining and so forth, both aloud and in writing when I stop up my ears is driving both myself and my good steed insane. I beg thee, transfer me or move them out of here.' So, Jareth sent them home."
Sarah frowned, "But, they are well- witches, spelled a bit differently- as they put it in Brigadoon, but they don't have violent bo."
"B?O? Oh, Body odor. No, stench is a metaphor. The Bog itself does reek most foully, yes, but the actual eternal nature is an allegorical effect. Most of the people with the rankest characters have the ability to mask it, to display a secondary face that seems pleasant but conceals a worse nature, one that will hurt and harm you if you let it. The Bog's fumes are a potent drug that will strip the ability to be two faced from them- warning others away from trusting them unless they undergo a radical inner transformation, one that can only be attained by the grace of God. It does make them seem more unpleasant to be around, but it does rather help those who must be around them- in a way. I call it the barbed wire effect. I think that your aunts are possibly the only people to be dunked in the last thousand years. I take it that they have not improved at all?"
Sarah shook her head. "If anything, they are worse. I try to avoid them."
"Wise girl. I had hoped they might be changed. It is sad to see lives so - so- "
"They seem to feel like everyone else, the people who don't agree with them, are to blame for not being on the same page with them."
Moira shook her head. "Such a pity they didn't spend more time with the fireys. I think they would have been improved by having their heads tossed. May I see more of your home?"
"It's not much," Sarah demurred.
"Nonsense. "
As Sarah showed her around more thoroughly, Moira seemed to be listening to something else. At the end, a pleased smile made her radiant. "You've been instinctively using your gifts for sometime now, dear girl. I could not be more pleased. "
"I have?" This was news to Sarah.
"Yes. The echo of magic is readily detectable, unless you take pains to make it covert, and of course, you have no reason to do so."
"What have I done?"
"Small things, it'd be like trying to explain how you have breathed or the process you take to pick up a piece of paper. To be frank, I dislike the term magic- it sounds like artifice, when for those who have the right to use it, it is like breathing or seeing. "
"Moira, if this is too forward, I withdraw the question, but how did Jareth's brother kill his father?"
For a moment it seemed as if the question would be unanswered, then, tiredly, Moira nodded. "Now is as apt a time as any; indeed, the right time, before you begin to learn. Evil is not an actual thing in and of itself, it's not he opposite of good, but the perversion of it. The misuse. As long as we, those who have the Fey gifts, do not abuse, warp our gifts and powers, we are not killable. But, if we abuse them, use them in a warped fashion, we are vulnerable. My husband wanted more power than he had at his disposal, and took it. It was not a great abuse, but he did abuse. That weakened him; and so when his son wanted what he wanted, taking it from him was simple enough, even though, in the long run, it damaged the taker more than the one taken from. So, he who was my son is now weaker for having more power."
"Can Jareth fight back?"
"You mean without making himself similiarly vulnerable and fallen? In defense, yes. But the risk inherent in attack is great. Fortunately, the laws governing conquest are ones that will turn against the one who breaks them. If his former brother strikes Jareth down, that law demands in no uncertain terms that he rule the Goblins, who he considers unclean. The Goblin kingdom is for outcasts, he can not rule it without taking on the mantle of outcast. " Her laugh was bitter. "I suppose in a way, I am to blame for his flaw; his quest for power partly lies in his need to excise himself of his mother's tainted, outcast legacy."
"Compassion is a taint?" Sarah asked, scandalized.
"To him, yes. Not to me, or Jareth, nor I see, to you. " This made a weary smile touch Moira's face. "Jareth's choice was well made. It is time I leave, and let you have some time with him. When I return, we must begin teaching you how to be Fey, and consider how you are to die to this world."
"What?" Sarah felt entirely too young to die.
That thought was very loud, impossible for Moira not to hear. "You will not die, but your death must appear to happen- it is the only way. Once you become one of us totally, the way is shut behind you."
"I didn't know that...how can I do that to people who care about me? I have a life here.."
Life whirled around her.
"You can't live in two worlds, dear. Jareth, see to her.."
The words seemed very distant. The world was falling away from her. Darkness reached towards her with avarice.