I can hardly believe I'm still able to write this . . . After what happened yesterday, I should be in therapy or something . . . I rushed to see what was wrong with Toby, but I didn't need to go very far. As I opened my door I immediately found out why my usually quiet little brother was wailing. He was on the floor in the hallway, trying to haul a big box out of the broom closet next to my room. As I ran to pick him up, the box overturned, spilling out its contents onto the still crying Toby.
Imagine my shock when I recognized all my old stuff from the before days, when I still believed in my dreams and fantasies, and when Toby was just an annoying baby, instead of the constant source of apprehension and fear he had now become. Chills ran up and down my spine as I tried to wrestle him away from those things. But Toby, whom I had usually picked up with ease now seemed to weigh a ton, and I couldn't even pull him away. He was going through the whole pile, evidently looking for something, his eyes searching, puzzled . . .
As memories flooded back to me I sank to my knees, trying to take it all in, but there was too much, too much . . . And everything was so very painful . . . I hadn't seen these things for months, and they seemed to belong to someone who had passed on, not to me at all . . .
I returned to my senses from a sound, something so familiar yet distant . . . it reminded me of a song . . . yet . . . how could that be? It reminded me of something so important . . . so very, very important . . . What could it have been? As though I heard it, and at the same time lost something so very valuable . . .
But I didn't have time to even think about this – there sat Toby – grief written all over his baby face, clutching something white . . . it took me a few seconds to realize that was where the sound was coming from.
As I looked closely, I saw a beautiful doll in a white, lacy dress, turning around and around in a musical carousel . . . as soon as I recognized the doll, images flashed in my mind – I saw myself in the doll's dress, dancing, dancing to that same bittersweet melody . . . something broke loose inside me and I shuddered, gasping for air as a choked sob came out of my very soul . . .
Suddenly I felt strange, and only then realized that Toby had stopped crying. As my eyes rose from the doll to his face, yet another chill raced up my spine, and I could practically hear my heart stop . . . And then start pounding away 1000 times faster. I was looking into the eyes of Jareth.
I wanted to run, jump out the window, fall through the floor, die, just somehow get away. Yet all I could do was to back away, slowly, mechanically, my body moving ever so much slower than my thoughts. I inched my way toward the opposite wall of the hallway, my eyes locked with His, not able to tear away . . . Those eyes, those torturing, bottomless eyes seemed to hide questions in their gray – blue deeps . . . in my mind too, I read questions that I was sure weren't mine: "Do you remember now? NOW do you understand?"
"NO! No I don't" I tried to yell, but nothing came out . . . I saw another flash of pain in His eyes. Suddenly I felt myself falling, falling for ever so long . . . I must have blacked out in mid-fall, because I don't remember ever hitting the ground . . . I only remember that I fell, and something fell along with me, circling around me, brushing me with the soft tips of its . . . wings? I don't know . . . don't remember anything else . . . no, nothing, nothing more – if I try too hard to remember, it hurts me. I can't say where or why, but it does . . .
I came to my senses lying half way down the stairs, the blood pounding in my head, my arms outstretched, and not a scratch or a bruise on me. Grasping the railing I pulled myself up, too sharply, and almost fell down again. As the objects around me stopped dancing, I stood all the way up, still shaky and shivering, and once again checked for broken bones, cuts, or bruises . . . no, amazingly enough, falling down 9 steps of a steep, hard-wood staircase and landing on my back had left me absolutely whole and unharmed. Not even trying to understand it, I rushed back up to the landing of the second floor suddenly remembering all that had happened.
Aside from the mess on the floor, everything was perfectly ordinary. All was calm, Toby sleeping peacefully on the floor surrounded by all my old things. The only thing that made me start was the white doll, still clenched in his little fist. I thought I had just imagined it . . . there went that theory . . .
Still a little dizzy, I picked up my baby-brother and carefully took him back to his room, taking extra care to lock the door this time. He didn't even wake as I gingerly placed him in his crib and covered him with a blanket.
I went back to the closet and working quickly stuffed my former life back into that dark, cobwebby broom closet where it belonged, hoping never again to see it. The whole time, I had to resist taking my time and looking through every item, letting the memories fill up that empty space that my dreams used to occupy . . . the temptation was so strong, my hands seemed actually to move in slow motion, as though dragging enormous weights . . . slower . . . slower . . . every object seemed to stick to my hands, impossible to put down . . .
"But my will is as strong as yours . . ."suddenly floated up in my mind . . . there was more, but I wasn't given the chance to remember it - my hands suddenly regained their lightness, and with one swift move stuffed everything into the box, and slammed the door shut.