Author's Note: The characters of Jareth, Sarah, Toby, Hoggle, Ludo, Didymus, etc. belong to the wonderful Jim Henson company, and I claim no rights to them. The goblins are another story, but any resemblance to any real goblins, living or (while improbable) dead, is purely coincidental and unintentional... except for Shove, because he wouldn't leave me alone until I put him in the story.
She graduated college with degrees in Mythology and Folklore, and a minor in literature that allowed her to take up teaching, because she couldn't think of anything else she really wanted to do. Her days were spent herding middle schoolers toward knowledge, which she discovered was a lot like trying to persuade goblins to sit quietly and knit sweaters. Her evenings were spent pouring over books and writing papers on the things she found that sometimes got published and sometimes did not. Occasionally she wrote stories, short ones, of fairies and goblins and these got published far more often than her papers did, which just went to show that fantasy would always win out over reality, no matter how fantastic that reality was.
On the weekends she drove up to the old house to visit with Toby and see how he was getting on.
He was a sturdy lad of about seven, prone to driving his parents crazy with his mischief, and always going on about his invisible friends.
It didn't take long for Sarah to realize that his invisible friends weren't quite so invisible to her.
There was Tunk, who liked to play hide and seek, usually with her stepmother's things, who introduced himself to her when he turned up with her old bear Lancelot in hand. "Me like bear," said Tunk, and Sarah knew it was Tunk who had stolen Lancelot from her so often when she was younger. She patted the ugly creature on the head and as he scampered off Sarah plucked her car keys out of his back pocket and put them back in her purse. There was Deeb, who's favorite trick was to tuck up the corners of rugs and carpets, so that her father would trip over them. He had a short stubby nose, and a wide grin that Sarah found infectious, but she put her foot down when she found him teaching Toby to leave his toy cars on the stairs, right were her father was most likely to trip. And there was Sludge, who, true to his name, found joy in all things gooey and gross, and who was always fiddling with the microwave so that things would explode all over the inside of it, or trampling the backyard to mud after it had snowed. Toby was still young enough toremember how Sarah had watched him when he was a baby, but he was old enough to know that not everyone could see his friends--and it was with joy that he found that his sister could. He could tell her all about their adventures, never worrying that she wouldn't believe him, and Sarah found that she was truly glad she'd rescued her brother because it turned out she loved him after all.
Her stepmother was always concerned about her lack of love life, but Sarah merely turned her questions aside politely, or, when pressed if there was someone she was interested in, gave a shrug and a smile that were enough to stem the tide for a bit, if not hold it back entirely.
When Sarah turned twenty four, her mother died. It had been a long time since she'd last spoken to her, but she still followed her mother's Broadway career and occasional ventures into television with interest. It was an accident, the reports all said, the car had been going too fast, and the road was slippery with ice. These things happen. Sarah demanded to look at the car, afterwards, inexplicably both worried and furious, but she found no sign of goblin tampering. All the goblins in
the area seemed very sad, but none of them took responsibility for the accident, and Sarah felt inclined to believe that they'd really had nothing to do with it. Sometimes an accident is just an accident.
The night before the funeral, she called her friends to her mirror and chatted with them about nothing. Hoggle's eyes looked worried, and Ludo looked sad, and Didymus for the first time looked a little old with white around his muzzle and graying the fur around his eyes. While her friends brought her a measure of comfort, she found they were not what she needed, and for the first time she found herself wishing for arms to hold her, and a shoulder to cry on again.
She carefully took the owl feather out of the carved wooden box she kept it in and put it under her pillow before she went to sleep, but found when she laid down that sleep was hard in coming.
Sarah thought about her mother, and about her life. She thought about her brother and his friends. She thought a great deal about the emptiness of her little apartment, and the even vaster emptiness of her bed, and wondered why she'd never tried harder with men. After awhile she got up and went to her vanity again, and studied her face in the mirror.
Her hair was still long and dark, and it had gotten wavier over the years, and thicker, so it tumbled around her shoulders wildly. At school she always pulled it back or pinned it up, but at home she left it loose. She still had a few freckles sprinkling over her nose and her cheeks, but otherwise her skin was fair and clear. Her eyes were still her best feature, though, large and dark hazel green, and in them she could read her own innocence and her own lack of mystery. It was the face of a woman who still had the innocence of a child. It was a pretty enough face, she supposed, but there was little in it that was tempting beyond basic prettiness. Other women had allure, or education, or wisdom written across their faces, but Sarah saw none of that in her own and she wondered why someone who was both beautiful and terrible, who was cloaked in mysteries so thick that it hung about him like his cloak, whose very eyes were a heady mixture of enigma and seduction, would ever look at her as anything more than just a child. It surprised her, a little, that she wanted him to think of her as something other than a child. She wanted, more than anything, for him to see her as a woman.
She looked down at her fuzzy flannel pajama bottoms and her t-shirt, and without thinking about it too much, she slipped them off and went back to bed.
She dreamed she was back in the ballroom again, only instead of everything being white, it was all draped in black velvet, and the dancers wore dark colors that seemed to flow with sadness. She looked down to discover that she herself still wore white and silver and gold, and imagined that she probably shone like a star against so much darkness. She stood in the midst of the dancers, but made no move to push past them. Her eyes felt tired from holding back tears, and she, herself, felt tired of playing this long game of cat and mouse. So she closed her eyes and just listened to the music, and the whispers of the dancers as they twirled around her. There was pity, in their voices, and a little bit of awe, but the music was beautiful and soft and comforting in it's own way so she didn't mind their stares and whispers so much.
When he took her hand in his, she did not open her eyes, but allowed him to pull her to him, and place his hand on her waist and lead her into the dance. Neither of them spoke, and she kept her eyes closed for awhile, just enjoying the feel of his arms around her, and the gloved gentleness of his hand in hers. When they spun, she felt his hair brush her face, and the scent of him enveloped her, drugged her, until she felt as light as a feather in his arms.
Sarah opened her eyes, at first carefully studying his collar, and how the gems sewn into it caught the light. She let her eyes travel to his throat, and the black jewels that caught his stock and held it in place, and thought that they looked like little black spiders. His throat was smooth and pale, and his hair was a little longer than she remembered it being before, and when he moved, and she could see more of his throat she found that the muscles in it were tight and corded, as if he were clenching his jaw. He spun her again, and pulled her a little more tightly against him, and he followed the line of his jaw to his chin, and then to his lips, which were pressed firmly together. Up close she could see that the discoloration along the sides of his nose was natural, not makeup as she'd first assumed, but the actual shading of his skin, which surprised her into looking up into his eyes, to see if they, too, were natural.
He was studying her intently, and she felt her breath catch when she looked into his eyes. He had beautiful eyes, exotically shaped, the coloration around them was both natural and not, for she found she could see where he'd placed some glamour to enhance his own natural beauty. His eyes were both blue, she noted with surprise, but the pupil of one was slightly larger than the other, and she felt like it could see straight into her soul. His winged eyebrows were drawn down in a frown, and his face was set with a mask of coldness that was somehow more intimidating than the fantastic masks of those who danced around them. Sarah bit her own lip, but did not look away from him, nor did he look away from her.
Eventually she realized that the rest of the dancers had stopped and had moved away, leaving the floor clear for the two of them. They watched quietly from the sidelines, still whispering among themselves, but more than ever she didn't care. It was enough that he was here, that she was in his arms, that he was dancing with her, and that there was no where else she'd rather be. It seemed to go on for hours, but finally the music stopped, and he spun her around one final time, then stepped away from her and bowed low over her hand, where he still held it in his gloved one. He brushed his lips against her fingers, and once again she felt that strange electric tingle when his skin met hers, but she did not pull away. Instead, when he straightened, she stepped close to him again, stood up on her toes, and lightly kissed his smooth cheek. When she stepped away again, he was regarding her with something like surprise, but again he said nothing.
"I wish..." she said, feeling the dream start to fade, "I wish you would let me be your friend."
Then she was awake, and sunlight was streaming through her window, and it was time to get up and go bury her mother.