Chapter 2
All weakness now left her. What of her future? What of her family and friends. This was a trick nothing more nothing less. He wanted to keep Toby at any cost to her. She was just a pawn. A mere thing that stood in his way of what he wanted. He didn't love her.
Jareth who stood so close to her she could feel his breath on her skin. Quickly she pushed him away from her.
" You have no power over me!" She exclaimed.
"No!" Jareth screamed.
Jareth tossed the crystal ball up into the air, where it hovered, a bubble. Sarah looked at it, and saw Jareth's face, distorted, on the shifting, iridescent surface. Gently, it drifted down toward her. She reached out fascinated fingers for it and, as she touched the bubble with her fingertips, it burst. A mist of water atoms floated down the air toward Jareth.
But she saw that Jareth had disappeared. She heard his voice moaning, "Sarah ... Sarah .."
His empty cloak was settling onto the ground. A beam of light picked out a little cloud of dust motes rising from it.
With a last, slow flutter, the cloak lay still. From beneath it, as the clock struck for the twelfth time, a white owl flew out and circled over Sarah. Tears trickled down her cheeks.
" Jareth...oh Jareth what did I do?" She sobbed.
Sarah closed her eyes to stem the tears and brushed her cheeks with the palms of her hands.
"I must stop this habit of crying," she said aloud, as a distraction from her sadness. "I must also stop gasping, gulping, trembling, shouting, and generally going over the top when..."
Then she remembered that she had not found Toby again, and she opened her eyes in alarm. The white owl was still flapping above her, but in other respects the scene had changed. She was standing on the staircase of her home, and it was dark outside.
She raised her eyes to look at the owl. It circled her for a last time, found an open window, and flew out into the night.
Then she was running up the stairs two at a time, shouting, "Toby! Toby!"
He was in his crib, fast asleep. She could not help but pick him up and cuddle him. He opened his eyes sleepily, thought about crying, but decided that he was in good enough shape without it, so he smiled instead.
Sarah picked up Lancelot from the floor and put the teddy bear in his arms, saying, "Here you are, Toby. He's yours."
Then she tucked him into his crib again. He went straight to sleep. She stayed there with him for a long time, watching him breathe peacefully, with Lancelot in his arms.
Back in her own room, the full moon was shining outside her window.She left the curtains open, to see it. If she went to bed quickly, it would still be shining in when she turned the light out. The alarm clock by her bed showed that the time was after midnight. Her parents would be back from the show any minute now. She sat at her dressing table and picked up a hairbrush.
" Sarah you did the right thing. He was just some cocky jackass anyway. He probably doesn't even tie his own shoes so instead of normal shoes he wears boots. He is nothing but an over the top fashion victim. Forget about him." She signed as she continued to brush her hair.
Downstairs, she heard the front door open and close. Her stepmother called, "Sarah?"
She tured around about to get up when she it. Slowly she put the brush down and went over and picked up her copy of The Labyrinth.
"Sarah?"
Sarah was dazed by it. After a moment she answered her step mother "Yes. Yes, I'm here."
She straightened up, and on the dark window saw her reflection against the moonlight. Behind her reflection she saw the mirror. There was Ludo.
"Ludo -- good-bye -- Sarah," he said.
She spun around with a cry of joy. The room was empty all but the reflection of her self and now Sir Didymus in the vanity mirror.
"And remember, sweetest damsel, shouldst thou ever have need ..."
"I'll call," she told him as she sat in her vanity chair.
"If ever thou shouldst think on marriage ..." He started.
"I understand," Sarah told him.
"Good-bye, brave Sir Didymus." He faded.
Sarah kept her eyes on the mirror. She did not have long to wait. Hoggle popped up from behind the bed.
"Yes, if you ever need us... for any reason at all ..." He stared at her from under his bushy eyebrows, and started to fade.
"Hoggle," Sarah said sadly, "I need you. I need you all."
Outside the dark window, the white owl had been perched with his claws hooked on a branch, an effigy of watching and waiting. Now he swooped away over the park, on silent velvet wings, up toward the full moon. Nobody saw him, white in the moonlight, black against the stars.
" Hoggle?" Sarah called out.
" Yes Sarah." He said after pulling a sudden reappearing act.
" Was that all a..." She stopped finding her strength and pushing away the tear that now was falling down her cheek. " was it just a seam to get Toby?"
" Well...I don't know. What do you think?"
" I think that he tricked me and made me feel like this that sorry son of a bitch so I would fall for his tricks and he would get Toby."
" Hm. I don't know."
"Sarah..." Called a voice outside her door.
"Yes dad?"
"Can I come in?"
"Um..one minute. Sarah looked at her friends in the mirror. " Goodbye I'll talk to you later.
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