Hello! Merry Christmas. Literally. It's December 25 as I write this. Welcome to my first Labyrinth Fanfiction!
So. *ahem* Those of you who are crossing over from my other story "To Take a Wife" may be slightly confused. Explanations are ahead. If you are not crossing over, feel free to skip the notes ahead.
I know what I said about To Take a Wife, that while I was really getting into Labyrinth and had a fanfiction in the works, I wouldn't be posting it until I finished To Take a Wife. It is, as of this moment, not completed. This is also not that fanfiction in the works I mentioned. Yet here we are.
I put this rule in place so I wouldn't be split between two stories when writing. However, I can confidently say this story will not distract me from To Take a Wife because...
*guilty shuffling*
Because it's already done.
This 17,000 word story was written over the course of four days during Thanksgiving, and has been steadily edited and refined for the last month. (Everyone give a round of thanks to WaywardWatson for beta'ing bits of this. It was very helpful, thank you.)
This is technically a one shot, but I'm splitting it up because 17,000 words is a LOT for one chapter. I'd say this will have four chapters, which I will probably be updating every few days until it's completed. It's my Christmas gift to you, that none of you probably want nor asked for. *jazz hands*
Hope ya'lls enjoy my excursion into the world of Labyrinth. I had a TON of fun writing this.
"Sarah, are you sure? Toby's going to be so disappointed." Karen sounded sad herself on the other end of the phone. "It's Christmas, Sarah- Surely you can come home for Christmas."
Sarah shook her head, forgetting her stepmother couldn't see the gesture from four thousand miles away. "Sorry, Karen. Sam wants us working through the tomb as fast as possible. Our sponsor is coming soon, and he wants to get us another year of grants."
Her voice was scratchy, Sarah winced. Sixteen hour shifts in the dusty old tomb hadn't done her voice any good. "It's just… this is huge. A whole tomb, perfectly preserved. We've got to get the funding, we found it, we want to be able to put it on display."
Karen sighed softly. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah. Too late to book a plane now, anyways." It was Christmas Eve, and while she would have tomorrow off, the next day would be straight back to work.
"Well,-alright. Just-" Here Karen paused, and Sarah heard her rustling about with some paper. "watch out while you're up there, won't you? National Geographic-" more rustling, "- ah, here it is! National Geographic has an article that says there's been an alarming number of wolf attacks in your region. Which is strange because there are no wolves in Ireland" Sarah's stepmother paused, and then laughed ruefully. "They think they must have escaped from an illegal circus or something. Two people have been killed, Sarah, and a lot of livestock too. Be careful."
"Don't worry. Sam's van is built like a tank." Sarah forced cheer into her voice. Without her family, Christmas with the team was going to be a long haul.. "Next year I'll be there with ancient irish artifacts for everyone." She promised. "Nothing big, but I think Toby might like an old arrow head or something."
"Call us tomorrow, won't you?"
"I will." Wasn't like she had anything else to do.
"Well… alright. Goodbye." Karen said slowly.
"Slán." Sarah toyed with the cord to the phone, wrapping it around her fingers. "That means goodbye in Irish."
She had studied it in college, alongside her degree in European folklore. But it wasn't until a week ago, when they had come to this tiny little village in the land of the fae that she had started to put it to use.
Here, though all the residents spoke English, by some miracle Irish was the main spoken language. Sarah had enjoyed trying it out on the local residents, happy to find that the dying language was still being used somewhere. Her fluency and understanding of the language had nearly doubled in the last week.
"Slán to you, too, I suppose." Karen sounded amused.
The phone clicked.
Sarah dropped the phone back into the dial and sighed heavily. Her hand reached down into the pocket of her jeans, and stroked the heavy item there. It's weight seemed to pull on her very soul.
She didn't know what had possessed her to take the broach.
She had been so careful with everything else, brushing the items clean, each one in plastic bags to be numbered and studied.
So why had she taken the broach?
The tomb had been a miracle, really. The call had come in a week before. A farmer with an accent thicker than pudding had described a cave, the entrance of which had been exposed by years of weathering his herds of goats.
The team had piled into Sam's massive van, grumbling about having to travel so far in the cold and driven up to check it out. They'd been expecting a few dead bodies, maybe, and possibly an artifact or two. In and out in a day or two.
Instead-
"Wowee." Sam gasped, his breath making icy clouds in the air.
The carved stone entrance had revealed a man made mound. Weathered grey stone formed a base three feet high, supporting a dome that curved up into one big room.
The floor crunched underneath their feet as they held up their flashlights. The walls were coated in carvings, some words, some pictures, some patterns. In the center there was a huge stone tomb, easily twenty by twenty feet, with a ceiling extending upwards to twelve or fifteen feet.
"About 700, maybe 500AD." Heidi, another member of the team whispered, shining her flashlight over the walls. "Just judging from the art."
Sarah glanced around them, then pulled off her glove and reached down to touch the ground. She licked her hand.
"Salt." She noted, spitting the taste out of her mouth. with a grimace.
"Hey, this entrance is lined with iron." Dave shouted from the tunnel. "Apparently, someone wanted to stop the Fae from coming inside."
Everyone laughed.
Weapons were everywhere, laid neatly in rows around the center tomb. Swords, shields, bows with stacks upon stacks of arrows.
And in the center of the space, a twisted, aged corpse lay stretched out. His clothes were nearly dust, but the metal jewelry hung from his wrists, ears and neck had survived well. Iron rings, a tarnished silver necklace. Then the broach. The broach. It glinted gold in the light of Sarah's flashlight, and she found that she could not take her eyes off of it.
Everything in the tomb was covered in a healthy layer of dust, but this one piece of jewelry gleamed brightly, as if someone had just finished polishing it and had placed it tenderly on the chest of the body. She reached out-
Heidi's voice stopped her. "Sarah!" Her voice sounded ectatic. "This is going to make our careers, this place is untouched. Untouched!"
Sarah jerked her hand back. "Yeah. Untouched." She agreed absently, but her eyes remained fixated on the golden broach.
She saw it everywhere after that, at least in her mind's eye, as if it had been seared into her brain.
The gold sparkling, whispering, calling-
They spent the next week working nonstop. Preparing it for a larger team with more supplies that was coming to help. But it was theirs, and they had found it. Well, technically, the farmer had, but they had stepped inside, they had been the first humans in over a millenia to see the inside.
Sarah loved it. Loved to breathe in the stale air and think of the people, working so slowly, so methodically for something that might never see the light of day again. She wished she could tell them that their work would be seen, admired, studied, so long later.
But the broach, the broach…
She wasn't sure what she felt about the broach. It was on the corpse's right shoulder, holding the disintegrated cloak over his shoulder. It had a beautiful pattern of vines carved out in gold, the vines surrounded the spindle, of all things. But whatever was carved, it was a work of art, and Sarah couldn't stop seeing it.
She saw it in the patterns of the carpet at the bed and breakfast they were staying in, in the soup she ate for supper, she even saw it in Heidi's charm that she wore around her neck. She tried to clear it from her mind, tried to forget. Then jumped when she saw it in a painting in the hallway.
For five days, she tried to forget that stupid little piece of gold. Tried to convince herself that it was completely normal. It wasn't easy when she passed it dozens of times a day. Finally, she pointed it out to Dave. "See the broach?" She meant to point out how odd it was that it was not coated in dust.
He looked down at the corpse's shoulder, right where the broach should be and glanced up to her with a bemused expression. "What broach?"
Sarah backed down fast. "I mean, the necklace. The patterns look so crazy."
He laughed. "Yeah, never seen anything like it before. Neat stuff, huh? I'd wear it." Then he winked at her and continued his work.
Sarah looked down at the mysterious object. Dave was pointed in the opposite direction, Heidi was preoccupied with taking pictures of the cleaned walls.
Her mitten crept down, closing around the clasp, she jerked and it broke away from the worn fabric. She slid it in her pocket.
Two days later, Sarah sat in her room after the phone call with Karen, and she hadn't taken it out.
The talk with Karen left Sarah only feeling more lonely than before. Christmas. What was Christmas without family? She reached into her jeans and felt the pattern with her fingers, feeling it hum beneath her fingers. It reminded of her things. Things she'd experienced since that dream she'd had when she was fifteen.
The feeling when you're walking down a dark street, and suddenly you want to run all the way down it to your house. The shiver that rolls down your spine when the wind howls outside. When you're sitting alone in a room, and suddenly you know you're being watched.
It had been in a book she'd checked out at the library that put faces to those feelings. Ghosts, fae folk, brownies, changelings. That had sparked her interest for the strange creatures, and what had made her pursue it into college.
Sarah shifted on her bed, holding the broachin her hand, feeling it's weight, the intricate carvings into the gold. It whispered in her mind. Whispered what it wanted it's owner, it wanted-
"Hel-LO! Earth to Sarah?"
Sarah jumped and drew her hand from her pocket. Heidi stood in front of her, tilting her head to the side. "You were really out of it, I've been calling and calling."
"Sorry." Sarah smiled up at her. "I've just… been really tired."
Heidi brushed her waist long light brown hair out of her eyes. Sarah noticed she had a nice red dress on. "Sam's taking everyone to the bar for Christmas Eve, his treat, I guess to apologize for not letting us go home for Christmas. Coming?"
"Oh." Sarah shook her head. "No thanks. I'm too tired."
Heidi smiled. "You should sleep then. I'll be back about one or two, maybe."
"Alright." Sarah said absently. "Yeah, yeah. Sleep."
Heidi left, and Sarah laid down at her bed, her hand reaching for pocket again.
Sarah jolted awake, sitting straight up in bed. Her eyes struggled to see anything in the darkness. Her heart pounded in her chest, choking any cry she might have made.
She glanced at the clock. Midnight. Christmas morning, technically.
What had woken her? Sarah wondered vaguely, pushing back her covers. There must have been something, to make her heart pound so.
She stood up and walked to the door of her room. She opened it to a brightly lit hallway. All was quiet.
All is calm, all is bright. A group of people was singing outside.
Her feet, clad in only socks passed down the wooden hallway and down the steps. She went through the kitchen of the Bed and Breakfast, her hand trailing against the counter before falling to her waist again.
She went to the door, her fingers traced the frost patterns on the glass window. Outside, snow fell gently. It was a picturesque Christmas night.
Sarah grasped the doorknob and opened the door, she stepped slowly out into the night. Her socks immediately became soaked in three inches of snow, her hands and cheeks reddened in the wind.
She closed the door behind her.
She walked through the streets of the tiny town, watched people with drinks in hand stumble up and down the street, singing Christmas Carols.
They didn't seem to notice her, in her t-shirt and jeans and socks, walking slowly but steadily down the street. Within fifteen minutes she came to the edge of the town, and here she hesitated. Looking out into the dark, cold white world beyond her.
Her hand touched the broach in her pocket. One foot trailed lazily beyond the border, then the other followed and she was at it again.
She walked, leaving the road behind her, instead plunging into the hills. Struggling through the drifting snow, her jeans become more and more soaked.
The falling snow thickened, the winds picking up, blowing through her shirt. Sarah supposed she should have shivered, but she did not.
She walked in that dark world of white, trapeasing over hill after hill. Never falling, never stumbling, only walking.
Then she stopped, standing in the midst of the swirling snow. Alone in that great storm. Sarah opened her mouth and whispered. "Frau Holle."
The snow whirled on.
Sarah cleared her throat and tried again, louder, this time. "Frau Holle." She called.
The snow seemed to gather for a moment, a figure appearing briefly, then broke apart with the wind.
Then she screamed it for a third time, fighting against the howling wind. "Frau Holle!"
A great wind screamed forward, she stumbled back. The snow circled, forming a shape, who then solidified into a cloaked white figure.
Wrinkled, aged hands reached up and pulled back a hood. It revealed an old, old wrinkled woman with glossy white eyes. She looked down at Sarah, who shivered. Those eyes somehow seemed even more ancient than their aged owner.
Her hair was pulled up in a knot at the back of her head, the silver whisps waving with the wind. She smiled, her cheeks had dimples. "What, child? It is not often mortals dare to call me three times." Her voice had a faint accent Sarah couldn't place. German? Scandinavian?
She didn't quite know what to say. Why was she here? Why had she called for the woman?
She watched those ancient hands reach into her pocket and pull out a half full drop spindle. Her feet pushed the snow out of the path of the tool.
Then she stuck out her arm, and the snow whirled onto the back of her hand. This she calmly hooked it onto the end of her spindle and set it spinning. It created a fine, white luminescent thread, the wooden stick slowly falling to the ground as she pulled a longer and longer string from the snow
"I have come." Sarah said slowly, watching the woman pull it up against with a practiced hand. It was twisted around the stick, then she began the whole process over again.
"Yes?" The woman laughed. "I can see that. But why?"
She watched the spindle fall again. "I'm sorry, but I don't know."
The crone tilted her head. "Really? Strange, is it not?"
"I suppose so."
The spindle went down, down and touched the ground. The hands drew it up again smoothly as if they had done it a thousand times, and would do it a thousand times more. "Do you have a question for me?"
"No…"
"Do you want something from me?"
This time as the woman twisted the thread around the stick of the spindle, Sarah recognized it as the spindle on the broach.
"No… I think I have something for you" Sarah said slowly, and her hand reached into her pocket and pulled it out.
The hands froze in their work. "What is that?"
"A broach." Sarah held it out to the old woman, tilting it to show it off.
The woman watched it, her eyes widened. "I wore that, once. My husband went to the finest gold makers in Ireland for it."
"It's yours, then?" Sarah asked faintly.
"Not necessarily, a man won it from me." Here the old woman's eyes flashed with anger. "I lost it, and I could not find it after he died. Where was it?"
Sarah traced back in her mind, but the story seemed jumbled. Should she start with the phone call a week ago? But that seemed to leave so much out. Maybe it began with that red book she had read over and over that caused her that strange dream when she was fifteen? Or college...
"It's a long story." Sarah decided.
The old woman chuckled. "Yes, it always is. Come." She pulled up the spindle and tucked it inside her cloak again.
Sarah followed her through the snow, walking as she had done before. That same steady gait that stopped for so little.
They did not walk far, soon they came to a light, and a tiny cottage appeared in the blizzard. The old woman shuffled up the door and opened it for Sarah.
Sarah bowed. "Thank you, Grossmutter." She murmured and walked inside.
It was small, a fire roaring in the fireplace. A bed in the corner, a worn wooden table in another. A rocking chair sat by a window.
The old woman shuffled over to the window and opened it, slowly swirled in, and she sat in the rocking chair and began spinning the snow from the window.
"Come sit by me, child. Tell me your long story. I'm in need of one."
So Sarah sat on the floor next to the crone, and she spoke. She spoke of the red book, the one she had loved so dearly for so long. First because her mother had given it to her, then because of the story it told. Of a brave, abused girl, of goblins, and of their king.
"I used to imagine myself as that girl." Sarah mentioned, laughing. "I had no idea how lucky I was."
The old woman cocked her head and nodded, her eyes staring into nothing. All the while the spindle went up and down, up and down, spinning glowing white threads.
Sarah spoke of the dream she'd had when she was fifteen. When she'd wished her brother away to the goblins, and here the Grossmutter began truly intrigued. Her head cocked to the side as Sarah described the Labyrinth, asking questions here and there, prodding her for details when she found them lacking.
She seemed especially interested in the end.
"What did he say to you?" She asked, the fire burning brightly in the hearth. "Tell me exactly."
"He- he said," It had been so long, Sarah had to think. "He said, 'Fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave.'"
Then the crone burst into laughter, the spindle falling to the floor with a clatter, rolling across the wooden boards as the old woman cackled and cried. Sarah watched her.
"And you say he sang to you?" The woman gasped between fits of laughter. "A song of love?"
"He did."
This made the woman shudder harder, her cloak falling around her shoulders, tears streaming from her eyes. "And… he… he said... " She chortled. " he would… never… never-" She pounded the arm of her chair. "So stubborn and now- a mortal girl…"
"It doesn't make any sense." Sarah whispered fiercely, her eyebrows pressed together in thought. "It just doesn't. How could he think I could love, and fear him?"
The woman sobered, wiping the tears from her eyes. "He's a strange one, child. Fetch me my spindle, will you?"
Sarah crawled across the floor until she found and returned it to the gnarled hands.
"So you had a strange dream," they curled, picking more of the swirling snow to spin, attaching it to the handing end. "what after?"
So Sarah told her of the endless trips to the library, studying myths and fairies. Of falling in love with european folklore, and studying it in college.
Then of her joining the expedition, working her way up from an internship to a real archaeologist. Then the call, and the tomb.
"And that's where I found this." Sarah held up the broach again. "There was salt coating the floor, and the doorway was lined with iron."
The old woman frowned. "I see. No wonder it was hidden from me." Her head tilted to the side. "Why did you take it?" The old woman mused.
Sarah hesitated. "It called to me..."
"It called to you." Sarah did not miss the bitterness and longing in the old woman's voice. "It called to me, once."
"Well… I don't need it." Sarah said carefully. "I have no use for a broach, would you like it back?" And she held it out to the woman.
The fingers paused their spinning, and her hands hovered over the fine gold carvings, before taking it up and pinning it to her white cloak.
A chill went from where the broach had been in her hand to her toes. Sarah suddenly felt her soaked pants, her wet hair, her numb fingers, and began shivering. She crossed her arms across her chest and longed for a hot shower and a warm bed.
"You're a dear." Holle murmured, patting the broach tenderly on her shoulder.
Then she tied off the end of the spindle and handed the whole thing to Sarah. It was full, fat with gossamer white threads. "Take this, my gift to you."
Sarah accepted it, staring blankly down at the ancient tool. It fitted perfectly into her trembling two hands. "T-thank you, grossmutter."
The old woman pulled Sarah's chin up with wrinkled hands, and her white eyes examined Sarah's face. Once again, Sarah looked in them, and had the impression of an ancient power she dared not comprehend.
"I like you." The old woman mused. "You are polite, and kind. And you made me laugh, that is rare in this world." And she leaned down and kissed Sarah on the forehead.
Her shivering stopped, her fingers regaining their feeling. She still felt the cold, felt her soaked clothes against her skin, but it no longer bothered her as it had.
How long had she been there? "I suppose I must go home now." Sarah decided.
"Hmm. Maybe. You may go."
So Sarah stood, holding the spindle tightly with both hands. She crossed the wooden floor and closed the door behind her.
The cottage vanished, and Sarah was standing alone in the middle of a blizzard. She stood for a moment, blinking in surprise, then decided she had better keep moving. Her teeth began chattering as she wallowed through the drifts of snow, falling and struggling and falling again. Slowly her feet numbed again, becoming little better than two blocks of ice.
Keep going, you'll freeze otherwise, Sarah told herself. It seemed a useless endeavor. Who knew how far she was from the town, and she was so poorly dressed for the weather it was ridiculous. But she floundered on, not knowing what else to do.
She was just considering calling Frau Holle again when she heard the bellow of a horn.
For those of you confused who Frau Holle is, she's a Germanic goddness in folklore. She's also known for her spinning, weaving and taking in the souls of babies born as infants! She's super cool.
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