"Sure you don't want a ballpoint pen?"
Jareth didn't look up from his seat in front of her vanity mirror, his pen alternating quickly between rapid scratches over the parchment and quick dips into an inkwell. "I suppose I'm a trifle old-fashioned."
Sarah's hands hovered over the keyboard of her laptop. She was writing propped up in bed, as she often did, though many of the "good habits of great writers" books she'd read advised against it. "Just thought it would be more efficient," she said.
"Sex would also be more efficient without foreplay."
She laughed. "Fair point."
They both wrote in silence for a few minutes. At some point he sighed and laid the quill down on top of the parchment, massaging his forehead with his hands. She smiled at the familiarity of the gesture.
"Problems?"
He nodded. "It…doesn't fit together. The pieces are there, but they feel like…like individual lines to different songs, instead of a continuous melody." He groaned. "Gods, you'r rubbing off on me, I'm speaking in metaphors."
She blushed. Was she really rubbing off on him? She'd worried about how he might be rubbing off on her—not necessarily in a good way—but she hadn't really considered the other side of things.
She went to stand over his shoulder, looking at the scattered pieces of parchment, each one a translated version of a folk tale that he'd found in the castle library. Automatically, she picked them up and began arranging them on the floor.
He stood up and watched her. "What are you doing?"
She moved a couple of the pages around until they formed a grid. Ignoring his gasps of shock, she even cut a few of them in half with a pair of scissors she pulled from the desk. "Sometimes this helps you see things clearer," she said. She pointed to the page in the upper right corner of the grid. "That's your beginning—it sets up the world, introduces some characters who come back again." She pointed at three pages in the middle of the grid. "Those are probably your middle, they've got the most conflict." She pointed at the bottom right corner. "That one's probably your ending, it's the saddest. Or, if you want a lighter feel, go with the one in the left corner."
Jareth stared at the floor, and she watched the comprehension dawn on his face. He stared at her. "How did you do that?"
She shrugged. "I do that with almost everything I write."
He folded his arms. "I assumed that at this stage your work just emerged fully-formed on the page."
"Are you kidding? I don't think that was even true for Shakespeare. Almost every piece of writing begins as a mess."
"So it's not that I'm not a brilliant writer," he said without any trace of sarcasm. "It's only that my brilliance isn't visible yet."
She rolled her eyes and stepped deftly over the papers to return to her bed. "If you'd like to see it that way."
He grabbed her hand before she got to the bed and pulled her toward him for a kiss. "I would."
He deepened the kiss and she gave him a gentle shove. "Back to work."
"Fine, fine." He kissed her one more time. "You taste even better on this side of the mirror."
She shivered in spite of herself and gave him a hungry look. "Get that thing arranged to your liking and maybe I'll give you another taste later."
He watched her settle herself on her bed and then finally knelt down over the papers, still mesmerized. She chuckled to herself as he gently moved one piece of paper, then moved it back, and then slowly but surely began rearranging all the papers into something new.
"Saaaaraaaah…"
Miguel's voice snapped her out of her reverie. "Sorry, did you say something?"
"No, but Jaye's about to make a break for it."
Sarah looked down at the baby sitting on her lap. As usual, Jaye was in constant motion, his face occasionally tilting up at hers to smile brilliantly and laugh.
"Sorry, kiddo. Auntie Sarah was brooding again." She gripped him under his arms and lifted him up above her head, then pulled him down again, then up.
"You're flying! It's amazing, I know, you're ACTUALLY FLYING! Defying the laws of physics and everything!"
Jaye giggled wildly, his small arms and legs wriggling above Sarah's face. He'd been ridiculously tiny when he was born, so much so that Sarah had refused to hold him for several weeks, terrified that she'd break him. At three months, though, he was the picture of good health, his cheeks chubby, his legs showing little rolls of baby fat sticking out of the bright red onesie that Sarah had given Lori at her baby shower.
Next to her on the park bench, Miguel laughed at her as Sami and Mari played nearby. "You never get tired of that, do you?"
Sarah shrugged and brought Jaye down to her chest, where he continued to squirm and laugh. "He just looks so damn happy every time I do it."
Miguel reached over and tickled Jaye's curly hair. "You're good with kids. You're the only babysitter that Mari and Sami haven't managed to scare away."
"Game recognize game." She cradled Jaye against her chest and he pushed himself backward, clearly angling for more flying. "Just don't go telling me I should have any."
"Are you kidding? Me & Lori would be stupid to do that, what with all the free babysitting you give us. Not that I wouldn't have loved to see what kind of kids you and J—"
He stopped himself when he saw Sarah flinch slightly, though she told herself that her reaction was much more subdued than it would have been a few weeks ago. He frowned. "I'm sorry,"
"Nah, don't worry. I mean, it's not like I never wondered."
Miguel glanced over at the twins, who had moved from the swingset to the monkey bars. "Any word?"
"From him? No. I've chatted with Hoggle and Didymus a few times, through the mirror."
"What did they say?"
She shrugged. "Not much, really. Well, Hoggle basically said that I was mad at a snakeroot plant for being a snakeroot plant, which was kind of true, though I told him it was more that I was mad at myself for liking a snakeroot plant." She laughed as Jaye's swinging fist caught her nose. "I think Lori's pissed that his play's been put on indefinite hiatus."
"Not too pissed, given that she's already working on something else."
Sarah laughed. Leave it to Lori to become even more productive than usual right after she had a baby. She claimed inspiration had struck right after Jaye was born and had furiously drafted a new play about obsessive motherhood, which was now being workshopped on the other side of town.
Which was how Sarah and Miguel now found themselves more and more frequently in the park, or at Miguel's condo, taking care of Jaye while Lori's partner Tal worked and Lori worked on her new play.
Marisol jumped down from the monkey bars and ran purposefully toward them, her dark hair blowing around her flushed cheeks. "Daddy check," she said, sounding for all the world like a parent addressing a child.
Miguel pulled her onto his lap. "Right, mija, you push the button." He pulled out his phone and Marisol touched an entry in the phonebook that came up as Respite Care as the phone rang. A pale, middle-aged woman with a no-nonsense face appeared on the screen.
"Hey Rita," Miguel said. "Mari's just checking in."
"Hey Mari." The woman waved at her and Marisol waved back. "Got something to show you."
The image on the camera shifted as she turned it, revealing Nick standing up in the kitchen and stirring something on the stove. He waved.
"Hey."
Sarah's mouth fell open. It had been months since she'd seen Nick on his feet for more than a few minutes, much less cooking. He was wearing a sweater and a pair of jeans that looked far too loose on him, and his face was still marked by dark circles, but he looked much better than he had the last time she'd seen him.
Marisol grabbed the phone from Miguel. "Daddy, you're not supposed to be in the kitchen!"
Nick laughed. "It's okay, Mari. Rita says it's okay, and she's the boss of me right now, right?"
He shifted the camera to Rita, who shrugged. "His blood pressure and his breathing are fine. I'll make him get off his feet soon, but I figured a bit of movement couldn't hurt."
"But what are you cooking?"
"Vegetable soup, sweetie, you can have some when you get home." He waved somewhat awkwardly to Miguel. "Hey Mi."
Miguel waved back very slowly. "Hey. You, uh, look good."
Nick laughed. "I can still rock a sweater."
After they hung up Miguel gestured to the monkey bars. "Five more minutes, then we'll go home."
Mari ran back to where her brother was still playing. Sarah stood up and jogged Jaye, who was getting somewhat restless. "I can stay here a bit longer with Jaye if you wanna take the kids—"
She was interrupted by an unfamiliar sound. When she turned around she saw that Miguel had buried his head in his hands and was crying, his whole body shaking with sobs.
She rushed to sit next to him, balancing Jaye on one knee while she wrapped her other arm around his shoulder. She glanced toward the monkey bars, relieved that the kids seemed completely oblivious.
Eventually he wiped his face and took a deep breath. "I don't think I realized till a minute ago that I was seriously wondering if I'd ever see him cook again."
Sarah smiled. "Guessing you never thought he'd write poetry, either."
Miguel laughed and pinched the baby's nose. Jaye giggled and reached for his finger.
"Yeah. Never say never."
Jaye was fast asleep by the time Sarah knocked on Lori's door. There was no response at first, which wasn't unusual—Sarah knew Lori sometimes worked with headphones on, or just got so absorbed in writing that she didn't hear anything else around her.
While she waited, Sarah absently ran a hand over Jaye's head, taking comfort in the tiny, rhythmic breathing of his body. It was in moments like this—when she held at least one baby who was safe, who she knew was loved—that the fears that woke her up in the middle of the night felt far away.
Lori eventually answered the door, looking slightly harried but happy. "Hey, sleeping beauty." She took the baby and cradled him against her chest, rubbing her nose against his forehead. "You know how much I miss you when you're gone, right?"
Sarah smiled. "How's the writing going?"
Lori shrugged. "Way slower than I'd like. They warned me about the tiredness and the hormones but they didn't tell me that crazy levels of LOVE would be so distracting." She closed her eyes and let her head nod gently over Jaye's. "Sorry, I'll shut up, I can already hear myself becoming the kind of mom I hate."
"Not at all. Good to know you're, you know, human."
Lori looked up and regarded Sarah with a critical eye. "You look slightly less like hell than the last time I saw you."
"Yeah, well…" She put her hands in her pockets and took them out again. "The usual remedies. Vodka. Ice cream. Texting Miguel in the middle of the night."
"Don't suppose there's any chance I'll still get to direct that play?"
Sarah sighed. "It's complicated." Boy is it ever. "But maybe one day it won't be. Eventually."
"Dudes. They fuck everything up." She kissed Jaye's forehead. "Present company accepted. Are you good to take him for two hours on Thursday?"
"Sure, it's a date—"
"I can pay you—"
"Nah, it's…this might sound weird, but it's kind of therapeutic."
Lori smiled. "Not to brag, but he is an absolute angel, except when he's not." She stepped back inside the apartment. "See you Thursday."
"Ahhh, gods, the neighbors are going to hear me."
Jareth looked up from between her legs and smiled. "I'll take that as an indication that I should continue."
Sarah gripped the headboard and arched her back. "If you stop now I might kill you."
"I'll say it again," he said, giving her a slow, careful lick that made her cry out even louder, "you really do taste even better on this side of the mirror."
She fisted her hands in his hair. "As long as you keep doing that I don't care what side of the mirror we're on."
She lay back and lost herself in sensations for a moment, feeling the pleasure build.
And then she heard the sound of a baby crying.
Sarah opened her eyes and stared beyond Jareth at the doorway of her bedroom, knowing what she'd see but not wanting to see it. A faint, small shape on the floor, blond hair, crawling toward the bed, crying…
She screamed and sat upright in bed.
As usual the mix of feelings made her want to wretch—her body was hot, she felt damp between her legs, but her heart was also pounding with a feeling of abject terror, and an oily layer of guilt covered everything…
The clock on her bedside showed that it was just past 3 am.
She reached under her pillow for the crystal that was no longer there, but that she couldn't bear to destroy, and had thus placed it in a box under her bed.
Sometimes she'd take it out and put it under her pillow again, but she always put it back in the box before she went to sleep.
Wiping her face with the bedsheet, she picked up her phone and texted Miguel, knowing that he was often awake at odd hours and turned off his phone when he was asleep.
Dreamt about the baby again.
To her relief, his response was immediate. It'll stop eventually.
U dont know that.
No I dont but thats what Im supposed to say. Why dont u write anothr letter?
Yeah, I will. Give Nick a kiss for me, tell him Ill bring him some booze tmrw.
U will not. Unless I can have some 2.
She smiled, the sharpness of the emotions fading slightly. As she'd done every night for weeks now, she sat down at her desk and began a letter.
You were never just a villain to me. I'm sorry I made you feel like one.
Other versions of the letter were scattered across her desk, most of them with just a few lines, some scratched out.
I meant it when I said I loved you, but I don't know what I feel anymore, because I don't think I ever really knew you—
I can't ask you to die but I also can't ignore the fact that people don't deserve to have their children taken away just because of some careless words—
I miss you. I don't care what you are, I just want you back—
She pushed the letters aside, the image of the nameless baby still fresh in her mind, and did something else she'd done repeatedly over the past several weeks: posted messages on various social media platforms about not casually wishing kids away, no matter how frustrating they became.
More than a few people had quietly unfriended or unfollowed her after she'd done that for the third or fourth time.
Sighing, she looked at her most recent letter, took a deep breath, and wrote.
I need to not think about you for a while. It doesn't mean—I don't know what it means, I just know that if I keep letting you take up this much space in my head I'm going to go mad.
She folded up all the letters and put them in her drawer. She picked up a half-full inkwell he'd left behind and went to pour the ink down the bathroom sink drain, then put the inkwell and its accompanying quill in another drawer. A copy of his script was on the floor—she gathered the pages neatly and put them in a box under her bed.
Her hand brushed the other, smaller box. Taking a deep breath, she opened it and pulled out the crystal with its familiar memory-images dancing inside. She ran her fingers over it slowly, as if she could reach inside and touch them.
It doesn't mean we can never make more, she told herself.
Closing her eyes, she slammed the crystal against the wall, somehow knowing that the material wouldn't cut her. It shattered into a fine mist and made a slight hissing sound. When she turned back to look at it, the images seemed to hover in the air for a moment before vanishing completely.
It was then, months after everything had changed, that she finally cried.