What No One Knew

by westendwordsmith

Sarah and Jareth reunite in a dark tale of deceit and betrayal where only uncovering the truth can set them free of the chains they wear. Rated for mostly later chapters. JS

14. Chapter 13

Please Note: Some racy bits have been removed from this chapter. The full version appears on my website a link to which appears in my profile.

CHAPTER 13

Funny how insignificant something as paramount as Earth seemed from a few thousand feet. Streets you lived on, grew up by, raised a family around, disappear. Bodies of water, ball parks, wheat fields, the only determinable acreage and even then by sheer mass. Circling, the huge Boeing rocked left and right as it lined up for the runaway. During the descent, things began to dawn a minutia that made them more familiar. Rooftops and swimming pools rose up from the landscape while street lights and commercial beacons set the grid and just as the riders began to select their individual blocks of familiarity, the blinding lights of the airport runway stole away their best efforts and replaced them with a cold, sterile reality.

Accompanied by a rugged jolt, Toby left the fantasy of his honeymoon behind him. England had been as he expected, green, peaceful, little to distract him from his bride. The weathermen spoke daily of rain, but he felt nary a drop from inside the castle room where Rowan and he spent most of their two week hibernation away from the rest of the world.

Marriage agreed with Toby, took him that final step between boy and man. While storms raged beyond the castle walls, a rather powerful force wrecked havoc within them as well. As the clouds brought with them a heavy wind which ravaged everything in its path, the areas yet to feel its wrath waited patiently, ready to embrace the wind, eager for the falling rain. Something about the energy of two fronts colliding was so much like sex. The way the aggressor stalked its submissive. The way he crashed against her with almost no warning. The thunder of two hearts. Lightning burnt a warning between them, making it all seem very illicit, forbidden, but rather than heed the warning, it only created an irresistible energy, the drawing power of which encouraged them to meet, no matter how brief the opportunity, whenever they'd had the opportunity.

Rowan reached for his hand as she caught the grin on his lips from the corner of her eyes. He'd come a long way in his arts of pleasing her since she'd first offered herself to him and for that she was grateful. Her home country was a welcomed release from the busy city she now called home. She was able to absorb the serenity of it all, breathe in a cleaner, fresher air. She felt connected to spirits of the departed, enriched by them, renewed.

Still, she'd made the choice to leave it all behind and there was no sense in pining for it now. She had, after all, brought what little she could absorb home with her. That and a fair bit more. All the plans she'd made for herself, for Toby, everything was happening right on schedule and she couldn't have been more pleased. Her new husband leaned in to kiss her cheek as they finished their drop down to the runway.

They sprang for a cab after deciding that the number of pieces of luggage they had would annoy too many people on the El. Toby fumbled with his cell phone, flipping it open and closed rapidly as one might drum their fingers or tap their foot. Rowan covered his hand with her own giving him a look that begged for patience. As though he'd been caught misbehaving, he smiled innocently and tucked the phone away.

He'd settle for staring out the window, but couldn't abandon his thoughts for why Sarah hadn't answered her phone any of the number of times he'd attempted to call her since they'd begun packing up to leave England. Even if she ignored his call, as Sarah was habit to do, rarely did she allow the cat and mouse game to go on for more than two or three consecutive plays. When they got home, he'd try her office some time when his bride wasn't about to stop him.

Almost as though she sensed what he was thinking, Rowan spoke up. "You'll wait to tell her until everyone is together, like we planned." She said it with a smile.

"But Sarah's my sister. I feel like we should tell her first."

"She's no more important to you than my sisters are to me and I'm waiting."

It occurred to Toby to make a malicious comment about how he and Sarah shared blood, they shared a father and while he was sympathetic to the fact that she felt a strong connection to the women she labeled siblings it wasn't the true sort of connection that he had with Sarah, but thought better of ending the honeymoon so quickly. He nodded his acquiescence.

Even if he would have to keep their secrets a bit longer, he still wanted to talk to his sister. Wanted to let her know that they had arrived safely. A tickle in the pit of his stomach caused him to add confirming her safety to the list. In the same moment the landing gear skidded on the runway, he'd begun getting an uneasy feeling. As if in the time he'd been gone life had changed and not in any sort of obvious way, more in the way Chicago called him home from above the clouds. He was circling all around it, but nothing seemed clear until it was so close it could have bitten him.

---

While Rowan showered Toby paced the floor. He'd tried the apartment, the cell, even his sister's office. Sunday was never much of a reason to keep Sarah from her duties. Each time he received her almost identical voicemail message, "Hello. You've reached Sarah Williams. I'm not currently able to take your call. Please leave your name, number and a short message at the sound of the tone and I'll be happy to return your call as soon as possible. Thank you."

"Damn," he cussed as he snapped his phone shut. "Now what?"

Jabbing at the buttons on the keypad he scrolled through his address book irritated by the fact that were God himself to descend into his living room and offer him the universe in exchange for the surname he sought, it still wouldn't have been any the more obvious to him. The first name caught him, the only way he would have ever recognized it because even as he repeated 'Cass' aloud it became no more significant. The phone screen read, 'connecting…'

"Hello?" a curious voice answered.

"Laney, it's Toby," he offered, paused, and then quickly add, "Sarah's brother," just to be sure there was no confusion.

"Hey Tobe. Didn't recognize your number." Laney's nerves switched on like a light. He'd obviously been hunting for his sister. Not that it was unheard of for Toby to give Laney a call every now and again, but it usually involved Sarah in some fashion. "How was the honeymoon?" she blurted, hoping it would distract him from his original intent.

No such luck. "Fine," he told her not willing to offer any detail, not that there was much to offer. "Have you spoken to Sarah lately?"

"Sure, sure I have."

"So she's alright?"

Laney debated the morality of the lie she was about to tell. She weighed the impact of lying to Toby against Sarah's resentment of her telling him the truth. "She's fine. She just decided to take a little vacation."

"My sister? A vacation?"

"Yeah, you know, with how busy things have been at work and planning the wedding, she decided she needed a little break."

"I'll be damned. So much for leopards not changing their spots."

"Right. I was just as shocked as you," that part wasn't a lie. A short silence followed on Toby's end of the phone. Laney thought she heard him quietly slipping through a creaky door. "Tobe?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm here," he practically whispered. "Any idea when she's coming back?"

She'd anticipated this call, these questions. Rehearsed her spontaneous responses all the way home from the airport, but still she found her stomach knotted and her brow damp. "She was pretty open ended about it. Very loose. Sort of whenever-I-feel-like-it."

'Good for her,' he thought, but there was still the matter of his talking to her and the sooner the better. "Do you know where she went off to?"

"She said something about going back to New York." In the second she'd said it she tried to suck the words back in. "But then she thought about something in the islands. By the time she was finished excitedly rattling off her list it included the west coast, Europe and Singapore. She was really getting into the idea of some exotic location." Again, not a total lie.

"Listen Laney, I wouldn't want to intrude on my sister's first vacation in as long as I can remember, but I really need to talk to her."

"Everything alright?" she countered, really hoping she could be of help, really hoping she could keep him from letting Sarah do what needed to be done. "I mean, if there's something I can do I'm happy to pitch in. Your sister really deserves this down time, you know?" She thought by adding 'you know' she'd kept the comment a bit more breezy, but truly, it wasn't a breezy statement, it was meant to dissuade him. Only it hadn't. It had made him feel rotten and selfish.

"It's not a big deal. I can wait until she gets home."

Then it was Laney's turn to feel rotten and selfish, "If it's important Toby, I'm sure she'd reply to one of your messages. If I hear from her I'll be sure to let her know you need to talk to her."

"Ok, well, I should get going. Lots to do before I assimilate back into a normal routine tomorrow."

"I'm sure," she agreed as a gnawing feeling tore at her gut, knowing that 'normal' was not a word that applied to the Williams'. "Good to have you back Tobe."

Something in her voice made him wish he could have seen her just then. He heard pleading eyes in the tone of her voice and a tiny shake when she called him by name made him wish he could pull her through the phone and hold her to him until she eased the worries on her mind. Toby told himself that whatever it was likely didn't involve Sarah. He wanted to believe in Laney's integrity, but he sensed something amiss. Overwhelmed by that maternal protection usually reserved for Sarah to shower on him, he smiled. "It's good to be back Laney and if you need anything," he stressed, "please, give me a call."

"Will do," she half promised. "See ya."

Before he could say bye, he heard the connection end. Toby couldn't say for certain that something was wrong, but he knew that something wasn't right and, as usual, he was being kept in the dark, kept from helping. They'd done it to him since his parents died. Treated him like a child. It was so damned frustrating. He was no child. His childhood was stolen on a dark and rainy night when a vivid imagination dreamt up gnomes and trolls and one man who seemed to rule them all to torment his nights. His childhood was ended when his parents never came home from a ten day excursion, but still they lied to protect him. Worse still, he continued to allow it.

---

Feeling eager and alert, Sarah Williams had pulled herself up into the Captain's chair of the cinnamon Jeep Grand Cherokee and started off. Only a tenth of the way into the 70 mile stretch of I-87 North that would take her straight into the heart of the Adirondack, she realized that she really should have slept those two hours on the plane from O'Hare to Albany. Fumbling with her cell, she found it low on battery. She knew she hadn't remembered to grab the car charger when she'd left a still weeping Laney at the airport. She only hoped she'd had the sense to pack her AC charger in her flurry to leave. Sarah powered down her Nokia 9300 hoping to save what little juice was left for any roadside emergency she might encounter and chucked it in the cup holder.

A blessing in disguise, the morning sun which kissed the clouds golden when she was in flight now struck in through her windshield cleverly finding the open sides of her Miu Miu designer sunglasses and aided in forcing her awake. She'd never actually stayed awake for this entire leg of the trip, but then again, she'd always had Timothy to pilot whatever 4x4 gas guzzler they'd rented to go scaling the mountains to their own private hideaway.

Summer's humidity polished a heavy sheen on the road making it seem wet and icy even in the heat wave that had been hitting the east coast. A few times she caught herself grow reserved behind the wheel as she lost her better sense to memories of harsh winters on this same road. "Funny," she announced to a Mayfly clinging to her windshield. "I came here to escape my ghosts."

Flipping on the radio, she hoped she'd chase away any remaining distraction. Her finger fell repeatedly against the seek button as she cursed herself for not preparing better for this trip. She'd been so unlike herself of late and this trip was beginning to prove to her just how irresponsible and thoughtless she'd become. At least she was recognizing it now. Maybe all it took was a change of scenery to get her wits about her again. Maybe she could forget that nonsense she'd told Laney about calling on Jareth and just spend a few days drifting on the lake until she craved tall buildings and crowded city streets once more, as was her nature to do rather quickly.

Timothy had always accused her of that. "We should sell that place," he told her. "You never want to go there and when we do it's for a matter of hours before you're wishing we were back here. It's a waste."

As she was prone to do, she ignored him and when they parted the farmhouse became her undisputed burden. It wasn't so bad. There were several cottages on the property where the people who cared for the property and the main house lived. They charged nominal fees and in exchange, Sarah had a retreat that competed with any fantasy which she could call on anytime with only a moments notice that the staff needed to ready the house for her.

In a bitter retaliation, right after her divorce, she'd thought maybe she would meet someone and allow him to sweep her away the way Timothy had always tried to do. Perhaps, just to spite him, she let the next one do what she never allowed him to. Her best laid plans grew into distant memories as she came to realize the execution of such stony revenge would require a man she felt capable of giving herself over to and that was a concept a corporate hard header like Sarah had become couldn't fathom.

Obviously nothing worth distracting her existed anywhere between the extremes of a radio dial. Her finger jabbed hard at the power button silencing all but the rush of wind that seeped through the cracks of both front windows. Surveying the road before her, Sarah abandoned the more juvenile idea of road games like I Spy and the Alphabet game. Familiar with the road and eager to reach its end, she didn't stand much of a chance at a successful round of the License Plate game. Although it occurred to her that she was still missing Hawaii and Idaho from a game she'd started when her parents were still together and they'd decide to drive to Yellowstone in the spring of her seventh year. It occurred to her then that trip had been just as silent as this one.

Over the years she'd come to many conclusions about her parents' relationships. Anger that they had separated leaving her a broken child with a broken heart in a broken home. That segued into a three year bout of greed when she realized how easily parents who didn't live together could be pitted against one another in the name of the child's happiness. Resentment when her mother's work kept her away for obscenely long hours. Even more resentment when her father moved on with Karen. Resentment when they'd decided to have Toby without so much as consulting her.

When she'd begun dating she figured every relationship was doomed to fail and she never much worried about not being able to replace the object of her affections since in truth her father had easily replaced the woman he "loved more than life itself" with yet another woman who proved to him that "he never really knew what love was." It was so easy to excuse your mistakes with ignorance. Until Timothy. He made her want to prove her parents wrong. Show them that there was something wrong with them because they couldn't keep it together. Not her mother and her father, not her step-mother and her father. Oh sure, they stayed married, but they were so miserably unhappy in Sarah's eyes. Maybe she needed to see them that way. Maybe she saw things they were blind to. Truth was, she'd never asked the right questions or involved herself in the family they tried to create enough to know for sure.

The ink on her divorce papers hadn't had time to dry before she was condemning herself. Just like her mother. Just like her father. Just like everyone else she knew. A failure. She wallowed in that awhile before deciding it wasn't any one person's fault, it was the institution of marriage. It doomed people to fail. It set them up to fall apart.

An evergreen sign for EXIT 25 CHESTERTOWN/HAGUE waved to her from the far right of the road. Had she really spent 70 miles circling her thoughts back to Timothy? She managed to banish Jareth, for the most part, from her active mind, but she'd really only traded one love for another. Just like her mother. Just like her father. Just like everyone else she knew. Was she really so plain? So predictable?

In her youth she'd never have conceded to being mundane, never have settled for being just like everyone else. As she allowed the mountains to swallow her up, she prayed they'd spit her back out none the worse for wear, if anything she hoped they'd help her find her identity again, the spirit that was solely hers, that made her different from everyone else she knew. Had she been paying better attention to herself she'd have known that part of that identity had already found her. The careful what you wish for Sarah was showing no care at all in what she requested.

Her head threw back as she tooled down the winding dirt road that led to he farm, as though the SUV she rode was channeling her memories in order to stay on the road. In her head she cursed the radio for not playing anything decent. Then with as much enthusiasm and energy as any seven year old on a long road trip would have she began to belt out, "She'll be coming around the mountain when she comes, when she comes. She'll be coming around the mountain when she comes, when she comes. She'll be coming around the mountain, she'll be coming around the mountain, she'll be coming around the mountain when …"

---

"Vacation or not," Rowan insisted as she gripped the small of her back, "I would expect she'd be able to be reached. What if there's an emergency at her job?"

Toby never questioned the attack on his sister. He never questioned why he never questioned it. Rowan's words just always seemed reasonable to him, if not reasonable, then at least not questionable. "I think she just needed to get away from things, relax. I'm sure she'll call when she's settled."

"Well when is she coming back?"

"Don't know," he admitted nonchalantly having come to terms with the idea that she just needed as much time as she needed and no window could be put on that. "A few days, a couple of weeks."

"Well I'm not waiting all that time to tell my sisters."

This was one of those unreasonable times, but still not questionable. Rather Toby, swallowed his earnest thoughts and calmly said, "If you feel like that is what you'd like to do, by all means."

"It's not, it's not at all what I wanted to do Toby. I wanted to have everyone at a lovely dinner party and make the announcement. I wanted everyone important to us to be there. I wanted…" Whatever else it was she wanted was drowned in heavy sobs.

Nestling her into his arms, Toby held his wife while she cried, "There, there, dear. It's just the hormones talking. I'll invite Laney in Sarah's place and we'll have this dinner you're so excited for. We'll swear her to secrecy and then when Sarah arrives home," it dawned on him then that Sarah may be gone too long to keep the surprise. He grew sad momentarily and then completed his statement, "well, by the time my sister gets home we might not be able to hide the fact that I'm going to be a father anymore." His hand patted at her stomach which was already beginning to mound with the son or daughter they had made without knowing some months before their actual wedding.

---

"No, all that's not necessary Brock. The guest house will be quite enough for just me."

The ranch hand smiled sweetly down at Sarah. "Have it your way. Char has the fridge full stocked and Dru cleaned the place ceiling to floor and back up again. Hot tubs full up. Cole'll get a horse ready for you anytime you want to ride and I'm happy to run into town for you if you need anything you don't already have."

"Thank you. I really appreciate everything."

"Shucks Sarah, we all get so excited to hear you're coming it ain't like work at all. It's something like preparing for company." His hands squeezed her shoulders, "real good company." He tipped his hat as he walked back to a palomino he had tied to the front porch of the guest house. Sarah watched him undo the knot and mount his horse. "Enjoy your stay, darlin'" He hitched his heels into the horse's underbelly a time or two and gave a quick "Yayཀ" before the animal carried him off.

Sarah waved until she couldn't see them anymore. Clutching the railing of the porch she breathed in deep. The air had a quality about it that air in Chicago lacked. It was almost nourishing the way it filled her lungs and made her feel alive. How had she managed to stay away from this place? These people who obviously cared for her a great deal? The raw feel of pine beneath her fingers only made her question it more.

She liked it here at the guest house, maybe more than back at the main house even. Liked the earthy feel of the log cabin style dormer made modern by the addition of a garden tub, a whirlpool out back and a wine chiller in the kitchen. Enough woods to make you appreciate nature with enough technology to keep you from resenting it. A perfect blend. She hadn't thought about riding, but now that Brock had mentioned it she was keen on making the time.

Sarah felt her shoulders relax. She'd thought returning home would be more horrifying than this. Rather it was anything but. Giving in to her easing muscles she let her head fall. It almost felt like someone was behind her massaging her neck. She whipped around when the sensation became to believable. Perhaps she was less relaxed than she would have liked to believe.

One last survey of the sprawling acreage before her and Sarah ducked inside to unpack. She was glad to see she'd packed her AC charger for the phone and quickly connected it. Just as quickly she disconnected the line to the house. She could walkie talkie the house if she needed anything and she very much enjoyed the anonymity her cell gave her. Should she need to call anyone back home, she could say she was anywhere and they'd be powerless to dispute her.

The few outfits she'd brought managed to fill half of one drawer in the bureau. No matter, there was a full laundry back at the main house if she stayed longer. And if she didn't, well eventually they'd give her things away to charity. She caught herself wondering how long they'd search for her before giving her up to the Underground. A week, a month, a year? Laney would be the first to try to explain. Sarah regretted leaving her with that sort of responsibility. Suddenly so much occurred to her that she hadn't considered before. The things she left behind, they'd be gone through most certainly and what would the people she left behind discern of her then? If only she'd had the foresight to better prepare.

It was almost as if she'd made up her mind she would wind up forever captive in the Underground and she had yet to do so much as call on Jareth. She was over thinking things. If anything she felt more removed from him here, as though he'd not yet realized she'd left Chicago. But if that were true than she was willingly thinking of him and her theories that he possessed her were destroyed. Think of something neutral she told herself. With that suggestion she grew quite hungry. In fact, it was more of an appetite than she'd had in weeks.

Brock had understated the treasures she found in the kitchen. Chowders, casseroles, fruits, vegetables, cheeses. More than she could eat alone, more than she could eat in the time she thought she'd stay. Pushing back those thoughts she pulled out a cylindrical container labeled 'Clam Chowder' dated only the day before she'd arrived. She ladled some into a sauce pan and began to heat it slowly. The aroma filled the tiny house in no time. Even as she flipped channels from the adjacent living space she could smell it coming to life.

"A nice wine," she suggested to herself. They'd stocked that for her too. All of her old favorites. Waterfall Chardonnay shipped in from Sheldrake Point, Seyval from Heron Hill, Indigo Blush from Torrey Ridge and a sparkling Riesling from Belhurst. She quickly passed over the Kaleidoscope Chardonnay remembering that as Timothy's favorite. Ruled out the Thirsty Owl Red Moon as not quite right for accompanying seafood and in utter rebellion chose a new blend from Buttonwood Grove. Cayuga Mist. A blend of Cayuga White, of which Sarah was enormously fond and delicate cherry flavor, or so the label promised. "I think I'll give you a try," she declared. A quick rummage in the drawers procured her a cork screw.

It surely had a pleasant bouquet. The cherries announced themselves bravely and the Cayuga White spoke out in familiarity. Emptying an ounce or two into one of the glasses she plucked down from the overhead rack Sarah examined its color. Not a true blush, but not a true white either. It had barely a hint of pink, only able to be picked out when turned just the right way in the light. Over her lips it created a radiating warmth. She tasted the sweet cherries on her tongue and the muted rosemary. Something indiscernible caused her to take a second sip. Caught up in an almost smoky flavor she abandoned the vexing flavor of her first taste and decided that it would do rather nicely.

She poured a healthy glass and bowled her chowder. She put Food Network on. Nothing like eating food and watching it at the same time, but her ravenous new appetite pleaded for the sensory overload. 11:40, the DVD player pointed out as she leaned forward for her wine. "Eh, it's 12:00 somewhere." She drank it down. It complimented the chowder well. Not being overly sweet and not altering her appreciation of the dish any. After this, she'd take a nap. She felt a heavy sleep wearing on her. Not that she found it to be too unusual. Not having slept well in far too many nights, she rather welcomed it.

A nap, then. And after her nap, she'd ask Cole to bring her a horse. A lazy mare to take her strolling through the paths in the wood or perhaps an old gelding to take her on a moderate trot through the open fields. Then a good long soak in the tub. A few more glasses of wine and maybe she'd feel brave enough to summon the demons of her past, confront them and force them to end their reign of torment upon her. "Chowder is a very empowering meal," she told the international food critic who was going on and on about curry at the moment.

---

Rapidly changing hormones, Toby chalked it all up to a process he decided he was never meant to understand. The woman who only moments earlier was weeping madly on his shoulder was now set up at their dining table with the phone book making call after call in order to book the perfect location at which to announce they would be starting a family in just a few short months. It hit him then as he watched her busying with the details that nothing about him, nothing about this house was prepared for fatherhood. What a terrible time for Sarah to come to her senses.

Rowan seemed the kind of woman who would easily be able to walk him through the process. She'd know just what needed bought and built. She'd tell him what needed taken out of the house or child proofed if it were to stay. His wife, the woman he had chosen above all others could do many things, but she couldn't give him the parental insight that he craved right now. He had hoped, one day, when he was on the brink of being a father himself he would sit with his own father, they'd go out on the porch where all great father son heart to heart talks took place. Over a cold beer he'd fill Toby in on the joys and perils of parenthood. Summing it all up at one point with something to the effect of, "but it's all worth it son, because there are moments like these." Then they'd embrace, a warm but manly embrace.

That particular image wasn't meant to be for well before Toby could reach this moment in his life his father had been taken from him. As had his mother. Now the moment arrived, only his sister remained to give him any sort of advise and she was missing. He wished then he had been a little more agreeable with her when she tried to mother him. Not having the fortune to conceive her own children, she'd never truly mothered anyone before, but he was young and angry, so angry that his parents were gone. Who the hell were they to leave their son before he had grown? And more so, to leave him with his elder half sibling who had done little more than to torment him at every turn?

Needless to say, he rejected her every attempt. Be it a gentle touch, a presented meal, her time, her attention, even her money, Toby turned his nose to them all. He wanted parents, mother or father and Sarah was neither. Tears dripped from his chin as he recalled how stubborn he was. Perhaps he deserved a little of the arm's length Sarah had chosen to keep him at since then? Perhaps he had created this void between them? When she got back, he'd take her out to dinner on his own. Just Toby and Sarah, like it always should have been back then, he'd start by apologizing to her in general for being such a bratty kid, then he'd pick a few of the more glorious examples to apologize for in specific.

There was the time he decided to sample her wines. When he realized he'd drunk enough to be noticeable, he took red wine vinegar from the kitchen and poured it into a $250 bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon ruining the entire bottle. More than one time he'd bring friends home from school when Sarah was working late to eat her out of house and home. None were very particular about where they left their food and drink, their dirty shoes or otherwise. Any number of stains which Sarah had to pay to have professionally removed marred her carpet and furniture. Above all the innocent mischief he managed, Toby had done one thing, one truly malicious thing, when he was young and for that he would apologize the most.

It was summer, an outrageously hot summer for Chicago. Heat index was up over 110. Sarah took Toby for a hair cut since he was getting a little shaggy around the ears. He squirmed in his seat like a fish, complaining that all the kids wore their hair longer. Sarah's stylist wasn't used to grooming teenagers, she had more affluent clients, mature, mostly women and she grew easily frustrated. Toby heard her bring out the shears, he saw her with those rows of teeth aimed at his precious golden amber locks and he went mute. Gone off to finish her errands, which would be easier without a fussy adolescent in tow, Sarah couldn't stop her and when she returned to the salon to get him, Toby's face was coated in horror. A mere quarter inch of stubble gracing his tiny skull.

Sarah collected her brother without comment. Anything she had to say would have only made it worse, so in silence they walked home. She put him to bed, as she always did and tried to kiss him goodnight. This night she succeeded. He was still partial comatose after his trauma at the salon. Running her hand over his polished dome, Sarah missed his floppy ringlets. Mist clouded her vision making her sure she'd brought home the wrong child. More for herself then for him she whispered, "It'll grow back, baby."

He seethed. Baby? He was no baby and his sister needed to figure that out. So he waited. He waited until he heard the television go mute. Waited until he heard her climb the creaky stairs. Waited another 40 minutes passed that when he was sure she'd be asleep. Then he crept so silently up those steps, armed with a pair of scissors. Not the clean fresh kind that are designed for crisp lines. They were perfectly functional for cutting hair, but mostly that had been used for wrapping and unwrapping They had been drug through tape, cut tape, held things in place to spare fingers from glue. Sure they were perfect for cutting hair, that is if you wanted it all choppy and uneven like some sort of punk rock asymmetrical statement cut.

She always slept in a ponytail, gathered low at the nape of her neck. Toby clutched the white band and worked his scissors through his sister's hair with no sort of precision whatsoever. Angle up, angle down, nipping tiny bits, shearing giant chunks. More than three-quarters through she stirred. Not enough to wake, mind you, but enough to send a frightened little boy rocketing down the steps and under the covers of his bed hoping that his thumping heart couldn't be heard outside the confines of his room.

Toby grew his hair out in a few short months and Sarah never recommended a cut again, certainly not at a salon. She let him go to the barber like his father used to take him to. In exchange he sat still and let them trip away the parts that curled up to tickle his ear and agitate his collar. Sarah said nothing to him the next morning. She only asked him to bring a book and sit quietly in the salon waiting area as she got her hair done. He never saw the result of his midnight revenge. His sister had amazing dignity, even in the most heated circumstance she showed a coolness that he envied.

He remembered that afternoon as though he'd had a picture of them on his mantel. She wore a rich java Lafayette wide leg trouser coupled with a beige bohemian tunic that melted into a dark truffle as it reached her waist line. Rouched suede ankle boots that matched the gold silk scarf she'd tied around her hair, or lack thereof. She'd managed to even up the bottom edge as best she could under the circumstances and would allow Rhonda, her stylist to make it over into something presentable.

Sitting in the chair she picked up a copy of Vogue and flipped through the pages casually while Toby watched on. He was taken with her reserve. In fact, it was the stylist who showed more disconcert than Sarah. He admired her for it. Respected the way she rose above what had been thrown her way, transcended it, made it seem natural and part of life. Even so, he had never apologized for it. Sarah kept her hair short after that, until she started growing it out for his wedding. Part of him assumed she had done it to remind him how obnoxious he truly could be.

Wiping his eyes, Toby let out a huge sigh. At least now he had a plan. Flipping open his phone, he called Sarah's cell. She didn't answer so he left a message. Something breezy that wouldn't disturb her vacation, that wouldn't say 'help me' at least not too loudly. He ended it with, "I love you sis. Hope you're having a good time."

Rowan practically flew into his lap before he had a chance to make his next call. She thrust a steno pad so close to his eyes he could barely make out the color of the ink let alone anything it may have said. His hand covered hers and moved the pad back several inches. "Sai café? You can't have sushi while you're pregnant."

"I know. I wouldn't eat sushi anyway. I checked and they have a tempura veggie dish as well as several meatless salads and soups. We're on for Thursday at seven."

"Thursday?"

Losing some of her enthusiasm she asked, "Is something wrong with Thursday?"

"It's so soon," he muttered, trailing off in the thought that Sarah would never be home by then.

"Aren't you excited to make our news public," Rowan asked, scrutinizing her husband.

Toby smiled. "More excited than there are words for," he said kissing her passionately. "Must we wait until Thursday."

"Yes, it will be so much more fun to tell everyone at once. You'll see."

Sadly he added, "Almost everyone."

"If your sister doesn't come home when she gets any one of the hundred messages you've left her then I say it only goes to speak of her selfishness."

"Selfishness?" Toby stopped her. "She arranged our entire wedding Rowan."

"And why not? She's the only family you have," Rowan huffed. "I would expect she would want to be involved in her brother's wedding, her brother who she raised. Now you're about to be a father and I would think that if I had parents left they would be concerned enough with that bit of news to end whatever frolicking they were doing to come home for one meal."

"Well she doesn't know that's why I'm asking her to call me back you know."

"Oh she'd know. If she were any kind of a blood sister, she'd know. You're a healthy young man Toby, fresh home from your honeymoon. What other news could you possibly have?"

Though he disagreed completely with Rowan's harsh analysis of his sister, it seemed so reasonable that he left it lie. "Thursday at seven. You best inform your sisters then." She sprung from his lap with as much enthusiasm as she had landed in it and went off to their bedroom to make the calls. Toby looked at his phone and thumbed through the recently called numbers. "Laney, it's Toby again. What are you doing Thursday night?"

---

"Thanks again Cole," Sarah expressed as she handed him the reigns of the chestnut gelding that she had spent the better part of the afternoon with. Swatting the hind quarter of the animal, she turned to leave.

"My pleasure Miss Williams," Cole smiled. She wasn't facing him, but she could hear the bright beam in his tone of voice and she knew that no fewer than six of his pearly perfect teeth were visible and clenching down on his lower lip as he tended to do when he smiled.

Looking back at him from the side of the Jeep Sarah remembered the way Timothy had always chided her about his being in love with Sarah from a distance. "No one smiles like that at someone they have only a 'working relationship' with. I'm telling you. I think one of these days he'll send me out on the ranch's wildest stallion hoping I don't come back and he can have you all to himself. She smiled broadly at the way he had teased her. Perhaps there was a portion of truth to it. After all, it was a handsome smile. When she realized he was still standing there with the horse in hand, Sarah waved.

"Good to have you here Miss Williams," he shouted tipping his hat.

Sarah approached him slowly, curious to finally find out if Timothy had been right in his accusations. "How long have you worked for my family Cole?"

His eyes met the dirt the closer she got. "Aw, I came here to work with my father when I turned eighteen ma'am."

She remembered now. Her dad had bought this place when she turned sixteen. His effort to bring the family together and more importantly to give Sarah some distraction from her mother's runs in New York and the fantasy world which had begun to consume her. Cole was the first man at the ranch under 30 which to a sixteen year old girl seemed like a stone's through from retirement. He'd come on to apprentice his father the first spring after the Williams acquired the property. He taught her how to ride. She supposed that had it been in her to notice boys at that age she might have had a crush on him were he even half as handsome as he were now.

"Nineteen years," she sighed, "and you're still calling me Miss Williams."

"You are my boss."

"I'm no one's boss," she told him and it felt good to say. "I'm just Sarah, Sarah Williams. The same little girl you taught to ride a horse, the same one you picked up and dusted off more times than I care to remember."

"I can't believe you remember that," Cole said finally looking up at her.

"Sure I remember that. You wanted to start me off on a pony, but I insisted on a horse and just as polite as anything you said, 'Whatever you want Miss Williams.' You even gave me a leg up into the saddle."

"As I recall, ma'am, you never actually made it into the saddle that day."

Sarah cocked her eyebrow, "I didn't."

"No ma'am. You kept landing in the dirt on the other side of that horse until you got so fed up with the whole thing that you stomped back to the house mumblin' something about not wanting to ride a stupid horse anyway."

Blushing, Sarah looked away. "I was a pretty impetuous girl I suppose."

"You came back the next day though. You came back, got that horse out of the barn, climbed that fence and got up on her all by your lonesome." Cole smiled that smile of his once again. "Course, you couldn't so much as get her to break a trot…at first."

"Oh no," she caught her face in her hands. "I sat up there trying every command I could think of to get that nag to go. I whispered them, I shouted them. I tugged on her reigns. Until throwing a tantrum I heaved a sigh and jolted in my seat."

"That horse took off like a bolt. I don't know how you stayed up on her."

"I grabbed the reigns for dear life and pulled myself down where I could hold her by the neck."

"I chased you two down for 200 yards or more before I could get her to stop."

When he did manage to finally stop the horse, Sarah fell off into his arms, her face stained with tears. He seemed so much more than eighteen to her then. Cole hadn't been in a hurry to get her on her feet. He didn't chastise her for being foolish only held her to him as if she weighed no more than the clothes she wore. Repeatedly he told her, "It's okay Miss Williams, you're safe now," and Sarah took great stock in those words. Safety had become a paramount concern to her at a very early age.

Sensing that she was remembering that day with a certain degree of embarrassment he interjected, "But the next summer when you came back, I taught you how to ride proper. You picked it up like a duck to the water."

"Can I confess something to you?" Cole looked at her with a hint of suspicion. "I had daddy sign me up for lessons when we got home so that by the time I didn't make an ass out of myself when I came back here."

"Here I thought I was just a good teacher," he pretended to pout.

"You were, you were," Sarah stammered lost in the memory of her father.

As if the man before her sensed her thoughts, he brought his hands up to caress her shoulders, "I'm very sorry about your father Miss Williams. He was a good man. Good to me and my father all those years. The whole staff was devastated when we lost him."

"Thank you," she said, whipping her eyes with the backs of her hands. "Believe it or not I still wish he was here sometimes, even all this time later."

Cole pulled her into his arms. She didn't argue, rather she settled into his shoulder inhaling deeply the smell of his line dried shirt, the sun heating up the cotton and giving off a faint scent of the detergent. "It's okay Miss Williams. I still miss my own father every now and again that is until I realize that he's still here in everything I do. He's part of me, part of this land. Then I just take a deep breath and tell myself, 'Cole, work ain't meant to do itself.' That's what he used to tell me."

For a moment or two Sarah let herself weigh on him listening to his words that made him seem wiser than 37, absorbing the comfort he always had seemed able to provide, letting him stroke her hair while she searched her mind for some pearl that she could use to motivate herself when she got to missing him this way. She never did find one. Not everyone grew up in a family that was close, in a family that loved and taught and nurtured. She'd accepted that along time ago, but Cole's words made her want better for what little family she had that remained. She made a promise that she would come up with something for Toby to remember her by, something more than just a bedtime story.

"You alright Sarah?" Cole asked after a time.

Realizing that her sudden dependence on his affection was probably a bit awkward for him, she stood on her own feet. The summer air that rushed in between them gave her a chill where his body had been making her aware of how much she missed having the closeness of someone to rely on. "You called me Sarah," she kidded.

"Well now, you said you weren't nobody's boss and since you're the boss and all I guess that means you know what you're talking about."

"Damn right," she announced with feigned confidence. Balancing herself by placing a hand on her waist Sarah lifted on to her tippy toes and planted a grateful kiss on his cheek. "Thank you Cole."

When her heels hit the dirt she turned to go back to her car. She never looked back at his reaction, never heard him smile, never knew that he whispered, "Anytime Sarah," into the ball of dust her tires kicked up as she headed back to the guest house.

---

Slamming the door behind her, Sarah sat and cried. Would she only ever want the closeness and the comfort and the consolation of a man? Would she never love anyone again? How was that fair? It wasn't. That was the single biggest difference between Chicago and New York. There in the city life was blatantly unfair, but in upstate New York, amongst so much peace and quiet you expected equality. From the time the sun kissed you good morning until Mother Nature sang you to sleep with chirping crickets at night no one dare frown or cause a frown for that matter.

Here she was, so filled with unfairness, feeling like she didn't belong anywhere, her tears marring the paradise that was this tiny town. "Enough," she decided. There was a perfectly good garden tub designed for chasing away just this kind of sorrow and she had yet to put so much as a drop of water in it. While she waited for the tub to fill she warmed a hunk of lasagna in the microwave and ate. She pulled out the bottle of Thirsty Owl Red Moon and took a generous glass to the tub with her.

Shutting off the lights, Sarah lit a candle or two. The heat of the water gave her goose bumps as she slipped inside. Evening had fallen fast as it did in the mountains. Moonlight poured in through the sky light dimming some of the golden hue of the flames. Wishing she'd set some music to play, Sarah debated getting out of the tub, but a quick look about told her that wine and candles was all a sore heart really needed to soothe itself. She washed lackadaisically drawing a soap cloth over her skin as if the trail of bubble it left behind were magic.

Sitting back she decided to soak. Sarah sipped her wine as she lie her head back into the built in rest. Thirsty Owl was not a winery she was familiar with, but she had to admit they made a full bodied wine. It felt silky on her palette, full of flavor and it's bouquet was strong, making her regret a little less that she had failed to add crystals to her bath water. She'd have Brock order down another bottle or three. Sarah let out a much needed sigh doing her best to exhale her concerns one at a time. This was the remedy she sought.

In came the fresh mountain air through her nose, straight up to her brain where it gathered some horrid thought, some tragic memory, some bit of stress or nonsense and spat it out her mouth back in the night where it could be carried to the top of the highest peak and abandoned. Why hadn't she come here sooner? Flirting with idea of sleeping in the tub, Sarah quickly reminded herself the water would get cold. Her better sense and lesser sense came to the agreement that she would continue this therapy of sorts until she felt no energy left in her but for what she needed to stand and drag her feet back to the bedroom.

An hour or more passed, Sarah's only motion the lifting of a toe to turn the knob to add more hot water to the tub. Finally she had to confess that if she possessed enough energy to drag herself back to the bedroom it would be a miracle. She struggled to her feet. On the wall hung a white fluffy robe as if she'd never been away from this cabin. Slipping it on, she managed to trap in a little of the heat from her bath, that is, what the cracked window didn't steal away. Flipping the drain switch she watched a moment as the water sucked down. It made her dizzy and she braced herself against the wall before closing her eyes.

She'd never fallen asleep standing before, but if it could be done, it could be done tonight. Her better sense spoke inside her head, "ah, ah, ah, you promised me you'd make it to the bedroom."

"Bedroom," she mumbled as she shuffled her feet down the hall. In the morning, she'd have a good laugh unable to recall how she got here, but for now, she wanted rest. Tossing back the quilted bed cover Sarah slid between the sheets, leaving her fluffy white robe in a heap on the floor. "No dreams," she bartered, "just sleep."

---

"Oh it's an absolute dream," one of Rowan's sisters squealed as they entered Sai Café. It was very well decorated with authentic Japanese art, sketchings of horses and a muted jade kimono. The seats were all black, the walls all white, hints of cream and gold about giving it a very distinguished look. Toby tried to hang back by the entryway while his wife and her entourage were seated. They were a few minutes early for their reservation, but the wait staff was efficiently shuffling them in anyway. Laney hadn't shown, not yet.

He'd googled directions from her place to the restaurant on North Sheffield Avenue in Lincoln Park, but Laney didn't frequent Lincoln Park. It was much more a college community than it once had been, what if she were lost. "Toby? Tobyཀ" Rowan called from the table where she'd been placed between her guests and next to an empty chair. Her shrill command was enough to draw him over.

No sooner had his backside touched the black enamel of his chair, did he see Laney come through the door. Her hair had been pinned up with two chopsticks and she wore a snug fitting red dress emblazed in a gold and black dragon pattern. Even the hostess who brought her to the table marveled over it. Toby stood when they brought her to the table ignorant to the way the other women looked at her with disgust. "You look great," he smiled, taking her hand and kissing her cheek.

"I thought it was sort of fun," she mused back. "Hello…everyone," she recovered from having forgotten all of their names, but Rowan's with a catch all.

The only open seat was across the table from Rowan, she got up to head for it, but was quickly offered the seat next to Toby in lieu of breaking the sisters apart. "Thank you," Toby told his non-sibling-in-law.

"Welcome to Sai Café," their waiter said. "My name is Yan and I will be happy to take your order, please."

"We'll all start with the clear soup and the cucumber salad," Rowan announced with no prior discussion with anyone at the table. "I would like the Edamame and the Vegetable Tempura please."

"To drink?" Yan asked.

"Green tea, but do bring a round of saki for my guests. We're celebrating."

Yan went around the table taking the orders for Sashimi and Dragon Maki, Ten Don and Yose-Nabe. The entire time Laney sat trying to make sense of the menu. Toby piped up when the water came by, he indicated to both he and Laney, "We'll have the Chilean Sea Bass and we'll split an order of the Gyo-Za." Handing back the menus, he leaned in to tell Laney, "It's the safest thing on the menu, trust me."

"Thanks," she sighed with relief.

Bowing to his guests, Yan promised to return with drinks and headed to the kitchen already beginning to call out the order before he'd left the dining room.

Laney sat quietly, her hands folded in her lap doing her best to not make any direct contact with any of the pairs of scrutinizing eyes being laid upon her. Toby had asked her to come in Sarah's absence and she was here for him. To hell with anyone else and any of their judgments. Beneath the crisp white cloth that covered the table Toby patted the back of her right hand. She smiled and tried to appear at ease, but she doubted she was fooling anyone.

True to his word, Yan arrived with a tray of tea, water and shot glass of saki. When everyone had been served, Rowan stood. She dragged Toby up next to her. "We want to make an announcement," she began. Everyone grew attentive. In her right hand she raised her cup of green tea while her left arm pulled her blouse tight around the bulge already showing at her middle. "Toby and I are going to have a baby." Everyone seemed to forget about the drinks as they clamored around her asking questions about due dates and how she was feeling. Everyone but Laney who quickly downed her shot. Toby glanced over at her with a half smile and a raised eyebrow and nudged his glass in her direction. She downed his too with a subtle nod of appreciation.

---

"Pregnant?" Sarah repeated.

"Yes, pregnant" Laney confirmed. "That's why Toby's been trying to get in touch with you."

"Jesus Christ, pregnant. Pregnant?"

"Say it as many times as you want, it's not changing."

"How far along?"

"Twenty-two weeks, whatever that means. She explained the whole calculation process over sushi, if you can imagine, but I don't get it. She's twenty-two weeks along, entering her twenty-third week, but they add two weeks and, regardless she's due in November."

Sarah paced. She'd been so busy enjoy the horses and the bubble baths and the wine these last few days that she'd not even bothered to check her messages and now that she had, she surely wished she hadn't. "They were gone a couple of weeksཀ"

"They obviously got pregnant before the wedding Sarah. You don't just swell up overnight." Laney didn't much care for the why-didn't-you-do-something-to-stop-this attitude she was getting through the phone.

"Sonofabitchཀ I knew she had to trick him into marrying her. I knew itཀ"

"He's happy, Sar. Toby's happy about it. I mean I don't think he's happy about her chirpy little friends who insisted on every detail shy of the actual conception, but generally I think he wants to be a dad, and I know he wants to talk to you."

Sarah stayed silent a moment, wondering why he'd want her when she had been such a terrible parental figure to him in the past. "What good is my calling him going to do? Say I don't come back from here? What's that going to help?"

"You're not coming back?"

"I don't know yet. I haven't tried to contact him yet."

"Jareth?"

"No, the pope. Of course Jareth."

Laney asked hesitantly, "Has he contacted you?"

"No. I haven't heard a voice, had a dream, done something insane since I've been here. I have to admit, I'm not sure I should tempt fate."

"Maybe you just needed a break, maybe everything will be fine if you come home now."

"I don't know," Sarah admitted weakly, "Maybe he just hasn't found me here yet."

"And when he does, where will you run then? How often will you pick up and go? How many times will you leave your brother to wonder if you're coming back?"

Sounding almost forlorn, Sarah admitted, "He'll have his own family to worry about soon."

"You're still his family. Damn it, every time you do this, every time. Just because someone new comes into someone else's life Sarah they do not stop loving youཀ Toby needs his sister. I need my friend, and above all, you cannot run away from your problems. They find you, they always do. What the hell happened to the at girl that had the enormous set of brass balls when she was leaving for the airport?"

"She came here. She found sanity. She doesn't want to stir things up."

"And to hell with the shit she's stirring up for everyone else?"

"What am I stirring up?" Sarah shouted, a little more than resentful that Laney wasn't taking into consideration that only a few days ago she'd been knee deep in a break down.

Laney spat back at her like an angry cat, "How about I didn't ask for a little brother? How about Toby didn't ask to go through life alone? How about this baby needs some sort of positive influence since everyone associated with that sister-in-law of yours is wacko?"

"Oh and I'm so normal?" Sarah interjected.

"Fuck this," Laney said rather simply, "I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to feed into the whole poor Sarah, the world is so unfair to her bullshit you seem to cycle through every twenty years. Get over itཀ Look it in the eye and tell it to piss off or sit by and let it rule your life, I don't care anymore, but don't expect me to be you Sarah. Don't expect me to pick up the pieces and keep it together while you're too busy. I'm not up to it. You're not the only one with too much on your plateཀ"

Cell phones had pretty much eliminated the drama of a really good hang up. You couldn't hear that telltale slam of receiver against cradle, but you knew that it was what happened. You guessed that the person whose voice you were only all too aware of just seconds ago was now depressing a red button or snapping closed a cellular phone with as much anger as such a gentle action could afford. What's worse, you knew you deserved it.

Without even trying Sarah was managing to distance herself from everyone she cared about. All for the best, when she considered Laney's last out burst. "Look it in the eye and tell it to piss off or sit by and let it rule your life…" She had to make that decision now, she always needed to, but it seemed like there was nothing else to distract her from it now. Well maybe one thing.

---

It felt good to hear a voice that wanted her, a soft, gentle, welcoming tone that didn't threaten or chastise. "How ya doin' Tobe?"

"I'm fine, fine. More importantly, how are you?"

"You know. Just lying around catching up some reading."

"That's great Sarah. I'm glad you're finally taking some time for yourself."

"Yeah, I guess." Silence followed, both of them trying to believe Sarah's sincerity. "So I hear you've got some big news for me."

"I told Laney not to say anything to you," he said disappointed. "Oh well, never mind, cat's out of the bag now. I'm gonna be a daddy sis. Can you get over that?"

"Just do right by him Tobe. Don't be like our father, don't be like your mother, for God's sake don't be like me. Do right by him."

"Mom and dad weren't so bad," she noticed right away that Toby hadn't mentioned her. "And you were great. I don't think I ever told you that, but I gave you a fair bit of trouble when you had to take responsibility for me and you took it all in such stride. I used to think you were just unflappable, but I realize now that you were being patient with me, letting me find my own way. I see that now."

Sarah choked back tears, "Is that what I did?"

"Come on sis, you know you gave me a lot of space when I was a kid."

"Yeah well, what do I know about parenting, right?"

He hadn't meant to strike a nerve, but on this topic it was nearly impossible not to. "So what do you want a niece or a nephew?"

"Don't see as I have much say in it."

"Well, no, but we all have our hopes."

"I just hope he's healthy and you're happy."

Toby jumped on her, "Ah haཀ You said he."

"I guess I did." Sarah sat there her cell phone collecting the tears that rolled freely down her cheek, reflecting on what it had been like to have this little baby boy in her arms. Even as a grown man she still saw him as so young and defenseless, maybe she didn't treat him that way, but he was and always would be her little brother. She hoped he would do better with his, break the Williams family cycle of removed parenting and emotional neglect.

"When you coming home Sar?" Toby asked after the prolonged period of dead air.

"Don't know kid."

"Kid?" he asked. "I haven't heard you call me kid since I was twelve."

"Yeah well, enjoy the flashback."

"Sarah, I really want you to be here when the baby comes. I need my big sister."

'That's the last thing you need,' she thought.

"You know I'm gonna need advice on how to hold him and feed him and get him to sleep. I'll need help with picking a name. I'd sort of like to name him after dad. What do you think?"

Lost in reverie, Sarah's reply was almost mechanical. "Give him his own name. What until you look at him, see what comes to you, then name him."

"Great advice, sis. See this is just the kind of stuff I'm talking about."

"November is a long time from now Toby."

"I know," he hemmed and hawed, "but, well, stuff comes up. I worry about things that haven't happened yet and I worry about things I don't even know to expect. I'd like to have someone to talk to."

"You've got Rowan…and Laney," she added like it as an afterthought.

As sincerely as any Hallmark card Toby replied, "But I want you."

'Damnit,' Sarah cursed to herself. Why'd he have to say that? Why'd he have to let her know he really cared. "Look Toby, I need some time to relax, if I can, I'll come home."

"If?" he asked frantic.

"If I can come home before the baby gets here."

"Well can I call you?"

"You can try." Sarah paused, but Toby was lost for a response. "I gotta go Tobe. I love you."

That sole admission shocked him more than anything else. He hadn't heard her tell him she loved him, at least not with that much conviction in a long time. "I love you too Sarah," he replied trying to match her sentiment. He tried to say more, tried to add a 'take care' or something to the effect, but it was too late. Staring at the phone in his hand he tried desperately to make sense of what had just happen and hoped desperately that his sister heard his sentiment because a sickening feeling that seemed to chill him from within suggested it might be the last thing he got to say to her.

---

Thirsty Owl. She read the label over and over again. On the floor in front of the fireplace, in the hot tub, horizontal with her head on the pillow. Thirsty Owl. Until now the connection didn't seem near as obvious as it did in this moment. A brand new blend, more tempting and savory than any of the other dozen wines in the cabinet. Brock did as he was instructed to do and brought her back a case of the rich red blend. For almost two weeks now she'd holed up in the cabin, ignoring calls from her staff, ignoring Cole pounding on the door, she nibbled at food, but mostly she drank.

Red Moon. Not so true, in fact the moon was porcelain white in a navy sky littered with tiny silver specks. Sarah threw open the French doors. "Alright then Jareth, so you found me here too," she shouted into the night. "Only it took me a little longer to pick up on it." Surveying the bottle in her hand, she abandoned the glass, barely taking notice of it crashing at her feet and began suckling from the bottle like a new born calf at its mother. "You win. I've lost my job, my brother, my only real friend. Lost it all. You win. Are you happy? Is this what you wanted?" Shaking hands smoothed back her frazzled hair. "Come on Jareth, have a drink?" She poured a little wine onto the back porch. "Can't we talk this over."

When no one responded, Sarah pulled the collar of her robe tighter around her and went back inside. The couch welcomed her as she fell, seemed to hold her with comfort. "Goblin King, Goblin King, wherever you may be," she began. "Oh wait, I've got nothing you want." Her hand patted at her barren belly. "Alright, alright, look if you come to me I'll give you my brother's kid. He thinks he wants it, but he doesn't. Trust me he doesn't." Rambling on as if Jareth were sitting in the seat across from her, Sarah continued, "and that witch he's married to doesn't deserve it. So yeah, if you come talk to me, I'll give you my brother's kid. Of course you have to wait a few months, but what's a few months to someone who understands the real meaning of forever right? Right?"

The night wind blew roughly for such a calm night and it frightened Sarah some. She didn't really know what she was saying. She only really half meant to call him in the first place. What had been fascination had turned to fear. Putting the bottle on the table, Sarah sat back, kicking up her feet. "See that. I knew you were chicken. I called you and you didn't show up. Coward. I wish you were here," she mumbled, barely awake. "I wish you were here...so I could tell you just what I think of you."

---

Blissful in the oblivion of sleep, Sarah felt a dream washing over her. No water, no sand, just vast open air. Huge clouds, kissed by a sun the rest of the world had yet to see, it was beautiful, but had she had access to a time machine, had she been able to fast forward this dream she'd not have been so content. In hindsight, she would rather have faced a very real and very angry Jareth than the painful reverie she was about to relive.

Omnipresence couldn't have been more lovely than it was from this vantage point. Not quite God quality, but decidedly super-human. Like flying without the plane, Sarah floated above the clouds, if it hadn't been for her racing heart, she might have imagined herself dead again. Blood pounded in her temples though she couldn't imagine what was causing so much anxiety in such a peaceful place as this. A jumble of voices scrambled in the distance and Sarah felt herself drawn toward it, not mentally drawn, not ready to eavesdrop on the commotion, but physically pulled toward a spot where the voices seemed to separate and clear.

"Miss Williams, I'm very sorry." Sarah knew that voice. She couldn't put a face to it, but she had never in her life since heard a voice like that. It sounded so sweet, so friendly and then sorrowful and cold, mechanical. "It's never easy to break this kind of news to a family." Chills ran up her back like cold steel, making her grow rigid. That faceless voice, the one that told her she no longer had a father. It was coming now, again. In a moment, the woman on the other end would tell her there had been a terrible accident, that her parents' plane, the layover they caught in Heathrow had gone down into the Atlantic. They had no evidence of pilot error, no reports of mechanical error, it was as if Neptune's hand had reached up from the depths of the ocean and seized the tiny craft as if it were a toy. "No survivors have been found of yet, but while I don't want to tell you to abandon hope…"

Hope, that thing the weak clung to when reality better showed us truth. Hope, what everyone seemed to encourage when all else was gone. Hope, for Sarah, it was unattainable, unrealistic and unnecessary. She was an adult. She didn't need parents. She wanted to shout into the line, "So my father's dead. Fine, what needs done now? Arrangements to be made? Check to be sent? What?"

Stopping her in her linear track of thought, the woman on the other end concluded her statement, "but there is the matter of their minor child."

Toby.

"I'm afraid there are no other relatives but you Miss Williams and we at the agency feel it is always best to contact any relatives before integrating a child into foster care."

Foster care!

"Will you be coming to collect the boy?"

Collect the boy?

"Yes," she said quickly, not really considering just what a commitment that was. "Where…" how do you ask this sort of thing, "Where…can I…collect him?" Turning her words around on her, Sarah took up a pen ready to scrawl down an address.

"Your parents' home ma'am. He's there with one of our foster mothers. We feel it's best to leave a child with as much familiarity as possible until his new parents are available."

"Thank you." The phone met the cradle with authority. Until his new parents are available, as if they're being manufactured somewhere and there's a three-day shipping wait or something. She dialed her parents' number. It was strange to hear a foreign voice answer. "Hello, are you with…" she only now realized she hadn't asked the agency name, "…are you looking after my brother, Toby?"

"Yes, ma'am. You must be Sarah. They said they would call you. Will you be taking your brother, then?"

As if there were some other more logical plan for him? "Of course," Sarah told her. I'll be on the first possible plane, but I may not get there until late tonight. I'm prepared to offer you twice your normal salary if you'll stay with him in his home overnight."

"I'm a volunteer Miss Williams and staying here with Toby until whatever such time you're able to arrive would be my complimentary privilege."

The dig was wasted on Sarah whose mind was already racing with things to do. There were calls to make, bags to pack, reservations to call in, a car to rent. So much to do, and through it all she wondered if she should call Timothy. He wasn't particularly close to her parents, but he'd always been in love with Toby. Treating him as the son Sarah never gave him, spending more time with him than Sarah did, neither uncommon for him.

"I do," Sarah told the invisible persons whose conversation she had replayed. "I do call him and he agrees to fly out with me. He wants to be there to help Toby. Bad news changes everything I suppose," she went on telling the clouds all about her past, a past they seemed already too familiar with. "His fiancé didn't bat an eye when he told her where he was headed, why he needed to go. Timothy wouldn't have dared so much as phone Sarah let alone fly off to New York with her otherwise. Once he'd moved on, he'd moved on." She'd wager she never even crossed her mind these days.

"He picked me up at my place, drove us to O'Hare. I stared out the window the whole time. He tried to talk to me, but I barely did more than nod or grunt. We got on this plane, it was a smaller plane than I had ever flown in before, but it was the earliest flight we could get. It left at 8:30. I hated flying at night, but what choice did I have. I remember he hoisted my luggage into the overhead and took the window seat knowing how much I hated it. There were maybe another dozen people with us on that flight, so I left the seat between us empty and sat on the aisle."

Below her Sarah saw a plane. Her body pulled towards it, she felt herself fall through the plated exterior and into the soft leather seat inside. As she landed the plane shook. Timothy had his window pulled shut, a magazine open in his lap, but he didn't look disturbed any. Nervously her hands clasped over the buckle at her midsection. Turbulence. She hated turbulence. It seemed to be over though. The back of the seat in front of her had a Wall Street Journal in it, Sarah plucked it out. By the time she was done snapping it inside out and folding it in half to read the stock breakdown the plane was shaking again. Only this time it kept shaking.

How would this be? Her brother's parents and only living relative both killed in plane crashes on the same day. What a story that would be to tell? Next thing she knew she'd forgotten how to breathe. Dropping the paper, she clutched the arms of her seat and bent forward making the most awful wheezing sound. Timothy saw her, white knuckled, gasping and quietly folded his magazine, undid his seatbelt and moved over into the middle seat. Peeling back Sarah's fingers, he held her small cold hand against his chest. Confusion ruled her pleading eyes.

"Shhhh," he told her. Leaning over, his deep voice whispered smoothly in her ear, "Just relax. Breathe with me. It's just a little turbulence Sarah. This is not your parents plane. You're safe." For a second it made things worse. Having him so close, knowing that he knew her so well, his voice soothing her like tea over a swollen throat, she found it harder to breathe. "Feel my chest," oh she felt it alright. "Feel it rise and fall. Nice and steady, breathe in, breathe out. That's it." She was breathing with him by then, obeying his instructions like a small child.

Something about him seemed more electric, more appealing than when he had been hers. Her hand on his chest seemed illicit, particularly the finger that couldn't reach the other side of his unbuttoned shirt and so fell against his bare skin. The way he sounded, the way he smelled, it was all so different. When her brain had been fully replenished the oxygen she'd deprived it, Sarah turned her head to look at him, this man she once pledged to love until death.

In the seat, his head back, holding her hand to his chest, his eyes closed. Sarah wanted to kiss him, wanted to hold him close to her with nothing between them. She wanted to feel alive and in that moment she saw him not as the man she once knew, but as energy, a rough commanding energy that wanted to take charge of her and in fact had. This was part of what she had always wanted from him when they were together. Death was all around her. Externally in that her father was gone. Karen was gone. Stuck in her head that she would be next. She wanted to feel alive and Timothy was the most alive she'd felt in months.

When he became aware of her stare, Sarah did nothing to hide the blush on her cheeks. She let want stain her face like cheap rouge. Her eyes roamed his body, his most private places. Timothy shifted in his seat, uncomfortably. Composing herself Sarah sat back in her chair, attempting to pull back the hand he held. Though her ex-husband relaxed his grip, he did not relinquish her hand, but rather kept it loosely folded over her own on the arm rest they shared. Neither slept the rest of the trip, even though they both pretended to.

"Don't make me go through this again, pleaseཀ" a dreaming Sarah shouted into space as the plane melted away and she seemed to fall from the clouds to the ground below. Specifically the passenger seat of 1998 Ford F-250, riding west on Peter J. Delasandro Boulevard toward her childhood home just outside of Albany, New York.

Behind the wheel a concerned Timothy inquired, "You feeling OK?"

"Fine," Sarah replied beginning to feel a little embarrassed by her behavior in the air.

"You sure? You were practically green on the plane."

He was being kind, Sarah knew that. She may have gone white, may have taken on a green hue for a moment, but she felt the burn of scarlet flood her face after that and she knew it stayed around rather prominently until well after they landed. "I guess I'm just keyed up a little. Toby and all." Staring out the window she did something most unlike herself. "Tim," she began, "I don't know that I really told you how much I appreciate you coming up here with me. I know I try to act like nothing bothers me, but the truth of it is, I'm going to miss my dad. I'm not even going to get to say goodbye." Tiny tears snuck out between her tightly closed eyes.

There was no traffic on the roads by the time they'd gotten to New York, not the rural part anyway. Tim pulled the truck to a slow stop in front of her old house. "Sarah, I don't think you're ready to do this. Besides, what are you going to do? Pull the boy out of his bed when he's probably only just fallen asleep and take him back to Chicago."

Valid point. "No, I suppose that's not the best way to get off to a good start." That house loomed before her, the airy white house she'd so loved as a child. The place where she learned to dream and learned to love, and felt safe, for the most part, but it seemed ever more threatening now. Just the opposite of what she expected. It was a grand house indeed only she thought all these years later it would seem smaller, more like a doll house. Instead it seemed larger, large enough to be lost inside and no safer than a house of cards.

"You're right," she conceded. "I'll spring for a hotel."

"I don't think Toby's the only one in need of something familiar," he observed as he wiped away the tears on her cheeks with a handkerchief from his pant's pocket. "Why not drive up to the farm house?"

"And disturb everyone up there?"

"Not if we use the guest house." He pulled out away from the curb and started back for the main highway. "It's only an hour's drive. We'll get some rest and in the morning, we'll come back for Toby." Sarah nodded. She hated staying in hotels anyway, the thought of sleeping where someone else had done God knows what didn't much appeal to her hygienic side. Staring out the window, she let him take control again.

Desperate to end the uncomfortable silence, Sarah thought she'd take some corrective measures in case Timothy had gotten the wrong idea about what happened on the plane. Chivalry was something he prided himself on but the more she thought about going to the guest house with him the more she worried he had misconstrued her conduct. "How's Mindy?" she asked.

"Melissa," he corrected, "and she's fine."

"Good." Sarah paused, "Have you two set a date yet?"

Sarah hadn't shown any interest in his new relationship other than to comment that she found it 'remarkable he was able to find love again so quickly,' after Sarah found out about Melissa. She was right. It hadn't been more than two months since their divorce and he wasn't saying that there was a little bit of a rebound factor involved in his decision, but more so, he wanted a family and he wanted to start one right away. So maybe he had settled a little, maybe he didn't find a girl that was everything he wanted, but she was a good woman nonetheless, and she seemed to love him very deeply. "Not yet," he admitted. "We're waiting for her sister to get back from the foreign exchange program she's on in Australia."

There was the knife twisting in her side. Not only had he found another woman, but a younger one. Five years younger than Sarah anyway. Young enough to have a sister only graduating High School this year. She'd be able to give him a child, Sarah was certain of it. "Weddings can be tricky I suppose," she said for lack of a more intellectual response. "I hope you don't mind if I just close my eyes. I'm more tired than I guess I knew."

"No Sarah, you go ahead and sleep. I'll wake you when we get there."

Once she closed her eyes she really did nod off. Freedom came with putting off the inevitable for one more day and she was relishing in it. Reclined in the seat, her legs pulled up to her and her hands tucked angelically beneath her head, he slept deeply and restfully.

Dreams being what they are, we sometimes will things to happen a little differently than they actually do or did, and later when she discussed this event with Laney she'd say she imagined this is how things happened while she was asleep, but what she dreamt was no subconscious fabrication, it was the truth of the matter. What she saw in her mind's eye were the exact events that transpired on that day in her past.

With fifteen miles left in their trip, Sarah began to snore. Timothy pulled back a few strands of her hair that had stuck to her mouth.. The way she looked on the plane had done nothing to help him forget how much he loved her. If anything it had only fanned the fire. Against his better judgment he allowed his hand to trail down her arm, over her thigh and rest on her knee which fit neatly in the palm of his hand. If she awoke, he'd make up some nonsense about her legs being in the way of the consol where he'd wanted to rest his arm.

As it was, she slept the entire way to the farm. The moon shone brightly on the dirt roads of the exposed trails and Timothy switched to parking lights once they'd gotten onto the property. He unlocked the door with the key which Sarah had never asked him to return and took their luggage inside. The smell of the log cabin was something he'd always loved. A few deep breaths and then he'd throw the light switch. One switch illuminated half of the bottom floor, the kitchen and the living room. The next switch set off the bug light on the porch, a beautiful muted amber glow that wouldn't draw too much attention.

Opening the passenger door of the truck he called to his ex-wife. "Sarah we're here. Sarah?" She didn't move. He wondered when the last time was she had slept so soundly. Gentle hands turned her face to his and straightened her legs. "Sar…" Timothy ran his eyes up the length of her, choking on his words as he fell on her face. She always was beautiful when she was sleeping. Clasping his hands softly around her neck he supported the back of her head, "Oh Sarah," he sighed. His mouth covered hers before he had time to think any better of doing so. Kissing her seemed so natural, they had been married after all, but he never expected her to return the kiss. Even in her sleep she reacted to his touch. He broke the kiss then, and when bleary eyes looked at him momentarily before closing, he opted to hoist her into his arms and cart her inside.

She felt warm to him, near feverish as her head nestled into his neck. Lighter than he remembered, probably lost weight without him around to cook his huge meals. Unable to resist pressing his cheek to hers he held her a little longer than he needed to. Once he finally set her down on the bed, he loosened her shoes from her feet and opened the foot locker to grab a cover for her. The fabric draped over her accentuating her form right up to her chin. Like a father tucking in his daughter, Timothy bent to press his lips against her forehead, but that was where the analogy ceased.

Lingering too long anywhere can land you in hot water if you're not careful, and Timothy wasn't being careful by a long shot. Hovering above her caused Sarah to become very aware of his presence. Fluttering eyes let him know his cover had been blown. He tried to back away, fear made him move slowly. Before he could get out of her reach, Sarah's hand lifted up and filled with a patch of his wavy silk hair. Looking down at her, Timothy made no attempt to conceal his admiration. In return Sarah looked up at him with all the same affections she had displayed on the plane.

Secluded in the back of the house away from the harsher white light of the living space, his one time wife lie in the shadows, her porcelain face silhouetted only by the moonlight which managed to find its way in through the windows. For that moment he'd forgotten what it was that convinced him to leave her. What happened next between them was as natural as it was wicked.

Even a scrutinizing eye couldn't determine who had kissed whom, but their lips met in pure explosion of unresolved passion. Sarah's hands roamed his back while he took up huge fistfuls of her hair. His busy lips attempted to profess the dishonesty of what his body was asking him to do, but not a word was spoken as he ripped away the quilt he'd laid so lovingly over her earlier. Kicking off his shoes, Timothy eased over her and into the bed. Knotting up the tails of his shirt, Sarah lifted the garment over his head, compensating for his angling by raising herself to his mouth, leaving her back wide open to accept his enfolding arms.

The full length of his forearm cradled her back, her head in his hand as his lips left her mouth to explore the sides of her neck and the hollow of her throat. Even in the harried rush to board that plane for New York, she was impeccable, hair neatly coiffed, a sharp business casual outfit and a luscious scent that made him want his mouth all over. He craved the specific scents and flavors of her from head to toe. In all their years, dating and married, he had never wanted her as much as he did right now. Laying her back, he skillfully undid her blouse one button at a time. Seeking her approval their eyes met, but there were no objections, if Sarah had a complaint at all, it was that he hadn't yet managed to get her fully free of her stiff office wear and consummate the passion they were both swept away by.

The body beneath her clothes was so familiar and yet Tim wanted to explore it as if he had never seen it before. While he undid her bra with the nimble fingers of his right hand, his left hand began a slow but steady trail down the length of her. The heated plane of her cheek, the dip of her throat, the rise of her chest, the valley to her stomach. Sarah let out a small moan when his mouth fell to the valley between her breasts. In the past, Timothy had been a satisfying lover, but his pursuits of her had always been neat, gentlemanly. The manner in which he undid the hook closures on the waistband of her trousers, distracting her with his warm roaming mouth, he lowered her zipper, devilishly slipping his hand between the designer cotton twill and an intricate lace, all proved his techniques had become more raw.

In her still omnipresent view, Sarah felt heated having watched their lovemaking as would a third party through a parted curtain. She spent such a long time trying to forget that night, trying to forget so much about that trip to New York. Just as she'd begun to wish this dream would end here, her surroundings started changing again. "No," Sarah called out. Some piece of her wanted to stay here wanted to be here when the people in that bed woke up so she could convince herself not to say the terrible things she had said to Timothy the first time. It wouldn't send him running home, back to the arms of a waiting fiancé who would welcome him with love and ignorance to what had happened between them.

That's not what Timothy wanted. He wanted to hear her say this night had changed her, changed them in a profound way. That there was hope, that they could overcome their differences, find a way to be happy despite the odds. But neither destiny was to be truth. Though the night they shared here in the guest house, was unlike any they had shared as a couple, though it was filled with passion and magic, though he had touched her like he never had, her heart remained unmoved. Her love for him had grown no deeper, no more true.

He would return home his honesty too strong to fight his sense. Melissa would hear, in perhaps more detail than she cared for just what transpired the night he went to New York under the guise of rescuing a scared little boy who he had come to love as if he were his own sibling, his own blood. Without hesitation or consideration of forgiveness, she would leave, stopping only once when he tried to take her to his arms and beg her to stay. Such a dainty hand was far too capable of delivering a striking blow to his cheek. Timothy hung his head in shame. He had confessed. He had expected forgiveness, but he had been given his just desserts instead.

Closing her eyes, a tear fell from Sarah's chin, everything around her felt swimmy. If she hadn't already been unconscious she would have been more fearful that she was about to pass out. When again her eyes sprung open, she was inside a house now. An open foyer, column separating the foyer from the living room, yellow walls, white trim. A woman on in years eyed her up and down and at her side a frightened teenage Toby.

Moving to embrace her brother, Sarah felt foolish when he moved back. "I've come to take you home," she told him.

Smartly he replied, 'I am home."

"My home," her hands braced against her thighs as she met him eye to eye. "You're going to come live with me now."

Toby's reaction was one of horror. Worse than him not understanding what had happened to his parents, it was the fear of leaving all he had ever known with someone he barely remembered to start again all alone. Timothy stepped up to his side. "Don't talk to him like he's a baby," he chastised Sarah. "Look here Toby, it's just until your parents can be found."

"Now who's treating him like a baby," Sarah mumbled.

Timothy snapped at her, "Excuse me?"

"His parents are dead, why try to pretend they're coming back?"

The volunteer felt unable to withhold her two cents, "There is hope that his parents will be found."

Rather than shouting Sarah bit her tongue. The awkward silence in the room grew exponentially by the second. It was Timothy who brought it to an end. "You'll stay with your sister and on weekends, well I'll stop by. We'll have football in the park, like we did when.." it occurred to him to say 'when I was your brother' thinking it might have given the boy some comfort, some place, but the events that transpired that morning kept him from being overly sentimental, "...when we'd meet here in the summers for holiday."

A thin smile curled the boy's lips. Mistakenly Sarah thought he'd been won over to the idea with such a small promise. "And when you're not off playing," her sarcasm directed more at the man than the boy, "I'll be taking care of you."

"Taking care of me," Toby stared at his shoes as if he was thinking over some concept from a grad school syllabi. When he finally dared to face her, there was no little boy left in his eyes, he'd grown cold, mature able to toss verbal darts with experience beyond his years. "You can barely take care of yourself! You've hated me your entire life, wished I was never born."

"I'm older now Tobe," she tried to sound caring, "I've grown up and now I'm going to be your mother." Her heart knew her father was dead and being a strong man, or so he had seemed in her childhood, being the sort of man who lived alone and managed both himself and a daughter, if he couldn't survive, Karen was going to either, but she offered a petty reassurance anyway. "At least until your mother can be found."

"Mother?" Toby asked. "You're nobody's mother."

Those words would echo in her head the rest of her life and the bite that came with them would be just as sharp every time. "You're nobody's mother...nobody's mother," the echo sounded in her head like a gong. In fact it was enough to wake her from her alcohol induced slumber. Even conscious, she heard the repeating phrase fading slowly and being replaced by the throbbing of a powerful hangover.

Pulling a throw around her, Sarah tried to ward off the chill from the open French doors. "Damn it Jareth, I knew you were too chicken to show."

---

After a night like she'd had, there was only one logical, practically thing a woman could do. Call her therapist. "So you see. My brother and his wife are expecting a baby. She's having a very difficult pregnancy and I'm their only family, so I need you to fax something to my office. By law I'm entitled to six months under FMLA, if you know any doctor tricks that can get me more time, then now would be a good time to pull them out of your hat."

"I'll get you at least six months Sarah," he promised. "I have to say, I think this baby is going to be really good for you. I'm glad to see you're getting involved. I think you'll be amazed at how much healing this will offer you." Thank God he couldn't see her mocking him on the other end of the phone.

"Yeah, doc, I"m pretty amazed as it is." She hung up the phone. One white lie, not a bad price to pay to spend another six months where no one could find her, no one could disturb her. Returning to her not so distant past had helped her outrun her youth, but it was waiting for her back in Chicago. Those SAT prep courses were going to come in handy now as she tried to make sense of where she had to go next to escape it all.

No better place to think than cradled between blue water and a blue sky. She called for Brock to hitch the boat to the Jeep. He was glad to see her, even if she looked heavily troubled. Cole had come back sure she had died. "You sure you're up for boating?"

"I am in desperate need of boating," she told him with a smile she hoped would reassure him. It didn't, but hoping it would spill over to her, he took on a sense of assurance that was far better played than her smile.

A final twist of the wrench and he patted the fiberglass bow, "Then boating you shall go." Crawling up into the captain's chair, Sarah couldn't help but look into the passenger seat half expecting to see Tim's ghost beside her. That wouldn't do. He was what she was trying to leave behind.

Exit 25 off I-87 would take her west to Loon Lake. It was the least populated, the most secluded, somewhere she could find the solitude that the crowded guest house didn't offer. Even as she backed the trailer into the boat launch, she felt the nightmare start to melt away. If this worked, she'd sell her place in Chicago, buy a houseboat, maybe sail around the world. Why not?

The lake welcomed her as she negotiated the craft out to where she could fool herself into believing land no longer existed. A beach chair on the deck gave her the perfect spot for reading and she thought nothing of it when more than 200 pages had fallen in her wake. Yet, were someone to ask the topic of the tale, she'd have stumbled dumbly creating a response based more in fiction than the book itself.

Dusk was coming up in the distance darkening the aqua color above and below. Tiny gold kissed peaks of cloud tried to hold on to the fleeting sun. Best she head back to shore if she intended to stay in the water this late. The southeast leg of Lake Loon was narrow. She headed there, not worried about how she'd get back to the launch when the time came. That was further in the future than she could be bothered to think.

On either side the forest rose black into the sky. Before her the lake seemed as if it could go on forever even though she knew there were only a limited number of miles down which she could drift. Alone on a boat the black night falling all around. Sarah imagined she should have wanted someone with her. Someone to hold her close and act as lover, or to fill the empty deck chair and be her friend. But she was quite content to be alone.

Timothy wasn't much of a sailor, in fact, he rather feared the water which Sarah found ironic, him being raised on an island after all. His loss. "I wish Timothy were here," she lied into the void around her. Nothing. "I wish Jareth were here," she half fibbed. Still nothing. "I wish Laney were here," she admitted. Nothing. As she thought.

It might be nice to have her good friend with her, the more she thought about it. This being locked up business was getting pretty lonely, even for someone with Sarah's inborn ability to be alone. Flipping open her phone, she thought she might try and give Laney a call. No reception. No surprise. However, she couldn't help but notice the time. Just after midnight. She was beginning to regret not only heading away from the launch, but even more she was beginning to regret that bottle of wine she'd brought along to accompany her reading.

Indian style on the deck she sat. The land and water were no longer distinguishable. Not since she had been trapped in the oubliette had she seen shadows this dark. "Huh?" she wondered aloud. "Too bad I don't know Hoggle's number." The breeze seemed to laugh at her. For a moment she laughed back, humored by her own foolishness. In her best Mae West she beseeched her once mythical friend. "Oh Hoggle, I need you."

Mild breeze grew oddly strong and a heavy splash called Sarah's attention to the starboard side of the boat. Something just below the surface of the water flailed. Must be some fish. "Don't just stand there." She heard between gurgles. "I can't swim."

A voice, a tiny voice stuck in the black water. A child? Sarah searched for something to throw overboard. At last she found the preserver she knew could save the drowning life below. "I'm tossing you a line," she called up.

"Stop talkin' about it and do it," the answer came. The preserver hit the water with a splash. After a few seconds of incoherent grumbling, she heard the tiny voice demanding to be pulled up. "Ya can't just leave me here. Ya made me come here, now pull me up so I can find out what you want."

"What?" she called down. "What do you mean I made you come here?"

"Pull me up Sarah, pull me up right now or by the power of the fairies I'll never come when you call again."

Sarah began yanking the rope hand over hand while she attempted to convince herself that the voice mumbling below wasn't as familiar as she now had to admit it was. When she first caught glimpse of the leather skull cap and the pudgy fingers of a dwarf clutch the rail around the boat deck. "Hoggle?" she asked hesitantly.

Swinging his stout little legs over the side he stood to face her dripping wet on the deck. "Well it ain't Tinkerbell." His widespread arms crossed over his chest and he huffed. "So what do ya want?"

"I...I..."

He mocked her, "You...you..."

"Oh Jesus!"

"Come on, are you really so surprised." His tone softened with her as he recalled their adventures from Sarah's childhood. "Arak," he pronounced when he noticed her staring into space rather than paying him any attention.

"You want a rum drink?"

"Aha!" he called out victoriously as his human friend, his first friend turned to look down at him. "Ya do remember me."

Emotion flooded her as strongly as if the entire lake were suddenly aboard. She sank clumsily to her knees. A shaky hand extended touching him to be certain he was real. "Oh Hoggle," she cried pulling him into her embrace, "I could never forget you." Tears blended with the water already absorbed in his clothes as the waters ravaging her heart sought escape through her eyes.

---

A master navigator, Hoggle easily guided Sarah back to the launch. In return she took him back to the guest house and built him a blazing fire to dry by. Over tea they talked about life above and underground. "How do I get him to stop tormenting me?" she asked after explaining what had been going on lately.

"It ain't Jareth," Hoggle said definitively cupping his mug with both hands and sipping deeply from it's belly. "Jareth can't contact you, not unless you were to wish a baby of your own blood to him."

"But he's been in my dreams?"

"Weren't him that done that either. Jareth's powers over you were broken the minute you said those words. You cast a spell Sarah, one that keeps him from doing little more than casting glamors that might cause you to draw comparisons to ordinary things in your world and what you remember from the Underground. That's all he's capable of now. And believe me he ain't happy 'bout it at all."

The information he provided made her consider her own desires. Had she been the one to bring him to her? If so, why? "Things are different there aren't they?"

"You know the castle fell."

"I mean more than that Hoggle. I mean the entire world, not just the castle. It's darker, colder."

"Aye," he agreed. "Jareth's heart has turned black and his kingdom has followed. He's taken up with Arven, an overthrown king from a neighboring kingdom, together they have woven a trap of death and disaster for anyone who dare accept the king's generosity."

"I'm very sorry."

"You?"

"Me," she hung her head in regret, "If only I hadn't done what I did so many years ago."

Hoggle hurried to her side and put a short arm over her shoulder, "If you wouldn'ta done what ya did, it woulda been horrible in a whole new way." His lips pressed against the side of her head in an attempt to comfort her. "Time passes fast in your world. Ya needs yer rest."

As he prepared to leave, Sarah asked him desperately, "Can I call you again?"

"Ya can. Ya always could." He smiled as he waved goodbye and vanished right before her eyes. For a moment she just let the tears run from her eyes. She blamed the wine. She convinced herself she was crazy. Any number of illusions and each time she failed to debunk the myth. Hoggle had been here. He had come to her, guided her home as he once did through the turns of Jareth's maze and proved her sane without even knowing it.

---

The next few weeks passed quickly with a new friend in tow to pass the time. She taught him to play Gin Rummy and he elaborated great fabrications to make the Underground sound less horrific than it had truly become. "How's the boy?" Hoggle finally asked.

"The boy, oh Toby? He's fine. Just got married. He and his wife came back home expecting."

"Spectin' what?"

"A baby," she laughed. "They're going to have a baby."

Hoggle's face grew filled with fear and his stare distant. "Sarah, Toby don't remember us does he?"

"He thinks you were all a fairytale I made up to scare him." Setting down her hand, she grew concerned with her opponent's terror. "Hoggle are you alright?"

"You'll protect that baby, won't ya? Keep him safe."

"Him?"

"It'll be a boy."

"How do you know?"

"No time. I juss know things I guess. He's going to need you Sarah. Him and Toby both. Promise me you'll protect him.

"No time," he repeated desperately. "Juss promise."

"I promise, Hoggle." Frightened now she demanded, "Tell me what's going on!"

"I can't Sarah. I...I...I gotta go. Others need you more than you needs me." As always, he was gone before she could stop him.

In the same instant that he disappeared, her phone rang. "Sarah," she heard a tearful voice warble. "Oh Sarah."

"Toby? Is that you?"

"Yeah sis. I'm sorry to disturb your vacation, but, I didn't know who else to call."

"Calm down. Tell me what's wrong. Are you alright?"

"Rowan," he sobbed as if the one word said it all.

"Rowan?"

"She's gone into labor Sar and she's only at 28 weeks. The doctors say there's a good chance the baby will survive, but it's risky. They're trying to stop labor, but they're not having much luck." Silence. "I can't lose my baby Sarah, please. Don't let me lose my baby."

"I'm on my way home Toby," she told him anxiously. "I want you to stay calm, stay strong for your wife and your baby and I'll be home before you know." Hoggle's words echoed in her head, "Nothing's going to happen to your son. I promise."