Author's Note: Hi everyone!
I'd like to thank those of you who subscribed, reviewed, and/or favorited Sunset Underground; you guys are awesome! I can't tell you how much it means to me to know that people are enjoying the story as much as I am.
Once again, please review if you have a minute or two to spare, and feel free to let me know if you notice any typos or other errors, since I'd really like to correct them. Thanks!
Chapter Two
Sarah wasted precious time calling Karen to get Patty's address, and by the time she finally pulled up in front of Patty's house, she was too worried about Toby to be surprised by how dilapidated Patty's house was. She was out of the car and hammering on Patty's door within seconds. "Toby? Patty? It's Sarah, open up!" As she called out, thunder tore through the sky and raindrops fell all around her. The storm had finally begun.
There was the rattle of a chain being pulled back, and then the door opened and Sarah was face to face with Patty, a pretty fifteen year old with long auburn hair and blue eyes. Tear stains streaked her cheeks and at first she didn't seem to recognize Sarah.
"Patty, it's me. Are you okay? Where's Toby? Where's-" she caught herself before she said Jareth's name. She hadn't made up her mind just how much she wanted Toby and his girlfriend to know about her history with the Goblin King.
"Good question. He just left." Patty gestured helplessly. "Out the window or something."
"Toby left through the window?"
"Yeah. I think so. That was what it looked like. There was something on the other side. There was this weird man, he-" Patty paused, she seemed to be trying to gather her thoughts.
"Why don't we go inside?" Sarah asked. The rain was falling heavily now and it was quickly soaking through her coat. Patty wordlessly stepped back to allow Sarah inside. The interior of the house was even dingier than the outside, and Sarah nearly broke her neck tripping over a child's stuffed animal in the hall.
Patty picked it up, looked at it closely and then pressed it to her chest. "That's Abby's," she said, and burst into tears.
Sarah raised her hand to pat the girl's shoulder comfortingly, but it ended up feeling a little awkward. She'd never been good with crying people, babies or adults. Instead, she glanced around the hall and shivered. The déjà vu was so powerful it was as if she was fifteen years old again.
Patty began to stumble down the hall, pressing a hand to her mouth to muffle her own sobs. Sarah followed the girl, then nearly jumped out of her skin when there was the softest sound, almost like a hushed cackle. She quickly reached for the light switch, then frowned when the hall remained dark . "The lights are out," she murmured.
"Y-yes," Patty said, a tear sliding from her eye to her cheek and then vanishing when she wiped her face with her sleeve.
Patty lead Sarah into the living room, which was small and as dark as the hallway. The only illumination came from the flashes of lightning outside, and Sarah shivered. The curtains were open, and so was one of the windows. Sarah quickly shut and locked it, knowing that Toby wouldn't return that way, and then pulled the curtains closed so that no one could see into the living room. She let Patty cry for a minute while she transferred a pile of laundry from the sofa to the coffee table, and then they both sat down.
"Okay Pat, what happened?"
"I don't know! I don't know, okay? Can't you give a minute?" Patty asked tearfully.
"No, I can't." Sarah answered, a little more sharply than she had intended. "You aren't the only one with a baby sibling who's missing. I want to know what happened to Toby, and I want to know now. So stop crying for a minute, and tell me what you can."
Patty glared at her, but she stopped crying. "Well, there was this owl... it looked like an owl. But it was actually a man. I think. Maybe the owl was a fake. The man wasn't though. He talked to Toby, he had this big glass ball, and he told Toby that he was never going to get Abby back," Patty's voice wobbled a little, "then he said some other things. I couldn't really hear them."
"You couldn't hear them?"
"No, I was hiding behind the sofa," Patty admitted unabashedly.
"Oh, really." Sarah said with a certain degree of disgust, and then she nearly bit her own tongue, because she sounded alarmingly like Karen.
"Yes, really," Patty said, irritation flaring in her eyes. "Anyway, Toby said that he was going to try anyway, since it was his fault that Abby was gone, and then they both walked right out that window. The one that the owl flew in. And I was left all alone, and the lights were out, and there were these noises, like the house was full of rats, really big rats."
"Or goblins." Sarah said, standing. She had caught sight of a tin of emergency candles stowed behind a potted plant, and she hoped that there was also a lighter. Sitting in the dark was making her skin crawl. "Patty," Sarah said, picking up the tin of candles and finding a matchbox behind it, "I'm going to fix this. I haven't figured out just how yet, but I will."
"Well, I think we should probably start by calling the police," Patty said, standing up.
"No!" Sarah said quickly. "Listen to me, the police will be no help. No help whatsoever, do you understand? Where Abby's gone, they can't possibly get to her, but they can get in my way, and frighten Karen and dad, and your parents, and generally make a mess of things. Don't call them."
Patty eyed her warily. "This is something... magical, isn't it?"
Sarah would have preferred not to tell Patty anything, but if she kept the girl in the dark, then Patty would be more likely to turn to the police or her parents, and that was the last thing that Sarah needed. Sarah struck a match and looked Patty in the eye, "yes." She waited, wondering if the girl was going to go on another crying jag.
"Oh my God, this is like my Hogwarts letter."
"... what?"
"You know, when Harry Potter finds out about his magical powers. The guy who came here was even an owl, just like in the Harry Potter books."
"Er, not exactly."
"I don't have any magical powers, do I?"
"No."
Patty looked disappointed. "Are you sure?"
"Positive," Sarah said firmly. "You won't call the police, right?"
"Oh, no. Do you have powers?"
"No. Well," Sarah paused. She had certainly used words of power, first to wish her brother away, and then to defeat the Goblin King at the center of the Labyrinth, but that didn't exactly count. "No, I don't," she told Patty.
"Well, does Toby?"
"No."
"But the guy does?"
"The guy?" Sarah repeated, and then gasped in pain when her fingers were suddenly singed. She'd been so distracted by Patty's odd responses that she'd entirely forgotten about the match in her hand, which had burned low and scorched her fingers. She inhaled deeply and blew it out
"You know, the guy. With the... hair, and... the tights." Patty said, as Sarah struck another match and quickly lit four candles.
There was a strange sound from above their heads, almost like a small animal scampering across the roof. Patty didn't seem to hear it, but Sarah tilted her head back and gazed up at the shadowy ceiling. It could have been a squirrel, she supposed, but somehow Sarah didn't think a squirrel would be out at night, in the pouring rain. She shuddered, and pushed her hands into her coat pockets, remembering as she did so that her coat was wet and that was probably one of the reasons why she felt so cold.
"Oh, yes, he definitely has powers."
"Well then we're doomed," Patty said, slumping back against the couch. Thunder rumbled overhead as Sarah set two of the candles on the mantlepiece, next to a cold, half-full bottle of babies formula. "The police can't help us, our parents can't help us, and we have no powers so we can't even help us."
"Don't be so sure," Sarah told her, taking off her coat and draping it over a side table. "When are your parents coming home tonight?"
"They're not," Patty told her flatly from her seat on the couch. "My dad's. . . not in the picture, and my mom works nights. She'll be back around 6:30 in the morning. I usually call her around midnight, though, before I go to bed, so that she knows I've locked up and everything."
"Don't forget to call her tonight," Sarah instructed.
"Oh, and what am I supposed to tell her?"
"Lie." Sarah answered, and then she nearly dropped the candles when an eerie cackle sounded from somewhere nearby. "Where is your bathroom?" Sarah asked Patty once she had recovered her composure.
"Down the hall, to your right," Patty pointed. She still looked tear-stained and nervous, but she sounded a little better.
"Thanks," Sarah said, "why don't you put on some coffee? I know I could use some, and I suspect you could too."
She journeyed down the hall to the bathroom alone, a candle in each hand, and hoped that she was imagining the footsteps and whispers that seemed to follow her.
She hadn't spoken to Hoggle in almost nine years. The first few months after her adventure in the Labyrinth she had kept in touch with all of them: Hoggle, Sir Didymus, and Ludo, but then things had changed. School had gotten harder and more time-consuming. Sarah had begun to make friends, human friends. Her relationship with Karen had improved a little, and Sarah had spent less of her time daydreaming and wishing that she were anywhere but under her stepmother's roof. Then, when she was eighteen or nineteen, the nightmares had started. She only got them in the weeks after one of her infrequent conversations with Hoggle, and they were the strangest, most bizarre, burningly intense dreams that she had ever known. It was as if she was forced to live through every moment she had spent in the Labyrinth over and over again, but with every color brighter, every scent stronger, every emotion more extreme. She dreamed of the castle, and of her baby brother crawling across the ceiling. She dreamed of the Fireys and their strange dance, and most of all, she dreamed of the masquerade ball. The dreams had frightened her with their potency and ambiguity, and haunted her long after she woke up from them.
Sarah had probably been about twenty-one when she'd last spoken to Hoggle. She'd been plagued by such nightmares in the weeks after their conversation that she had never been compelled to call on him again. She'd convinced herself that he would call on her if he ever needed her, and then she'd forgotten about him.
She felt guilty asking him for help now, after so many years of silence, but her little brother was running the Labyrinth, and she needed eyes and ears on the inside. She wasn't about to tell Patty, but the truth was that on his own Toby had very little chance of recovering Abby. It wasn't that he was too young, he was fifteen after all, the same age that Sarah had been when she had defeated Jareth, but he wasn't as well prepared as Sarah had been. She had read dozens of fairy tales, she had known how they were supposed to work. Most importantly, she had read about the Goblin King, and she had memorized the words that could defeat him. Toby had no clue. He was going to need help.
So Sarah set the candles down on the bathroom vanity and closed and locked the door behind her. Not that locks would keep the goblins out, but it made her feel better. Trying not to look too closely at the mold that was beginning to flourish along the rim of Patty's bathroom sink, Sarah instead leaned towards the mirror, and was surprised by the fear that she saw on her own face. What a shame, she'd so hoped that she looked brave and resolute, like a warrior queen about to do battle. Nope. Instead she was pale and scared and had beads of rainwater in her uncombed hair. Oh well.
"Hoggle?" Sarah spoke, and her voice was dry and cracked. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Hoggle? It's Sarah. I need you." The words echoed strangely in the bathroom, and the candlelight shimmered off the mirror. "Hoggle!" Sarah called one more time, and then she stepped back and waited.
Thanks for reading!
