A WAYS OUT
Freud wrote that 'the uncanny is that species of the frightening that goes back to what was once well known and had long been familiar'…Nevertheless…unheimlich (uncanny) when used as an adverb means "dreadfully"…Thus that which is uncanny or unheimlich is neither homey nor protective nor comforting nor familiar. It is alien, exposed, and unsettling…."
-Mark Danielewski
Sarah stared openly at Britta before turning to Jareth, and only then did she notice the significant yet relaxed way her supposed-friend-turned-fairy-queen Britta and wannabe-captor-turned-sort-of friend Jareth were looking at one another. Of all the thoughts rushing through her head, the one that she barely kept herself from vocalizing was, "I can't believe you two have slept together and haven't told me."
Her intellect kicked in and she realized the really troubling thing was not that not only was friend was secretly a fairy queen—or whatever—but that she was secretly a fairy queen or whatever that everyone seemed terrified of.
"I had heard the human girl was in your realm," Britta said to Jareth with an imperiousness Sarah had only ever seen reserved for authority figures that Britta clearly thought had been overpromoted. "I had hoped, Jareth, that you would tell me yourself." Her white-blonde hair was pulled up in an extraordinarily elaborate updo, with feathers and claws, the overall effect being much more gorgeous and intimidating than it had any right to.
Jareth sneered, his brow knit, his angled eyebrows arched even more pronounced than usual. "Why bother? I knew you would find out. All by yourself." He actually seemed on edge, his stance defensive and his voice unnecessarily sharp. Sarah wondered what was between them, especially as Britta was no doubt the person he had taken her to see.
"I can't believe you know each other," Sarah blurted. Jareth and Britta, along with the surrounding courtiers, turned their not-unintimidating gazes to her. "Britta—" she started, but someone hissed at her. Sarah stopped, confused.
"Sarah. Forgive them," Britta said. "All they see is a human treating me with impossible familiarity." She smiled.
"Impossible…?" Sarah said, her voice lilting up at the end. She felt like the wind had been knocked out of her. "Britta, I thought we were—I've told you so much—and you—oh my god." Sarah felt sick, a sharp chemical twist in her stomach churning away her breath and voice. Her friend, Britta that had helped her with Italian flashcards before tests and taken her out for drinks and comfort food for success and failure—now an icy blonde set with jewels and too-pale eyes and strange power. Sarah actually felt weak. "I need to—" she felt her knees go weak.
Jareth steadied her, gently taking her arm. She leaned into him without thinking, letting his strength steady her. After a glance of thanks, she said, "My goodness. Excuse me. A…a lapse."
"I have…returned her here, to you," said Jareth to the blonde. "I…rather hoped you might be of some assistance." Sarah noted the grudging humility in his tone, evident as steel and reserve.
"I don't accept returns, Jareth, as you well know," Britta said. She smiled warmly at Sarah, briefly rolling her eyes at her as if to say god can you even believe this guy. Sarah rolled her eyes back before she could stop herself—it was just too easy to fall into old patterns of behavior worn by years of friendship.
"I've tried everyth—I've made great efforts to-" he insisted, sullen.
"You've tried everything?" Britta interrupted. She glanced Sarah up and down, and it was as the queen this time, something predatory, not as her friend. "Oh, Jareth, surely not, I would have heard."
The suggestion was obvious. Sarah felt unusually vulnerable and stupid, like when she had wandered downstairs as a child into one of her parents' dinner parties.
A young man, one of her courtiers, tittered. He was immediately silenced by a look from Jareth. The blood drained from the young man's face, in fact, and Sarah again realized that she had more dangerous friends than she thought.
"Return...?" Sarah said, removing herself from Jareth's distracting hold.
"Oh, forgive me!" Britta cried, standing. All those leaning or reclining around her stood as well. There was some electric current, some heavy perfume of power and fear lolling in the air around the woman Sarah had believed to be only a college buddy. Britta took Jareth's hands, softly, familiarly, and leaned in, whispering something Sarah could only barely make out.
"You poor man," Britta whispered, "you still haven't found your way, have you? Well, I shall give her what she wants." She emphasized the stops and sibilants of the last three words—a coiling snake of a threat.
"No," Jareth hissed, digging his nails into the woman's hands before remembering himself enough to let her go.
Britta sneered at him, brief enough for Sarah to almost miss, before she turned to her. "Sarah, you've come all this way—"
"I mean, mostly I've just been in this one bedroom—oh god, not like that." Sarah blushed. She was not being the poised sophisticate she usually imagined when she fantasized about situations like the one she found herself in.
Britta smiled. "Like I said. You've come all this way. Would you grant me a few minutes alone with you? There are things that should be discussed…just us girls." Now she reached for Sarah's hands, squeezing them gently before releasing her.
Sarah turned to look at Jareth, wide-eyed and confused. His face was dark, but he nodded, curtly.
Britta reached out for Sarah, but not before Jareth held up a hand. "One moment, my dread lady," he said. Britta stepped back.
Jareth pulled Sarah in close, whispering in her ear, the breath and urgency in his voice making her feel strange even as what he said frightened her. "Sarah," he said. "This is very, very important. Do not take anything from her. Do not take anything she offers you. If not for me, than for you at least, do you understand."
She breathed in sharply, and pulled back. He was threatening, pleading, she could see. What about Britta could have him so worked up—what could he offer her? She couldn't answer before Britta gently put a hand on her elbow and smiled.
"Come on, sweetie," she said.
"Sure, Brits," Sarah said, smiling back weakly.
Britta moved her arm so she was holding Sarah round her waist, and led her away from the dais, which must have been Britta's throne, now Sarah thought about it. They moved through and away from the main crush of people, who had mostly stopped their reveling and were now watching them while furiously pretending not to.
"Damn, girl," Sarah said, under her breath, taking in all the fascinated beings in their fascinating splendor.
"Oh you have no idea," Britta said.
They reached a large curtained doorway. When Britta stopped, Sarah made a move to open it only to be surprised by a servant appearing from absolutely nowhere to pull back the curtain. Outside curled a balcony made of the same oddly veined pale marble comprising the floor—although cooler in color and more baroque in design, Britta's palace had the same ancient organic feel of Jareth's own abode.
Sarah looked out to the horizon. She balked. A terrible storm was raging outside, but with no sound. For a moment she thought they were located in the middle of a tornado. Winds choked with dust and mist whorled spiteful and chaotic in angry wound colors, and Sarah could barely see three feet from the balcony's edge, the storm raged so. But even her hair remained unruffled, and the air was still and silent as crystal.
"Oh!" Sarah cried. "Is that—real, or an illusion, or what?"
Britta walked to the edge of the balcony, calmly reaching her hand into the tempest—it faded and disappeared like she had reached into a murky lake—before pulling it back unharmed. "It's real," she said. "Feel."
Sarah approached the intricate railing and reached into the silent colored storm, half expecting her hand to disappear or burn off. She felt the fierce winds and grains of debris blasting her arm, chafing her skin and pulling her forward. She gasped and pulled back.
"What 's going on?" she asked Britta.
"A storm."
"Well, obviously," Sarah said.
The queen laughed. "It's so nice having you here, Sarah. No one ever dares talk to me like that here."
"Why not? Are they afraid of you?" Sarah crossed her arms. "Why would they be? Should I be afraid? Who even are you, Britta—is that even your real name? Ha, I never thought I'd get to say that for real. But the question stands. Real name?"
"Of course not. But no one really bothers with my name—please just keep calling me Britta, by the way, it's nice. I am, like your Jareth called me, the Uncanny Queen."
"That is not a name," Sarah said. "Sorry. I mean. Sorry." She looked back out into the storm. Britta joined her.
Britta had been her best friend since college. They had not been roommates, but had lived across the hall from each other, in a coddling freshman dorm that put their names on their doors written on construction-paper stars. One day there was only one star on Britta's door—her roommate had moved out mysteriously, she said. The next day Britta made a new star that said "David Bowie" and put it up on her door, maintaining the fiction through the rest of fall semester. Unlike the other girls in the hall, Sarah found it charming and sought it out, and they became fast friends.
It was Britta who she talked to about the Labyrinth, telling her it was a recurring dream. It was Britta who introduced her to her first major relationship—Thomas Newton—and Britta who helped her pick outfits for job interviews. It was even Britta who helped her with her play, suggesting she consider the Labyrinth and the Underground as a quite literally subliminal world in every sense of the world—which now that Sarah had encountered the Round Room, the Maze, and the Broken Men seemed not so much a leap of imagination as the truth.
With Britta's revelation as nonhuman, it was Sarah's real life that was rapidly seeming surreal. (Sub-real? Sous-real?)
"Why did you pretend to be my friend?" Sarah asked.
"I was your friend." Britta seemed hurt.
"I just don't get it, though. Did Jareth send you?"
Britta smiled one of her weird half-smiles. "Not exactly. I was curious after your first encounter with him and I wanted to meet you. But I quite liked you, which I hadn't counted on, and, well, you know the rest."
"I mean kind of. I sure didn't know all my primary relationships were with fairies."
"There are worst things in life."
Anger and bitterness surged up, hot-white and molten. "But I didn't have a real life, did I?" Sarah said. "All of it was warped and manipulated by one of you lot, by Jareth and then him haunting me and then you when I was an adult, and now all of this."She gestured at the storm and the castle. "Did I ever belong outside the Underground."
Britta paused before answering. "No. You never did."
Sarah looked back into the storm. "This is a lot, Brits. A lot."
"I know. But please never doubt that I care for you very much."
"Hmm. Can you send me home?"
Britta frowned. "I'm afraid not. Just between you and me, that storm is not my doing. It's the dirty not-so-secret of a lot of the Underground kingdoms."
"All flights out are figuratively grounded, you mean."
"Yes. Jareth's kingdom is disintegrating, isn't it?"
"Yeah, he thought I could help," Sarah said. "And then he thought you could help."
"I…can help, somewhat. I may be able to even send you home."
Sarah widened her eyes. "But you just…"
Britta's face darkened. "Look. You met Jareth under—I was the reason you met Jareth—"
"What."
She waved her remarks away. "Sarah. Just listen. I've rehearsed this a million times, believe me, and this isn't any easier than I thought it would be." She took one deep breath, then another.
Sarah was struck at how even under her imperious demeanor and overwhelming appearance, this woman was still her beloved friend—overconfident with strangers, yet strangely timid when dealing with friends.
Britta continued. "There is a reason I am very, very much feared even among the fae kingdoms. There is a reason I am called the worst nightmare—and mind you, this includes the nightmare realms. I have earned the name Uncanny Queen."
There were approximately four dozen and seven things Sarah wanted to say at the moment, but she bit her lip and nodded for her friend to continue.
"Just know that what I'm about to do is because I love you, is that clear?"
Sarah couldn't resist speaking. "Britta—haha—you're not going to, like, kill me, are you?"
Britta didn't laugh. "No. I'm going to do something probably much worse. I'm going to give you something."
"You fae are all so cryptic, aren't you."
"Don't be racist. And Jareth's a goblin."
"I do want to bring up right now that Jareth pulled me aside and said in no uncertain terms that I was not to accept anything from you."
"You don't know what I'm offering. And who are you going to trust—him?" Britta smiled. "Or me?"
Sarah was quiet. A short while ago, there would have been no question. But now…
With a flourish that was probably unconscious but definitely practiced, Britta produced a smallish oval stone in her manicured hand. It was set in an almost invisible silver chain. The stone was dark, but distinct colors seemed to churn below the surface. At first Sarah thought it was only reflecting the storm, but upon further examination she saw that it sparkled and flickered with its own inner light and depths. It was the opposite of Jareth's crystals—the dark stone was all substance, no surface.
Sarah tried to smile. "Without seeming racist I want to also say that an alarming portion of you have also presented me with weird rocks."
"Jareth's crystals? Ha. Just your dreams. Just shallow tricks. This is much more than that. This—" she closed her hand briefly over the necklace, shaking her fist gently like she was weighing the stone—"this is why they call me monstrous."
She opened her hand. "It is your deepest desire."
"How are they different?"
"Because, my human friend, my surface-dwelling darling, you have no idea what that is." Britta pulled her arm back, supporting it against her other arm while she held her hand with the stone resting in it open.
Sarah twisted her lips. "I guess not like exactly, but I mean it has to be something that makes me—oh. Like it could be death, or something, and I wouldn't be consciously aware of it."
"Or it could be eternal life, or something as equally irrevocable and devastating."
"But the stone never makes a mistake? It's never wrong?"
"It never is."
"How do you know?"
"I am the Uncanny Queen."
"I can't believe you don't laugh when you say that."
"It took me a century or two, for sure."
"So, but I could just say no."
Britta held out the stone, with a knowing look that was more queen than friend. Sarah was deeply unsettled. "No one ever has," the queen said.
Sarah thought. She thought of politely refusing, of walking away. Of listening to Jareth.
Of defying Jareth.
Of refusing this gift and being haunted by it for the rest of her life.
"How does it work? I can take it…and not use it, right?" Sarah asked.
"I can't make you do anything. I can only hope that you will forgive me for offering you this. If you decide to use it, it's simple. Kiss it, once, and it will irrevocably grant you your deepest desire."
Britta held out the stone again, patiently, regretfully. Exactly unlike the desperate urgency of Jareth, when Sarah had refused him as a teenager.
"Have you ever used it?" Sarah said.
Britta just smiled, this time a little sadly. "Oh honey. That doesn't matter."
Sarah reached out and took it, quick. It was colder than she expected, and much heaver. Not looking at Britta, she cupped it in her hand and tried to find the clasp, and then tried to open the clasp.
After an anticlimactic half-minute of struggling, Britta reached out.
"Allow me," she said, and Sarah laughed in frustration and turned, pulling back her hair. She held the pendant to her breast—the cold-lead albatross weight of it almost making her reconsider her decision.
Britta did the clasp, her short cool fingers on Sarah's neck giving her goosebumps. She patted Sarah's neck when she was done, curt and friendly. "There ya go, girl."
Sarah turned. "Thanks. I feel weird. A little dizzy."
"Just give it a day or so. Don't make any rash decisions."
"Got it. You really can't send me home, though, by yourself?"
"Even if the storms would allow it, you're Jareth's guest, not mine. Unfortunately."
Sarah looked Britta's palace up and down. "Too bad. I can see why you didn't want to move in with me sophomore year."
Britta laughed. "Don't think I didn't think about it, lemme tell you. But speaking of Jareth, I should return you to your host."
As they approached the curtain, Sarah couldn't help herself.
"But so speaking of Jareth, Brits—is he any good in bed?"
Britta stopped, appearing even more taken aback then when she first laid eyes on Sarah.
"What?"
Sarah grinned. "You heard me."
"How did you—"
"Girl, you taught me how to recognize that—the weird comfort and discharged tension between two people, etc." She stepped forward and pushed back the curtain, almost slapping the servant-who-again-appeared-out-of nowhere in his pointed face. "Oh! I'm sorry."
Britta caught up and took her by the arm, escorting her into the hall, saying nothing.
"Well?" Sarah whispered.
"I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise," Britta whispered back, before looking up. "Though," she continued out loud. "That might be unlikely now."
Right outside the ambulatory, waiting for them, was Jareth. Sarah had never seen him look so—incensed, was the only word.
"You offered, I see, my lady." he said coldly, to Britta. "And you," he said, turning to Sarah. "You silly girl, you took it."
Sarah said nothing. Britta let go of her arm, with one last hard squeeze that Sarah didn't know how to interpret. "Hello, Your Majesty," she said, not meaning to sound as sarcastic as she ended up sounding.
"How dare you," Jareth said, although to which woman Sarah was not sure.
"Her audience is complete, Jareth," Britta said. "Your current discourtesy to me and my court is inexcusable. Please, if you have no further business, remove yourself and your guest. Your business between each other is best conducted elsewhere."
"But, Britta—" Sarah tried to say.
Britta didn't look at her. She nodded at Jareth and started walking away, back to her throne.
"As I said, Sarah," Jareth said, a sort of syrupy warmth creeping into his tone. "She is not your friend, and will do you no favors."
Sarah looked at him. She hadn't doubted he was telling her what he believed—she never considered that he might be right. "Jareth, I…"
He breathed in deeply, his face pinched. "The Queen is correct." He reached out and grabbed her arm roughly, pulling her to him. It hurt, and Sarah couldn't refrain from a small cry of betrayal—she realized that was the roughest he had ever treated her.
But then the world was swirling, exactly like the Storm had closed in on them. She clutched Jareth with one arm, the other reaching automatically to her necklace.
She hoped she had not forever alienated any friend she might have in the Underground—although who that friend was, she was no longer sure.
A/N
GOODNESS sorry this was so long.
As an experiment, I am going to see how fast I can finish this story. Constructive criticism always always appreciated.
Love,
Me.