"It's working." Jareth, King of the Goblins and Lord of the Labyrinth, frowned into the crystal sphere perched atop the leather-clad fingers of his left hand.
Hoggle ignored him, or tried to. Formerly a Royal Gardener assigned primarily to the outer wall, he had recently been demoted (or promoted, it depended on how one looked at it) to Keeper of the Sacred Vine -a position that kept him in close proximity to the great Castle Beyond the Goblin City. King Jareth believed in keeping his friends close to hand, but his enemies even closer.
"She's given up on me at last." He banished the crystal with a wave of his hand, and sat back lazily in his throne. "I must say, it took her long enough. I'm quite worn out." He reached for his trusty black riding crop and flicked it idly on the pointed toe of one boot.
Sir Didymus had advised Hoggle to try counting to ten before speaking when he was angry or frustrated. Hunched over several overflowing pots of the sacred vine (Labyrinthaceae*, a mistletoe) with a watering bag and pruning shears (blunt), Hoggle passed ten, continued on to twenty, and lost count somewhere upwards of thirty; numbers are tricky things in the Underground, and can't be counted on to stay in one place like they do Above.
"Stop muttering, Heggle. It's annoying."
Hoggle spat noisily and threw down his equipment. He turned to face the king, anger etched in every line of his craggy face. "Hasn't the girl been through enough? Must ye yank her heart out too?"
Jareth raised one pointy eyebrow and allowed the corners of his mouth to follow suit. "Oh come now, Huggle, aren't you being just a bit dramatic?"
"Gaaaargh...it's Hoggle, and she loves you - you great, prancing eejit. I don't know why, but she does." If looks could kill, the king of the goblins would have been dead and buried thrice over.
"Does she?" Abruptly serious with the kind of mercurial mood-swing only kings can get away with, Jareth threw down his crop and jumped to his feet. Along the edges of the great room, several goblins, sensing a show, had sidled from the shadows and were watching intently.
"She's unhappy." The king began pacing a well-worn path in front of his throne. "If she loves me, why is she unhappy?" No one in the room was foolish enough to attempt an answer.
Except Hoggle. "Maybe because yer a megalomaniac, overbearing, cross-dressing Indian-giver!" He spat again, with relish, just shy of the king's boots. The goblins edged closer, eyes wide.
Jareth was across the room in two flicks of a fairy's wings, hoisting the angry dwarf by his collar until they were eye to eye. Hoggle stared at him, defiant.
"You're certainly braver than you used to be." Jareth smiled sharply, all menace and teeth. "Perhaps your new position has given you ideas above your station, hmm?" The goblins, as one body, held their breath.
"You don't scare me," rasped Hoggle. "You won't hurt me, 'cause you know she would never forgive you!" He kicked his stubby legs, a futile action as Jareth merely held him at arms length, grasp never faltering.
"Has she ever called you, Hoggend? Ever dropped by for a cuppa? Ever sent you a letter?" Hoggle was shaken so hard his teeth rattled. "No? Do you know why?" Jareth swung around and dropped Hoggle abruptly into his throne, then leaned close. "She wants to forget you -and not just you, Hogbrain. She wants to forget all of us. The whole Underground, the Labyrinth, everything."
Jareth leaned back, anger dying down like a fire, burnt to ashes. "She wants to forget me," he said quietly, and vanished. Pop. The goblins released their collective breath and grumbled their disappointment. Really, the King of the Goblins wasn't what he used to be.
Sarah was dressed in black. It wasn't very festive, but it suited her mood. Plus, it made her hips seem slender. She thought this might be beneficial in the new-boyfriend acquisition process, though she wasn't entirely sure. After all, weren't women with broad hips intrinsically better-suited for childbearing? And weren't men subconsciously attracted to women who would bear healthy children? Not that she planned to do so for some time, but she wanted to appear as potential-mate-friendly as possible.
She sighed and kicked at the long icicle fingers that reached downward from the frame of her car. The problem was - and if she was being honest, it was only one of many problems - she didn't tend to find herself attracted to the sort of men that would make excellent potential fathers. She liked rogues, edgy sorts who went their own way, did their own thing, and did it wearing copious amounts of leather.
And that is why I'll never get married, will have my heart broken 1,000 times, and will end up an crazy cat lady living in a one-bedroom, rent-controlled apartment with a broken water heater. Brrrr. She gave one last, vicious kick at a particularly large icicle and then wrenched open the door of her car. Sliding herself into place, she put her key in the ignition and said a little prayer that it would start - and that the heater would work today.
The problem with having your own car, was that then you had your own car. You had to keep it gassed-up, keep the tires filled with air, have the oil changed and a hundred other annoying things. Anything and everything could go wrong, and to top it all off, you had to freeze your fingers off scraping snow and ice from it during the winter. New England winters were long and hard, and Gi's basement apartment didn't come with garage privileges. What had sounded so exciting three months ago as college was starting back up in September, was proving a burdensome disappointment in frigid December. She'd already had to have it towed twice during that time, which had used up all of her extra money.
No more, she thought as the engine rumbled to life and the heater, thank goodness, started up. If it dies on me again, I'm leaving it at the side of the road. She meant it, too.
She switched on the radio, grimacing as the strains of Christmas music flowed from the speakers. Switching stations didn't help. It was the week before Christmas and options were limited. She mashed her thumb on the power button to turn it off and put the car in reverse, checking her rearview mirror as she did so. That's when she noticed the mistletoe hanging there.
If mistletoe could whistle innocently, that's what this sprig would be doing. Sarah glared at it.
"Who put you there?" The mistletoe didn't answer. She yanked it down, tossing it onto the passenger seat.
There was something about that mistletoe that tugged disturbingly at the wispy strands of her memory. It didn't look like the white-berried stuff Karen stuck on every lintel this time of year. It didn't look like the red-berried variety so popular in Christmas graphics. It had berries that glinted in the sun like little crystals, not white, but not-quite translucent, like frosted glass. Its glossy, pointed leaves were greener than green, as though someone had painstakingly waxed each one. It seemed ... familiar.
She shook her head and returned her focus to backing slowly out of the pitted driveway. There were more important things to worry about than foliage. She hadn't been to the college in three days, and she needed to check her mailbox. She was staying with Gi while the college made repairs to her dormitory, which had suffered an unfortunate accident involving fire and water damage last spring. It hadn't seemed worth it to go to all the trouble of redirecting her mail, especially since she got so little of it. Now, though, she was expecting something. Toby was in Mexico with their dad and Karen, and had promised to send her a postcard.
Thinking about Toby intensified that nagging pain in her chest. This was the first time they wouldn't be together for Christmas, and she knew he was as unhappy about that as she was, but Karen had research to do for a new novel (tentatively titled, Hola Hearts ) and had talked her dad into putting some of his accumulated vacation time into a month south of the border. Sarah couldn't go, of course, because she had classes for the first half of the month. Karen knew she would understand.
Toby had campaigned hard to be allowed to stay with Sarah and Gi, and Sarah herself had tried to play up the "couple's vacation" angle to get Karen to agree, but in the end, he had to pack his things for a much warmer clime. Apparently it was okay for him to miss two weeks of school. Sarah had had to hang up the phone quickly, after Toby broke the news to her, in order to avoid bursting into tears where he could hear her. She had a feeling that Karen had not forgotten how sad and boring her Easter basket had looked next to the one the goblins had put together for Toby, and wanted to avoid a repeat of that with his Christmas stocking.
HONK! HONK! Beeeeeeeeeeeep!
Sarah screamed and slammed the brakes -too hard. The pick-up truck that had sounded the horn swerved to avoid her and clipped a row of mailboxes as it sped past. Sarah's car fishtailed wildly before plunging into a snowbank across the street. Sarah was flung forward, hitting her chin on the steering wheel before having her neck crack sharply backwards. The world went swimmy before her eyes, its edges fading to black.
Oh great, thought Sarah, now I'll never get a date...
*Like its Aboveground cousins, Labyrinthaceae is dependant on help to pollinate its blossoms. Such help Above generally takes the form of insects or birds; the Labyrinth has none, at least none that have any interaction at that level. But the Labyrinth is home to a wide variety of small fairies, several kinds of which are very fond indeed of the berries produced by The Sacred Vine. The fairies collect the berries, traveling from vine to vine, wings giving passage to miniscule grains of pollen as they go. The mistletoe, in return, feeds directly on the magic of the Labyrinth itself. It bleeds off dangerous excess, and keeps dark forces weak enough to control.
For millennia, there has been balance.