*** Many moons later ***

"Mother? Did you hear what I just said?"

Trisha's voice abruptly interrupted the flow of her thoughts. Sarah looked up from the little glass sphere that she had stared at until that very moment - but without really seeing it.

"Sorry", she said with a weak smile. "I was..."

"... distracted, yes. Your mind was flowing to the past." Trisha frowned. "But you did not look happy to ride the wheel of time backward. Were you thinking about sad memories?"

"Just the first half. Actually, I was thinking about the day I saw your father for the second time in my life."

"How odd", said Trisha, almost as if talking to herself. Sarah glanced at her quizzically.

"I don't get... why it should be strange?"

"Because usually, when you think about him, your face lights up and your eyes smile. This time instead you seemed... downcast."

"You know, it... wasn't an easy choice. I'd have wanted your uncle Toby to come with me. And it hurt me to leave him behind."

"But mother, you're going to see him in another cycle of the seasons, next Samhain", Trisha pointed out, putting her hands on her hips; she looked extraordinarily like her father, standing that way. "If you did not live together in the Aboveground, what's so different anyhow?"

"Well... if your uncle and your aunt Charlotte lived here, I could see them every other day."

Sarah did not feel like telling her daughter about the other - and much more serious reason - why she'd have so wished to have her brother in the Underground. When she had visited him at Halloween, she had been shocked by how much his fine hair, once blond and then salt-and-pepper, had turned snowy white. And Charlotte had the same smile as ever - but her hands were contracted by arthritis, spidery and pale. Sarah on the other hand was still identical to when she was thirty - and Trisha, whose glorious, golden path to Fae adulthood had just begun - seemed just shy of her twenty, when her age in human terms would have been closer to fifty than to forty.

Toby and I don't even look like brother and sister anymore, Sarah had thought with a heavy heart. Seeing us now - one would almost think that he's the father and Trisha and I are his daughters. Toby, however, hadn't told her anything about moving in the Underground, and neither had Charlotte... although Sarah had hoped to the very last minute that they did.

Trisha couldn't understand, of course. She had been born an immortal - she had never decided to become one. Sometimes, Sarah felt a slight tinge of jealousy toward her husband and her daughter; for them, time truly was devoid of all meaning, while for her - even now that she was no longer subjected to its rules - it was still a vague and undefined threat, a dark shadow looming over the affections of her brother and her sister-in-law. She felt that she would have never been able to think - or rather, not think - about time the way Trisha and Jareth did.

"If you miss him so much, why don't you have him cross the Labyrinth?", asked her daughter, who had observed her inner struggle silently.

Astonished, Sarah looked up at her.

"What are you speaking about, Trish?"

"Uncle Toby", Trisha answered pointedly, as if it was really obvious. "You take him and uncle Charlotte in the Labyrinth and give them thirteen hours to solve it. They lose, they stay, end of the problem."

"Are you kidding?", snapped Sarah. "If it's a joke, I don't find it even the slightest bit funny!"

Trisha's eyes narrowed.

"I would never joke on a matter that holds such importance for you, mother."

"But I... you..."

"This is the purpose of the Labyrinth, isn't it? And you want uncle Toby to move in the Underground."

"Of his free will! I don't want to force him to live here!" Sarah flushed with anger.

"Did I ever talk about forcing him?" replied Trisha, cocking a thin dark eyebrow. "The Labyrinth isn't a prison from which there is no escape. If he solves it in time, he can return to his life in the Aboveground."

"I barely solved it, and I wasn't even half his age", Sarah bellowed. "Forget it, Trish. I don't even want to hear such things from you again."

Trisha shrugged. "What a pity." She took the glass sphere from her mother's hand and made it whirl - dance - with the same hypnotic movements that Sarah knew so well. "If you had wanted to go that route, I would have been glad to help."

"Of course." Sarah grimaced. "And you're not forgetting anything?"

Trisha raised her eyes, with a sudden hostile flash in her stare.

"What is it that I've forgotten, pray tell?" she hissed.

"For an instance", an amused voice between them said, "that until further proof, it's up to me to decide who must solve the Labyrinth."

Trisha betrayed no surprise. Only her face stiffened for a moment, while her mother turned toward the owner of the voice.

Jareth was leaning to a wall, his arms lazily crossed over his chest; he was wearing his ceremony garbs and smirking deviously from ear to ear. His hair seemed to bathe his shoulders in pure light, and crowned the piercing and astute eyes that the Goblin King had passed on to his daughter.

"You like catching people off guard, now don't you", Sarah playfully remarked.

Jareth tilted his head sideways.

"Caught you off guard, precious? I don't get it. You called my name, just a moment ago..."

"I'm positive I didn't!"

"Maybe not aloud... but in your thoughts, you did", he promised. His stare then moved on to Trisha, who had stayed still like a statue, her balled fists laying at her sides. "What about you, my dear? Had you foretold that I would interrupt your talk?"

The young Fae shook her head with mild irritation, and her dark hair captured the light.

"I knew that uncle Toby wasn't going to face the Labyrinth... not today, at any rate", she added, flashing a disdainful glare at Sarah. "It could either mean that my mother would not hear of it - or that you'd not allow it."

Jareth pretended to be amazed.

"Formidable... you knew all this, and you still tried to push your mother into doing things your way?"

"The future is not static and unchangeable", she sharply retorted. "Endless trails of possibilities depart from our every actions... and they are all equally valid until one picks which way to go. I merely encouraged my mother to pick the route that I believed was preferable."

"And you did so most - ah, disinterestedly, daughter, did you?", Jareth mockingly suggested.

"You make it sound like I have some hidden agendas for wanting my uncle in the Underground", Trisha challenged. The sneer on her father's handsome face widened.

"All this sudden interest for your mother and your uncle Toby... Are you perhaps developing a shred of sentiment, my dear? Or is this just your umpteenth attempt to oust me?"

Trisha balled her fists and glared murderously at the Goblin King, who returned her stare with equal coldness. Anger, barely contained, seemed to ripple in the air around them. A wrong word or a look the wrong way and hell would break loose.

"Let's all try to cool off", Sarah piped up hastily. She placed a hand on her husband's shoulder - more in the attempt to hold him back than to actually soothe his ire. "Trisha wasn't trying to push me into doing anything... she knows full well she can't", she said sternly, and looked her daughter square in the eyes - as if challenging her to protest. "We were just talking about matters of no importance, my dear."

Trisha still looked somewhat rebellious, but her mother's sharp glare made her avert her eyes as she stepped back.

"Anything the matter?", Jareth taunted her. Sarah elbowed him in the ribs, warningly.

"The choice has been taken", Trisha answered through clenched teeth. "Nothing I say can influence or... sway the flow of events, now." She spat the word, sway, as if it had been venomous. Then she hesitated, before adding; "Therefore... I guess that we were effectively talking about matters of no importance."

For now, she thought, glaring angrily at the tip of Jareth's leather boots.

As if nothing unusual was going on, the Goblin King turned back to Sarah and held out his arm to her. "Shall we go, precious? The ball is about to start."

"Alright", she quickly answered. "Come, Trisha."

"Mother, must I?", complained the young Fae. "I'd much rather wait you here, if it's not a problem."

Jareth sneered.

"I don't think so. Lazing around the throne on your own would be - too great a temptation."

"I'm not going to blow it up, you know", she snapped back.

"The last time we took our leave, you tried to lure two mortals in the Labyrinth", the Goblin King reminded her. "But things didn't exactly turn out the way the way you had expected, did they?"

Outraged, Trisha squared her shoulders.

"That was just an accident! I did not know who those mortals were, I had not bothered to study them. I did wrong, yes? You'll keep throwing it in my face for all eternity, father?"

"I hope that it won't take that long before you become a responsible Queen."

"Enough!", hissed Sarah. She seized her husband's arm and piloted him firmly onward. "Can we give it a break, at least for now?"

"You ought to know that your wish is my command, precious", Jareth replied. Trisha did not fail to notice the way - the entirely intentional way - in which he underlined the words "my command".

"I bow to the will of my Queen and lady mother", she hissed, as if to make it clear that it was only Sarah's interference that stayed her hand.