Disclaimer: I do not own Labyrinth or any of Jim's Henson's wonderful characters.
Chapter 6
Twelve Words Not to Say
The afternoon sky was cloaked with a cover of gray and black clouds – a sure sign that it was about to rain.
The taxi Sarah was sitting in was just pulling up to the curb in front of her parents' house when the first drops began to fall. Sarah paid the driver and then stepped out of the car, attempting to shield her head with the novel she had brought with her. She ran to the front door and pounded on it.
The door opened to a soft yellow light, but before Sarah could step inside, her younger brother launched himself outside and into his sister. Sarah barely had time to utter a startled ouch! before Toby's momentum had them both falling backwards off the porch and into a puddle of mud.
Sarah was covered head to toe in the mud, but Toby, who was now lying on top of her, was relatively dry.
"Toby…" she growled.
"Hey, Sarah!" he said, his smile unaffected by her tone.
Karen stood framed in the doorway and called, "Toby, get off your sister and come inside."
"Yeah, Tobes," Sarah grinned. "Get. Off."
Her brother obliged, but before he had taken a step back toward the house, Sarah scooped up a handful of mud and flung it at him.
"Hey!" Toby cried indignantly as the mud ball hit him on his neck and dripped down under his shirt. "That's cold!"
"You're telling me," Sarah replied while quickly slipping around Toby and into the house before he could retaliate.
Karen rolled her eyes and muttered something about "bad influences."
Sarah's father came into the room. "Oh, Sarah, you're here– What happening to you?" he asked when he saw the state of her clothing.
"Your son happened." Sarah took off her shoes and then started to climb the stairs. "I'm going to take a shower now," she said as she glared at Toby who had now come in the house and we trying to hide a fistful of mud behind his back.
"Okay, hon," her father said. "Just don't forget to call if there's a problem and Toby's bedtime is-"
"Dad," she interrupted. "Don't worry. I know the routine."
Sarah had just made it to her old bedroom which still had some of her clothes when she heard Karen yell, "Toby Jared Williams take that mud out of the house this instant!" Sarah smirked, but she felt a twinge of unease when she heard Toby's middle name – it was too close to another name of her past… And the name of the owl that currently seemed to be stalking her.
"Goblin King," Sarah ground out. "What the heck are you doing here?" she addressed the white owl sitting on the tree outside the bathroom window. Why did the bathroom have to have windows? "Go AWAY!"
The owl glared at her but made no attempt to move from its perch.
Sarah sighed and tried a different approach. "Jareth, will you please" she choked on that word as she said it "leave me alone?"
This time the owl gave a contented hoot before flying away.
"Sarah!" Toby called from the bottom of the stairs. "Hurry up! Mom said I had to shower after you!"
"Alright, alright! I'm hurrying!"
Undressing, Sarah stepped into the shower and let the warm water loosen her muscles so that she relaxed.
When she had finished showering and had dressed, Sarah stepped out of the bathroom to see a very irritated seven year old standing in the hallway with his arms crossed over his chest. "Finally. You've been in there for half an hour!"
"Sorry, Tobes," she apologized, even if she wasn't really sorry. That shower had been nice. "I'll make dinner while you're in there. Let me guess – mac'n'cheese?"
Toby nodded enthusiastically, forgetting to be angry.
In the kitchen, Sarah put a pot of water on the stove and turned the heat on, but waiting for water to boil was about as entertaining as watching paint dry, so Sarah found herself in her room for the couple minutes it took for the water to heat up.
Crossing to her desk, Sarah opened the top drawer and pulled out a tiny red book with golden lettering that read The Labyrinth on its cover. She flipped through the pages and read, "Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I had fought my way to the castle beyond the Goblin City to take back the child that you have stolen, for my will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom as great. You have no power-" Sarah paused. For some reason she couldn't bring herself to finish that sentence.
Sighing, she set the book back down on the desk and headed back to the kitchen, forgetting to close her bedroom door on her way out.
Herald was going to be in trouble for this. He was sure of it.
The Queenie had said to stay home, but what if something happened? It was this question that led Herald to make up his mind that his lady might need his protection. Thus it happened that he was holding on to the underside of the taxi that was driving to the Williams' house (he had been watching far too many spy movies that made him think this was a smart idea).
The car came to a halt, and Herald fell onto the road, unable to hold on to the taxi any longer. He heard the car door open, and from his crouched position, he saw Sarah step out of the backseat. The car drove away just as Sarah was tackled by her brother. After Sarah and Toby walked into the house, Herald ran after them and slipped through the door before Karen closed it. Upon entering the house, Herald dove behind a coat stand and watched Sarah go upstairs and later, her parents leave the house.
Herald stayed crouched like that for a long time – until Sarah came down the stairs, went up again, and then came back down and walked into the kitchen. Herald had been forbidden to enter kitchens after the pancake incident, so he couldn't follow her there.
Herald ran up the stairs as fast as his legs could carry him, and snuck into Sarah's room. From the hallway, he heard Toby singing "Dance magic dance!" from the shower, and Herald was tempted to go into the bathroom to sing with him. Thankfully, he chose not to.
When he came into Sarah's room, he didn't see anything remarkable – stuffed animals sat in a cubby on left wall of the room and the bed was pressed up against the back wall. What then caught the goblin's attention was the red book laying over the edge of Sarah's desk.
The little goblin excitedly made his way to the desk and attempted to jump up and grab the book, scowling when he discovered he was too short to reach. In frustration, he childishly (or is it golbinishly) flopped to the ground and sat with his arms crossed over his chest while he glared at the book accusingly, as if it was the book's fault Herald couldn't reach it.
"Ah-ha!" he exclaimed when he saw Sarah's desk chair. Herald was able to grab the edge of the chair and attempted the pull himself up, while the wheels of the chair moved it back and forth.
"Stay still, chair!" Herald ordered as he tried to find a good grip.
Surprisingly, the chair did stay still, and Herald smiled proudly as he pulled himself on it. He didn't notice that the reason the chair was still was because it was now pressed against the wall. The goblin also didn't understand that now the chair was much farther away from the book than it had originally been.
Herald reached over and tried to grab the book, and the chair began to tip. "Just. A bit. Farther…." His fingers closed around the edge of the book. "Yes!" he whooped in triumph.
And then the chair fell down, goblin and all.
Toby had just come out of the bathroom, clean and fully dressed, when he heard the crash from Sarah's room. He made his way down the hall and was surprised to find her bedroom door open. Sarah never left her bedroom door open.
"Hello?" he said, taking a step into the room. "Sarah?" Then he saw the creature on the floor next to a fallen chair and clutching an old red book.
"Argh!" Toby exclaimed. "What is that-?"
Frantically the goblin gestured for him to be quiet. "Ahhh! Prince be quiet! Sarah no likely if she finds Herald here! Not the Bath of Lavender Fragrance again!"
"Herald?" Toby asked as he crouched down to the goblin's eye level. "Is that your name?"
The goblin nodded and looked fearfully at the door.
"What are you?"
Herald's eyes briefly flicked up to the boy's. "I's a goblin."
Toby frowned. Goblins didn't exist. His mother had drilled that into him when he was younger. He could practically hear her lecturing "Your sister's stories aren't real."
"Don't worry," Toby said when the goblin's fearful expression didn't go away. "I won't tell Sarah you're here."
The goblin smiled – a grin that stretched across his entire face.
"Toby friend?" Herald asked.
"Um… sure." For some reason, Toby didn't find it that weird to discover a goblin in his house. In his sister's room maybe, but for some reason, Toby felt like goblins were a normal part of his life, even if he had just met this one. It just felt natural to be talking to Herald.
"Why are you in my sister's room, Herald?"
The goblin held up the book, and the gold title flashed when the lights from the hall hit it.
"A book?" Toby would steal many things (gum, pencils, cookies, the occasional bike…) but never a book. "What's so special about that book?"
"Is The Labyrinth," Herald said as if that explained everything.
"The labyrinth," Toby muttered. "That's the story my sister tells me before bed! Here - let me look."
The goblin shook his head and stuck the book behind his back. "Herald's book."
"Give it."
"No."
Toby lunged for the goblin, and after a brief wrestling match, was sitting on Sarah's bed with the book clutched in his hands. Toby opened to the first chapter, but found the words were too big for him to understand and the font was way too tiny. After flipping through a couple pages, he sighed in defeat and closed the book. "I can't read it. But I remember how the story goes. The girl was angry she had to watch her brother so she said 'Goblin King, Goblin King! Wherever you may be, take this child of mine far away from me!' and he did, and then she ran the Labyrinth to get him back…" Toby trailed off to Herald's violent head shakes.
"Those ain't the words!"
"Yes they are!" Toby said defensively. "That's how Sarah tells it, so that's the way it is!"
Herald just shook his head again. "No, no," he said. "The words is: 'I wish the goblins would come and take you away…'"
"Toby?" came Sarah's voice from the doorway to the bedroom, and Toby's head snapped up to meet his sister's eyes.
"'… right now.'"
Sarah had just finished cooking dinner, and Toby hadn't come downstairs yet, so she called, "Toby? Dinner!" He didn't answer – or more correctly, didn't hear her.
Sarah walked up the stairs and was about to head to the bathroom to tell Toby to come out when she heard voices coming from her bedroom.
Confused, she walked to her room. "Toby?" she asked again.
Then her eyes widened in shock and fear when she saw Herald in the room beside her brother, and she heard the last part of his sentence:
"…right now."
So I'm finally am back on track with the plot! (Or at least the plot that didn't exist until now). So, yes, poor Toby has been wished away again by a goblin, no less. As you may have noticed, I changed the summary of the story because the old one is no longer quite correct :)
Anyway, Jareth is in the next chapter! Hooray! I'm sorry that he hasn't been in this story very long so far, but I'm about to fix that.
Thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter:
Cybernetic Mango: yes… I love lavender too – probably too much for my own good
notwritten: thank you for always telling me to smile. I certainly shall
TheraSerenity: thank you so much! But please do not die from lack of oxygen because of me – I really don't think I could handle all the bills and lawsuits that would come with that….
hazlgrnLizzy: thank you – I'm glad you like it
CeliaEquus: you were originally right about the babysitting job… but now… maybe not so much :) And Capt. Obvious is an awesome nickname – you should use it more often
KraZiiePyrozHavemoreFun: yeah, Herald never seems to get a break, does he? Though of course, that's mostly his fault…
Miriam1: well, you were right about the plot until I spontaneously decided to change it. Mwahahahaha! That makes me feel so evil :) And I'm glad you like the story so far and thank you for reviewing
And to everyone else: thank you so much for reading!
Please review! Thanks!