Sarah grimaced across the table at Toby.
The late morning sun hit perfectly to lend Sarah the dramatic lighting she needed to look intimidating and not even the lingering smell of brunch could detract from the fierceness of her glare.
Toby giggled.
Sarah broke character for a moment to laugh along with him before sobering. She contorted her face into another mask of horror: her eyebrow rose and met in the center of her forehead, her lips curled back to bare her teeth, her eyes crossed and widened. Any casual observer would compare her face to a goblin, at least if they hadn't actually seen a goblin.
"… Do you have any plans today Sarah?" Irene's voice broke through the sound of the siblings' giggles.
"Not really. I was thinking about going to the park." Sarah said, "Get out of the house for a bit."
"Well, Robert and I were planning on going out today. Would you mind watching Toby?" Irene asked, for once like it was really up to Sarah, and her father glanced over from the sink to see her answer.
"No, I don't mind, but I am allowed to take Toby to the park, right?"
"I-," Irene cut herself off from her automatic denial and looked to Robert.
"You can. But! Keep a close eye on him and don't stay out too long like you tend to," her father hedged, "I'm leaving $30 here on the counter- if you go out you can stop by the diner and get you and Toby something to eat. The money left over is for you."
Then Robert turned to Irene, "Are you ready to go?"
Irene stood and walked to the counter, grabbing her purse and adjusting her pearls, "Yes, dear."
Together the two walked towards the door, pausing briefly to alternately pat and kiss the two children on their heads. As they exited the house Irene said, "I don't know why she insisted she be paid. It's not like she ever has a date to blow money on."
Sarah looked at Toby in the silence of the house, "What would they have done if I did have plans?"
Toby looked back at Sarah and held his arms up, asking for Sarah to hold him.
Sarah chuckled and stood to walk to Toby. She swung him into the air and around her body before settling him at her hip, "Well at least they asked this time. And I did get paid."
She looked around the kitchen and sighed at what she saw. In a recently developed weekend tradition, the family had gathered for a late breakfast. Sarah might have cast Irene into the role of wicked stepmother but Irene was a wicked good cook. Cinnamon waffles and fluffy eggs along with freshly squeezed juice and perfectly cooked bacon had been a delightful way to spend the morning with her family. However, as wrong as Sarah admitted she was about most of her attitude, some things remained completely unfair: they had left her with all the clean-up.
"Wow. What am I? Their maid?"
Sarah smiled down at Toby and walked into the other room to grab the blanket thrown across the back off the tacky (Irene's style of choice), flower-patterned couch and swept Lancelot up from where Toby had thrown him to the floor. She spread the blanket across the hard tile and set Toby upon it and handed him Lancelot after smoothing back his fur fondly.
She spent several moments tickling Toby, delighting in getting the perpetually fussy baby to giggle. Toby's arms thrashed in his hysteria, waving Lancelot around like a sword against a terrible foe. After several seconds of tickle-torture Lancelot whipped across Sarah's face and Sarah picked up her recently retired role as an actress and responded accordingly.
"Ah! What feat, to strike such a mortal blow!" Sarah fell back and flung her hand across her chest, "Such folly I committed in underestimating such heroic champions!"
She peeked an eye open to glance at Toby, whom played the ever-attentive audience, "To think I, the Great but Terrible Queen I am, shall die at the hands of my once most loyal vassal, Sir Lancelot, and thine of mine own blood, Prince Toby. Oh! The agony!"
Sarah collapsed onto the floor, still except for the occasional twitch of death, as Toby clapped cheerily on the blanket.
"Well Tobes, I better get started," Sarah stood and turned to the table to begin the arduous process of washing dishes. As she gathered the soiled utensils onto a single plate, Toby began to softly whimper.
"Hold on a second, Toby," Sarah placed the dishes she was carrying into the sink and sank down to check on Toby, "I know you're not hungry- Irene just fed you. Diaper?"
After assuring herself that Toby did not have a dirty diaper and seeing that Toby was no longer crying, Sarah went back to clearing the table. Before she had so much as picked up a glass, Toby was crying loudly and reaching for Sarah.
"Ah, I see baby brother. You just want some attention." Sarah smiled at Toby but didn't make any movements toward him, "How about I tell you a story?"
This had been a tradition between Toby and Sarah since his birth. Even before the Labyrinth and Sarah's change in attitude towards Toby, Sarah had been telling him stories. She recited to him stories had she read, stories she adored, stories she hated, and sometimes stories she made up entirely. Weeks ago, when even picking Toby up would make Sarah feel unwanted and hateful, stories were the only comfort that the siblings could share, the only thing that could calm and connect them.
Every time she thought of it, she still felt shame that she used their only connection to wish her brother away.
"So, what story do we want today?" She put her index finger to her chin and made an exaggerated thinking face, "A love story? A tale of magic? A story of adventure?"
Sarah and Toby maintained eye contact for several moments before Toby opened his mouth and blew a spit bubble, giggling as it popped in his face.
"Right! I've been telling you about my dreams, haven't I?" Sarah kept her voice cheerful and dramatic as she tried to spin a coherent story out of the haze her dreams left her with. She told him of the pastel grasses that grew past the tallest man's head and changed colors with every breeze. She told him about the berries that grew in the roots of the grass that glowed even in sunlight and tasted a bit like peach. She whispered about the grass's pollen that made the air sweet but her mind heavy. She extoled the virtues of the river that ran through the boundless meadow, that existed nearby whenever she desired it but never when she didn't. But mostly she told Toby about the people the meadow called for, people who drifted into the meadow but never away.
"… and this funny little man- almost goblin in looks but definitely Hoggle in nature- tore the grass from the ground around him and plopped to sit on the floor. 'I'll tell you what missy- I don't care what you say, I am not sleeping outside.' And before I could even open my mouth, he had weaved himself a house made of grass! In the blink of an eye he had built the cutest house right there in the meadow. But he didn't seem satisfied with it and built another. And another when that didn't satisfy him. He must have spent hours building a town of grass houses, little grass houses with little grass gardens and even grass shops, but he was never happy with his creations. He always seemed happy while making them, but never to have them. When I left his new town and into the meadow again he was still happily weaving new buildings behind me."
Sarah finished the story of her most recent dream almost the same time as she dried the last dish. She placed her father's "World's Best…" mug into the drying rack and turned to Toby, "I'll tell you what though, if I lived in a meadow like that I'd want a house too. No sleeping outside for this lady."
She bent to pick up Toby, Lancelot, and the blanket in one motion, "Maybe a house made out of jewels. Or one made out of clouds!" In Sarah's arms Toby was blinking slowly, his eyes staying closed for longer increments with every blink.
"No, that wouldn't be very comfortable. How about one made out of blankets, eh Tobes? A nice place made entirely out of soft blankets, a giant pillow fort for you to live in?" Sarah placed Toby into the portable playpen set out in the living room, in his arms was Lancelot and placed gently around him was the blanket.
"I, of course, would live in a tree house," she glanced out the window to the tree outside, "No, a tree castle- that I wouldn't have to build myself, so it will actually exist…" Sarah trailed off as she noticed that Toby was no longer awake.
She stared at the sleeping toddler for several seconds, a surge of incredible fondness welling up inside her at the sight. He was safe and happy, and there wasn't a lot she wouldn't do to keep him that way. However, staring at a sleeping baby got boring very quickly- he wasn't even an active sleeper, he just laid there.
Sarah stood up, there wasn't much she could do without waking Toby but she still took the time to look around the room and consider her options. She could watch some television- but she had a tendency to get absorbed and loudly comment on the characters' decisions, she could read a book, or she could write in her journal. Before she could make a decision, she saw movement out of the corner of her eye.
Sarah whirled around, her body tensing for a confrontation and her arm reaching for the lamp at the end of the couch. Her eyes swept from the doorway to the shadowed corner of the room, "Who's there?"
As the seconds ticked by with no answer, Sarah took a step towards where she had seen the movement. From the other side of the room the sound of one of Toby's toys falling to the ground rang out and Sarah again twisted to see what had made the noise. For a single moment she saw a small, grey form and knew.
Goblin.
In a moment of shear panic Sarah snatched Toby from the pen. His eyes flew open and a startled cry emerged from his throat.
Sarah glanced down at the baby in her arms, "Oh. I'm sorry Toby, I-," Sarah cut herself off with a look toward where she had seen the goblin.
She didn't know why she had reacted like that. No one had wished him away and it wasn't the first time she had seen a goblin since defeating the Goblin King and exiting the Labyrinth but still, she was wary. The Labyrinth seemed much more present lately than it had before, the feeling that she was taking things for granted again and that things would be different every time she turned around. It made her feel both exhilarated and jumpy, and like Toby could vanish if she wasn't fast enough, brave enough, clever enough, if she wasn't enough.
So even though she wasn't afraid, even though she was sure the goblin wasn't here to take Toby, she was not going to risk even a moment of inattention.
Sarah continued to gently shush Toby as she pulled the stroller from the hallway closet, stopping briefly in the kitchen to grab the money her father had left, and opened the front door.
As she exited the house she turned back to say, "He can't have Toby. I won His game," she paused to smile, "fair and square."
Sarah closed the door softly behind her, chattering to a sniffling Toby about the fun they were going to have at the park and missed the conversation behind her, "We can't tell the King that!"
"He'd bog us good!" Several heads emerged from behind furniture, some helmeted, some horned, all missing the trademark laughter and musicality in place of a shallow horror.
"We're not even supposed to visit 'the Girl'."
A single, helmeted goblin shushed the rest and said in a screech, "We'll just not tell the King."
Laughter echoed around the room as the goblins disappeared with no sign they had been there at all, "Secret from the King!"
The house stood in silence, the gabble of goblins gone to the Labyrinth to continue without mention of their visit to the Aboveground and the siblings to the nearby park to continue without mention of their visitors from the Underground.
She's standing in a meadow.
The sky overhead is bright but the gentle breeze and the grass's shadow keep her cool. The grass grows high above her head and through the shifting stalks far figures can be seen. With every step soft blades brush against her skin, calming her and guiding her to where she wants to go.
As she walks, she discovers an adventure past every turn. She drifts past diminutive forms tinkering with effervescent fabrics; 'defensive capabilities' they say, 'a protection against getting lost' they assure. She lingers at the rudimentary stage and the dramatic thespians playing on it; her mind telling her to join but her heart warring against it. She wanders through a village made of grass, a fortress made for comfort, and to a castle built into a tree.
She stands at the roots, staring up into the leaves. She doesn't know what type of tree it is.
She asks herself if she knows and responds, 'It's a spruce tree.' But as she stares she grows hungry and the tree grows fruit, 'Oh! It's a berry tree.' But as she continues to stare the fruit retreats and branches twine down into stairs for her to climb.
'It doesn't matter what tree it is,' she assures herself, 'it's my tree. A my-castle tree.'
She climbs into the tree and sits high in the tallest branch (or is it a tower?) where the pollen lingers thickly and stares across the Boundless Meadow and she doesn't want to leave.
She's in a castle in a tree.
The sun is low in the sky and casts shadows where there should be none. The light breaks through the protection the leaves grant her and pierce into her eyes. She stares through the branches and sees something move in the distance and she feels curious.
She is walking through the grass. The soft blades slide against her skin, the leaves change with the movement her body introduces and leave a light, waxy residue coating her arms as payment. She can hear laughter and music just beyond the next stalks but she ignores it. There is always laughter and music.
She keeps walking. A sound breaks through the undercurrent of the Meadow. She knows this sound. It is similar to what she finds familiar here, laughter and music, but different. She turns toward it.
There through the grass is a tunnel. The tunnel shifts midway, from the natural colors of the meadow to a brown stone, and jeering laughter echoes with strands of synthetic-pop.
She takes a step toward the tunnel but stops. She can't enter. She's not ready yet.
She turns and walks through the grass again. The tunnel is lost among the grass, for now.
She's in a Meadow and she doesn't want to leave.
She walks through the grass, still laughing at the comedian troupe she left behind. She doesn't remember the jokes they told but she greatly enjoyed them.
She wonders what she will find next.
She keeps walking. She doesn't want to leave.
"You've been sleeping an awful lot lately Sarah. Are you feeling well?" Her father asked over dinner.
"Hmm," Sarah murmured, she wouldn't go so far as to say she was ill but it had been harder than usual this week to get up in the morning- often leading her to sleep in until noon- and when she was up she was hard pressed to keep her mind from wandering.
Irene and Robert exchanged glances. Typically, it was hard to keep Sarah from dominating any conversation, she had many ideas and little compunctions about sharing them, but that night she hadn't spoken more than a dozen words.
"Maybe Irene and I should stay in and watch Toby tonight," Robert suggested, watching Irene for her response.
Irene looked for a moment like she might argue before she glanced at Sarah, who was shifting her food around her plate and hadn't given any indication that she had even heard her father speak, "Yes, that is a good idea, dear. I'll go cancel the reservations. Sarah, why don't you go on up to bed?"
The entire table sat in silence for several moments, Robert and Irene watching Sarah for her answer and Sarah staring unblinkingly at the floral wallpaper. Toby sat watching his older sister, waiting for her to look at him and play.
"Sarah?" Robert prompted.
Sarah blinked and turned to look at her father in confusion.
"Do you want to go to bed a bit early? It looks like you could use it." Robert repeated to his daughter.
"Oh. Ok," Sarah placed her fork on her plate and stood up from the table, "Goodnight."
As she walked out of the room, Toby finally seemed to realize that his sister was leaving without playing with him and started to cry, calling out for her attention.
Sarah walked to her room without turning back.
She's in a Meadow.
The sun is bright overhead but the shade of the grass and the gentle breeze keep her cool.
She looks at the flowers that surround her. A garden has grown within the Meadow and it surrounds her in a mosaic of flowers. She finds it prettier than any wallpaper she has ever seen.
She questions to herself, 'who would ever leave this place?'