Checked for continuity, grammar, and spelling: May 3, 2011.
Chapter Twenty-Four: Reflections
"... And then we came up here for ice cream, but between freezer burn, Caroline, and you, that didn't happen. And here we are." After they had hashed out the details surrounding Sammuel's appearance, Sarah launched into a retelling of her afternoon with Jareth in general, leaving out any reference to the argument she and Jareth had. It was not that she would have minded Agnes knowing, she just could not decide how to tell it without the whole watching business sounding even more strange than it already was. Which, she felt, was a pity, for she would have liked to hear Agnes' opinion on the matter.
Somewhere in the telling, Agnes had gravitated from Sarah's desk chair to her regular, upside down spot on the couch. She now grabbed a pillow and flipped it in the air a few times before hauling herself upright and throwing it at Sarah. "So."
"Uh huh." Sarah caught the pillow deftly; this type of exchange came naturally after nearly five years of living in dorms together, not to mention what seemed like countless more years of friendship.
"Before I go into my angle, what do you think of Jareth?"
"Hm." Sarah uncurled herself to sprawl sideways on the chair.
"'Hm' isn't quite up to your usual eloquent par, Williams."
"I was thinking."
Agnes sighed. "Sometimes, being your friend is challenging. How about I help you out. Let's start with the obvious: He is good looking."
"Yeah."
The response was still too non-committal for Agnes' liking. "Really good looking."
"Yeah."
The slightly breathy tone was encouraging. "Incredibly gorgeous, actually."
"Tell me about it."
"No, no, no. You are supposed to tell me."
"Right." Sarah considered as Agnes held her tongue and reined in her impatience. "Well," she continued after a few minutes of silence, "I think I like him."
"You do? Never would have guessed that one."
Sarah threw the pillow back at Agnes. "No, I mean really."
Well, at least she is admitting it. Finally. "That much is obvious, Williams."
"Is it, really?" She sat up quickly. "It's not too obvious, is it? I don't want to give the wrong impression or anything..."
"What sort of wrong impression could you give by it being obvious that you're interested and attracted to this man?" Apart from the fact that you are just as interested in him as he appears to be in you, of course.
"That..." Sarah gave a frustrated sigh and returned to her sprawled position. "That I'm willing to commit to things that I'm not sure I'm ready for."
Agnes gave her friend a sharp look. "Commit? You make it sound as though he's proposed or something." She paused. "I mean, he hasn't, has he?"
"Well, no."
"Is he pressuring you or something?"
"No, not at all! He wouldn't do that."
"Oo-OO-oo. You're mightily defensive for someone not ready to commit to, well, anything at all."
Sarah glared, turning red once more. "I didn't say I wasn't ready to commit to anything. Just not, well, everything," she muttered.
Agnes blinked a few times. "You are such a nutcase."
"Shut it."
"Yeah, yeah. Ok, just so we're clear, this is where you stand: You 'like' him, are happy that you're dating, will probably be happier to be a couple, but aren't sure if you want to sit around on a porch swing once you're both ancient and wrinkled while the great-grandchildren play in the yard."
"Well..."
"Oh, and you agree that he is as yummy as Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey on a hot summer day."
Sarah laughed. "But I don't like Chunky Monkey!"
Agnes rolled her eyes. "Well he wouldn't be Half-Baked; we all know that's you."
"What?"
"Well, it's true." Sarah tried to think of what flavor Ben & Jerry's Jareth would be, as well as what he would think of being thought of as 'yummy'. This set her laughing all the harder.
Agnes gave a heavy sigh, throwing the pillow once again to get Sarah's attention. "Hey now, none of that. We are having a serious conversation here."
"Oh, right." Though she managed to contain her laughter, her grin was still wide. Sarah stared resolutely at the ceiling, knowing one look at Agnes would only set her off again. "I concur with your statement about where I stand, except for the Chunky Monkey part."
"Fine. But for the sake of this discussion, we'll just say an ice cream cone in general and call it good."
"Fair enough."
"I assume you request my opinion, though my meeting him was brief?"
Sarah nodded, though Agnes did not see for she was staring resolutely at the ceiling as well.
"I take your silence for assent, then." This time, it was Agnes who paused, considering what to say and how to say it. "I suppose I give him my Temporary Stamp of Approval."
"I thought he had that already."
"No, he had my Preliminary Temporary Stamp of Approval, pending actual introduction. Now it is official. I'd like the chance to talk to him a bit more, just to make sure his intentions toward you are completely honorable-"
"Honorable intentions? That sounds like something my father would say. Or Edmund."
Agnes continued as though she did not hear that. "But as he seems to be genuinely interested in you as a person and not merely as a prize or an object or anything, he gets high marks and is well on his way to Full Fledged Approval."
"Well, that's good." The fact that Agnes had suddenly come up with levels of approval, something she'd never had before, amused Sarah.
"Yes, I like to think so. I may as well tell you that, had I met him under circumstances that did not surround your tender heart -"
"My what? Aggie, you are so strange sometimes."
"Pot and kettle. As I was saying, in other circumstances, I think I would have approved of him already, and have been less critical about his qualifications. He seems like an intelligent, decent sort of man with great personality. It's just..." She hesitated.
Sarah did look at Agnes then. "Just what?"
"I've seen you hurt before. I hope you know I won't just stand by and let that happen again."
Sarah smiled a bit ruefully. " Yes, I know."
"I mean it, Sarah. I'll give him a piece of my mind if he so much as makes you think about crying. And I'll pound him in the ground myself if he hurts you, feels no remorse for it, and doesn't fix it."
"Oh, Agnes."
"Yeah, yeah. Now can we change the topic before we start going completely mushy? How about you tell me what exactly it is about Jareth that you find so attractive, physically of course. We can cover less superficial aspects later. And what is his last name, anyway?"
"It's King," Sarah said, giggling both at the idea of Jareth having a last name and at Agnes' typical distracting comments.
They talked for a few hours more then went up to dinner together, as they so often did. After dinner, both turned in early. Agnes had promised to meet Edmund before his first class the next day, which meant she would need to wake up before ten a.m.: a rare occurrence if she could help it. However, he wanted to make sure they were still 'friends' for all his involvement with the football fiasco, and she was never one to turn down breakfast sponsored by Edmund for no one made scrambled eggs like him. Sarah was simply tired out.
Yet as she lay in bed that night, her mind would not rest. It wandered in and out of various topics, namely centering on Jareth, to finally settle on bits and pieces of her conversation with Agnes. Her mind lit on one comment that she found unsettling, but before she could pinpoint why, she finally fell asleep.
It was restless, full of dreams she could remember nothing about save they disturbed and frightened her. As happens after a night of unrest, her whole day was thrown into confusion. She felt vaguely disoriented, and not entirely herself. She could not explain what was wrong, not even to Agnes, beyond the fact that she had not slept well.
This continued for two more nights and two more days. In that time, she heard nothing from Jareth. She did not expect to do so; she supposed it was not as though he had nothing else to do. Still, she wanted to hear from him. And that thought was confusing.
When she returned to her dorm room after dinner Wednesday evening, she happened to look out the window of her front room. On the ledge outside lay an unadorned box. She would have known it was from Jareth even had there not been another feather tucked underneath it.
Pleased in spite of herself, she wasted no time in bringing the box inside and setting it on her desk. Opening it gingerly, she found a note settled atop another pile of white silk:
It's a crystal, nothing more. But if you believe in it, it will protect you as you wander through your dreams. Trust in that, Sarah.
I shall see you soon.
- J
A crystal? she thought with trepidation, even as she smiled to herself at his wording. And how did he know about the dreams?
Setting the note aside, Sarah peeled away a bit of the silk. It revealed a crystal, as the note said, and identical to the ones he had offered her all those years ago. She stared at it, half afraid to touch it with the uncertainty of what it would do.
Finally, recalling the note, she took a deep breath and lifted it out of the box. Nothing seemed to happen apart from the sudden sense of calm that enveloped her as soon as she touched it. Just like at the theatre on opening night, she thought.
The small crystal ball was resting on a stand. She initially thought it was attached to the stand, but the ball moved when pressed the right way. Yet there was nothing visible holding it to the stand for all that it would not come off. "It's like magic or something," she told herself. "Actually, it probably is magic."
Sarah considered where she should put it, not entirely sure she wanted it in her bedroom. Just in case, was the justification. But that thought gave her pause as her eyes lit on the note once more. Well, maybe I should give him a little more credit... With that, she placed it on a small table next to her alarm clock.
After staring at it for a few minutes, and feeling more content than she had in days, Sarah ran down the stairs to Agnes' room. She was not there, so Sarah left a note on her door: He sent me a present. - Sarah
When Agnes returned to read that, she had no doubt as to who 'he' was, and guessed there was more to it than what was written. She went upstairs only to find Sarah gone this time. Shrugging, she left a note of her own: Ok, and? - Agnes
They continued missing each other for the next two hours: It made me feel better. - Sarah
Well that's good. - Agnes
No it isn't. - Sarah
Why not? - Agnes
Because... because... well, it just shouldn't have. - Sarah
Should or should not, it did. Why look a gift horse in the mouth? - Agnes
What is it with you and clichés? And can't you stay in one spot for five minutes? - Sarah
Agnes read that and laughed for a full three minutes before heading back upstairs to respond in kind. But when she got to Sarah's door, it was open. She leaned against the wall and watched Sarah root through her toolbox for a minute. Finally, she announced, "I happen to like clichés, thank you very much. And I was going to make a comment about how you could stay put just as easily but since you're actually here..."
Sarah, who had been expecting Agnes to wander in at any moment, was not surprised by her friend's arrival. She found the monkey wrench she was looking for then grinned at Agnes as she walked out the door again. "Not for long. But I'll be back in a few minutes so sit down and don't leave."
"Right." Agnes cast a quick look around the room before calling down the hallway after Sarah's quickly retreating form, "Where is it?"
"Nightstand!" came the reply, shouted over Sarah's shoulder.
"Right," Agnes said again. She wandered into the bedroom to take a peek at the mysterious present.
She was still staring at it when Sarah came back. "So, what do you think?"
"Well, it seems a bit, I dunno, New Agey or something, but it's sort of mesmerizing at the same time. And, this is going to sound a bit weird, I'm sure, but I would never have guessed he'd be the type to send you something like that. And yet, looking at it, it seems like just the sort of thing he'd give. If that makes any sense."
"Actually," Sarah said, "it makes perfect sense." And you don't know how right you are!
"Good," Agnes nodded. "And I wouldn't worry so much about the fact that it made you feel better."
"I'd stopped, actually. But why do you say so?"
"Well, you do like him. And don't go denying it; you said so yourself."
"I wasn't planning on denying it. What does it have to do with anything though?"
Agnes rolled her eyes. "Duh. It's like the whole thing when you're fourteen and you're having a bad day and then the boy you have had a crush on for the past week actually says hello. This is the same sort of thing, only more, uh, mature."
"By 'mature', is it safe to assume you mean 'complicated'?"
"Yeah, basically."
"Okay, I'll buy that explanation."
"Good." Agnes' pager went off, interrupting the conversation. "Well," she said, looking at it, "duty, as they say, calls. I'll see you tomorrow, Williams."
"Good night, Aggie."
That night, Sarah fell asleep with her thoughts circling around Jareth once again.