Disclaimer: All references to the characters Jareth, Sarah, Hoggle, Sir Didymus, and the film Labyrinth belong to Jim Henson Studios and other pertinent parties. I do not claim ownership to the characters and / or the original source material.
Life's Little Lessons: Chapter 9. AboveGround
A car door slammed. A back kitchen door was opened. Two dripping figures stumbled into the dark kitchen. Somewhere in the house, a clock quietly chimed a quarter after nine. The house was still. There was silence everywhere, a heavy, oppressive silence when there shouldn't be any.
"We're too late…" Sarah stated quietly. Something had driven her home, away from her brother's bedside. Deep inside, she had felt a tug, a pull, a something, a unexplainable feeling accompanied by fear for her one and only child. Sarah urged Brian to leave the hospital with her (Toby had been sedated and wouldn't wake until morning), but when they had arrived, she knew they were too late.
Sarah rushed down the hall and took the stairs two at a time. She threw up open Charlie's bedroom and the office that was Thomas' temporary room. She found empty beds and silence. Sarah swallowed the lump of fear that grew at the back of her throat. The sinking feeling of hopelessness gripped her.
"They aren't down here either," Brian said quietly as he met her at the base of the stairs. "Where did they go? The doors were locked. Charlie can't drive yet…"
Numb, Sarah didn't notice that the power had flickered back on. The television came to life with a black screen and the laugh track of a sitcom blaring through the speakers. Sarah's eyes alighted on something on the carpet in the living room. Kneeling, she ran her hand over the carpet and lifting her fingers, she saw tiny sparkles. Running her thumb over the glittery pieces, they vanished into nothing. The hair on the back of her arms stood up, and somehow… she knew.
"He was here…" she breathed.
"Who was here?" Brian asked from behind her. "Sarah, we need to call the police. I keep calling Charlie's cell phone and I get nothing."
Sarah ignored her husband for a moment. His panic would not help. Quickly, she rushed to the hallway where a large mirror hung among the family pictures. There was no time to explain to Brian what had happened. He wouldn't believe her story anyway. That the bedtime fairy tale she had told Charlie as a child was true? That the little red book tucked behind the books in the bookcase had come true one fateful night? That her brother Toby had been whisked away by the goblins and that she had faced down the Goblin King? Brian wouldn't believe her. Sarah bit her lower lip. She hadn't done this in years. Would he still be there? Would it work?
"Hoggle? I have need of you, Hoggle!" she called out in front of the hallway mirror. Nothing happened for a moment.
"Sarah, what are you doing? This isn't the time for"
Brian's words were cut off. However, Sarah didn't look away. The mirror had shifted, moved like the ripples of a limpid pool from a single drop of water. The magic had worked. Hoggle's image slowly came into view with each ripple.
"Hoggle? Is that you?" Sarah asked fearfully.
"Sarah?" came the hesitant response from the old dwarf. He looked older, more wrinkled than before with whiter hair. His blue eyes, however, were still clear, and his voice was still strong. Sarah felt slightly better seeing her old friend. "You… you called?! I thought you had forgotten about me. I don't blame you if you had."
"I could never forget you Hoggle…" Sarah stated warmly. "I simply… grew up, and I started a family of my own." She paused, guilt washing over her. "I should have called you more often to say hello. I'm sorry I didn't."
"Nothin' for it. I understand. That I do," he replied gruffly.
"Hoggle, I don't have much time to talk," Sarah began in a rush before Hoggle could say more deprecating things about himself. "Do you know what happened to Charlotte?"
"Charlotte? Who's Charlotte?"
Sarah wanted to slap her forehead for her idiocy. Of course, Hoggle wouldn't know who Charlotte was.
"Charlotte is my daughter," she stated quickly. "She looks a bit like me, but she acts more like her father, and I think…" She paused and swallowed the fear that caught at the back of her throat. "I think the Goblin King took her."
"Jareth? That jerk?" asked the dwarf with an air of indignation. "Why would he ever do such a thing?"
"I don't know," Sarah responded feebly. "I think he has my nephew Thomas as well. Something happened here and I can feel the magic, his magic, like that night."
Hoggle paused and looked thoughtful before looking back at Sarah. "What makes you think they are here? Maybe they ran off? Y'know how kids are."
"I do, but…" Sarah worried her lower lip. "Just… Please. Hoggle. For me. If they are there, please help them." The mirror rippled again and Sarah gasped. "Hoggle!"
Before he could respond, his image disappeared. Sarah cursed and slammed the palm of her hand against the wall by the contemporary mirror. It's alright, she told herself. I told Hoggle. He knows now. If he runs into them in the Labyrinth, he can help them like he helped me. Hoggle will help them. I know he will. Sarah glanced at her frozen husband in the warm light from the living room backlighting him. She had no other choice. Sarah decided to do the unthinkable. Taking a deep breath, she moved to the foyer and planted her feet.
"I call upon Jareth, the King of the Goblins, to appear before me," she commanded confidently towards the front door.
"Sarah? What are you doing?" asked her husband from the living room. He raised an eyebrow at his wife, and she looked at him over her shoulder. He probably thinks I'm crazy now, she thought to herself. Maybe I am. With a sigh and a shudder, she took his hand. He led her into the kitchen, talking in his calm voice. However, there was a hint of a tremor to his normally soothing tone. "C'mon. We'll call Charlie's friends and then we'll call the police."
"You're right," Sarah agreed with a nod of her head. Her heart began to sank. Perhaps the glitter had been her imagination. That sinking feeling, that tug of magic from afar, that pull of her only child being taken from this world to another. Perhaps she hadn't seen Hoggle in the mirror. Perhaps the Goblin King hadn't whisked her daughter and nephew away, and they had been kidnapped by a serial killer. A part of her wished the latter wasn't true. The gruesome reality was too much to bear. Sarah and Brian set about making phone calls. An hour later, they were waiting for the patrol car to pull up outside their front door. Sarah cradled a mug of lukewarm tea in her hands. Brian held his head in his hands.
"I wish..." Sarah began but she couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence. Tears welled up in her eyes.
"Making wishes again, Sarah Williams?" the familiar voice said dripping acid. "Or should I say Mrs. Sarah Jones."
She nearly knocked over her chair standing up so fast. The Champion and the Goblin King stared at each other for a long time across the kitchen. Sarah noticed how he hadn't changed. The same wild hair, the same extravagant make-up (or not make-up, she never knew for sure), the same tight clothing that left nothing to the imagination. He still looked out of place in the modern, mortal world, and yet he looked perfect as he was. As he leaned against her kitchen counters in her kitchen, the Goblin King looked unreal. He was still her childish fantasy of mysterious masculinity and male sensuality. He was the antithesis of her solid and supportive husband. He had crossed his arms and gave off that air of nonchalance he always had.
As she was assessing him, Jareth took the moment of surprise to gauge Sarah Jones nee Williams. He noted the few strands of gray hair creeping into her raven hair at her hairline, the crow's feet and minute wrinkles from smiling and laughing across her fair face. She was past her prime, but he could see how beautiful she had once been. Time had been forgiving to her. As she stepped into her mature years gracefully, he envied the man she called husband. Jareth tried not to look at the man who sat at the table, frozen by magic once again. Envy and hate warred within the Goblin King, but he had no time for it. The pressing matter of a presumptuous boy and a mediocre young woman lay between the pair.
"You called me and so I have come," he stated calmly without a smile. "If I had known it was to simply stare at me…"
"You were staring, too," Sarah retorted with a subtle lifting of her chin in defiance. Sarah lifted her chin. She paused and seemed to consider him again. "You look well. You haven't aged a day."
"Flattery will take you far with me, precious," he stated with a predatory grin. "But I am a tad busy at the moment. Why did you call upon me?"
Sarah came to a conclusion then, and so she cut to the quick of the matter. "You have my daughter and nephew. Return them to me at once."
"You know as well as I that I cannot simply return them," Jareth replied with a hint of irritation. "If I could, I bloody well would, but your dear nephew wished your daughter away to me."
He watched Sarah's face blanch and her stance change to an offensive one. She hadn't anticipated that scenario. She had assumed that the Goblin King had whisked away her offspring and nephew out of some age old malicious intent. Jareth smiled as he twisted his hand and an apple appeared. He began to polish its red surface on his sleeve. "They have a scant eleven hours left to save themselves."
"You have no power over me," Sarah stated by rote, which made Jareth snort in amusement. "Surely that extends to my family as well."
"As a matter of fact," he began and then paused to look at the apple. He met her gaze again. "It does not. It applies to only you, my cruel and precious Sarah."
Jareth lifted the apple to take a bite, but his gaze fell on Sarah's hand on her husband's shoulder. She had sought out an ounce of comfort from the man… even if he could do nothing. But a thought nagged at the Goblin King. He tilted his head, and as curious as a cat, the apple vanished as he stepped forward to examine the man further. Sarah stiffened and placed herself between him and her husband. Jareth openly glared at Sarah.
"I will not hurt him," Jareth said flatly. With a snap of his fingers, the beard on Brian disappeared. There were lines on the man's face that had never been there before. His hair had lightened and changed with time. Yet Jareth would recognize him anywhere. His mismatched eyes grew wide, and his voice lost some of its haughtiness. He called Sarah's husband by his true name to break the hold on this man. "Finn Mac Cumhail."
The words held magic in them. Sarah glanced at her husband to see him shudder and move. The magic in the house flexed and accommodated the third person in this moment of stopped time. Brian blinked once and looked from Sarah to Jareth and back again.
"Sarah…" Brian said pronouncing the two syllables of her name slowly. He pointed at Jareth. "Why is the Goblin King standing in our kitchen?"