Exchange Fic #10: 213 North Mystic Avenue or A New Career In a New Town
Mod note: This fic was also the work of another fabulous pinch hitter. Thank you so much for helping us out :)
The actual identity of the writer will remain secret until all the submissions are in and posted.
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Title: 213 North Mystic Avenue or: A New Career In a New Town
Author: nexttosomething
Recipient: kyndsie
Prompt: At least three years after the adventure with Sarah, Jareth takes a much-needed sabbatical from the Goblin King.
Rating: PG
Plot Summary: Shortly after Sarah moves to a new town, she begins receiving strange and wonderful gifts on her doorstep. She suspects the Goblin King is behind it- if only she could find him.
Author's notes: I had a blast playing in the sandbox of this prompt! Many, many thanks to my betas, who shall remain nameless for now. Any mistakes you see are my own.
March 29th, 1996
The rain had done a thorough job of blurring the writing on the scrap of paper Sarah held in shaking hands, but she had long since memorized the words.
213 North Mystic Avenue. This was it. This was…not what she had been expecting. The shop looked perfectly…normal. It had a green and white awning and the window was painted with a simple word: TOYS. The glass was fogged from the recent rain, and only the suggestions of the shapes within were visible. Sarah worried the crease of the paper in her hand and looked at the door. It was all so completely innocuous; the reddish door, the slightly faded awning.
She took a few steps back and checked the brass numbers nailed to the brick façade. 213. A quick glance over her shoulder told her she was, indeed, on Mystic.
This was exactly where this piece of paper meant her to be. She absently tucked the scrap back into her pocket and reached for the door handle. Pushing the door open, Sarah heard the sound of chimes, not unlike the bells hung from any number of other shop doors. The idea of her presence being so readily announced, however, unnerved her and she released the handle. The door swung back in on itself, setting the chimes to tinkling again. Sarah, however, was halfway down the block, having suddenly remembered something very important she had to do.
Sarah was no coward, of that she was certain. She had discovered a great many things in her journey through the Underground, and her curiosity and foolhardy bravery were included on that long list. But she had also learned caution. It was perhaps this caution that had stayed her hand. She was not quite ready to learn the answers to her questions or to find out what was waiting beyond the door chimes. It wasn't cowardice, no. She was simply trying to be levelheaded about the whole thing.
She turned the corner, debating heading back to her apartment or just simply wallowing in a cup of tea at Wilma's Diner. Knowing that the collection of …gifts…in her apartment would further frustrate her, Sarah opted for the diner. She bounced on her toes a bit waiting for the crosswalk signal to change. The street was clear, but there it was again-- caution. At the signal, she splashed her way over the wet pavement and through the door of the diner, tensing only a little at the chiming bells hanging on the door.
Grateful to see her favorite booth available, Sarah waved at Lyle behind the counter and slid across the vinyl seat. She had not been in the city over-long, but she was a creature of habit. This place was the first she found her first night in the new town, and Wilma, the owner, had brought her a cup of tea with her menu.
"Seems you needed it, dear. What can I get started for you?"
Sarah appreciated this small act of kindness more that she liked to say, and had found herself back in this same booth at least two times a week since.
"Tea, Sarah?" Wilma's son, Lyle, appeared at her tableside. "We've got some excellent chili, today. The weather…"
"Yes, it is definitely chili eating weather. And tea would be excellent." Sarah smiled. She liked Lyle. He had a broad face, perfectly made for broad smiles. He had dark features, like his mother, with striking, celery-colored eyes, which Sarah assumed he got from his father. He was handsome, and very friendly, especially considering Sarah had yet to call the number he left scribbled on her tea napkins now and again.
"I'll get that right out to you." Lyle left with an eye-crinkling grin.
Sarah thrummed her fingers against the scuffed Formica tabletop. She was fidgeting again. She had been fidgeting for the past three and a half months, ever since the first package had arrived. And now she was sitting in a booth in a diner, no closer to getting to the bottom of the gifts. The first one had arrived so close to Christmas, she had been sure it was from Karen, sending some cookies or some other baked goods to tempt her into coming home early. How surprising when she had lifted the lid of the simple, cream-colored box to find not her favorite peanut-butter cookies but something else entirely.
"Crackers?"
Sarah jumped, knocking over the pyramid of creamers she had been absently building.
"Sorry! I didn't mean to startle you." Concern marked Lyle's face. Sarah hadn't realized he had come back to the table. "I was only asking if you wanted crackers with your chili." He sat the steaming bowl down in front of her as well as the cup and saucer for her tea. He pulled out a Twinnings tea bag from his front shirt pocket, and fishing around in his apron, offered her a handful of saltines.
Sarah quickly scrubbed her face with her hand and reached out for the crackers. "Yes! Yes. Thank you. I'm sorry; I was just a little distracted." Completely distracted.
"I could tell you weren't really sitting here when I walked up," Lyle chided. He sat the tea bag on the saucer. His number was written in Sharpie across the package.
"Thank you, Lyle." Sarah picked up the tea bag from the saucer and waited until he was headed back to the kitchen before tearing it open, effectively ripping the number in half. She wasn't sure how this new method of delivery was to be any more effective than the napkin under her cup. Perhaps he thought it less difficult to miss his number as she had to pick up the bag in order to fix her tea. Sarah smiled as she bobbed the bag in and out of the hot water.
Maybe she should go out with Lyle. She certainly would have three months ago. She had no problems with going on dates. But now, with the gifts she kept receiving, and the paper tucked in her front pocket, she had other things, other men, on her mind. She pushed the ripped tea bag package into her other pocket resolving to call him once she finally had her answers.
December 10th, 1995
The first package had arrived her first week in her new place. Sarah liked calling it "her place" because "apartment" might be too generous a word for three small rooms without any interior doors. Two small rooms. The third was a spacious closet. She lived over the garage of Mrs. Fitzgerald, a somewhat kooky woman of a certain age. Miz Fitz, as she insisted Sarah call her, had waved burning sage around the small living room/bedroom the day Sarah and Merlin had moved in.
"For the chi, my dear," Miz Fitz cawed over her shoulder as she swirled the blue smoke through the air. She shook one panel of the limp curtains and made a face. "And the smell."
Wrinkling her nose at the combined aroma of stale must and burnt sage, Sarah wondered if it was, indeed, an improvement.
But Miz Fitz was an excellent landlady, charging her very little for the rooms. She had privacy and a yard for Merlin, which she hadn't been expecting in her post-graduate school price range. And with some creative organization-the sock drawer directly under the silverware drawer, the ironing board doubling as a breakfast bar-Sarah had managed to fit her small life into her small apartment. What she had unpacked so far, that is.
She had found the package resting at the top of the wooden staircase leading to her front, and only, door. With no return address, Sarah's thoughts turned immediately to Karen and her constant care packages. "Surprise!" the notes in the unmarked boxes had always read; never mind that Sarah came to expect unmarked packages to be from her stepmother. Glad for some comfort from home, Sarah started opening the box before she even had the door unlocked.
Inside was an ivory box the size of a grapefruit. Her lips quirked at the sight. Fudge. Lifting the lid and reaching through the tissue paper, Sarah's fingers brushed the object inside. That wasn't fudge. She pulled it out and stared in wonder at the wooden figurine.
It was a carefully carved barn owl, perched atop a roughly hewn branch. A small "oh!" whispered through Sarah's lips as she examined the figure. Though small, the detail was exquisite. The owl sat tensed on the branch and Sarah could see he was looking for something. His small, painted eyes were so focused and he was poised, as if waiting to swoop from his perch onto unsuspecting prey. The branch was twisted and gnarled, and though it was the only part visible, it evoked an image of the tree in its entirety-large, imposing, and though withered, not entirely dead. The carving was heavier than it looked and Sarah turned it slowly in her hand.
Running a finger over the owl's head and down its back, Sarah was surprised when the tail-feathers gave a bit under her hand. Turning it in her hand, she touched the piece again, and as she pushed down on the tail, the wings hinged and lifted. A surprised laugh escaped Sarah. The owl looked as if it was preparing to fly away!
An impatient "wuff" behind her startled Sarah and she fumbled to keep from dropping the keepsake. She hadn't realized how intently she had been examining it until Merlin had called her out of her reverie. Her shoulders were tensed and her breathing shallow. Setting the owl down on the ironing board, she rolled her shoulders, trying to shake the feeling.
"Hungry, Merlin?"
If the sheepdog had concerns for her, the mention of dinner wiped them out completely. He trotted happily over to the cabinet with his kibble and sat patiently as she filled his bowl. Merlin was old and set in his ways, and no surprise packages were going to postpone his dinner. Not having energy to put much more effort into her own dinner, Sarah decided on cold cereal and a new mystery novel as her night's entertainment.
As she washed out her bowl sometime later, Sarah cradled her cordless phone on her shoulder.
"Hello?"
"Hi Karen! It's Sarah."
"Oh, hold on Sarah, your father's in the other room."
"Uh, no!" Sarah turned from the sink and wiped her hands on her jeans. "I actually wanted to talk to you, Karen."
"Oh, I'm sorry. I'm so used to you calling for your father or Toby."
Sarah grimaced. "Yeah, I'm sorry about that. With moving in and all. And the library-" She trailed off. She knew it was a lame excuse. Work was anything but stressful.
"I know, dear. I do." Karen coughed. "What can I do for you?"
"Ah, nothing. I was just calling to thank you for the package. I love it."
There was a pause on the other line and Sarah could hear Karen clicking her tongue. "Package, dear? I haven't sent you anything since you moved. Did you want something? I have some pastries I was trying my hand at. I could make some of your favorite cookies, if you like. Or-"
Sarah shook her head. "No, I don't need anything. You didn't send me the owl figurine?"
"Owl? No, Sarah. I know how much you love them, but no, I didn't send it to you. Was there an address? A card?"
She bit her lip against a cheeky response. If there had been a card, she wouldn't be calling. "No, no card. Sorry, it must have been Mary from State. I'll try calling her."
She hung up sometime later, a little ill at ease. She hadn't completely believed it was Karen whom had sent her the toy, and she believed even less it was her old college roommate. Surprise gifts weren't really her thing.
She'd been putting off contacting the next someone she knew to call, though it seemed now her only option. She walked into the living room and began to pull the couch away from the wall. Scooting between the sofa and the wall, she stretched her legs and sat on the back of the couch. She was more eye level with the mirror she had hung there for occasions such as these. Her bathroom was downstairs in the garage, and as aggravating as it was to walk outside with her bath towel and clothes, she could imagine trying to sneak creatures from the Underground back upstairs would be even less appealing.
"Hoggle? I need you."
Sarah lay in bed that night no less confused than when she had first walked up the steps to her place. Her conversation with her friends had left her feeling…anxious.
"Of course we didn't leave you no toys on yer doorstep. We's not able to just pop in an' out of places. You know that." Hoggle's gruff words were exactly what she expected.
"I know, I just wonder how it got there. Or what it is."
"Mayhaps, my lady, thou hast a secret admirer? Hast thou charmed some lucky fellow with thine beauty and wit?" Sir Didymus was clutching his tricorn to his breast, overcome with the romance of Sarah's secret lover.
"Of course not!" Hoggle exclaimed. "Not that ya ain't pretty, Sarah. You is. But that thing don't look like no trinket from Above."
Sarah passed the thing from one hand to the other. "What makes you say that?"
"Look at the way it's lookin' at me! That's His Nastiness if I ever seen ‘im." Hoggle shuddered and crossed his short arms over his chest.
Sarah pressed the tail feathers again, watching the wings rise slowly. She had something of an affinity for owls and had collected their likenesses for a time in her late teens. Much of what she had collected had stayed behind in her father's house, however. She had brought very little of her childhood with her in the move. "You really think it's him?"
"Who else could it be? Can't say as to why he'd be leavin' you gifts at yer door, though." Hoggle looked down as he spoke, fingering the filigree on the frame of Sarah's mirror.
"Has he been acting strange?" She was almost afraid to hear the answer. In the years following her adventure through the Labyrinth, Sarah's anxiety over the creatures she had met had all but vanished, except in the case of the Goblin King. Beyond finding that he was, in fact, alive, and she hadn't torn his castle asunder, Sarah asked few questions about him. The whole debacle seemed like it might be a touchy subject.
"Well…" Hoggle still hadn't looked up from his hands.
"We don't know, my lady. His Majesty has been away for some time now." Sir Didymus chimed.
"Away?"
"His majesty left, quite suddenly, in fact." Sir Didymus worried the edge of this hat before placing it back on his head. He fiddled with its yellow plume.
Hoggle rolled his eyes. "He's been gone for a few months now. Somethin' ‘bout needin' some time away. A, uh, st-baddy-call, he called it."
"A sabbatical." Sarah grinned. "You don't know where he went?"
"No. An' I don't care neither."
Sarah sighed and turned to the fox. "Sir Didymus?"
"Verily, I know not where His Majesty hath gone-"
"He can't hear you, Didymus!" Hoggle blurted. "Call a snake a snake. Jareth. ‘is name is Jareth."
"His Majesty is still thine sovereign, good sir. He demands our respect!"
Sarah leaned away from the mirror, knowing from experience an argument was on its way and to just let it play out. Looking again at the small figurine, her thoughts drifted. The king had left the Underground. For some reason, this left Sarah feeling very uneasy. Though she knew better, the separation of the two worlds gave Sarah the illusion of security. She didn't have to be worried that she might say the wrong thing and have the walls start crashing in on her or the Cleaners come barreling down the hallway as long as he was in the castle beyond the goblin city. But now that it was obvious he wasn't tucked away where he couldn't get her, she felt…vulnerable. Sarah wasn't certain how sore a loser The King of the Goblins was after she left. It had been years, but a grudge is a grudge.
And now she had an irritated looking owl perched on a branch that she was certain was fashioned after one of the twisted trees that stood outside the walls of the Labyrinth. Was this some sort of warning?
"-tis a mark of true leadership to display so readily one's virility! If thou wouldst be so bold to wear such garments, thou might win a fight or two!"
"I'ms just sayin', those pants are too tight for comfort! Who is ‘e tryin' to impress? I'd feel choked to death if my jewels was just hangin' out all-"
"All right, all right!" Sarah held up her hands in surrender, afraid to hear the rest. "Thank you for…just thanks. I needed this. I'm not sure what ‘this' was, but I do feel better."
"You only have to call, my lady." Sir Didymus bowed in the mirror.
"Just don' be doin' nothin' stupid, Sarah. Don' get yerself into no trouble." He waggled his knobby finger at her. "You tend to draw trouble to you."
"I know." Sarah grinned. As the mirror began to cloud, something occurred to her. "Wait!"
"Yes?" Sir Didymus turned.
"Where is Ludo? I haven't spoken to him in so long."
"That's the strangest part." Hoggle scratched his skull cap in frustration. "Jareth left him in charge in ‘is absence."
"Ludo? In charge?" Sarah was stunned.
"Indeed, my lady." Sir Didymus nodded solemnly. "Sir Ludo has quite a knack for ruling the masses. If the goblins feared His Majesty's crystal balls, then they are terrified of Sir Ludo's stone boulders."
Now in her fold-out bed, Sarah struggled to find sleep. But she kept tangling and untangling herself in the sheets, tossing about in a weak attempt of finding a comfortable spot. She could only think about the little owl, sitting a few yards away on the ironing board. She should really buy an actual table. And perhaps put up a curtain to separate the kitchen area from the den. A spring dug uncomfortably into her back. Perhaps her first purchase should be a mattress pad. A bed would be ideal, but she had nowhere to put it.
She turned again and, though it was too dark to see, she could sense the toy staring at her from the kitchen. Sighing, she got up and stalked across the cold linoleum floor to retrieve it.
Sometime later, Sarah sighed in her sleep. She dreamt of old forests and sandy hills and a golden sunrise. The little owl sat patiently on the arm of the couch.
December 30th, 1995
It was a few weeks later before the next gift arrived. The holiday had passed with little ceremony. Her father had handed her a check for an amount Sarah was embarrassed to admit she very much needed. Karen gave her yet another scarf, and Toby gave her a signed copy of Shel Silverstein's Where the Sidewalk Ends. She thanked Karen for the book later on the phone, though she denied she had anything to do with it. Her mother remembered to call, on the 27th. Sarah expected her card in the mail by mid-February at the earliest.
Her apartment was still in relative disarray, though now the few remaining stacked boxes had twinkle-lights draped over them, which was an improvement. Sarah had taken some of her own advice and quick-installed a shower-rod and curtain in the large doorway leading from the den to the kitchen. She used Karen's Christmas scarf as a sash to hold the curtain back during the weekends. Had she made any friends at the library, Sarah might feel comfortable enough to invite them over now. But circumstances had led her to be somewhat reserved at her new job as Assistant Youth Services Librarian. She had other things on her mind.
The little owl stood watch over her from its perch on the arm of the sofa for a few days before Sarah moved him to the stack of books acting as a side table. He seemed content enough there. Time and again, as Sarah sat on the couch reading the latest Terry Pratchett book, she would be startled to find her fingers absently pressing the wings up and down or toying with the tips of the branch. It unnerved her, the comfort she took in the thing.
It was on a freezing winter Saturday that the next package appeared. Sarah had spent the day reading picture books to children and avoiding adults. At least the kids seemed to like her, she told herself. She tripped over the box as she was fishing in her purse for her keys. Thoroughly startled, she immediately plopped down on the narrow deck and began to tear into the box.
This box was larger, and held another ivory colored box inside it. Again, there was no return address, just her name and address machine typed onto a label. Her breath plumed out in frosty billows as she lifted the lid.
Tears pricked her eyes as she drew out the toy. It was Ludo! She laughed wetly as she pulled the stuffed beast out of its box. His arms and legs were twice as long as his body, which made him look like some sort of Grimm-themed sock monkey. His auburn hair was soft and his sweet, monstrous face smiled up at her with all the knowing camaraderie as its giant likeness. Sarah laughed again as she also pulled from the box rough but glittering stones, weighty and not a little magic. She clutched the toy to her chest, looking quite like a child, rocking back and forth. She didn't know why, but as she sat out on her freezing cold deck with a stuffed animal and a handful of rocks pressed into her neck, her sporadic laughter slowly turned into tears.
"Ludo? I need you." Sarah sat on the back of her couch, with the littler Ludo lying across her lap.
"Sawah?" Ludo appeared. He looked the same as she remembered, his fanged grin warming her heart in ways a monster should not be able.
"Hi, Ludo." She smiled. She called on Ludo the least often. She wasn't sure why that was so, but when she did call on him, it seemed she needed someone the most.
"Ludo, king!" the beast half-roared. His voice sounded like rocks grinding together and echoed off the walls of her place. She was glad she shared no walls with Miz Fitz. These noises might be difficult to explain.
"Yes, I heard. Oh Ludo, you look so great! I hear you are doing very well." She noticed then that the tips of his downturned horns were burnished in bronze and he wore an amulet in the fur above his eyes. It was shaped like a downward turned crescent moon and was hewn from the same tarnished bronze of his horns. In the middle sat a quietly sparkling ruby.
"Ludo, king!" he repeated, grabbing hold of his horns and bending closer to Sarah's eye level. "Ludo, good king."
She scratched the fur beneath his chin and nodded. "Yes, you are a very good king. J-Jar-… The Goblin King was wise to choose you."
"Ludo, good."
They sat in comfortable silence for a time, Sarah distractedly stroking the fur of the Ludo in her lap and Ludo running a dirty fingernail over the gilt pattern of the mirror frame.
"Sawah, good?" Ludo slowly asked.
The question surprised Sarah. Such startling insight wasn't something she was used to with Ludo, much less conversation.
"Sawah, sad?"
He offered his hand, reaching beyond the frame of the mirror. Sarah placed both of her hands in his giant palm. The skin of his three-fingered hand felt like the rough grit of volcanic rock, impossibly dry and coarse.
"Yes, Ludo. I'm sad."
They sat like this, quietly holding on to each other through the divide, for quite some time.
January 11th, 1996
"Are you okay?"
Sarah jumped. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the Children's Library, quietly engrossed in reordering the Nancy Drew novels. First she had rearranged them chronologically, and then in the order she had read them as a little girl, and again in order from her favorite to least.
"Sorry!" The speaker was Ellen, one of the women that worked at the library. Sarah couldn't think off the top of her head which department, possibly genealogy? "I didn't mean to scare you."
"Oh! It's fine. I was just- " Sarah waved her hand vaguely around her head.
"Yeah, I noticed…" Ellen trailed off. "I'm Emma. You're Sarah, right?"
Oops. Sarah bit the inside of her cheek. Emma, not Ellen. "That's me."
"I work in genealogy. I'm on break."
"Yes." Sarah squeezed her eyes shut. This was going well. Emma was possibly the first adult she had spoken with in a week and all she could manage was "yes."
"Look," Emma plopped on the floor beside her. They were probably about the same age, Sarah realized. She was certainly young to be working in the genealogy department. "I know you don't talk much, to the staff anyway, but I just wanted to see if you were… Do you want to get some coffee?"
"Coffee?"
"Or whatever. You seem to need a friend."
Sarah looked at the book in her hand. The Secret in the Old Attic. That one went near the front of the queue. "Do I look that terrible?"
"Yes." Emma took the last book from Sarah's pile. The Quest of the Missing Map. She considered it, and then placed it second, behind The Clue in the Crumbling Wall. "One of my favorites."
"Mine too." Sarah's mouth twitched, satisfied. That's where she would have placed it, as well.
"I take lunch at one. Do you want to meet at Wilma's? I see you there sometimes. We could stare at Lyle and talk about Mrs. Butt Head."
Sarah laughed. Mrs. Butehead was the head reference librarian. She was mean and about as stubborn as her moniker implied.
"Sure, I'd like that."
"Good. I'll see you then." Emma stood up as abruptly as she had sat down and walked away.
Sarah rubbed her knuckles against her eyebrows, both anxious and nervous for lunch.
"So, who's the guy?" Emma blurted through a mouthful of an egg salad sandwich.
"I'm sorry?" Sarah picked at her basket of fish and chips. She reached for her mug of tea instead.
"The guy that's got you so messed up. Who is he?"
"How do you know it's a guy? And I'm not messed up." Sarah took a pointed bite of a french fry. She really liked Emma. She wasn't usually drawn to such brash personalities, but her sweeping declarative statements kept Sarah on her toes. She was equally irritated and amused by her, in a completely delightful way.
"You are so messed up." Emma pushed aside her sandwich and cradled her steaming cup of black coffee in her hands, blowing the rich smell towards Sarah.
"What's his name?"
"There is no guy!" Sarah laughed, feeling uncomfortable.
"Okay, so the reason you used the napkin with Lyle's number to wipe up the ketchup you spilled is because, what? You're just mean?" Emma picked up the offending crumple of napkin and held it in front of Sarah's face.
"No." Sarah grabbed the napkin and slid it down to the end of the table. "I'm just…not interested."
"Mmm hmm. Smoldering good looks and a knee buckling smile not your cup of tea?"
"I prefer blondes," Sarah whispered into her cup.
"Fine. So tell me about this guy."
Sarah quirked a smile. "You sure are inquisitive for someone whom I barely know. I don't know a thing about you."
"Okay." Emma shifted in her seat and sat up straighter. She cleared her throat. "I'm Emma. I work at the library. I just broke up with my girlfriend, so I'm a little bitchy. I, too, prefer blondes, so no, you aren't my type. I, unlike you, am not completely square on the grammatical rules of ‘who' versus ‘whom'. I grew up here, I went to college here, and my grandfather was on the board of trustees at the library. That's why I'm so young and working in genealogy. No one likes me at work either." Emma took a long pull from her coffee cup. "So tell me about this guy."
Sarah laughed and finally gave up on her fish and chips. "Fine."
"So there is a guy!" Emma bounced a little in her seat.
"First of all," Sarah laid her hand on the table in an effort to calm the situation. "Can we stop calling him, ‘this guy?'" Sarah could never think about the Goblin King…Jareth…as ‘some guy'. It was too normal for- whatever he was. "His name is J-Jareth. And it's much more than just him."
"Jareth. I like it. It's very…" Emma fished for a word to describe a name that didn't necessarily belong on this side of the mirror.
"Yeah. It is." Sarah finished, smiling.
"So, what? Did he break your heart?"
"No…I think I broke his. Before I even knew what that meant. It was a long time ago." Sarah hadn't said these things out loud before. She hadn't necessarily formed them into complete thoughts, for that matter. But that last withering look of defeat before he fell from her sight had haunted her for years. Had she completely broken him?
"Why is it a problem then?" Emma swirled the dregs of her coffee in her cup. "If it was so long ago?"
Using her fingernail, Sarah traced a mark that had been carved into the tabletop. An infinity symbol.
"I miss…the way things used to be. I miss my friends." I miss adventure.
"Back home?"
Sarah paused. Was it possible to call a place a person had visited for only about ten hours home? "I just miss them so much. And I guess he reminds me of all that."
"Huh." Emma threw back the rest of her, now cold, coffee. "Not a simple fix then. But I can tell you this. No matter how much you want it to be, nothing is ever going to be the way you remember it. Something always changes. You can't go back."
Sarah let that wash over her. You can't go back. She knew she was right, and she learned a long time ago that you can't take anything for granted.
"Speaking of going back, it's about that time. We need to head out before Mrs. Butt Head figures out suitable punishment for two girls enjoying themselves."
Sarah picked up her coat and counted out the cash to leave on the table.
"This was fun." Emma said, smiling. "You aren't the only one that could use a friend. We could do this again, you know. Talk about something less…"
"I'd like that." Sarah brightened a bit at the thought. "But you're right, we need to head back."
The next package was waiting for her when she got home that evening. Sarah took her time opening this one, savoring the anticipation. The box was heavy, though about the same size as the owl box. Inside, she was strangely delighted to find a miniature replica of what appeared to be a goblin cannon, not unlike the one that had been about to blow them away had Ludo not stoppered the mouth with a boulder.
She set the cannon down on the floor of her kitchen and cranked the knob placed where the fuse would be. The thing began smoking and Sarah's eyes grew wide. Just she was about to dash to the sink to douse it in water, it spat out a little thorny cannon ball. It landed a short distance away and began hopping on its curly-toed feet before collapsing to the side. Sarah laughed and cranked the knob again. A string attached to the be-footed ball snatched it back into the barrel, the whole thing started smoking again, and the ball flew across the floor. Sarah was enthralled, though Merlin was less amused. He sniffed tentatively that the contraption, then walked to the corner of the room to watch Sarah fire it again-at a safe distance, of course.
Sometime later, Sarah whooped with excitement as she found what she had been searching for. Miz Fitz had provided her with a small corner of the garage to store some of her less stackable belongings until she "got herself situated." There, in the back of the pile, was the worn wooden display shelf she had hung next to her bed at her father's house.
The eight slots had held her favorite childhood companions once upon a time, and Sarah was beginning to think she was soon to have a use for the thing again. She lugged the cumbersome piece up the stairs and got to work. She was thankful that Karen had though to buy her one of those pink tool kits when she had gone off to undergrad, though, until now, it had gone mostly unused. Hoping that Miz Fitz had no rules against holes in the walls, Sarah rapped on the wall to find the studs, hammer waiting in her other hand. Her nails missed several times and, if her land lady had no problem with a few holes, Sarah was quite certain she would have a problem with over a dozen holes. Vowing to spackle over the destruction before leaving, Sarah finally hung the shelf over the carnage and stood back to admire the effect.
Crooked.
Sarah shrugged and placed the mysterious arrivals in the shelves. She filled the other shelves with the smaller of the books she had lying around; she felt leaving the other spots vacant was inviting other gifts to join them. Sarah wasn't quite sure how she felt about the lovely things or their mysterious giver just yet.
Sarah swept up the mess of chipped plaster from the floor and pulled out a stack of two of the boxes still sitting unopened. The bottom label read "CHILDREN'S BOOKS" and the other "MORE SCARVES". Shoving the latter back into its corner, Sarah tore open the book box. She slowly placed each one on top of the display shelf, in order of spine color, beginning with a brightly hued, little red book.
January 28th, 1996
"What an excellent hat!" Emma exclaimed as she came around the corner of the aisle where Sarah sat shelving. "I could see it bobbing up and down as you walked down the row. Are you putting on a skit today for story time?"
Sarah reached up and toyed with one of the dangling leather straps. "Uh, yes." She took the hat from her head and looked down at the brightly felted bird head with button eyes that sat atop the long, craning neck. "Yes, I'm reading today as the Wiseman, and his opinionated Hat."
February 10th, 1996
"You're doing it again."
Emma held her hand out from the top of the ladder for another construction-paper heart. She was helping Sarah decorate the Children's Library for Valentine's Day. Dozens of multi-hued hearts hung on ribbons dangled from the room's drop ceiling.
"Doing what?"
"Smiling and humming while you work. Did you meet someone?" Emma bounced a little on the balls of her feet, her voice excited.
Sarah handed up another heart. "I'm not humming."
"You are! Did you finally take Lyle up on his many offers?" Emma turned and sat at the top of the ladder, arms crossed.
"No. I don't know what you are talking about." But Sarah did. She had been positively giddy lately. The gifts arrived with much more frequency now, to the point that the little display shelf overflowed so much that Sarah considered scouring garage sales for a small curio cabinet to place underneath it. They were fun, like the goblin cannon. They were tongue in cheek, like the miniature mechanical Cleaners that rattled across her kitchen floor, chasing after Merlin. And they were downright silly, like the latest, the terracotta potted eye lichen that swiveled and twisted and winked at Sarah when she walked from room to room.
They made her think fondly of the Labyrinth and all she had left behind. They made her long for a place she only visited in her dreams and hadn't been absorbed in since adolescence. And they had her thoughts constantly turning to the absent ruler of the Underground, pondering his intentions.
Oh, how she wished…
"Is it Jareth?" The name knocked the wind out of her. Having someone else say it, as if words don't have power and as if there was not the possibility of his hearing them, bewildered Sarah. Not for the first time she wished she had told Emma another name.
"Yes. And no."
"Oof." Emma sighed. "You're killing me with all these vague half-answers." She turned around and hung the last heart before climbing back down the ladder.
"Look, I know you don't like to talk about it. Whatever happened between you guys. I just hope you know what you are doing."
Sarah had no idea. She hadn't seen him since that long night in another place. All she had were the little pieces of his world peeking out at her from her shelf and the joy each piece gave her. And with each arrival she hoped for some clue of where to find him. Her friends had heard nothing of his return or whereabouts, and the packages remained unmarked with anything but magic.
Emma placed her hands on Sarah's shoulders. "No matter how special you think he is, Sarah, you have to remember that you are special, too. You are incredible, and this guy would be lucky to have you."
Sarah smiled, tilting her head to the side. "Are you hitting on me?"
Emma laughed and began to fold the ladder. "Yeah, honey, you wish. You wish."
March 28th, 1996
Sarah was concussed. She staggered up the steps to her apartment in the gloaming, not noticing the package the sat next to her door. She walked past it and threw herself into her apartment. This was… how?
She blindly stalked over to the tea pot on the stove and ran it full of fresh water. She moved it to the stove, sloshing water onto the hissing burner. Distracted.
While she waited for the water to boil, she pulled the piece of paper back out of her pocket. 213 North Mystic Avenue-just around the corner from Wilma's. All this time!
She had been visiting with Emma at her desk in the genealogy wing.
"How do you find anything? I can't even tell what your desk is made of." Sarah picked up a stack of Lincoln biographies. By the look of them, they did not belong to the library and they all seemed to have been thoroughly read- several times. Labeling Emma a history buff was quite a bit of an understatement.
"I have a system!" She nudged a stack of papers to expose a small clear spot on the desk. "And look, it's made of that weird fake wood-grain plastic that bubbles up when you spill a Coke on it." Emma pointed. "It was like that when I got here."
"Right. And why is this part of the massacre?" Sarah held up a lewd looking paperback that was just as broken-in as the biographies.
"The Defiant Captive is a study in the Regency era. It's research." Even so, Emma snatched it out of Sarah's hand and threw it into an almost completely empty desk drawer.
Heartily laughing now, Sarah reached again into the piles. "And what about this?"
But what she held up made her feel as if her heart had thudded to a stop. Dangling from her fingers was her long-limbed Ludo doll. A fierce feeling of fear and possessiveness swept over her.
"Where did you get this?" Sarah ground out.
"Mmmm?" Emma was absorbed in one of her stacks, pulling a paper from it, looking it over, then placing it atop another pile.
"This," Sarah grabbed the arm of her wooden swivel chair and spun Emma towards her. "Where did you find this?" She held the Ludo doll up to her.
"Oh! Isn't he the best? I love his little face. He looks so grumpy, even though he's smiling!"
"Was he in my bag, or something? Why did you take him?" Sarah's voice was rising in pitch and she was shaking the doll at Emma.
"What are you talking about, Sarah? Keep your voice down!" Emma grabbed her arms and pulled her down to squat next to her chair. "I didn't take anything from you. My mom bought me that. She gave it to me the last time I went to the house."
Sarah was clutching the doll to her chest, just as she had the night she had received it.
"What do you mean, ‘Your mother bought you this?'"
"Sarah, what is going on with you? You're scaring me." Emma squeezed Sarah's shoulders, her eyes searching. "Do you need to lie down?"
"No," Sarah shook her head violently. "No, I don't need to lie down. I just don't understand how you got this. Ludo's mine."
"Ludo? Is that what you call yours?" Emma ran a tentative finger down the length of one of his arms. "I guess it suits him."
The wild look in Sarah's eyes intensified. "I don't know what you are talking about."
Emma sighed. "My mother bought me this…Ludo… a few weeks ago. She found him in this new toy shop downtown--"
"A toy shop?"
"Yeah," Emma nodded.
"Do you know where downtown? The address?" Sarah's heart was hammering in her chest. None of this made sense. Why was there a toy shop selling her Ludo doll? How was that even possible?
"-and apparently they have all this really excellent, weird stuff. My mom said the owner was a little nuts, but the stock was incredible. She says she could have gotten lost in there."
"The address? Do you know it?" Sarah's volume was starting to rise again.
"No, but-Hold on!" Emma held up her hand as Sarah opened her mouth to interject. "I can call the house and see if my mom knows it. Just stay here. And chill out."
Sarah plopped on the floor as Emma scurried off to use the office phone. They have all this really excellent, weird stuff…could have gotten lost in there.
"Sorry, she had to look in the phone book." Emma rushed back and sat on the floor next to Sarah. "It isn't in there, but it's next door to the place she gets her nails done. 213 North Mystic."
Sarah snatched the paper with the address written on it out of her hand and stood.
"Sarah, just wait! Aren't you going to tell me what this is about? Why are you so upset?"
But Sarah was already out the door.
And now she sat, legs splayed, in her kitchen floor. She had taken Emma's doll with her and now had the two lying side by side. They were identical. Sarah slumped until she lay flat on her back on the cold linoleum.
213 North Mystic Avenue. She glanced at her wristwatch. 8:37. Too late for any of the shops to be open downtown. She could just go look in the window…but no. What if he was there? Or worse, what if he wasn't? She needed time to think. Had it been someone else all along? Sending her gifts from a store that happened to sell pieces that looked like her childhood friends? Surely not.
She should just go downtown, she thought. Just to look, at least. Grabbing her coat, she made her way to the door. "I'll be back in a bit, Merlin. Don't wait up." But as she threw open the door, she saw it-the unmarked package, with only her name and address on the label.
What now?
She pulled the thing inside. It was heavy. She kicked the door closed and sat on the couch. Every other package she had received she had greeted with excitement and fervor, but this one filled her with cold dread. How close was he? Did he know?
A shriek startled her and she almost dropped the box balanced on her knees; her forgotten tea pot. She set the box on the cushion beside her and sprinted to the kitchen to relieve the bubbling-over kettle. She turned and leaned against the stove, staring at the box in the other room. Then, taking a deep breath, she went to pick it up.
It was so heavy for its size, which was about that of a basketball. She peeled back the tape and took out the ivory box. Lifting the lid, she stared in wonder at the most incredible snow globe she had ever seen.
The globe itself sat nestled into the shimmering swirls of a cloud. It was stunning, but what the globe held was even more astonishing. In the center, behind the thick-looking glass, were two dancers. She recognized them easily, for they were straight out of her dreams. She had seen this night before, had lived it inside a crystal ballroom so long ago. But this was a new dance. They stood, back pressed into back, fingers intertwined and down at their sides. The fair-haired king's head was thrown back, resting atop his partner's head. His lips were parted in song. And the dark-haired girl leaned easily into the back of her lover, her eyes closed and a beatific smile playing on her lips.
Sarah tilted the globe to the side and turned the crank at the bottom of. A haunting, familiar melody tinkled out. As she righted the thing, she saw not snow or glitter floating in the water, but rather a soft, blue vapor swirling around the couple. They had begun to slowly turn, suspended in the mist and music.
There's such a sad love, deep in your eyes…
She sat there, most of the night, cranking and re-cranking the knob and listening for a change in the tune, a hint, a sign.
She found none.
March 29th, 1996
Sarah stood outside the diner, having left most of her chili uneaten and, as an afterthought, Lyle's number-clad tea packet crumpled on the table. It had begun to rain again, a light but thorough wash. The address Emma had given her was burning in her jean pocket. How much longer could she stall? She had been wondering where the invisible king had been hiding for months and now, it seemed, she might find him. She had absolutely nothing stopping her from finding out what he was after.
But the years that separated their last meeting seemed to stretch into the infinite in her mind. The image of him in her memory was terrifying and severe in a way that made her shiver and blush. Even the snow-globe that held his likeness in an eternal dance set her heart to racing.
Though her mind's eye saw this angry, colossally magic creature, the past several weeks spoke of something--someone entirely different. He had offered Sarah her dreams once, in exchange for something she couldn't possibly give. The idea was overwhelming, offering the world to a girl who couldn't even begin to guess at its expanse. But now, he gave her small toys, magical trinkets, and keepsakes fashioned after her dearest friends. These things she could hold in her hand and could display on a shelf. They weren't at all terrifying and she loved each gift dearly. How could the creature that sang such cruel words and glared at her with such intensity be capable of also bestowing on her a felted bird hat?
Without realizing it, Sarah had left the shelter of the diner awning and found herself again standing in front of the simple red door on Mystic. The fear she had experienced before running to the diner was replaced now with overwhelming curiosity. She simply had to know which man she was dealing with and what, exactly, he wanted from her.
She pushed her way through the door again, setting the bells to chiming. But it wasn't the bells that caused her to freeze in her tracks. The room was alive with movement. The store itself looked as if it used to be some well-to-do accounting firm, all gleaming mahogany paneling and green shaded light fixtures hanging from ornate ceiling medallions.
But, oh, the things it held now. Also hanging from the ceiling were whirling, flashing, spinning mobiles with colorful birds and fairies and masked dancers. Leapfrogging mechanical goblins bounced across the floor at her feet and crashed fantastically into walls before skipping off in other directions. And the shelves! Sarah couldn't see far into the store as the shelves reached so close to the ceiling and wound in around themselves. They were a mismatched array of wood grains and heights, often one bookshelf stacked atop another in an impossibly precarious arrangement. In them gleamed ticking clocks with thirteen stops on their faces whose exposed cogs and gears twinkled in the uneven light of the shop. More toys were crammed into the shelves, some Sarah had in her display at home, some were creatures she well remembered from her frenzied dash through the Underground, though most were fantastic creations she had never seen before. Some goblins and fireys and fairies clicked and bounced and threw themselves from one shelf to the next, while others, the owls and wisemen and False Alarms, sat stoically, watching.
"Close the damn door! I'm not paying to heat the outdoors as well." A voice boomed its way from the back of the shop to where Sarah stood, gaping. The voice ran up her spine and tickled her scalp. She knew that voice.
"The door!" came the call again. Sarah jumped a little and spun to close the door, then turned to rest her back against it. Oh God. The narrow walkway between the overfull shelves wound around a corner in such a way that Sarah could not see where it led. Having the store set up as a sort of maze seems tremendously appropriate. She stood up straight and squared her shoulders. This was it. Once again, it seemed the king was to be found at the center of a labyrinth.
Come on feet, Sarah urged silently. Making an effort to not be sidetracked by the endless bobbles and knick-knacks, she stepped quickly into the writhing, ticking, whirring, yipping, bouncing, spinning fray. There were fewer pathways this go-around, however, and Sarah only once had to pause to guess the correct direction to follow. She rounded the last corner that lead to a somewhat clear space and came to a quick stop.
There, sitting right there, as if it were the most normal of situations, was the Goblin King. He didn't look like the king from the spiraling castle, but Sarah knew it was him all the same. He sat hunched over some sort of work table that seemed to be doubling as a check-out counter-and perhaps a gift-wrap station.
He wore white linen tunic, bunched up to the elbows. His shock of silvery-gold hair was pulled back into a queue, though much of it was spilling over his forehead if not standing on end. His hands were bare and a shocking rust color; she stared for a moment longer before she realized he was carving something out of clay, and had spread the mess halfway to his elbows. She couldn't properly see his face he was so hunkered over his project. Her heart was beating wildly.
She took a tentative step forward, and, in a blur of movement, his head snapped up. The world seemed to slam to a halt when his eyes met hers. The toys and trinkets that had been happily gyrating in their shelves came to an abrupt stop and the shop was filled with heavy, choking silence. Slowly, though deliberately, the Goblin King put down the tool he had been using to manipulate the clay and stood.
Sarah could see his face properly now and his expression was stony and unreadable. He looked almost human, his strange eyes the only feature that spoke of his otherworldliness. His mouth was pressed into a thin line and the dark sweep of his brow furrowed in an emotion Sarah couldn't name.
The silence spread out between them into an almost tangible thing. And though it surprised them both, it was Sarah that spoke first.
"Thank you."
The king's head tilted fractionally to the side. "You're welcome."
Sarah began to move toward the table. The king's gaze was so piercing, however, that she soon lost her nerve and paused, looking down at the lump of clay on the table. She recognized the shape and gasped as she dashed over the remaining distance.
"Ohh, Jareth!"
Sarah didn't see his mouth twist into an almost smile at the mention of his name.
"This is incredible! It looks just like him!"
Jareth knelt and turned the small board under the carving so the thing faced Sarah. She knelt as well and brought her face close to the piece. It was Hoggle, his can of fairy pesticide slung easily over his shoulder. His other hand was brought up to his eyes, shading them against the light, searching for his next victim. The image stirred something in Sarah; she could almost place it as an actual memory.
Her eyes sought out every crevice of his leathered face-he looks so real! She almost expected him to scold her for staring so intently at him. She followed the line of the little dwarf's arm, holding the atomizer over his shoulder. It was then she realized there was another set of eyes on the other side of the table studying her just as closely. Sarah stood and took a step back. Why was he looking at her like that?
"This…" she made a quick gesture at the sculpture, "is very good. Hoggle would blush if he saw how well you've captured him."
Jareth stood and reached for a damp rag on the table. The silence stretched again as he stood wiping the clay from his hands.
Sarah shifted from foot to foot. This wasn't what she had been expecting. She wasn't exactly sure what she had been expecting, but the Goblin King sitting in a toy store, engrossed in carving Hoggle out of clay was not it. He was reminding her of the Goblin King she first met in her parent's bedroom, silent and bemused.
"Did you make all of these?" She turned a bit to the side, indicating all the hundreds of still mute toys that filled the shop.
"I did." Jareth did not look up from the task of cleaning his fingernails. Perhaps he didn't seem so bemused, after all.
"I didn't know."
"No, I suppose you wouldn't." He laid the rag down and picked up the board with the clay Hoggle. He sat it on a shelf of other unfired projects behind the table and began to straighten the veritable mess of the project table.
Sarah feared she was babbling, but the stints of eerie quiet were making her anxious. Hadn't he wanted her to come to him? "I really loved the snow globe."
"Why are you here, Sarah?" Jareth didn't look up when he spoke.
Sarah was stunned. "I-the toys. You sent those to me, didn't you?"
"I did, yes." He appeared to be sorting scraps of fabric by color, now. Sarah clenched her fists, willing him to look at her.
"Then what do you want?" She paused, taming the shrill note of frustration. "I just don't understand. You send me these things, these incredible things, and you make me feel these… incredible…" She trailed off. She was unsure what he had made her feel. "But then you act like you don't want to see me. You ask me why I'm here!" She stopped herself before adding a snappish, ‘What gives?!'
He looked up at her then, a long, devouring stare. Sarah could feel her cheeks heating, her breathing hitch, but held his gaze. He didn't speak.
Sarah exhaled slowly. "They say Ludo is doing very well as acting King," she said at long last.
"Yes, as I quite expected him to do." He broke their eye contact to begin collecting the scattered array of colored pencils spread across the work station.
"Why did you leave?" Sarah asked. It was infuriating, prying information out of him like this.
He had turned to place the pencils on another shelf behind him and his back was to her when he spoke. "Forever, it seems, is quite a bit longer than I would have had you believe."
"So this, this…store. It's a vacation?"
"It's a hobby." With the mess of the table cleared, Sarah could see Jareth more clearly now. She smiled a little when she realized he was wearing denim jeans under his tunic. A vacation, indeed. "I do this from time to time. Spend some time Aboveground, work with my hands."
Sarah's eyes darted to his bare hands, still stained from the clay. He had artist's fingers, long and tapering. From his trick of rolling those crystals back and forth, Sarah supposed she wasn't surprised to find his hands very skilled in manipulating clay, wood, and fabric.
"No magic?" Her thoughts went back to the impossible mechanisms of the toys, the constant movement and noise, and their sudden silence when she had seen him.
"Only a little." He smiled then, a small thing. But it softened his face and crinkled the skin around his eyes.
"Why are you here?" He asked again. He sounded so tired when he spoke. Though it wasn't visible on his face, Sarah could sense his age, his infiniteness.
That caught her off guard.
"I thought you sent for me." She felt panic rise up in her throat. What else could he have meant by sending her those gifts? She fought the urge to run. Was this what he wanted? To essentially call her to him only to embarrass her by feigning indifference?
"Yes, Sarah." He stepped around the table and came to stand before her. "Of course I sent for you." Her unease didn't shift. What, then?
"But I have sent for you before. You were very clear as to you intentions, then."
Sarah was trying to catch up. He had sent for her before? What… Then it dawned on her.
‘I do this from time to time. Spend some time Aboveground…'
"This isn't the first time you've sent me…toys…"
"No." He didn't elaborate.
Sarah's thoughts went back to the Hoggle bookend and Sir Didymus stuffed animal sitting in her childhood bedroom, or perhaps in the attic, at this point. Of course she had made the connection between her toys and the creatures she had met in the Underground, but she almost felt as if she had shaped the Labyrinth around her toys and own thoughts, not that they were representations of what was already in existence. How long had she had those things? Her whole life, it seemed.
"So, I shall ask you again. Why are you here?"
To see what sort of man you really are. To yell at you for confusing me so! To thank you for the most thoughtful, amazing, beautiful gifts anyone has ever given me. To speak as adults, on neutral ground. To see if you are tricking me again. To make you play fair.
Sarah sighed. "I don't know."
"You do. You've known since you opened that first box. What do you want?" He was circling her again, and she felt the familiar pressure to answer, to say the right words. Though there was no book to guide her steps, this time. She closed her eyes against the intensity of his gaze. She almost regretted leaving the comfort of the café booth. Now she was back to ultimatums and the choice of one world or the other.
"Sarah!" He seized her upper-arms and her eyes flew open. "What-"
"Stop it!"
He released her and took a step back. He looked genuinely startled.
"I need you to give me a moment to think! Stop making this so hard! Must every one of our meetings be ‘through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered?'" She knotted her hand in her hair, tugged, released. "Why are you so insistent I explain myself? You sent for me!" She was aware she sounded like her teenage self, but she was well beyond the point of reason.
"My Sarah. I will always send for you." He ran his hand through his hair, causing even more to stand on end. "Did it not occur to you that perhaps I try my hand at storming the castle from time to time?" The tired ache was back in his voice. He was absently twisting his hand and wrist, as if attempting to conjure a crystal to show him the answers.
"I do not mean to overwhelm you. This is all I know; grand gestures and hard limits. And you."
This is all I know.
All Sarah knew was villainy and trinkets on her doorstep. What a strange, delightful combination.
"Sarah…" He reached as if to touch her face, but let his hand fall.
She inhaled deeply.
"I want…magic," she breathed.
Jareth smiled, a genuine, slow-spreading smile. "Magic, my dear, I have in spades." He twisted his empty hands around each other, calling a crystal. He rolled it back and forth for a time before grasping it tightly and throwing it up into the air. It burst, and a beautiful, light snow began to fall from the ceiling. It began to swirl around them as the toys set to ticking and whirring again. The clocks began to chime wildly and the lights of the shop flickered. His mischievous smile widened as the snow began to swirl faster and faraway music began to sound. In jeans and a linen shirt, he held his hand out to her. "Dance with me."
Shaky hands grasped faintly clay-stained ones. One found the curve of her waist and hers slowly made its way to his shoulder. They began to turn in slow, lazy circles in the growing blizzard. Sarah felt warmed from the inside out, however.
"Magic." Jareth whispered.
She looked down at the small space between them. She asked the question that had been plaguing her since she pulled the owl from the tissue paper. "Why did you come, Jareth? What do you want?"
Jareth laughed. He seemed younger. "Well, I want a great many things, my Sarah. Magic, time, a chance to right the wrongs between us both. But we can get into that later." He hummed a song they both knew. "For now, I would settle for some help around the store. It's a right mess, I'm afraid."
"Help around the store?" Sarah stopped, still grasping the hand of the Goblin King.
"Yes. I'm not quite ready to go back. I'm quite enjoying my sabbatical, as it were. Besides, I hear Ludo is doing wonders for the Underground." The snow slowed, twinkling under the hanging lights.
Sarah smiled.
"Here." He lifted their clasped hands to his lips. He softly kissed the skin that met the base of each of her fingernails. "Tell me what you think of these Door Knocker bookends. I believe I have gotten The Mumbler's nose all wrong. It's too large."
Sarah followed him to the back room, taking quick glances at the wonder around her. The snow was coming to a stop, covering the shelves in a glittering frost and making the air shimmer in a way she had almost forgotten.
Magic.
The actual identity of the writer will remain secret until all the submissions are in and posted.
****
Title: 213 North Mystic Avenue or: A New Career In a New Town
Author: nexttosomething
Recipient: kyndsie
Prompt: At least three years after the adventure with Sarah, Jareth takes a much-needed sabbatical from the Goblin King.
Rating: PG
Plot Summary: Shortly after Sarah moves to a new town, she begins receiving strange and wonderful gifts on her doorstep. She suspects the Goblin King is behind it- if only she could find him.
Author's notes: I had a blast playing in the sandbox of this prompt! Many, many thanks to my betas, who shall remain nameless for now. Any mistakes you see are my own.
March 29th, 1996
The rain had done a thorough job of blurring the writing on the scrap of paper Sarah held in shaking hands, but she had long since memorized the words.
213 North Mystic Avenue. This was it. This was…not what she had been expecting. The shop looked perfectly…normal. It had a green and white awning and the window was painted with a simple word: TOYS. The glass was fogged from the recent rain, and only the suggestions of the shapes within were visible. Sarah worried the crease of the paper in her hand and looked at the door. It was all so completely innocuous; the reddish door, the slightly faded awning.
She took a few steps back and checked the brass numbers nailed to the brick façade. 213. A quick glance over her shoulder told her she was, indeed, on Mystic.
This was exactly where this piece of paper meant her to be. She absently tucked the scrap back into her pocket and reached for the door handle. Pushing the door open, Sarah heard the sound of chimes, not unlike the bells hung from any number of other shop doors. The idea of her presence being so readily announced, however, unnerved her and she released the handle. The door swung back in on itself, setting the chimes to tinkling again. Sarah, however, was halfway down the block, having suddenly remembered something very important she had to do.
Sarah was no coward, of that she was certain. She had discovered a great many things in her journey through the Underground, and her curiosity and foolhardy bravery were included on that long list. But she had also learned caution. It was perhaps this caution that had stayed her hand. She was not quite ready to learn the answers to her questions or to find out what was waiting beyond the door chimes. It wasn't cowardice, no. She was simply trying to be levelheaded about the whole thing.
She turned the corner, debating heading back to her apartment or just simply wallowing in a cup of tea at Wilma's Diner. Knowing that the collection of …gifts…in her apartment would further frustrate her, Sarah opted for the diner. She bounced on her toes a bit waiting for the crosswalk signal to change. The street was clear, but there it was again-- caution. At the signal, she splashed her way over the wet pavement and through the door of the diner, tensing only a little at the chiming bells hanging on the door.
Grateful to see her favorite booth available, Sarah waved at Lyle behind the counter and slid across the vinyl seat. She had not been in the city over-long, but she was a creature of habit. This place was the first she found her first night in the new town, and Wilma, the owner, had brought her a cup of tea with her menu.
"Seems you needed it, dear. What can I get started for you?"
Sarah appreciated this small act of kindness more that she liked to say, and had found herself back in this same booth at least two times a week since.
"Tea, Sarah?" Wilma's son, Lyle, appeared at her tableside. "We've got some excellent chili, today. The weather…"
"Yes, it is definitely chili eating weather. And tea would be excellent." Sarah smiled. She liked Lyle. He had a broad face, perfectly made for broad smiles. He had dark features, like his mother, with striking, celery-colored eyes, which Sarah assumed he got from his father. He was handsome, and very friendly, especially considering Sarah had yet to call the number he left scribbled on her tea napkins now and again.
"I'll get that right out to you." Lyle left with an eye-crinkling grin.
Sarah thrummed her fingers against the scuffed Formica tabletop. She was fidgeting again. She had been fidgeting for the past three and a half months, ever since the first package had arrived. And now she was sitting in a booth in a diner, no closer to getting to the bottom of the gifts. The first one had arrived so close to Christmas, she had been sure it was from Karen, sending some cookies or some other baked goods to tempt her into coming home early. How surprising when she had lifted the lid of the simple, cream-colored box to find not her favorite peanut-butter cookies but something else entirely.
"Crackers?"
Sarah jumped, knocking over the pyramid of creamers she had been absently building.
"Sorry! I didn't mean to startle you." Concern marked Lyle's face. Sarah hadn't realized he had come back to the table. "I was only asking if you wanted crackers with your chili." He sat the steaming bowl down in front of her as well as the cup and saucer for her tea. He pulled out a Twinnings tea bag from his front shirt pocket, and fishing around in his apron, offered her a handful of saltines.
Sarah quickly scrubbed her face with her hand and reached out for the crackers. "Yes! Yes. Thank you. I'm sorry; I was just a little distracted." Completely distracted.
"I could tell you weren't really sitting here when I walked up," Lyle chided. He sat the tea bag on the saucer. His number was written in Sharpie across the package.
"Thank you, Lyle." Sarah picked up the tea bag from the saucer and waited until he was headed back to the kitchen before tearing it open, effectively ripping the number in half. She wasn't sure how this new method of delivery was to be any more effective than the napkin under her cup. Perhaps he thought it less difficult to miss his number as she had to pick up the bag in order to fix her tea. Sarah smiled as she bobbed the bag in and out of the hot water.
Maybe she should go out with Lyle. She certainly would have three months ago. She had no problems with going on dates. But now, with the gifts she kept receiving, and the paper tucked in her front pocket, she had other things, other men, on her mind. She pushed the ripped tea bag package into her other pocket resolving to call him once she finally had her answers.
December 10th, 1995
The first package had arrived her first week in her new place. Sarah liked calling it "her place" because "apartment" might be too generous a word for three small rooms without any interior doors. Two small rooms. The third was a spacious closet. She lived over the garage of Mrs. Fitzgerald, a somewhat kooky woman of a certain age. Miz Fitz, as she insisted Sarah call her, had waved burning sage around the small living room/bedroom the day Sarah and Merlin had moved in.
"For the chi, my dear," Miz Fitz cawed over her shoulder as she swirled the blue smoke through the air. She shook one panel of the limp curtains and made a face. "And the smell."
Wrinkling her nose at the combined aroma of stale must and burnt sage, Sarah wondered if it was, indeed, an improvement.
But Miz Fitz was an excellent landlady, charging her very little for the rooms. She had privacy and a yard for Merlin, which she hadn't been expecting in her post-graduate school price range. And with some creative organization-the sock drawer directly under the silverware drawer, the ironing board doubling as a breakfast bar-Sarah had managed to fit her small life into her small apartment. What she had unpacked so far, that is.
She had found the package resting at the top of the wooden staircase leading to her front, and only, door. With no return address, Sarah's thoughts turned immediately to Karen and her constant care packages. "Surprise!" the notes in the unmarked boxes had always read; never mind that Sarah came to expect unmarked packages to be from her stepmother. Glad for some comfort from home, Sarah started opening the box before she even had the door unlocked.
Inside was an ivory box the size of a grapefruit. Her lips quirked at the sight. Fudge. Lifting the lid and reaching through the tissue paper, Sarah's fingers brushed the object inside. That wasn't fudge. She pulled it out and stared in wonder at the wooden figurine.
It was a carefully carved barn owl, perched atop a roughly hewn branch. A small "oh!" whispered through Sarah's lips as she examined the figure. Though small, the detail was exquisite. The owl sat tensed on the branch and Sarah could see he was looking for something. His small, painted eyes were so focused and he was poised, as if waiting to swoop from his perch onto unsuspecting prey. The branch was twisted and gnarled, and though it was the only part visible, it evoked an image of the tree in its entirety-large, imposing, and though withered, not entirely dead. The carving was heavier than it looked and Sarah turned it slowly in her hand.
Running a finger over the owl's head and down its back, Sarah was surprised when the tail-feathers gave a bit under her hand. Turning it in her hand, she touched the piece again, and as she pushed down on the tail, the wings hinged and lifted. A surprised laugh escaped Sarah. The owl looked as if it was preparing to fly away!
An impatient "wuff" behind her startled Sarah and she fumbled to keep from dropping the keepsake. She hadn't realized how intently she had been examining it until Merlin had called her out of her reverie. Her shoulders were tensed and her breathing shallow. Setting the owl down on the ironing board, she rolled her shoulders, trying to shake the feeling.
"Hungry, Merlin?"
If the sheepdog had concerns for her, the mention of dinner wiped them out completely. He trotted happily over to the cabinet with his kibble and sat patiently as she filled his bowl. Merlin was old and set in his ways, and no surprise packages were going to postpone his dinner. Not having energy to put much more effort into her own dinner, Sarah decided on cold cereal and a new mystery novel as her night's entertainment.
As she washed out her bowl sometime later, Sarah cradled her cordless phone on her shoulder.
"Hello?"
"Hi Karen! It's Sarah."
"Oh, hold on Sarah, your father's in the other room."
"Uh, no!" Sarah turned from the sink and wiped her hands on her jeans. "I actually wanted to talk to you, Karen."
"Oh, I'm sorry. I'm so used to you calling for your father or Toby."
Sarah grimaced. "Yeah, I'm sorry about that. With moving in and all. And the library-" She trailed off. She knew it was a lame excuse. Work was anything but stressful.
"I know, dear. I do." Karen coughed. "What can I do for you?"
"Ah, nothing. I was just calling to thank you for the package. I love it."
There was a pause on the other line and Sarah could hear Karen clicking her tongue. "Package, dear? I haven't sent you anything since you moved. Did you want something? I have some pastries I was trying my hand at. I could make some of your favorite cookies, if you like. Or-"
Sarah shook her head. "No, I don't need anything. You didn't send me the owl figurine?"
"Owl? No, Sarah. I know how much you love them, but no, I didn't send it to you. Was there an address? A card?"
She bit her lip against a cheeky response. If there had been a card, she wouldn't be calling. "No, no card. Sorry, it must have been Mary from State. I'll try calling her."
She hung up sometime later, a little ill at ease. She hadn't completely believed it was Karen whom had sent her the toy, and she believed even less it was her old college roommate. Surprise gifts weren't really her thing.
She'd been putting off contacting the next someone she knew to call, though it seemed now her only option. She walked into the living room and began to pull the couch away from the wall. Scooting between the sofa and the wall, she stretched her legs and sat on the back of the couch. She was more eye level with the mirror she had hung there for occasions such as these. Her bathroom was downstairs in the garage, and as aggravating as it was to walk outside with her bath towel and clothes, she could imagine trying to sneak creatures from the Underground back upstairs would be even less appealing.
"Hoggle? I need you."
Sarah lay in bed that night no less confused than when she had first walked up the steps to her place. Her conversation with her friends had left her feeling…anxious.
"Of course we didn't leave you no toys on yer doorstep. We's not able to just pop in an' out of places. You know that." Hoggle's gruff words were exactly what she expected.
"I know, I just wonder how it got there. Or what it is."
"Mayhaps, my lady, thou hast a secret admirer? Hast thou charmed some lucky fellow with thine beauty and wit?" Sir Didymus was clutching his tricorn to his breast, overcome with the romance of Sarah's secret lover.
"Of course not!" Hoggle exclaimed. "Not that ya ain't pretty, Sarah. You is. But that thing don't look like no trinket from Above."
Sarah passed the thing from one hand to the other. "What makes you say that?"
"Look at the way it's lookin' at me! That's His Nastiness if I ever seen ‘im." Hoggle shuddered and crossed his short arms over his chest.
Sarah pressed the tail feathers again, watching the wings rise slowly. She had something of an affinity for owls and had collected their likenesses for a time in her late teens. Much of what she had collected had stayed behind in her father's house, however. She had brought very little of her childhood with her in the move. "You really think it's him?"
"Who else could it be? Can't say as to why he'd be leavin' you gifts at yer door, though." Hoggle looked down as he spoke, fingering the filigree on the frame of Sarah's mirror.
"Has he been acting strange?" She was almost afraid to hear the answer. In the years following her adventure through the Labyrinth, Sarah's anxiety over the creatures she had met had all but vanished, except in the case of the Goblin King. Beyond finding that he was, in fact, alive, and she hadn't torn his castle asunder, Sarah asked few questions about him. The whole debacle seemed like it might be a touchy subject.
"Well…" Hoggle still hadn't looked up from his hands.
"We don't know, my lady. His Majesty has been away for some time now." Sir Didymus chimed.
"Away?"
"His majesty left, quite suddenly, in fact." Sir Didymus worried the edge of this hat before placing it back on his head. He fiddled with its yellow plume.
Hoggle rolled his eyes. "He's been gone for a few months now. Somethin' ‘bout needin' some time away. A, uh, st-baddy-call, he called it."
"A sabbatical." Sarah grinned. "You don't know where he went?"
"No. An' I don't care neither."
Sarah sighed and turned to the fox. "Sir Didymus?"
"Verily, I know not where His Majesty hath gone-"
"He can't hear you, Didymus!" Hoggle blurted. "Call a snake a snake. Jareth. ‘is name is Jareth."
"His Majesty is still thine sovereign, good sir. He demands our respect!"
Sarah leaned away from the mirror, knowing from experience an argument was on its way and to just let it play out. Looking again at the small figurine, her thoughts drifted. The king had left the Underground. For some reason, this left Sarah feeling very uneasy. Though she knew better, the separation of the two worlds gave Sarah the illusion of security. She didn't have to be worried that she might say the wrong thing and have the walls start crashing in on her or the Cleaners come barreling down the hallway as long as he was in the castle beyond the goblin city. But now that it was obvious he wasn't tucked away where he couldn't get her, she felt…vulnerable. Sarah wasn't certain how sore a loser The King of the Goblins was after she left. It had been years, but a grudge is a grudge.
And now she had an irritated looking owl perched on a branch that she was certain was fashioned after one of the twisted trees that stood outside the walls of the Labyrinth. Was this some sort of warning?
"-tis a mark of true leadership to display so readily one's virility! If thou wouldst be so bold to wear such garments, thou might win a fight or two!"
"I'ms just sayin', those pants are too tight for comfort! Who is ‘e tryin' to impress? I'd feel choked to death if my jewels was just hangin' out all-"
"All right, all right!" Sarah held up her hands in surrender, afraid to hear the rest. "Thank you for…just thanks. I needed this. I'm not sure what ‘this' was, but I do feel better."
"You only have to call, my lady." Sir Didymus bowed in the mirror.
"Just don' be doin' nothin' stupid, Sarah. Don' get yerself into no trouble." He waggled his knobby finger at her. "You tend to draw trouble to you."
"I know." Sarah grinned. As the mirror began to cloud, something occurred to her. "Wait!"
"Yes?" Sir Didymus turned.
"Where is Ludo? I haven't spoken to him in so long."
"That's the strangest part." Hoggle scratched his skull cap in frustration. "Jareth left him in charge in ‘is absence."
"Ludo? In charge?" Sarah was stunned.
"Indeed, my lady." Sir Didymus nodded solemnly. "Sir Ludo has quite a knack for ruling the masses. If the goblins feared His Majesty's crystal balls, then they are terrified of Sir Ludo's stone boulders."
Now in her fold-out bed, Sarah struggled to find sleep. But she kept tangling and untangling herself in the sheets, tossing about in a weak attempt of finding a comfortable spot. She could only think about the little owl, sitting a few yards away on the ironing board. She should really buy an actual table. And perhaps put up a curtain to separate the kitchen area from the den. A spring dug uncomfortably into her back. Perhaps her first purchase should be a mattress pad. A bed would be ideal, but she had nowhere to put it.
She turned again and, though it was too dark to see, she could sense the toy staring at her from the kitchen. Sighing, she got up and stalked across the cold linoleum floor to retrieve it.
Sometime later, Sarah sighed in her sleep. She dreamt of old forests and sandy hills and a golden sunrise. The little owl sat patiently on the arm of the couch.
December 30th, 1995
It was a few weeks later before the next gift arrived. The holiday had passed with little ceremony. Her father had handed her a check for an amount Sarah was embarrassed to admit she very much needed. Karen gave her yet another scarf, and Toby gave her a signed copy of Shel Silverstein's Where the Sidewalk Ends. She thanked Karen for the book later on the phone, though she denied she had anything to do with it. Her mother remembered to call, on the 27th. Sarah expected her card in the mail by mid-February at the earliest.
Her apartment was still in relative disarray, though now the few remaining stacked boxes had twinkle-lights draped over them, which was an improvement. Sarah had taken some of her own advice and quick-installed a shower-rod and curtain in the large doorway leading from the den to the kitchen. She used Karen's Christmas scarf as a sash to hold the curtain back during the weekends. Had she made any friends at the library, Sarah might feel comfortable enough to invite them over now. But circumstances had led her to be somewhat reserved at her new job as Assistant Youth Services Librarian. She had other things on her mind.
The little owl stood watch over her from its perch on the arm of the sofa for a few days before Sarah moved him to the stack of books acting as a side table. He seemed content enough there. Time and again, as Sarah sat on the couch reading the latest Terry Pratchett book, she would be startled to find her fingers absently pressing the wings up and down or toying with the tips of the branch. It unnerved her, the comfort she took in the thing.
It was on a freezing winter Saturday that the next package appeared. Sarah had spent the day reading picture books to children and avoiding adults. At least the kids seemed to like her, she told herself. She tripped over the box as she was fishing in her purse for her keys. Thoroughly startled, she immediately plopped down on the narrow deck and began to tear into the box.
This box was larger, and held another ivory colored box inside it. Again, there was no return address, just her name and address machine typed onto a label. Her breath plumed out in frosty billows as she lifted the lid.
Tears pricked her eyes as she drew out the toy. It was Ludo! She laughed wetly as she pulled the stuffed beast out of its box. His arms and legs were twice as long as his body, which made him look like some sort of Grimm-themed sock monkey. His auburn hair was soft and his sweet, monstrous face smiled up at her with all the knowing camaraderie as its giant likeness. Sarah laughed again as she also pulled from the box rough but glittering stones, weighty and not a little magic. She clutched the toy to her chest, looking quite like a child, rocking back and forth. She didn't know why, but as she sat out on her freezing cold deck with a stuffed animal and a handful of rocks pressed into her neck, her sporadic laughter slowly turned into tears.
"Ludo? I need you." Sarah sat on the back of her couch, with the littler Ludo lying across her lap.
"Sawah?" Ludo appeared. He looked the same as she remembered, his fanged grin warming her heart in ways a monster should not be able.
"Hi, Ludo." She smiled. She called on Ludo the least often. She wasn't sure why that was so, but when she did call on him, it seemed she needed someone the most.
"Ludo, king!" the beast half-roared. His voice sounded like rocks grinding together and echoed off the walls of her place. She was glad she shared no walls with Miz Fitz. These noises might be difficult to explain.
"Yes, I heard. Oh Ludo, you look so great! I hear you are doing very well." She noticed then that the tips of his downturned horns were burnished in bronze and he wore an amulet in the fur above his eyes. It was shaped like a downward turned crescent moon and was hewn from the same tarnished bronze of his horns. In the middle sat a quietly sparkling ruby.
"Ludo, king!" he repeated, grabbing hold of his horns and bending closer to Sarah's eye level. "Ludo, good king."
She scratched the fur beneath his chin and nodded. "Yes, you are a very good king. J-Jar-… The Goblin King was wise to choose you."
"Ludo, good."
They sat in comfortable silence for a time, Sarah distractedly stroking the fur of the Ludo in her lap and Ludo running a dirty fingernail over the gilt pattern of the mirror frame.
"Sawah, good?" Ludo slowly asked.
The question surprised Sarah. Such startling insight wasn't something she was used to with Ludo, much less conversation.
"Sawah, sad?"
He offered his hand, reaching beyond the frame of the mirror. Sarah placed both of her hands in his giant palm. The skin of his three-fingered hand felt like the rough grit of volcanic rock, impossibly dry and coarse.
"Yes, Ludo. I'm sad."
They sat like this, quietly holding on to each other through the divide, for quite some time.
January 11th, 1996
"Are you okay?"
Sarah jumped. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the Children's Library, quietly engrossed in reordering the Nancy Drew novels. First she had rearranged them chronologically, and then in the order she had read them as a little girl, and again in order from her favorite to least.
"Sorry!" The speaker was Ellen, one of the women that worked at the library. Sarah couldn't think off the top of her head which department, possibly genealogy? "I didn't mean to scare you."
"Oh! It's fine. I was just- " Sarah waved her hand vaguely around her head.
"Yeah, I noticed…" Ellen trailed off. "I'm Emma. You're Sarah, right?"
Oops. Sarah bit the inside of her cheek. Emma, not Ellen. "That's me."
"I work in genealogy. I'm on break."
"Yes." Sarah squeezed her eyes shut. This was going well. Emma was possibly the first adult she had spoken with in a week and all she could manage was "yes."
"Look," Emma plopped on the floor beside her. They were probably about the same age, Sarah realized. She was certainly young to be working in the genealogy department. "I know you don't talk much, to the staff anyway, but I just wanted to see if you were… Do you want to get some coffee?"
"Coffee?"
"Or whatever. You seem to need a friend."
Sarah looked at the book in her hand. The Secret in the Old Attic. That one went near the front of the queue. "Do I look that terrible?"
"Yes." Emma took the last book from Sarah's pile. The Quest of the Missing Map. She considered it, and then placed it second, behind The Clue in the Crumbling Wall. "One of my favorites."
"Mine too." Sarah's mouth twitched, satisfied. That's where she would have placed it, as well.
"I take lunch at one. Do you want to meet at Wilma's? I see you there sometimes. We could stare at Lyle and talk about Mrs. Butt Head."
Sarah laughed. Mrs. Butehead was the head reference librarian. She was mean and about as stubborn as her moniker implied.
"Sure, I'd like that."
"Good. I'll see you then." Emma stood up as abruptly as she had sat down and walked away.
Sarah rubbed her knuckles against her eyebrows, both anxious and nervous for lunch.
"So, who's the guy?" Emma blurted through a mouthful of an egg salad sandwich.
"I'm sorry?" Sarah picked at her basket of fish and chips. She reached for her mug of tea instead.
"The guy that's got you so messed up. Who is he?"
"How do you know it's a guy? And I'm not messed up." Sarah took a pointed bite of a french fry. She really liked Emma. She wasn't usually drawn to such brash personalities, but her sweeping declarative statements kept Sarah on her toes. She was equally irritated and amused by her, in a completely delightful way.
"You are so messed up." Emma pushed aside her sandwich and cradled her steaming cup of black coffee in her hands, blowing the rich smell towards Sarah.
"What's his name?"
"There is no guy!" Sarah laughed, feeling uncomfortable.
"Okay, so the reason you used the napkin with Lyle's number to wipe up the ketchup you spilled is because, what? You're just mean?" Emma picked up the offending crumple of napkin and held it in front of Sarah's face.
"No." Sarah grabbed the napkin and slid it down to the end of the table. "I'm just…not interested."
"Mmm hmm. Smoldering good looks and a knee buckling smile not your cup of tea?"
"I prefer blondes," Sarah whispered into her cup.
"Fine. So tell me about this guy."
Sarah quirked a smile. "You sure are inquisitive for someone whom I barely know. I don't know a thing about you."
"Okay." Emma shifted in her seat and sat up straighter. She cleared her throat. "I'm Emma. I work at the library. I just broke up with my girlfriend, so I'm a little bitchy. I, too, prefer blondes, so no, you aren't my type. I, unlike you, am not completely square on the grammatical rules of ‘who' versus ‘whom'. I grew up here, I went to college here, and my grandfather was on the board of trustees at the library. That's why I'm so young and working in genealogy. No one likes me at work either." Emma took a long pull from her coffee cup. "So tell me about this guy."
Sarah laughed and finally gave up on her fish and chips. "Fine."
"So there is a guy!" Emma bounced a little in her seat.
"First of all," Sarah laid her hand on the table in an effort to calm the situation. "Can we stop calling him, ‘this guy?'" Sarah could never think about the Goblin King…Jareth…as ‘some guy'. It was too normal for- whatever he was. "His name is J-Jareth. And it's much more than just him."
"Jareth. I like it. It's very…" Emma fished for a word to describe a name that didn't necessarily belong on this side of the mirror.
"Yeah. It is." Sarah finished, smiling.
"So, what? Did he break your heart?"
"No…I think I broke his. Before I even knew what that meant. It was a long time ago." Sarah hadn't said these things out loud before. She hadn't necessarily formed them into complete thoughts, for that matter. But that last withering look of defeat before he fell from her sight had haunted her for years. Had she completely broken him?
"Why is it a problem then?" Emma swirled the dregs of her coffee in her cup. "If it was so long ago?"
Using her fingernail, Sarah traced a mark that had been carved into the tabletop. An infinity symbol.
"I miss…the way things used to be. I miss my friends." I miss adventure.
"Back home?"
Sarah paused. Was it possible to call a place a person had visited for only about ten hours home? "I just miss them so much. And I guess he reminds me of all that."
"Huh." Emma threw back the rest of her, now cold, coffee. "Not a simple fix then. But I can tell you this. No matter how much you want it to be, nothing is ever going to be the way you remember it. Something always changes. You can't go back."
Sarah let that wash over her. You can't go back. She knew she was right, and she learned a long time ago that you can't take anything for granted.
"Speaking of going back, it's about that time. We need to head out before Mrs. Butt Head figures out suitable punishment for two girls enjoying themselves."
Sarah picked up her coat and counted out the cash to leave on the table.
"This was fun." Emma said, smiling. "You aren't the only one that could use a friend. We could do this again, you know. Talk about something less…"
"I'd like that." Sarah brightened a bit at the thought. "But you're right, we need to head back."
The next package was waiting for her when she got home that evening. Sarah took her time opening this one, savoring the anticipation. The box was heavy, though about the same size as the owl box. Inside, she was strangely delighted to find a miniature replica of what appeared to be a goblin cannon, not unlike the one that had been about to blow them away had Ludo not stoppered the mouth with a boulder.
She set the cannon down on the floor of her kitchen and cranked the knob placed where the fuse would be. The thing began smoking and Sarah's eyes grew wide. Just she was about to dash to the sink to douse it in water, it spat out a little thorny cannon ball. It landed a short distance away and began hopping on its curly-toed feet before collapsing to the side. Sarah laughed and cranked the knob again. A string attached to the be-footed ball snatched it back into the barrel, the whole thing started smoking again, and the ball flew across the floor. Sarah was enthralled, though Merlin was less amused. He sniffed tentatively that the contraption, then walked to the corner of the room to watch Sarah fire it again-at a safe distance, of course.
Sometime later, Sarah whooped with excitement as she found what she had been searching for. Miz Fitz had provided her with a small corner of the garage to store some of her less stackable belongings until she "got herself situated." There, in the back of the pile, was the worn wooden display shelf she had hung next to her bed at her father's house.
The eight slots had held her favorite childhood companions once upon a time, and Sarah was beginning to think she was soon to have a use for the thing again. She lugged the cumbersome piece up the stairs and got to work. She was thankful that Karen had though to buy her one of those pink tool kits when she had gone off to undergrad, though, until now, it had gone mostly unused. Hoping that Miz Fitz had no rules against holes in the walls, Sarah rapped on the wall to find the studs, hammer waiting in her other hand. Her nails missed several times and, if her land lady had no problem with a few holes, Sarah was quite certain she would have a problem with over a dozen holes. Vowing to spackle over the destruction before leaving, Sarah finally hung the shelf over the carnage and stood back to admire the effect.
Crooked.
Sarah shrugged and placed the mysterious arrivals in the shelves. She filled the other shelves with the smaller of the books she had lying around; she felt leaving the other spots vacant was inviting other gifts to join them. Sarah wasn't quite sure how she felt about the lovely things or their mysterious giver just yet.
Sarah swept up the mess of chipped plaster from the floor and pulled out a stack of two of the boxes still sitting unopened. The bottom label read "CHILDREN'S BOOKS" and the other "MORE SCARVES". Shoving the latter back into its corner, Sarah tore open the book box. She slowly placed each one on top of the display shelf, in order of spine color, beginning with a brightly hued, little red book.
January 28th, 1996
"What an excellent hat!" Emma exclaimed as she came around the corner of the aisle where Sarah sat shelving. "I could see it bobbing up and down as you walked down the row. Are you putting on a skit today for story time?"
Sarah reached up and toyed with one of the dangling leather straps. "Uh, yes." She took the hat from her head and looked down at the brightly felted bird head with button eyes that sat atop the long, craning neck. "Yes, I'm reading today as the Wiseman, and his opinionated Hat."
February 10th, 1996
"You're doing it again."
Emma held her hand out from the top of the ladder for another construction-paper heart. She was helping Sarah decorate the Children's Library for Valentine's Day. Dozens of multi-hued hearts hung on ribbons dangled from the room's drop ceiling.
"Doing what?"
"Smiling and humming while you work. Did you meet someone?" Emma bounced a little on the balls of her feet, her voice excited.
Sarah handed up another heart. "I'm not humming."
"You are! Did you finally take Lyle up on his many offers?" Emma turned and sat at the top of the ladder, arms crossed.
"No. I don't know what you are talking about." But Sarah did. She had been positively giddy lately. The gifts arrived with much more frequency now, to the point that the little display shelf overflowed so much that Sarah considered scouring garage sales for a small curio cabinet to place underneath it. They were fun, like the goblin cannon. They were tongue in cheek, like the miniature mechanical Cleaners that rattled across her kitchen floor, chasing after Merlin. And they were downright silly, like the latest, the terracotta potted eye lichen that swiveled and twisted and winked at Sarah when she walked from room to room.
They made her think fondly of the Labyrinth and all she had left behind. They made her long for a place she only visited in her dreams and hadn't been absorbed in since adolescence. And they had her thoughts constantly turning to the absent ruler of the Underground, pondering his intentions.
Oh, how she wished…
"Is it Jareth?" The name knocked the wind out of her. Having someone else say it, as if words don't have power and as if there was not the possibility of his hearing them, bewildered Sarah. Not for the first time she wished she had told Emma another name.
"Yes. And no."
"Oof." Emma sighed. "You're killing me with all these vague half-answers." She turned around and hung the last heart before climbing back down the ladder.
"Look, I know you don't like to talk about it. Whatever happened between you guys. I just hope you know what you are doing."
Sarah had no idea. She hadn't seen him since that long night in another place. All she had were the little pieces of his world peeking out at her from her shelf and the joy each piece gave her. And with each arrival she hoped for some clue of where to find him. Her friends had heard nothing of his return or whereabouts, and the packages remained unmarked with anything but magic.
Emma placed her hands on Sarah's shoulders. "No matter how special you think he is, Sarah, you have to remember that you are special, too. You are incredible, and this guy would be lucky to have you."
Sarah smiled, tilting her head to the side. "Are you hitting on me?"
Emma laughed and began to fold the ladder. "Yeah, honey, you wish. You wish."
March 28th, 1996
Sarah was concussed. She staggered up the steps to her apartment in the gloaming, not noticing the package the sat next to her door. She walked past it and threw herself into her apartment. This was… how?
She blindly stalked over to the tea pot on the stove and ran it full of fresh water. She moved it to the stove, sloshing water onto the hissing burner. Distracted.
While she waited for the water to boil, she pulled the piece of paper back out of her pocket. 213 North Mystic Avenue-just around the corner from Wilma's. All this time!
She had been visiting with Emma at her desk in the genealogy wing.
"How do you find anything? I can't even tell what your desk is made of." Sarah picked up a stack of Lincoln biographies. By the look of them, they did not belong to the library and they all seemed to have been thoroughly read- several times. Labeling Emma a history buff was quite a bit of an understatement.
"I have a system!" She nudged a stack of papers to expose a small clear spot on the desk. "And look, it's made of that weird fake wood-grain plastic that bubbles up when you spill a Coke on it." Emma pointed. "It was like that when I got here."
"Right. And why is this part of the massacre?" Sarah held up a lewd looking paperback that was just as broken-in as the biographies.
"The Defiant Captive is a study in the Regency era. It's research." Even so, Emma snatched it out of Sarah's hand and threw it into an almost completely empty desk drawer.
Heartily laughing now, Sarah reached again into the piles. "And what about this?"
But what she held up made her feel as if her heart had thudded to a stop. Dangling from her fingers was her long-limbed Ludo doll. A fierce feeling of fear and possessiveness swept over her.
"Where did you get this?" Sarah ground out.
"Mmmm?" Emma was absorbed in one of her stacks, pulling a paper from it, looking it over, then placing it atop another pile.
"This," Sarah grabbed the arm of her wooden swivel chair and spun Emma towards her. "Where did you find this?" She held the Ludo doll up to her.
"Oh! Isn't he the best? I love his little face. He looks so grumpy, even though he's smiling!"
"Was he in my bag, or something? Why did you take him?" Sarah's voice was rising in pitch and she was shaking the doll at Emma.
"What are you talking about, Sarah? Keep your voice down!" Emma grabbed her arms and pulled her down to squat next to her chair. "I didn't take anything from you. My mom bought me that. She gave it to me the last time I went to the house."
Sarah was clutching the doll to her chest, just as she had the night she had received it.
"What do you mean, ‘Your mother bought you this?'"
"Sarah, what is going on with you? You're scaring me." Emma squeezed Sarah's shoulders, her eyes searching. "Do you need to lie down?"
"No," Sarah shook her head violently. "No, I don't need to lie down. I just don't understand how you got this. Ludo's mine."
"Ludo? Is that what you call yours?" Emma ran a tentative finger down the length of one of his arms. "I guess it suits him."
The wild look in Sarah's eyes intensified. "I don't know what you are talking about."
Emma sighed. "My mother bought me this…Ludo… a few weeks ago. She found him in this new toy shop downtown--"
"A toy shop?"
"Yeah," Emma nodded.
"Do you know where downtown? The address?" Sarah's heart was hammering in her chest. None of this made sense. Why was there a toy shop selling her Ludo doll? How was that even possible?
"-and apparently they have all this really excellent, weird stuff. My mom said the owner was a little nuts, but the stock was incredible. She says she could have gotten lost in there."
"The address? Do you know it?" Sarah's volume was starting to rise again.
"No, but-Hold on!" Emma held up her hand as Sarah opened her mouth to interject. "I can call the house and see if my mom knows it. Just stay here. And chill out."
Sarah plopped on the floor as Emma scurried off to use the office phone. They have all this really excellent, weird stuff…could have gotten lost in there.
"Sorry, she had to look in the phone book." Emma rushed back and sat on the floor next to Sarah. "It isn't in there, but it's next door to the place she gets her nails done. 213 North Mystic."
Sarah snatched the paper with the address written on it out of her hand and stood.
"Sarah, just wait! Aren't you going to tell me what this is about? Why are you so upset?"
But Sarah was already out the door.
And now she sat, legs splayed, in her kitchen floor. She had taken Emma's doll with her and now had the two lying side by side. They were identical. Sarah slumped until she lay flat on her back on the cold linoleum.
213 North Mystic Avenue. She glanced at her wristwatch. 8:37. Too late for any of the shops to be open downtown. She could just go look in the window…but no. What if he was there? Or worse, what if he wasn't? She needed time to think. Had it been someone else all along? Sending her gifts from a store that happened to sell pieces that looked like her childhood friends? Surely not.
She should just go downtown, she thought. Just to look, at least. Grabbing her coat, she made her way to the door. "I'll be back in a bit, Merlin. Don't wait up." But as she threw open the door, she saw it-the unmarked package, with only her name and address on the label.
What now?
She pulled the thing inside. It was heavy. She kicked the door closed and sat on the couch. Every other package she had received she had greeted with excitement and fervor, but this one filled her with cold dread. How close was he? Did he know?
A shriek startled her and she almost dropped the box balanced on her knees; her forgotten tea pot. She set the box on the cushion beside her and sprinted to the kitchen to relieve the bubbling-over kettle. She turned and leaned against the stove, staring at the box in the other room. Then, taking a deep breath, she went to pick it up.
It was so heavy for its size, which was about that of a basketball. She peeled back the tape and took out the ivory box. Lifting the lid, she stared in wonder at the most incredible snow globe she had ever seen.
The globe itself sat nestled into the shimmering swirls of a cloud. It was stunning, but what the globe held was even more astonishing. In the center, behind the thick-looking glass, were two dancers. She recognized them easily, for they were straight out of her dreams. She had seen this night before, had lived it inside a crystal ballroom so long ago. But this was a new dance. They stood, back pressed into back, fingers intertwined and down at their sides. The fair-haired king's head was thrown back, resting atop his partner's head. His lips were parted in song. And the dark-haired girl leaned easily into the back of her lover, her eyes closed and a beatific smile playing on her lips.
Sarah tilted the globe to the side and turned the crank at the bottom of. A haunting, familiar melody tinkled out. As she righted the thing, she saw not snow or glitter floating in the water, but rather a soft, blue vapor swirling around the couple. They had begun to slowly turn, suspended in the mist and music.
There's such a sad love, deep in your eyes…
She sat there, most of the night, cranking and re-cranking the knob and listening for a change in the tune, a hint, a sign.
She found none.
March 29th, 1996
Sarah stood outside the diner, having left most of her chili uneaten and, as an afterthought, Lyle's number-clad tea packet crumpled on the table. It had begun to rain again, a light but thorough wash. The address Emma had given her was burning in her jean pocket. How much longer could she stall? She had been wondering where the invisible king had been hiding for months and now, it seemed, she might find him. She had absolutely nothing stopping her from finding out what he was after.
But the years that separated their last meeting seemed to stretch into the infinite in her mind. The image of him in her memory was terrifying and severe in a way that made her shiver and blush. Even the snow-globe that held his likeness in an eternal dance set her heart to racing.
Though her mind's eye saw this angry, colossally magic creature, the past several weeks spoke of something--someone entirely different. He had offered Sarah her dreams once, in exchange for something she couldn't possibly give. The idea was overwhelming, offering the world to a girl who couldn't even begin to guess at its expanse. But now, he gave her small toys, magical trinkets, and keepsakes fashioned after her dearest friends. These things she could hold in her hand and could display on a shelf. They weren't at all terrifying and she loved each gift dearly. How could the creature that sang such cruel words and glared at her with such intensity be capable of also bestowing on her a felted bird hat?
Without realizing it, Sarah had left the shelter of the diner awning and found herself again standing in front of the simple red door on Mystic. The fear she had experienced before running to the diner was replaced now with overwhelming curiosity. She simply had to know which man she was dealing with and what, exactly, he wanted from her.
She pushed her way through the door again, setting the bells to chiming. But it wasn't the bells that caused her to freeze in her tracks. The room was alive with movement. The store itself looked as if it used to be some well-to-do accounting firm, all gleaming mahogany paneling and green shaded light fixtures hanging from ornate ceiling medallions.
But, oh, the things it held now. Also hanging from the ceiling were whirling, flashing, spinning mobiles with colorful birds and fairies and masked dancers. Leapfrogging mechanical goblins bounced across the floor at her feet and crashed fantastically into walls before skipping off in other directions. And the shelves! Sarah couldn't see far into the store as the shelves reached so close to the ceiling and wound in around themselves. They were a mismatched array of wood grains and heights, often one bookshelf stacked atop another in an impossibly precarious arrangement. In them gleamed ticking clocks with thirteen stops on their faces whose exposed cogs and gears twinkled in the uneven light of the shop. More toys were crammed into the shelves, some Sarah had in her display at home, some were creatures she well remembered from her frenzied dash through the Underground, though most were fantastic creations she had never seen before. Some goblins and fireys and fairies clicked and bounced and threw themselves from one shelf to the next, while others, the owls and wisemen and False Alarms, sat stoically, watching.
"Close the damn door! I'm not paying to heat the outdoors as well." A voice boomed its way from the back of the shop to where Sarah stood, gaping. The voice ran up her spine and tickled her scalp. She knew that voice.
"The door!" came the call again. Sarah jumped a little and spun to close the door, then turned to rest her back against it. Oh God. The narrow walkway between the overfull shelves wound around a corner in such a way that Sarah could not see where it led. Having the store set up as a sort of maze seems tremendously appropriate. She stood up straight and squared her shoulders. This was it. Once again, it seemed the king was to be found at the center of a labyrinth.
Come on feet, Sarah urged silently. Making an effort to not be sidetracked by the endless bobbles and knick-knacks, she stepped quickly into the writhing, ticking, whirring, yipping, bouncing, spinning fray. There were fewer pathways this go-around, however, and Sarah only once had to pause to guess the correct direction to follow. She rounded the last corner that lead to a somewhat clear space and came to a quick stop.
There, sitting right there, as if it were the most normal of situations, was the Goblin King. He didn't look like the king from the spiraling castle, but Sarah knew it was him all the same. He sat hunched over some sort of work table that seemed to be doubling as a check-out counter-and perhaps a gift-wrap station.
He wore white linen tunic, bunched up to the elbows. His shock of silvery-gold hair was pulled back into a queue, though much of it was spilling over his forehead if not standing on end. His hands were bare and a shocking rust color; she stared for a moment longer before she realized he was carving something out of clay, and had spread the mess halfway to his elbows. She couldn't properly see his face he was so hunkered over his project. Her heart was beating wildly.
She took a tentative step forward, and, in a blur of movement, his head snapped up. The world seemed to slam to a halt when his eyes met hers. The toys and trinkets that had been happily gyrating in their shelves came to an abrupt stop and the shop was filled with heavy, choking silence. Slowly, though deliberately, the Goblin King put down the tool he had been using to manipulate the clay and stood.
Sarah could see his face properly now and his expression was stony and unreadable. He looked almost human, his strange eyes the only feature that spoke of his otherworldliness. His mouth was pressed into a thin line and the dark sweep of his brow furrowed in an emotion Sarah couldn't name.
The silence spread out between them into an almost tangible thing. And though it surprised them both, it was Sarah that spoke first.
"Thank you."
The king's head tilted fractionally to the side. "You're welcome."
Sarah began to move toward the table. The king's gaze was so piercing, however, that she soon lost her nerve and paused, looking down at the lump of clay on the table. She recognized the shape and gasped as she dashed over the remaining distance.
"Ohh, Jareth!"
Sarah didn't see his mouth twist into an almost smile at the mention of his name.
"This is incredible! It looks just like him!"
Jareth knelt and turned the small board under the carving so the thing faced Sarah. She knelt as well and brought her face close to the piece. It was Hoggle, his can of fairy pesticide slung easily over his shoulder. His other hand was brought up to his eyes, shading them against the light, searching for his next victim. The image stirred something in Sarah; she could almost place it as an actual memory.
Her eyes sought out every crevice of his leathered face-he looks so real! She almost expected him to scold her for staring so intently at him. She followed the line of the little dwarf's arm, holding the atomizer over his shoulder. It was then she realized there was another set of eyes on the other side of the table studying her just as closely. Sarah stood and took a step back. Why was he looking at her like that?
"This…" she made a quick gesture at the sculpture, "is very good. Hoggle would blush if he saw how well you've captured him."
Jareth stood and reached for a damp rag on the table. The silence stretched again as he stood wiping the clay from his hands.
Sarah shifted from foot to foot. This wasn't what she had been expecting. She wasn't exactly sure what she had been expecting, but the Goblin King sitting in a toy store, engrossed in carving Hoggle out of clay was not it. He was reminding her of the Goblin King she first met in her parent's bedroom, silent and bemused.
"Did you make all of these?" She turned a bit to the side, indicating all the hundreds of still mute toys that filled the shop.
"I did." Jareth did not look up from the task of cleaning his fingernails. Perhaps he didn't seem so bemused, after all.
"I didn't know."
"No, I suppose you wouldn't." He laid the rag down and picked up the board with the clay Hoggle. He sat it on a shelf of other unfired projects behind the table and began to straighten the veritable mess of the project table.
Sarah feared she was babbling, but the stints of eerie quiet were making her anxious. Hadn't he wanted her to come to him? "I really loved the snow globe."
"Why are you here, Sarah?" Jareth didn't look up when he spoke.
Sarah was stunned. "I-the toys. You sent those to me, didn't you?"
"I did, yes." He appeared to be sorting scraps of fabric by color, now. Sarah clenched her fists, willing him to look at her.
"Then what do you want?" She paused, taming the shrill note of frustration. "I just don't understand. You send me these things, these incredible things, and you make me feel these… incredible…" She trailed off. She was unsure what he had made her feel. "But then you act like you don't want to see me. You ask me why I'm here!" She stopped herself before adding a snappish, ‘What gives?!'
He looked up at her then, a long, devouring stare. Sarah could feel her cheeks heating, her breathing hitch, but held his gaze. He didn't speak.
Sarah exhaled slowly. "They say Ludo is doing very well as acting King," she said at long last.
"Yes, as I quite expected him to do." He broke their eye contact to begin collecting the scattered array of colored pencils spread across the work station.
"Why did you leave?" Sarah asked. It was infuriating, prying information out of him like this.
He had turned to place the pencils on another shelf behind him and his back was to her when he spoke. "Forever, it seems, is quite a bit longer than I would have had you believe."
"So this, this…store. It's a vacation?"
"It's a hobby." With the mess of the table cleared, Sarah could see Jareth more clearly now. She smiled a little when she realized he was wearing denim jeans under his tunic. A vacation, indeed. "I do this from time to time. Spend some time Aboveground, work with my hands."
Sarah's eyes darted to his bare hands, still stained from the clay. He had artist's fingers, long and tapering. From his trick of rolling those crystals back and forth, Sarah supposed she wasn't surprised to find his hands very skilled in manipulating clay, wood, and fabric.
"No magic?" Her thoughts went back to the impossible mechanisms of the toys, the constant movement and noise, and their sudden silence when she had seen him.
"Only a little." He smiled then, a small thing. But it softened his face and crinkled the skin around his eyes.
"Why are you here?" He asked again. He sounded so tired when he spoke. Though it wasn't visible on his face, Sarah could sense his age, his infiniteness.
That caught her off guard.
"I thought you sent for me." She felt panic rise up in her throat. What else could he have meant by sending her those gifts? She fought the urge to run. Was this what he wanted? To essentially call her to him only to embarrass her by feigning indifference?
"Yes, Sarah." He stepped around the table and came to stand before her. "Of course I sent for you." Her unease didn't shift. What, then?
"But I have sent for you before. You were very clear as to you intentions, then."
Sarah was trying to catch up. He had sent for her before? What… Then it dawned on her.
‘I do this from time to time. Spend some time Aboveground…'
"This isn't the first time you've sent me…toys…"
"No." He didn't elaborate.
Sarah's thoughts went back to the Hoggle bookend and Sir Didymus stuffed animal sitting in her childhood bedroom, or perhaps in the attic, at this point. Of course she had made the connection between her toys and the creatures she had met in the Underground, but she almost felt as if she had shaped the Labyrinth around her toys and own thoughts, not that they were representations of what was already in existence. How long had she had those things? Her whole life, it seemed.
"So, I shall ask you again. Why are you here?"
To see what sort of man you really are. To yell at you for confusing me so! To thank you for the most thoughtful, amazing, beautiful gifts anyone has ever given me. To speak as adults, on neutral ground. To see if you are tricking me again. To make you play fair.
Sarah sighed. "I don't know."
"You do. You've known since you opened that first box. What do you want?" He was circling her again, and she felt the familiar pressure to answer, to say the right words. Though there was no book to guide her steps, this time. She closed her eyes against the intensity of his gaze. She almost regretted leaving the comfort of the café booth. Now she was back to ultimatums and the choice of one world or the other.
"Sarah!" He seized her upper-arms and her eyes flew open. "What-"
"Stop it!"
He released her and took a step back. He looked genuinely startled.
"I need you to give me a moment to think! Stop making this so hard! Must every one of our meetings be ‘through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered?'" She knotted her hand in her hair, tugged, released. "Why are you so insistent I explain myself? You sent for me!" She was aware she sounded like her teenage self, but she was well beyond the point of reason.
"My Sarah. I will always send for you." He ran his hand through his hair, causing even more to stand on end. "Did it not occur to you that perhaps I try my hand at storming the castle from time to time?" The tired ache was back in his voice. He was absently twisting his hand and wrist, as if attempting to conjure a crystal to show him the answers.
"I do not mean to overwhelm you. This is all I know; grand gestures and hard limits. And you."
This is all I know.
All Sarah knew was villainy and trinkets on her doorstep. What a strange, delightful combination.
"Sarah…" He reached as if to touch her face, but let his hand fall.
She inhaled deeply.
"I want…magic," she breathed.
Jareth smiled, a genuine, slow-spreading smile. "Magic, my dear, I have in spades." He twisted his empty hands around each other, calling a crystal. He rolled it back and forth for a time before grasping it tightly and throwing it up into the air. It burst, and a beautiful, light snow began to fall from the ceiling. It began to swirl around them as the toys set to ticking and whirring again. The clocks began to chime wildly and the lights of the shop flickered. His mischievous smile widened as the snow began to swirl faster and faraway music began to sound. In jeans and a linen shirt, he held his hand out to her. "Dance with me."
Shaky hands grasped faintly clay-stained ones. One found the curve of her waist and hers slowly made its way to his shoulder. They began to turn in slow, lazy circles in the growing blizzard. Sarah felt warmed from the inside out, however.
"Magic." Jareth whispered.
She looked down at the small space between them. She asked the question that had been plaguing her since she pulled the owl from the tissue paper. "Why did you come, Jareth? What do you want?"
Jareth laughed. He seemed younger. "Well, I want a great many things, my Sarah. Magic, time, a chance to right the wrongs between us both. But we can get into that later." He hummed a song they both knew. "For now, I would settle for some help around the store. It's a right mess, I'm afraid."
"Help around the store?" Sarah stopped, still grasping the hand of the Goblin King.
"Yes. I'm not quite ready to go back. I'm quite enjoying my sabbatical, as it were. Besides, I hear Ludo is doing wonders for the Underground." The snow slowed, twinkling under the hanging lights.
Sarah smiled.
"Here." He lifted their clasped hands to his lips. He softly kissed the skin that met the base of each of her fingernails. "Tell me what you think of these Door Knocker bookends. I believe I have gotten The Mumbler's nose all wrong. It's too large."
Sarah followed him to the back room, taking quick glances at the wonder around her. The snow was coming to a stop, covering the shelves in a glittering frost and making the air shimmer in a way she had almost forgotten.
Magic.