Part 6
Rating: M
Thanks so very much to knifeedgefic for the super-speedy beta, and, as well, to lightup_tea and for their feedback.
Cross-posted at Labyfic.
Advent
Part 6
The worst feeling in the world is when something you thought would take ten minutes, max, turns out to take months and months.
I left message after message for Sarah. I emailed her and wrote snail-mail. Everything had the same general gist: Hi, Sarah. I’m really sorry for what I said to you when we last talked. I didn’t really mean it. Could you please get in touch with me? Something has happened that freaked me out - it involves that one guy that we both know. Please get back to me. I miss you. I love you.
But she didn’t get back to me.
It didn’t help that I was having nightmares every week, too. Like clockwork. Extremely gory and scream-filled clockwork.
I asked my parents where Sarah had gone. Dad had no idea and was grumpy about it; Mom wasn’t quite sure either and was worried. So Mom got on the scent, like a bloodhound, and I concentrated on AP Chemistry in the spring, on helping run a track camp during the summer, and on trying not to panic every single day of it all.
So when Sarah actually called in August, all the stress and fear in me overflowed and I fucking cried like I was a first-grader again.
“Why didn’t you get back to me?” I wailed. I heard her trying to make soothing noises over the phone. It didn’t quite work, because the signal was awful. Her voice crackled and fizzed.
“I only just got back myself, Toby.”
“But where were you?!”
A pause, then: “Places where I shouldn’t have been. Doing things I probably shouldn’t have been doing.”
“I emailed you!”
“There was no email there.”
“Where the hell is there no email on this planet Sarah?! They get email in fucking Antarctica!”
“Watch your language!” And there was my older sister again. “Toby - do you think I would wait on this? Don’t you think I would’ve replied within seconds when I read all -” I heard a click, click, click - “one-hundred fifty-two of your emails?”
“OK,” I snuffled. “OK. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine, buddy - I’m sorry too. We need to talk about this. I don’t know what Jareth pulled, but it sounds like you’re a mess -”
“A hot mess, but yeah. Get your hot, hot mess, coming through -”
“God, when did you grow up to be such a smartass? Listen -” and the phone crackled.
“What?” I yelled.
“- come home after Thanksgiving. It’s as soon as I can. There are things I have to do -” and it must have been the phone, because she couldn’t have said ‘Underground’ - “but I’ll come right to you afterwards. I promise.”
“Thanks … but - what do I do in the meantime?” I hated sounding whiny but - you know, you discover that your lifelong mentor has a heart-eating habit? You get some leeway.
“Go to school. Apply to college.” Sarah sounded grim. “Nail something iron above your windows - and you know the thing I painted on your doorframe?”
“Yeah.”
“Give it another coat.”
I felt a bit better - enough to joke, “Any color you had in mind?”
“You goof.” A pause, and then: “I’ll see you really soon, bud. I love you.”
“I love you too.” And then I hung up.
*
Doing what Sarah had said helped me - at least I kept busy, even if I still felt a clench of fear in my stomach whenever I thought about Jareth. I focused on AP Senior Literature. I went on lots of dates with Debbie, who thought I was just stressed about college applications. The only time I really relaxed was when I painted over the scrollwork on my doorframe.
The days marched past. I stayed home for Halloween, picked Yeats for a final essay topic and applied to a slew of Ivies and safeties. And then it was Thanksgiving, and I counted down the days until the best day of the year, when Sarah came home less than a week later.
It was November thirtieth.
*
I didn’t even let her put her suitcase down before I gave her a big hug.
“Oooof!” She shoved at me. “When did you turn into Godzilla for real?”
I had to laugh, giddy with relief to see her. “You know, I don’t even remember.”
“Well, let me make some tea and then let’s talk shop.”
“Crazy supernatural shop?”
“You know it.”
I shoved my books to one side of the kitchen table and watched Sarah make tea. It hit me that I hadn’t seen her for two years. She was thinner, and I could see a few silver hairs in the black. I knew she was pushing thirty … but still. It was strange.
There were lines around her eyes that hadn’t been there two years ago, either; they caught my attention when she smiled at me. And Sarah did smile, broadly, bringing over two steaming mugs. She had made peppermint for me - my favorite.
“You remembered,” I said.
“Well, yeah.” She sat down. “You still stealing coffee?”
“I don’t steal it anymore - I mainline it.”
“Yikes.” Sarah smiled at me, then tipped her head to look at my books. “What’s all this?”
I stacked the books to make more room. “Yeats. It’s a final paper.”
“What about?”
“Oh I don’t know.” I slumped down on the table. “How much of a weirdo he is. I mean, do you think he ever actually saw swans having sex?”
Sarah coughed on her tea. I hastily added, “Not that I’m writing about that, or anything. Really.”
“You wouldn’t be the first. Do they still have that old chestnut in the anthology?”
“Which?” I grabbed my book.
“Leda and the Swan.” Sarah raised an eyebrow. “Ring any bells?”
“Uh …” I was thumbing through the pages.
“Did you even read it yet?”
“Um.”
Sarah snorted. “You’re writing a paper on it and you haven’t read it. You, of all people. Toby Williams, King of Mythology.”
I swatted at her and she spilled tea all over her shirt. “Shit - wait a sec.” She ran for a towel. I listened to her cursing with half my attention, and read the poem with the other half.
Then I waited until she sat back down, to say: “Yeah, well. Thesis proven.”
“What’s that?”
I slammed the book shut. “Yeats was a real perv.”
Sarah smiled. “And again, you’re not the first to say it.”
A comfy silence stretched between us. It felt like it was filled with every breakfast and dinner we had had at this table. All the times she had bitched at me and I had gargled my orange juice at her. It was a good feeling.
Then she reached out and took me hand. “So. What happened?”
I took a deep breath and told her everything that had happened, that night in the forest. Right down to the last sinew-munching detail. I felt my gorge rise, talking about it. Sarah listened through it all, calmly.
When I was done with the story, she put down her tea. “Now let me see your wrist.”
I held it out obediently. She traced the skin of my hand with one of her fingers, being careful not to touch the white lines.
“They’re faded,” she said quietly, “but still there. It doesn’t surprise me.” She looked up, and her eyes glowed. “It’s a signifier.”
“Yeah, you’re gonna have to dumb that down a shade.” I was glad to see her smile.
“There are three kinds of runes. Outlay, inlay and signifier. An outlay works magic on others, an inlay works on yourself and signifiers - well, they just say something. Communicate something. I don’t know. This one’s pretty simple. But it’s powerful - and any rune takes power to inscribe. How did he … um, how did you get this one again?”
I thought back to that night - three years ago, now. “He touched my wrist. Not very long, and I just heard this kinda fizzy noise. And then there it was.”
Sarah shut her eyes tight. “You have got to be kidding me.”
“Nope.” I was puzzled. “Why?”
She shuddered. “You don’t just do something like that with - with a touch, Toby. It’s not supposed to work that way.”
I stared at her. “How the hell do you know all this, anyway?”
Sarah got up to put her tea mug in the sink. Then she looked back at me, her arms crossed. “Research.”
“Just research?”
“Yeah.”
“Sarah, ‘research’ is what I do for a term paper. ‘Research’ doesn’t involve learning magic runes, or how to paint them on doorframes,” I saw her bite her lip, but I kept going, “or learning just how these crazy supernatural dudes use magic.”
“OK, so I went abroad a bit.” She sat back down. “I’ve traveled all over the world, stayed in places I shouldn’t have been, done things -”
“- you shouldn’t have done,’ yeah. But why?”
“I -”
I watched, astonished, as she folded her arms even tighter across her chest, and hunched her shoulders. “I wanted to figure out how to stop him.”
“Stop Jareth?” I saw her blink at the name. “From doing what?”
“From taking you away, Toby.” She gestured at my wrist. “Even though that mark is a bit faded, it’ll never disappear. It’s not something casual. And he’s not just anybody, in the world - or worlds - that aren’t this one. He’s really, really powerful … and he’s been doing this for a really long time. And I thought I could keep you safe, but I’m just not sure anymore -”
“Sarah.” I reached out and took her hand in one of mine. It was a faint surprise, to see how small her hands were, and to feel the delicate finger bones in them. “You said that, when we fought … you said that you had done something to protect me.”
She wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“Sarah.” I squeezed her hand. “Big Sis. What did you do?”
“Oh -” She sighed, all ragged and gasping, and then I saw her start to cry. Really hard, though without any noise.
“Oh, honey. Oh, Toby - I promised to give him my firstborn child.”
*
For a long moment, all I could do was stare at her.
Then I opened my mouth. “Holy. Shit.”
“Language,” she tried, while crying, but I kept going.
“Nope. This time is bad language time. That - that bastard. He made you promise that?”
“He didn’t make me do anything. I made a bargain with him.” She wiped tears off her face. “It was the night you fell down the stairs. I caught him in your room - you remember the baseball bat? You asked if we were going to play?”
That memory was there all right. “Sarah -” and my throat really hurt, saying it. “Why would you make a bargain like that? Why would you do that for me?”
“Because I love you.”
I started crying, then, and she reached out to hug me.
“You love me that much?”
“Yeah, I do.”
We sat there for what seemed like a really long time. I heard the clock ticking behind me, but just barely. Finally, Sarah gave me a hard squeeze and pushed me back a bit.
“So,” she said. “Now you know.” She gave me a watery smile.
“And so that’s why you broke it off with Bill -”
“And Greg, and then I stopped trying. I figure: no kids, no firstborn child.”
“Couldn’t you place a personal ad - Single White Female seeks Non-smoking Non-crazy-magic Single Male - no kids, ever, no substitutions, exchanges, or refunds?”
“What can I say?” She finished mopping off her face with her sleeve. “These dudes just want to knock me up. It’s ridiculous - I mean, it can’t be my sparkling personality.”
“Nope,” I said, my face serious. “It’s your boobs.”
“Oh, you jackass,” and she mock-punched me.
“But seriously, Sarah,” I downed the rest of my tea and got up to put my own mug in the sink. “He can’t get away with that. He can’t say like, ‘Give me your baby or your brother joins Sergeant Jareth’s Tasty Hearts Club Band.’” I gripped the edge of the sink. “… What can we do, to stop him?”
“Well, I have a few ideas.” She got up to stand beside me. “I read up on a lot of things, and I think I have a way to take off that rune. That’s only the first step, though. Getting him out of this place permanently is going to take a lot more than I know.”
“Maybe we can do it together.”
She tightened her lips. “I want to keep you safe.”
“Yeah, and I want you to be happy.”
“Well.” Sarah looked up at me. “We can talk about that later. First off: you never brought anything to the Labyrinth, did you?”
I shook my head. “Just marshmallows, once, but I ate them all.”
“And did he bring anything here?”
“Nothing that I know of - oh, wait. Shit!”
“What is it?”
I clocked myself in the forehead. “The Advent calendars. They came in the mail when I was little - remember?”
“Hell yes I remember,” she muttered.
“Well, I got a few more since then.” Seeing her look ready to explode, I added, “I just keep them in a drawer. We can get rid of them, no problem.”
We started up the stairs. “What way do you think would be best? I mean, you threw that one outside, I remember.”
Sarah sounded a little out of breath. “I’m not sure. Maybe burning them?”
“Sounds good.” I walked down the hall, and then remembered the images of my visits, behind - I counted mentally - eight of those little paper doors, by now. Shit. It would all come out, sooner or later - all my visits - so it might as well be sooner.
I opened the door to my room, working up my courage to speak back over my shoulder to Sarah. “Sarah - there’s something I should tell you -”
But she was staring, and a horrible noise had come out of her throat.
I wheeled back around.
And there, resplendent in black, stood Jareth - in front of a door of chased and embossed gold.
“Yes, my young prince,” he said, smiling. “Why don’t you tell her everything?”
Thanks so very much to knifeedgefic for the super-speedy beta, and, as well, to lightup_tea and for their feedback.
Cross-posted at Labyfic.
Advent
Part 6
The worst feeling in the world is when something you thought would take ten minutes, max, turns out to take months and months.
I left message after message for Sarah. I emailed her and wrote snail-mail. Everything had the same general gist: Hi, Sarah. I’m really sorry for what I said to you when we last talked. I didn’t really mean it. Could you please get in touch with me? Something has happened that freaked me out - it involves that one guy that we both know. Please get back to me. I miss you. I love you.
But she didn’t get back to me.
It didn’t help that I was having nightmares every week, too. Like clockwork. Extremely gory and scream-filled clockwork.
I asked my parents where Sarah had gone. Dad had no idea and was grumpy about it; Mom wasn’t quite sure either and was worried. So Mom got on the scent, like a bloodhound, and I concentrated on AP Chemistry in the spring, on helping run a track camp during the summer, and on trying not to panic every single day of it all.
So when Sarah actually called in August, all the stress and fear in me overflowed and I fucking cried like I was a first-grader again.
“Why didn’t you get back to me?” I wailed. I heard her trying to make soothing noises over the phone. It didn’t quite work, because the signal was awful. Her voice crackled and fizzed.
“I only just got back myself, Toby.”
“But where were you?!”
A pause, then: “Places where I shouldn’t have been. Doing things I probably shouldn’t have been doing.”
“I emailed you!”
“There was no email there.”
“Where the hell is there no email on this planet Sarah?! They get email in fucking Antarctica!”
“Watch your language!” And there was my older sister again. “Toby - do you think I would wait on this? Don’t you think I would’ve replied within seconds when I read all -” I heard a click, click, click - “one-hundred fifty-two of your emails?”
“OK,” I snuffled. “OK. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine, buddy - I’m sorry too. We need to talk about this. I don’t know what Jareth pulled, but it sounds like you’re a mess -”
“A hot mess, but yeah. Get your hot, hot mess, coming through -”
“God, when did you grow up to be such a smartass? Listen -” and the phone crackled.
“What?” I yelled.
“- come home after Thanksgiving. It’s as soon as I can. There are things I have to do -” and it must have been the phone, because she couldn’t have said ‘Underground’ - “but I’ll come right to you afterwards. I promise.”
“Thanks … but - what do I do in the meantime?” I hated sounding whiny but - you know, you discover that your lifelong mentor has a heart-eating habit? You get some leeway.
“Go to school. Apply to college.” Sarah sounded grim. “Nail something iron above your windows - and you know the thing I painted on your doorframe?”
“Yeah.”
“Give it another coat.”
I felt a bit better - enough to joke, “Any color you had in mind?”
“You goof.” A pause, and then: “I’ll see you really soon, bud. I love you.”
“I love you too.” And then I hung up.
*
Doing what Sarah had said helped me - at least I kept busy, even if I still felt a clench of fear in my stomach whenever I thought about Jareth. I focused on AP Senior Literature. I went on lots of dates with Debbie, who thought I was just stressed about college applications. The only time I really relaxed was when I painted over the scrollwork on my doorframe.
The days marched past. I stayed home for Halloween, picked Yeats for a final essay topic and applied to a slew of Ivies and safeties. And then it was Thanksgiving, and I counted down the days until the best day of the year, when Sarah came home less than a week later.
It was November thirtieth.
*
I didn’t even let her put her suitcase down before I gave her a big hug.
“Oooof!” She shoved at me. “When did you turn into Godzilla for real?”
I had to laugh, giddy with relief to see her. “You know, I don’t even remember.”
“Well, let me make some tea and then let’s talk shop.”
“Crazy supernatural shop?”
“You know it.”
I shoved my books to one side of the kitchen table and watched Sarah make tea. It hit me that I hadn’t seen her for two years. She was thinner, and I could see a few silver hairs in the black. I knew she was pushing thirty … but still. It was strange.
There were lines around her eyes that hadn’t been there two years ago, either; they caught my attention when she smiled at me. And Sarah did smile, broadly, bringing over two steaming mugs. She had made peppermint for me - my favorite.
“You remembered,” I said.
“Well, yeah.” She sat down. “You still stealing coffee?”
“I don’t steal it anymore - I mainline it.”
“Yikes.” Sarah smiled at me, then tipped her head to look at my books. “What’s all this?”
I stacked the books to make more room. “Yeats. It’s a final paper.”
“What about?”
“Oh I don’t know.” I slumped down on the table. “How much of a weirdo he is. I mean, do you think he ever actually saw swans having sex?”
Sarah coughed on her tea. I hastily added, “Not that I’m writing about that, or anything. Really.”
“You wouldn’t be the first. Do they still have that old chestnut in the anthology?”
“Which?” I grabbed my book.
“Leda and the Swan.” Sarah raised an eyebrow. “Ring any bells?”
“Uh …” I was thumbing through the pages.
“Did you even read it yet?”
“Um.”
Sarah snorted. “You’re writing a paper on it and you haven’t read it. You, of all people. Toby Williams, King of Mythology.”
I swatted at her and she spilled tea all over her shirt. “Shit - wait a sec.” She ran for a towel. I listened to her cursing with half my attention, and read the poem with the other half.
Then I waited until she sat back down, to say: “Yeah, well. Thesis proven.”
“What’s that?”
I slammed the book shut. “Yeats was a real perv.”
Sarah smiled. “And again, you’re not the first to say it.”
A comfy silence stretched between us. It felt like it was filled with every breakfast and dinner we had had at this table. All the times she had bitched at me and I had gargled my orange juice at her. It was a good feeling.
Then she reached out and took me hand. “So. What happened?”
I took a deep breath and told her everything that had happened, that night in the forest. Right down to the last sinew-munching detail. I felt my gorge rise, talking about it. Sarah listened through it all, calmly.
When I was done with the story, she put down her tea. “Now let me see your wrist.”
I held it out obediently. She traced the skin of my hand with one of her fingers, being careful not to touch the white lines.
“They’re faded,” she said quietly, “but still there. It doesn’t surprise me.” She looked up, and her eyes glowed. “It’s a signifier.”
“Yeah, you’re gonna have to dumb that down a shade.” I was glad to see her smile.
“There are three kinds of runes. Outlay, inlay and signifier. An outlay works magic on others, an inlay works on yourself and signifiers - well, they just say something. Communicate something. I don’t know. This one’s pretty simple. But it’s powerful - and any rune takes power to inscribe. How did he … um, how did you get this one again?”
I thought back to that night - three years ago, now. “He touched my wrist. Not very long, and I just heard this kinda fizzy noise. And then there it was.”
Sarah shut her eyes tight. “You have got to be kidding me.”
“Nope.” I was puzzled. “Why?”
She shuddered. “You don’t just do something like that with - with a touch, Toby. It’s not supposed to work that way.”
I stared at her. “How the hell do you know all this, anyway?”
Sarah got up to put her tea mug in the sink. Then she looked back at me, her arms crossed. “Research.”
“Just research?”
“Yeah.”
“Sarah, ‘research’ is what I do for a term paper. ‘Research’ doesn’t involve learning magic runes, or how to paint them on doorframes,” I saw her bite her lip, but I kept going, “or learning just how these crazy supernatural dudes use magic.”
“OK, so I went abroad a bit.” She sat back down. “I’ve traveled all over the world, stayed in places I shouldn’t have been, done things -”
“- you shouldn’t have done,’ yeah. But why?”
“I -”
I watched, astonished, as she folded her arms even tighter across her chest, and hunched her shoulders. “I wanted to figure out how to stop him.”
“Stop Jareth?” I saw her blink at the name. “From doing what?”
“From taking you away, Toby.” She gestured at my wrist. “Even though that mark is a bit faded, it’ll never disappear. It’s not something casual. And he’s not just anybody, in the world - or worlds - that aren’t this one. He’s really, really powerful … and he’s been doing this for a really long time. And I thought I could keep you safe, but I’m just not sure anymore -”
“Sarah.” I reached out and took her hand in one of mine. It was a faint surprise, to see how small her hands were, and to feel the delicate finger bones in them. “You said that, when we fought … you said that you had done something to protect me.”
She wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“Sarah.” I squeezed her hand. “Big Sis. What did you do?”
“Oh -” She sighed, all ragged and gasping, and then I saw her start to cry. Really hard, though without any noise.
“Oh, honey. Oh, Toby - I promised to give him my firstborn child.”
*
For a long moment, all I could do was stare at her.
Then I opened my mouth. “Holy. Shit.”
“Language,” she tried, while crying, but I kept going.
“Nope. This time is bad language time. That - that bastard. He made you promise that?”
“He didn’t make me do anything. I made a bargain with him.” She wiped tears off her face. “It was the night you fell down the stairs. I caught him in your room - you remember the baseball bat? You asked if we were going to play?”
That memory was there all right. “Sarah -” and my throat really hurt, saying it. “Why would you make a bargain like that? Why would you do that for me?”
“Because I love you.”
I started crying, then, and she reached out to hug me.
“You love me that much?”
“Yeah, I do.”
We sat there for what seemed like a really long time. I heard the clock ticking behind me, but just barely. Finally, Sarah gave me a hard squeeze and pushed me back a bit.
“So,” she said. “Now you know.” She gave me a watery smile.
“And so that’s why you broke it off with Bill -”
“And Greg, and then I stopped trying. I figure: no kids, no firstborn child.”
“Couldn’t you place a personal ad - Single White Female seeks Non-smoking Non-crazy-magic Single Male - no kids, ever, no substitutions, exchanges, or refunds?”
“What can I say?” She finished mopping off her face with her sleeve. “These dudes just want to knock me up. It’s ridiculous - I mean, it can’t be my sparkling personality.”
“Nope,” I said, my face serious. “It’s your boobs.”
“Oh, you jackass,” and she mock-punched me.
“But seriously, Sarah,” I downed the rest of my tea and got up to put my own mug in the sink. “He can’t get away with that. He can’t say like, ‘Give me your baby or your brother joins Sergeant Jareth’s Tasty Hearts Club Band.’” I gripped the edge of the sink. “… What can we do, to stop him?”
“Well, I have a few ideas.” She got up to stand beside me. “I read up on a lot of things, and I think I have a way to take off that rune. That’s only the first step, though. Getting him out of this place permanently is going to take a lot more than I know.”
“Maybe we can do it together.”
She tightened her lips. “I want to keep you safe.”
“Yeah, and I want you to be happy.”
“Well.” Sarah looked up at me. “We can talk about that later. First off: you never brought anything to the Labyrinth, did you?”
I shook my head. “Just marshmallows, once, but I ate them all.”
“And did he bring anything here?”
“Nothing that I know of - oh, wait. Shit!”
“What is it?”
I clocked myself in the forehead. “The Advent calendars. They came in the mail when I was little - remember?”
“Hell yes I remember,” she muttered.
“Well, I got a few more since then.” Seeing her look ready to explode, I added, “I just keep them in a drawer. We can get rid of them, no problem.”
We started up the stairs. “What way do you think would be best? I mean, you threw that one outside, I remember.”
Sarah sounded a little out of breath. “I’m not sure. Maybe burning them?”
“Sounds good.” I walked down the hall, and then remembered the images of my visits, behind - I counted mentally - eight of those little paper doors, by now. Shit. It would all come out, sooner or later - all my visits - so it might as well be sooner.
I opened the door to my room, working up my courage to speak back over my shoulder to Sarah. “Sarah - there’s something I should tell you -”
But she was staring, and a horrible noise had come out of her throat.
I wheeled back around.
And there, resplendent in black, stood Jareth - in front of a door of chased and embossed gold.
“Yes, my young prince,” he said, smiling. “Why don’t you tell her everything?”