Chapter 3

Melissa looked from Hoggle to Sir Didymus and then back again. "So, you are telling me that you brought me here with magic, because some sort of blight has struck the Goblin City, and no one has seen the King for ages now. Things around here are starting to deteriorate, and you are afraid that the reason for it is that the King is hurt, and it's mostly his magic that keeps this place together? Is that about the sound of it?"
Hoggle nodded soberly, his eyes pools of pain and stress. "In a basic way, yes. I am surprised that you know so much of your grandmother's story."
Melissa flushed a little bit. "Well, you guys have been haunting my dreams so much that I had to find out what was going on. So I asked my Uncle Toby. He told me what had happened. Then I found the book of the Labyrinth."
"How far did you read in that book?" Sir Didymus was fidgety as he asked her.
"Not very, just until Sarah- my grandmother- managed to come back to her room after rescuing Uncle Toby."
Sir Didymus and Hoggle shared a brief glance, and then spoke simultaneously. "We think you should read further."
Melissa paused in lifting some of the strange looking fruit to her mouth that Hoggle and Sir Didymus had set out before them. The sorcerer, Raik, had left almost as soon as she had come back to the tent. "All right." She popped the tart fruit into her mouth and pulled the book out of her pocket. The red cover was worn and tattered, but still strong as she folded it open. She flipped to where she had stopped before, and settled back against Merlin, who was lying behind her. She began to read.

Sarah's life seemed to become as close as possible to normal after that. Occasionally, when she was feeling especially lonely, she asked for her friends- Hoggle, Sir Didymus, and Bluto- to visit. She never seemed to fit in with the other kids at school any more, and all of her old friends just couldn't understand her. She felt as if she had grown up overnight, while all of her friends were stuck in suspended animation and would never be as old as she was. As the years passed, her memories seemed to fade a little bit, taking on a strange dream-like quality. She requested visits from her three Labyrinthine friends less and less. The year that she left for college, at age 18, was the last year she ever called them. When she was 23, the year before she graduated, she met a wonderful man named Jason. They had some of the same classes together, and only a few years later they were married with a baby on the way. They had a beautiful little girl, and they doted adoringly on her.
The baby, Toby, grew also. No matter that he had been so young, he remembered everything about his adventures through all of his life. Almost as if a spell had been cast to imprint the memories into his mind.
When Toby's niece, Megan, was five, Toby sat her down and began to tell her wonderful stories about the adventures of her mother. When Sarah found out, she was outraged.
"How can you fill her head with such nonsense!" She yelled at Toby, furious.
Toby shrugged uncomfortably. "I'm sorry. I just thought it would be nice for her to know."
"Nice! She doesn't need to know those ridiculous stories!"
Toby's look was hurt. "Ridiculous? How can you say that? They aren't stories, they are real."
"I don't think they are real. I think they are just things I imagined up to entertain myself when I was little."
Toby's look turned to shock now. "What? How can you say that?"
Sarah's eyes narrowed. "I just can. And you will never convince me otherwise."
A few years later, Sarah's husband Jason was killed in a strange accident. An owl had attacked him while he was driving, and his car ran off the road and into a ravine. Sarah was grief-stricken, as was Megan, who adored her papa. The night after his funeral, Sarah's dreams began to haunt her. She relived her adventures in the Labyrinth, and the image of Jareth's face when she spoke those final words to him kept appearing before her mind's eye. The hopelessness, the defeat, the agony. She wanted to apologize to him, to explain that she had been too young to really understand what she was doing. She didn't harbor tender feelings for him, but neither did she harbor ill feelings. He'd thought he'd loved her, and now after loving someone herself, she could finally understand why he had taken the measures that he had taken.
A few nights later, she woke in a strange place. Everything was black, the ground, the sky, the walls, and yet… it was if there were no ground and walls and sky. As if she were floating in blackness. And there before her was Jareth in all of his amazing splendor. His eyes were sad, and his features were lined with pain. He wore all white, and the brightness almost blinded her as she raised an arm to shield her eyes.
"Sarah…. Have you returned to love me at last?" His voice was tortured.
"No! No, I mean. I can't… You don't understand." Tears welled in her eyes. His look softened and he knelt down before her and took her hands in his.
"Why not, Sarah? I could give you everything, you know I could…."
"I just can't. You could never give me back what I want. My love is gone." She began to sob, pulling her hands away to cover her face.
Jareth seemed to hesitate for a moment, and then he enfolded her in his arms. "I'm sorry," he whispered, and he truly sounded as if he were. "I never meant to harm you."
Sarah sobbed herself to sleep in his arms, and when she woke again, she was in her own bed, feeling lonely with the space beside her empty. The sun was just beginning to filter into her room as it rose. She felt at peace with her past, though, finally. She fell back to sleep with a sad smile on her face.
She learned to live with her grief, and she raised Megan all on her own. Megan grew to be a very lovely young woman herself, but Sarah had managed to teach all her creativity away from her. She became a top-notch lawyer, all logic and facts. There was no room in her life for fantasy. When she met the love of her life, she almost didn't realize it; it snuck up on her so fast. He was also an attorney, named Chet, and he loved her as much as she loved him. Suddenly her career was not enough to fill her life, and she cut back on her office hours to begin a family. She also had a daughter, a beautiful little cherub named Melissa. Sarah was overjoyed to have a grandchild, and she doted every spare moment to the little girl. She grew older, but never did she forget her past, and when her father died, she went into his home to pack it up with Toby. She came across several boxes of her things in the attic, and lo and behold, there were all her memories of the Labyrinth. She packed them lovingly and with sincere care, and gave to box to Toby.
"When my granddaughter is old enough to understand, Toby, give her this and tell her the tale, will you?" Tears welled in her eyes as she relinquished the box. She missed her old friends. But she couldn't remember in her heart how to ask for their presence, and she never tried again.

More coming soon.....

You can email the author at draftladyb@uswest.net.