Labyrinth

by A. C. H. Smith

  There was a tapping on her door, and her father’s voice came from outside. “Sarah? Can I talk to you?”

  Still looking in the mirror, she replied, “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  She waited. He would not come in unless she invited him. She imagined him standing there, frowning, rubbing his forehead, trying to think what he ought to say next, something firm enough to please that woman but amicable enough to reassure his daughter.

  “You’d better hurry,” Sarah said, “if you want to make the show.”

  “Toby’s had his supper,” her father’s voice said, “and he’s in bed now. If you could just make sure he goes to sleep all right, we’ll be back around midnight.”

  Again, a pause, then the sound of footsteps walking away, with a slowness measured to express a blend of concern and resignation. He had done all that could be expected of him.

  Sarah turned from the mirror and stared accusingly at the closed door. “You really wanted to talk to me, didn’t you?” she murmured. “Practically broke down the door.” Once upon a time, he would not have gone out without giving her a kiss. She sniffled. Things had certainly changed in this house.

  She put the lipstick in her pocket and wiped her lips with a tissue. As she went to throw it in the wastepaper basket, something caught her eye. More exactly, something that was not there caught her eye. Launcelot was not there.

  Rapidly, she rummaged through her shelf of toys and dolls and cuddly things, dogs and monkeys and soldiers and clowns, though she knew it would be fruitless. If the teddy bear were there at all, he would have been in his appointed place. He had gone. The order of the room had been violated. Sarah’s cheeks were hot.

  Someone’s been in my room, she thought. I hate her.

  Outside, the taxi was pulling away. Sarah heard it and ran to the window.

  “I hate you,” she screamed.

  No one heard her save Merlin, and he could do no more than he was doing already, which was to bark loudly, in the garage.

  She knew where she would find Launcelot. Toby already had everything his baby heart could desire, had so much more than Sarah herself had ever had; yet more was given to him, every day, without question. She stormed into the nursery. The teddy bear was spread-eagled on the carpet, just tossed away, like that. Sarah picked Launcelot up and clutched him to her. Toby, full of warm milk, had almost been asleep in his crib. Sarah’s entrance aroused him.

  She glared at the baby. “I hate her. I hate you.”

  Toby started to cry. Sarah shuddered, and held Launcelot still more tightly.

  “Oh,” she wailed. “Oh, someone … save me. Take me away from this awful place.”

  Toby was howling now. His face was red. Sarah was wailing, Merlin was barking outside. The storm delivered a lightning flash and clap of thunder directly above the house. It rattled the windows in their frames. Teacups danced in the kitchen cupboard.

  “Someone save me,” Sarah begged.

  “Listen!” said a goblin, one eye opened.

  All around him, on top of him, beneath him, the nest of goblins stirred sleepily. Another eye opened, and another, and another, all crazed eyes, red and staring. Some of the goblins had horns, and some had pointed teeth, some had fingers like claws; some were dressed in scraps of armor, a helmet, a gorget, but all of them had scaly feet, and all had baleful eyes. Higgledy-piggledy in a heap they slept, in their dirty chamber at the castle of the Goblin King. Their eyes went on opening, and their ears pricked up.

  “All right, hush now, shush.” Sarah was trying to calm herself down as much as her baby brother. “What do you want? Hmm? Do you want a story? All right.” With barely a moment’s thought, she picked up on the thread of The Labyrinth. “Once upon a time there was a beautiful young woman whose stepmother always made her stay with the baby. The baby was a spoiled child who wanted everything for himself, and the young woman was practically a slave girl. But what no one knew was this: the King of the Goblins had fallen in love with her, and given her certain powers.”

  In the castle, the goblins’ eyes opened very wide. They were all attention.

  The lightning and thunder crashed again, but both Sarah and Toby had become quieter. “One night,” Sarah continued, “when the baby had been particularly nasty, the girl called on the goblins to help her. And they said to her, ‘Say your right words, and we’ll take the baby away to the Goblin City, and then you’ll be free.’ Those were their words to her.

  The goblins nodded enthusiastically.

  Toby was nearly asleep again, with only a light protest remaining on his breath. Sarah, enjoying her own invention, leaned closer to him, over the side of the crib. She was holding her audience in her spell. Launcelot was in her arms.

  “But the girl knew,” she went on, “that the King of the Goblins would keep the baby in his castle forever and ever, and he would turn the baby into a goblin. And so she suffered in silence, through many a long month … until one night, worn out by a day of slaving at housework, and hurt beyond measure by the harsh, ungrateful words of her stepmother, she could bear it no longer.”

  By now, Sarah was leaning so close to Toby that she was whispering into his little pink ear. Suddenly he turned over in his crib and stared into her eyes, only a couple of inches away. There was a moment of silence. Then Toby opened his mouth, and began to howl loudly and insistently.

  “Oh!” Sarah snorted in disgust, standing up straight again.

  The thunder rolled, and Merlin gave it all he had.

  Sarah sighed, frowned, shrugged, and decided there was no way around it. She picked Toby up and walked around the room, jogging him in her arms, together with Launcelot. The small bedside light threw their shadows on the wall, huge and flickering. “All right,” she said, “all right. Come on, now. Rock-a-bye baby, and all that stuff. Come on, Toby, knock it off.”

  Toby wasn’t going to knock it off just for being jogged. He felt he had a serious grievance to express.

  “Toby,” his sister said sternly, “be quiet, will you? Please? Or —” Her voice lowered. “— I’ll … I’ll say the words.” She looked up quickly at the shadows on the wall and addressed them theatrically. “No! No! I mustn’t. I mustn’t. I mustn’t say … ‘I wish … I wish …’”

  “Listen,” said the goblin again.

  Every glowing eye in the nest, every ear, was open now.

  A second goblin spoke. “She’s going to say it!”

  “Say what?” asked a stupid goblin.

  “Shush!” The first goblin was straining to hear Sarah.

  “Shut up!” other goblins said.

  “You shut up!” said the stupid goblin.

  In the hubbub, the first goblin thought he would go crazy with trying to hear. “Sh! Shhh!” He put his hand over the mouth of the stupid goblin.

  The second goblin shrieked, “Quiet!” and thumped those nearest to him.

  “Listen,” the first goblin admonished the rest. “She is going to say the words.”

  The rest of them managed to silence themselves. They listened intently to Sarah.

  She was standing erect. Toby had reached such a crescendo of screaming, red in the face, that he could scarcely draw breath. His body was straining against Sarah’s arms with the effort he was making. Launcelot had fallen to the floor again. Sarah closed her eyes and quivered. “I can bear it no longer,” she exclaimed, and held the howling baby above her head, like a sacrificial offering. She started to intone:

  “Goblin King! Goblin King!

  Wherever you may be,

  Come and take this child of mine

  Far away from me!”

  Lightning cracked. Thunder crashed.

  The goblins dropped their heads, crestfallen.

  “That’s not right,” the first goblin said, witheringly.

  “Where did she learn that rubbish?” the second scoffed. “It doesn’t even start with ‘I wish.’”

  “Sh!” said a third goblin, seizing his chance to boss the othe
rs.

  Sarah was still holding Toby above her head. Outraged by that, Toby was screaming even more loudly than before, which Sarah would have not thought possible. She brought him down and cuddled him, which had the effect of restoring him to his standard level of screaming.

  Exhausted by now, Sarah told him, “Oh, Toby, stop it. You little monster. Why should I have to put up with this? You’re not my responsibility. I ought to be free, to enjoy myself. Stop it! Oh, I wish … I wish …” Anything would be preferable to this cauldron of noise, anger, guilt, and weariness in which she found herself. With a tired little sob, she said, “I wish I did know what words to say to get the goblins to take you away.”

  “So where’s the problem?” the first goblin said with an impatient sight. Pedantically, he spelled it out. “‘I wish the goblins would come and take you away, right now.’ Hmm? That’s not hard, is it?”

  In the nursery, Sarah was saying, “I wish … I wish …”

  The goblins were all alert again, biting their lips with tension.

  “Did she say it?” the stupid goblin asked brightly.

  As one, the rest turned on him. “Shut,” they said irritably, “up.”

  Toby’s tornado had blown itself out. He was breathing deeply, with a whimper at the end of his breath. His eyes were closed. Sarah put him back in his crib, not too gently, and tucked him in.

  She walked quietly to the door and was shutting it behind her when he uttered an eerie shriek and started to scream again. He was hoarse now, and louder in consequence.

  Sarah froze, with her hand on the handle of the door. “Aah,” she moaned helplessly. “I wish the goblins would come and take you away …” She paused.

  The goblins were so still, you could have heard a snail blink.

  “… right now,” Sarah said.

  In the goblins’ nest, there was an exhalation of pleasure. “She said it!”

  In a trice, all the goblins had vanished in different directions, save only the stupid goblin. He squatted there, a grin dawning on his face, until he realized that the rest had left him. “Hey,” he said, “wait for me,” and he tried to run in several directions at once. Then he, too, vanished.

  Lightning flashed and thunder hammered the air. Toby gave out with a high-pitched screech, and Merlin barked as if all the burglars in the world were closing in.

  Chapter Two - What’s Said Is Said

  The storm raged on over Sarah’s house. The clouds boiled. Rain lashed the leaves on the trees. Thunder was followed by lightning.

  Sarah was listening. What she was listening to was an unnatural silence within the room. Toby had stopped crying, so suddenly it scared her. She looked back inside the nursery. The bedside light was out. “Toby?” she called. He did not respond.

  She flicked the light switch beside the door. Nothing happened. She jiggled it up and down several times to no effect. A board creaked. “Toby? Are you all right? Why aren’t you crying?”

  She stepped nervously into the quiet room. The light from the landing, coming through the doorway, threw unfamiliar shadows onto the walls and across the carpet. In the lull between two thunderclaps, she thought she heard a humming in the air. She could detect no movement at all in the crib.

  “Toby,” she whispered in anxiety, and walked toward the crib with her breath drawn. Her hands were shaking like aspen leaves. She reached out to pull the sheet back.

  She recoiled. The sheet was convulsing. Weird shapes were thrusting and bulging beneath it. She thought she glimpsed things poking out from the edge of the sheet, things that were no part of Toby. She felt her heart thumping, and she put her hand over her mouth, to stop herself from screaming.

  Then the sheet was still again. It sank slowly down over the mattress. Nothing moved.

  She could not turn and run away and leave him. She had to know. Whatever the horror of it, she had to know. Impulsively, she reached out her hand and pulled the sheet back.

  The crib was empty.

  For a moment or an hour, she would never know how long, she stared at the empty crib. She was not even frightened. Her mind had been wiped clean.

  And then she was frightened, by a soft, rapid thumping on the windowpane. Her hands clenched so tightly, her fingernails scored her skin.

  A white owl was flapping insistently on the glass. She could see the light from the landing reflected in its great, round, dark eyes, watching her. The whiteness of its plumage was illuminated by a series of lightning flashes that seemed continuous. Behind her, a goblin briefly raised his head, and ducked down again. Another did likewise. She didn’t see them. Her eyes were fixed on the owl’s eyes.

  Lightning crackled and flashed again, and this time it distracted her attention from the window by shining on the clock that stood on the mantelpiece. She saw that the hands were at thirteen o’clock. She was staring distractedly at the clock when she felt something nudge the back of her legs. She glanced down. The crib was moving across the carpet on scaly legs like a lizard’s, with talons for toes, one leg at each corner of the crib. Sarah’s lips parted, but she made no sound.

  Behind her, something snickered. She spun around and saw it duck down again behind the chest of drawers. Shadows were scuttling across the walls. Goblins were prancing and bobbing behind her. Sarah was watching the chest of drawers. Like the crib, it had a scaly, clawed foot at each corner, and it was dancing.

  She wheeled around, mouth open, hands clenched, and saw the goblins cavorting. They ducked away into the shadows, to evade her eyes. She looked for something that would serve as a weapon. In the corner of the nursery was an old broom. She took it and advanced upon the goblins. “Go away. Go away,” she whimpered, trying to sweep them up, but the handle of the broom twisted in her hands and slithered out of her grasp.

  The storm wind rose to a pitch. Lightning made daylight in the room, and scared faces suddenly began to vanish into cupboards, drawers, or down the cracks between floorboards. As the thunder boomed and the wind shook the curtains, a blast of air blew the window open. Between the fluttering curtains the white owl entered.

  Sarah wrapped her arms around her face, and screamed, and screamed again. She was petrified that the flapping owl would brush across her. She thought she would die if it did.

  She felt the wind blowing her hair around, but the flapping had ceased. Between her fingers she peeked out, to see where the bird was perched. Perhaps it had flown out again.

  A prolonged crackling of lightning was throwing a giant shadow on the wall facing the window. It was the shadow of a human figure.

  Sarah spun around. Silhouetted against the stormy sky was a man. He wore a cloak, which swirled in the wind. She could see that his hair was shoulder-length and blond. Something glinted about his neck. More than that she could not see in the dim light.

  She said, “Uh …,” and cleared her throat. “Who are you?”

  “Don’t you know?” The man’s voice was calm, almost kindly.

  Lightning traced the veins of the sky and lit up his face. He was not smiling, as one might smile on greeting a stranger, nor was his expression fierce. His eyes were fixed upon Sarah’s with an intensity she found compelling. When he took a step toward her, into the light shining from the doorway, she did not retreat. If his eyes had not hypnotized her, the golden chain around his neck might have. A sickle-shaped ornament hung from it, upon his chest. His shirt was cream-colored, open at the front, loose-sleeved, with silken cuffs at the wrist. Over it he wore a tight, black waistcoat. He was shod in black boots, over gray tights, and on his hands were black gloves. In one of them he held the jeweled knob of a curious cane with a fishtail shape at the end.

  “I …,” Sarah answered. “I …”

  The humming that she had thought she heard in the air was now quite distinct, and musical. The stranger smiled at her hesitancy. He was certainly handsome. She had not expected that. When she spoke, her voice was a whisper.

  “You’re … him, aren’t you?” You’re the King of the
Goblins.”

  He bowed. “Jareth.”

  She resisted the ridiculous impulse to return a curtsy.

  “I have saved you,” he said. “I have liberated you from those bonds that distressed you and frightened you. You’re free now, Sarah.”

  “Oh, no. I don’t want to be free,” she answered. “I mean, I do, but — I want my little brother back. Please.” She gave him a tiny smile. “If it’s all the same to you.”

  Jareth folded his hands on the top of his cane. “What’s said is said.”

  “But I didn’t mean it,” Sarah replied quickly.

  “Didn’t you, now?”

  “Oh, please. Where is he?”

  Jareth chuckled. “You know very well where he is.”

  “Please bring him, back, please.” She heard herself speaking in a small voice. “Please!”

  “Sarah …” Jareth frowned, and shook his head. His expression was all concern for her. “Go back to your room. Read your books. Put on your costumes. That is your real life. Forget about the baby.”

  “No, I can’t.”

  For a moment, they regarded each other, adversaries trying to size each other up at the outset of a long contest. Thunder rumbled.

  Then Jareth raised his left arm, and made a large gesture with his hand. Sarah looked around, thinking that he was summoning assistance. When she faced him again, a glowing crystal had appeared in his hand.

  “I’ve brought you a gift, Sarah,” he said, holding it out to her.

  She paused. She could not trust him. “What is it?”

  “A crystal, nothing more. Except that if you look into it … it will show you your dreams.”

  Sarah’s lips parted involuntarily. With a teasing smile, Jareth watched her face, while he spun the shining crystal around in his fingers. Her hand started to reach out for it. He smiled a little more, and withdrew the crystal from her.

  Raising the cane with his other hand, he told her, “But this is not a gift for an ordinary girl, one who takes care of a screaming baby.” His voice was quieter now, and huskier. “Do you want it, Sarah?” He held it out toward her again.