Labyrinth 2: The Return Of The Goblin King

Chapter 15: I Dreamed A Dream (Sarah's POV)

Chapter 15: I Dreamed A Dream (Sarah's POV)

That night, I had a dream. A dream that wasn't the same old nightmare like it had been for the past few months. In fact, it wasn't even a nightmare. It was a happy dream; the happiest dream I ever remember having. Of course, it being a first-time dream, you wake up and you can't even remember anything about it, just that it made you feel a certain way. And the one thing I DO remember about the dream was the garden.

After I had fallen asleep, I didn't want to leave it, so in a way, I stayed.

That night gave me a whole different view of the labyrinth, staying in the castle, and even Jareth. Whole-heartedly, I wanted to give him every single bit of my trust. But at the same time, my mind kept telling me that my love for him was getting too strong too fast. I couldn't just give myself to him after he'd said only a few words of comfort and gave me a blanket when it was cold. Besides, there was always the possibility that he could just be trying to get me to be compassionate towards him so he could lead me into a trap. And if that was true...

It was working.

My mind began to work on its own, trying to force me to remember all of the bad things he'd ever done to me: kidnapping Toby, almost turning me into a goblin, letting me wander helplessly around a deadly labyrinth, kidnapping me and my friends...As if it was trying to tell me, "No, no, no. It's a trick. you're too smart to fall for it, Sarah." But my heart shrouded those awful memories with the question I had asked myself just before I went to sleep.

What if he really DID love me? What if every time I'd come here, seen the goblins and their master, it was just Jareth's attempt at seeing ME again? If it was, then he had some awful strategies in doing so. But when I thought about it, Jareth hasn't really been around too much, at least not in my dimension. I couldn't expect him to know EXACTLY how to pick girls up. But no matter what the reason, I was starting to fall in love with him, and there was a very large chance that he already had been in love with ME from the start.

I had to find a way to keep my feelings under control. At least the night before I got Jareth to promise not to read my mind anymore. His word isn't the most LOYAL, but I believe he can be decent enough to let me have my thoughts to myself. And that way, he'll never find out how I really feel about him. Well, at least not by reading my mind. Now, all I had to do for the moment was make sure he didn't find out any way else until the time was right.

That morning, despite my somehow fortunate lack of sleep, I awoke with the sun-bright and early-even before everyone else. Again, I was faced with an obstacle to overcome to get out of the room. But this time, I wasn't being secretive. My friends would worry about me if they woke up and found me missing from my bed, so I'd simply scribble down a note for them to leave on my pillow. Ambrocious was bound to find it after they'd all woken up.

To avoid waking anyone else, I went through the same process I did to get out the first time, except now I swung my legs over the RIGHT side of my bed. That-along the wall a ways, sitting right next to Ludo's feet-was where my writing desk stood. I was grateful not to have to step over anyone on the floor on my way there. I reached into the small drawer to the right side next to its chair at the top and grabbed a small, blank notecard. Then, I reached overhead the desk and grabbed a pen out of one of the cupboards that were restocked when I'd brought to attention that I had no idea how to use a feather pen and ink. The note read as follows:

Hoggle, Ludo, Sir Didymus, and Ambrocious,

Got up early.

Didn't want to wake you.

Went out to scrub the hallway floors.

-Sarah

"There," I whispered to myself, admiring the chicken scratch of a letter. "Good enough."

After I'd placed it carefully on my pillow and exited the room, making sure to close the door soundlessly behind me, I looked out before me at the sparkling marble castle walls and floor. The neat stone bricks which made up the walls had long since been removed of the caked dust and residue which stuck in between their corners, and the regal maroon carpet that gave the white room the perfect splash of color was newly swept and washed, looking brighter than ever before. As I could see, there was nothing there to clean. In fact, the whole castle could've been spotless, since all I've done for the past few weeks was clean like mad. But I certainly couldn't go back to sleep with all of these quarreling feelings building up unsolved inside of me. I had to find SOMETHING to clean!

It was like entering a whole different world, walking through the castle with no one around, no one even UP to notice my presence. For some strange reason, it hadn't felt like last night when I was enveloped in darkness and sorrow. The light streaming in through the small windows overhead brightened the place up and at least made it seem a lot happier. But still, I strived to make hardly any sound; I hadn't wanted to inconvenience any sleepy residents. I tiptoed over to the broom closet across the hall, grabbed a pail and a few sponges, filled the pail with water from the sink in the bathroom and some cleaner from UNDER the sink, and finally made my way over to the hallway with the sprites.

At least there I'd have someone to talk to.

"Good morning," I greeted the sprites with a bright smile as I carefully set down the water bucket and started squeezing a sponge over it to get rid of its excess water. Snickers filled the room. I stopped, wondering if I'd heard them correctly. Sure enough, even through the silence without water dripping into the small pool inside the pail it continued. The voices of the sprites surrounded me, all laughing at me for a reason I did not under stand. I raised an eyebrow. Maybe this was one of their games they often played with me, totally harmless and playful tricks that had no remote harmful effects, unlike how they treated everyone else.

"What?" I asked, my smile thinning. I was unsure of what they were laughing at me for. The snickering got louder, surrounding the voices that rose out of the crowd and sang, "Sarah and Jareth sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!" I blushed and bowed my head immediately. How could they have known?

I tried to laugh along with them so they wouldn't realize my embarrassment. Maybe they were just joking and I was assuming too much. "Ha ha, very funny," I said, shaking my head.

"No, really!" one of the sprites, Aloe, spoke up. "We heard through the Grapevine that you and Jareth spent the night outside together!"

"It wasn't GRAPEVINE that told us, Aloe!" another, Willow, corrected him. Her commanding tone made the other sprites' voices cease. "ROSEBUSH told us, remember?"

"Oh yeah..."

I laughed again and looked down at the floor. "It wasn't like that..."

"'Wasn't like that?'" Sunflower, the one living closest to me, literally melted out of the wall and looked down at me with a knowing smile. "Honeybee, we KNOW what he said out there."

"Yeah," the others joined in, out of sync as all thirteen of them poured out of their hiding spots with gained confidence after Sunflower.

"Don't think you can change the story on us," Ivy said in her high pitched, nasally tone holding a giggling Baby's Breath in her arms. "We know the WHOLE story!" The other eight began to giggle profusely as my cheeks grew redder and redder as they revealed their unfairly gained knowledge.

"...Well, what he said doesn't really mean anything, I'm sure..." I said, conscientiously weighing my own hopes down. The sprites shook their heads as they knelt down next to the pail to grab a sponge and start scrubbing at the floor. They were happy to help, so long as they were scrubbing away everything but their own homes. Oakwood shook his head.

"PLEASE, the only thing he'd ever talk to us about was you," he argued. I paused, suddenly raising my eyes from the floor. My heart skipped a beat with his words.

"...Really?" I asked. They all agreed.

"Of course!" Willow spoke again. "We could never get him to talk about anything else!"

So THAT was why they were jealous of me when I first arrived! My smile grew, stretching from ear to ear and my cheeks turning a darker shade of red. If he'd talked about me this way, ranting on and on about me to anyone who'd listen...

Well, so much for keeping my emotions under control...