It's Only Forever

Reflection

 "Are you kidding me?!" Sarah asked her stepmother. "Did we go back in time to the nineteenth century, or something?"

This did not deter the woman who had just offered setting up a ball and inviting complete strangers to meet her reclusive stepdaughter. "No, I am not joking. Since you refuse to befriend anyone, I thought you might need a bit of a boost. Not only that, but you should be dating!"

Since what happened in the Labyrinth three years ago, she hadn't found much interest in regular people and regular life. There was no adventure!

During the day she was the Sarah who acted things out, memorizing lines and daydreaming. At night, she would party in her room with her friends from the Underground without her father and stepmother ever hearing a peep or seeing them. They mostly partied while they were out on a date, anyway, and she was tasked with babysitting her little brother Toby.

Sarah just rolled her eyes at her stepmother's reasoning. "It's my life, not yours!" Then she stomped off into her room.

Her room was different than it had been when Toby was taken into the Labyrinth by the Goblin King. Instead of all the old junk and toys, she had a piano taking up part of the room and a box of costumes she'd recently bought for practice on her acting.

She'd taken up the piano to give her friends a bit of entertainment. It had been funny for them to start with, considering every time she messed up she'd give a screech of frustration about it. As she got better they, and even she, began to enjoy it more.

She sat down at the piano, deciding a slow waltz would calm her down. Picking out a piece of music, she placed it on her stand, put her fingers in place for the beginning, and played. Every tension slipped away and her muscles relaxed.

This was a process that helped her out whenever her stepmother crossed the line. Sarah knew she never meant to, but she also knew that she'd be happy the moment she got out of the house for college and beyond. She'd be free at last!

Her dreams could never stray too far away for her. She could always look farther even than twenty years.

"Baby steps, Sarah," her father would remind her over and over again. "Don't set goals that are too high for you or you'll end up getting disappointed."

She gave a long, drawn out sigh. Sarah knew very well that there could be some repercussions with all her wishes. Look what almost happened to Toby! Look at all that almost happened to her while going to save Toby! Look at the place where she had been tempted to stay!... She'd had to take the time to admit to herself that she'd enjoyed the Labyrinth; even with its dangerous twists and turns, even the Bog of Eternal Stench.

But she certainly wouldn't admit to wanting Jareth's terms of staying. 'Love him and let him rule me? Not likely!'

Sometimes she wondered if it wasn't just the "let me rule you" he'd said that had deterred her, making her more determined to get herself and, more importantly, her brother out of there.

"Don't think of it that way, Sarah," she mumbled to herself once more. "You've won already. Stop moaning about what's happened since."

Music she hadn't heard in three years sprang up in her thoughts, the lyrics being sung were as gentle and caring as when she first heard them:

"As the pain sweeps through

Makes no sense for you

Every thrill has gone

Wasn't too much fun at all

But I'll be there for you

As the world falls down."

She stopped playing the piano, and the music that filled her mind also stopped. Had she been playing that? No, she didn't know how to play the song.... Shaking her head, she put the cover over the piano keys and leaned back on the bench to look across the room at the music box where a girl in a white ball gown posed elegantly on top of it.

If it was what had been making the music, it showed no indication that it had moved or been touched. Dust covered it, and Sarah hadn't ever gotten the duster to brush any of it off — had even gone so far as to tell her father and stepmother not to dust it. All it did was remind her of how hard Jareth had tried to make her forget about her quest, and lose track of the limited time she'd had to save her brother.

She left it covered with dust, yet she didn't quite know why she continued to keep it. Perhaps because it reminded her about just how strong she could be.

Sarah recalled the last words she had ever said to Jareth, having quoted the book she'd memorized lines from for her play. The very line she used to have a lot of trouble remembering, but what now never left the innermost pits of her mind. "You have no power over me."

There were never words any truer than those.