PERCHANCE TO...
Part 1 : Dream a Little Dream of Me.
By Rhondda Lake
Shadows shifted upon shadows, barely discernable in the fog that swirled and danced about her. Her lungs filled with moist air redolent with the scent of spring rain and a touch of moss with fresh earth. She did not know where she was or how she had gotten to this place. She did know she had heard something moving, whispering just out of sight. The sound resembled the dry slide of a serpent gliding over stone, of flesh rubbing against flesh or the shuffle of padded feet. It was dead silent other than that sound that trickled down her spine.
Even though the air was warm she wrapped her arms around herself and shivered.
Then she heard it, a trace of a murmur, a breath of a word. Her name in a voice she thought she remembered from a dream. Accented, seductive, a summons, an enchantment meant to ensnare unwary and innocent young girls.
"Who are you?" Her own voice broke as it tumbled from her lips, betraying her fear. Or was it excitement? She couldn't tell.
"You know me." Soft, so soft the answer, but it echoed through the mist, "...know me... know..." Hot breath teased the back of her neck through her hair and she spun about to find no one there.
She spun once more at the sound of flapping wings right behind her. Raising her arms to protect her face, she opened her mouth to scream.
Her shriek was drowned out by the blaring of the alarm clock beside her bed.
Heart pounding, threatening to break free of its fragile ribbed constraint; Sarah took in her familiar surroundings. She lay in bed tangled in sweat slicked sheets, the air here scented with car exhaust and a hint of smoke from the people downstairs.
Her tiny three room apartment was dark and faded. It was cramped, with paint ten shades separated from its original color, now tainted a yellowish gray, but it was neat and organized. The single window in her bedroom did not shed much light.
She slapped the alarm off, not sure if she should be grateful it saved her from her dream or angry it had stolen the answers she thought the voice could provide. The voice... so compelling and elusive.
In the place of the teeth-jarring buzz of the alarm was the sound of a siren screaming in the distance and the sputter of cars punctuated by the occasional horn.
Sarah ran her hands through her long, dark hair and felt the dream images already fading in her mind. It was time to go to work. No time for visions, or dreams.
She got out of bed and crossed to close her apartment's solitary window. It was barred and on the third floor, which is why she felt safe enough to open it a fingers breadth overnight to allow fresh or what passed for fresh air into the room.
Frowning, she reached out to the windowsill and picked up a single large, white pinion feather. The snowy plume teased at a remote memory. Sarah shook off the unfounded tremor of fear and disconcerting longing.
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Life was not at all as she had dreamed it would be in her younger days. It was not even how she believed it would be as a hopeful student. Back then she knew what she wanted so she went after it. Her future was bright and full of unbounded promise. She never thought it would elude her. She knew, sometimes, life was unfair but had never understood just how cruel it could be.
In college she had excelled in grades and in performing. She had starred in two productions and loved the applause, the rush of becoming someone else to lose herself in a part for a few hours a night. She was good. She was an actress. She was going to make it.
So she had thought.
Something had happened. Her desires and determination remained unswerving but she began to lose touch with the magic of acting. She started to have a more difficult time becoming someone else. The words of a script were just that… words. Words had power, didn’t they? Say your right words… The power eluded her. She had to struggle to find the character in herself when she stepped on stage to audition. Maybe it was part of growing up.
She had been good before, but she wasn’t great. New York was filled with good actresses. Each was scratching and scrambling for parts so Off-Broadway you needed a compass to find them. With the difficulty she was having becoming anyone but Sarah, this made her hungry for the smallest parts. Any scrap would do.
Since graduating college she had been in three plays. Each time in a supporting role, never a star. Never even truly noticeable.
She loved the stage, the lights, the people. Then the work stopped coming. She still went to auditions, still reported dutifully to her agency however; Sarah began to realize that at twenty-three she was not getting the roles she wanted and might never get them.
Sarah walked two blocks to the subway. She was surrounded by people yet alone all the same. The press of humanity had been overwhelming at first, color, movement, musical voices speaking in so many languages. Now it was all background noise, just part of life in the big city Did that make her an official New Yorker? No longer looking at the diverse maelstrom with awe and wonder as it became the everyday was disheartening.
In daylight the trip to work was not so bad. At night it was necessary to take precautions, such as the pepper spray in her purse. Predators roamed the streets and subway stations. It was just one of those little, ugly realities you had to live with in a big city.
Sarah held the cold metal of the pole on the subway train, listening to the clacking wheels as it carried her further from home, further into the underground. Underground. Why did that word make her shiver?
Sarah shook off the wisps of memory from a long ago dream, another dark tunnel, something chasing her and someone else. Fear and anger mixing together as she fled. It didn't make sense. She exited the train at her stop, further unnerved, jumping at shadows. There were times she could swear she saw movement in dark corners. The shadows hiding something uncanny. It was just her imagination, she told herself.
Her current way of paying the bills was so cliché she might have laughed from it. At least her co-workers were fun, although the boss was a bit tougher than he had to be.
Entering the restaurant, Sarah went into the staff room to secure her purse. No roles meant no money. No money meant either giving up on her dreams and going home or living on the streets. She opted to take a job to pay the bills. With a sigh she straightened her white shirt and plastered on a fake smile. Smiles brought better tips.
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Her legs were sore and her feet were killing her by the time she returned home. Securing the door locks Sarah crossed to her second hand answering machine.
There was only one message from her brother. None about the audition she had a week ago. It had been the second audition for the lead in a really promising play. If she got a third, she was in, she just knew it. It felt like all her hopes lay on a single phone call. Her dreams, as always, taunting her as they glittered before her eyes, a bubble about to burst... or a crystal ball just beyond her reach.
Trying not to be too discouraged she called her brother to cheer herself up. She sat down, stretching out her tired legs and settling a carton of lo-mein in her lap as someone picked up the other end of the line.
"Hello?"
Sarah felt the first genuine smile of the day spread over her face as she lifted some noodles with her chop sticks. "Hiya, kiddo. How was school today?"
"Hey! It was okay, I guess. I hate American History, though. It's so boring," the last sentence was drawn out and she could picture Toby rolling his eyes.
Sarah swallowed her food and considered. "Mrs. Jeffries, right? Dry as a bone and looks like a scarecrow. I remember her. Just think of it as a story, an adventure story." Sarah settled in to take joy in the maundanities of her little brother's life.
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Sarah had been trying to keep a journal since she came to the city. Lately she found the urge to write entries was missing and it became a chore she was close to giving up on. Her head pounded with the frustration of it, pressing on her sinuses and filling her eyes with tears. She took something for the headache, but it wouldn’t help the hollow feeling around her heart. Not even going dancing with her co-workers two days ago could make that ache go away. Something was missing. Something vital, but she couldn’t name it.
Hours later she crawled into bed. She felt empty, like she'd been striving all day for something yet in the end nothing was accomplished. Running in circles trying to catch her own tail. There was so much to do and see in the city, too much to lose time to. Hours would disappear and really getting things done was near impossible. She closed her eyes and willed sleep to come.
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"Was it worth it?" The accented voice spread like warm chocolate through the night.
She sat up with a gasp, eyes wide. Someone was in her apartment. In the darkness something moved. She was afraid to do the same. If she moved whoever it was might attack. Her pepper spray was in her purse in the living room. Damn, why couldn't she have bought a gun? She'd laughed when her father suggested it.
"I asked if it was worth it. I'm not prone to repeating myself." Light flared from the direction of her third hand vanity, as if a bare light bulb had been lit and exposed. The light was harsh and unforgiving. No... it wasn't a light bulb. It was a crystal sphere, held in an elegant, black gloved hand.
She felt her throat tighten with some emotion she could not identify. Was it fear? Relief? No... not longing. Nothing could sneak past the sudden paralysis of vocal cords and esophagus, no matter what nameless feeling had brought it on.
He sat on her night stand, one high booted foot placed in the middle of her scratched salvaged vanity stool. The man looked completely relaxed and at ease, as if he belonged there. He was seductively beautiful, still. He had not changed in the least. No lines marred his perfect features.
It all came rushing back, the echoes of a long lost dream. One terrible night when all of childhood's fears and hopes lumped together. Oh God, it was real. He was real.
A name, at last, escaped her lips. A whisper or a whimper, she was not sure which.
"I'm flattered you remember me," mismatched eyes and hint of a cruel smile mocked her.
"What do you want?" A cracked whisper, she realized was her own.
"To see you wallowing in your victory," he cocked his head to the side to stare at her with unblinking eyes. The crystal sphere floated to the ceiling and hung there against the laws of nature. As if such constraints could ever hold him. He broke all the laws of physics and reality. Could he be arrested for that?
Sarah felt ashamed of the small, dank apartment as he looked it over with undisguised scorn. Wait a minute. He was here uninvited, in her damn bedroom!
"You waited eight years... till I'd started to fail, before coming to gloat?" She felt her courage returning, not completely but absurd as it might appear to anyone else this was one threat she at least knew how to handle. Or she hoped she did. "How very petty of you. Not to mention rude. Breaking and entering. And yes... getting Toby back was worth it. All of it."
"Who said anything about Toby? And I broke nothing." Another crystal appeared and he began to spin it with lazy grace, tossing and rolling it in graceful yet impossible ways. He had not changed at all. Not one blond hair, not one arrogant sneer.
Sarah suddenly found herself comparing him to a spoiled child in grown up clothes. Then she met his eyes. Swallowing, she felt that observation fade. He was much more dangerous than that and he was no child... though judging by his actions he might well qualify as a brat. His sharp features and small, predatory smile, all were part of the seduction, the enticement of something far beyond mortal understanding, or mortal mores. And despite his own otherworldly beauty and mystical attraction he still wore more makeup than her. That little thought did something to bolster her courage for some reason.
"What a drab and colorless place you chose to live in. Look at you. Even you've become pale and lifeless," his voice was tinged with derision, his eyes contemptuous. "Such a pity," the last was filled with some softer emotion.
"Have you said your piece? Can you leave now?" Sarah raised her chin, refusing to cow before this man, this being. She would not be ashamed, she would not.
"Come morning your agent will call and tell you to come in for that final audition you've been hoping for. The part is down to you and two others. One step closer to your dreams." The crystal was stopped from its rolling dance and offered forward on ebon encased fingertips.
"They always were mine. My dreams. You had no power to offer them to me. You never did. All you could offer was illusion. Fairie gold." Sarah swept out of bed and reached for her robe, feeling chilled and exposed in her nightgown.
"Illusion? And this is so much better? Tell me, Sarah, what is real? Define to me the meaning of Reality." He jumped from his perch to stand before her, tall and intimidating, leaning too close. She could feel the heat his body radiated, smell the hint of sandalwood, leather and cinnamon with a touch of the scent of grass after the rain. It made him seem so much more tangible and present in a world that should not hold him or his like.
Had he ever heard of personal space?
"I'm not going to discuss philosophy with you, Jareth," She stepped around him, heading for the small kitchenette in the corner. She needed something to drink. Maybe tea, something soothing. Chamomile sounded right just now. She considered offering him some then stomped the urge down. It was not like he was an invited guest.
Maybe should call the police. She could imagine the call in her head. 'Yes, please send an officer over right away. My apartment has been invaded by the Goblin King and he's being insufferably rude and arrogant and I want to go back to sleep. No, I have not been drinking and I've never taken drugs.'
"How about truth? Let us discuss the nature of truth, then," he blocked her path. Damn it, she thought, how did he get between her and her cupboard?
"You wouldn't know truth if it reared up and bit you on the ass." She decided to ignore his game and reached over his shoulder to open the door and find her reserve of tea bags.
"Oh really? Tell me... when have I ever lied to you?" He crossed his arms and stared down at her. His very expression daring her to point out a single untruth.
For some reason this whole surreal conversation was giving her another headache.
"I don't know. And to tell you the TRUTH... I don't care." She lit a fire beneath her teakettle with a flip of her wrist.
The fire went out and suddenly a crystal was spinning before her, offered in the tips of Jareth's fingers once more.
"What do you think you're offering this time? And for what price?" Sarah met his fierce eyes again, refusing to flinch, in fact she looked tired and worn more than anything else.
"I never said I was offering anything."
She looked at the shimmering orb being held before her. If she could trust Jareth to actually be telling the truth then tomorrow she would be one step closer to her dreams. Was he telling the truth? Was he even real, or was she lost in some other dream or nightmare. She’d never had the scent of sandalwood and spices infuse her dreams before.
So what game was he playing? It was a game, of that she had no doubt. The Goblin King seemed to think everything a game, no matter how deadly serious the outcome.
Sarah reached for the crystal, unsure why... perhaps to throw it in his face, perhaps to try to discern his trick this time. But it disappeared in a shower of sparkles, leaving only the offering of a gloved hand.
Swallowing from a throat suddenly gone dry, she took the offered hand and felt his leather encased fingers close over her own.
