Sunrise Sunset

Houses are empty shells, vacant and heartless, lost little containers in a concrete sea.

Homes are vastly different, they have souls and personalities, dreams and ideals.
A home takes its personality from its occupiers. You can tell a happy home from a sad one in the instant you walk through its doors.
A melancholy home weeps whenever the doors open or sunlight beams in to stir up dust motes.
A happy home on the other hand shines and sings through everything, it welcomes you and draws you into its warm bosom.

Dee’s house was a happy house, content to live for her and with her. Its personality shone through the numerous books and photographs Dee had. If hard pressed one would say her walls might be painted in a dusty rose, but it was difficult to tell, You would have to peer into the tiny gaps between the portraits and candid shots mounted on the walls, or move one of the many large oak bookshelves that groaned under the cheerful weight of decades worth of reading material.
Dee’s house sighed in contentment of the happy memories and simple pleasures that graced it. It was a grandmotherly house, a place you turned to in times of need for comfort or even in times of joy just to enjoy them more.

The soft sunlight coming through the window was vastly different from the no-holds barred light in the hospital. Walking into Dee’s house, Sarah felt more like herself and more in control than she had before. Hospitals unnerved her, seeing Dee so frail had hit her harder than she thought possible.

Then there was Jareth, his mystery was begging to be solved, though she couldn’t bring herself to ask him questions. Not yet at least, Sarah wanted to breathe in the comfort of Dee’s home before she turned her mind to him and his secrets.

The drive back to Dee’s had been quiet, both of them had been waiting. Things unsaid weighed heavily in the confined space as the miles were eaten up. Now they were here and Sarah realised she couldn’t push it away any longer.

“This isn’t some nightmare, is it?” She sat down in a wooden rocking chair and looked to the glass covered portrait of Dee with Sarah and Toby outside the book shop.

“No, Sarah,”

“Well, let’s get this over with.” Sarah sighed, got up with a harsh slap on her thighs and started to move about the small bungalow very quickly gathering items.

When Sarah was finished she walked into the room and watched Jareth for a few moments. He stood in the living room looking at the photographs. He was studying each very intently.

“I always wondered why Dee never had any pictures of you, she adores her photographs, but I guess I know why now.”

“I see a lot of you and your brother in these.” Jareth ignored the comment and continued to examine the framed tableaus in front of him.

“Yeah, well, we are sort of a family now.” Sarah walked further into the room; after she had turned to him for comfort an uneasy truce had been formed between them now; the tension has dissipated slightly, but not completely.

“You all look extremely happy.”

Sarah smiled a bitter smile, “Yeah, we are. We’re very close.” Her face darkened briefly and then she sat down in the rocking chair again. “I love Dee. She was the first adult to really understand me. She believes in dreams too, that is special.”

“Yes,” Jareth sat down slowly his eyes on a yellow book on the table to Sarah’s right.

“Delphina was, is a dreamer. In her youth she would run around in her garden, hiding from her nurse to play in the long grasses and rhododendron bushes.” Jareth’s voice changed slightly. It became deeper and more hypnotic; there was a gentle hum in the air that helped to transport Sarah deeper into his story.

“She loved to imagine herself from where she lived into worlds far away and deep into history. As she got older she never lost that dreamy view on life, but tragedy struck.

“Her mother, a frail woman, died in childbirth. The baby died as well, he was the boy they had always wanted, and her father started to gamble and drink heavily to drown out his sorrows.

“She never stopped dreaming through this heartache and she kept with her one book, a treasure of her mother’s.

“The book was old and well read, the ink on it fading and the illumination was almost completely worn away. But Delphina didn’t mind. She knew the story by heart and she would read it to herself late into the cold nights while she waited for her drunken father to come home from his gambling.

“After all of this Delphina felt that nothing could get worse, she retreated to her dreams and lived her life through them; desperate to find some semblance of happiness that she once knew.

“One night, Delphina’s father returned home, she was about 15, and he told her that she was going to get married. She would leave her home and go and stay in the city with an aunt of hers until the groom could set the date.

“The marriage was not what she wanted and she called out to me. I came and took her away. She lived with me for a time and then decided to leave.

“Our life together was everything she wanted but something was missing and she left.”

“Dee told me that much.” Sarah said softly. Throughout the story Jareth’s voice and face had been subdued and quiet, his eyes focused on the book at Sarah’s side. “She told me that she choose to leave you. She told me she needed to learn how to live.
She also used to tell me of how you taught her to dream, that you had given her the joy of books and the stories inside. She loves you still and you let her go.”

A dark pressure started to build up in Sarah and she had to let it spill out, unbidden thoughts and concerns filled her mind.

“Did you care so little for her that you didn’t fight for her? Did you love her so passively that when she left you let her walk into a cold world alone? What about me? Would you do that for me? Would you give up on everything so easily? What is to say that I am any different than Dee? That you feel any differently for me after you betrayed her and me by using us so?” Sarah’s voice started to get shrill and she needed to stop to breathe. The darkness was still clouding her mind and a small part of her was crying out in fear.

“After everything, all these years, you walk into my and her life and throw our balance into chaos. Are you some elfin sadist that you would wrench out hearts and use them like the crystals you play with?”

Sarah stood up with her hands clenched into fists, tears were falling unnoticed on her cheeks and the very air seemed thick with tension. “We are nothing but playthings to you, aren’t we? Dee and I are toys for a spoilt little boy. How many others have there been? Did you rip their hearts out as well; pit them against each other to win your affection? Or maybe you had them all in a great big pile. An orgy of broken hearted Barbie dolls for the Great Goblin King.” Sarah was in a full rage by now, her face had gone extremely red and she was panting. Jareth’s face was a steely mask and only his eyes showed the outrage in his face. Sarah didn’t notice it though, she kept on her tirade

“Did you at least wait for them to reach puberty you letch? Or did you steal them from their cradles?”

“Stop it right there!” Jareth’s voice boomed in the cluttered room, stopping Sarah and making her eyes grow wide with surprise. “I warned you once not to toy with me Sarah. You are trying my infinite patience here with your temper tantrum.” His voice was now quiet and deadly, a waspish tone creeping in behind his words.
“You are scared, yes, I know that. But I will not sit here and be insulted like this. There are secret here that are not mine to give. I can not tell you everything, child.”

“I am no longer a child” she said in a spoilt voice.

“Then quit acting like one.” Jareth snapped. He put his hand to his brow and then dragged it over his face to touch his lips. In a quieter voice he continued “Sarah, you can not begin to understand what has happened till now, in another time and place I will be able to explain. Some of it though is not mine to tell, you need to respect that.
The past is now over and done with and you need to live here, now.”

“Dee….”

“…is a grown woman who made her choices long ago. I cannot change that anymore than I can change what has happened since.”

“Do you still love her?”

“Sarah…”

“I need to know, Jareth, I have to know. Do you still love her?” Sarah’s eyes were wide and her once flushed face was extremely pale. She was holding herself very still like a young doe trying to decide if it was safer to flee than it was to stay still.

“Sarah, don’t ask me this.”

“Do. You. Still. Love. Her?”

“Yes” he whispered and lowered his eyes from her face, “Yes I do.”