Falling Down

CHAPTER 3: THE STORM APPROACHES


It was a matter of days later, and the play was over and done with. It was always going to have been a short production, little more than a showcase of the talent the college had to offer - but even so, it had gone faster than Sarah ever expected, and she felt oddly empty now that it was over. At first she'd just missed the acting itself, and the applause and smiles of the audience, but now she longed for the little things most of all - crabby rehearsals at ungodly hours of the morning and night, the coffee machine that always broke down, the in-jokes the cast had about each other. Now that it was over all their hard work, all the new relationships that had been formed back-stage... just seemed to dissolve into memory. To make things worse, Alex had left the country after the final show, flying to England to make the arrangements for his scholarship. So, with school out for the summer and no more play to keep her occupied, Sarah took to moping around the apartment, a not-so-pretty picture in old pyjamas and messy hair, feeling very listless and generally downbeat about the world.

"It's the post-play blues, babe," Holly had said, matter-of-factly, the morning after Sarah's last performance. "It's like post-partum depression for actors, or something. It happens to everyone. Give it a couple of days and you'll quit the godawful Sylvia Plath act. Just don't go throwing yourself into any rivers, okay?"

"It was Virginia Woolf who drowned herself," Sarah commented, poking idly in her bowl of cereal with her spoon. "Sylvia Plath used the gas from her oven."

"What-the-fuck-ever, Sarah, they were both melodramatic arty types with too much time on their hands. Just put some real clothes on, take a walk, see that the world's still turning, and you'll feel one-hundred-and-ten-percent better. Trust."

Holly proceeded to make the same suggestion several times during the days that followed, until eventually, refusing to take anymore excuses, she frogmarched Sarah out of the front door and locked it behind her, telling her to come back when she didn't look like she'd stepped out of "some fourteen-year-old's angsty cutting poetry". Fuming, Sarah stalked off in the direction of Central Park and after a few hours spent there, she grudgingly admitted it to herself: Holly was right. Seeing that the world went on after the play was incredibly refreshing. She'd poured so much of herself into the role of Antigone that it was hard to think of anything but Greek tragedy - but watching kids playing on swings and old couples walking their cocker spaniels made her realise that there was (melodramatic as it sounded) life after the final curtain call.

"See," Holly was triumphant when Sarah returned to the apartment early that evening, looking much more cheerful than when she had left, "I told you. I should be a motherfucking psychologist or something, I swear. You doing anything tonight?"

"No, no plans," Sarah answered, remembering how testy she used to get when her parents asked her the same question as a teenager. "I was just going to stay in. I've got to sort out all those newspaper cuttings." She hadn't actually read any reviews since the shock of the Linda-Williams-centric articles from the first night, but she'd forced herself to keep the papers anyway, for posterity's sake.

"Do you think you could babysit Emily for me? I've got a date. Michael, you know, from the chorus?"

"Michael?" Sarah grinned. It was rare that she had the chance to tease her roommate, so she took every chance he got. "He's sort of sweet. I thought you didn't go for pretty boys?"

"Fuck you," her roommate stuck out her tongue. "But seriously, could you keep an eye on her? It's a-okay if you don't want to, I can still call in somebody from the babysitting agency..."

"As if I'd let you," Sarah feigned mock insult. "When it comes to babysitting, I'm a world-class pro. I'd love to look after her for the night, Holly - it's been ages, with the play and everything."

"Thank you," Holly launched herself at her friend, grabbing her in a sudden hug... before noticing the time on the kitchen clock and letting out a small yelp of surprise. "Shit, I've got to get ready!"

--

Sarah found putting Emily to bed strangely relaxing. Or perhaps it wasn't so strange. After all, it was an old routine that she'd been doing with Toby since she was just fifteen. Bathing Emily, towelling her dry, changing her into her little cotton pyjamas, heating up warm milk, putting her in her crib with her favourite toy - a stuffed baby-blue elephant, who went by the name of Mister Jumbo. Emily was a sweet, placid baby, not generally given to crying or making a fuss. At two years old she could speak a little, but she seemed content to silently daydream most of the time, staring into space with her huge brown eyes.

"If only Toby had been half as good as you, Emmy, it would have saved me a lot of trouble," Sarah spoke to nobody in particular as she tucked the child in.

Emily pushed the blankets down a little, then stretched her arms up to Sarah, smiling expectantly. "Story, please!" She completely adored her Auntie Sarah, and it was in no small part due to the fact that she always told the best stories. Sometimes her mother would read to her out of one of her picture books, but Sarah never seemed to need any of them. She was able to reel off the most fantastic stories about princes and princesses and magical kingdoms without any help whatsoever, and in such a way that Emily was convinced every word Sarah spoke about mermaids or dragons was entirely true. And Emily had one favourite story in particular.

Sarah gave a hugely overdramatic sigh as she bent over the crib, making the little girl giggle. "And I can guess what story you want, can't I?"

Nodding vigorously as she was picked up and carried over to the armchair in the corner of the room, Emily knew exactly what to ask for. "Lab-ee-rin-se, please, Sarah!"

"The Labyrinth, right, how did I guess?" Sarah made herself comfortable in the chair, as she positioned Emily on her lap. "All right. But just this one story, and then we'll put you to bed, okay?" Seeing the girl mumble in agreement, Sarah closed her eyes, and cast her mind back to the story she knew so well. The familiar words flooded through her in an instant.

"Once upon a time, there was a beautiful young girl, whose stepmother always made her stay home with the baby," Sarah paused for a moment, to check that Emily was listening - and smiled at the sight of the little girl's rapt attention. "The young girl loved her brother very much, although she was tired of her step-mother's demands. But what no-one knew was that the King of the Goblins had fallen in love with the girl, and he had given her certain powers. So one night, when the girl was tired, and angry, and the baby would not stop crying, she foolishly called on the goblins for help..."

She carried on telling the story, barely needing to concentrate on what she was saying - although the words were different to those she had recited all those years ago. Now Sarah knew it was not the baby who had been a spoiled child, but the young girl. And she knew that, no matter what the girl in the story said or wished, she would fight anything that stood between her and her beloved brother. Sarah's experiences inside the Labyrinth had made her grow up, and now she could look on her fifteen-year-old self for what she truly had been - selfish, naive, immature.

The Labyrinth... Sarah always tried her hardest not to think about it. Whenever it sprung to mind, she forced the thoughts out of her head.

It was a complicated situation. The Labyrinth had made her let go of childish thoughts and dreams, move forward in her life and become a young woman. She had felt liberated, and ready to embrace the real world and leave her fairy stories behind her.

But the problem was... she now knew for sure that the Labyrinth was not just a fairy story. It was real, all of it, everything she had ever imagined - fairies, dwarves, the Underground Realm. Things really did go bump in the night. And how could she embrace the real world if she knew her childhood fantasies were just as real? Was she supposed to delude herself into thinking that what was real was unreal in order to accept another real? It made her head hurt just thinking about it.

For a few years after the Labyrinth, Sarah had still continued to see Hoggle, Ludo and Sir Didymus. They would appear to her in her room when she was alone, she would sometimes see them waving at her from inside a mirror, and when she fell asleep they would meet her in her dreams. But gradually the meetings had become fewer and fewer. She began to only see them when she was upset, or in need of reassurance. And then, as she started to turn to new friends at school for comfort, she saw her old companions even less. Eventually, she came to a hard decision. She couldn't be two people. She had once thought she would be able to take her childhood companions with her into adulthood - after all, most of her peers at school still had a favourite stuffed toy, or addressed their diaries with the name of an imaginary friend. But Sarah knew that her friends were different. They were not imaginary. And she couldn't live in their world and her world at the same time.

So, she tried her best to forget her adventures, shutting away her old toys, and forcing herself not to see Hoggle or the others again. Instead she began to tell the story of the Labyrinth to Toby, in the hope that, somehow, her friends would keep watch over her brother instead of her. And now, she had taken to telling the story to Emily. It was the only time she allowed herself to access those memories. Most nights figures from the Underground haunted her dreams, but she never looked at them or spoke with them. It was hard, but she had made her decision and chosen her path. This world was the world for her, and although the Labyrinth would always be a part of her, and although she knew it had all been real, she would tell herself over and over again that now it was nothing but a story.

Speaking of stories...

"...and with those words, the spells of the Goblin King were broken. The girl had defeated him, and after saying farewell to her valiant friends, she and her brother were transported back to their home. And the girl grew to love her brother more than ever, and she never called upon the goblins or saw one of the fair folk ever again. And many years later..."

Sarah looked down at little Emily, now fast asleep in her arms.

"...Many years later, the girl moved to New York City to start a new life, and shared an apartment with a brave young woman who couldn't cook for peanuts, and her adorable daughter. And they lived happily ever after. The end."

As she finished speaking, the room felt very silent all of a sudden, that sort of echoey-silence that you can feel right down in your bones. She could only hear Emily's steady, sleeping breaths, the beating of her own heart, the faint sound of rain outside the window. Even the New York traffic seemed to have faded to a distant hum.

Suddenly, Sarah felt very tired, and more than that, very lonely.

Careful not to break the peace she had created, she carried Emily to her crib, and gently drew the blankets over her. Yawning a little, she returned to the armchair and curled up in it. She didn't want to go back to her bedroom, all on its own - and it wasn't as if her roommate was around to keep her company. After all, if everything went to plan, Holly wouldn't be back until tomorrow morning. Drawing a cushion to her chest for warmth, Sarah allowed her eyelids to grow heavy.

As she began to drift into blackness, images flashed through her mind. A maze, twisting and turning to everywhere and nowhere. Fireflies that, on closer inspection, had tiny human bodies. Peaches and crystals. Wincing, she rubbed her forehead, trying to wipe the thoughts away. Most nights, if she found she was beginning to dream of the Labyrinth, she would force herself to get up, make some coffee, and try and do some work until she slept dreamlessly from exhaustion. But tonight she was too tired.

The images returned as she closed her eyes again, and with only a little resistance, she let them take her into sleep.

--

Nothing could be heard now but the rain pelting against the window. All was still and unmoving, the room frozen like some sort of tableau.

And then Sarah shifted her head slightly, her lips parted, and the smallest whisper escaped from her dreams.

"Jareth..."

With that, the room was silent once again.

In the distance, far above the New York skyline, a beat of thunder rumbled.

--

As the night wore on, the storm doubled in power. Soon gale-force winds forced their way through the New York streets, unheard of at this time of summer. Lightning flashed ominously close to the high-rise apartments and penthouses of millionaires, whilst miles below people hurried to find shelter from the heavy rain, occasionally slipping in the water that rolled like rivers down the sidewalks. And all the while the thunder could be heard in the background, a constant growling occasionally rising to an almighty groan, like some kind of wild animal.

And Sarah slept.

One block of power went out, then another. All the lights in the apartment were instantly gone. Outside, cars honked their horns desperately from behind faulty traffic lights, trying in vain to be heard above the noise of the storm.

And Sarah still slept.

Then, there was a strange tapping. At first it sounded like nothing more than a stray tree branch beating against the window. Then it became something else, as though somebody was scrabbling frantically at the glass - animal or human, it was impossible to say. One minute the latch was firmly shut, the next the window was swinging open, the creak of disuse impossible to make out against the rain.

Sarah slept without making a single noise, so unmoving and pale in her chair that she almost looked dead.

Lightning illuminated the room, showing strange, moving shadows that had not been there before.

Emily rolled over in her crib.

There were odd whispers and low noises in the air, which may or may not have been the wind.

In dark corners and crevices, things seemed to move.

Sarah slept on.

The lightning flashed once more...

And all that could be made out in the crib were crumpled blankets, and a stuffed blue elephant. The white bedsheets seemed stark, the bed hollow.

Emily was nowhere to be seen.

She was gone.

--

AN: Poor Emily! What will happen to her? More importantly, what will Sarah do about it? Things are hotting up... You'll have to endure the suspense until I can finish writing the next chapter...

From the hit counter I can tell that several people have been viewing and rating my story - so thank you very much to all of you for reading! I hope you're enjoying my version of Sarah, and you're liking the OCs I've created. As ever, reviews of any kind, positive or negative, would be greatly appreciated. Until next time!