"Your time is up."
The teenage boy, who before had been slumped against the stone wall of the Labyrinth�s outer corridor, jumped up and was suddenly full of energy. "It can�t be up! I have thirteen hours!"
"Had thirteen hours," the Goblin King corrected. He started circling the glaring adolescent, his black cape billowing in the breeze. "You spent two hours trying to get into the Labyrinth, but when you did, and saw this," he gestured to the seemingly endless passageway, "you gave up. You wasted eleven hours sitting here."
The Goblin King�s tone was as cold as the stones around him, and the boy knew he had lost. "What are you going to do to her?"
"Who?" "My...sister," the boy said quietly.
"Who says I haven�t already done something to her?"
The boy was about to protest when the Goblin King turned and gestured to something nearby. A small goblin scurried over to him, her once luxurious, bright red hair now thin, dark, and scraggly. Eyes that had been big and impossibly blue were now beady and dull gray.
Eyes widening with horror, the boy paled until he looked ready to faint. "Wh...What do I tell my parents?" he managed to ask.
"You should have thought of that before you wished her away," the Goblin King said coldly. "She�s mine, and as I have no more use for you..." He raised his hand, and the boy vanished.
Jareth looked down at his new subject, who looked up at him with pure innocence. He sighed heavily. "I will give him one day to suffer, then I�ll return you to your parents. With a bit of luck, perhaps he will have learned his lesson."
Later that night, Jareth watched as the new goblin chased a chicken around the busy throne room. The growing feeling of unease he�d had with changing children into goblins and keeping them forever had reached its peak with her.
Fifteen years ago, I never would�ve even considered giving one of them back. Fourteen years ago... Jareth�s thoughts trailed off as memories flooded his mind, each bringing their own mix of pain and pleasure.
Sarah standing before him in her parents� bedroom, pleading with him to overlook her ignorance. Sarah beside Hoggle in the tunnel, trying to be brave. Sarah in his arms, whirling with him in time to the music. Sarah standing before him again, rejecting him once and for all.
The last memory caused a tightening in his chest that Jareth knew was heartache. He allowed himself a moment of weakness, a crystal forming in his hand. Sarah�s image appeared. She was happy, joyously happy. With only a few days before Christmas, she was wrapping presents while her husband assembled a dollhouse.
"I hope Jennifer appreciates all the work I�m putting into this," her husband said, smiling as he tried to attach the elevator.
"I know she will, David," Sarah said, smiling fondly, "but she�ll think it was Santa�s elves who did it."
David got up and sat down beside his wife, kissing her softly. "This is the first year she�s old enough to remember Christmas, and you�re making it a great one for her."
Sarah gave him a loving smile. "So are you, darling. I�m glad your mother gave us a chance to be alone."
David laughed softly. "Yeah, taking Jenny to the mall to see Santa was a stroke of genius. Gives us enough time to wrap her gifts," his voice dropped to a soft murmur, "and do a little merry-making of our own."
Jareth�s expression darkened with each loving word. Finally, the crystal vanished. That could have been us. That could have been me wrapping presents with Sarah and talking about our daughter. His cold glare landed on the playing goblins. Sarah is just like all the others...thoughtless, selfish, and ignorant. They don�t care about who they hurt with their wishes.
His hateful, hurtful thoughts lasted only for a moment before his temper cooled. No, Sarah is not like them. She never gave up, not even in the oubliette. Jareth rose from the throne and walked out onto the balcony. The sun was just setting over the Labyrinth, but he didn�t notice.
I threw everything I had at her, but she never even flinched. Not once did she ever consider stopping. All she cared about was her brother. He sighed painfully. If only she had cared for me as much. If she had accepted me, I would have done everything in my power to make her happy.
Jareth turned away from the Labyrinth and walked back into the throne room then began to pace. The goblins, though decidedly not Einsteins, were smart enough to know that a pacing Jareth is an unhappy Jareth, and an unhappy Jareth is a cruel Jareth. They scurried from the room before he got around to dropkicking any of them.
He paid them no mind, too wrapped up in his thoughts of Sarah to notice. If only there was another woman like her, someone sensitive, generous, and kind. Jareth considered the other wishers he�d encountered, then dismissed all of them. All they cared about was themselves. No, I need someone who would never wish away a child. That decided, he knew that he had to go back to Earth, but this time with a different mission.
Later that night, Jareth prepared for his journey. He transformed the new goblin back into a girl then sent her back to her bedroom, where her parents would discover her in the morning. Meanwhile, Jareth decided that the best way to find charity was to make himself, as humans called it, a "charity case."
Homeless, Jareth thought. That is how I shall be. I shall pretend to be poor, derelict. Surely, that is the kind of person that inspires generosity.
He decided on New York City, a place of many homeless people and, he hoped, many more generous people. Jareth stared at himself in his full-length bedroom mirror. He knew that his immaculate image would have to change if he wanted to pass as someone down on his luck.
With a simple wave of his hand, the change was done. His blonde locks were flat, scraggly, and dirty. Instead of make-up, his face bore more dirt. A pair of faded, torn, and soiled blue jeans had replaced his immaculate tights, and his black suede boots had turned into ratty white sneakers. Instead of fine linen, he wore a ragged red flannel shirt and a moth-eaten navy wool coat. To that he added a long, black knit scarf and black fingerless gloves. His naturally thin face and frame made him look as though he hadn�t had a decent meal in a while.
Perfect. Simply perfect. With that, Jareth vanished.
He reappeared in a deserted alley. A Dumpster and a few trashcans were overflowing with garbage. Jareth supposed that during the summer, they smelled almost as bad as the Bog Of Eternal Stench. Now, the cold and a thin layer of snow took care of the odors.
Jareth shivered in the freezing wind and buttoned up his coat. I�m certainly not sleeping here. I am looking for charity, but I�m not desperate. He walked to the entrance of the alley and saw that it faced a busy street. Cars zoomed by and dozens of people passed him on the street. The light snow falling from the night sky did nothing to deter the flows of traffic.
The woman for me must be here, somewhere.
