Magic Mirror
folder
G through L › Labyrinth
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
7
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4,733
Reviews:
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Currently Reading:
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Category:
G through L › Labyrinth
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
7
Views:
4,733
Reviews:
3
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
I do not own Labyrinth or the poems of Sylvia Plath; I make no profit from this work of fiction.
The Queen's Complaint
In ruck and quibble of courtfolk
This giant hulked, I tell you, on her scene
With hands like derricks,
Looks fierce and black as rooks;
Why, all the windows broke when he stalked in.
Her dainty acres he ramped through
And used her gentle doves with manners rude;
I do not know
What fury urged him slay
Her antelope who meant him naught but good.
She spoke most chiding in his ear
Till he some pity took upon her crying;
Of rich attire
He made her shoulders bare
And solaced her, but quit her at cock's crowing.
A hundred heralds she sent out
To summon in her sight all doughty men
Whose force might fit
Shape of her sleep, her thought-
None of that greenhorn lot matched her bright crown.
So she is come to this rare pass
Whereby she treks in blood through sun and squall
And sings you thus :
'How sad, alas, it is
To see my people shrunk so small, so small.'
Found in the previous residence of Sarah Williams…
Summer has never been the same for me. Not since the summer I turned fifteen. Nothing changed, on the surface except that I stopped dressing up.
The last costume I wore was white, a dress – crude white cloth, over jeans. It had been threatening to rain, and that’s why I’d wanted to go out. No one would be watching a girl in the park if it was going to rain. They’d all be inside, eating dinner. The park had been pretty empty. Come to think of it, maybe not as empty as I’d thought…
Well, Toby had been crying. And I had to watch him again. I was angry, I’ll tell you that. Fifteen years of being torn between two parents, then three – and now I was expected to take care of the newest addition to our family. Of course, I would have like to live with my mother. I did try to, after Karen and Dad couldn’t handle me anymore...
School became even more of a routine than before. First year of high school. I couldn’t have cared less.
I signed up for Drama Club, but I never went to any of the meetings. I think I did join some other groups too – but I can’t remember what they were. I was always a fairly good student, but I just couldn’t stir myself anymore. Pen or pencil touches paper – and out poured the epic tales of the Labyrinth, and its overseer. I wrote on margins, homework, napkins. Eventually a teacher found some of it and convinced me to display it. I thought that it was strange – and became an unknown member of yet another club.
Karen, always well dressed (usually in well structured pastels), gave up on trying to make me grow up. Partly because, in a small way, I had – even as I routinely shuddered in the mornings, downing black coffee to make it through the day, after yet another sleepless night.
I saw Hoggle only once more after that night. He appeared for only a few minutes, offering hasty a warning that the Goblin King was already wrecking vengeance wherever he saw fit – which seemed to be almost everywhere. Well, he left, and I haven’t seen him since. Then the Goblin King seemed to tire of the dead Labyrinth.
He came for me instead.
Depending on his mood, my dreams would vary. They always started with the ballroom. Every night, I’d hear the music, the crystals surround me. That white dress was clean and sparkling at the beginning. Rarely did it remain pristine...I never slept through the entire night, and more than once that music box was playing in the darkness when I’d awake. There would be an ache between my legs; I knew what it was, in the back of my mind, and this made me even more afraid - these dreams of horror... how could they bring such things to me? Eventually I began to tear down my room – everything made me think of the Labyrinth, and whenever I’d remember the Labyrinth, I would remember him.
Karen at first happily agreed to helping me redo my room, but began to question my desire to completely remove it all from the house. Toby inherited a great deal of my things, to my dismay, and the music box was left in the attic. At least once a week, I’d wake to find it on my bedside table, and return it to the attic. I tried avoiding the house whenever I could.
The library became my refuge. Now I poured through fantasy and fairy-tales, not in search of entertainment, but answers. I learned then, that Jareth was Fae. And I learned how to keep the dreams away from me…at least most of the time.
The first night I sprinkled salt around my bed, the rustling ceased, and those mismatched eyes could only stare angrily from the darkness. One morning I remember particularly well, after a solid four hours of sleep sans dreams, I stepped carefully over the protective circle and was greeted with a crystal ball at my feet. I kicked it, and it shattered.
Eventually Jareth passed through the protective circle, but it wasn’t until I was in college. A well-meaning roommate had swept the salt clean. I fell asleep, and found myself once more in the dream, this time it lasted so long. I must have slept ten hours, more than I ever do, but I didn’t feel like I had been sleeping when I woke that morning. I spent an hour in the bathroom, cleaning myself, shaking, before school. I sought the library again, to find other ways in which I could protect myself from him.
The iron pendant became a part of my everyday outfit. It got to the point that if I didn’t have it, and sometimes even if I did, I would see him, in the corner of my eye, even if the sun shone, and I was in class, or walking around the campus. He would always be laughing, jeering, his grin pompous. A part of me felt drawn, but the other screamed, railing violently against the possibility of encountering the Goblin King.
I lost count of the number of roommates I had. Each experienced some form of my experience. Most complained of my screams at night, after they had “cleaned up” the room. Those who didn’t do such a service would complain of strange dreams if they slept, or the inability to sleep and white feathers in their beds. As if a chicken had shed in there.
“Not a chicken…it’s an owl.”
The incredulous looks came in the dozens.
I stayed with my mother in the summers. Karen was not pleased with my sleeping habits, afraid Toby would somehow inherit my nightmares. I readily agreed to the change – I wanted to keep my little brother safe, and for a fleeting instant, I hoped that the metal and man-made new world would frighten the Fae Lord, and keep him from me. But the Goblin King would follow me – even to New York City.
My mother, with her hectic schedule, was not so concerned with the dust I collected, and didn’t complain about the scattered salt terribly often. I began to enlarge the circle, and placed salt at the window-sills, in small quantities, which kept the dreams at bay even more effectively. I had about a week of regular sleep, until I began to shake and cry at night, as if I were a drug addict, having withdrawals.
The salt was all swept away by a maid, and I didn’t wear my pendant to bed. That morning I awoke in a daze, after haphazard waking and sleeping. My mother handed me my daily bitter cup of coffee, glancing strangely toward my part of the apartment.
“I didn’t know you still had that music box.”
I glanced up, confused. There it was, clear glass, shining ominously.
“You look pale dear…is everything alright?”
“I didn’t bring it…I mean, I guess I thought I hadn’t.”
She nodded, going back to her newspaper. When I returned after a day running around the city, the music box had disappeared, replaced with a crystal. I was afraid to touch it, and hid it in a sock until I could find the time to deal with it.
That night I could not have told you if I was asleep or no, but I rose feeling beaten, more tired than when I had gone to bed. I felt hunger – not for food – but that primal, instinct. I hungered for power. It was a hangover, the morning after being drunk with lust. If I remember that dream, I wouldn’t allow myself to.
The dreams kept coming as such, until I finally smashed the crystal. I knew it was only a matter of time before he would come for me, though. He simply would bide his time.
By that time I had given up on college, and I was living by myself, in the attic of a nearby house. The people beneath rarely stay in the house, and since it was so old, they believe the water pipes or something is having a problem, and I always promise to look into it. I learned every way I could to prevent him. I have no life outside of it now. Each time it would work, but each obstacle he would find a way to overcome.
Every night he comes to try to take me. One night he will succeed.