Truth be told, she could never be positive that he was the one who had raped her. All she knew was that at the age of fifteen, she’d been out walking late. The next thing she remembered was lying in a hospital bed with a bandage on her head and a sick, dirty feeling crawling all over her. No one had told her, but she’d known. Someone had violated her, taken her virginity and her dignity in the same swoop, ignoring the devastation it had cultivated in her.
Sarah had let it go through most of her life so far. She didn’t want to remember, so she chose to forget. Memory repression was her friend, and until now, she’d not wanted or cared to know the name of her attacker.
But now she had both, against her best wishes. Jareth. It had to have been him. It would explain why her dreams—memories, of him were so distorted and vague and conflicted.
She felt a bubbling anger. She’d been just a child back then. No defenses, no hope of fighting back. He’d taken advantage of her, raped her of her youth and her innocence. She couldn’t even remember the incident, but she remembered the sick feeling she had when she’d realized what had happened to her.
She hated him. She hated him for what he’d done to her.
The pencil snapped in her hand, bringing her back to reality. The professor was giving a lecture up front, and everyone around her was taking avid notes. Damn. If I’m not careful, I’m going to fail this semester, she thought. But at least she could borrow some notes from a friend.
The pencil had given her splinters. A crimson drop of blood ran down her hand to the center of her palm, and rested there. She wiped it away angrily with a tissue and then tried—and failed—to remove the splinters. The pain was an unwelcome reminder of what had been taken from her all those years ago, and only recently given back. And it was all as simple as a name. Jareth.
She tried to ignore her knowledge as best she could, but it was not the same. Harder to push it down into a box and hide it when it had a human face now. A beautiful face, but beauty could be deceiving. It was all his fault, anyway, for making her feel this way.
She cleaned up her hand and tried to focus on the lesson.
She was back in the library again. At least this time, she’d brought her own reading material. She’d expanded on the theme of Wicca and witchcraft, and was working on a hefty volume entitled ‘Draw Down the Moon’. Halfway through chapter seven, Katie sat down across from her.
“Hey, I haven’t seen you in a while. Are you coming back to group?”
Sarah shook her head, glad that she still wore her hair long. It fell in a protective curtain across her face. “I don’t think so.”
“Why not? I thought you enjoyed it last time.” Again, Sarah shook her head.
“It’s not about that. It’s just...” She looked up. Her green eyes were striking in the late afternoon light. “Last time I kinda...well, I realized something about what happened when I was little. I’d just prefer not to revisit it too soon, if you don’t mind.”
Katie pushed her blonde hair back from her face. “Let me guess. You were abused, and had forgotten about it until you remembered that dream.”
Sarah bit her lip and nodded. Katie looked at her with sad blue eyes. “You wouldn’t be the first, and you won’t be the last.” She moved to the chair next to Sarah. “What you need to figure out is what you’re going to do about it.”
“Do about it? I’m not going to do anything about it. Yeah, I was raped when I was fifteen. Yeah, I finally remember something about it. So what? I don’t need to do anything about it!”
Several heads turned their way as Sarah’s voice rose in decibel level. A slight hint of color rose to her cheeks and she lowered her voice. “Look, you seem very nice, but this is my problem. I don’t know if I really even want help on it. And I barely even know you.”
Katie leaned back. She seemed totally nonplussed by Sarah’s violent reaction. “I completely understand. But you’re wrong about one thing. You think this is just going to go away? Do you think that you’re going to wake up one morning and say ‘Okay, I’ve mourned enough, I’m over my lost innocence’? Because believe me, that will never happen. If you don’t do something about this, you’re going to feel guilty and used the rest of your life. And one woman to another, I don’t want that to happen to you.”
Sarah sighed, and gave up all pretense of reading. “Alright, fine,” she said in a meek, defeated voice. “So what? There’s nothing I can do about it. Jareth’s long gone. I’ll never get my revenge, or my closure. I’ve lost.”
Katie leaned forward with a truly malicious grin and a light in her eyes. “That’s where you’re wrong. The game’s not over yet. Come with me.”
Half a year later, and she was finally ready. All the research, the searching, the gathering, everything had conspired to form this perfect moment.
About two months ago, she’d realized that Jareth was more than just a person. He was King of the Goblins. She had been reading a book idly when she’d found it. It had been a simple text, merely explaining the various idiosyncrasies of the Fae, and the particular kings and queens. And then, under ‘J’, there he was.
Sarah didn’t find anything strange about the fact that her rapist was a mythical being. At that point, she was so far gone, she didn’t even care. She’d seen too much in the recent months to be surprised. Revenge had clouded her vision, darkened all of her thoughts, until it was all she could think of. So what if he was a goblin king? Just made it easier for her to find him, and more importantly, summon and bind him.
She’d run to Katie immediately with the good news. Her friend had begun her scheming the moment she’d heard. A demon? Or, more accurately, a member of the fae? The Fae were bound by rules, and it would just make it that much easier to summon Jareth. In fact, the only thing required for the summoning now was words.
But...how to contain him? A King of the Fae was certainly no small thing. Once summoned, he could do any number of things, the least of which was escaping. The binding was the real trick.
Sarah was eager, but she was not stupid. She wanted this thing to work. Deep inside, she still nursed the hurts that Jareth had engendered in her. She did not even realize that she was blaming the wrong person.
But now, finally, it was all ready. It had all come together in this final moment, preparing her for the vengeance she’d subconsciously needed since she was a teenager. She was prepared for the spells that she had to perform. Katie had left the room only moments ago; Sarah wanted to be alone when she confronted her rapist.
Katie let her be. A victim of rape herself, she understood. Katie had never been able to confront her own tormentor; it had been her father, and he was already dead. Sarah felt sick just thinking about what had happened to Katie, and angry for her. And that anger fed into her own situation, until she felt that by avenging herself, she would be avenging Katie, too.
All the more reason to get this over with. Sarah sat in a circle of sea salt. Dragon’s Blood incense burned in small trays to either side of her. She took a deep breath and began. “Goblin King, Goblin King, I call upon you in this fateful hour. No wish have I, no task to grant. Goblin King, Goblin King, come to me for I have need of you.”
Nothing happened. She waited several long seconds, hardly daring to breathe. Frustration threatened to bring Sarah to tears. She picked up a candle and threw it against the wall. Hot tears welled in her eyes. All that, all that planning and nothing! How could it have—
And then there was a tapping at the window. A white owl sat outside on the window sill, and it was pecking away at the glass. Cautiously, Sarah went to the window to open it. This, too, was familiar. A white owl...
Sarah, angry at her own fear, threw open the window. The owl flew in over her head, getting its feet tangled in her hair, but only briefly. After startling her, it swooped down to land in the circle of salt. But by the time it hit the ground, it was a he, and Jareth, King of the Goblins, stood before her.
Sarah’s mouth dropped open. She hadn’t really, in her most secret thoughts, expected this to work. Or at the very least she wasn’t prepared for it to do so.
But now, he finally stood before her. He cheeks flushed with anger and she hefted her iron poker. A sword would have been more romantic, but it was much easier to get a fireplace poker than a genuine iron sword. And iron was really all she needed to do away with him, once and for all.
To her surprise, Jareth said nothing. He was as beautiful as he’d ever been, with mismatched eyes and spastically styled hair. His elaborate, skin- tight costume brought a spark of recognition to her eyes. There was something more to this than she’d originally thought.
Her eyes shined. “You know why I’ve called you here.”
Jareth nodded. His gaze was smoldering and piercing. “I do.”
She was getting angry now. “What do you mean, you do!? How can you say that with what you did to me!?! What you took from me!? You should be on your knees begging me to make your end merciful!”
“You aren’t going to kill me.”
Sarah held the poker before her aggressively. She narrowed her eyes in fury. “Oh, yes I am.”
Jareth smiled slowly and sadly. “No. You won’t. You won’t kill me because I didn’t do anything you didn’t already ask for. Remember, Sarah?”
He held his hand up to her, and in it was a crystal ball. Sarah looked at it cautiously. She was forewarned and well-armed with the knowledge of the tricks the Fae liked to play. But her curiosity and Jareth’s sad face caused her to trust him, no matter how logically stupid it seemed. Hesitating only slightly, she reached out and took the crystal ball.
Her eyes were drawn by the dancing figures inside the ball. She recognized, with a shock, herself. And there were other things, too. An otherworldly labyrinth, filled with strange creatures and illogical riddles. Stairs and a baby and tiles that changed, hands that grabbed, things that were never as they appeared. She remembered! Ah, she remembered it all, now! Hoggle, Ludo, Sir Didymus... And...
She looked up slowly at Jareth. His gaze was filled with sympathy. Sarah dropped the crystal, and it shattered on the floor. “It wasn’t you.”
Jareth held out a hand. “I would never hurt you, Sarah. You remember. Everything I do...”
“...I do for you,” she finished for him. It wasn’t him. It hadn’t been him. He never raped her. The only thing he took was her baby brother, and to be fair, she’d even asked him for it. Shock overcame her. All that rage. All the hatred she’d been channeling, all the furious loathing...It was all wrong. It was all stupid, contrived, wrong feelings. How could she have been so damn stupid?!
She looked up. When had she fallen to the floor? And...Oh no! She’d disturbed the circle of salt. Jareth was free to leave, to do anything to her he wanted...
There was a feather light touch on her shoulders. His hand felt like a butterfly. It was so delicate and gentle.
Gingerly, he sat beside her. Emboldened by her reception of his touch, he began to stroke her back, her hair. She sobbed quietly, refusing to look up. Jareth had never been a threat to her. How could she have been so stupid?
Some of her frustration metamorphosized into anger. But it was the weak kind of anger, the kind that bore only the fruit of frustration. She looked up at Jareth and sobbed hopelessly. “You were supposed to have been him! You were supposed to...I was going to kill you and get closure, and everything was going to be alright...” She heaved in a gasping breath of air. “It wasn’t supposed to work like this. I...I needed you to be him,” she admitted in a small, meek voice.
Jareth stayed silent. But the soothing motion on her back continued, and she let it relax her. The fight had finally gone out of her, and she was done.
When she finally fell asleep, Jareth lifted her carefully and placed her in her bed. He blew out the candles and extinguished the incense. They were just so many stinky powders now, no longer instruments in a spell of magick. As he covered her tenderly with a blanket, he heard her whisper something in her sleep. “...I need you...”
He made sure she was firmly asleep before he kissed her on her brow. “I promise I won’t leave you yet, my sweet Sarah.”