Of course he couldn't make her do it. He tried to pretend that it was because she was a girl, but the truth was that he couldn't because she was Sarah. He sent one of the boys to save her - boys loved that kind of job. And he gave Sarah a job in the kitchen. So it was her. But how did she get into this kind of trouble? Jareth took a crystal and prepared a spell to see the past.
Sarah was deep in the underground tunnels, pushing her way through a narrow corridor. Suddenly she felt a horrible terror - the ceiling seemed to be falling down, icy hands touching her... death was everywhere around. She couldn't breath, she couldn't think, the darkness was killing her... Sarah turned back, left the map on the floor, and hurried, hurried away... she only prayed to be back in the castle soon. When the secret panel closed the way, she ran to the kitchen and spent a day there, because it was always full of goblins. She couldn’t stop trembling. In the evening Sarah was too frightened to go to bed... she stayed awake with several boys, they played games and chattered...
The next day she started to calm down and she could think about her experience without urge to faint. What was that? She must have been crazy - she hadn’t seen anything, she hadn’t heard anything, she hadn’t touched anything at all... so what had made her so frightened? She couldn't explain it. Was it possible there was some gas down there? That she breathed it and it made her so scared? But for such a long time... it took her more than 26 hours to get well again! It was strange. Another Labyrinth trap. And - Sarah realized - if there was a trap to discourage goblins, then there must be something really important beyond the trap.
Jareth was staring into an empty space, seeing nothing. So that was what happened... he played with his crystal balls, but he didn't even know he was doing it. He couldn't help her. And Sarah was attracted to the underground tunnels like a butterfly is attracted to a candle's flame...
It took her a week, before she could go to the underground again. And even then she couldn't go too far away; she was still so frightened that she thought her heart would stop. Once she got another attack of terror, so strong, that she felt to her knees. In the last moment she got an idea - to think about something nice, to imagine something, that would help. She thought about the ball. About herself in Jareth's embrace. Their dance. His eyes when he looked at her. And the terror was leaving her... slowly, but leaving. After a moment she could breath again. She stood up and continued. Nothing happened. After some time she found a cave, almost as large as Jareth's throne room. It was empty, but there were about ten different corridors leading to it. And in the middle of the room there was a pile of stones - the ceiling was broken and the stones fell down and covered the floor. Sarah didn't know why, but she was attracted to it. She marked the corridor she came from, and for a moment she tried to move the stones to see if there was something hidden under them. She succeeded in moving several smaller ones and realized there was some kind of a stream. For a short moment it wet her hand, then it was gone again. It was late, Sarah was tired and stones were too heavy. She had to go back, goblins would miss her. So she turned back, wondering why that hidden stream seemed so important to her. She couldn't explain it. She closed the secret passage and hurried to the library to take a book that she promised to read to goblins that evening. When she lifted the book, she screamed. On her gray left arm she had a pink human palm and fingers. |
