The
Gift
(Revised)
by Stormlight
Chapter
One
"Hello, Sarah! Earth
to Sarah! Are you there? Over!"
Sarah jerked her
attention back to her friend, Kimberly, and tried to look like she'd
been paying attention to whatever the petite high-school senior had
been telling her. The two of them were sitting in Sarah's bedroom on
the floor—as Sarah didn't like anyone messing up her perfectly
made bed, if she could help it—theoretically studying for an
upcoming English test while snacking on Christmas cookies and hot
chocolate. Somewhere along the line of their conversation—which,
in truth, was focused more on upcoming plans for the holidays than on
English Literature—Sarah had zoned out, and now she struggled
to recall what it was that they'd been discussing.
"Um ... right.
That'll be fine," she hazarded, not at all certain of what
"that" was.
Kim slanted the other
girl a suspicious look. "Okay, fess up. You didn't hear a word I
said," she accused.
"Of course I did,"
Sarah replied guiltily. "I just ... uh ..."
Kim's eyes took on a
mischievous gleam. "Really, now. Well, if that's the case, then
why did you just agree to hide my kid sister's Christmas present from
my grandparents in your bedroom?"
Sarah blinked.
"Wh-what's wrong with that?" she stammered, trying to
recall even a snippet of the conversation. No good. She'd been pretty
much zoned out.
"What's wrong
with it?" Kim snorted with laughter. "Sarah, they bought
her a pony."
Sarah opened her mouth to offer an
excuse, but when no immediate explanation leapt to mind, she gave up
the effort and instead offered a sheepish grin. "Okay," she
admitted with a chuckle. "You caught me. I'm sorry. I was
thinking about something."
"You're always
thinking about something," Kim huffed, tossing back the
remainder of her cocoa. "Come on, out with it. What's bugging
you this time? Having trouble in your acting class again with
what's-her-name?"
"Huh? Oh, you mean
Anne? Nah, it's fine now. Class is going great, I guess," she
replied vaguely, swirling the last of her drink around in her cup.
"You guess?"
Kim cocked her head to one side and regarded Sarah seriously. "Last
year you were leaping for joy at the chance for this weekend course.
It was just what you always wanted, you said. What happened?”
Sarah sighed and
shrugged. "I don't know," she replied gloomily. "I
mean, the course is really helpful and all. We're working on a
play—The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe—and I got one
of the lead parts. I've been practicing really hard, and Toby is so
excited to see it in a few months. So far everything's been going
well, but ... I dunno. I guess I'm ... just not that excited about it
anymore. I can't really explain it."
"Are you sick?"
Kim teased.
Sarah whapped her with a
pillow. "I'm serious! I just ... don't think acting is all that
exciting anymore. Ever since the dreams started—"
"Uh-oh. It's ‘The
Dream’ again," Kim cut in. “What's with this dream,
anyway? You keep mentioning it, but you never say what it's about.”
"Well, that
isn't important,” Sarah hastily replied. “But wouldn't
you say it's weird when you start having the same dream over
and over again? It's been going on ever since—” She cut
herself off quickly, before she blurted out something that she knew
Kim would never understand.
"Well ... maybe it's
something you ate," Kim suggested, and earned a disgusted look
in reply. She grinned, unrepentant. "So are you gonna tell me
what this dream is about, or am I gonna have to nag it outta you?"
Sarah hesitated, but she
figured she might as well spill it. Kim didn't make idle threats, and
when she wanted to know something, she'd keep prying for answers
until her curiosity was satisfied. "Well, it begins with me
running through a dark forest,” she began hesitantly. “I
can hear someone calling my name, and I'm trying to find him—"
"Ooooo!"
Kim perked up with interest. "So it's a him, is it?"
She grinned wickedly, and Sarah suddenly wished she'd kept her mouth
shut.
"Um ... anyhow, I'm
trying to find him, and I can't, but his voice is leading me toward
this bright light, and it brings me into this beautiful clearing
that's bathed all in silver light. The moon is huge and full, and the
sky is practically dripping with stars. It's like the kind of
setting you read about in fairy tales, you know?"
Kim was giving her a
look, which clearly stated that, no, she didn't know. Sarah
coughed, feeling embarrassed. Kim was a good friend, but not much of
a reader. She preferred fashion magazines over fairy tales and
mythology. "A-anyway,” she stuttered, “it's always
right there that I wake up, with his voice still calling my name. I
never see his face or anything. K-kinda weird, huh?"
Kim's eyes were
twinkling. "Sounds like somebody has it bad," she
teased. "Is it, like, a secret crush or something? Or ... I
know! Maybe Prince Charming is the one calling for you!"
Sarah glared at her,
feeling wounded at Kim's lack of sympathy even though she hadn't
expected anything better. "I don't think it's a laughing
matter," she huffed. "I think maybe it's my subconscious
trying to tell me that something is going to happen soon."
"It probably has
something to do with acting," Kim said wisely. "It's like,
you know, a premonition or something. The voice is, like, your future
calling out to you, and you gotta follow it to get to it."
Sarah pursed her lips. "I
don't think it has anything to do with acting," she replied. In
fact, she had a pretty good idea that it had everything to do
with another matter, entirely. But she certainly wasn't about to get
into it with Kim. "I've been thinking lately,” she
continued hesitantly, “that maybe I don't really want to be an
actress at all."
There was a moment of
silence as those words sank in. Then, "Are you crazy?"
Kim shrieked. "Ever since I met you, all you ever wanted to be
was an actress like your mom! Your dad spent five hundred bucks for
this course you're taking, and now you're saying you don't want to
act?”
"Well ... kinda.
Yeah. I guess maybe not," Sarah admitted sheepishly. "I
know it's weird, but ... well, something happened a few years
ago that ... sort of made me rethink some of my goals in life. Ever
since then, well, acting just hasn't held the same thrill for me as
it used to. I used to think that becoming an actress was my dream,
but now I don't know anymore. Maybe that's why I keep having
this dream. Maybe it's actually trying to show me what I really
want, only I keep waking up before I can figure it out.”
Kim shook her head. "Have
you ever considered talking to a shrink about this?" she teased,
and dodged another pillow. "Well, just don't tell your dad or
step-mom that they wasted five hundred bucks on a class you aren't
even interested in. They'll probably disown you."
Sarah grinned weakly as
she gathered up the remaining cookies and cocoa and saw her friend to
the door, their "study" session over for the day. Christmas
vacation was officially started, and in two days Sarah and her family
were traveling to the country to visit her grandparents. She had not
seen them in nearly a year, and while she was glad for the chance to
visit, at the same time she almost wished she could stay behind by
herself. She really wasn't into the "holiday spirit" this
year. Actually, she couldn't remember the last time she'd felt like
celebrating Christmas, or any other holiday, for that matter. Ever
since that time, three years ago ...
It was so much like a
dream, but she knew it had been real. She'd never be able to forget
the fact that she had, in a fit of selfish anger, wished her baby
brother away into the Goblin King's Labyrinth, and what had happened
during the duration of the following thirteen hours. She would rather
she could forget the petty, spoiled child she had been,
demanding things that she had no right to demand, trying to act like
the adult she was far from being. As brutal as his methods had been,
she was able to admit—at least to herself—that Jareth had
done her a favor by forcing her to face her inner child. He'd taught
her a harsh lesson that she might not have learned by any other
means, and as a result, she'd gained new insight into her own psyche,
and a good deal more maturity.
At the same time, she had
come away from the game feeling as if part of her were missing. In
exchange for this lesson in adulthood, Jareth had taken her
innocence. The crystal ballroom—designed to showcase all manner
of voyeurism and sexual desire with a brutal honesty that had left
her breathless and lightheaded—had been the setting to stir the
curiosity of a young woman's untried heart. His alluring gaze had
been the snare that had caught her, trapped her, and his deep,
sensual voice had beguiled and charmed and beckoned the first
stirrings of arousal until she'd practically melted into his arms,
her mouth nearly aching for the foreign touch and taste of a man's
lips.
For a moment, she'd
nearly allowed herself to give in to the overwhelming temptation, to
the invitation glowing darkly in Jareth's eyes. But then reality had
reasserted itself, and the dream had shattered around her, leaving
her with nothing but piles of dirt, debris, and very little time.
Sarah sometimes felt that
she hated Jareth for using her so thoughtlessly like that. But it had
been his game, after all, and the only rules were his
rules. He had only been doing what the villain was supposed to do,
after all. Was it fair of her to fault him for playing his role?
Well, fair or not, it was
much easier to blame him rather than herself for the way things had
ended. It was easier to simply hate him, rather than wonder what
might have happened had the final confrontation turned
out differently. Of course, Toby would have been turned into a
goblin, she told herself hastily, and she'd likely
still be trapped Underground forever. She had never been sure what
the rules pertaining to the loser's fate might have been, but it
didn't really matter anyway, did it? Allowing Toby to become a goblin
was completely unacceptable.
She
refused to let herself wonder if staying with Jareth might
have been such a terrible ordeal, if what she had seen in his eyes
during their dance had been real. The ball itself had been a farce, a
guise meant to make her lose track of herself and her time and her
brother. But had the banked desire smoldering in his mismatched eyes
been a farce, as well, or had it been truth as he'd seen fit to show
her? After all, there were times when truth was more shocking than
fiction, and it would certainly be in his nature to use the both of
them against her.
The fact was, she would
never know what had been real and what had not, and it was better
this way, the not-knowing. It really was, she insisted.
But she had never quite
managed to convince herself of that.
