Chapter Text
Part One: A Candle
“Always, for ever and new. What was before
Is left behind; what never was is now;
And every passing moment is renewed.”
- Ovid
Chapter One
Sarah was a believer of celebrating birthdays; she felt once you stopped, that’s when you really started aging. So, it was with some confusion that upon waking up—December 4 th , the day of her thirtieth birthday—she felt utterly and inexplicably like doing nothing . It helped that it was Monday, so her friends were busy, and her family was across the country.
Sarah had taken the day off work—easy enough as a freelance copywriter—and spent the afternoon reading and puttering around in her home. The early evening, before the sun set, was spent having a simple meal, while generously sipping a Brut Rosé, lounging in her patio deck chair, and enjoying the way the sun felt on her skin.
This little oasis of hers was in North Scottsdale, on a slight rise, which gave a gorgeous view of the valley. The planned housing development was still up and coming, so there were only a few houses built around her, including the cul-de-sac where her adobe-style two-bedroom currently sat. At night, the stars shined like bright diamonds caught in black velvet. She was waiting to see those stars—and the moon, which would be a perfect half-slice pie tonight.
As the sun set, the shadows elongated, and Sarah wondered at what point “drinking festively” becomes “overindulgence.” When she felt a pleasant warmth in her belly? Or when that warmth spread even to the tips of her fingers? Or when her vision got fuzzy around the edges unless she focused really hard? Or when she began to feel drowsy?
The sky erupted in breath-taking colors of orange, violet, crimson, and yellow. She should stop with the Brut; it was making her feel strange. Oddly emotional. Or maybe that was the sunset. She filled her glass up one last time, the bottle now empty.
Her Nokia tinged . A message. It took her a moment to grab the phone in clumsy fingers and press the tiny buttons on the Nokia until the small screen lit up with the SMS message: Dearest Sarah, happy birthday! Enjoy yourself. Wish you were here. Will give you a call this weekend. Love you, Dad, Karen, & Toby.
Sarah wondered how long it took her Dad to painstakingly type out each character on his cellphone, especially with all those commas and periods. She giggled, imagining her father with his spectacles and white hair, frowning over his cellphone, each tap of the button making a tonal sound.
Surprisingly, like a sudden crescendo to the mix of emotions she’d had all day, she felt a sharp pain in her heart. She absently rubbed the spot, even though it was an emotional thing and not an actual ache. Am I missing my family? She wondered, which was doubly ridiculous because she would speak to them this weekend, and then see them in a few weeks at Christmastime. By then, it would be snowing, the house would look magical, and she and Toby would do all that snow stuff—build snowmen, sled, ice skate. Then, straight on the heels of those thoughts, another came: Am I lonely?
What a ridiculous notion. She was the one who moved from New England all the way to Arizona, leaving her old friends and her family behind. She was the one who took today off. She was the one who didn’t tell her current friends she would be alone today, her thirtieth birthday, even though she was sure one or two of them would have insisted they go to dinner to celebrate if they had known. In fact, she was the one who avoided people all day, staying in her house instead of even going to a coffee shop or a restaurant herself.
And yet, this was her thirtieth birthday, and there was significance to that, wasn’t there? A decade closed; a new one starting. Maybe it was that fact making her morose and self-reflective—or maybe it was the Rosé and its bubbles that tickled along her tongue as she took another generous sip.
The sky was dark, burnt violet at the edges, and the stars were coming out. She may have moved away from her family and chosen this house—in its sparsely populated housing community—because of a sudden and inexplicable need for solitude as she grew older, but the beauty around her was oftentimes worth it. Only downside was battling the occasional wildlife—snakes and scorpions were the worst.
The backyard didn’t have a pool—that type of real estate was out of her budget—but she did have a nice garden of hearty, desert fauna and a terracotta-colored tiled patio. And, every time she visited her family and friends back in New England, everyone cooed over her near-constant tan.
As the first twinkly stars shown in the black velvet sky, she thought: Thirty years old , testing out the new reality. It felt so strange. Yesterday, she was twenty-nine; now she was thirty. Her twenties were behind her. Shouldn’t she feel wiser? She was fairly disappointed she didn’t wake up this morning knowing more, having a game plan for her life. Instead, she felt exactly the same.
“Sarah Williams, thirty-year-old freelance copywriter,” she muttered to herself. Hm, that doesn’t feel interesting at all. “Sarah Williams, thirty-year-old still with college debt, now a mortgage.” Even worse. “Sarah Williams, thirty-year-old with a dual major in English and Theater, at your service.”
The soft, sweet taste of the wine spread through her mouth as she took another large sip. She wished she could say more about herself—that she was well-traveled or spoke many languages or had an amazing job or did adventurous things in her free time.
“Happy birthday Sarah Williams,” she said. “Thirty years so far, and here’s to thirty more!”
Maybe I should shut up and just eat the cupcake . She finished the tiny bit of wine left and set the glass down. Next to it was a small dish with a rainbow-frosted, large cupcake from the grocery store. There was already a candle in it, and a matchbook nearby. She took a match, struck it, and held it to the wick. It caught easily, and she stared at the yellow candle with its yellow flame for a moment.
She sighed and said, “Wish I knew what the hell I was doing with my life.” She blew out the candle.
As she watched the smoke float into the air and dissipate, she decided she needed to stop drinking wine—it was definitely making her morose. Her friends would laugh if they could see her now. Ashley would roll her eyes and say something like, “What does thirty matter? What did twenty-five matter and what will thirty-five matter? You look great, Sarah, you’ve got good genes and good health. Shut up and have some carbs. It’s your damn birthday.”
Sarah slowly ate her cupcake, even getting frosting on her nose, which she slicked off with her fingertip. When the dessert was gone, she licked her fingertips clean and leaned back, her mouth filled with the taste of cloying sweetness.
After staring up at the sky for a little while, and finishing off the last of the wine, she went inside, readied for bed, and fell asleep easily. Her night was fueled by wine-tinged dreams.
The next morning, as she took her cup of coffee outside in preparation for a new workday, the desert smelled like dust and Creosote. Probably rained a little last night, although it was now dry, and the sky was shockingly blue. Sarah rubbed a hand tiredly across her face. She drank too much last night—she felt fuzzy-brained and slow. Wonderful start to the day. She sighed and walked around the patio, sipping coffee, and hoping the exercise, with the caffeine, would get the blood warmed in her body and her brain working.
Something caught the edge of her eyeline as she walked past a few paloverdes—a flash of color that shouldn’t be in her backyard. She frowned, blinking, and turned toward the two trees at the edge of her backyard. The branches of the trees were spindly, with tiny leaves and wicked-looking thorns. The tree on the right, closer to the house, had something hanging from a branch. It was heavy enough that the branch dipped under its weight. She walked slowly to it, her footsteps crunching on the hard desert soil.
A wink of soft, pinkish-red. She batted a branch out of her way, careful of the thorns, and leaned close to see—a peach.
There was a peach growing from her paloverde, hanging on the green branch like a jewel, causing the entire thing to dip. A fully ripened, beautiful peach. Sarah reached out a disbelieving finger and gently touched the fruit, running the back of her fingers along it like a caress.
It was warm from being in the sun.
It was also shockingly real.
Sarah jerked her hand back. She couldn’t comprehend how this was happening, but the peach meant something. Something in her memory was prickling.
It came slowly to her—like something bubbling up from the sea—and she remembered what she hadn’t thought of in many, many years. Of a king with dandelion fluff hair, austere and sharp features, and a cruel smile. She hadn’t thought of him in a decade, at least, because by then it had been two years since she’d moved to college and her friends no longer peeked at her through mirrors to say hello. And she had begun to wonder if everything had been in her head, anyway; a long hallucination to cope with a sudden, young brother on the heels of a new stepmother, and a lonely transition into womanhood.
But in the face of a peach growing where a peach should not grow, it all came flashing back to her in shuddering clarity. And what did this mean?
She remembered taking a bite of the sweetest fruit she’d ever had and then the strange dizziness, the way her world trembled, and having a dream that had reached into the very essence of her and shook her to the core. Of a king who danced with her.
“The bastard,” she muttered, glaring at the peach a moment longer before whirling away and stomping back inside.
Why this? Why now? More than a decade later and trying the same gimmicks again! And she wasn’t a child anymore; she wouldn’t fall for it. She wasn’t weak, and the Goblin King didn’t scare her.
And worse, the peach ruined her entire day, because she left it. She thought that was safest. But, then, it was always there —and she was always aware it was there . As she distractedly worked in her home office, the window view was to her backyard and she could see the flash of the fruit through the leaves if she stared. And she thought about the Goblin King, and what it meant that the peach appeared—and on her birthday, no less. The more she thought about it, the angrier she got. The longer that peach hung there, the angrier she got.
And no answers. Was the bastard after Toby? But calling “just to say hi” and procuring her brother and trying to needle him with questions had made the young boy annoyed. He had more time for friends, soccer, and his recent (and first) girlfriend than for her.
Was the Goblin King trying to trap her again? Hadn’t that been the purpose of the first peach? Well, she wasn’t stupid—she was definitely not eating that fruit.
But, as she got angrier and angrier, Sarah began to wonder why what the Goblin King was trying to achieve even mattered. She’d said the words; he had no power over her. This was just some game to him. A game to play on her thirtieth birthday because it probably made him laugh. He probably had nothing better to do. Maybe it was a slow day in the Labyrinth.
After work, Sarah sat watching the TV. The sun had set. She was in her pajamas. She should be in bed, but she couldn’t sleep. The day had been shot by her constantly working mind.
It doesn’t matter. She gritted her teeth and turned off the television. In her memories she could see him with his stupid, glittery flourishes and his wicked smile, saying to her: “You asked that child to be taken. I took him.”
Sarah felt shame mixed in with her anger.
She stood, went outside, and glared at the peach. She could see the expression on the Goblin King’s face as he said, “Isn’t that generous?” A glass bubble in his hands—offering her everything and nothing, because she selfishly wished away her brother. The brother she loved. And that knowledge—that shame—that regret—it never fully went away.
Was that why he was doing this? Mocking her young mistake?
“You cowered before me. I was frightening,” he had said.
Sarah’s anger felt like a hard piece of coal in her throat. She gasped, stomped forward, batting aside the branches, and ignoring when a few thorns caught in her skin and scratched. She grabbed the peach, gripping it so hard the flesh broke and juice ran down her palm.
“I was a child,” she growled, moving away from the tree and toward the fence at the edge of her property. Beyond it was open, yet undeveloped desert. “I was a child and now I’m an adult. You don’t frighten me anymore, Goblin King!”
She threw the peach, watching it arc and tumble somewhere in the desert. She heard the wet splat of it landing, felt the sticky juice on her hand, and smiled.
She felt better. Maybe now she could sleep.
# # # #
Her dreams, unsurprisingly, were full of her and Toby running. She didn’t know what they were running from. Suddenly, she was in a Jeep, driving haphazardly on the edge of the Grand Canyon. When she looked to her left, she saw the dip into a beautiful precipice, but when she looked to her right, she saw a beautiful forest and knew something was in there and it was coming for her. She saw something moving in the forest when she stared—something with white wings and reflective eyes. Toby shouted at her to not let him go, to not wish him away, and she turned back (why was he sitting in the back of the Jeep?) to see he had somehow tumbled over and was hanging off the side, dangling over the canyon. She screamed…
…and jerked awake so suddenly that she flailed in bed, gasping. Her body was cold and wet with perspiration. She threw the blankets aside and sat up.
“Jesus,” she muttered, running a hand through her hair. She checked the clock—half past five in the morning—and a quick glance at the window confirmed that dawn was just breaking.
And I’m wide awake and probably not going back to sleep tonight. Not that I want to.
She got up and brushed her teeth, then made some peppermint tea, her stomach feeling oddly sensitive. She sipped it on the patio, curled up in the deck chair. Five o’clock here meant almost eight o’clock where Toby was, and he would be getting ready or heading to school. Feeling silly, Sarah called him on the landline.
“Hey,” Toby said, confusion in his voice.
“Hey Tobes.” Now she was stuck; what to say to her brother? He didn’t remember the Goblin King, so her dream would sound silly and explaining the peach would make her sound crazy. Instead, she lamely said, “How—how are you doing?”
“Um, fine. You okay?”
“Oh yeah…yeah, I just had a really stupid nightmare and I…I dunno, just wanted to hear your voice.”
“Oh, sorry to hear that, sis.” They were close—Sarah’s doing, mostly, as she had struggled with guilt and shame after the Labyrinth. She had tried to channel those emotions into being there for her younger brother—being a good sister afterward. As a result, he trusted her fully. When he had problems, he came to her first and talked to her. But, now, she could hear impatience in his voice.
“You doing okay?” Sarah asked. “Nothing—weird happening?”
“Yeah, everything’s fine, why?”
“Just—that dream—”
“It was just a dream,” Toby said. “Hey, I gotta go, I’m leaving for school. I’ll talk to you later. Bye.” And he hung up.
Sarah shook her head. Yeah, everything was fine, and she was being stupid. And now, the last of her peppermint tea was cold.
The paloverde trees rustled. Sarah looked up and saw a white shape. Her heart picked up speed, the dream still fresh in her memory. She stood. Whatever that white shape was, it was moving in the tree, making tiny leaves flutter down.
Like glitter…
No, not like that at all.
She took a step forward, frowning. She wished she’d trimmed those damn trees like she’s been saying she would.
The leaves were rustling. Whatever was moving in there didn’t care about the thorns.
Another step forward and now she could clearly see feathers. Another step—and then suddenly it burst through the foliage straight for her face. She cried out, instinctively raising her hands and protecting herself.
Nothing happened.
Instead, she heard strange noises—the crack of bones, much like the sound of cracking knuckles, but a litany of it. A smell came next, so overpowering she gasped—a smell from her memory, a smell that she associated with magic. A smell of leather, oudh, saffron, and blackberry—and yet something ancient beyond her ability to identify. But that smell, of course, gave it away. Even as she lowered her arms and opened her eyes, she knew who she’d see.
Standing in front of her, giving her that small smirky smile, was the Goblin King.