Chapter One: A Heart for a Heart

Sarah Williams walked down the hallway, her footsteps echoing. Except for the occasional nurse, there were no other people today. The smell of the hospital made her want to gag; it seemed to encompass her like a blanket and push its way into her nostrils. She hated hospitals.

She stopped in front of one of the hospital rooms. It wasn’t special from any of the others, although she imagined it was costing Karen an arm and a leg, after all it was a private room. Her hand reached out, but before she could open the door, it wrenched inwards and Karen nearly barreled into her. Sarah stepped back, surprised, then managed to force her expression into a smile.

“Sarah!” A warm body launched itself at Sarah. Toby pressed his face into Sarah’s stomach and she automatically wrapped her arms around her younger brother.

“Hey Tobes,” she said. “Long time no see. How’s everything?” Even as she said the mundane, she could feel her heart twisting. She gently brushed her fingers through Toby’s hair to reassure the young boy. When he stepped back, he had a crooked smile on his face.

“I have a girlfriend,” he announced, grinning.

“You don’t say. Who is it?”

“Her name’s Mary Timpleton. We kissed under the oleanders at school,” he said, his grin widening until it was ear-to-ear. He looked proud of himself. “Tomorrow she’s going to watch my basketball game and then we’re going to the park for ice cream cones.”

“That sounds fun,” Sarah said. “I can’t believe you had your first kiss, Tobes! You’re all grown up now. I have to meet Mary sometime, or take a picture on your cellphone and show me, OK?”

Toby beamed, nodding his head. He had just turned ten and he didn’t look anything like the little baby Sarah remembered fondly—remembered so easily because she had gone through hardships unnumbered to make sure she could see her younger brother grow up. Now, his hair was the same, dark color as hers. His eyes were brown, like Linda’s, his face leaner and it tanned easily. He was growing fast.

Well, so was she. Twenty-four, done with college, working a mundane job as a data entry specialist with a few acting credits under her name, nothing big, mostly just “Woman in Crowd B” and things like that, but there had been that brief talking role in a TV sitcom. She probably could have used that as her shoehorn into Hollywood, slowly working up, maybe even landing a movie role. But, when the time came to decide if she wanted to move to California, she’d let the opportunity slip her by. Her aspirations had changed. In fact, she even liked being mundane; she liked her job where she worked entering string after string of data into Excel spreadsheets.

Because Sarah’s secret, the thing she’d kept to herself through high school and college—the secret she’d never uttered to another living soul—was that she was anything but mundane. She could see things—magical things—things that no one else saw. She could ever since that day she returned from the Labyrinth with her younger brother.

Something moved in the corner of her eye and her head whipped around, looking down the hallway just in time to see something disappear around a corner. Once again, she thought about how much she hated hospitals. There were too many magical things in hospitals that tended to float around sick people. Ghosts, spirits, creatures…demons…

“Sarah?”

Sarah turned away, looking at Karen. The woman looked tired. Her usually perfect hair was flat and limp against her face and underneath her makeup, Sarah could see her face was drawn and marked with fatigue. Karen had seen how Sarah had jumped and had followed her gaze down the hallway, but of course she couldn’t see anything. Karen had always noticed when Sarah jumped and looked around. Sarah suspected that her step-mother thought she might be a little crazy and that was probably why she was always hesitant to let Sarah hang out with Toby alone.

Sarah cleared her throat, leaned forward and gave her step-mother a peck on the cheek. “How are you, Karen?” she said.

“I’ve been better. I’m pretty tired.”

“I could take Toby for a weekend, you know. Let you rest,” Sarah said, instantly.

“Oh no, don’t be silly. I know you’re very busy and you’re young, you have things you’d rather be doing than baby-sitting.” Karen smiled a tight, small smile. “You’re not fifteen anymore.”

“I don’t mind,” Sarah said, but it was half-hearted. She knew she couldn’t win this conversation.

“Well, you are coming over tomorrow for dinner, anyway, right dear? We’ll see you then.”

Toby looked back and forth between his sister and his mother. He shifted from foot-to-foot uncomfortably. Sarah knew that he felt the undercurrents between them and they made him unhappy. He probably didn’t notice that whenever his sister visited, Karen was always there. To him, it was just two adults that never really got along perfectly.

To spare Toby any discomfort, Sarah instantly forced a smile on her face and said, “Of course I’ll be there.” She paused, the smile fading. “How’s father?”

“Same as always.” Immediately, Karen seemed to sag under a weight. She actually seemed to shrink a few inches. She sighed, rubbing her forehead, and glanced at Toby. “Hey Toby, how about you go to the car ahead of me? You can unlock it, but don’t turn it on.” She handed Toby the keys.

“Yeah, no problem,” Toby said, hesitating. He knew he was being dismissed. His earlier excitement about Mary Timpleton was forgotten now that he remembered his father. He glanced towards the hospital room behind Karen, then shoved his hands in his pocket and began walking down the hallway.

Sarah watched him go. No ten-year-old should walk like that; he looked like he had a great big rock he was carrying around on his back. Sarah sighed, turned back to Karen. She closed the door to the hospital room and walked a few steps away. Sarah followed.

“He’s not going to get a heart transplant in time,” Karen confided, her voice dipping low so there’d be no chance her words could carry. “The doctors say he has a month, tops.” Her voice was thick with grief and Sarah automatically put a hand on her step-mother’s shoulder. She felt like she should hug the woman, but they’d never really been on hugging terms; while Sarah didn’t hate her step-mother—nor vice versa—the two women had never been very close.

“He’s too weak to even get out of bed anymore,” Karen said, her voice hitching into a sob. Tears leaked out of her eyes.

“Hey, it’s going to be fine,” Sarah said, and she made her voice strong so she could pretend to believe it. “We still have time. Maybe there’ll be a heart donor at the very last second. You know what they say, it’s not over until it’s over.”

“I know that,” Karen said, brushing away the tears, “but he’s just so weak. He never even got colds before and now…”

“I know.” Sarah rubbed her hand up and down Karen’s arm, comfortingly. “But he’s strong. Dad was always strong. Remember when he tried to make that barbeque pit? He couldn’t figure the damn thing out for the longest time and he kept dropping bricks on his foot, but he wouldn’t come back inside. He said he’d get that damn thing built and he did, and when he finally came back in, he sat down and calmly said to you—remember this?—he said, ‘Karen, I think I’ve broken my toe.’ ”

Karen snorted. “And he had.”

“Yeah, from dropping all those damn bricks on his foot!” Sarah grinned. “Dad’s stubborn. He’ll be fine.”

“Yes.” Karen didn’t sound convinced, but for a moment she let herself believe it. She smiled. “Thanks, dear. You always know what to say.” She rummaged in her purse and pulled out a crinkled Kleenex. She dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose. “What do you want for dinner tomorrow?”

“Anything works.”

“Yes. Well. See you tomorrow then.” Karen gave Sarah a peck on the cheek, then turned and walked down the hallway. Sarah watched her for a moment. Leaning against a wall, smoking a cigarette, was a man in a white, collared shirt and brown slacks. His hat was something out of film noir, something Dick Tracy would wear, and it was low on his face. He caught Sarah staring and pushed the hat up with his thumb. It showed off a receding hairline where two small horns stuck out from his skull. His eyes were crimson-colored and when he grinned at her, he showed off row after row of razor sharp teeth. He didn’t even glance at Karen when she walked past him; neither did she glance at him.

Sarah abruptly turned around, ignoring the fact that her heart had picked up speed. I really hate hospitals, she thought, for the millionth time. She opened the door to her father’s room and slipped inside.

The hospital funk had permeated here, too. Her heart squeezed painfully and despair washed over her. She went to the potpourri bowl she’d brought and mixed it with her fingers, but even that fragrance wasn’t enough to combat the smell of the hospital—the mixture of sickness, chemicals, and misery.

That’s not fair, she told herself, putting the potpourri bowl back and checking on the flowers in the vase by her father’s bed. I’m sure I’m just being biased. It’s probably all in my head.

She pushed a chair over to the bedside and sat down. Her father was sleeping. He looked haggard, thin, and weak; not the huge, laughing man of her memories. He’d been sick for a while now, waiting to get a heart—waiting to die. Sarah pressed a hand to her own heart, which beat steadily underneath her fingers. It felt like her heart was twisting inside her chest. Oh god, she couldn’t stand watching her father slowly disintegrate like this, his affliction causing his strength to trickle away. When her father fell ill, nearly a year ago, Sarah was just trying to get her footing. She’d graduated late, having taken a year off, and she had been so busy with securing a job and finding an apartment that when she had heard her father was in the hospital, it had been like a sucker punch to her stomach. She had been planning to spend some time with him, to really talk to him, something she hadn’t done since she’d left high school.

Guess that’s just part of life—all the “I should have’s,” all of the “if only’s,” she thought. She was tired, she leaned back on the chair. Dad, I’m sorry, I haven’t been the best daughter.

She’d been spoiled for most of her life. Probably learned it from her mother—Linda had had that way about her, like a movie star, always glittering but always demanding attention, burning energy, ready to take more. Sarah had been a strange mix of her father and mother. Quiet like her father, content to play by herself, but craving the attention of others, like her mother. She had been the center of her own world; she could admit that now with the eyes of a twenty-year-old who had left adolescence behind. She’d done a lot of growing up in the last nine years. One thing that she should probably thank the Goblin King for: he’d taught her what was fair and what wasn’t—what was important and what wasn’t.

Family was important. Sarah squeezed her eyes shut. Toby had been important. Her father was important.

Tears leaked out of her eyes and she brushed at them, hoping her father didn’t wake up to catch her crying. But, he slept on and Sarah cried silent, heavy tears until she felt empty—like a hollowed out pumpkin. Her eyes grew heavy. She’d close them briefly. Why not? She fell into a deep, dreamless slumber. When she awoke, it was with a start and immediately she looked around, trying to figure out what had woken her so abruptly.

The sun had set, so the room was dark now. Her father was still sleeping. She pulled the blankets up to his chin and thought about the role reversal. She sighed, pushed hair out of her eyes, looked up—and that’s when she saw him. The man, obscured by the shadow clustered around in a corner of the room opposite from her, near her father’s bed. She could just see the shape of him and she felt his eyes on her. One of them—those other worldly, magical beings—had crept into her father’s room while she slept. She felt fear, like a rock in her throat, but quickly riding on it was anger and the anger won.

“Who are you?” she asked, whispering so as not to disturb her father. At first there was no answer, then the man stepped out of the shadows, which fell away from him like he was shrugging out of a cloak. He stretched out a hand and a chair appeared just at his fingertips. He grabbed it, turned it around, and straddled the chair. His chin rested on his hands and he smiled at Sarah.

He wasn’t wearing the silly hat, so she could see his horns quite clearly now. They were little ones, like a satyr’s, but ivory. His hair receded away from the horns, came back at the center of his head to give him a wicked widow’s peak. His face was young and unlined, his eyelashes thick around crimson-colored eyes, his lips were full and sensual, and his chin ended in a point. He looked younger than her, maybe just twenty, except for the eyes—they were cold, bottomless, and red like freshly shed blood.

He grinned, showing off those teeth again. Sarah snuck her hand into a pocket, where she kept many small sachets of salt. She usually grabbed a handful whenever she could. It was surprising how useful the mineral could be in certain situations. Some creatures’ skins would slow off when salt touched them while others would simply stay the hell away from her.

“Who are you?” Sarah asked again, since the man hadn’t answered.

He shrugged. “I should ask who the hell are you? No humans have seen me in decades—not since that particularly annoying witch doctor, and that guy would just talk and talk and talk…”

Kind of like you, Sarah thought, but she didn’t voice the thought. Instead, she discreetly fingered a salt sachet and tried to rip it open in her pocket without tipping the guy off.

“But,” the man continued, “I guess that’s because I can smell the magic on you. Oh yes, you’ve been touched by something very special—and I know what.”

Sarah stilled, looking at him suspiciously.

The man grinned again and said, “You’ve been to the Underground.”

Sarah shuddered. “So what?” she finally asked. “So what if I have? It was more trouble than it was worth. Now I get to have conversations with people like you all the time. Lucky me.”

“Really? I doubt it, there are very few people like me,” the man said. He inspected his nails and Sarah noticed that they were razor sharp talons, totally at odds with his lean, large-knuckled fingers, tanned a dark brown as if he worked in the sun. That was one thing she hated about the “unseen world,” as she called it—the in-between place where magical beings seemed to be—even the most deadly things were beautiful. This man, despite his horns, his talons, his pointed teeth, was beautiful. Young, flawless, without a wrinkle; in a way it was even more disturbing to see someone so untouched by time.

“What do you want?” Sarah asked. “I warn you, I’m not afraid of you things anymore. I’ve had plenty of time to get used to weird stuff popping in and out of my life.”

“Lie.” The man made a soft, smacking noise as if he tasted something off the very air. “Mmm, even your lies are sweet—and cruel. I think I’m going to like you.”

Sarah felt fear grip her. She took out the salt sachet and sprinkled it around her chair. He watched, dispassionately, and when she was done she looked towards her father and pulled out more salt sachets.

“I wouldn’t,” the man said. “I came here to make a bargain…to save your father’s life.”

“What?” Sarah paused, looking at him sharply. “I may not be able to taste a lie, but I’m not stupid either.”

“Excellent, then you’ll realize my deal is very good indeed and say yes.”

Sarah frowned and watched as the man stood and stretched. He looked her father over, thoughtfully, and said, “He’s going to die. I feel death on him even now.” He leaned close and Sarah’s muscles tensed, ready to throw salt in his face if necessary, but he only sniffed delicately and then leaned back to look at her. “I say a week.”

“A week?” Momentarily, Sarah forgot who she was talking to as this news sunk in. “But…but the doctors said a month…”

“An optimistic prediction. Mine is more accurate, I assure you.”

Sarah whimpered, a few tears leaking out of her eyes before she could stop herself. She wiped them away with the back of her hand and tasted salt on her lips. “But, he’ll never get a heart so soon—”

“True, but what if I told you that I could take away the blight from his heart and make it strong again? As good as new, in fact.”

Sarah chuckled. “I’d ask what the hell you wanted for that.” Another thing she’d learn in none of the magical creatures would do anything for free. They always wanted something in return.

“Simple enough,” the man said. “You bring me the Goblin King’s heart and I will take away your father’s blight on his heart. A heart for a heart, you see?”

Sarah blinked. At first, she thought she hadn’t heard correctly. “No,” she said.

“Don’t be so hasty.” He gave her father a long, pointed look. The implication was clear and Sarah sobered, remembering his words. A week. She didn’t doubt he knew; the creatures that hung around hospital rooms generally knew that kind of stuff.

“Why would you want the Goblin King’s heart, anyway?”

“I want his power.”

“You want to be Goblin King?”

The man snorted. “Gods, no! Never! That is more of a punishment than a reward. No, I want the power of dreams.”

Sarah let this sink in for a moment before asking, “Do all of you know each other? Like, does he know you? Does everything I’ve seen know about him?”

“You see us but you don’t know much, do you?” The man paused. He seemed unsure of whether to tell her anything, but finally he said, “There are worlds within worlds. Everyone knows who rules what. And while the Goblin King doesn’t know me personally, he knows my race.”

“And just what race is that?”

Instead of answering, the man said, “If only I could do more, like enter people’s minds. I see them all the time sleeping here.” He looked down at Sarah’s father, a small smile flittering across his face. Sarah didn’t like it at all; it was cruel and dark. “It would be fun, like getting a promotion. I’d be more than what I am. Everyone has aspirations, I guess, and when I saw you earlier I could smell something on you.” He suddenly moved, so quickly Sarah didn’t have time to react. One moment he was on the opposite side of the bed, the next moment he was just outside the ring of salt she’d tapped out onto the floor. He leaned as close as he could and sniffed her, as if trying to identify her perfume. “Yes, that otherworldly place, the Underground—smells like wet dirt and cinnamon. Like life. Ugh.”

“I’m not going to help you kill the Goblin King,” Sarah said.

“Why? What’s lost? You get your father back and you don’t care about the Goblin King—do you?”

“No!” Sarah frowned. She didn’t care. Her emotions were so twisted and confusing when it came to her time in the Labyrinth that it couldn’t be called caring. She had indulged in idle fantasy when she’d been a teenager—who wouldn’t have? He had been gorgeous and the first man who had really made her aware of herself as a woman—but fantasy and reality where very different things. Besides, she had some very choice things to say to the Goblin King. In her mind, she saw herself like a Valkyrie entering battle. Usually her speech started with “what the hell?” and ended “so, you see, you can go stuff it!” After all, it was his fault that she could see all the monsters in the world that went bump in the night. It was his fault that for years she longed for magic and adventure but never could get any and finally had to come to grips with that. It was his fault for being so damn good-looking that she’d had a crush on him for most her high school years. It was probably his fault that even though Sarah could see the otherworld, she couldn’t contact her friends from the Labyrinth.

“Well, if you don’t care, then the choice should be easy! A life for a life—a life you care about for one you don’t.”

“I’d be murdering someone, I can’t do that.”

“Can’t or won’t?” The man crossed his arms over his chest and regarded her from the other side of the salt circle. “Look, it’s no sweat off my back. I’ll be unable to get what I want, which is sad, but really I don’t lose anything. I stay right where I am. You will lose your father, though. Plus, it’s not really murder, our world doesn’t work like your world. Our world works on the rules of survival of the fittest.”

The man turned on his heel and walked towards her father. “It is a shame, though. He has such a nice blight on his heart. Usually, I just eat the whole organ. Blights are like marinade, make it so tasty, the despair is so crisp. But, I was willing to ‘eat light,’ so to speak, and just take away the blight on his heart. It would have been tasty, still, though. That’s a pretty bad blight.” The man seemed to be talking more to himself than to Sarah. To her horror, she watched as he plunged his hands into her father’s chest. For a moment, it looked like the skin would stop him, but then he went straight through as if the skin were nothing but an illusion. She saw the skin close around his hands, there was no blood. It was disturbing to watch. Sarah felt nausea in the pit of her stomach. Her father groaned, obviously in pain, and tried to move. To the casual observer, it would have looked like he was having a bad dream, but Sarah knew—she could see.

“Stop that!” she surged forward, leaving the salt ring, and grabbed the man’s hand. His skin was feverishly hot and she gasped with surprise, but didn’t let go.

He looked at her, grinning. The light from the window reflected off his teeth. What big teeth you have, Sarah thought, feeling giddy with panic and fear.

“Can’t you feel it?” He grabbed her hand and plunged it into her father’s chest. Sarah yelped with surprise. She felt warmth and a moment later she touched something spongy and hot. It was rough, too, with a pebbled surface as if something was sticking to it.

“This isn’t possible,” she gasped out. Her heart was beating so fast and she couldn’t seem to get a deep breath. “This isn’t possible!”

The man just threw back his head and laughed, keeping a firm grip on her hand. “Do you feel that?” he said. “That’s the blight, that’s killing his heart. Let me eat it, let me taste it. Let me give you what you desire.”

“You’re a monster!” she yelled, jerking her grip from his and backing away. Even though she no longer had her hand in her father’s chest, she could still feel his heart against her fingertips. She looked down at her hands. They were clean. She could feel it and she knew without a shadow of a doubt that that the rough surface—the embodiment of her father’s weak heart—would kill him, and that this strange man could take it away. “You’re a monster! An eater of disease and sickness! I should have known.”

All kinds of monsters liked to stay around the sick, the dying, the weak, and the diseased. They thrived on human despair, pestilence, and all the bad things of human life. She’d seen footage of warzones and she’d seen monsters in the backgrounds, walking steadily over the corpses of the slain, looking for tasty morsels of food. She felt bile in her throat and pressed a hand to her neck, as if she could keep the bile down.

“Yes. Human despair is so delicious. Their sicknesses are filled with it, steeped in it. I love it.” He looked at her, giving her an almost mischievous smile. “You really shouldn’t give me that look. It’s a good thing I came around here today. I’m making you an offer, taking your father from death’s grip. How many can say they have that? You really are lucky. I can cure him.”

“For the Goblin King’s heart,” Sarah said.

“Yes, well, nothing in life is free.”

“Or fair,” Sarah muttered. She rubbed her forehead, realized the gesture mimicked Karen’s and let her hand drop to her side. She saw the Goblin King in her memories, standing regal and beautiful, sending the Cleaners after her; dropping her into the Bog of Eternal Stench; letting her nearly get pulled about by the Firies; offering her dreams in a crystal.

Sarah looked towards her father, who looked even sicker now. He had sheen of perspiration on his forehead and his brow was furrowed. She thought of Toby losing his father at the age of ten. She’d lost Linda, her mother, to divorce and had felt the betrayal for years—even now she sometimes felt the spark of anger at being left behind. What would Toby feel if their father died? Sarah looked towards the man and decided to make a deal with a devil.

“Alright,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “A heart for a heart.”

“Excellent! It really is simple, you know,” the man said, almost gently. “All you need to do is go to the Underground and cut out Jareth’s heart—”

Sarah made a soft, whimpering sound. She’d have to see him? Well, of course she would. She took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh.

“OK,” she said.

“Oh, but I should say that not just any knife will do. You need a silver knife, a special knife,” the man said. “An Adamant blade, harder than diamonds, keener than the finest edge—only that will cut out an ancient being’s heart.”

“Where can I find it?”

“I have heard there are five Adamant blades,” the man said. “Um, let’s see, how did that rhyme go? One taken apart to throne a king / One where the well of the worlds spring / One rests under the waves…” He muttered to himself, trying to remember the rest, then shrugged and said, “I can’t remember the fourth, it’ goes ‘something-something-caves,’ I think. Or was it ‘something-something-graves’? Stupid rhymes. Anyway, the last one says ‘And past castle, Labyrinth and within forest and fire / Lies the fifth blade at the top of the darkest spire.’ See?”

“Very informative,” Sarah muttered. She straightened, her shoulders stiffening. She’d do it, she’d save her father. “Well, I’ll do it under one condition—you have to save Dad now. Go on, take out the blight or whatever.”

The man hesitated. “If I do that and you don’t get me my heart, Sarah, what shall I do?” He leaned closer and Sarah realized she was just outside her salt circle. She moved to go back inside, but the man caught her arm in a vice-like grip. She cried out, unable to shake it off and move away. He leaned close and murmured in her ear, “If you don’t get my heart, I will choose a replacement, and I have so many to choose from. Your father’s? Or maybe yours? Or even better, how about your sweet, younger brother’s? Young hearts taste like sweet meats…” He licked her earlobe.

Sarah shuddered. “I’ll get your heart,” she hissed. She noticed he didn’t mention Karen’s heart. He probably knew that losing her father’s, her own, or Toby’s life would be more of a tragedy. Maybe I really am cruel, she thought, suddenly not liking herself very much. What am I agreeing to?

But, the man had already turned away. He moved to her father and plunged his hand into his chest again, drawing out her father’s heart. She saw her father take one breath, two, then no more. Yet, the machine monitoring him didn’t ring out, it seemed to freeze. Sarah watched, aghast, as the man brought the beating, wet organ to his lips and began licking it clean. She shuddered, looking away, but found her eyes drawn back to the spectacle.

The heart was peppered with dark spots, black bits of imperfection. As the man licked, these faded, like frosting licked off a cupcake. He finally licked the heart clean and his teeth were stained red. Sarah felt her stomach roll again. The man placed the heart back and almost immediately, her father began to breathe again. Sarah could hear the bleep-bleep of the machines and she sighed with relief.

“Is—is that all?” she asked.

“He will live now, yes. Tomorrow, the doctors will notice he’s stronger than he has been in weeks. They will notice his heart is beating sure again. They will probably call it a medical miracle. In a few weeks, he will be back home,” the man answered, delicately licking his lips and wiping the corner of his mouth with his fingers.

Sarah smiled. Already, her father’s coloring was better. She felt truly happy for the first time in a long time and at that moment she felt like she’d made the right choice.

“Now, remember our deal,” the man said, his hands brushing her shoulders. Immediately, the happy feeling disappeared and Sarah felt a weight settle on her shoulders as she realized what she had to do now. “You have to get me my heart. Tomorrow, you’ll be at your father’s house, correct?”

“Yes.” Sarah didn’t even ask how he knew. He’d probably overheard her and Karen talking.

“The tree in the park will lead you to the Labyrinth.”

“The tree…? You don’t mean…?” Sarah sputtered. In the park where she used to play was a huge oak tree. It had a trunk so thick, a full-grown man’s hands wouldn’t have been able to reach around it. It was knobby, dark-wooded, with thick branches and huge leaves. It looked magical, like fairies and nymphs could hide inside it. It had grown into that size in one summer from a seed Sarah had planted.

The man smiled and stepped away, moving towards the corner he had been in when Sarah had first spotted him. The shadows came up, jumping towards him, engulfing him like cloth. He began to fade into them. Just before he was gone, he said, “Don’t forget…”

A moment later, Sarah stood blankly, looking at the wall. She was alone, save her father. She put her hands to her mouth, biting her knuckle until she nearly broke the skin. Oh my god, she thought, what have I done?

Author's Notes: Yes, I did start a new story. No, this does not mean I'm giving up on "the Clockwork Heart" or "Bound and Delivered." Both are in the works. At the time of this chapter being published, "The Clockwork Heart" only has aprox. 3 chapters left, after those are done, I will devout more fully to "Bound and Delivered" and this story, so you should have lots of yummy Jareth goodness in the future. :)

I'll warn you guys now, this story, "Seeded Dreams," is going to be shamelessly M. I wanted to make a story with a wicked (definitely not fluffy, anyway) Jareth and I'm really looking forward to writing some delicious scenes (I need some practice on wicked characters and smutty scenes, anyway).

This turned out to be a very long chapter. What did you think? Please let me know! Review, my pretties; the next chapter is already in the works! (I'm kind of seeing a theme in my fanfics...hearts, seeds, plants...it's totally subconsciously done, I swear!) Oh yes, and Jareth makes an appearance next chapter, no worries. :)

The Fine Print: I do not own anything in regards to the Labyrinth, I only own my original characters.