New Crystals, Old Dreams

Disclaimer: I do NOT own any of these characters in any way what so ever.  I am merely taking previous characters and molding them into a STORY of my own.  These characters belong to Jim Henson and the actors/actresses that made them their own.


The hazy late afternoon sun set the autumn trees of her hometown on fire.  Sarah watched those ginger and cinnamon colored trees speed by from the back seat of her father’s car.  She hadn’t seen them in years and it filled her heart with a contentment that had been lost to her for years, but now she was back.

Sarah Williams, the graduate.  Her father couldn’t stop talking about it.  As he drove her back to the house she hadn’t been to in almost seven years, she couldn’t help but feel the tiniest bit apprehensive.  Though she couldn’t for the life of her figure out why as she watched the town main street come into view, all its tiny, quaint stores bustling along with tourists and townspeople alike. 

But why shouldn’t she feel strange?  She wasn’t one of the townspeople anymore, nor was she one of the tourists coming to gawk at the glorious autumn colors.  Where did Sarah Williams fit in anymore?  It wasn’t here and that was all she knew.  Of course she didn’t fit in or her father wouldn’t have sent her away.

After her sophomore year in high school her father had sent her to a 'special school,' as he called it.  Basically, it was a mental ward.  What peeved Sarah was…she couldn’t remember what she had done to warrant being exiled to such a place.  She had passed her senior year there with flying colors and had gone on to a prestigious college.

But her father had still not allowed her to come home.  It had thoroughly upset her at first.  Her father did everything he could to try and make up for it.  He had gotten her a nice little apartment just up the street from the school and even made the payments on it.  She just had to live there, but why, Sarah’s mind yearned as always, was she not wanted here?

Sarah had been a normal student with the normal amount of friends and the normal social life.  Truly told, Sarah thought she was quite possibly the most boringly NORMAL person on Earth, but she really didn’t have any complaints.  Her little apartment had suited her just fine and it had been the perfect place to have fun with the few friends she had made and then to kick them out when she needed serious study time.  Which, Sarah thought as she furrowed her brow, was far more often than not. 

Sarah heard her fathers' voice from the front seat calling to her.

"Hey Sarah?  Any boyfriends that I should know about?  I just want to know if I am going to ever get to use my super Dad abilities to scare the shit out of unsuspecting morons."  Sarah giggled, but suppressed the deep, hidden sadness of the question.  She didn’t have a boyfriend.  As far as she could remember, she’d NEVER had one.

"Nah dad, don’t worry.  No annoying leg humpers for you to beat off with a broom just yet."  Of course her step-mother had to get in on this one.  It wouldn’t have been a day with the family if she didn’t draw any blood.

"Well dear, I really wish you would get a boyfriend.  I'm starting to worry that you might end up a spinster."  Sarah just rolled her eyes and glanced out her window.  The tree-lined streets were going by in a pleasant blur of amber and grey.  She couldn’t help but smile as they passed the park where she had always gone to recite her poetry or act out the latest play she was memorizing.  Something pulled in her chest as she looked at that park, but what?  She had to find out.

"Wait…can we stop here a minute?"  Her dad reluctantly pulled the car over.  He knew that she was going to start remembering things.  He just hoped that it wouldn’t all start at once.  Truly, he hoped that she wouldn’t remember at all.  For Christ sake, he had paid those shrinks enough, the least they could have done was a good job.

Sarah got out of the car and started a slightly blurry trip down memory lane.  She found the little bridge that arched its way over the brook that ran through the park.  Standing there in the center of the bridge she looked down into the soft reflection on the surface of the water.  Something flew overhead and startled her enough that she turned her head to glance up at it.

The beautiful white owl swooped through the sky and landed on a post not far from where she was standing.  Why was this so familiar?  She started to walk towards the owl and was shocked further when the damned thing didn’t fly away.  It turned its head and looked directly in her eyes. 

The mismatched eyes of the bird took the breath out of her body.  She knew those eyes, but from where?  She saw a flash of a tall, handsome man with a whimsically sneering smile.  His hair went anywhere and everywhere it chose to and his eyes…just like those of this regal bird before her.  Sarah felt a rush of nausea and then all went black.

It was sometime later when she woke to find herself in her old room.  Oh, everything was exactly as she remembered it.  She ran over and grabbed up Lancelot, hugging him tightly to her breast.  'Oh what a sight I must be, a full grown, twenty-one year old woman clutching to a teddy bear like a child.'

When she pulled Lancelot back and looked into his shiny, black button eyes she suddenly had another flashback.  This one was of a rainy night, she had just come home and found that she had to watch that damned kid again.  Lancelot was missing, she was furious.  Storming out into the hallway she went straight to her fathers' room, where the little monster was located and at the moment balling for no reason.  There was Lancelot on the floor. 

"I hate you, I hate YOU!"  Sarah's father was at her door.

"Why, exactly do you hate me?"  Sarah was knocked back into reality, her father staring at her like she had lost her mind.

"I'm sorry…I was just remembering something I guess."  She saw a look of dread cast over his eyes, but it was quickly replaced by the joyous happy mood he seemed to want to keep himself in lately.

"No problem darling!  So what do you want to do today?"  She looked up at him mischievously, desperately wanting to avoid another of those unsettling flashbacks…if you wanted to call things you couldn’t remember flashbacks.

"How about a movie and you buy me dinner?" 

"Done!"  Her father’s smile seemed more relieved than happy, but Sarah was too happy about being home to give it a second thought.  “I will be down in fifteen, just give me a minute to freshen up.” 

“Of course darling.”  He kissed her cheek and headed out of her room.  When she got to the top of the stairs she heard her father and step-mother talking.  She could hear her father’s exasperated sighs and her step mother trying, in vain, to keep her voice down.  Out of instinct, she hid herself at the top of the stairs and stayed quiet.

“You are taking her out tonight!?  Don’t you think that you should ease her into being back here?  Or do you want her to relapse?”  Relapse…?  What the hell was she talking about?  Sarah’s father answered.

“I think that keeping her OUT of this house for the night will keep her from doing just that.”  Another sigh emphasized his words.  “She is already starting to remember and I think getting out might keep it from coming back too fast”  What were they talking about?  Were they talking about the reason they had thrown her in the loony bin? 

She decided to play stupid instead of the demanding teen routine she used to use to no avail.  Backing up in the hallways a bit, she called out loudly.

“Dad!  I’m ready!”  Sarah put away her emotions and put her drama skills to work.  Lacing her arm through her father’s, she plastered a huge smile on her face.  “So where are we going?” 

When she returned that night from seeing a movie with her father and going out to an over serving Italian restaurant she was beat.  It had been a strange night.  First her father seemed to be holding back answers from her on simple questions.  Secondly, she could swear she had seen that owl a few times during the night.  It always seemed to be looking at her. 

But when she would ask her father about it, he would always tell her that there was no owl, even when she pointed it out.  So after she had seen the owl the third time she stopped asking him about it.  Maybe the owl really wasn’t there…but that thought unsettled her even more so she simply shut it out.

In truth, Sarah was tired and wanted nothing more than to curl up in a little ball on her bed and sleep away her stuffed tummy, slightly intoxicated head and very frustrated mind.

When she lay down on her bed she looked up into the half canopy covering and was disgusted at the fact that she was sleeping in this bed like a little girl.  She should be married or at least in a deeply loving relationship by now.  Or not…love optional, she would take just about anything at this point! 

Annoyed with herself, she huffed and turned to look at the wall to the right of her.  She saw that part of the wall was lighter than the rest of it.  There must have been a poster there.  Then she looked around the room and thought to herself that it did look emptier than she remembered it to be, but she couldn’t tell what was missing.  She walked over to her vanity and noticed all that was on it was her makeup. 

"There used to be more…" She whispered to no one in particular.  There used to be more on her dresser to and the trunk she had was practically empty, but she just KNEW that there was more.  She went to her closet and frantically began searching for the missing items, silently wondering if she would recognize them if she saw them.

The closet was a dead end.  There was nothing in there that wasn’t clothes or shoes that she was sure wouldn’t fit her anymore.  What in gods name was she missing?  Why the flying fuck couldn’t she remember anything? 

"Do you want to remember?"  She heard the silky voice and it sounded like it was coming from the window, but there was nothing and no one out there.  "Oh, I'm here…Sarah."  The sound of that voice saying her name made shivers run up her spine and her skin go goose pimply.

"Who are you and how can you make me remember?"  She ran a hand across her forehead, shocked to find that she was starting to sweat with the frustration.  “WHAT can you make me remember?”  There was a pause that was almost insufferably long before she heard that sinuous voice once more.

"Just go to the attic Sarah.  Once you find your things I am sure you will remember all about your lost items…and me….  Goodbye till then Sarah."  It sounded like this voice, whoever it belonged to, combined malice and love in the way he said her name.  It was strangely unsettling while at the same time frighteningly thrilling to hear.

With this new boost of confidence given to her by the bodiless voice, she marched up to the attic after everyone was asleep and began rummaging through the boxes.  'Wedding things'…definitely not me, she thought begrudgingly.  'Baby stuff,' since they hadn’t kept any of her baby things she figured that it was Toby's things. 

Box after box she opened frantically and found nothing.  The attic looked like an interior decorators war zone by the time she reached the back.  Once there, all she found was a crate and a mass concealed under a tarp-like blanket.  She decided to go for the blanket first and threw it off.  The dust flew into the air like an evil little army of lung destroyers.  She started coughing and hacking, trying to get the demons out of her lungs.  She looked at what she had risked her life for and realized that it was just a ratty old arm chair.  'Ugh, this is what I almost died for…fuckin' hell.  Well I guess that only leaves that crate over there.  Please god let it not be nailed shut’ she thought with a silent prayer. 

She walked over to the crate and pulled at the top of it…opened like butter!  She looked in and the memories washed over her like a tidal wave.  Sending Toby away to the Labyrinth, The Labyrinth, the goblins, Hoggle, Ludo, Sir Didymus, Ambrosious, that stupid little peach, the bog…ugh even thinking about it now made the smell come back, and him…the goblin king.

It was his voice she had heard earlier.  He was the one who had brought her memories back.  What did he want of her?  And wait a god damn minute!  Didn’t she 'destroy' him with that last little line of hers?  I guess it was only a temporary thing.  Whatever.

She had to find out what Jareth wanted with her and she wanted to know now.