Labyrinth Read Free Page A

ran to the window.
    “I hate you,” she screamed.
    No one heard her save Merlin, and he could do no more than he was doing already, which was to bark loudly, in the garage.
    She knew where she would find Launcelot. Toby already had everything his baby heart could desire, had so much more than Sarah herself had ever had; yet more was given to him, every day, without question. She stormed into the nursery. The teddy bear was spread-eagled on the carpet, just tossed away, like that. Sarah picked Launcelot up and clutched him to her. Toby, full of warm milk, had almost been asleep in his crib. Sarah’s entrance aroused him.
    She glared at the baby. “I hate her. I hate you.”
    Toby started to cry. Sarah shuddered, and held Launcelot still more tightly.
    “Oh,” she wailed. “Oh, someone … save me. Take me away from this awful place.”
    Toby was howling now. His face was red. Sarah was wailing, Merlin was barking outside. The storm delivered a lightning flash and clap of thunder directly above the house. It rattled the windows in their frames. Teacups danced in the kitchen cupboard.
    “Someone save me,” Sarah begged.
    “Listen!” said a goblin, one eye opened.
    All around him, on top of him, beneath him, the nest of goblins stirred sleepily. Another eye opened, and another, and another, all crazed eyes, red and staring. Some of the goblins had horns, and some had pointed teeth, some had fingers like claws; some were dressed in scraps of armor, a helmet, a gorget, but all of them had scaly feet, and all had baleful eyes. Higgledy-piggledy in a heap they slept, in their dirty chamber at the castle of the Goblin King. Their eyes went on opening, and their ears pricked up.
    “All right, hush now, shush.” Sarah was trying to calm herself down as much as her baby brother. “What do you want? Hmm? Do you want a story? All right.” With barely a moment’s thought, she picked up on the thread of The Labyrinth. “Once upon a time there was a beautiful young woman whose stepmother always made her stay with the baby. The baby was a spoiled child who wanted everything for himself, and the young woman was practically a slave girl. But what no one knew was this: the King of the Goblins had fallen in love with her, and given her certain powers.”
    In the castle, the goblins’ eyes opened very wide. They were all attention.
    The lightning and thunder crashed again, but both Sarah and Toby had become quieter. “One night,” Sarah continued, “when the baby had been particularly nasty, the girl called on the goblins to help her. And they said to her, ‘Say your right words, and we’ll take the baby away to the Goblin City, and then you’ll be free.’ Those were their words to her.
    The goblins nodded enthusiastically.
    Toby was nearly asleep again, with only a light protest remaining on his breath. Sarah, enjoying her own invention, leaned closer to him, over the side of the crib. She was holding her audience in her spell. Launcelot was in her arms.
    “But the girl knew,” she went on, “that the King of the Goblins would keep the baby in his castle forever and ever, and he would turn the baby into a goblin. And so she suffered in silence, through many a long month … until one night, worn out by a day of slaving at housework, and hurt beyond measure by the harsh, ungrateful words of her stepmother, she could bear it no longer.”
    By now, Sarah was leaning so close to Toby that she was whispering into his little pink ear. Suddenly he turned over in his crib and stared into her eyes, only a couple of inches away. There was a moment of silence. Then Toby opened his mouth, and began to howl loudly and insistently.
    “Oh!” Sarah snorted in disgust, standing up straight again.
    The thunder rolled, and Merlin gave it all he had.
    Sarah sighed, frowned, shrugged, and decided there was no way around it. She picked Toby up and walked around the room, jogging him in her arms, together with Launcelot. The small bedside