Montgomery Harrison Collins stood outside Sarah’s door, an audio cassette in his hand and his heart on his sleeve. He was not Monty, at least not right now. During such stressful moments as these, primal areas deep within his cerebral cortex tended to revert back to his entire given name, the one his mother had always addressed him as when he was In Big Trouble, Young Man. Yes, ma’am. No, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am. Right away, ma’am. He subconsciously longed for a corner to stand in.

He tightened his grip on the cassette and his courage, and chided himself soundly. It wasn’t as if friends didn’t lend music to other friends all the time, anyway. There was no inherently special significance in the gesture itself. In fact, the odds were she wouldn’t even give a second thought to any secret hidden meaning in his choice of songs. His painstaking game of Lyrical Charades was probably in vain, a waste of effort. Somehow, that didn’t stop him from sweating.

His behavior, he reflected, was a disgrace to his alma mater. While the leather-clad Verencia Viking brandished the Sword of Serenity and admonished the onlooker to “NEVER GIVE UP”, the unfortunate Monty felt relegated to the status of some polyester sidekick armed only with the Lawn Dart of Doubt and the polite admonition “Um, can’t we please reconsider this? Please?” Buck up, boy! Faint heart never won fair lady, and all that romantic rot. So far, subtlety had scored a grand total of zero. Time to rally the troops and charge!

He poised his fist to knock, and smiled. In all likelihood, he’d be long gone back to his own dorm by the time she played the tape. A classic “Holy Grail” moment. “Run away . . .”

Brave, brave Sir Robin. That was him, all right.

Sarah sat cross-legged upon her bed, soaking her hands in aloe vera gel to cool the pain. If she thought that soaking her head would have the same effect, she’d gladly try it. Burned. Her palms were actually burned! It was impossible, but try telling that to the newly-formed blisters. They weren’t big on listening to logical argumentation. They just went on about their business of blistering with blithe indifference.

She’d heard about something like this once, though. If the human mind believed in something intensely enough, it could actually induce physical symptoms to appear upon the body. What was it? Psych . . . psycho something . . .

Psychotic?

NO! Psychosomatic, that was it. She couldn’t start doubting her mind now; if she did, she’d be lost. In all probability, that’s exactly what Jareth wanted. He fed on doubt, didn’t he? It strengthened him even as it weakened you. Except, there was no Jareth this time, remember? It was only a dream. Only a dream. Besides, crazy people never thought they were crazy, right? Right?

A knock abruptly derailed her increasingly morbid train of thought. 10:30 am already. Monty was punctual as always, a paragon of reliability. As if she could possibly concentrate on physics this morning, when her world had just been turned inside-out in one motion, neatly as a discarded sock. Bet you Newton’s Laws didn’t have much to say about THAT, now, did they? Grumbling, she placed a towel over her sticky, aloe-covered hands and turned the lock. “It’s open, Monty.”

Monty bounded into the room with an indecent amount of vigor. He was a morning person born and bred, a turn of habit which was, in Sarah’s view, quite rude, if not downright illegal. In all fairness, though, the nervous energy of apprehension accounted for the majority of that day’s twitchy, caffeinated aura. “Good morning, Sarah.”

“Morning.” She conspicuously omitted the word “good” before it, a fact which the perceptive Monty did not overlook. Nor did he fail to notice that she still wore yesterday’s crumpled clothing, stained with aloe vera, and the tear-streaked, smeared remains of yesterday’s makeup. Black-bruised circles underscored the red-rimmed bleakness of her eyes. “My God, Sarah, what happened to you?”

She forced a parody of a grin. “Idiot me spilled boiling water on my hands while I was making tea this morning. Lucky I didn’t get hurt worse than I did.” Always polite, Monty refrained from mentioning that his concern stemmed from far more than the state of her hands. She was deteriorating by the day, fading into something lost and lonely, and he had no idea how to reach out to her; she shied away or dismissed him every time he tried. He was watching something priceless being vandalized while he sat idly by, bound and gagged and helpless. Impotent.

Somewhere beyond his cerebral cortex, in the vicinity of the medulla oblongata, the ghost of a Viking donned his horned helmet, and growled.

“Sarah, there’s something else wrong, isn’t there? Ashby’s still bothering you, isn’t he? You look like . . .”

“Like crap?” She finished his sentence succinctly.

“No, no, just like you didn’t sleep very well.”

“Actually, I didn’t. I had some nightmares. No big deal, though, nothing to worry about. Honestly, Monty, you’re a big mother hen sometimes.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” The Viking abandoned his hopeful stance, threw down his helmet and stalked off back into the subconscious, muttering unintelligible Nordic obscenities. “Did you want to study at the library again?”

“NO!” Even Sarah jumped at the sharpness of her reply. “I mean, I just don’t feel like going out today.”

Mood swings were no stranger to Monty; if you entered a room when his sister was in full pre-menstrual mode, you were more than likely to emerge from it with one or two new orifices in your body you didn’t have when you came in. Seeing Sarah snap like this, though, with that haunted look in her eyes -- it was like watching a harmless little rabbit sprout fangs and lunge for your jugular. It was enough to daunt a Viking, let alone Sir Robin.

“Um, OK, that’s, that’s fine, Sarah. We don’t have to go to the library to study. That’s actually a great idea, I’d love a break from that place. There’s only so much stained glass a man can take.” He scanned his mind desperately for a new topic of conversation to fill the awkward silence. All his life, he’d been possessed by the firm conviction that if you just kept talking, no matter what demons might rage and wail around you, everything would turn out fine in the end. It was the primary reason Monty tended to babble a lot. “So, what did your mother send you yesterday?”

Sarah gestured listlessly towards the silver-and-white confection dangling from her bedpost. Oddly enough, it shimmered a bit less in the full light of day than under artificial light or moonlight, although it still contrived to gleam fitfully. Whomever had designed it had quite clearly been inordinately fond of glitter. A veritable Liberace level of fondness.

Monty walked over and examined it closely, feeling an odd disquiet. The inarticulate part of his psyche which housed the visceral Viking, the same area responsible for his obstinate opinion that real men didn’t figure skate or wear the color pink, instinctively distrusted its fae charm. “Wow. It’s really . . . sparkly, isn’t it? So . . . what exactly is it, then?” The pragmatic Monty had never quite grasped the concept of ornamentation. In his world, things needed a function, or at least a name. “Knick-knack” didn’t cut the mustard.

“It’s called a dreamcatcher. Mom says they’re popular in Santa Fe, where she just went on vacation. It’s based on some Native American legend. Apparently all the dreams are supposed to pass through this magic web, and it catches them, and then lets only the pleasant dreams get through to you.” She stifled a smile at his expression. “Pretty silly, huh?”

He seized onto her smile and ran with it, launching into an improvised Pythonesque diatribe complete with badly feigned British accent, his own Southern drawl mutating the desired effect into a sort of Rhett-Butler-Goes-Cockney. “Silly? Nothing silly about substandard sorcery, miss, probably even non-union, at that. Judging from the night you just had, what you have here is a defective model, possibly made with dead parrot feathers. I’m afraid there’s been rather a rash of black market black magic lately: Ouija boards that only spell out dirty words, pentagrams with only four sides, grails that double as dribble cups, that sort of thing. Looks like there’s no alternative but to ship it back and demand a refund. We’ve been putting up with shoddy workmanship in this country for far too long, I say. And don’t you let them give you any crap about ‘it’s only a folktale, you can’t possibly mean to take it seriously, you pathetic twit.’ If you’re going to sell something and make claims about it being a dreamcatcher, then it damn well better catch some dreams, mister, or you’ll be talking to my attorneys about ‘truth in advertising’ and ‘pain and suffering.’ Right-o, that’s it, I’m getting the phone number for the Santa Fe better business bureau. Time for the firm of Montgomery, Harrison, and Collins to serve a few subpoenas.” He picked up the phone and pretended to dial in a state of advanced indignation. Terry Jones he wasn’t, but it was enough to please his audience of one.

“No, no, Monty, don’t do that, I can’t afford to hire a lawyer,” Sarah giggled helplessly.

He flashed his lopsided grin at her. “You sure? We charge very reasonable rates. Might even be persuaded to take it on pro bono, if you pour on the charm a little.” He leered broadly and waggled his fingers in a suggestive fashion, assuming his best “dirty old man” tone. “Heh heh heh . . . c’mere, little missy . . .” Still giggling, Sarah heaved a stuffed animal at him. He grasped his shoulder in mock-pain and collapsed on the floor. “Ow! Assault and battery! I’m suing!”

She grinned wickedly. “I don’t think so, Mr. Collins. The phrase ‘sexual harassment’ mean anything to you?” He appeared to consider her words for a moment, then scrambled to his feet and dusted off his white T- shirt with a face grave enough for a funeral. “Of course, Ms. Williams. All a misunderstanding, of course . . .” He winked.

“Sure, Monty, sure. That’s what they all say.” She looked back towards the dreamcatcher with an oddly tender expression. “Thanks for your offer, but I don’t think I’ll be sending it back. I don’t get much from my mother; I can’t afford to throw any of it away.” She stroked a feather with a tentative fingertip. “And it’s beautiful, even if it is broken.”

The voice, whisper-quiet, insinuated itself along the fringes of her hearing. “Just like you, Sarah . . .”

Startled, she yanked back her hand and whirled around, her tone incredulous. “What did you say?”

“I was just asking if you’d eaten any breakfast yet. It helps your energy level, you know, especially when you haven’t slept well. We’ll just get your Wheaties into you and you’ll be ready to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Or at least figure out the relative forces involved, which is really all you need to do for next week’s physics assignment. They don’t make you actually leap the buildings until after midterms.” He noticed she was no longer listening to a word of his nonstop prattle, just staring at the dreamcatcher with an eerily vacant expression. “Sarah? Earth to Sarah?”

“What if I’m no good, Monty?”

He regarded her uneasily. “Well, I mean, you’re not the best at physics I’ve ever seen, but we’ve already got you up to a solid ‘B’ and --”

“No, no, I mean, what if I’m no good at acting? What if Dr. Ashby is right, and I really can’t act worth a damn? What then?”

His countenance assumed that doomed expression boyfriends everywhere use when their girlfriends have just inquired if they “look fat in this dress.” He was bright enough to know that there was no right answer readily available. “Sarah, for what it’s worth, I think you’re great. When I was watching you practice, I wanted to run right out and kill that dipshit Romeo for messing with your head like that.”

Sarah shook her head in frustration. “That’s great. But what do you know about acting?” Seeing his face, she wished she could take the words back immediately. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that--”

“No, Sarah, you’re right. I don’t know anything about acting. I’m not an actor, or a critic. I don’t have any qualifications. But I guess I’m as good an audience as anyone else. I do know what I like. And I like you. A lot.”

She smiled a bleary smile at him. Such a nice beast. “That’s the sweetest thing anyone ever said to me. I’m really sorry, I don’t know what’s come over me lately. You’re the last person I should be lashing out at. You’ve never been anything but a wonderful friend.” He reflexively clenched the cassette in his large hands until his knuckles whitened. She really had no clue how hard he was trying to change that, did she?

Sarah glared at the dull blue cornflowers on the ruffled comforter which constituted one of her stepmother’s consummately tasteful contributions to the room’s decor. Tasteful and understated and mind-numbingly boring. A triumph of Martha “Stepford” Stewart ideals. She continued to talk, the words spilling out of their own accord. “It’s just that -- Monty, you can’t imagine what it’s like. All this doubt, all the time. It eats you up inside. I mean, you know you’re brilliant at what you do. All those tests tell you so. The only thing I have to go on is what people tell me. Sometimes I’d give anything for the certainty you have. For all your confidence. I want to believe in my dreams again. Believe in myself.”

He took a deep breath, and sat down next to her on the bed, putting his arm around her shoulders. The tension in his own shoulders visibly relaxed when she didn’t pull away. So she thought he didn’t know what being eaten alive by doubt was like. Then why, he thought wryly, did his confidence turn up missing on a milk carton whenever he was around her? He groped for a response that would be more helpful and less self-incriminating.

“It is comforting, I guess, but you know something funny? Sometimes it’s really constricting, too. I’ve been the Amazing Science Boy for about as long as I can remember. It’s like some sort of strange predestination; it closes more doors than it opens. My father would probably burst a blood vessel if I called him up one day and told him I wanted to try to be a comedian or a musician or something like that. It’s not that I don’t like physics, but I don’t like the idea that I couldn’t consider any other options even if I wanted to. I’ve never even been able to imagine the concept of choosing what you wanted to be, rather than having it chosen for you. I guess what I’m saying is that you may envy my certainty, but sometimes I envy your freedom, too.”

She looked at him as though he’d become one of those pictures that switch from a duck to a rabbit in mid-glance. “I never really thought about it that way.” She laughed a bitter little laugh. “I really haven’t changed much, have I? Still as selfish and self-centered as I was when I was a kid.”

He hugged her a little harder, not quite one of the bear hugs he longed to unleash, but getting there. “You’re too hard on yourself, Sarah. You shouldn’t be so eager to beat yourself up all the time. The rest of the world is only too happy to do it for you at every opportunity.”

She met the blueness of his gaze head-on. He really was an attractive man, in his own way. Something in the slight asymmetry of his features, in his solid touch, that made you feel like you’d come safely home. She brushed a rakish, sandy-colored curl from his forehead, and was rewarded with a delighted grin. Such a full, generous mouth he had, lips set in a Cupid’s-bow over perfect white teeth that testified to miserable years of braces. “You sound like my mom, Monty. She always said the critics can be incredibly cruel, and you need the skin of a rhinoceros to last more than a day or two.” She grew quiet, a wistful little smile playing around her lips as she contemplated the images in her mind’s eye. “I’ll never forget what she looked like when she played Juliet. It was the first play of hers that Dad allowed me to see. I was eight years old. I was so excited. My dad and I went into New York City for the whole day, and we had tea at the Russian Tea Room. I didn’t understand most of Shakespeare’s language at the time, but I thought it was beautiful. I thought she was beautiful. Like she was from another world, a much better world than I could even imagine. She was wearing this midnight blue velvet Renaissance dress, and these blue jewels in her hair that sparkled every time she moved. She laughed at me afterwards when I wanted to touch them, and said that they were only glass, but they looked like sapphires to me. I never felt so close to her before, and so far away at the same time. I knew right then what I wanted to be when I grew up, and told her so. She laughed at me again, but she promised that as soon as I was old enough, we’d star in a play together. That was all I could talk about for weeks. My stepmother was just about ready to wring my neck, I’ll bet. I just couldn’t shut up about it.”

Monty, on the other hand, knew when to shut up. He sat in perfect silence and let her ramble, releasing long pent-up memories she had never shared with anyone before; memories that filled her near to bursting.

“The play I went to when I was about fourteen really clinched it. Did you ever hear of ‘Simone’?” Monty shook his head. “It had a pretty long run on Broadway. It was a musical all about this poor orphan girl named Simone who’d been marked by destiny to go on a quest to a faraway kingdom. Mom played the Queen of the Fairies, who guided her through danger. The big hit song from the play was the love theme between Simone and the Prince, but Mom had a song of her own called ‘Don’t Look Back Now’ that was so sad and pretty. She has a great voice, you know. She was so good in that role.” Sarah was blissfully unaware that, in a well-publicized article, a certain powerful Broadway gossip columnist had dubbed Linda Williams “Glinda the Glandular Witch” after her onstage flirting with Simone’s Prince, a certain Jeremy, had become a bit too obvious.

“She looked just like an angel. She looked like -- here, let me show you something.” She bounced off the bed, over to the bookshelves, with the air of someone propelled by a force beyond herself. The floodgates were open, and she was being carried along with the tide. “Here.” With reverent care, she handed Monty a music box, a delicate pavilion of glass and gold. Inside, a diminutive dark-haired doll wearing a glittering silvery-white gauze ballgown stared blankly back at him. Sarah seemed to be awaiting his reaction.

“It looks a little like you,” he said gently. “Only not as pretty.”

“Thanks. My mother had it made specially for my birthday that year. It’s her, in the Fairy Queen dress.”

“You must’ve really treasured it, then. What song does it play?” He twisted the key.

“No, don’t--” She trailed off, too late, as the love theme from “Simone” filled the room. At least what she used to think of as the love theme from “Simone,” before Jareth had appropriated it as his own: “As the World Falls Down.” She’d never listened to the music box since that night in the ballroom. She’d often wondered why her mother had chosen the love song instead of her own solo for the music box. The truth was that Linda preferred Simone’s song just as she preferred Simone’s Prince, and, to be brutally frank, just as she would have preferred Simone’s role itself if she could have only convinced the director that she was young enough for the part.

“I’m sorry, Sarah, I shouldn’t have touched it without asking first. I didn’t break it, though, I swear. I’m a klutz, but not that bad.” His blue eyes looked up hopefully at her like a puppy in mid-training, uncertain whether he’s earned a pat or a thwack with a newspaper.

She smiled tightly as she accepted the music box back from him. “It’s not that, Monty, it’s just -- I don’t know. Just ignore me.” They both listened to its gradually slowing chime for a few seconds. Monty was the first to speak.

“Sarah? Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“Do you want to be an actress because you like acting, or because that’s what your mom is?”

She looked at him as if he’d slapped her. “Both, I guess. Is there something wrong with that?” She bristled defensively, eyes dangerously grey as the storm of confusion within her heart.

“No, I didn’t mean it that way at all. God, I’m sorry, I always say the wrong thing, I was just --”

She cut him off, rubbing her eyes wearily. “It’s all right, Monty. I’m sorry I yelled at you like that. I’m just being silly and edgy. I think I need to get some sleep before I manage to totally alienate you. I’m sorry to bail out on you like this, but I know I’m going to be useless today. I just can’t concentrate. Can we do this tomorrow? Maybe around noon or so?”

“Sure, that’s fine. Get some sleep tonight, OK? And as for you--” he turned sternly to the dreamcatcher -- “there had better be no more lying down on the job, capiche?” He opened the door to go, then paused, one foot outside the threshold, one hand resting on the door’s edge. “Sarah?”

“Yeah?” She was listening to the last few lingering notes from the music box as it wound down in her hands, her tone indifferent, distracted.

Think Viking. “I . . . um . . . I dubbed this collection of songs for you that I thought you might like. They’re songs that mean a lot to me. They make me think of the way I feel about you.” Oh, crap. He hadn’t meant to spill quite that much of his guts. He waited in agony.

“Thanks, Monty. That’s nice. Just leave it on the table, OK?” She clearly hadn’t registered a word he’d said. His hormones weren’t certain whether to settle on relief or disappointment.

“OK.” He set the tape down and closed the door behind him, leaving both of them alone with their doubts.

Feather image edited from Graphics by Tammy; Moon image edited from Yahright Graphics Archive; Background from Joerg Doehring's Backgrounds.