"Wh... what was that?" Tara asked.

"The doorbell obviously" Johnny told her, using annoyance to mask the fear in his voice.

"I know that" Tara told him. "I mean, who's ringing it?"

"Stay here, I'll go see" Johnny said, leaving the room.

In the front foyer, Johnny approached the front door with some trepidation. He started to unlock it, then realizes what he was doing. He refastened the chain lock and then opened the door. Through the door's narrow opening Johnny could see a very elegantly dressed and quite beautiful woman of an undeterminable age. She had a worldly air to her... or was it other-worldly? Before she can speak a flash of lightning illuminated her face. She's mesmerizing and Johnny couldn't help but gawk.

"Excuse me, is this the home of Johnny Depp...?" She asked him. "The son of Bea Hallings, the actress?"

Johnny picked his jaw up before speaking. "That's me."

"Allow me to introduce myself..." the woman held out her hand. "I'm Robin Zaker."

Johnny's face broke into a manic grin. "You're the one who wrote the play!"

She smiled, nodding.

Johnny couldn't believe his luck, Robin Zaker was the famous playwright who wrote The Labyrinth, his all-time favorite play that he was rehearsing in the park. Some kids were obsessed with Hamilton, others Grease, but Johnny went the less obvious route with The Labyrinth.

"Just a second" Johnny said before shutting the door. His hand hesitantly reached for the chain lock for just a moment, then he unfastened it and opened the door.

Ms. Zakar entered and extended her hand. "It is an honour to meet the son of the legendary Miss Hallings. I understand you'd make a delightful Sir Mender."

"Well, I've just started rehearsing the part. How did you know I was even interested?" Johnny asked.

"I was passing through this part of the country and I was thinking of putting on the play here. This is the first amateur production of the play, which of course is delightful for me. That's why I wanted to stop by to see you."

Then they were interrupted by obnoxiously loud footsteps bounding down the stairs.

"That's my sister..." Johnny explained, before turning to the younger child. "Get back to bed, Tara!"

"Who's that?" Tara asked in a displeased tone, eyeing Ms. Zaker.

"I'll be right back" Johnny said to their house guest, before charging up the stairs.

Ms. Zaker watched him pull Tara back up the stairs. She glanced around before walking straight to the liquor cabinet and taking out a bottle.

Meanwhile up in Tara's bedroom, Johnny picked up his sister and tossed her unceremoniously onto the bed. As he was about to walk out of the room, the storm blew open the bedroom window, which slammed against the wall. Johnny rushed over to close it.

"I don't wanna stay up here all by myself" Tara whimpered and crawled out of bed before running back downstairs.

"Tara..." Johnny groaned, going after her.

As Johnny found Tara curled up at the top of the stairs outside the room, more thunder rumbled and lightning flashed across the darkened house.

"Perhaps I can soothe her..." came a voice from beside them.

Johnny gasped and Tara jumped.

Ms. Zaker was framed in the stairway with a drink in her hand. Johnny held Tara close to him.

"You shouldn't be up here!" Johnny told her. He didn't like the way this woman was so calm and how she just took the liberty of making herself at home in someone else's house.

"I just want to help..." Ms. Zaker said softly. Johnny picked up Tara and rushed by her, still clutching his sister to him as he hurried down the stairs.

Johnny rushed back into the living room where he originally left Ms. Zaker. She followed him.

"Maybe you'd better leave..." Johnny told her, trying to make his voice sound stern and failing miserably.

Tara whimpered clutching Johnny's leg. Ms. Zaker was making her very nervous. Johnny couldn't help but find his sister's fear mutual.

"I... uh, don't want to talk to you about the play right now" Johnny told Zaker, who continued to approach him, almost too close.

"Neither do I..." Ms. Zaker admitted.

Johnny was both shocked and disturbed by this answer. If she wasn't here about casting him in the play, then what did she want?

Ms. Zaker reached over and smoothed Tara's hair. "I'm more concerned about this little one, of course..."  she looked at Tara's face, eyes widening in a creepy way.

Johnny shuffled away, pulling Tara out of her reach.

"She's fine" Johnny assured her. But Tara was still very much frightened and trembling.

Ms. Zaker reached into her pocket and pulled out a glass orb. She began to run it over her fingers right in front of Tara's face, the young girl stopped trembling and began admiring the orb as it rolled across the lady's flat slender hands.

Miss Zaker continued to roll the ball from hand to hand, before seating herself on the couch.

"I'm not just a playwright, as you can see..." the mysterious woman said. She smiled down at Tara "Come here, young one and I'll do some other tricks for you..."

"No! You've got to..." Johnny began to tell Ms. Zaker, before Tara let go of him and ran over to the sofa beside her.

Ms. Zaker sat on the sofa, looking very comfortable, Tara sat beside her looking up at the woman with a curious wide eyed stare.

Johnny stood in the doorway of the living room, not sure what to do. Reluctantly, he sat down in his father's recliner across from them.

Ms. Zaker smirked slightly. "Now watch this, Tara..." she reached into her blazer pocket and tugged on the handkerchief in there. It came out followed by many others, all a different color.

Johnny rolled his eyes. That was a pretty cliché trick.

Tara wasn't impressed, either. In fact she scoffed at the woman's attempts to entertain her. "That's lame" the little girl sneered.

"So you're going to be like that, are you Tara?" Ms. Zaker asked. "Well, you know what that means?" She leaned foreward and stared into the little girl's eyes, getting so close that Tara had to lean back to avoid bumping noses with her. What Ms. Zaker said next made Johnny's uneasy feeling grow even more...

"It's time to call the goblins!" Ms. Zaker grinned.

Johnny couldn't hide his shocked look. It was the same threat he told Tara earlier.

"Yes. That's what we do with bad little children... we send for the goblins!" Ms. Zaker said. And with that she reaches into yet another pocket and pulls out a poorly-made and very silly-looking goblin hand puppet.

Johnny stifled a laugh of relief.

Ms. Zaker stuck her hand in the puppet, talking in a high-pitched and unconvincing goblin voice. "You like goblins, don't'cha, Tara?" She said in a singsong voice. "But I bet your brother doesn't..."

Johnny rolled his eyes at this and then gasped. Because in that moment, he noticed that the puppet kept bouncing, but both of Ms. Zaker's hands were visibly folded in her lap. Then the puppet lept onto the coffee table and scurried away.

"Cool!" Tara applauded. "Do it again!" 

Johnny jumped out of his chair. "Where is it?!" He asked.

Ms. Zaker pointed to a large cabinet against the wall. "It's in there" she said as if it were a common occurrence for a puppet to run off by itself.

"But... that's impossible!" Johnny told her.

"See for yourself" Ms. Zaker replied.

Johnny hesitated for a moment and then picked up Tara and carefully placed her in his spot away from Ms. Zaker. He then marched across the room to the cabinet and threw open it's door and peered inside.

The puppet swung down from one of the cabinet shelves, grinning wildly at Johnny. He gasped and involuntarily slammed the door shut as he jumped back. He whirled around to face Zaker.

"How did you do that?!" Johnny demanded.

The mysterious woman leaned back into the sofa. "Magic" she responded as if it was obvious.

"Oh sure... Johnny sneered, skeptically. But directly behind him the cabinet door slowly opened and out of it came a tiny, fierce-looking goblin!

This one was definitely not a puppet, but a living creature that moved quickly out of sight with an exaggerated tiptoe.

But Johnny was busy with another problem: Tara wasn't where he left her. In fact he couldn't see Tara at all!

"Where is she?!" Johnny panicked.

Ms. Zaker merely shrugged.

Johnny began to look around the room. He called for Tara and as he passed the entrance of the living room doorway, he saw something scurrying across the hallway out of the corner of his eye. Johnny stopped and listened.

"Tara?" He called. But it wasn't a little girl he heard.

Behind him, he could hear more scurrying as creatures began to appear from various parts of the room. He turned to look but saw nothing, then he heard faint snickering and spun back around. He turned to see Ms. Zaker and gulped terrified.

"Where is she?!" Johnny snapped.

Ms. Zaker pointed to the chair that Johnny had left Tara sitting in. Johnny walked out from behind the chair and saw Tara was there, seated comfortably and playing with the goblin puppet! Johnny sighed in relief and scooped up his sister.

Then he screamed when her face fell off to reveal it was just a goblin in a Tara mask. Johnny dropped the goblin, who scampered under the couch.

Johnny backed away. "I don't believe this!" He muttered to himself. Whoever this woman was, she was not a playwright! He wasn't even sure she was completely human!

"Who are you?!" Johnny yelled.

Ms. Zaker rose up and leaped off the sofa, landing very close to him.

"Don't you know?" The woman's voice was calm, almost kindly. Not the kind of voice Johnny expected her to respond with.

Lightning traced the veins of the sky and lit up her face. She wasn't smiling as one might smile when greeting a stranger, nor was her expression fierce. Her eyes were fixed upon Johnny's with a relaxed intensity he found compelling. When she took a step toward him, into the light shining from the doorway, she had transformed and changed outfits.

Johnny didn't run, even though his head was yelling at him to, but his feet felt like bricks. If the woman's eyes hadn't hypnotized him, the golden chain around her neck might have. A sickle-shaped ornament hung from it, upon her boosted chest. Her shirt was white with a yellow-plaid corset. She wore a tight, dark brown waistcoat, which bellowed behind her. Her legs were shod in black boots, over gray tights and on her hands were black leather gloves. In one of them she held the jeweled knob of a curious cane with a fishtail shape at the end.

"I... I..." Johnny stuttered awestruck.

The humming that he had thought he heard in the air was now quite, distinct and musical. The strange woman smiled at his hesitancy. She was strikingly beautiful. He hadn't expected that. When he spoke, his voice was barely a whisper.

"You're... her, aren't you?" Johnny breathed. "You're the Goblin Queen..."

She curtsied gracefully. "Jezebel" she introduced herself.

He resisted the ridiculous impulse to return a bow back to her.

"I've saved you" she said. "I have liberated you from the bonds that distressed and frightened you. You're free now, Johnny."

"What... no. I don't want to be free," he answered. "I mean, I do, but– I want my little sister back. Please." He gave her a tiny smile. "If it's all the same to you."

Jezebel folded her hands on the top of her cane. "What's said is said" she stated curtly.

"But I didn't mean it," Johnny replied, distressed tears pricking the back of his eyes.

"You didn't mean it?" She inquired. "And yet you did it anyway?"

"Please, where is she?"

Jezebel chuckled. "You know very well where she is."

"Please bring her back, please." He heard himself speaking in a small voice. "Please!"

"Johnny..." Jazebel frowned shaking her head. Her expression showed concern for him. "Go back to your room. Read your books. Put on your music. Play with your action figures. That is your life. Forget about the girl."

"No, I can't."

For a moment, they regarded each other, like adversaries trying to size each other up at the outset of a long contest. Thunder rumbled around them.

Then Jazebel raised her left arm and made a large gesture with her hand. Johnny looked around, thinking that she was summoning assistance. When he faced her again, a glowing crystal ball had appeared in her hand.

"I've brought you a gift, my little man" she said, holding it out to him with a half smile.

Johnny paused. He wasn't sure he could trust her. "What is it?" He asked.

"Just a crystal, nothing more. Except that if you look deeply into it... it will show you your dreams."

Johnny's lips parted involuntarily. With a teasing smile, Jazebel watched his face, while she spun the shining crystal around in her fingers. His hand started to reach out for it. She smiled a little more and withdrew the crystal from him.

Raising the cane with her other hand, she told him "But this is not a gift for an ordinary boy, who takes care of a spoiled insignificant child." Her voice was quieter now and huskier. "Do you want it, Johnny?" She held it out toward him again.

This time his hands remained by his sides and he didn't answer. His eyes were fixed on the dancing and flashing glints of the crystal. To see and experience his own dreams– what wouldn't he give for that?

"Then forget the child," Jazebel said firmly.

While Johnny hesitated, another bolt of thunder and lightning illuminated the sky behind the Goblin Queen.

Johnny was torn. The gift was not only seductive, it was also the choice of someone who understood him, someone who cared about the secret places of his imagination and knew how infinitely much more they meant to him than anything else. In return, he would have to trade his responsibility for an offensively spoiled child, who made endless demands upon him and never showed the least sign of gratitude, who was, after all, only his half sister. The crystal was spinning, glowing.

He forced his eyes to close. From behind his shut eyelids, he heard a voice answering. It was his own voice, but it seemed to be a memory. "I–I can't... It isn't that I don't appreciate what you're trying to do for me... but I want my sister back. She must be so scared..." he opened his eyes again.

Jazebel scoffed and tossed her mane of blond hair. She had lost patience with this boy. With a wave of her hand, she extinguished the crystal. With another wave, she plucked a live garter snake from the air. She held it with straight arms in front of her, so that it writhed and hissed near Johnny's face.

"Don't defy me," she warned him before throwing it at him.

It was wrapped around his neck. He clutched desperately at the thing and found that it was now a silk scarf. He yelled, dropped it and jumped away. When it hit the floor it shattered into a number of horribly ugly little goblins, who scuttled away to the corners of the room. Other goblins crept from the shadows or popped out from their hiding places, and stood, all around the room, watching to see what their queen would do to him next.

"You are no match for me, Johnny." Jazebel sounded impatient. "Let the child be. Take my gift. I warn you, I will not offer it to you again."

Before she could produce the crystal, Johnny told her "No." He paused. "Thank you all the same, but I can't do what you want. Can't you understand that? I've got to have my sister back."

"You'll never find her."

"So..." Johnny said and took a deep breath. "So there is a place to start looking..."

For a short moment, Jazebel's face flinched. Johnny saw it, the merest trace of fear fleeting across her eyes. Was it possible? Her nostrils tightened, she gripped his cane and appeared to hesitate slightly before answering him. He couldn't quite believe it, but the suspicion that the Goblin Queen could be afraid of him, even for just a moment, was encouraging.

"Yes" she admitted. "There's a place."

And now with a really hammy gesture straight out of vaudeville, she twirled her hand and pointed through the window.

"There!" She answered.

Lightning and thunder, right on cue he thought. He moved past her and stared into the night. On a distant hill, brilliant in the flashes, he saw a castle. He leaned on the windowsill, trying to see more clearly. There were towers with turrets, massive walls, spires and domes, a portcullis and drawbridge. The whole edifice was built on top of a sharply rising mound. Around it the lightning flickered like forked snake tongues. Beyond that was blackness.

From just behind his shoulder, Jazebel murmured. "Do you still want to look for her?"

"Yes" he swallowed. "Is that..." he remembered the words. "...the castle beyond the Goblin City?"

When Jazebel didn't answer at once and he turned around. She was still there, watching him intensely, but they were no longer in the house. They stood facing each other on a windswept hilltop. Between them and the hill on which the castle stood was a broad valley. In the darkness he couldn't tell what was down there.

Johnny turned again. The wind blew his hair over his face. Brushing it back, he took one timid step forward.

Jazebel's voice came from behind him. "Turn back, Johnny. Turn back, before it's too late."

"I can't. I can't. Don't you understand?" He shook his head slowly, gazing at the distant castle and to himself he quietly repeated "I can't."

"What a pity." Jazebel's voice was low and gentle, as though she really meant it.

He was looking at the castle. It seemed to be a long way off, but not impossibly far to travel. It depended on what he would encounter in the valley, how easily it could be crossed. Was the darkness down there perpetual? "It doesn't look that far," he said and heard the effort he was making to sound brave in his voice.

Jazebel was at his elbow now. She looked at him with a smile that was icy. "It's farther than you think." She pointed at a tree and added, "And time is short."

Johnny saw that an antique wooden clock had appeared in the tree, as though growing from a branch. On it marked the hours to thirteen, as on the living room clock in the lightning.

"You have thirteen hours to unriddle the Labyrinth," Jazebel told him. "Before your little sister becomes one of us."

"Us?"

Jazebel nodded. "Forever."

Magic still hummed in the air. Johnny was standing still, hair tousled in the wind, looking out across the valley toward the castle. After a while, he said, "Tell me where I start."

He waited for an answer and finally he heard her say "Such a pity."

"What?" He turned his head to look up at her, but she wasn't there. He spun all around. She had vanished. He was alone in the night, on a windswept hill.

He looked across again at the castle. The storm was passing away. Blades of clouds sliced across the moon. He thought he glimpsed the figure of an owl high above, wings spread wide on the air, as she flew steadily away from him.

Johnny took another step forward, down the hillside. Only there was no ground beneath his feet. He began to fall!