Reawakened: A Once Upon a Time Tale (29 page)

“Why do you keep saying it like that?” she asked. “Are you not from this world?”

“Of course I’m not,” he spat, irritated by the question. “I’m stuck here, but I’m not from here. Didn’t you listen to the story?”

“And where are you from?”

“I’m from where everyone else in this godforsaken town is from.” He pointed the gun emphatically as he said it. “And I’ve been separated from my little girl.” He shook his head. “There are curses, Ms. Swan, and then there are
curses
.”

Emma decided to play along.

“I thought everyone was here now, though,” she said. “Isn’t your daughter here? Somewhere? That’s an improvement, isn’t it?”

“She’s here, yes,” he said, looking forlorn. “She doesn’t remember me. She lives with another family. She—”

The doorbell rang.

Jefferson’s neck snapped around, and he looked toward the hallway. “Stay here,” he said, and he stormed out. Emma heard him locking the door from the other side.

She looked around the room, knowing she had to make some noise. This was her chance. Maybe her only chance.

• • •

She heard him talking to someone at the door for a few minutes. She couldn’t scream, though—it could put Mary Margaret in danger.

Emma felt the wind go out of her sails when she heard the sound of August’s motorcycle starting up. Soon the grumble of the engine faded, and Jefferson came back in. “Almost!” he cried, and he laughed as he said it. She watched him clap a few times. “But not quite,” he said.

Not yet, she thought.

“Back to work,” he said. “You and your friend Snow White won’t be leaving until you make it work and get me home.”

• • •

She worked on the hat then, for what felt like hours, doing her best to recreate the contours of the other hats he’d made. She had no idea what she was doing, but she knew there would be another opening. Somehow. Somewhere. He was too emotional, too unhinged, to pull off a rational kidnapping. She just needed to be patient, and to keep probing.

A few hours later, past dawn, she saw her opening.

Jefferson left the room and returned with the telescope
she’d looked in the night before. As he set it up near the window, he giggled to himself, then said, “You don’t believe me, do you?”

“About what?”

“About Grace?” he said, now scanning Storybrooke. “I’ll show you.”

She set down the scissors, knowing he still had the gun in his hand. “Okay,” she said, going to the window.

“There she is,” he said. “Look.”

Emma looked. In the light of the morning, she could see through the kitchen window of a small room. There, a young girl sat at a table, eating breakfast with her parents.

“You think this is your daughter?” she asked.

“I know it is,” he said. “Here, she’s called Paige.”

Emma recognized the girl, actually—she had seen Henry talking to her outside of school. Her name was in fact Paige.

“She’s called Grace in your world?” she asked.

He looked at her skeptically. “The world you don’t believe is real?”

Emma shrugged. She knew now—this was the way to get to him. To believe. “I guess I’m not sure anymore,” she said. “I know that I want to believe. According to Henry, the woman in there is my mother. I wish that were true. Is that enough? I’m not sure. But I’m open to it.”

He nodded and came to the telescope. He looked out the window. “You’re open to faith, then,” he said. “And let me tell you, you have to be if you’re separated from your child.”

Emma smiled sadly. “I know a thing or two about that.”

She went back to the table, and Jefferson took another step toward the window, his hands clasped behind his back. “So
you know sometimes you have to believe, because it’s the only way you can stay sane.”

“Maybe.”

Emma took a step toward the telescope.

“So now you understand why I need that hat to work,” he said, gazing at the home where his “daughter” lived.

“I do,” Emma said. “I do.”

He was about to say something more, but he didn’t have a chance. Just then Emma hit him in the head with the telescope, and he crumpled to the ground, unconscious.

Emma grabbed her gun and went straight for Mary Margaret. She burst in and began to untie her. “What happened?” Mary Margaret was saying, more nervous now than she’d been before. “What—Emma. Emma!”

But the warning came too late, and Jefferson was too fast. He punched Emma and she went careening, the gun flying from her hands. He pinned her to the floor, raving at her. She grabbed at the only thing she could get her hands on: his scarf. When she pulled it free, she was horrified to see a long scar spanning the entirety of his neck.

He threw her down, reached over her head, and retrieved the gun.

“Off with her head…,” Jefferson said then, a maniacal smile on his face.

He pointed the gun.

Emma thought: This is my death.

And then in slow motion, something swung. Mary Margaret was free, brandishing what looked like a war hammer.

No. A croquet mallet.

She hit Jefferson in the center of the back, and he stumbled forward and dropped the gun. When he turned to face Mary
Margaret, she was ready for him. Emma, stunned, watched as she kicked him hard in the center of the chest, and he went flying backward, arms windmilling.

Directly into the window.

The glass shattered, there was a last cry from his lips, and suddenly Jefferson was gone.

Both women ran to the window.

It was a long fall because of the house’s perch on a hill. Emma, looking down, expected to see a gruesome scene.

But instead, there was nothing. No body.

Just a top hat.

• • •

Outside, Emma and Mary Margaret looked for any sign of Jefferson. It was morning now, and the sun was crawling up over Storybrooke. Emma was exhausted.

“Who was he?” Mary Margaret said quietly, hugging herself, looking out at Storybrooke.

“A lonely man,” Emma said. She smiled at Mary Margaret. “Maybe the better question is how long have you been a black belt?”

“I don’t know what came over me,” she responded, looking up at the broken window. Her eye seemed to catch something else, though, and she said, “Emma, look.”

Emma looked where she was pointing and saw her car, hidden under a tarp, parked behind a garage.

“So, Sheriff,” Mary Margaret said. “I guess you’ll be taking me back now?”

Emma sighed. “Run,” she said.

“What?”

“I won’t stop you.”

“That’s not going to help anything.”

“I’m not so sure your arraignment will help anything,” Emma said. “What’s important is that you choose. You get to choose, not them. You’re my friend, and in my life, friends have been my family.” She put her hand on Mary Margaret’s shoulder. “I mean that. I’m not going to abandon you.”

Mary Margaret smiled.

They walked up to Emma’s car and pulled off the tarp. “Everyone thinks I killed Kathryn,” Mary Margaret said, “but I didn’t. Still, I think we can beat this. I don’t want to run.”

Emma nodded.

“Good choice,” she said.

Her friend Mary Margaret wasn’t out of the woods, not by a long shot, but as they rode back toward town, Emma felt a strange new peace wash over her. Neither woman spoke. Mary Margaret looked out the window, her forehead leaning against the glass as though they were on a family road trip, and they were both coming to the end of a long journey. She believed her friend. She believed in her innocence, and she knew that Mary Margaret wasn’t capable of harming Kathryn. They were in this together, for better or worse.

“So you think,” said Mary Margaret, not turning to look at Emma, “he was crazy?”

Of course was what she wanted to say, but she knew that Mary Margaret was asking about something bigger. Emma had entertained the idea, if only for a moment, that it was all real, that Henry’s stories weren’t stories, but histories. Part of her longed for it to be true, but her better sense told her it was
foolish. For the first time, though, Emma considered how desirable it would be for Mary Margaret to believe she had a daughter, and a true love, and a whole history that meant love in her life. Probably pretty appealing.

“I do,” Emma said quietly.

“Yeah,” Mary Margaret said, finally turning to look at Emma. “Me, too.”

They got Mary Margaret to the courthouse in time, and not long after that, Emma was locking her back into her cell, her heart heavy. Things had not gone well—the judge had determined there was enough evidence to proceed with the murder trial. Mary Margaret wasn’t saying anything. As of now, she was still on the hook for Kathryn’s murder.

“We’re both exhausted,” Emma said. “You sleep. I’m going home to sleep. I’ll see you again in a few hours.”

Mary Margaret nodded, her head down.

“Have faith, Mary Margaret,” said Emma. “Have faith.”

Emma walked slowly down Main Street, her head fuzzy, her body used up after the adrenaline and excitement of the night at Jefferson’s mansion. Rather than tired, though, she felt tense and worried—she doubted she’d be able to sleep. She considered taking a walk, she considered heading back to the toll bridge in search of new evidence. Anything to spring Mary Margaret. But when she saw Henry sitting in the diner, having a morning cup of hot chocolate before heading off to school, she smiled and went inside. Sometimes the real world was too much.

“Hey, kid,” Emma said. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.”

“I know what you’re doing here,” said Henry. “You came for story time.”

“Maybe so,” Emma said, nodding at Ruby for a cup of coffee, and as Henry dug around in his book, Emma thought back to that moment with Jefferson, when he asked her to accept it. To believe that all the stories were true. She’d believed for a second while she pretended. And it had felt good.

“Have you ever wondered,” said Henry, “why Regina really hates Snow White so much?”

“Yeah,” Emma said, not bothering to correct him and call Mary Margaret by her actual name. She was more interested in asking Henry about Jefferson, or the Mad Hatter, but she didn’t have it in her to encourage him. She was fine with him telling her stories, but the other way around made her the Mad Mother.

“It goes back a really long way,” Henry said, pointing to an illustration in his book. “It goes back to when Regina was a girl, when she was in love with a stable boy.”

“Regina knows how to love?”

“Ha-ha,” Henry said, but it wasn’t a laugh, and Emma thought: I am being too glib with this kid’s heart. Regina had raised him, after all. It wasn’t as simple as Emma wanted it to be.

“So what happened with this stable boy?” she said. “And what does it have to do with Snow White?”

“Regina’s mom was really, really mean,” Henry said, “and she had magic. She started out as a peasant and married this rich lord guy, and she was determined for her daughter to be a queen one day. To have the ultimate power. And then one day, Regina was out riding and this little girl shot past on a horse, totally out of control. Guess who it was?”

“Hmmm,” said Emma. “Snow White?”

“Yes!” Henry cried. “And Regina saved her, and Snow White’s father, the king, was so happy that he proposed to Regina.”

“Uh-oh,” Emma said. “Which meant the stable boy was screwed.”

“Kind of,” said Henry, showing her a new picture: This one showed a young couple in a stable, both of them terrified, staring at an evil-looking woman. “Except Regina tried to say no and stay with the stable boy, and her mom killed him right in front of her.”

Emma frowned. “Jesus,” she said. “That’s awful. This book is really for kids?”

“It’s for whomever.”

“I don’t get why Regina would hate Snow White, though,” Emma said. “What’s the connection?”

“Snow White accidentally told Regina’s mom about the stable boy,” Henry said gravely. “That’s how the mom found them up there. So Regina always thought that her one true love ended up dead because of Snow White.”

“That’s… incredibly sad,” said Emma.

“I know. And do you know what makes it even worse?”

“What?”

“Regina didn’t tell Snow White that Daniel ended up dead. Snow White never even
knew
how bad it was.”