Reawakened: A Once Upon a Time Tale

  “Huh,” Emma said, looking at the map.

  “Can I get you anything to drink? Some tea to warm up?”

  Emma was transfixed by the map, not just because of its incredible detail, but because of the artistry of it. She started studying the areas she knew, remembering her various encounters. It would have been nice to have had this when they were looking for David….

  She looked up. Jefferson was gone from the room, but she could hear him in the kitchen, clinking cups together. He reappeared a few minutes later with a tray of tea. “I thought you might like to warm up before the search,” he said.

  Emma distractedly took a cup. “This map is incredible,” she said, sipping at the tea. “You’re very talented.”

  “Thank you,” he said. “It’s one of my hobbies.”

  “And what is it that you do for a living?” she asked.

  “Oh, this and that,” he said. “Many things.” He eased himself down onto his couch. “Come, come,” he said. “Have a seat.”

  Emma glanced once more at the map, then went to the couch and sat down. Maybe it was the stress of the last few days, maybe it was the lack of sleep, but she was suddenly feeling tired. Very tired.

  “I really should be going,” she said, sinking into the couch. Drowsily, she looked at Jefferson. “I should—”

  “You’re welcome to stay as long as you like.”

  Inexplicably, she dropped the cup of tea. It tumbled to the carpet. She stared down at the wet stain, shook her head. Usually I would try to clean that…, she thought.

  “It’s really fine,” Jefferson said, and his voice stretched across the room.

  She frowned, squinted over at him. All of him was stretching.

  “Who…,” she tried, but something went wrong. She rolled off the couch, onto the floor, only vaguely aware that she’d been drugged… that he had…

  “Who are you?” she managed, but the world—all of it—was going gray.

  • • •

  She dreamt of a man—a father. A father and his daughter.

  It was only the two of them.

  The father was bold, confident, and powerful. But he was hiding, too. Hiding from the Queen.

  He and the daughter played.

  They were safe.

  They were safe until the Queen came back.

  • • •

  When she woke, she was alone.

  She was in the same room, facedown on the couch, her hands bound behind her back. It took her a moment to remember. When she did, the adrenaline started to rush. She was in trouble. Maybe big trouble. Emma managed to squirm her way to the edge of the couch and twist enough to see that the teacup she’d dropped was still there. Watching the door—she didn’t know where Jefferson was—she got herself up into a sitting position, slid down to the floor, and managed to knock a throw pillow down on top of the cup. With her shoe, she crushed the teacup. She picked up one of the shards and went to work on the tie that was biting at her wrists.

  She was free in a minute.

  Once she was up, she looked around the room for a weapon—her gun was in her car—and settled on an iron poker from the rack beside the fireplace. Could she run? Sure. But that felt wrong. She was about to go hunting for psychos when she noticed the telescope at the window, pointed down at Storybrooke. She checked the door once more and looked into the eye of the telescope.

  She shuddered.

  The sheriff’s office, in perfect focus.

  Jefferson had been watching her.

  She took a breath and decided not to think about the implications of that discovery. Instead, she crept toward the hallway, poker held like a sword.

  She came to a half-open door. She heard the sounds—metal on metal—before she got there, but what she saw through the crack made her eyes go wide: the silhouette of Jefferson in a darkened room, sharpening what appeared to be a large pair of scissors.

  She stepped back and took a breath. She was about to burst in when she heard a different sound.

  A whimper.

  Coming from down the hall.

  She decided to investigate, and backed away from the room Jefferson was in, unsure if it was wise to give up the element of surprise. But the whimper came again, and she couldn’t ignore it. She turned and went to another closed door. The sounds seemed to be coming from behind it.

  Quietly, carefully, she twisted the knob and pushed open the door.

  In the center of the room: a chair. Little else. On the chair, hands bound, gag in her mouth, eyes screaming in terror: Mary Margaret Blanchard.

  Emma rushed into the room, set the poker down, and immediately pulled the gag out from Mary Margaret’s mouth. “What are you doing here?” Mary Margaret whispered.

  “I should ask you the same thing,” Emma whispered back, moving to the rope that bound her wrists. “Who is this guy?”

  “I have no idea,” she whispered back, eyeing the door. “I was in the woods, running, and he just grabbed me and brought me here.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “No—are you?”

  “No,” Emma said. “How did you get out of the jail?”

  “Someone planted a key under my pillow,” Mary Margaret whispered. “I thought about it, thought I was in trouble if I stayed there. I don’t know. I panicked.”

  “Who put it there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  This guy, Emma thought in a flash. It made perfect sense—and on top of that, he’d been watching the jail. But why would he want both of them here?

  She pulled the rope through and the last of the knot fell apart. Then she leaned down and got to work on Mary Margaret’s feet, also bound, saying as she worked, “All I know is we gotta get out—”

  “Emma!”

  “Hello,” came a cool, disturbing voice from the doorway. Emma spun. Jefferson stood, silhouetted by the hallway light. He was holding a gun. Her gun.

  “I found this out in your car, hope you don’t mind,” he said. “Blades can be very messy.”

  “I already called for backup,” Emma said.

  “You haven’t called anyone,” he said. “No one knows you’re here. And so now you’re going to do what I say. Tie her up again.”

  Emma tried to see a way out, but she couldn’t yet. She needed time. So she nodded her head. “Okay,” she said. “Just take it easy.”

  “Make it tight,” Jefferson said. “Very tight.”

  • • •

  Jefferson led Emma back to the room where she’d seen him sharpening the scissors. Once inside, he flipped on the light, and Emma was dazzled by what she saw.

  Hats.

  Many, many hats.

  They were all top hats, all black, and each occupied an individual, backlit shelf. In the middle of the room was a long table covered in bolts of cloth, scissors, clamps, and stencils—this was the room of a hatmaker.

  “I don’t know who you are,” Emma said, turning to face him, “or what you’re doing, but if you hurt her, or me, you’re not going to get away with it.”

  “Hurt her? I’m practically saving her life.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “She was trying to leave Storybrooke,” he said. “You know what happens to people who try to leave Storybrooke, don’t you?”

  “Yeah,” Emma said. “They leave.”

  “No, they don’t,” he said. “Bad things happen to them. The curse.”

  Emma shook her head. “Bad things. A curse? You sound like Henry.”

  “If he’s talking about the curse, than he’s a smart kid,” he said. “You should listen to him.”

  Okay, Emma thought. He’s insane.

  “The look on your face betrays your thought,” he said. “I know how I must seem to you. But let me tell you a story.”

  “Okay,” said Emma, thinking that it was good to get him talking. Get him talking and keep him talking.

  “Once upon a time,” he said, “there was a man who lived for only one thing: his daughter. They lived
together in the woods, and he found a way to make ends meet by doing some cobbling here and there, selling wares at the market. They didn’t have much, but they had enough.”

  “Sounds lovely,” Emma said.

  Jefferson smiled a sarcastic smile. “It was,” he said. “But in stories like this, it never lasts, does it? Of course this man had a past, and of course the past caught up with him. Finally.”

  “What was he?” she asked. “A retired pimp?”

  “No,” he said. “He was someone who owned a very special, very powerful item. And he knew how to use it. He had worked for a bad, bad woman long before, and one day, she came to his house and told him she needed his services. This item he had, you see, could open up a doorway to another realm, and she needed to get somewhere. To Wonderland, in fact.”

  “Wonderland?” Emma said. “I didn’t see that one coming.”

  “Of course you didn’t,” he said, “but the man did. You see Wonderland is a place where all forms of exotic magic are possible, and this woman needed something special. She needed to get back something she’d lost, and it was there, being guarded by the Queen of Hearts.”

  “What was the cost?” Emma said.

  “What?” The question seemed to catch him off guard.

  “The cost?” Emma said. “There’s always a cost.”

  “Right,” Jefferson said. “Yes. Well, initially this bad woman promised that his daughter would always be safe. But the cost, as you so rightly point out, was far higher than he expected.”

  “What happened?”

  “He was trapped,” said Jefferson. “She betrayed him, got what she came for, and left him in Wonderland.”

  “He couldn’t get home to his daughter?”

  Jefferson shook his head very slowly. “No,” he said. “He couldn’t.” Emma saw real pain in his eyes. This guy, she thought, is completely insane.

  Just as she thought it, Jefferson looked up at her and smiled. “He was driven mad, you see,” he said. “While there. Because he couldn’t get back.”

  Emma waited.

  “So what happened?” she said.

  Jefferson nodded. “Of course. You’d like to know the ending. Any good story has a good ending.”

  “He never got back?”

  “I need you,” Jefferson said, “to make me a hat.”

  Emma looked at him. He was watching her as though he expected her to know what he meant. “What?”

  He pointed the gun around the room, then pointed it at the hat on his own head. “What do you think?” he said. He laughed.

  “I’m sorry, but you kidnapped me so I could make you a hat?” Emma said.

  He put a hand on her back and led her to a bench, then went around the table to the other side, all the while holding the gun on her.

  “That’s right,” he said.

  “You don’t have enough?”

  “Mine don’t work,” he said. “That has always been the problem. But you have magic, and that’s what this world is lacking.”

  I see, Emma thought. The hat had something to do with that portal. In his story.

  “I have been stuck here for decades trying to manufacture a hat like my old hat—a hat that has magic, and a hat that can transport me back to Fairy Tale Land. I’ve thought it through, you see. This land has no magic, but you have magic, Emma. Which means that you can make a hat that works.”

  “I don’t know how to make a hat, let alone a magic hat,” Emma said.

  “Try.”

  She looked at him. He did not seem well. In the woods, at least, he’d had the appearance of sanity, but now—well, something was coming unhinged. Emma was afraid. Both for herself and for Mary Margaret.

  She picked up the scissors and reached for a bolt of cloth.

  “You do know there’s no such thing as magic,” she said. “Right?”

  “Of course, of course,” he said. “That’s what every ignorant person in this world seems so sure of.” He laughed. “Except, that is, when someone needs a personal miracle of their own. Am I right? Then the people of this world loooove to believe in magic.”

  “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 bel
ieve, 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.