Reawakened: A Once Upon a Time Tale (28 page)

She only glimpsed him for a second as he lurched off the road, diving away to avoid being run down.

Emma stopped the car, got out, and ran back to him. In the bushes she found a man she’d never seen before, sitting upright and clutching at his ankle. He nodded and said, “Hello. Nice night for a walk.” He was tall and lanky, Emma saw. Handsome in an unusual way, and dressed more formally than most in Storybrooke.

“I’m so sorry,” Emma said. “Are you hurt?”

He used a tree to help himself stand, then tried to put some weight on the ankle. It didn’t look like it would hold up too well.

“Let me give you a ride home, at least,” Emma said.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he said, waving her off, gimping back toward the road. “It’s really no problem.” But it obviously was a problem, and he struggled getting just a few feet.

“How far is your house?”

“About a mile,” he said. “That way.”

“You can’t make it a mile,” she said. “Come on. Let me drive you; it’d be silly not to.”

He sighed and seemed to see the light. “Okay,” he said, “fair enough. What’s your name?”

“I’m Emma Swan,” she said, holding out her hand. “I’m the sheriff. I don’t think we’ve ever met.”

“The sheriff!” he cried, smiling. “No, I don’t believe we have. I don’t get out much.” He shook her hand. “But it’s good to meet you. My name’s Jefferson.”

• • •

Emma was surprised when Jefferson pointed out his driveway—an old private road she’d never even noticed before, not far from the very edge of town. They crept through the woods about a quarter mile before coming to a wrought-iron gate and, once through, to the home itself. It was impressive, to say the least. Classical, regal, enormous, and lit up like a Christmas tree. Emma couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing. The man lived in a mansion in the middle of nowhere. He looked down on Storybrooke like a lord. How did she not know this guy?

She helped him to the door, and when he invited her in, she agreed. She had to admit: She was curious. Not wanting to get into any details about Mary Margaret, she had told him that she was out looking for a lost dog. He seemed to accept it.

“You must have a big family,” she said, which was her way of saying: How could anyone need this much?

“No, it’s just me here,” he said, limping into the foyer.

Emma followed him, and they entered a large, plush living room.

“This search you’re undertaking,” he said. “You’re out here looking for your dog, is it? I believe I can be of some assistance. I know you have your fancy GPS devices and what have you, but I’m something of an amateur cartographer….” He was rustling around now at a rolltop desk, and when he turned, he was holding a rolled-up map. He limped past her again and unfurled it on the top of the piano. “This has great detail of these woods,” he said. “Please use it.”

“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.”